Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/457

 9 th S. X. DEC. 6, 1902.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

449

last century, and the lease having expired, the freeholder is now entitled to the rack- rent, which would explain the payment of the dividend to the creditors. JOHN HEBB.

" SPICE." This word is used in the West Riding for sweetmeats, Morecambe Rock, &c. The word is derived from Latin species = a drug, vide Smith's ' Latin Dictionary.' The idea of sweetmeat in the use of the word is apparently a late refinement, and should not be classed as dialect, but rather as slang. How old is this peculiar use of the word ?

What are little girls made of ? Sugar and spice and all that 's nice.

Here the West Riding meaning seems more appropriate. Perhaps the history of this nursery rime will bear on the history of the word. FRED. G. ACKERLEY.

British Vice-Consulate, Libau, Russia.

MICHAEL BRUCE AND BURNS. (9 fch S. vii. 466 ; viii. 70, 148, 312, 388, 527 ; ix. 95, 209, 309, 414, 469, 512 ; x. 69, 130.) IN my previous article 1 endeavoured to prove from internal evidence that ' A Tale ' was written by Logan. The second piece requiring consideration is ' Levina,' an episode in Bruce's poem of ' Lochleven ' extending 278 lines from " Low by the lake." In regard to the preparation of the entire piece, Bruce wrote thus to his friend Mr. Arnot :

" I have written a few lines of a descriptive poem> cui titultts est Lochleven. You may remember you

hinted such a thing to me I hope it will soon be

finished, as I every week add two lines, blot out six, and alter eight. You shall hear of the plan when I know it myself." Mackelvie, par. 43.

This was written in July, 1766. The poem was finished in the first week of December. A little later in the same month Bruce says, in a letter to Pearson :

" I have some evening scholars, the attending on whom, though few, so fatigues me, that the rest of the night I am quite dull and low-spirited. Yet I have some lucid intervals, in the time of which I can study pretty well." Grosart, p. 38.

Dr. Mackelvie (par. 46) states : "The effort of mind which the composition of ' Lochleven ' had called forth seems to have been too much for Bruce's shattered frame, for he was compelled almost immediately after it was finished to relinquish his school."

It was under these conditions of health that this long piece of nearly 650 lines (' Levina ' being included) was attempted. Even when allowance is made for exaggeration on Bruce's part in the statement about blotting out six

lines, altering eight, and adding two every week, it does not seem that time and strength were in his favour. The idea of a first draft from which the poem was afterwards expanded is still less tenable. This theory of " first drafts " seems to have been adopted so as to overcome insurmountable difficulties. In this case the "first draft" was the piece as Bruce finished it. As published, it appears in the form it assumed after Logan's transforming hand had touched it. Bruce's giant becomes a hunter. This is perhaps the main alteration. But the whole poem seems to have been revised by Logan. Its several parts were transposed by him, additions being made at the same time. The fact that Logan extended other parts of the piece as well as 'Levina' is clearly shown by Dr. Mackelvie, who remarks in a foot-note, "In the first draught of the poem the following [seven]

lines were added." These lines came

after line 80, and were omitted by Logan, who, however, replaced them by others and extended this paJf t of the poem, to twenty lines, of which Mackelvie says :

"The next twenty lines in the printed text are not in the original draught, and ought to have been claimed for Logan, since his friends have been disposed to claim all the alterations and improve- ments in the poem for him." P. 185.

From Logan's ' Sermons ' it may be proved that one other part at least owes something to his pen. Lines 58 and 59 run thus :

'Tis beauty all To poet's eye, and music to his ear.

In his lecture on Psalm I, Logan speaks of " that benevolent power who makes all nature beauty to his eye, and music to his ear." This is as near as it could be to Akenside in ' Pleasures' of Imagination,' where it is ren- dered

Thou makest all nature beauty to his eye

Or music to his,ear.

The evident conclusion to be drawn from these quotations is that Logan transferred Akenside's lines almost verbatim into his lecture, but altered them in 'Lochleven' to suit his purpose.

Before entering upon internal evidence in support of Logan as the author of 'Levina,' it may be well to give two extracts from a letter of Dr. Baird, Principal of the University of Edinburgh, to Dr. Anderson, at the time the latter was preparing his edition of ' British Poets ' :

" The authority on which Dr. Baird ascribes the story of Lomond and Levina to Logan is the testimony of a gentleman of veracity [Dr. Robert- son of Dalmeny] who was an intimate friend of both Logan and Bruce and had access to know the history of their productions. But the Dr. has still better