“Philip Hewson, the poet,
  Hewson, the radical hot, hating lords and scorning ladies;”

and his heroine is no heroine, but a woman, “Elspie, the quiet, the brave.”

The metre he has chosen, the hexametral, harmonises with the spirit of primitive simplicity in which the poem is conceived; is itself a background, as much as are “Knoydart, Croydart, Moydart, Morrer, and Ardnamurchan;” and gives a new individuality to the passages of familiar narrative and every day conversation.  It has an intrinsic appropriateness; although, at first thought of the subject, this will, perhaps, be scarcely admitted of so old and so stately a rhythmical form.

As regards execution, however, there may be noted, in qualification of much pliancy and vigour, a certain air of experiment in occasional passages, and a license in versification, which more than warrants a warning “to expect every kind of irregularity in these modern hexameters.”  The following lines defy all efforts at reading in dactyls or spondees, and require an almost complete transposition of accent.

  “There was a point which I forgot, which our gallant Highland
    homes have;”—­
  “While the little drunken Piper came across to shake hands with
    Lindsay:”—­
  “Something of the world, of men and women:  you will not refuse me.”

In the first of these lines, the omission of the former “which,” would remove all objection; and there are others where a final syllable appears clearly deficient; as thus:—­

  “Only the road and larches and ruinous millstead between”
    [them]:—­
  “Always welcome the stranger:  I may say, delighted to see
    [such] Fine young men:”—­
  “Nay, never talk:  listen now.  What I say you can’t apprehend”
    [yet]:—­
  “Laid her hand on her lap.  Philip took it.  She did not resist”
    [him]:—­

Yet the following would be scarcely improved by greater exactness: 

  “Roaring after their prey, do seek their meat from God;”

Nor, perhaps, ought this to be made correct: 

  “Close as the bodies and intertwining limbs of athletic wrestlers.”

The aspect of fact pervading “the Bothie of Toper-na-fuosich,”—­(in English, “the hut of the bearded well,” a somewhat singular title, to say the least,) is so strong and complete as to render necessary the few words of dedication, where, in inscribing the poem, (or, as the author terms it, “trifle,”) to his “long-vacation pupils,” he expresses a hope, that they “will not be displeased if, in a fiction, purely fiction, they are here and there reminded of times enjoyed together.”

As the story opens, the Oxford party are about to proceed to dinner at “the place of the Clansmen’s meeting.”  Their characters, discriminated with the nicest taste, and perfectly worked out, are thus introduced: