I note again, that among our new dialecticians, the local habitat of every dialect is given to the square mile. I could not emulate this nicety if I desired; for I simply wrote my Scots as well as I was able, not caring if it hailed from Lauderdale or Angus, from the Mearns or Galloway; if I had ever heard a good word, I used it without shame; and when Scots was lacking, or the rhyme jibbed, I was glad (like my betters) to fall back on English. For all that, I own to a friendly feeling for the tongue of Fergusson and of Sir Walter, both Edinburgh men; and I confess that Burns has always sounded in my ear like something partly foreign. And indeed I am from the Lothians myself; it is there I heard the language spoken about my childhood; and it is in the drawling Lothian voice that I repeat it to myself. Let the precisians call my speech that of the Lothians. And if it be not pure, alas! what matters it? The day draws near when this illustrious and malleable tongue shall be quite forgotten; and Burns's Ayrshire, and Dr. MacDonald's Aberdeen-awa', and Scott's brave, metropolitan utterance will be all equally the ghosts of speech. Till then I would love to have my hour as a native Maker, and be read by my own countryfolk in our own dying language; an ambition surely rather of the heart than of the head, so restricted as it is in prospect of endurance, so parochial in bounds of space. TABLE OF COMMON SCOTTISH VOWEL SOUNDS ae } ai } = open A _as in_ rare. a' } au } = AW _as in_ law. aw } ea = open E _as in_ mere, but this with exceptions, as heather = heather, wean = wain, lear = lair. ee } ei } = open E _as in_ mere. ie } oa = open O _as in_ more. ou = doubled O _as in_ poor. ow = OW _as in_ bower. u = doubled O _as in_ poor. ui _or_ ue before R = (say roughly) open A _as in_ rare. ui _or_ ue before any other consonant = (say roughly) close I _as in_ grin. y = open I _as in_ kite. i = pretty nearly what you please, much as in English, Heaven guide the reader through that labyrinth! But in Scots it dodges usually from the short I, _as in_ grin, to the open E _as in_ mere. Find and blind, I may remark, are pronounced to rhyme with the preterite of grin. I THE MAKER TO POSTERITY Far 'yont amang the years to be, When a' we think, an' a' we see, An' a' we luve, 's been dung ajee By time's rouch shouther, An' what was richt and wrang for me Lies mangled throu'ther, It's possible--it's hardly mair-- That some ane, ripin' after lear-- Some auld professor or young heir, If still there's either-- May find an' read me, an' be sair Perplexed, puir brither! "_What tongue does your auld bookie speak?_" He'll speir; an' I, his mou' to steik: "_No' bein' fit to write in Greek, I wrote in Lallan, Dear to my heart as the peat-reek, Auld as Tantallon._