CHI MINGS OF THE HEATHER BELLS. 



that we must turn for an expression of the pure, ten- 

 der, devoted thoughts and feelings that cluster around 

 and find their utterance through the medium of those 

 "quaint, cloud-heavy flowers." 



Like sweet incense diffusing its fragrance around 

 the most hallowed associations of our homeland, the 

 sentiment of the Heather pervades many of the most 

 beautiful and tender Scottish songs, lays and poems. 

 And strange or not as it may seem, the plant has 

 its most ardent admirers and sweetest singers among 

 those whose names are not generally found engraved 

 on the world's scroll of fame. True it is that in- 

 numerable allusions are made to it throughout the 

 poetry of Ossian, Leyden, Burns, Scott, Hogg, Tanna- 

 hill, and others of the Scottish poets whose works 

 shall remain imperishable; but among the major poets 

 named, with the exception, perhaps, of Leyden, no 

 extended or specific dedicatory effort to the Heather, 

 descriptive of its beauty or utility, has been attempted. 



The Rev. Hugh Macmillan has told us that in the 

 county in which the greater part of Burns' life was 

 spent in Ayr the Heather plant does not occur; 

 and that may be the reason why we have not been 

 charmed and inspired with the poet's tender, pathetic 

 brooding upon the Heather, similar to that called forth 

 within him by the "wee modest crimson-tipped flower." 



It is on record that the Heather was the favor- 

 ite flower of Sir Walter Scott, as dear to him as his 

 own "land of brown heath and shaggy wood ;" and 

 his references to the plant occur often in those im- 

 mortal pen portraits of Scotland's mountain scenery. 

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