Page:Penelope's Progress.djvu/144

130 was better, or perhaps I might say less bad, than ours, we encouraged her to develop and finish it. I wanted to do an imitation of Lindsay's Adieu, Edinburgh! thou heich triumphant town, Within whose bounds richt blithefull have I been!' but it proved too difficult. Miss Hamilton's general idea was that we should write some verses in good plain English. Then we were to take out all the final gs, and indeed the final letters from all the words wherever it was possible, so that full, awful, call, ball, hall, and away should be fu', awfu', ca', ba', ha', an' awa. This alone gives great charm and character to a poem; but we were also to change all words ending in ow into aw. This doesn't injure the verse, you see, as blaw and snaw rhyme just as well as blow and snow, beside bringing tears to the common eye with their poetic associations. Similarly, if we had daughter and slaughter, we were to write them dochter and slauchter, substituting in all cases doon, froon, goon, and toon, for down, frown, gown, and town. Then we made a list of Scottish idols,—pet words, national institutions, stock phrases, beloved objects,—convinced if we could weave them in we should attain 'atmosphere.' Here is the first list; it lengthened speedily: thistle, tartan, haar, haggis, kirk, claymore, parritch, broom, whin, sporran, whaup, plaid, scone, collops, whiskey, mutch,