it was instinct with the fire of passion. His learning was neither extensive nor profound; but his writings show something of the taste of a scholar, and he was tolerably familiar with the classics and with English history.-BOWEN, FRANCIS, 1844, James Otis, Library of American Biography, ed. Sparks, vol. XII, p. 197. Unfortunately, few of his rhetorical productions are now extant. A sad fatal

ity attended all his manuscripts. None of his speeches were fully recorded, and he himself being cut off from active life before the Revolution actually commenced, his name is connected with none of the public documents of the nation. His memorials as an orator are rather traditionary than actual; we are compelled to estimate his merits chiefly through the imperfect description, but boundless admiration, of his time. But the mutilated fragments that yet survive are colossal, and with these for our guide we can, in faint idea reconstruct the noble proportions of the original work, as Cuvier built up the Mastedon from a few relics, and Michael Angelo, with the Torso of the Vatican before him, projected anew the masterpiece of Grecian genius on a scale of artistic grandeur which threw into insignificance all the conceptions of contemporary minds.-MAGOON, E. L., 1848, Orators of the American Revolution, p. 80.

His pamphlet on "The Rights of the Colonies" is worthy of constant study; his speeches were eloquent with the lasting impulses of freedom. - LAWRENCE, EUGENE, 1880, A Primer of American Literature, p. 41.

He can hardly be termed a writer, and we know his speeches by the effects they produce rather than in themselves. His pamphlet on the "Rights of the British. Colonists" is probably his best literary production. HAWTHORNE, JULIAN AND LEMMON, LEONARD, 1891, Americon Literature, p. 35.

and his oratory was of the tempestuous kind-bold, vehement, irregular, overpowering. When he took pen in hand, he was an orator still; and the habit of extemporaneous, impetuous, and reckless expression which he had long indulged in at the bar, controlled him at his desk. In writing upon any subject of controversy, he seemed to storm across his own pages in mighty rage, even as he had been accustomed to pace stormily up and down before a jury; to throw to the winds all the classic virtues in expression,-temperance, order, lucidity; to catch at bold allusions, flaming images, grotesque comparisons; and to leave unrevised upon the paper, and in all its original extravagance and inaccuracy, whatsoever in the fury of composition he had once flung down upon it. He seemed even to despise the correction of his own work, perhaps to be incapable of it. . . But great as are the literary blemishes upon Otis's work, that work is still full of power. . . . His learning on many subjects was considerable, even if disorderly; and he had instant command over the resources of his own memory. He had, moreover, the ability to grasp quickly all the principles and facts of a given case, to pierce to the core of them, and to perceive the logic which controlled them; and even while pressing forward in his track along a zigzag path of his own choosing, and with many a wide and dangerous sweep of digression, he yet never lost sight of the logical goal which he had set out to reach. In his pamphlets, too, as in his speeches, he gave free rein to his enjoyment of humor, and to his uncommon faculty of sarcasm. A serious discomfiture of his opponent was never quite enough to appease his ambition in debate: he must also cover his antagonist with ridicule, and drive him from the field amid shouts of derision.-TYLER, MOSES COIT, 1897, The Literary History of the American Revolution, 1763-1783, vol. 1,

PERSONAL

com

His money income, from all sources, did not much exceed twenty pounds ayear, besides a free house; yet, considering the fewness of his wants, and several perquisites in kind, with six acres of grazing and arable land, and an unlimited supply of peat fuel, his circumstances present nothing to excite our miseration. Indeed, few poets have enjoyed a more equable share of happiness, and endures less of the cankering cares incident to the battle of life. Nothing that he has written bears the slightest trace of discontent.-Ross, J., 1884, ed., The Book of Scottish Poems, p. 433.

GENERAL

The poem which gives its name to this volume, "Helenore, or the Fortunate Shepherdess, seems to have been written before 1740, in direct rivalry with Allan Ramsay. It is in some respects unique particularly as being the most ambitious narrative work in Scots written, perhaps, down to the present time; it is composed in the heroic measure, and extends to more than four thousand verses. An elaborate story of homely Scottish life is told with some skill, an almost Chaucerian simplicity, and much occasional picturesqueness, disguised by the rough dialect.

Alexander Ross eked "Helenore"

any rate, if he is destitute of some of the virtues which are always expected and generally found in pastoral poetry, he possesses others which are extremely rare. His narrative is vigorous, the interest well sustained, and the characters of the shepherd people not ill-drawn. In these respects Ross followed, and followed well, his master Ramsay. He added however little to what Ramsay had done. His powers were in the main similar, and they were less considerable.-WALKER, HUGH, 1893, Three Centuries of Scottish Literature, vol. II, p. 32.

To the present day "Helenore" remains popular in the north, but in spite of its frequent touches of nature and the stamp of truth about its characters, its many incongruities destroy its effect as a work of art. The poem is written in the Buchan dialect, and possesses some interest on that account; but the reader is startled to find a Helenore and a Rosalind (in this case the hero's name) among the peasantry of Scotland, and still more so to come upon these high-sounding titles contracted with easy familiarity into "Nory" and "Lindy." The pastoral, however, has not been without an influence upon the work of later poets, and Burns has acknowledged that Scota, the muse to whom Ross addresses his invocation, afforded the suggestion for his own Coila.

The meanness which is visible in the dénouement of the story is indicative of the limitation of Ross's poetical faculty. There is little in him of "the consecration and the poet's dream." His is a matterof-fact mind: he tells the reader plainly of the nausea which afflicts both his principal female characters from eating berries in their wanderings among the hills. But this, which is his weakness, is at the same time his strength. He is always true. Even in his unfortunate conclusion he is only depicting, perhaps a little too faithfully, the ambitions of the class from which his characters are drawn-ambitions which after all do not differ in kind from those cherished in higher ranks of life. It has even been suggested that the story of "Helenore" was probably based on fact, and that the infidelity may not have been of Ross's invention. At

Poetry of the Eighteenth Century, vol. 1.

Burns wrote, "Our true brother Ross of Lochlee was a wild warlock," one of the "suns of the morning;" and he said that he would not for anything that "The Fortunate Shepherdess" should be lost. Dr. Blacklock and John Pinkerton were loud in their praise, and the poem was for many years, and indeed is still, very popular in the north of Scotland. The Buchan dialect in which it is written will repel readers of the south; and the text of most editions, including that edited in 1812 by Ross's grandson-the Rev. Alexander Thomson of Lenthrathan-is very corrupt. The poem abounds in weak lines, and the plot is not very happy. But though the whole is very inferior to its model-Allan Ramsay's "Gentle Shepherd"-it contains pleasant descriptions of country life and scenery.-AITKEN, GEORGE A., 1897, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. XLIX, p. 255.