from Mrs. Burns's woodnotes wild,' is very fond of it, and has given it a celebrity by teaching it to some young ladies of fashion here." To the young lady herself he wrote:"In the enclosed ballad I have, I think, hit off a few outlines of your portrait. The naivette of heart and manners in my heroine are, I flatter myself, a pretty just likeness of Miss M'Murdo in a cottage." It is worth noting that although the ballad was forwarded to Thomson as early as on the 2nd July, 1793, it appeared only in the fourth volume of the Select Melodies, which was not issued until nine years after the poet's death.

BONNIE JEAN.

There was a lass, and she was fair,
At kirk and market to be seen,
When a' the fairest maids were met,
The fairest maid was bonnie Jean.

And ay she wrought her mammie's wark,
And ay she sang sae merrily:

The blythest bird upon the bush

Had ne'er a lighter heart than she.

But hawks will rob the tender joys

That bless the little lintwhite's nest;
And frost will blight the fairest flowers,
And love will break the soundest rest.

Young Robie was the brawest lad,
The flower and pride of a' the glen ;
And he had owsen, sheep, and kye,
And wanton naigies nine or ten.

He gaed wi' Jeanie to the tryste,

He danc'd wi' Jeanie on the down ;

And lang ere witless Jeanie wist,

Her heart was tint, her peace was stown.

As in the bosom o' the stream

The moon-beam dwells at dewy e'en ;
So trembling, pure, was tender love,
Within the breast o' bonnie Jean.

And now she works her mammie's wark,
And says she sighs wi' care and pain;
Yet wistna what her ail might be,

Or what wad mak' her weel again.

But did na Jeanie's heart loup light,
And did na joy blink in her e'e,
As Robie tauld a tale o' love,
Ae e'enin' on the lily lea?

The sun was sinking in the west,

The birds sang sweet in ilka grove;
His cheek to hers he fondly prest,
And whisper'd thus his tale o' love :

"O Jeanie fair, I lo'e thee dear;

O canst thou think to fancy me?
Or wilt thou leave thy mammie's cot,
And learn to tent the farms wi' me?

"At barn or byre thou shalt na drudge,
Or naething else to trouble thee;

But stray amang the heather-bells,
And tent the waving corn wi' me."

Now what could artless Jeanie do?

She had nae will to say him na :
At length she blush'd a sweet consent,
And love was ay between them twa.

That is his only song in praise of the elder daughter. But the younger-"Charming Phillis," or Miss Philadelphia -who enjoyed local celebrity as a beauty, he invoked the lyric muse to praise on repeated occasions. First came "Phillis the Fair," written as new words for " that d――d

cramp, out-of-the-way measure," as he called it, “Robin Adair," and only a partial success in any view, as a verse will be enough to show :

"While larks with little wing, fann'd the pure air,
Tasting the breathing Spring, forth I did fare;
Gay the sun's golden eye

Peep'd o'er the mountains high :

Such thy morn! did I cry, Phillis the fair."

But soon that was followed by "Phillis the Queen o' the Fair," composed to his favourite melody, "The Muckin' o' Geordie's Byre," and now his foot is on his native heath, and there is bloom on the heather. This second effort, like the first, was produced, in part, to gratify Mr. Stephen Clarke, the musician, who, then a widower and a wanter, was understood to be setting his cap for Miss Phillis. Clarke, anyway, is the supposed singer.

PHILLIS THE QUEEN O' THE FAIR.

Adown winding Nith I did wander,

To mark the sweet flowers as they spring;

Adown winding Nith I did wander,

Of Phillis to muse and to sing.

Chorus.

Awa' wi' your belles and your beauties,
They never wi' her can compare ;
Whaever has met wi' my Phillis,
Has met wi' the queen o' the fair.

The daisy amus'd my fond fancy,
So artless, so simple, so wild;
Thou emblem, said I, o' my Phillis,
For she is Simplicity's child.

Awa', etc.

The rose-bud's the blush o' my charmer,

Her sweet balmy lip when 'tis prest:
How fair and how pure is the lily,
But fairer and purer her breast.

Awa', etc.

Yon knot of gay flowers in the arbour,

They ne'er wi' my Phillis can vie :
Her breath is the breath o' the woodbine,
Its dew-drop o' diamond her eye.

Awa', etc.

Her voice is the song of the morning

That wakes through the green-spreading grove,
When Phoebus peeps over the mountains,

On music, and pleasure, and love.

Awa', etc.

But beauty how frail and how fleeting,
The bloom of a fine summer's day!
While worth in the mind o' my Phillis
Will flourish without a decay.

Awa', etc.

This Miss M'Murdo* married Norman Lockhart, who became in time third Baronet of Carnwath. So that evidently the poet's rapturous song did not aid in any emphatic way the music-master's suit. There is little wonder, for of all things, as I have observed already, love must come at first hand.

* Jean M.Murdo married a Mr. Crawford,

MRS. OSWALD OF AUCHENCRUIVE

THE next song of Burns's for which we find a real and acknowledged heroine is "O, wat ye wha's in yon Town?" begun at Ecclefechan, where the poet was storm-stayed, on 7th February, 1795. In the set of it sent to Johnson, Jeanie-either Jean Armour or Jean Lorimer-is the heroine. But in the set afterwards sent to Thomson the name in the text is Lucy; and Burns, enclosing a copy to John Syme, in an undated letter, explains its history. "Do you know," he says, "that among much that I admire in the characters and manners of those great folks whom I have now the honour to call my acquaintances the Oswald family, for instance there is nothing charms me more than Mr. Oswald's unconcealable attachment to that incomparable woman, his wife? In my song I have endeavoured to do justice to what would be his feelings on seeing, in the scene I have drawn, the habitation of his Lucy. As I am a good deal pleased with my performance, I, in my first fervour, thought of sending it to Mrs. Oswald, but, on second thoughts, what I offer as the honest incense of genuine respect might, from the well-known character of poverty and poetry, be construed into some modification or other of that servility which my soul abhors." The song is his own happiest manner, leaping with melody.

O WAT YE WHA'S IN YON TOWN?

Chorus.

O wat ye wha's in yon town,

Ye see the e'ening sun upon ?
The dearest maid's in yon town,
That e'ening sun is shining on.