GREEN GROW THE RASHES, O! "Green grow the rashes, O! The sweetest hours that e'er I spend, THIS fine song, the crowning glory of all lyrical eulogium on woman, first appeared in the Edinburgh edition of the Poet's works, published in 1787. This circumstance has induced one of our young antiquaries to surmise, that a strain of such transcendant beauty was inspired by the looks of many, rather than by the graces of one and that its origin is to be sought in the united charms of our high-born dames, displayed for the first time to the admiring eyes of the bard in the balls and parties of Edinburgh. This ingenious supposition is, however, shadowy: "Green grow the Rashes " was written at Mossgiel, in the month of August in the year 1784; and was probably omitted in the Kilmarnock edition, from a fear that the daring compliment to woman in the last verse might give offence. That some reckoned it profane, I remember: among other death-bed sayings imputed to the Poet, was one expressing contrition for having said, that "Nature swore the lasses were her most perfect works, for she tried her 'prentice-hand on man before she made them." And this was just as true as the assertion, which I am concerned to say was made from a pulpit, that God showed his wrath with that profane poet Burns, by sending "thunder, lightning and rain" to attend him to the grave! The rich incense of this strain was not, therefore, offered at the shrine of high-born beauty by a poet pruned and starched and perfumed to fit him for the service, but by a hamely, hearty, country hind, fresh from the plough, inspired only by the charms of the bonnie lasses around him. In the common-place book where "Green grow the Rashes" was written, the Poet ushered in the song by a curious dissertation on young men, whom he divided into two grand classes, the Grave and the Gay. "The Grave I shall cast," said he, "into the usual division of those who are goaded on by the love of money, and whose darling wish is to make a figure in the world. The Gay, are the jovial lads who have too much fire and spirit to have any settled rule of action, but without much deliberation follow the strong impulses of nature - the thoughtless, the careless, the indolent—in particular he, who with a happy sweetness of natural temper, and a cheerful vacancy of thought, steals through life-generally, indeed, in poverty and obscurity: but poverty and obscurity are only evils to him who can sit gravely down and make a repining comparison between his own situation and that of others: and lastly, to grace the quorum, such are generally those whose heads are capable of all the towerings of genius, and whose hearts are warmed with all the delicacies of feeling. The following fragment, as it is the genuine language of my heart, will enable anybody to determine which of the classes I belong to." This is all the Poet has recorded of this song-one of the earliest, as well as one of the best, of his lyric compositions. An old free strain supplied the first line of the chorus; the bard's experience added the rest. With the first three verses some rhymers would have been satisfied, since woman is preferred to riches and rank; but Burns, who was well read in Scripture, cited the authority of Solomon to satisfy or silence the scruples of the grave and devout; and then concluded with the verse which will be said or sung as long as woman has charms, and man has taste. "And nature swears, the lovely dears An' then she made the lasses, O." The perfect originality of this fine stanza has been called in question, and both prose and verse have been quoted, written before Burns was born, to show that he was a plagiarist. But the volumes in which these passages are found are too rare and curious to have come within the reach of a ploughman lad; and the resemblance, though remarkable, cannot have been otherwise than accidental. Arbuthnot, a grave Reformer, and principal of Aberdeen College, approaches the sentiment in one of his poems "When God made all of nought, He did this weel declare: "Cupid's Whirligig," published in 1607, contains the sentiment almost in the words of Burns. "O woman, were we not born of you! should we not then humor you! Nursed by you, and not regard you! Made for you, and not seek you! And since we were made before you, should we not admire you as the last, and therefore perfect work of nature? Man was made when nature was but an apprentice; but woman, when she was a skilful mistress of her art." It is not at all likely that Burns ever heard of "Cupid's Whirligig;" his lines are more pregnant with meaning, more emphatic and forcible, and it is likely were suggested by the Bible a fountain overflowing with high thought and poetic impulses. HUSBAND, HUSBAND, CEASE YOUR STRIFE. "If 'tis still the lordly word, I'll desert my sovereign lord, In a little house, in a little lane called Mill-hole-brae, then fragrant with the effluvia of tan-pits, but since widened, and purified, and called Burns Street, the Poet, in December, 1793, composed this little humorous lyric. But whether he made it while balancing himself, according to custom, on the hind legs of his chair, or on that little spot of greensward near the Martington-ford, where he loved to muse, is less certain than that it is a Dumfries lyric, and written for the great work of George Thomson, then in progress of publication. The air to which it was composed is "My Jo Janet," and moreover the song itself is an imitation of the dramatic style of that old and humorous composition. For some of the sentiments he seems indebted to one or more sallies of the eldern muse: he regretted that he had not sooner turned his thoughts to songs of a conversational kind. This song extends to four verses, and husband and wife divide each verse between them in calm sarcastic altercation. "Cease your strife," Nancy exclaimed; "though I am your wife, I am not your slave." "One of us must obey," replied the husband; "should it be man or |