Her teeth are like the nightly snow Her lips are like yon cherries ripe, That sunny walls from Boreas screen; Her teeth are like a flock of sheep, Her breath is like the fragrant breeze Her voice is like the ev'ning thrush That sings on Cessnock banks unseen, But it's not her air, her form, her face, Taking these verses as the expression of a real passion, and though yet allowing much to the poet for the sake of his art-no one should doubt his asseveration in prose that their subject had made an impression on his heart which he did not think the world could ever efface. Cromek first made the public acquainted with the piece, in a somewhat imperfect form, in 1808; and he traced out the subject, as a married lady, then resident in Glasgow, from whose own lips he noted down the words, to the extent of her recollection. Pickering's version, given here, was printed from the poet's manuscript, recovered from some other source. The connection of the next song with Miss Begbie is not so clear. The poet himself, however, averred that all his earlier love-songs were the breathings of real passion, a legend of his heart being inscribed on each of them. We have been seeing, so far, that these are not idle words. Mrs. Begg's information regarding her brother's passion for Ellison Begbie started the idea that Burns must have attempted to weave her name into some snatch of song. "Her surname, however, being so prosaic and untunable," as Scott Douglas plausibly observes, "what was a poor poet to do? His object could be attained only by compromise, and that might be accomplished to some extent by transposing Alison Begbie into 'Peggy Alison—a very euphonious by-name indeed!" In Johnson's Museum, to which the poet sent it, it is marked "Z," which signifies that it is an old song with additions. Perhaps it is no more. Let us take it only for what it is worth. Not ours to force connections. BONNIE PEGGY ALISON. I'll kiss thee yet, yet, And I'll kiss thee o'er again, And I'll kiss thee yet, yet, My bonnie Peggy Alison ! Ilk care and fear, when thou art near, I'll kiss thee yet, etc. When in my arms, wi' a' thy charms, And by thy een sae bonnie blue, I'll kiss thee yet, etc. I said, "not ours to force connections," and the words were used with a full sense of their importance in this juncture. MARY MORISON EARLY in last century, when heroine-hunting was a favourite exercise with all forward Burnsites, Gilbert Burns, when applied to for information regarding Mary Morison, replied that, in addition to the song in her name, she was the subject of some light verses, beginning, "And I'll kiss thee yet, yet." Already these verses had been fixed on Ellison Begbie, and to square the difficulty, the quidnuncs—or some of them, at least-assumed that there was really no Mary Morison at all, and that the song with that title—one of the best the poet ever wrote-was only another compliment, under the veil of a new name, to the "lass of Cessnock Banks," which is not likely to be correct. Burns may have had no real heroine for the song. This is more likely than that Ellison Begbie was the fair inspirer. When forwarding the song to George Thomson, in March, 1793, he remarks only that it is one of his "juvenile works, not very remarkable either for its merits or demerits." But it has been claimed that "lovely Mary Morison,” amiable no less than beautiful, whom the poet admired as a girl of sixteen-whom, tradition avers, he met but once, and then at the tea-table of a friend-was the daughter of Adjutant Morison, of Mauchline. The house in which she lived there is still pointed out, and in Mauchline kirkyard—the scene of "The Holy Fair”—there is a tombstone, erected in 1825, bearing the following inscription, which I have read :— "In memory of Adj. John Morison, of the 104th Regt., who died at Mauchline, 16 April, 1804, in the 86th year of his age. Also his daughter, Mary, the Poet's bonnie Mary Morison, who died 29 June, 1791, aged 20, and his second spouse, Ann Tomlinson, who died 6 Sep., 1831, aged 76." Supporting the testimony of the tombstone-and no less the local tradition—the late Rev. Dr. Edgar, of Mauchline, in his Old Church Life in Scotland, says :-" I am informed, on authority, that a member of the adjutant's family, who lived to be a grandmother, used to speak of Burns (with aversion, I may add) as one whom she knew personally, when he lived at Mauchline, and that, she believed her sister Mary was the 'lovely Mary Morison' whom the poet admired. She often spoke of this long-lost Mary, who died in early youth, from the amputation of a foot that had been accidentally injured, as one of the fairest creatures the sun ever shone upon."" That the claim made for a real Mary is valid, we would like to believe, rather than that Ellison Begbie, Peggy Alison, and Mary Morison were all three one and the same person. What is important above all, however, is that the song survives, to the immortal credit of Robert Burns as a man and a lyric artist. It is astonishing to find the poet referring to it as "not very remarkable either for its merits or demerits." It is a song quite unexcelled for the beauty and variety of its imagery, and no less for the tenderness and purity of its passion. Hazlitt-no mean judge says:-" Of all the productions of Burns, the pathetic and serious love songs which he has left behind him, in the manner of old ballads, are perhaps those which take the deepest and most lasting hold of the mind. Such are the lines to 'Mary Morison'; |