No More Learning

,
physician. She is sister to my worthy friend Gavin Hamilton, of
Mauchline, and was born on the banks of the Ayr, but was, at the time
I wrote these lines, residing at Herveyston, in Clackmannanshire, on
the romantic banks of the little river Devon. I first heard the air
from a lady in Inverness, and got the notes taken down for this work.

* * * * *


MILL, MILL O.

The original, or at least a song evidently prior to Ramsay's is still
extant. --It runs thus,

CHORUS.

"The mill, mill O, and the kill, kill O,
And the coggin o' Peggy's wheel, O,
The sack and the sieve, and a' she did leave,
And danc'd the miller's reel O. --

As I came down yon waterside,
And by yon shellin-hill O,
There I spied a bonie bonie lass,
And a lass that I lov'd right well O. "

* * * * *


WE RAN AND THEY RAN.

The author of "We ran and they ran"--was a Rev. Mr. Murdoch M'Lennan,
minister at Crathie, Dee-side.

* * * * *


WALY, WALY.

In the west country I have heard a different edition of the second
stanza. --Instead of the four lines, beginning with, "When
cockle-shells, &c.
," the other way ran thus:--

"O wherefore need I busk my head,
Or wherefore need I kame my hair,
Sin my fause luve has me forsook,
And sys, he'll never luve me mair. "

* * * * *


DUNCAN GRAY.

Dr. Blacklock informed me that he had often heard the tradition, that
this air was composed by a carman in Glasgow.

* * * * *


DUMBARTON DRUMS.

This is the last of the West-Highland airs; and from it over the whole
tract of country to the confines of Tweedside, there is hardly a tune
or song that one can say has taken its origin from any place or
transaction in that part of Scotland. --The oldest Ayrshire reel, is
Stewarton Lasses, which was made by the father of the present Sir
Walter Montgomery Cunningham, alias Lord Lysle; since which period
there has indeed been local music in that country in great
plenty. --Johnie Faa is the only old song which I could ever trace as
belonging to the extensive county of Ayr.

* * * * *


CAULD KAIL IN ABERDEEN.

This song is by the Duke of Gordon. --The old verses are,

"There's cauld kail in Aberdeen,
And castocks in Strathbogie;
When ilka lad maun hae his lass,
Then fye, gie me my coggie.

CHORUS.

My coggie, Sirs, my coggie, Sirs,
I cannot want my coggie;
I wadna gie my three-girr'd cap
For e'er a quene on Bogie. --

There's Johnie Smith has got a wife,
That scrimps him o' his coggie,
If she were mine, upon my life
I wad douk her in a bogie. "

* * * * *


FOR LAKE OF GOLD.

The country girls in Ayrshire, instead of the line--

"She me forsook for a great duke,"

say

"For Athole's duke she me forsook;"

which I take to be the original reading.