2 NETHER LOCHABER. 



errors of Scaliger, than a sharer in all the wisdom of Clavius. 

 Even so, we had rather err with the optimists than be ranked 

 with the pessimists, even when their predictions turn out the 

 truest. In our forenoon ramble on Friday last did we not find 

 a merle's nest in the close and well-guarded embrace of an old 

 thorn root, with its pretty treasure of four brown-spotted, greyish- 

 green eggs % and with our wild-flower bouquet before us, are we not 

 better employed in crooning one of Burns' sweetest Ijoics than 

 in predicting evil, even if we were certain that our prediction 

 should become true \ — said lyric being that entitled Tlie Poide, 

 which, dear reader, if you do not know it already, you should 

 incontinently get by heart. Here is a verse or two : — 



" Oh, luve will venture ^n where it dauma weel be seen ; 

 Oh, luve will venture in, where wisdom ance has been ; 

 But I will down yon river rove, amang the wood sae green — 

 And a' to pu' a posie to my ain dear May. 



" The primrose I will pu', the firstling o' the year, 

 And I will pu' the pink, the emblem o' my dear ; 

 Por she's the pink o' womankind, and blooms without a peer — 

 And a' to be a posie to my ain dear May. 



' ' The lily it is pure, and the lily it is fair. 

 And in her lovely bosom I'll place the lily there ; 

 The daisy's for simplicity and unaffected air — 

 And a' to be a posie to my ain dear May. 



" The hawthorn I will pu', wi' its locks o' siller grey. 

 Where, like an aged man, it stands at break o' day ; 

 But the songster's nest within the bush I innim tak away — 

 And a' to be a posie to my ain dear May. " 



Mark that line in italics, and ponder its exquisite tenderness. How 

 it must have irradiated, like a sudden flood of sunshine over a 

 mountain landscape, the poet's heart as he penned it ! Here you 

 have the germ of the doctrine afterwards more broadly taught 

 by Coleridge in the well-known lines of the Ancient Mariner .■— 



