Father of journalists! illustrious liar! Untiring wielder of the nimblest quill That ever shed the stanchless inky rill Upon the virgin whiteness of the quire. What full and varied stores of gold and mire, Magnificence and squalor, good and ill, Prayers, curses, loyalty and treason fill Thy books! But that which children most admire Of all thy hundred volumes, is the one Fated for ever more to charm mankind From the far Orient to the Setting Sun. Prompt-witted Daniel! thou has left behind Upon the Sands of Time, distinctly traced, One footmark that can never be effaced. [34] Let me here pay a tribute to the marked excellence and literary skill of the newspapers of provincial Scotland. These are very numerous--even Ailsa Craig has a sheet of its own, _The Ailsa Craig Banner_. III. A VILLAGE TOPER. John loved strong waters and ne'er stirred his feet Abroad in leafy spring or summer's heat, Autumnal breeze or winter's rimy chill, Unsolaced by the nectar of the still. Spirits came always kindly to his lips, And time he measured not by hours but "nips." Teetotalers to him were curse and gall, Grim Banquos at the world's wide festival, Men, whom a weird and fate-ordainéd bale, Had smitten with the hate of cakes and ale, A soda-water, syphon-squirting crew, Guilty of treason to the revenue: Their lurid language and their unctuous warnings, Their moral-pointings and their tale-adornings, And, worst of all, their shameful _waste of ink_ In signing pledges to abstain from drink, Proved them a witless and a churlish band, Unfit to dwell in any Christian land. IV. A REVEREND HELLENIST. In that old ivied manse exists A scholar, wrinkled, bent, and gray, His student lamp gleams through the mists And twinkles on till break of day. This sage is wedded to his books, And Sultan-like his harem's full, He dotes upon them in their nooks With love and joy that never cool. No wonder that his back is bent, Or that his eye has mystic glows, He pores on pages redolent Of love and love's undying rose. No earthly maiden, fresh and sweet, Could please his fancy half so well As a Greek nymph with twinkling feet Skipping in some Arcadian dell. V. ANTIGONE (READ IN A HIGHLAND MANSE).