Page:Scotish Descriptive Poems - Leyden (1803).djvu/210

 on Scotish authors in a foreign country, is by no means unerring; and Alexander our author admits, that in his youth he had practised a lighter kind of poetry than he afterwards cultivated. We are certain, however, that Alexander Hume published at Edinburgh, in 1599, his " or, wherein the right use of poesie may be espied: Whereunto are added, the experience of the author's youth, and certain precepts serving to the practice of sanctification." The volume is dedicated "to the faithfull and vertuous Ladie Elizabeth Malvill, Ladie Cumrie," whom he celebrates for her poetry as well as for her piety. "I have seen," says he, "your compositions, so copious, so pregnant, so spiritual, that I doubt not but it is the gift of God in you." Lady Culross' Dream, one of these compositions, was long popular among the Scotish presbyterians; and Armstrong relates in his Essays that he recollected having heard it sung by the peasants to a plaintive air. The dedication is followed by an address to the Scotish youth, in which he exhorts them to avoid "profane sonnets and vain ballads of love, the fabulous feats of Palmerine, Amadis, and such-like reveries"; cautions them against the imitation of the profane ethnic poets either in phrase or substance, and advises them to follow the example of Du Bartas, and his own. "Some time," says he, "I delighted in such fantasies myself, after the manner of riotous young men; and were not the Lord, in his mercy, pulled me aback, and wrought a great repentance in me, I had doubtless run forward and employed my time and study in that profane and un-