SCOTTISH SONG WRITERS.

Otago Witness, Issue 2151, 16 May 1895, Page 40

SCOTTISH SONG WRITERS.

An Address Deuyekkd by Hij William Khid at tuk Monthly Meeuno o'v Ttfß Dunkdin Bohns Cj-uu. 11. William Hamilton, D^ivid Millet (or MalIocb), Mi3s Cookburn, Mias Jane Elliott, Lady Nairn, Fergnson (" tho bauld and aloe"), J&mes Tytler, and many othois hardly known to this generation form a veritable galaxy of lyrical stars durlrg th 3 eighteenth century; but uli of these I must dieiaiss with the most cureoiy notice. Excepting the unhappy Ferguson, few of them are known by name to the majority of their countrymen. Sic transit gloria mundi. Mallet, although not born In tho purple, being the Bon of a email Highland innkeeper, had a career of uninterrupted buccosb. Ha married twice, and both wives brought him wealth, and he became after his flrsfc marriage the companion and intimate of the greatest in the land. His second wife, who brought him £10,000, believed him to be the 'greatest poet and wit of the age. Thrice happy Mallet I The only song of his that I can Had in any of my collections is " The birks of Invermay," of which the following is a stanza: — The smiling morn, the breathing spring, Invites the tuneful birds to sing ; And while they warble fioni the tpray, Love melts the universal lay. Let U3, Amanda, timely wise, Like them improve the hoar ilia l , flies, And in soft raptures wa-le the day Among the birks of Invermay. Miua Oockburn and Miss Jane Elliotb were the anthoroases of the two versions of that most pathetic song "The flowers of the Forest," the former contributing that commencing •' I've seen the smiling of fortune beguiling," the latter the porhaps less kuown but equally bsautiful "I've heard the lilting at tho ewes' milkiug," &o. Poor unhappy Robert Ferguson I cannot dismißß in the cursory manner I hive dealt with some of his predecessors. The toilsome life and early death of Burns has evoked much sympathy ; that of Forguson was still more unhappy. Born of middle-class parent*, and well educated, hia early life seeraod full of promise. The poetic temperament, however, unfits its possessor for the stern realities of life, and genius, unless it lies in the direction of utilitarianism, seldom conduces to either wealth or happiness. The education and literary attainments of poor Fejguaon never raised him above the humble rank of a law copyißt. At this occupation, with varyit g vicissitudes and degrees of poverty, he spent a life of monotonous drudgery, relieved only by the fitful gleams ar.d flashes of happiness which arose from the exercise of his poetic vein and the convivialities to which, with the mercurial temperament of the poet, he was too freely addicted. Those convivialities have been described as bordering on, if they did not roach the extreme limit of, excess. The tendency of the times was, however, in this direction, and Ferguson was probably no worse than those with whom he wa3 associated. In the Edinburgh of ths early part of the eighteenth century temperance! was not a virtue possessed by even the upper classes. University professors, we are told, ppenfc their nights in the wildest of orgies, and judges and magistrates after nights of hard drinking with unsteady gait and bemuddled brain betook themselves to the bench. With such examples eet before them, it is not to be wondered at that the lower stratum of society should have gone a " kennin' wrang " in the same direction. The example which we are told is better than precept applies to communities as well as to individuals, and the example of Edinburgh society of those days was not calculated to infuse into the masses any leaven of sobriety and steadiness of character. Although, perhaps, at no time in the history of Scotland did her capital preßent such an array of brilliant intellects or possess so many men of high literary eminence, the habits of all classes were distinctly intemporate. Amid such unpromising surroundings Ferguson produced those poems and songs which at the time rendered him famous wherever Scotsman were to bo found, and which had he not been overshadowed by the .greater genius of Burns would have given him a name among the foremost of Scottish poets. He followed cl >sely in the footsteps of Rimsay in his vivid delineations of Scottish life and character, and while far exceeding him in and humour, is little inferior in some of bis t- Sorts to Barns. Burns had a great admiration for his genius, and many of his earlier compositions ware modelled upon those of Fe'giison. Ho ever mentioned him in terms oE affectionate remembrance, and more than pasting reference is made to him in his writing* : — Curse on ungrateful man that can be plcAned And yet can starve the author of his pleasure. O thou, my elder brother in misfortuuo, By fur my e'dcr brother in the mus.s, With tears I pity thy unhappy fate. "Why is the bard unfitted i»r the world, Yet has so kiev a relish of its pleasures ? In the last t»vo lines Barns has sounded the keynote of what constitutes and cau»6s the wnhappiness of the poetic temperament. Fergueon bending over hia parchments, Burns toilir>g at the fla.il or pursuing the even xnoro uncongenial task of an exciseman, are pictures tbat indeed might make ths argils weep. But poeta nascitur noti fit. B^rn in the cottage, with all their npward aspirations they never rise to the parpie. Lord Tennyson io not even the exception t'hat proves the rule; he was boro, if not in the purple, in the perhaps more congenial atmosphere of a country parsonage. However, lam digressing. Ferguson was not cant in the mould to endure the effects of days of uncongenial toil and nights spent in dissipation. Exposure to cold brought on disease and mental derangement, and it was found necessary to send him to an asylum for the insane. H-.re on a straw bed laid on the stor.e fljor of a miserable cell he spent the sad closing hours of his unhappy llfo. The pride of Paisley in her weavor poet has kept alight the fires burning on the altars of Tannahill's fame. Edinburgh did not waste much sentiment over Ferguson. It barely gave him a crust when living — an unbonoured grave when dead; and had his memory not been embalmed by Burns in '

some of his flne&t verses he would now' to a great many be almost unknown t 0, Fergu-on, thy glorious parts 111-su"ted laws, dry musty arts ; My qurse upon your whunstane hearty Ye' Krabro' gentry. The tithe o1o 1 what ye wa*te at cartes Wad slowed his pautry I When Burns first went to Edinburgh he visited the grave of Ferguson with all the feelings of a devotee to a holy shrine. He found it unmarked and uncared for. With pious and fraternal care ho erected a simple stone, which he had inscribed with the following stanza : No sculptured marble here nor pompous lay, " No storied uru nor animated bust ' ; This simple stone directs pale Scotia'a ray To pour her sorrow* oVr her poet's dust. A3 I have already said, had not the transcendant genius of his great successor, and as ho did not hesitate to aaknowledge bin imitator, overshadowed him, Ferguson would hava taken a much higher stand among our national poets and Bongstera. The next singer of Sootland towers a giant in gfinius, as in physioal stature, hsad and shoulders above all who have preceded him and all who have yet followed him. ■ME FAME OF ROBERT BUBN3 has been the theme of so many great writers ; he has beon tho subject of so many eulogies from the pens of the greatest intellects of the century, tbat I will make no apology if my feeble pen falters on the threshold. E?ery Scotsman, and m:>re especially every Ayrshire man, must approach the Bubject of Burnß with mingled emotions— pride, that from among the fanka of our peasantry has sprurg a genius and a name that where the lamp of civilisation glows ia known and venerated ; soirow, that a life that had so 11 keen a relish for its pleasures" should have been shrouded in the darkness of poverty and an uncongenial and toilsome occupation ; regret, that so much innate goodness and honesty of purpose should have been dimmed and sullied— that he should have allowed his great genius, which should have ever soared in the zenith, to descend to unworthy and ignoble depths, and to be prostituted to unworthy and ignoble ends. In this new land, although not forgotten by his countrymen, as Burns clubs, Barns anniversaries, and Burns slatu&s amply testify, his songs have not — cannot indoed have— the in fl nonce on the minds and character of his countrymen that they have in the land of his birth. Where I was born the Bongs of Burns had struck deep down into the hearts of the paople, and helped in no small degree to mould their characters and to intensify and adorn their national sentiment. No poet who has ever lived has been so much traduced as Burns, and it is sad to think that so many of the aspersions. on his character have come from the unco quid among his own countrymen. I am not going into any special pleading in regard to the character of Burns, and were I addressing an audience solely of my countrymen I would allow their knowledge of hia life and character as gleaned from hiß writings to speak for themselves. The accusations which have been made against Barns are those of licentiousness, drunkenness, irreligion, and a revolutionary de^iro to subvert constitutional authority. A black indie' ment, and based on how narrow a foundation 1 As rfgerds the accusation of drunkonnosa and licentiousness, the freedom of the times in which he lived, if not an excuse, offers at least aoma palliation for the sins and excesses into which he was led by the ardour of his temperament and his genial, uympa'hetic natura. "The fierce search light which beats around the throne," and which applies to a poet as well as to a king, it has always appeared to me, has magnified and distorted this aspect of Burns's character. The man who wrote " The Cottar's Saturday Night," breathing in every lino passionate aspirations for the good and beautiful in life, no one will ever make me believe was an irreligious libertine. A soul steeped in degraded passion could never have conceived those pure and lofty eentiments expressed in that most exquisite of song^, "My Mary in Heaven." As Professor Wilson says in hia beautiful essay on Burns's genius and character : "We know his worst 3ins, but we cannot know his sorrows. The war between the spirit and the flesh often raged In his nature as in that of the best of beings who are made." As he says of himself in "A Bard's Epitaph " : The poor inhabitant below Was quick to L'arn and wise to know, But thoughtless follies laid him low A-^d stained his name. That he retained the esteem and friendship of co many good women has always to me seemed proof that Burns's sins and follies were not so deep-dyed as his slanderers would have us beliava. Mrs Dunlop, a pure, lof«.y-minded woman of good birth, was his friend and counsellor to the last ; Mrs Riddle, of Woodlea Pt»rk, although in a spirit of jealousy he had lampooned her in a manner utterly unworthy of him, wrote of him after his death in the highest terms of admiration for his genius and regard for his native worth. That Burns retained the esteem of those and of other equally virtuous and high-minded women is one of the best refutations that can be brought against his slanderers. Scotsmon are, if anything, patriotic, and it is Burns's intense patriotism that endears him so much to his countrymen abroad. Scotland's heath-clad hills and wild moorlands, interspersed as they are with fertile carses and grassy uplands, cannot support the natural increase of a country prolific with tho teoming loins of a people untain'ed by the enervating vices of. a high civilisation. The overflow must find an outlet;. As I have said already, whether subduing the wilderness of Canada or exploiting the mountain fastnesses of Ofcago, the Scotchman never forgets his native land— poor and hard as may have been the birthright it endowed him with. From the dim shieling on the misty hlaud Mountains divide him and a woild of seaa ; But his heart is true, hia heart is Highland, And Lo in dicams beholds the llebride3. Burnß's poems and song* riDg in every line with this sentiment. Witness the yearning aspirations of his boyhood in the beautiful lines : Even then a wish— l m'nd its power, A wi'h that to my latest hjur Shall strongly heave my breastThat I for poor auld Scotland's sake Some useful plan or bouk would. W&JUL Or cine a sons at least.

Again, In " The Cottar's Saturday Nigh* • there wells out from his patriotic lieart thd beautiful invocation : O Thou who poured the patriotic tido, That sheamed through Wallace's undaunted hea»t, Who dared to nobly stem tyrannic pride, Or nobly die, the second glori-)U3 part (Vhe patriot's God peculiarly thou art— His friend, inspirer, guardian, aud reward I) O never, never Scotia's realraß desert, Eut still the patriot and the patriot bard In bright succession raise, her oinanieufc flna guard. Burns was pre-eminently the songster of the people, aud was perhaps in a higher degree to Scotland what Berangor was td Franca and Tom Moore was to Ireland. They sounded the depths of their countrymen's hearts as few poets have ever done ; yet in depicting the passions, and in pathos, neither soar to the heights of our peasant poot. What Moore, by reason of hia higher education, gains in beauty and perfection of: diction, Burns more than makes up for Ia intensity of feeling and deep responsive human sympathy. It has been said that ia writing "In ac fond kiss" Burns has given to the world the best love song, and in 11 Wa are na fou " the best convivial song, that have ever been written. The claim of the former to this high distinction i 3 easily arrived at, but it require,? a somewhat careful analysis of the latter to reveal the depth of wit and sly humour which pervades it. Where in the wide realm of song can more beautiful imagery and intensity of emotion be found than in "Hy Mary iri Heaven " ? How sadly yet sweetly the waiting of a breaking heart echoss through every Btanza of "Ye banks and braes"! What wealth of manly devotion and loverly ardour are united in "O wert thou in tha cauld blast "1 Or did mUfortuue's bitter storms Around thee blaw, n round the blair. Thy bield should be my bo3oru, To ihare it al,a 1 , to *h:»re it »'. One of his most popular oorgs, "Oa'theairt3 the wind can blaw," as being a tribute o£ warm, heartfelt affection to one who proved herself worthy of the high destiny to which she was raised, is one also that appeals to the heart of every Scotsman. Other phases of the poet's character I might also depict from his songa — the gloom and Badness that go frequently overshadowed his life from " The gloomy night; is g&therißg fast," " 0 raging fortune's withering blast," " Despondency ," and tbat sad retrospect of a broken and toilsome life, " Man Was MAde to Mourn " ; his independence and manliness of chaiflcter in "A man's a man for a' that " ; the reckle«3 spirit of defiauco of public opinion co vividly illustrated in " The rantin' dog tho daddy o'fc," and some of the songs incidental to "The Jolly B g^ars." He could touch every ohord of human passion with a master hand, but whether gay or sad, reckless or demure, Barns ever rises far above the plane of mediocrity. The touch of his genius has moulded the clay of commonplace life into a raora beautiful sera bianco than Byron or Tennygon hava been able to impart to the more exacted plane of human life of vrhoie joys and Borrows they have sung. Sis appeal is direct from ths heart to tho heart. Untrammelled by the colder dictates of poetic measures and poetic rule, ho pours the concentrated force of hit impassioned soul into his sor.g, yet the result is never crude, although measured perhaps by the atriob rules of Oxford or Cambridge come of It may be found wanting. As tho bciuty and fragrance of the roso appeals to a wider circle than the costly and elegant orchid, so bis Bocgit will continue to be euog as iocg as the language exi&t3 and human sympathies and human emotions continue to agitate, the heart, and long after some of the jingling versifiera who have lived their brief reign of fashion are forgotten. The evil that men do lives after them ; The good is oft mfc rrcd with their bones. This cannot be said of Burns. The fraieties, intemperances, and excesses of his life affected few but himself and those immediately interested in him. It cannot be raid either that he has left much that can corrupt the mind of the most susceptible. There io no underlying current of licentiousness, no corrupting influence pervading his woik*. Although " Holy Willy's Prayer "is perhaps as irreverent and indelicate a satire as was ever penned, it is not calculated to pervert tha mind of youth, while its exquisite cleverness more than redeems its grossneßS, The indecencies of " The Tailor Fell Through the Bed," " The Jolly Beggars," and a very few others are more cjlculated to raise a laugh than to inspire erotics emotions. How different from the "lascivious pleasings" of "The Waltz," or the insidious voluptuousness psrvading many of the beautiful cantos of that splendid poem " Don Jaan." Per contra, how many a heart has been purified and cha^encd by that exquisite song " My Mary in Ile-iven," how many a libatine has felt tha piercings of remoree by the singing of " Ye banks and braes," and to how many thousand hearts must have come the promptings of better things, higher ideals, and loftier conceptions of domestic life by " The Cottar's Saturday Night," or that wail from a soul torn by remorse, " A Bard's Epitaph " I A very brief resume of the life and writings of James Hogp and Robert Tannahill, Scottish poets of the eighteenth century, and contemporaries of Burns, must closa this rather diicursive essay.

—At BftPa, in Argentina, a list of boys and girls who have failed to attend school regularly is published in the newspapers. — It is calculated that 33 per cent. oE the cigars sold in London are not made of tobacco ab all. — The Russians have a singular method of extorting disclosures fiom prisoners. In their food is mixed a drug which has the effeci of rendering them delirious, aud iv this state they ara watched and interrogated, when secrets are divulged.

11. THE ICHNEUMON FLY. In the columns of the Witness, during the Jast few months, we have had placed before us the counterfeit presentments of many intecte which farmers and fruitgrowers justly look upon as being their mortal foes. For the use of those practically interested all possible instructions have also been given in jregard to methods of prevention and destruction of those insect pests. It has pften occurred to me wMe reading suoh treatises tbat a moßt important lesson is to be learnt from them. For it is plain that, if man be the lord of living nature be is so fond Of picturing himself, the faot of bis being so easily cornered by some wretched little fly or grub is a matter requiring clear explanation. It geems at least to be a most unnatural gtate of matters that such insignificant organisms as moulds, fungi, fee, in the vegetable world, and aphides, wood-borers, leafrollers, &o.,in the animal, should increase and multiply and thrive exceedingly upon crops and fruits reared by man for his own exclusive benefit. Indeed, if we had—which, alas Iwe have not— any claim to a monopoly of Nature's favours, the prccedura of those miserable organisms in quarteriDg themselves npon our vegetables, fruit trees, and flowering plants would be entirely without justification. Possessing, however, no such j monopoly, we must, though with reluctance, admit that the lowlier organism h&s a right to Btrnggle for subsistence after the manner of its race. It may even be argued that the mere fact of beirg born into the world is the first aad best title to a share in its life, and, in regard to all normal and progressive types of plant and animal, this title oan hardly be disputed. In regard to paradtic organisms, however, speaking generally, it seems to me that no such claim can be established. Parasites ought to be exterminated simply because thsy are parasites. In taking to courses of life so debased and so detrimental to nobler forms they have entirely done away with their own usefulness and became pernicious instead. From being relatively good parasites have become positively bad, and, like criminals, the world would be all the better could they be totally exterminated. This may not apply to all forms of plant and animal life injurious to man's interests, but it is surely true of a great many. Nature's methods of dealing with this kind of question are not quite of tbe same description as onrs, althongh we will probably succeed better in coping with vegetable and insect villains by imitating and ming natural means. At present tobacco juice, creasote water, &c, are the artificial destroyers, but ages before these were thought of, living, natural destroyers were at work in this department, and are at work still. Upon stepping outside one morning lately the very first thirg I saw was the little episode roughly delineated below. Hanging by its thread from a rose-leaf was a green caterpillar, which made frantic efforts to escape from the attack of a small ichneumon fly. To me, looking on, the sight was a beautiful and suggestive one, though to the caterpillar it donbtless seemed otherwise.

In a mrao.nt both caterpillar and fly had fallsn among the branches and were lost to right, and I remained lost in admiration of the clever way in which the ichneumon ensured its young ones the certainty of a good start in life. For the ichneumon, when my eye rested upon it, was in the very act of laying an egg or eggs in the living tissues of tbe onterpillar's body. As all the ichneumon tribe follow, with variations, this method of disposing of their eggs, and as no grub or caterpillar treated as above described will ever become a perfect inseot, it may well be admitted that the ichneumon is the farmer's and florist* ally, and generally the friend of man. Not tbat the ichneumon fly cares in the least for man or his welfare— indeed, it wi'l sting us very promptly and painfully if we meddle with it. But without knowing it, the creature does a vast deal of good in xeßtrlcting the numbers of insects, many of which are injurious to our interests. Numberless species of ichneumon flies are found in every part of the world. There are a great many New Zealand species, and their habits are identical with those of their numerous relations abroad. Great numbers of them choose caterpillars in which to deposit their eggs, and when summer is fairly in -the busy creatures may be Been flying hither and thither to find for their eggs their strange living resting places. In Britain two species of iobneumon devote themselves to tbe caterpillar of the beautiful large white cabbage butterfly, one of the worst pests of the market gardens of the Home country. Very many of the Icbneumonida), however, do not choose suoh defenceless victims as green oaterpillars for their strange purposes, bat display the most intrepid hardihood in flying &t higher prey. The common British Rasp is a stinger of no insignificant oalibre,

as I can testify, having sampled its quality. But from the manner in which the wasp is victimised by the ichneumon we are impelled to something like sympathy with the victim. When the waep has carefully made its nest; and laid in a store of butoher meat in the shapa of grubs, larvae, &0., it proceeds to lay its eggs, from whiob shortly the imperfect young are hatched. If the ichneumon has not been there the wanp's progeny feed upon the stores thus provided for them, and in due course arrive at maturity. When, however, as very often happens, the ichneumon has been there, something very different takes place. Tbe ichne umon enters tho nest some- , times even at the very moment when the wasp is laying her eggs, and, heedless of maternal wrath, proceeds, cuckoo- like, to lay her eggs among the stores whfch she never helped to gather. Her eggs and those of her victim usually hatch out about the same time, and when the ichneumon larvas have devoured all the wasp larvas they then settle down to fatten upon the stores proper. These being finished; .they enter the chrysalis stage, and later on emerge as perfeot flies. White records how spiders, too, are successfully attacked and made uee of by the ichneumon. He saw a fly of this kind attack a spider much larger than itself, and q-uickly overcome it by repeated stingings. When by this means the spider was either dead or par»iyF(.rs its body was by thepower-

ful little fly to a suitable position, and a few cg«s laid beside the breakfast thus thonghtiully provided. An observant friend fella me that he saw an exactly similar occurrence amorg the sandhills at Ocean Boach one day this week. He saw a small ichneumon attack a very large spider, overcome it, and drag it away. In this instance the spider was at least six times bigger than the fly. Such episodes are melancholy reversal of the accepted version of the spider and fly story. Another naturalist records how he put two chrysalids of a butterfly into a box, and covered it with gauz?, to discover what j epecies of butteifly they would produce ; but > instead of a butterfly, one of them produced a number of small ichneumon flies. There can be no question that theee insects are of immense importance to human welfare, for.as has been Eaid, there is scarcely a species of insect they do not attack, and whose ranks they do not decimate. Take, for instance, its salutary influence in repressing the increase of the tipulse fumily. A New Z<*aland naturalist, during a few weeks' collecting in the Mount Cook region lately, claimed to have secured 53 new species of tipulas. Of this tribe the common, large daddy-lopglegs fly is a familiar and typical example. Many of its members while in the larval stage are exoos&ively destructive to plant life. In its own way the ffmale daddylonglegs (I am not to blame for the bull) is as cunning in providing for the welfare of its progeny as is tbe ichneumon itself. It selacts by preference land that has been newly broken up from pasture, and there it lays its 300 or 400 gunpowder - grain - like eggs. From these small grubs are hatohed, which at once disappear beneath the surface to eat their way along, playing havoc with the roots of wheat and corn crops especially, in a way to make the heart of the farmer sad within him. In fields of cabbages and potatoes in Great Britain they are often so numerous that hand-pickiDg ifl resorted to. Pickers go along tbe drills, stirring out the grubs with a small fork in one hand and collecting them into a vessel with the other. They are paid for at bo much per quart. «• , Their trick of keeping beneath the surface of course protects the larva?, and it is only when they come up in the evening, or when they are turned up by plough or harrow, that tbe ichneumon can get at them. There is also a small species of tipula whose larva feeds upon and destroys the ripening wheat grains. In Britain this minute obstructionist is annihilated in huge numbers by a small ichneumon, which deposits its eggs in the body of the larva. Not all the ichneumonidte restrict their enterprise to land-living victims, for W. Marshall, a recent and reliable observer, saw one " remain 12 hours under water, without special adaptation for suoh a life, swimming abont with her wings, and depositing her eggs within the larvae of caddis flies I " In regard to its life in the adult state the ichneumon is perfectly harmless, probably even useful. Like the bees and many other valued insects, it feeds on the nectar of flowers, and no doubt many of tho thousands of species do good service in carrying pollen from flower to flower. Sometimes, alas 1 the ichneumon shares a similar fate to that which it so often inflicts upon others ; individuals of one species have been known to deposit their eggs in the bodies of flies of a species closely allied to their own, and it Ib said that even individuals of the same speoies will thus occasionally molest each other. It is a case of " oorby pykin oot corby's een."

— The mushroom's life is measured by hours, bub it flourishes long enough for an icsect to bang ita egg on the edge of the umbrella, and for the egg to become an insect ready to colonise the next mushroom that pushes up. "HEALTH IS THE GREATEST OF ALL POSSESSIONS, and 'tis a maxim with me that a Hale Cobbler is better than a Sick King." — Bickeustaff. A natural way of restoriug ov preserving health. Use EN >'S "FRUIT SALT" (prepared from sound, ripe fruit). It is a pleasant beverage, bjth cooling, refreshing, and invigorating. Caution— Examine each bottle and see the capsule is marked "ENO'S FRUIT SALT." Without it you have be^n impose! on by a worthless imitation. Prepared J>y J. C. UNO'S Patent, at KNO'S "FRUIT SALT" WORKS, LONDON, S.E. Sold by all Chcmieta ftuA Stores.