Nugae Canorae ; Lays by the Poet-Laureate of the New
Town Dispensary. Second Edition. (Edmonston and Douglas.)—There is something melancholy about these records of by-gone jollities and laughters. The "Poet-Laureate of the New Town Dispensary " (the New Town Dispensary is one of the medical institutions of Edinburgh) has been accustomed for many years to celebrate the annual gathering of the medical officers with a lay. There is much praise of champagne, —with which the married men are bound, it seems, to solace their
bachelor brethren—and of other liquids; and many jokes, some of them, as a layman is disposed to think, somewhat grim, yet often genuinely funny. A collection of these effusions was printed in years gone by, and now the "Laureate," whose name, modestly concealed on the title-page, is Maclagan, adds to these the occasional efforts of what is, alas ! nearly a quarter of a century. The principal poem of the volume is one of the old collection, "The Battle of Glen Tilt." Those of our readers whose memories can go back some Sve-and-twenty years will remember how a former Duke of Athole sought to shut up Glen Tilt against tourists. The thing, happening in the " stupid season," made a noise, and the Times devoted to it ono or more leaders, and there was a brisk contro- versy. Here in England we were chiefly interested in the adventures of two Cambridge undergraduates who braved the chieftain and his myrmidons, and became for a time national heroes. The adventurers whom our laureate celebrates were a party of botanists headed by Dr. Balfour, whom the Duke, rather weakly, it seems to us, tried to shut into the glen. Bnt the Caudine Forks of Atholo had not been suffi- ciently fortified, and the invaders burst through. Their story is told in very good ballad verse of the Doric kind. How good, for instance, this is, where the Highlanders are utterly perplexed to think what the botanists came for !—
Thae chaps had come a hunder' mile
For what was hardly worth their while :
'Twits a' to poo
Some gorse that grew On Ben McDhu That naer a coo Would care to put her mouth till."
This poem has the advantage of being illustrated with some spirited drawings. Among the more recent poems we like best "Volunteers," from which we take one stanza :—
" Twin brother to the surgeon brave. There followed a physician grave, As quid at killing as the lave, You're safe eneuch to say. wr Enfield balls instead of pills He noo wad cure bin country's ills, An' ponther free the Resift]. mills
Instead of • Gregory:"
And one of a more serious kind than the rest, "To the Memory of Richard James Mackenzie." We must not forget to mention that the profits of the sale are to be devoted to the building fund of the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh.
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