ALASDAIR MACDONALD. 31 



the back ground of the Hue profound ! The other day we fell in 

 with some curious verses by the French poet Du Bartas, in which 

 he strives, and not altogether unsuccessfully, to imitate the merry 

 trUl and rhythm of the skylark's song ; — 



" La gentille alouette, avec son tire-lire. 

 Tire-lire, d> lire, et tire-liran tire ; 

 Vers la voute du ciel, puis son vol vera ce lieu, 

 Vire et desire dire adieu Dieu, adieu Dieu I " 



The last line, if rapidly repeated with the proper beat and intonation, 

 will be found a really very successful imitation of the concluding 

 notes of the lark's well-known song. Many of our readers will 

 remember that the North Hist bard, Ian Mac Codrum, in his 

 Smeoracli Chlann-Domhnuill, manages very happily to imitate 

 the smeorach or song-thrush's notes in. the burden or chorus ; while 

 Alexander Macdonald — Mac Mhaighstir Alasdair — very naturally 

 falls, like the Erench poet, into an imitation of the wild-bird music 

 of the woods and groves in a stanza that may be quoted not 

 inappropriately at this season : — 



" Cha bhi crfeutair fo chupan nan spfeur 

 'N sin nach tiunndaidh ri'n speurkd '3 ri'n dreach, 

 'S gun toir Phoebus le buadhan a bhlkis 

 Anam-fas daibh a's caileaohdau ceart, 

 Ni iad aia-eiridh choitcheann on uaigh 

 Far na mhiotaich am fuachd iad a steach, 

 'S their iad — guileag-doro-hidola-hann 

 Dh-fhalhh an geavihra's tha'n samhradh air teachd J " 



The lines of Du Bartas have little meaning in themselves, and are 

 untranslatable, being simply an attempt on the poet's part, in some 

 odd moment of hilarity and abandon, to embody the notes of 

 the skylark's song in something like articulate verse. The general 

 sense of Macdonald's lines describing the irrepressible inclination 

 of all living creatures to be jubilant and joyous at the return of 

 spring, cannot better be rendered than in the first part of Scott's 

 introductory stanza to the second canto of the Lady of the 



