"Braw braw Lads of Galla-water" is the name of an

ancient song, of which too little remains, and even that little seems of a mingled yarn.

Braw braw lads of Galla-water,
Braw braw lads of Galla-water;
my coats aboon my knee,

I'll kilt

And follow my love through the water.

A merrier eye, a whiter foot,

Ne'er shone, and ne'er was wet in water,
As had the lass who followed me,

In fair moonlight, through Galla-water.

I imagine that the original song celebrated the bravery of the young men from the banks of the Galla, a district which sent to the field many gallant warriors. The song of Burns is sweet, but the air is sweeter still; and who can hope to match with suitable words the divinest of all the airs of Caledonia ?

MARY.

Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary,
And leave auld Scotia's shore?
Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary,
Across th' Atlantic's roar?

O sweet grows the lime and the orange,
And the apple on the pine;

But a' the charms o' the Indies
Can never equal thine.

I hae sworn by the heavens to my Mary, I hae sworn by the heavens to be true; And sae may the heavens forget me, When I forget my vow!

O plight me your faith, my Mary,
And plight me your lily-white hand!
O plight me your faith, my Mary,
Before I leave Scotia's strand.

We hae plighted our troth, my Mary,
In mutual affection to join,

And curst be the cause that shall part us,

The hour, and the moment o' time!

Of this song Burns says, "In my early years, when I was thinking of going to the West Indies, I took the following farewell of a dear girl. You must know that

all my earlier love songs were the breathings of ardent passion; and though it might have been easy in aftertimes to have given them a polish, yet that polish to me, whose they were, and who perhaps alone cared for them, would have defaced the legend of my heart, which was so faithfully inscribed on them. Their simplicity was, as they say of wines, their race."

VOL. IV.

PHILLIS THE FAIR.

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.

In each bird's careless song

Glad did I share;

While wild flowers among
yon

Chance led me there:

L

"Phillis the fair" was no imaginary lady with a pastoral name, but Miss Phillis Macmurdo of Drumlanrig, a young lady of great accomplishments, on whom Clarke, the friend of Burns, lavished many praises, and the poet himself another set of verses. She was sister to "Bonnie Jean." He wrote another song to the same air-that song so full of pathetic reproach:

Had I a cave on some wild distant shore.

The heroine whose fickleness it laments was a Miss Stuart, and the forsaken hero was Alexander Cunningham, the poet's friend.

SIC A WIFE AS WILLIE HAD.

Willie Wastle dwalt on Tweed,

The spot they ca'd it Linkumdoddie; Willie was a wabster gude,

Cou'd stown a clue wi' ony bodie; He had a wife was dour and din,

O Tinkler Madgie was her mither; Sic a wife as Willie had,

I wadna gie a button for her.

She has an e'e, she has but ane,
The cat has twa the very colour;

Five rusty teeth, forbye a stump,

A clapper tongue wad deave a miller; A whiskin beard about her mou,

Her nose and chin they threaten ither; Sic a wife as Willie had,

I wadna gie a button for her.

She's bow-hough'd, she's hem-shinn'd,
Ae limpin leg a hand-breed shorter ;
She's twisted right, she's twisted left,
To balance fair in ilka quarter :
She has a hump upon her breast,
The twin o' that upon her shouther;
Sic a wife as Willie had,

I wadna gie a button for her.