74 JOURNAL AND PROCEEDINGS. 
dirges have been serviceable. Hood’s “ Song of the Shirt,” and 
Noel’s ‘‘ Pauper’s Drive,” with its doleful chorus, 
“¢ Rattle his bones over the stones ; 
He’s only a pauper whom nobody owns,” 
more effectively forced attention to the miseries of the poor than all 
the reports and figures compiled by commissioners: ‘I have had no 
childhood,” said one of these men, ‘ever since I can remember I 
have had the aching fear of want throbbing in heart and brow.” 
Who can wonder at the biting irony of his cry: 
<¢ Smitten stones will talk with fiery tongue, 
And the worm, when trodden, will turn ; 
But cowards, ye cringe to the cruellest wrongs, 
And answer with never a spurn. 
Then torture, oh ! tyrants, the spiritless drove, 
Old England’s helots will bear ; 
There’s no hell in their hatred, no God in their love; 
No shame in their dearth’s despair. 
For our fathers are praying for pauper pay, 
Our mothers with death’s kiss are white ; 
Our sons are the rich man’s serfs by day, 
And our daughters his slaves by night.” 
Of Burns it is needless to speak. | His songs are universally 
known ; and their merit everywhere appreciated. Hogg, the Ettrick 
shepherd, wrote with a grace beyond the reach of art. His 
“¢ Kilmeny ” and the “ Jeanie Morrison,” of Motherwell, are faultless. 
Poor Tannahill piped a reed of sweetest tone. What can surpass 
his “* Braes o’ Gleniffer ?” 
‘© Keen blaws the wind o’er the Braes o’ Gleniffer, 
The auld castle’s turrets are covered wi’ snaw ; 
How chang’d frae the time when I met wi’ my lover 
Amang the broom bushes by Stanley green shaw ; 
The wild flow’rs o’ simmer were spread a’ sae bonnie, 
The mavis sang sweet frae the green birken tree ; 
But far to the camp they hae march’d my dear Johnnie, 
And now it is winter wi’ nature and me.” 
Lord Tennyson in his “ Idylls of the King,” clad the Arthurian 
legends with all the graces of modern poetry. With what resistless 
charm he depicts Sir Galahad, the perfect knight, whose purity en- 
abled him to find the holy graal ; and how he makes live again 
the less perfect knights of Arthur’s court, who, subject to human 
frailties, were sometimes led into temptation, and sometimes failed 
to accord to others that forgiveness they implored from heaven for 
themselves. And how beautiful are his ballads. The wine from 
