No More Learning

John Hay's "Bonnie 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 two first lines of this song 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-of-God, and
Solomon-the-son-of-David; yet that same unknown drunken mortal is
author and compiler of three-fourths of Elliot's pompous Encyclopedia
Britannica, which he composed at half a guinea a week!

* * * * *


SAE MERRY AS WE TWA HA'E BEEN.

This song is beautiful. --The chorus in particular is truly pathetic. I
never could learn anything of its author.

CHORUS.

"Sae merry as we twa ha'e been,
Sae merry as we twa ha'e been;
My heart is like for to break,
When I think on the days we ha'e seen. "

* * * * *


THE BANKS OF FORTH.

This air is Oswald's.

* * * * *


THE BUSH ABOON TRAQUAIR.
This is another beautiful song of Mr. Crawfurd's composition. In the
neighbourhood of Traquair, tradition still shows the old "Bush;"
which, when I saw it, in the year 1787, was composed of eight or nine
ragged birches. The Earl of Traquair has planted a clump of trees near
by, which he calls "The New Bush. "

* * * * *


CROMLET'S LILT.

The following interesting account of this plaintive dirge was
communicated to Mr. Riddel by Alexander Fraser Tytler, Esq. , of
Woodhouselee.

"In the latter end of the sixteenth century, the Chisolms were
proprietors of the estate of Cromlecks (now possessed by the
Drummonds). The eldest son of that family was very much attached to a
daughter of Sterling of Ardoch, commonly known by the name of Fair
Helen of Ardoch.

"At that time the opportunities of meeting betwixt the sexes were more
rare, consequently more sought after than now; and the Scottish
ladies, far from priding themselves on extensive literature, were
thought sufficiently book-learned if they could make out the
Scriptures in their mother-tongue. Writing was entirely out of the
line of female education. At that period the most of our young men of
family sought a fortune, or found a grave, in France. Cromlus, when he
went abroad to the war, was obliged to leave the management of his
correspondence with his mistress to a lay-brother of the monastery of
Dumblain, in the immediate neighbourhood of Cromleck, and near Ardoch.
This man, unfortunately, was deeply sensible of Helen's charms. He
artfully prepossessed her with stories to the disadvantage of Cromlus;
and, by misinterpreting or keeping up the letters and messages
intrusted to his care, he entirely irritated both.