the uplands, where with
'Ane Shakespeare and a famous Ben, He often spoke and ca'd them best of men.'
The variations in the dialect of the 'Shepherd' cannot always be maintained on dramatic grounds. For though familiar with the rural speech of liis time, the author seems to have occasionally left it for the fine language of the capital. The plot of the piece has little originality. From Theocvitus and Virgil, the Aminta and the Pastor Fido had introduced into Elizabethan pastoral the contrasted couples, — the pair of frank lovers, the bashful swain and proud beauty, — whose colloquies make up the dia- logue. The ' Sad Shepherd ' and ' The Faithful Shepherdess" have higher poetic merit, but are marred by incongruities. The simplicity of Rainsays story made it for half a century a favourite in Lowland cottages, and the scenes could easily be represented on a rustic stage. The characters, lauded as types of the finest peasanti-y in the world, are too merely typical, and their vagueness marks the limits of the authoi-'s dramatic power. Peggy has by some inju- dicious eulogist been compared to Miranda. The real parallel has escaped the critics — that of Piince Florizel and Perdita. The bulk of 'The Gentle Shep- herd ' preaches — ' A man's a man for a that,' and a 'Simple maiden in her flower ; ' but in the denoue- ment the poet characteristically — as is done in the more recent ' John Halifax ' — puts liimself right with the caste of Vere de Vere. Ramsay's songs, among which we may include the snatches shoved into the ' Siiepherd ' to make it read like a Vaudeville, are partly his own, partly adaptations from older models. Many of those which most contributed to his popularity, written for literary assemblies or convivial gatherings, are interesting to us as rejDertoires of eighteenth cen- tury compliment, or specimens of invariably harm- less satire. Among those more decidedly lyric we may name ' The Lass o' Patie's Mill,' ' The Yellow-hair'd Laddie,' ' Farewell to Lochaber,' ' Bonnie Jean,' ' Bessie Bell and Mary Gray,' and 'The Higliland Laddie.' Ramsay's misfortune is tliat Avhere he lias improved on others he has been afterwards eclipsed. He adds to the old tune and the rough old words the grace and refinement of the wits, wjio, in the 'Easy' and 'Johnstone' clubs talked over their cups of Prior and Pope, of Addison and Gray. Burns, with the fervour that came direct from above and his own hot heart, sets the most wooden of his race on fire. We may clinch the difference by comparing Ramsay's ampli- fication of Francis Semple's ' Auld Lang Syne' : ' Methinks around us on each bough A thousand Cupids play, Whilst through the woods I walk witii you Each object makes me gay. Since your return the sun and moon With brighter beams do shine, Streams murmur soft notes while they run, As they did lang syne,' — by comparing and contrasting it with this : ' We twa hae run about the braes An' pu'd the gowans fine ; But we 've wandered mony a weary fitt. Sin' auld lang syne. ' We twa ha'e paidl'd i' the burn, P'rae mornin' sun till dine ; But seas between us braid hae roar'd Sin' auld lang syne.' MATTHEAV AliNOLD AS A CRITIC. WHEN a great writer dies, the immediate and universal sentence is that in his death litera- ture has suffered a serious loss. In most cases this is a mere obituary platitude, with no special signi- ficance beyond a tribute to the dead man's skill or eminence in his craft. But in the case of Matthew Arnold this commonplace which is now on the lips of every one has a very definite meaning, and is indeed perhaps the fittest comment on the event. The death of Matthew Arnold is the most serious loss which the cause of letters, in this country at least, has suffered during the present generation. It is not so much the loss of a great artist in letters — that happens every day or every decade — and even the last ten years have robbed us of more than one writer of genius far above Arnold's. It is rather the loss of a man wholly penetrated with the literary spirit, and devoted to the spreading of that spirit as of a religion, — of a man who, in his teacji- ing, in his practice, and in all the subtler influences of his character, was the great witness and cliampion of literature among the men of his time. It has been the fashion to call Matthew Arnold the apostle of culture, but the phrase is not quite an adequate one. There is a culture of the intellect, a culture of conduct, and also a culture of the aesthetic emo- tions. Of the last of these, and of its gospel of art for art's sake only, Matthew Arnold could in no
