joiced in no converts; he found men were too vain to acknowledge such paternity as a baboon. He had the reputation of giving the most elegant entertainments during his day in the northern metropolis; he had flowers of all hues and wines of all qualities: odours as well as light were diffused by lamps, nor was his entertainments without the charm of music.

"In domestic circumstances," says Chambers, in his agreeable biography, "Monboddo was particularly unfortunate. His wife, a very beautiful woman, died in child-bed. His son, a promising boy, in whose education he took great delight, was likewise snatched from his affections by a premature death and his second daughter, in personal loveliness one of the first women of the age, was cut off by consumption, when only twenty-five years old. The praise of the Poet was not considered

extravagant :

Fair Burnet strikes th' adoring eye,

Heaven's beauties on my fancy shine;

I see the Sire of Love on high,

And own his work indeed divine.""

LAMENT

FOR

JAMES, EARL OF GLENCAIRN.

I.

THE wind blew hollow frae the hills,
By fits the sun's departing beam
Look'd on the fading yellow woods
That wav'd o'er Lugar's winding stream:
Beneath a craigy steep, a bard,

Laden with years and meikle pain,

In loud lament bewail'd his lord,

Whom death had all untimely ta'en.

II.

He lean'd him to an ancient aik,

Whose trunk was mould'ring down with years; His locks were bleached white with time, His hoary cheek was wet wi' tears; And as he touch'd his trembling harp, And as he tun'd his doleful sang, The winds, lamenting thro' their caves, To echo bore the notes alang.

III.

"Ye scatter'd birds that faintly sing
The reliques of the vernal quire!
Ye woods that shed on a' the winds
The honours of the aged year!
A few short months, and glad and gay,
Again ye'll charm the ear and e'e;
But nocht in all revolving time

Can gladness bring again to me.

IV.

"I am a bending aged tree,

That long has stood the wind and rain; But now has come a cruel blast,

And my last hold of earth is gane : Nae leaf o' mine shall greet the spring, Nae simmer sun exalt my bloom; But I maun lie before the storm, And ithers plant them in my room.

V.

"I've seen sae mony changefu' years,
On earth I am a stranger grown;
I wander in the ways of men,
Alike unknowing and unknown:
Unheard, unpitied, unrelieved,

I bear alane my lade o' care,
For silent, low, on beds of dust,

Lie a' that would my sorrows share.

VI.

"And last (the sum of a' my griefs!)

My noble master lies in clay;

The flow'r amang our barons bold,

His country's pride! his country's stayIn weary being now I pine,

For a' the life of life is dead,

And hope has left my aged ken,
On forward wing for ever fled.

VII.

"Awake thy last sad voice, my harp!
The voice of woe and wild despair;

Awake! resound thy latest lay-
Then sleep in silence evermair!
And thou, my last, best, only friend,
That fillest an untimely tomb,
Accept this tribute from the bard

Thou brought from fortune's mirkest gloom.

VIII.

"In poverty's low barren vale

Thick mists, obscure, involv'd me round; Though oft I turn'd the wistful eye,

Nae ray of fame was to be found:
Thou found'st me, like the morning sun,
That melts the fogs in limpid air,
The friendless bard and rustic song
Became alike thy fostering care.

IX.

"O! why has worth so short a date?
While villains ripen gray with time ;
Must thou, the noble, gen'rous, great,
Fall in bold manhood's hardy prime !
Why did I live to see that day?

A day to me so full of woe!

O had I met the mortal shaft

Which laid my benefactor low!

X.

"The bridegroom may forget the bride,
Was made his wedded wife yestreen:

The monarch may forget the crown
That on his head an hour has been;

The mother may forget the child

That smiles sae sweetly on her knee;
But I'll remember thee, Glencairn,

And a' that thou hast done for me!"

With James Cunningham, Earl of Glencairn, perished the last hope of Burns, of obtaining a pension, post, or place" in his native land. He was generous and accomplished, and admired the Poet through his poetry; the last of the male line of the family became extinct by the death of this Earl's brother; the title has lain dormant since. The Glencairn Cunninghams are descended from Warnebald de Cunningham, a Norman, the companion of Hugh de Morville, Constable of Scotland, who died