reach, but may be attained by Hope and Courage, guided by Reason, Wit, Experience, and Skill. The only half-true thing which the critic, who calls this poem "below contempt," has said of it is, that the allegory is "wire-drawn." The adventure proceeds, indeed, tediously, and the denouement is unexpectedly feeble. The cherry drops into the lover's mouth before he has done any thing but talk about the mode of getting at it. The imperfections of the story are, however, compensated by many fine passages of sentiment and imagery. Some favorable specimens have been already incidentally quoted; but there are others of a still higher order. In the following address from Courage to the desponding lover, we have, in a few spirited lines, the whole philosophy of fame.

Quha speids, but sic as heich aspiris ?
Quha triumphs not, but sic as tryes
To win a noble name?

Of schrinking, quhat but schame succeids?
Then do as thou wald haif thy deids

In register of Fame :

I put the case; thou not prevail'd;
Sae thou with Honour die,

Thy Lyfe, but not thy Courage fail'd,

Sall poets pen of thee:

Thy name than, from fame than,

Sall never be cut aff;

Thy grave ay, sal haif ay

That honest epitaph.

Hope also throws in her incentives in a very lively

manner.

Allace, man! thy case, man,
In ling'ring I lament;

Go to now and do now,

That Courage be content.
Qubat gif Melancholy cum in,
And get ane grip or thou begin,
Than is thy labour lost;

For he will hald thee hard and fast,
Till time, and place, and fruit, be past,
And thou give up the ghost:
Than sall be grav'd upon the stane,
Quhilk on thy grave is laid,
Sum tyme thair lived sic a ane,
But how sall it be said?

Here lyes now, bot pryse now,

Into Dishonour's bed,

Ane cowart as thou art,

That from his fortune fled.

Dread, Danger, and Despair, are very happily likened, by Will, to

Experience, intruding her advice, is sharply encountered by Hope.

Ha ha! quod Hope, and loudlie leuch,
Ze are but a prentise at the pleugh,

Experience ye prieve ;*

Suppose all by ganes as ze spak,
Ze are nae prophet worth a plak,
Nor I bund to believe;

Ze suld not say, sir, till ye see,'
But quhen ye see it, say.

Experience retorts, on Hope, the innumerable instances in which she had only "flattered to betray;"

but

Quhen Hope was gall'd unto the quick,
Quod Courage, kicking at the prick,
We let ze weill to wit;
Mak he zou welcomer than we,
Then byganes, byganes, fareweil he,
Except he seik us yet.

The contest is, at length, determined by an agreement of all the powers, (Despair, who hangs himself, excepted,) to act in concert, under the generalship of Wit, in obtaining for the languishing swain the cherry" of his desire. Success crowns their efforts, and Disappointment is the lot of the reader alone, who finds one stanza sufficient for the acting of what eighty-seven stanzas have been occupied in designing. The poem of the Cherry and the Slae must altogether, however, be allowed to hold a highly respectable rank among the elder efforts of the Scottish muse. It combines skilful versification, vigorous sentiment, and many pleasing touches of poetic fancy.

The only other work, by Montgomery, besides these which have been mentioned and some minor pieces, was entitled "The Minde's Melodie," but copies of it are so scarce, that it is uncertain whether any complete one exists.* It consisted of paraphrases of the Psalms. Ramsay, in his Evergreen, has given two of them; but they are of no particular merit.

Montgomery appears, in his latter years, to have become the victim of misfortunes. The pension which he enjoyed from the king was on some account or other withheld, and it is not certain that it was ever restored. He became involved too in a law-suit, and was, for some time, the tenant of a jail. One of his small pieces is entitled "The Poet's Complaynte against the Unkindness of his Companions when he was in Prisson."

The close of his life is involved in the same obscurity as its commencement. In 1597, he revised an edition of his Cherry and Slae, published by Robert Waldegrave; and his death is conjectured to have taken place between that period and 1615.

W. M.

*There is one copy in the possession of Mr. Heber, and unless it is the same with that which was in Messrs. Longman and Co.'s excellent Collection of English Poetry, in 1815, there is another. The psalms translated are, 1, 4, 6, 15, 19, 23, 43, 57, 91, 101, 117, 125, and 128.

A. S.

EARL OF STIRLING.

WILLIAM Alexander, afterwards Earl of Stirling, was born about the year 1580. He was a younger son of Alexander Alexander, proprietor of the estate of Menstrie in Clackmannanshire. From his infancy, he is said to have been distinguished for the quickness of his parts; and, when but a very young man, was selected, on account of his accomplishments, to accompany the then Earl of Argyle on his travels on the continent, as tutor, or rather companion. On his return to Scotland, he lived, for some time, a retired life, and sighed away his time in composing love-sonnets to a mistress, who proved both unkind and obdurate. She was his first love. She had, it appears, excited the tender passion in his breast, when he was as yet but in his fifteenth year, and neither travel nor study had been able to efface the impression of her charms from his heart. He now pressed his suit with all the ardour of manhood, and enthusiasm of poetry; but though he actually penned upwards of a hundred songs and sonnets in her praise, the fair enslaver was not to be moved. It is due, however, to the credit of female sensibility to observe, that from one of the songs which we subjoin, as a pleasing specimen of these lyrical effusions, there appears to have been less of boldness in the lover's observances, than is usually supposed to justify the