“Here Douglas forms wild Shakespeare into plant,” warbled Burns. Think of it! And I have seen a Scotch reviewer complain that a certain author was cursed with a “Shakespearean smartness.” This antipathy for the Bard of Avon has often created much wonderment in the mind of the Englishman, and the cause of it, one may guess, is that Shakespeare wrote Macbeth. There is scarcely a line in that tremendous drama which does not mean bitter reading for Scotchmen. About the first person named is one Macdonwald:
The merciless Macdonwald
Worthy to be a rebel for to that,
The multiplying villainies of Nature
Do swarm upon him.
In a neighbouring passage we are given a beautiful insight into Scottish views of warfare. Ross is made to say:
Sweno the Norway’s King craves composition,
Nor would we deign him burial of his men
Till he disbursed at Saint Colmes’ inch