For Puir Auld Scotland's Sake (William Paterson, Edinburgh), pur- ports,
like a volume of Scotch verse, entitled "Horace in Homespun," which appeared some time ago, to be from the pen of "Hugh Hall- burton," a shepherd of the ()chile. Bat the most careless reader of the essays in this volume will be convinced, after be has read the second of the papers composing it, that the so-called "Hugh Hall- bnrton " has received a Scotch University education. The worst of the pseudo-shepherd's book is its title. It has an archaic, affected look. There was a time when Scotchmen might very well have lamented over their country as " puir ;" but that time is certainly not the present. This volume really consists of a series of essays on certain aspects of Scotch literature, and rural life, with one or two poems, which, although not devoid of racial humour and shrewdness, are mainly exercises in, or exhibitions of, dialect,—and why should it not have been so titled ? "Hugh Haliburton " shows himself in his "Herds," "The Farmer's Ingle," and "The Old Harvest-Field," a
close and kindly observer of the nature and manners of his countrymen. There is not much of originality or depth of critical insight in his essentially literary papers ; but his two articles on Robert Ferguson, Burns's unfortunate predecessor and model, are well worth reading. "A Holiday in Arcadia," though spoiled by Blackiesque gush, and suggestive of a too close study of Wilson's most inflated enthusiasms, recalls Thomas Aird's "Old Bachelor" to some extent. We certainly do not agree with some of "Hugh Haliburton's " views as expressed in his prose, "A Plea for Scottish Literature at the Universities," or in his somewhat prosaic verses called "A Lament for the Language." The best phrases and words in the Scotch dialect will, in time, be incorporated in the language of the United Kingdom ; and, in any case, they will not be saved from such incorporation by frantic projects for founding Chairs of Scotch in the Northern Universities, or by whining over the fact that young Scotchmen of the day speak very much like young Englishmen. Some of this author's writing reads too mach like an appeal not to the stalls or even to the pit of Scotch culture and energy, but to the Home.rnle gallery of an emasculated patriotism,—and yet one wonders if be is really at home there. For the good things—of thought and style—in his book are far from few.
Previous page
