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!* My shape," she says, "was handsome, And blue beneath the e'en : "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, "O could I live in darkness, Her lover heard her mourning, 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 I listen'd awhile for to hear, When thus she began for to mourn : Our flocks feeding close by his side, 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, But now he is far from my sight, At eve, when the rest of the folk I set myself under an oak, 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 |