The apple blossoms' shower of pearl, The pear tree's rosier hue, As beautiful as woman's blush, As evanescent too. - Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Scotch are too cautious to be witty — they take thought beforehand of their answers ; they are not people of impulse, and wit is an impulse. "It springs spontaneous if it spring." But then they have humour, rich, racy, sly humour, full of national character, and nearly allied to pathos.

No other language than some soft sweet sounds
She had caught from the voices of the birds
When singing to the morning, and the notes
Sent from the waterfall, when, like a harp,
It held discourse in music with the wind.

In this our social state, where petty cares
And mercenary interests only look
Upon the present's littleness, and shrink
From the bold future, and the stately past,—