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JOHN HAY'S BONIE LASSIE.

JOHN Hay's Bonie Lassie was daughter of John Hay, Earl, or Marquis of Tweeddale, and late Countess Dowager of Roxburgh.-She died at Broomlands, near Kelso, some time between the years 1720 and 1740.

THE BONIE BRUCKET LASSIE.

THE idea of this song is to me very original: the two first lines are all of it that is old. The rest of the song, as well as those songs in the Museum marked T, are the works of an obscure, tippling, but extraordinary body of the name of Tytler, commonly known by the name of Balloon Tytler, from his having projected a balloon: A mortal, who, though he drudges about Edinburgh as a common printer, with leaky shoes, a sky-lighted hat, and knee-buckles as unlike as George-by-the-Grace-ofGod, and Solomon-the-Son-of-David; yet that same unknown drunken mortal is author and compiler of three-fourths of Elliot's pompous Encyclo

pedia Britannica, which he composed at half a guinea a week!*

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My shape," she says, "was handsome,
My face was fair and clean;
But now I'm bonie brucket,

And blue beneath the e'en :
My eyes were bright and sparkling,
Before that they turn'd blue;
But now they're dull with weeping,
And a', my love, for you.

"My person it was comely,

My shape, they said, was neat;

But now I am quite chang❜d,

My stays they winna meet:

* An account of this eccentric character is printed in the

Appendix to this volume, marked (b).

A' night I sleeped soundly,
My mind was never sad;
But now my rest is broken,
Wi' thinking o' my lad.

"O could I live in darkness,
Or hide me in the sea,
Since my love is unfaithful,
And has forsaken me!
No other love I suffer'd
Within my breast to dwell;
In nought I have offended,
But loving him too well."

Her lover heard her mourning,
As by he chanc'd to pass,
And press'd unto his bosom

The lovely brucket lass:

"My dear," he said, " cease grieving,

Since that your love's sae true,

My bonie brucket lassie

I'll faithful prove to you."

SAE MERRY AS WE TWA HA'E BEEN.

THIS song is beautiful.-The chorus in particular is truly pathetic.—I never could learn any thing of its author.

A lass that was laden with care
Sat heavily under yon thorn;

I listen'd awhile for to hear,

When thus she began for to mourn :
Whene'er my dear shepherd was there,
The birds did melodiously sing,
And cold nipping winter did wear
A face that resembled the spring.
Sae merry as we twa hae been,
Sae merry as we twa hae been,
My heart it is like for to break,
When I think on the days we hae seen.

Our flocks feeding close by his side,

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He gently pressing my hand,

I view'd the wide world in its pride,

And laugh'd at the pomp of command !

My dear, he would oft to me say,
What makes you hard-hearted to me?
Oh! why do you thus turn away
From him who is dying for thee?
Sae merry, &c.

But now he is far from my sight,
Perhaps a deceiver may prove,
Which makes me lament day and night,
That ever I granted my love.

At

eve, when the rest of the folk
Were merrily seated to spin,

I set myself under an oak,
And heavily sighed for him,

Sae merry, &c.

THE BANKS OF FORTH.

THIS air is Oswald's.

BOTHWEL BANKS.

THIS modern thing of Pinkerton's could never pass for old but among the sheer ignorant. What Poet of the olden time, or indeed of any time, ever said or wrote any thing like the line—“Without ae

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