ould be worth while going to Aberdeen if for nothing but to
see the superb stretch of sandy beach between the mouths of the Don and
the Dee: one could sit and dream away a whole forenoon there and be
entirely oblivious to the proximity of a large town.

The finest tribute paid to Aberdeen was written nearly four hundred
years ago by the great Scotch poet, William Dunbar. Three years before
Flodden, Queen Margaret passed through the town, and Dunbar, who
accompanied her, was so delighted with the hospitality, loyalty, and
lavish expenditure of the magistrates, that he wrote a eulogistic poem
to commemorate the occasion. Dunbar carried away the impression that
Aberdeen was a _blythe_ place:

"_Blythe_ Aberdeen thou beryl of all tounis,
Thou lamp of beauty, bounty and _blitheness_."

I do not find that the town has produced many poets, but it has been the
cause of poetry in others.[25] A few years ago Mr. William Watson, out
of gratitude for the LL.D. bestowed on him by the University, wrote a
pleasant sonnet in which Aberdeen is represented as

"Beaming benignant o'er the northern main."

As I sat on the seashore, repeating to myself the lines of Mr. Watson's
poem, and breathing the fresh air, which an official of the bath-house
told me was _made in Germany_ (meaning thereby that the wind was blowing
from the east), the thought struck me that it would be a pardonable
pastime to employ the spare time I had before the boat started for
Lerwick, in writing a _Sonnet to Mr. William Watson_. In such
exercitations it is necessary to employ the second person singular:

Watson! I would thy pen were fluenter,
And yet, perchance, thou usest stores of ink,
Ampler than any of thy readers think,
In blotting that wherein the first quick stir
Of thought and genius made the language err.
If Heaven had lent thy polished Muse a blink
Of saving humour for her crambo-clink,
Then never-dying fame had fallen to her.
Yet Heaven be thanked for what it has bestowed
On thee of what is tunefullest and best:
The trim epistle, the heart-stirring ode,
The witching freshness of a _Prince's Quest_,
The soft romance that dreams of years gone by,
Bright noons and dewy glades of Arcady.

[25] A recent publication shows that Greek verse is well written
at the University. Paisley folk should know that an Aberdonian
Hellenist has put some of Tannahill's verses into Greek