He knew nothing of the mystery of life. If the fierce hand of Passion had been laid upon his harp, it would have broken at once its fragile strings. He looked upon nature with a pensive yet a loving eye. Gladness flowed upon him from the bright face of spring, despondency from the snow-flake and the sweeping winter winds. His amatory songs have no fire in them. While Burns would have held Annie in his "straining grasp," Tannahill, with a glow upon his cheek, would have pointed out to the unappreciating fair the "plantin' tree-taps tinged wi' gowd," or silently watched the "midges dance aboon the burn." Then, by the aid of that love of nature, how clearly he sees, and how exquisitely he paints what he sees-- "Feathery breckans fringe the rocks; 'Neath the brae the burnie jouks." "Towering o'er the Newton wuds, Laverocks fan the snaw-white cluds." Neither Keats nor Tennyson, nor any of their numerous followers surpassed this unlettered weaver in felicity of colour and touch. Any one wishing to prove the truth of Tannahill's verse, could not do better than bring out his song-book here, and read and ramble, and ramble and read again. [Sidenote: Elderslie.] But why go farther to-day? The Peesweep Inn, where the rambler baits, is yet afar on the heath; Kilbarchan, queerest of villages, is basking its straggling length on the hill-side in the sun, peopled by botanical and bird-nesting weavers, its cross adorned by the statue of Habbie Simpson, "with his pipes across the wrong shoulder." Westward is Elderslie, where Wallace was born, and there, too, till within the last few years, stood the oak amongst whose branches, as tradition tells, the hero, when hard pressed by the Southrons, found shelter with all his men. From afar came many a pilgrim to behold the sylvan giant. Before its fall it was sorely mutilated by time and tourists. Of its timber were many snuff-boxes made. Surviving the tempests of centuries, it continued to flourish green atop, although its heart was hollow as a ruined tower. At last a gale, which heaped our coasts with shipwreck, struck it down with many of its meaner brethren. "To this complexion must we come at last." At our feet lies Paisley with its poets. Seven miles off, Glasgow peers, with church-spire and factory stalk, through a smoky cloud; the country between gray with distance, and specked here and there with the vapours of the trains. How silent the vast expanse! not a sound reaches the ear on the height. Gleniffer Braes are clear in summer light, beautiful as when the poet walked across them. Enough, their beauty and his memory. One is in no mood to look even at the unsightly place beside the canal which was sought when to the poor disordered brain the world was black, and fellow-men ravening wolves. Here he walked happy in his genius; not a man to wonder at and bow the knee to, but one fairly to appreciate and acknowledge. For the