Daintie Davie. THIS song, tradition says, and the composition itself confirms it, was composed on the Rev. David Williamson's begetting the daughter of Lady Cherrytrees with child, while a party of dragoons were searching her house to apprehend him for being an adherent to the solemn league and covenant.-The pious woman had put a lady's night-cap on him, and had laid him a-bed with her own daughter, and passed him to the soldiery as a lady, her daughter's bedfellow. A mutilated stanza or two are to be found in Herd's collection, but the original song consists of five or six stanzas, and were their delicacy equal to their wit and humour, they would merit a place in any collection. The first stanza is,— Being pursued by the dragoons, And weel I wat he was worth his room, For he was my daintie Davie. Ramsay's song, Luckie Nansie, though he calls it an old song with additions, seems to be all his own, except the chorus: I was a telling you, Which I should conjecture to be part of a song, prior to the affair of Williamson. Bob o' Dumblane. RAMSAY, as usual, has modernized this song. The original, which I learned on the spot, from my old hostess in the principal inn there, is; Lassie, lend me your braw hemp heckle, Twa gaed to the wood, to the wood, to the wood, Twa gaed to the wood-three came hame; An' it be na weel bobbit, weel bobbit, weel bobbit, An' it be na weel bobbit, we'll bob it again. I insert this song to introduce the following anecdote, which I have heard well authenticated. In the evening of the day of the battle of Dumblane (Sheriff Muir) when the action was over, a Scots X a Scots officer in Argyle's army, observed to His Grace, that he was afraid the rebels would give out to the world that they had gotten the victory. "Weel, weel," returned his Grace, alluding to the foregoing ballad, "if they think it be nae weel bobbit, we'll bob it again.”* * The battle of Dumblane, or Sheriff-Muir, was fought the 18th of November, 1715, between the Earl of Mar, for the Chevalier, and the Duke of Argyle, for the government. Both sides claimed the victory, the left wing of either army being routed. Ritson observes, it is very remarkable that the capture of Preston happened on the same day. NOTE referred to in page 229. A short Account of JAMES TYTLER. JAMES TYTLER was the son of a country clergyman in the presbytery of Brechin, and brother to Dr. Tytler, the translator of Callimachus. He was instructed by his father in classical learning and school divinity, and attained an accurate knowledge of the Latin and Greek languages, and an extensive acquaintance with biblical literature and scholastic theology. Having discovered an early predilection for the medical profession, he was put apprentice to a surgeon in Forfar, and afterwards sent to attend the me dical classes at Edinburgh. While a medical student, he cultivated experimental chemistry and controversial theology with equal assiduity. Unfortunately his religious opinions, not deemed orthodox, or calvinistical, connected him with a society of Glassites, and involved him in a marriage with a member of the society, which terminated in a separation. He now settled at Leith, as an apothecary, depending on the patronage of his religious connexions; but his separation from the society, which happened soon after, with an unsteadiness that was natural to him, dis appointed his expectations. When he ceased to be a Glassite, he ceased not to be a firm believer in the Christian revelation, and a zealous advocate of genuine Christianity; but he never afterwards held communion with any denomination of Christians. The neglect of his business was the unavoidable consequence of his attention to religious dissensions; and having contracted debts to a considerable amount, he was obliged to remove to Berwick, and afterwards to Newcastle. In both places he was employed in preparing chemical medicines for the druggists; but the liberality of his employers being insufficient to preserve an increasing family from the evils of penury, he returned to Edinburgh, in the year 1772, in extreme poverty, and took refuge from the mole station of his creditors within the precincts of the sanctuary of Holyrood House, where debtors are privileged from arrests. At this period his wife deserted him and their five children, the youngest only six months old, and returned to her relations. He solaced himself for the privation of domestic happiness by composing a humorous ballad, entitled, "The Pleasures of the Abbey," which was his first attempt in poetry. In a description of its inhabitants, the author himself is introduced in the 16th and 17th stanzas. In the avocation ގ of an author by profession, which he was now compelled to assume, he displayed a versatility of talent and a facility in writing unexampled in the transactions of the press. He commenced his literary career by a publication entitled Essays on the most important Subjects of natural and "revealed Religion," which issued from the asylum for debtors, under the peculiar circumstances of being composed by himself, at the printing case, from his own conceptions, without a manuscript before him, and wrought off at a press of his own construction, by his own hands. He left this singular work, which was to be completed in two volumes 8vo. unfinished, and turned aside, to attack the opinions of a new religious set, called Bereans, in "a Letter to Mr. John Barclay on the Doctrine of Assurance," in which he again performed the functions of author, compositor, and pressman. He next set forth, with such assistance as he could find, a monthly publication, entitled, "The Gentleman and Lady's Magazine," which was soon abandoned for "The Weekly Review," a literary miscellany, which, in its turn, was discontinued in a very short time. These publications, unavoidably disfigured with many typographical deformities, made him known to the booksellers; and from them he afterwards found constant employment in compilations, abridgments, translations, and miscellaneous essays. He now ventured to leave the miserable apartments which he had long occupied in the sanctuary for debtors, for more comfortable lodgings, first at Restalrig, and afterwards in the city; and if his prudence and steadiness had been equal to his talents and industry, he might have earned by his labours a complete maintenance, which never fell to his lot. As he wrote for subsistence, not from the vanity of authorship, he was engaged in many works |