There have been few great poets—few poets of any appreciable quality, indeed—anywhere, who have not had a lively and appreciative sense of humour, if they have not actually been positive and productive humourists. It is a faculty of the human mind without which no man can be intellectually great—without which no view of life can be comprehensive and true; a faculty without which Shakespeare could no more have sounded the gamut of human feeling as he did than a man who is colour-blind could describe the glowing iridescence of the rainbow. In Burns and Scott, the most notable among Scottish poets—and mighty influences both in the republic of letters—the faculty of original humour was revealed to an extraordinary degree. In the case of Scott the playfulness of his fancy was made manifest essentially, no doubt, in the Waverley Novels, and in conversations with individuals; his poetry being mainly martial and moving, and severe rather than lightsome. In Burns, the greater poet, and the more impulsive genius, there was revealed the greater humourist and the readier wit, as well as the finer sentimentalist. Alone amid the sublimities of Nature, or touched by the muse in her diviner moods, he was reverent in spirit and glowed with adoration as fervid and sincere as ever animated the breast of the royal Hebrew bard himself; but prompted to join the social circle at the festive board, and fired by the spirit of fun, he would dazzle and delight a party for hours together by the brilliance and rapidity of his flashes of ready wit and humorous satire. The most ample and effective examples of Burns’s humour occur, of course, in his poems—notably in “Tam o’ Shanter,” and “The Jolly Beggars”; in his songs “Duncan Gray,” “Tam Glen,” and “Sic a Wife as Willie had”; and in some of the rhymed epistles. The impromptu epitaphs and epigrams, etc., which find a place in nearly every edition of his works, afford convincing evidence of the pungency of his electric wit, and the annihilating weight of his equally ready satire. But with all of these—particularly the poems and the songs—every adult person in Scotland is so familiar that to quote from one or other of them here would be something like superfluous labour. A few of the nimbler of the impromptu rhymes and epigrams, with descriptions of the circumstances under which they were provoked, may, however, be reproduced en passant. The process will freshen the reader’s memory, if it does not actually enlighten his mind.

Burns, like true steel, was ever ready to give fire at the touch of the flint, and being present in a company where an ill-educated parvenu was boring everyone by boasting of the many great people he had lately been visiting, the poet gave vent to his feelings in the following impromptu stanza, which we may be sure effectually silenced the babbling snob before him:—

Having been storm-sted one Sunday at Lamington, in Clydesdale, the poet went to church, but the day was so cold, the place so uncomfortable, and the sermon so poor, that he left this protest on the pew which he had occupied:—

While in Edinburgh, he visited at the studio of a well-known painter, who was at that time engaged on a picture of Jacob’s dream. Burns embodied his criticism of the work in the following lines, which he wrote on the back of a sketch still preserved in the painter’s family:—

Never perhaps was there a neater compliment paid to feminine loveliness than that paid by Burns to Miss Ainslie in an impromptu rhyme. During the poet’s Border tour he went to church on Sunday, accompanied by the sister of his travelling companion, Mr. Robert Ainslie, of Berrywell, Dunse. The text for the day happened to contain a severe denunciation of obstinate sinners, and the poet, observing the young lady intently turning over the leaves of her Bible in search of the passage, took out a small piece of paper, and wrote the following lines, which he immediately passed to her:—

Ready-witted “graces before meat” were evolved by the poet on demand, time and again. Having met some friends to dine with them at the Globe Tavern, Dumfries, on one occasion, when a sheep’s head happened to be the fare provided, he was asked to give something new as a grace, and instantly delivered the following, which has certainly little wit to recommend it:—

After having dined, however, and greatly enjoyed the repast, he was appealed to to return thanks, and did so in four lines revealing native wit, by saying:—

Than Burns’s epitaph “On a Suicide,” nothing more scathingly sarcastic was ever written. It is as if he could not express too much scorn of the miserable coward who would eschew the obligations of life by an act of self-destruction:—

Burns was standing one day on the quay at Greenock, when a wealthy merchant belonging to the town had the misfortune to fall into the harbour. He was no swimmer, and would certainly have been drowned had not a sailor, at the risk of his own life, plunged in and rescued him from his dangerous situation. The merchant, upon recovering a little from his fright, put his hand into his pocket and presented the sailor with a shilling. The crowd, who were by this time collected, loudly protested against the insignificance of the sum; but Burns, with a smile of ineffable scorn, entreated them to restrain their clamour, “For,” said he, “the gentleman is, of course, the best judge of the value of his own life.”

A writer who happened to be present in a company along with Burns when the conversation turned on “Tam o’ Shanter,” and stung, perhaps, with the sarcastic touch on the legal fraternity—

remarked that he thought the witches’ orgies obscure.

“Obscure, sir,” exclaimed the poet; “ye know not the language of the great master of your own art; the devil! If you get a witch for your client, you will not be able to manage her defence.”

Burns lived five months in a house which was occupied by an old man named David Cully, or Kelly. The poet sometimes read books not usually seen in people’s hands on the Sabbath. His landlord checked him for this, when the bard laughingly replied—

“You’ll not think me so good a man as Nancy Kelly is a woman, I suppose?”

“Indeed, no.”

“Then I’ll tell you what happened this morning. When I took a walk by the banks o’ the Nith, I heard Nancy Kelly praying long before I came to her. I walked on, and before I returned I saw her helping herself to an armful of my fitches.” The parties kept a cow.

On one occasion Nance and the bard were sitting in the “spence,” when the former turned the conversation on her favourite topic—religion. Burns sympathised with the matron, and quoted so much Scripture that she was fairly astonished. By and by she said to her husband, “Oh, Dauvit, how they have wranged that man; for I think he has mair o’ the Bible on his tongue than Mr. Inglis himsel’.” Mr. Inglis was the Anti-burgher minister. Burns enjoyed that compliment, and almost the first thing he communicated to his wife on her arrival was the lift he had got from old Nance.

Than “the glorious ploughman,” no one was kinder to such helpless creatures as were weak in mind, and who sauntered harmlessly about. A poor half-witted creature—the Madge Wildfire, it is said, of Scott—always found a mouthful ready for her at the bard’s fireside. He was equally kind, Allan Cuningham tells, to a crazy and tippling prodigal named Quin.

“Jamie,” said the poet one day, as he gave this character a penny, “you should pray to be turned from the evil of your ways; you are ready now to melt that penny into whisky.”

“Turn!” exclaimed Jamie, who was a wit in his way, “I wish some ane wad turn me into the worm o’ Will Hyslop’s whisky-still, that the drink micht dribble through me for ever.”

“Weel said, Jamie,” responded the poet; “you shall have a glass of whisky once a week for that if you will come sober for it.”

A friend rallied Burns for indulging such creatures.

“You don’t understand the matter,” said he; “they are poets; they have the madness of the muse, and all they want is the inspiration—a mere trifle!”

A prophet has no honour in his own country, and few of the peasantry personally acquainted with Burns were willing to allow that his merit exceeded their own. Mrs. M’Quistan, the housekeeper at Dunlop House, where the poet was a frequent visitor, saw nothing in his writings calling for special admiration, and doubted the propriety of her mistress entertaining a mere ploughman who made rhymes. As regarded “The Cottar’s Saturday Night,” she declared to Mrs. Dunlop, with much shaking of the head, that “Nae doubt gentlemen and ladies think muckle o’ that, but, for me, it’s naething but what I saw in my ain faither’s house every day, and I dinna see who he could hae tauld it ony other way.” It was a splendid compliment. Yet the author once received perhaps a better—in his own hearing, too—one, at least, which he appreciated more. A little boy was asked which of the poet’s works he liked best. “I like ‘The Cottar’s Saturday Night’ far best,” he exclaimed, “though it made me greet when my father made me read it to my mother.”

The poet, with a sudden start, looked into the boy’s face intently, and, patting him on the cheek, said, the tear glistening in his eye the while, “Well, my callant, it made me greet, too, more than once, when I was writing it at my father’s fireside.”

Scott, when about seventeen years of age, saw Burns in Edinburgh, and has afforded the most truthful and graphic account of his personal appearance extant. It was at a literary dinner at Professor Fergusson’s that they met. The wondrous boy enlightened the party as to the authorship of the line—

by telling them it was Langhorne’s,[2] whereupon Burns looked towards him and exclaimed, “You will be a man yet.” No prophecy received fuller fulfilment; for if Sir Walter Scott did not rise to the full stature of true manhood, no mere man ever did. Scott brought pleasure with him into every party he chose to enter. His rich, racy humour in telling stories and giving anecdotes, always on the spur of the moment, was delightful. He had an anecdote ready, a story to match, or “cap,” as he used to call it, every one he heard, and with most perfect ease and hearty good humour. His first publisher, says one, Robert Millar, gave anecdotes very pleasantly, and one day, after dinner, he was telling the company that he, or some friend, had been present at an Assize Court in Jedburgh, when a farm servant had summoned his master for non-payment of wages, which he, the servant, had justly forfeited through some misconduct. After a great deal of cross-questioning—

“I’m sure, my lord,” said the pursuer, “I’m seeking nowt but what I’ve rowt for!”

“Ay, my man,” responded the judge, “but I’m thinking ye’ll hae to rowt a wee langer afore ye get it, though;” and nonsuited him.

Scott, with the others, was well pleased with this dialogue, and, in his easy unaffected manner, said—

“Well, something of a similar nature occurred when a friend of mine was present at the Justice Court at Jedburgh. Two fellows had been taken up for sheep-stealing; there was a dense crowd, and we were listening with breathless attention to the evidence, when, from what reason I have forgotten, there was a dead pause, during which the judge, observing a rosy-cheeked, chubby-faced country boy, who seemed to pay the utmost attention to what was going on, and continued to fix his eyes on his Lordship’s countenance, cried out to the callant—

“‘Well, my man, what do you say to the cause!’

“‘Eh, gosh!’ answered the boy, ‘but that’s a gude ane! What div I say? I whiles say, Pui hup! and whiles I say Pui ho! to the caws,’ meaning, of course, the calves. But the business was quickly decided, for the whole Court, judge and jury, were thrown into such convulsions of laughter that nothing more could be said or done.”

“It is interesting to observe,” says Gilfillan, “how not a few of the familiar names known to Scott in his youth or boyhood have been preserved on his written pages and are now classical. Thus Meg Dods was the real name of a woman, or ‘Luckie,’ in Howgate, ‘who brewed good ale for gentlemen.’ In the account of a Galloway trial, in which Scott was counsel, occurs the name ‘Mac-Guffog,’ afterwards that of the famous turnkey in Guy Mannering. The name ‘Durward’ may still be seen on the signs of Arbroath and Forfar, and Scott had doubtless met it there; as well as that of ‘Prudfute,’ or ‘Proudfoot,’ in or near Perth; ‘Morton,’ in the lists of the Western Whigs; and ‘Gilfillan,’ in the catalogue of the prisoners in Dunnottar Castle. Nothing, in fact, that ever flashed on the eye or vibrated on the ear of this extraordinary man but was in some form or other reproduced in his writings.” In a remarkable sense here the child was father of the man. When a lad at school, a boy in the same class was asked by the dominie what part of speech “with” was.

“A noun, sir,” answered the boy.

“You young blockhead,” cried the pedagogue, “what example can you give of such a thing?”

“I can tell you, sir,” interrupted Scott. “You know there’s a verse in the Bible which says—‘They bound Samson with withs!’”

Mrs. Cockburn, authoress of the popular version of “The Flowers of the Forest,” the one beginning “I’ve seen the smiling of fortune beguiling,” has left a curious account of an interview which she had with Scott, when a boy not quite six years old. He was reading a poem to his mother when the lady entered, the subject of which was the description of a shipwreck. His passion rose with the storm, and he lifted up his eyes and hands—

“There’s a mast gone,” says he; “crash it goes; they will all perish!”

After his agitation, he turned to Mrs. Cockburn, and said—

“That is too melancholy. I had better read you something more amusing.”

Mrs. Cockburn preferred a little chat, and asked his opinion of Milton and other books which he had been reading, which he gave wonderfully. One of his observations was—“How strange that Adam, just new come into the world, should know everything. That must be the poet’s fancy,” said he. But when told he was created perfectly by God Himself, he instantly yielded.

When he was taken to bed the same evening, he told his aunt that he liked Mrs. Cockburn, “for I think,” said he, “she is a virtuoso like myself.”

“Dear Walter, what is a virtuoso?” inquired his aunt.

“Don’t you know?” said he. “Why, it’s one that will know everything.”

He was still a boy, when a lady friend remarked in company on the almost perpetual drizzle which prevails in the West of Scotland, and declared herself at a loss to account for it.

Popping his head up from below the table, “It is,” said he, “only Nature weeping for the barrenness of her soil.”

It was Sir Walter Scott who said that “his friends werna great book-readers, but they were maistly a’ grand book-keepers”—a common accomplishment of the friends and acquaintances of all men, alas!

Tom Purdie, Sir Walter’s favourite servant, appeared before the Sheriff first as a poacher; when Scott became so interested in his story, which he told with a mixture of pathos, simplicity, and pawky humour, that he granted him forgiveness, and ultimately engaged him as a sort of factotum at Abbotsford. Tom served him long and faithfully. Only “leeward whiles he took a bicker” towards the dram. Scott is said to have proposed for Tom’s epitaph the words—“Here lies one who might have been trusted with a purse of untold gold, but not with a barrel of unmeasured whisky.” But more pungent than this even was his remark at the funeral ceremony of the eccentric Earl of Buchan. In accordance with the Christian mode of burial, the body should have been carried into the chapel, where it was to be interred, feet first. Sir David Brewster was one of the mourners, and was the first to observe that the head of the coffin was first in. He said—“We have brought the Earl’s head in the wrong way.”

“Never mind,” replied Scott. “His Lordship’s head was turned when he was alive, and it is not worth our while to shift it now.”

Long before the secret of the Waverley novels had been blown about, the Ettrick Shepherd divined it, and as the novels appeared he had them re-bound and lettered “Scott’s Novels.” While visiting Hogg at Altrive, the author ventured to remark in a dry humorous tone, “Jamie, your bookseller must be a stupid fellow, to spell Scott’s with two t’s.” Hogg replied, “Ah, Watty, I am ower auld a cat to draw that strae before.”

Mrs. John Ballantyne tells a story of Scott and Hogg not to be found in Lockhart.

At her dinner table in Hanover Street, she says, the Shepherd was present, and was amusing the company very much by his attempts to dissect “twa teugh auld chuckies,” and was making the legs and wings and gravy fly in every direction, to the annoyance of every one in his neighbourhood. Suddenly he stopped, dipped a napkin in the finger-glass, and began to mop his face, which was “a’ jappit wi’ the juice.”

Scott saw his friend’s dilemma, and out of the goodness of his heart determined to create a diversion in his favour. Addressing Mrs. Ballantyne, he asked this question—“Mrs. John, once on a time all the letters of the alphabet were invited out to their dinner—they all came but U. Why did not U come?” On giving it up, Scott said, “Why, then, the reason why U did not come to dinner is very clear—because U never comes till after (T).”

Sometimes a very trifling joke or anecdote adds to the gaiety of a company. It was so in this case, the story passed round, but Hogg could not understand it, and he asked what they were all laughing at. “It’s about U (you),” cried Mrs. Ballantyne, and this made Hogg quite indignant. He rose and brandished his knife, and inquired in a blood-thirsty sort of way what they could possibly see about him to speak and laugh about. This made the joke tell all the better, when it was explained to him.

Carlyle recites with approbation a saying of somebody to the effect that no man has written so many volumes as Scott having so few sentences that can be quoted, and Gilfillan, replying to the charge, says he is prepared to prove that in no other novelist—not even Cervantes, or Bulwer, or Goodwin—is there to be found a greater number of separate and quotable beauties than in Scott. Gilfillan’s offer is not extravagant. Regarding the humorous side of the Waverley novels alone, which is all that concerns us here, one has only to think of Caleb Balderston, of Edie Ochiltree, of Cuddie Headrigg, of Andrew Fairservice; has but to utter aloud to himself the familiar “Ma conscience!” of Bailie Nicol Jarvie; the “Prodigious!” of Dominie Samson; the “Jeanie, woman!” of the Laird of Dumbiedikes—to have his mind peopled like a market-place with familiar figures, and his memory serving his tongue with passage upon passage, page upon page, and all with the freedom and rapidity of electric telegraphy. The temptation to quote now is strong; but I must resist it in order to overtake less familiar, though perhaps less delectable matter.

How humour will serve one in circumstances where sheer eloquence might pall is well illustrated by an important incident in the life of Scott. When George IV. visited Scotland in 1812, Sir Walter was largely “in evidence” in Edinburgh, eager to greet his Sovereign and afford him a royal welcome. Elaborate preparations had been made in the Capital in order that the reception might be worthy of the illustrious visitor, but when the royal yacht arrived in the Forth, the rain poured down in torrents. Sir Walter accordingly visited the King on board, and, in asking him to defer his landing on account of the inclemency of the weather, made one of the happiest speeches of his life—a speech which we may be sure delighted no one more than the King himself:—

“Impatient, Sire,” said he, “as your loyal subjects are to see you plant your foot upon their soil, they hope you will consent to postpone your public entry until to-morrow. In seeing the state of the weather, I am myself forcibly reminded of a circumstance which once occurred to me. I was about to make a tour through the Western Highlands with part of my family. I wrote to the innkeeper of a certain hostelry, where I meant to halt a day or two, to have rooms prepared for me. On the day appointed it rained, as it does to-day, ceaselessly. As we drew near our quarters, we were met on the hill over his house by our Boniface, with bared head, and backing every yard as I advanced, who thus addressed me:—

“‘Guid guide us, Sir Walter! This is just awfu’! Siccan a downpour! Was ever the like? I really beg your pardon! I’m sure it’s nae faut o’ mine; I canna think how it should happen to rain this way, just as you, o’ a’ men in the warld, should come to see us! It looks amaist personal! I can only say for my part, I’m just ashamed o’ the weather!’

“And so, Sire, I do not know that I can improve upon the language of the honest innkeeper; I cannot think how it should rain this way, just as your Majesty, of all men in the world, should have condescended to come and see us. I can only say in the name of my countrymen, I’m just ashamed o’ the weather!”

Sir Walter welcomed his Majesty not only in person, but also in song, by writing a long ballad in two parts, to the old tune of “Carle, and the King Come.” Simultaneously with this loyal piece there, however, appeared in the London Examiner a satirical effusion, entitled, “Sawney, now the King’s Come,” which caused some stir, and greatly annoyed the sensitive loyalty of the author of Waverley.

The writer was Alexander Rodger, of Glasgow, the well-known author of “Robin Tamson’s Smiddy,” “Behave yersel’ before Folk,” and other popular humorous songs; and the ultra-radical opinions for which he had already languished in “Bridewell,” it cannot be denied, rendered the humour of this counterblast rather too broad for general circulation. Its cleverness, however, was undoubted. A poet of admitted quality, Rodger had a rich and ready humour which helped him through many a difficulty. Whilst for the treasonable character of his contributions to the Spirit of the Union he lay in a Glasgow prison, where he was used with reprehensible harshness, he solaced himself in his solitude by singing, at the top of his lungs, his own political song compositions, some of which were so spiced with humorous satire that they could not be very grateful to the ears of his jailors. Once, when his house was searched for seditious publications (terrible bugbears at that time to the local authorities of Glasgow), Sandy handed the Family Bible to the Sheriff’s officer, with the remark that that was the only treasonable book in his possession; and for proof he referred the aghast official to the chapter on Kings, in the first Book of Samuel. Rodger’s contributions to Whistle-Binkie form perhaps the most delightsome items of that perennial collection of Scottish lyrics, none of them being a whit less felicitous than his lyrical address to Peter M’Kay—“Ane sober advice to ane drucken souter in Perth”—of which the following forms the first verse:—

George Outram, another Glasgow poet, claims particular attention when and wherever the humour of Scottish poets and poetry is the subject of consideration. Such of his pieces as “The Annuity,” “Drinkin’ Drams,” and “Soumin’ an’ Roumin’,” are amongst the most humoursome effusions in the native tongue. The temperance cause has made great progress since the bacchanalian heroic above named was penned, and it is now the teetotallers who laugh most over the ironical humour expressed in the lines. His “Annuity” is familiar to everybody, and the same may be said of “Soumin’ an’ Roumin’.” The following illustration of his wit in the shape of an epigram, which he composed on hearing a lady praise a certain reverend Doctor’s eyes, is, however, not so well known as it deserves—

and the whimsical humour contained in the subjoined little sketch will warrant its quotation:—

The next prominent among Scottish poet-humourists that occurs here is Professor Wilson, whose claim is made perfect by the unique and incomparable “Noctes Ambrosianæ,” originally contributed to Blackwood’s Magazine under the pen name of “Christopher North.” Here there is humour to the knees, humour to the loins, humour to swim in—a great river! But we dare not enter, even though the temptation is strong. One solitary example of Wilson’s genial humour, gleaned outside of the “Noctes,” must serve here. It involves the name of another poet-humourist of almost equal renown—namely, Professor Aytoun, author of the celebrated Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and joint-author with Sir Theodore Martin of the Bon Gaultier Ballads. Aytoun, as everybody knows, married Wilson’s daughter, Miss Emily Jane. When, after the usual preliminaries, he made a proposal of marriage to her, the young lady, as a matter of course, referred him to her father. Aytoun was uncommonly diffident, and said, “Emily, my dear, you must speak for me. I could not summon courage to speak to the Professor on the subject.”

“Papa is in the library,” remarked the lady.

“Then you had better go to him,” said the suitor, “and I will wait here for you.”

There being apparently no help for it, the lady proceeded to the library, and, taking her father affectionately by the hand, mentioned that Aytoun had asked her in marriage, and added, “Shall I accept his offer, papa; he is so shy and diffident that he cannot speak to you himself?”

“Then we must deal tenderly with him,” said the hearty old man; and writing his reply on a slip of paper, he pinned it on her back.

“Papa’s answer is on the back of my dress,” said Miss Wilson, as she re-entered the drawing-room. Turning her round, the delighted swain perceived these words—“With the author’s compliments.”

Susanna, Countess of Eglinton, Allan Ramsay’s patroness, to whom he dedicated his immortal “Gentle Shepherd,” once sent him a basket of fine fruit. No poet of the last century could let such a circumstance pass unsung; accordingly, honest Allan composed the following complimentary epigram, which he sent with his note of acknowledgment to the Countess:—

Neatly turned, you say! Yes; but, not content with sending the epigram to the person for whom it was particularly intended, he enclosed a copy to his friend Budgell, who soon sent him back the subjoined comment upon it, which, we need not doubt, severely wounded the vanity of the wig-maker poet:—

The following epigram, by a living Scottish writer, is decidedly pointed and clever, and has the additional merit of being self-explanatory:—

I have spoken of Professor Aytoun, and his connection with the Bon Gaultier Ballads. As everybody knows, “The Massacre of the Phairshon,”

is from Aytoun’s pen. In the Memoirs of the poet, written by his friend and collaborator, Sir Theodore Martin, there is this capital story of the ballad. “Being asked to get up an impromptu amusement at a friend’s house in 1844, for some English visitors, who were enthusiastic about the Highlanders and the Highlands, he fished out from his wardrobe the kilt with which he had electrified the men of Thurso in his boyish days. Arraying himself in this, and a blue cloth jacket with white metal buttons, which he had got years before to act a charity boy, in a charade, he completed his costume by a scarf across his shoulders, short hose, and brogues! The brevity of the kilt produced a most ludicrous effect, and not being eked out with the usual ‘sporran’ left him much in the condition of the ‘Cutty Sark’ of Burns’s poem. With hair like Katterfelto’s, on end in wild disorder, Aytoun was ushered into the drawing-room. He bore himself with more than Celtic dignity, and saluted the Southrons with stately courtesy, being introduced to them as the famous Laird of Macnab. The ladies were delighted with the Chieftain, who related many highly exciting traits of Highland manners. Among other things, when his neighbours, as he told them, made a foray, which they often did, upon his cattle, he thought nothing of ‘sticking a tirk into their powels,’ when the ladies exclaimed, in horror, ‘O, laird, you don’t say so!’

“‘Say so!’ he replied, ‘on my saul, laties, and to pe surely, I to it.’

“At supper he was asked to sing a song. ‘I am fery sorry, laties,’ he replied, ‘that I have no voice; but I will speak to you a translation of a fery ancient Gaelic poem,’ and proceeded to chant ‘The Massacre of ta Phairshon,’ which came upon all present as if it were the invention of the moment, and was greeted with roars of laughter. The joke was carried on until the party broke up, and the strangers were not undeceived for some days as to the true character of the great Celtic chief.”

Adam Skirving, author of the popular song of “Johnnie Cope,” and the equally facetious and felicitous ballad of “Tranent Muir,” was a wealthy farmer near Haddington, and a man of athletic body as well as of strong mind. Among the various persons referred to in “Tranent Muir” was a certain Lieutenant Smith, an Irishman, who displayed much cowardice in the battle. Says the poet:—

Immediately on the satire and its source of emanation being communicated to the heroic (?) Lieutenant Smith, he despatched a junior officer to Skirving, with a challenge to the poet to meet him in single combat.

The bard’s reply was of a piece with his attack—“Gang back,” said he, “and tell Lieutenant Smith that I hae nae leisure to come to Haddington; but tell him to come here, and I’ll tak’ a look o’ him, and if I think I’m fit to fecht, I’ll fecht him; and if no, I’ll do as he did—I’ll rin awa’.”

Hard and stinging things have been uttered against poets, but the hardest and sharpest have been those hurled by one poet against another. As instance, the “Flyting” of Dunbar and Kennedy, the less remote encounter between Tennyson and Bulwer Lytton in the pages of Punch, and the more recent scalping scuffle which took place between Buchanan, Swinburne, and Rossetti. The wit of the poet is indispensable for affording the proper point to the sting of humorous satire. Here is a good example:—A few years ago the late William C. Cameron, of Glasgow, a shoemaker to trade, and author of a meritorious volume of verses, entitled Light, Shade, and Toil, contributed a little poem to the columns of the Weekly Herald, each succeeding stanza of which opened somewhat ostentatiously with the request—“Write me my epitaph!” one entire verse being:—

Responsive to the poet’s request a local bard wrote, and the Herald of the following week contained “His Epitaph,” in these words:—

Poets there have been, too, who were their own most merciless censors. Robert Chambers tells that when the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland determined on extending their body of psalmody, they addressed a circular to the clergy, praying that those who were so inclined would compose paraphrases of scripture, and transmit them to Edinburgh for the inspection of the Assembly, that a proper selection might be made for use. A very old man, and very primitive minister in Caithness, was roused by this request from prosaic lethargy of a whole lifetime, and felt a latent spark of poetry suddenly arise in his bosom. So instantaneous was the effect of this inspiration, that on the very Sunday after he had received the Assembly’s circular, he had prepared a paraphrase which he determined to read aloud to his congregation. The first verse ran as follows:—

But this was quite enough, the audience burst out into such a transport of laughter on hearing it that the ingenious author saw fit to suppress the rest, and abandon his poetical attempt.

Then Zachary Boyd, of facetious memory, minister of the Barony Church, Glasgow, in the time of Charles I., and who translated the Bible into verse, the MS. of which is preserved in the library of the University of Glasgow to this day, must have been a frank fellow. He sings:—