coincides accurately with historical fact. This, indeed, constitutes its
sole merit. The Covenanters were not, I dare say, addicted, more
than their successors "to the profane and unprofitable art of
poem-making."[A] Still, however, they could not refrain from some
strains of exultation, over the defeat of the _truculent tyrant_, James
Grahame. For, gentle reader, Montrose, who, with resources which seemed
as none, gained six victories, and reconquered a kingdom; who, a poet, a
scholar, a cavalier, and a general, could have graced alike a court,
and governed a camp; this Montrose was numbered, by his covenanted
countrymen, among "the troublers of Israel, the fire-brands of hell, the
Corahs, the Balaams, the Doegs, the Rabshakahs, the Hamans, the Tobiahs,
and Sanballats of the time."

[Footnote A: So little was the spirit of illiberal fanaticism decayed
in some parts of Scotland, that only thirty years ago, when Wilson,
the ingenious author of a poem, called "_Clyde_," now republished, was
inducted into the office of schoolmaster at Greenock, he was obliged
formally, and in writing, to abjure _"the profane and unprofitable art
of poem-making."_ It is proper to add, that such an incident is _now_ as
unlikely to happen in Greenock as in London.]



THE BATTLE OF PHILIPHAUGH.


On Philiphaugh a fray began,
At Hairhead wood it ended;
The Scots out o'er the Graemes they ran,
Sae merrily they bended.