THE NEW TESTAMENT IN BROAD SCOTCH.
The New Testament in Braid Scots. Rendered by the Rev. William Wye Smith. (Alexander Gardner, Paisley. 6s.)—Mr. Smith, who is a Canadian clergyman, has shown mach industry in the preparation of this volume, but he cannot be congratu- lated on the value of his achievement. Scotland which is perhaps too much identified with the tyranny of Calvinism and the Kirk has read its Bible—" the Buik " of the " kailyaird " novelist—not in any dialect, but in English, and has done so without complaining. And in these days when School Board education has in the North proved the death of Scottish vernacular speech and:writing, if not of intonation, it would be perfectly idle to anticipate a reaction in the Scottish mind in favour of a braid Scots," which after all is not the "Northern Inglis" as it was written by Dunbar and Henryson, and adopted —and adapted—by Ramsay, Fergusson, and Burns, but a col- lection of all the eccentricities of local dialects. A Scctchman will no more than an Englishman appreciate this :—" Forgie us a' oor ill deeds, as we e'en forgie thae wha did us ill; and lat us no be siftit ; but save us free the Ill Ane." This looks incom- parably more like a travesty than what Mr. Smith terms a "rendering" of the Lord's Prayer. His book may be read as an oddity, but scarcely for any other or better reason.
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