me that he thought there was something peculiarly venerable in the phrase, 'Let us worship God,' used by a decent, sober head of a family, introducing family worship. To this sentiment of the author, the world is indebted for The Cotter's Saturday Night. The cotter is an exact copy of my father, in his manners, his family devotion, and exhortations; yet the other parts of the description do not apply to our family. None of us were 'at service out among the farmers roun'. Instead of our depositing our 'sairwon penny-fee' with our parents, my father laboured hard, and lived with the most rigid economy, that he might be able to keep his children at home." Mr. J. L. Robertson, commenting on the fact that more than half the poem is in English, says: "An unusually elevated or serious train of thought in the mind of a Scottish peasant seems to demand for its expression the use of a speech which one may describe as Sabbath Scotch.' Aiken was not only a patron, but a genuine friend, of Burns.

A cannie11 errand to a neibor town:
Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman-grown,
In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her e'e,
Comes hame, perhaps to shew a braw12 new
gown,

Or deposite her sair-won penny-fee,

What makes the youth sae bashfu' and sae grave,

Weel-pleas'd to think her bairn's respected

like the lave.22

9

O happy love! where love like this is found!

I've paced much this weary, mortal round, And sage experience bids me this declare,— "If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure

13

They chant their artless notes in simple guise,
They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim;
Ferhaps Dundee's' wild-warbling measures
rise,

Or plaintive 'Martyrs,' worthy of the name;
Or noble 'Elgin' beets11 the heaven-ward flame,
The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays:
Compar'd with these, Italian trills are tame:
The tickl'd ears no heart-felt raptures raise;
Nae unison hae they with our Creator's
praise.

14

The priest-like father reads the sacred page,
How Abram was the friend of God on high;
Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage
With Amalek's ungracious progeny;
Or how the royal bard12 did groaning lie
Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire;
Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry;
Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire;

The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole;
But haply, in some cottage far apart,
May hear, well-pleas'd, the language of the
soul;

And in Ilis Book of Life the inmates poor enrol.

18

Then homeward all take off their sev 'ral way;
The youngling cottagers retire to rest;
The parent-pair their secret homage pay,
And proffer up to Heav'n the warm request,
That He who stills the raven's clam 'rous nest,
And decks the lily fair in flow 'ry pride,
Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best,
For them and for their little ones provide;
But chiefly, in their hearts with grace divine
preside.

19

From scenes like these old Scotia's grandeur springs,

That makes her lov'd at home, rever'd abroad: Princes and lords are but the breath of kings,

15

Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme,
How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed;
How He, who bore in Heav'n the second name,
Had not on earth whereon to lay His head:
How His first followers and servants sped;
The precepts sage they wrote to many a land:
How he,13 who lone in Patmos banished,
Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand,

And heard great Bab'lon's doom pronounc'd by Heav'n's command.

16

Then kneeling down to Heaven's Eternal King,
The saint, the father, and the husband prays:
Hope "springs exulting on triumphant wing, ''14
That thus they all shall meet in future days,
There ever bask in uncreated rays,
No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear,
Together hymning their Creator's praise,
In such society, yet still more dear,

God; ''15

And certes, in fair Virtue's heavenly road, The cottage leaves the palace far behind; What is a lordling's pomp? a cumbrous load, Disguising oft the wretch of human kind,

Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refin 'd!

20

O Scotia! my dear, my native soil!
For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent,
Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil

Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content!

And oh! may Heaven their simple lives prevent
From luxury's contagion, weak and vile!
Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent,
A virtuous populace may rise the while,

And stand a wall of fire around their muchlov'd isle.

21

17

In all the pomp of method and of art, When men display to congregations wide Devotion's ev'ry grace, except the heart!

O never, never Scotia's realm desert,
But still the patriot, and the patriot-bard,
In bright succession raise, her ornament and
guard!

15 Pope, Essay on Man, iv, 248

6 slap

6 blazing

8 slow

9 bashful

10 timid

11 sometimes

12 unroofing

13 lonely

*The humorous satire of the piece is at the expense of popular Scottish Calvinism."-J L. Robertson.

"Spairges is the best Scots word in its place I ever met with. The deil is not standing flinging the liquid brimstone on his friends with a ladle, but we see him standing at a large boiling vat, with something like a golf bat, striking the liquid this way and that way aslant, with all his might, making it fly through the whole apartment, while the inmates are winking and holding up their arms to defend their faces." (James Hogg.) This interpretation admirably fits the word spairges (Latin, spargere, to sprinkle; English. asperge, asperse): if it is correct. the word cootie, which properly means a wooden kitchen dish of any size from a ladle to a small tub, is used rather boldly for the contents of the cootie.