Dule and wae for the order, sent our lads to the Border!
The English, for ance, by guile wan the day;
The Flowers of the Forest, that foucht aye the foremost,
The prime o' our land, are cauld in the clay.

We hear nae mair lilting at our yowe-milking,
Women and bairns are heartless and wae;
Sighing and moaning on ilka green loaning―
The Flowers of the Forest are a' wede away.*

THE FLOWERS OF THE FOREST.

MRS COCKBURN.

TUNE-The Flowers of the Forest.

I'VE seen the smiling

Of Fortune beguiling;

I've felt all its favours, and found its decay:

* Miss Elliot wrote this song, about the middle of the last century, in imitation of an older version to the same tune, of which she preserved only the first and last lines of the first verse :

and,

"I've heard the lilting at our yowe-milking,"

"The Flowers of the Forest are a' wede away."

Sir Walter Scott, in his Border Minstrelsy, has preserved one more line: "I ride single on my saddle,

Since the Flowers of the Forest are a' wede away;"

containing, as he observes, a most affecting image of desolation, as proceeding from the lips of a lady, who, according to the old Scottish fashion, had been accustomed to ride on the same horse with her husband.

Miss Jane Elliot was the fourth child of Sir Gilbert Elliot of Minto, who died in the office of Lord Justice-Clerk in the year 1766. She spent the latter part of her life chiefly in Edinburgh, where she mingled a good deal in the better sort of society. I have been told by one who was admitted in youth to the privileges of her conversation, that she was "a remarkably agreeable old maiden lady, with a prodigious fund of Scottish anecdote, but did not appear to have ever been handsome."

By "The Forest," in this song, and in ancient Scottish story, is not meant the forest, or the woods generally, but that district of Scotland, anciently, and sometimes still, called by the name of THE FOREST. This district comprehended the whole of Selkirkshire, with a considerable portion of Peebles-shire, and even of Clydesdale. It was a favourite resort of the Scottish kings and nobles for hunting. The Forest boasted the best archers, and perhaps the finest men, in Scotland. At the Battle of Falkirk, in 1298, the men of the Forest were distinguished, we are told, from the other slain, by their superior stature and beauty.

Sweet was its blessing,
Kind its caressing;

But now 'tis fled-fled far away.

I've seen the forest

Adorned the foremost

With flowers of the fairest, most pleasant and
Sae bonnie was their blooming!

Their scent the air perfuming!

But now they are wither'd and weeded away.

I've seen the morning

With gold the hills adorning,

gay;

And loud tempest storming before the mid-day.
I've seen Tweed's silver streams,

Shining in the sunny beams,

Grow drumly and dark as he row'd on his way.

Oh, fickle Fortune,
Why this cruel sporting?

Oh, why still perplex us, poor sons of a day?
Nae mair your smiles can cheer me,

Nae mair your frowns can fear me;

For the Flowers of the Forest are a' wede away.

This is an imitation of the foregoing song. Mrs Cockburn was the daughter of Mr Rutherford of Fairnielee, in Roxburghshire, and the wife of Mr Cockburn of Ormiston, whose father was Lord Justice-Clerk of Scotland at the time of the Union. She was a lady of the greatest private worth, and much beloved by the numerous circle of acquaintance in which she spent the latter years of her life. I have been told of her, as a remarkable characteristic of her personal appearance, that, even when advanced to the age of eighty, she preserved to a hair the beautiful auburn or lightbrown locks she had had in early youth. There actually was not a single grey hair in her head! She in a similar manner preserved all her early spirits, wit, and intelligence: and she might, altogether, be described as a woman of ten thousand.

The song appeared in Herd's Collection, 1776.

M

IF LOVE'S A SWEET PASSION.

Ir love's a sweet passion, why does it torment?
If a bitter, O tell me whence comes my content?
Since I suffer with pleasure, why should I complain,
Or grieve at my fate, since I know 'tis in vain ?
Yet so pleasing the pain is, so soft is the dart,
That at once it both wounds me, and tickles my

heart.

I grasp her hands gently, look languishing down, And by passionate silence I make my love known.

*This ancient ditty is said to have been composed, under very peculiar circumstances, by a non-conforming clergyman of the time of Charles II. While under hiding for religion's sake, he had the misfortune to be seized by a party of the troops which were then employed to scour the south and west of Scotland in search of the broken Covenanters. They were not exactly sure of his person, for he appeared to their eyes more like a beggar than any thing else; but, from some suspicious circumstances, they were disposed, at least, to detain him till they should ascertain his real character. The unhappy man then condescended to an artifice, for the purpose of extricating himself. He forthwith assumed a fantastic levity of manners— fell a-capering and dancing—and, finally, sung the above two stanzas, which he composed on the spur of the moment. Such was the gloss he thus gave to his character, and so much were the soldiers delighted with his song, that, swearing he was a damned honest fellow, and could not possibly belong to the hellish crew they were in search of, they permitted him to depart.

The song appeared in Herd's Collection, 1776.

But oh! how I'm bless'd when so kind she does prove,
By some willing mistake, to discover my love;
When, in striving to hide, she reveals all her flame,
And our eyes tell each other what neither dare name!

How pleasing her beauty, how sweet are her charms !
How fond her embraces! how peaceful her arms!
Sure there's nothing so easy as learning to love;
'Tis taught us on earth, and by all things above:
And to beauty's bright standard all heroes must yield,
For 'tis beauty that conquers and wins the fair field.

*

BARBARA ALLAN.

TUNE-Barbara Allan.

It was in and about the Martinmas time,
When the green leaves were a-fallin',
That Sir John Graham, in the west countrie,
Fell in love wi' Barbara Allan.

He sent his man down through the town,
To the place where she was dwallin':
O, haste and come to my master dear,
Gin ye be Barbara Allan.

O, hooly, hooly, rase she up

To the place where he was lyin',
And when she drew the curtain by,
Young man, I think ye're dyin'.

It's oh, I'm sick, I'm very very sick,
And it's a' for Barbara Allan.

*The two first verses of this song were printed in Tom D'Urfey's Pills to purge Melancholy, 1719. It appears, with the third or additional verse, in the Tea-Table Miscellany, 1724, signed with the letter X, which, I believe, marks all the songs in that work of English extraction.

O, the better for me ye'se never be,
Though your heart's blude were a-spillin'.

Oh, dinna ye mind, young man, she said,
When ye was in the tavern a-drinkin',
That ye made the healths gae round and round,
And slichtit Barbara Allan?

He turn'd his face unto the wa',
And death was with him dealin':
Adieu, adieu, my dear friends a',
And be kind to Barbara Allan.

And slowly, slowly rase she up,
And slowly, slowly left him,
And sighin', said, she could not stay,
Since death of life had reft him.

She hadna gane a mile but twa,
When she heard the deid-bell ringin';
And every jow that the deid-bell gied,
It cried, Woe to Barbara Allan.

Oh, mother, mother, mak my bed,
And mak it saft and narrow;

Since my

love died for me to-day,

I'll die for him to-morrow. *

GET UP AND BAR THE DOOR.

Ir fell about the Martinmas time,
And a gay time it was than,

When our gudewife had puddins to mak,
And she boil'd them in the pan.

*From the Tea-Table Miscellany, 1724.