[A composite volume : containing The ballads and songs of Ayrshire ...

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REMARKS.
though got amongst the silver greys. It's mony a lang day since my
pow began to tak' the John Anderson livery. * * * I had a
short note from W m W d this spring, with a numa
[Second Notice.]
We may say with Holofernes, the schoohnaster, that " we are nothing,
if we are not {jtiiinutely'] critical." Yet we know Httle or nothing
of the art of criticism, so called ; we mean that which is practised
in quarterly reviews, monthly magazines, and in the weekly and
daily journals. We lay no claim to superiority of intellect ; or to seeing
farther than others into the sublimities of an Epic poem, or discovering
a shai"per sting in the tail of an Epigram. Nay, our observations
may be " undressed, unpolished, uneducated, unpruned, untrained,
or rather unlettered ;" but what we do give forth, we wish it
to be understood as our own unbought opinions. In fact, " we left no
calling for this idle craft ;" we served no apprenticeship to it ; we took
it lip at our ain hand, as Davie Dibble did the delving, or the flecMt
cow the flinging. At the same time, we have been familiar with
Scottish song since the days that we could command a baivbee to buy
a hallant, and much of our time has been spent in turning over the
legendary lays of our native land. We trust, then, that we are not
altogether unqualified to sit in judgment on the work before us.
Proceed we then with our self-imposed task ; Ave may err in taste,
and be found wanting in judgment, but we bow to none — paid or unpaid,
in honesty of purpose.
Tarn o' the Balloch. We believe Hew Ainglie, the author of this
song, was the first to confer honour upon Ayrehire by calling it " The
Land of Burns." Ayrshire, take it altogether, its wood and water
its hill and dale—^its pasture lands and corn-fields—is, perhaps, the
most beautiful pastoral county in Scotland. It was with no idle boast,
then, that Burns wrote to W. Simpson, Ochiltree,
" Willie, set your fit to mine,
And cock your crest,
We'll gar our streams and biirnies shine
Up wi' the best.
We'll sing auld Coila's plains an' fells," &c.
Burns kept his word. " Nature, in a' her shews and forms," lent
him inspiration ; and now the " Irwin, Lxigar, Ayr, and Doon," live
in the light of undying song. The traveller comes from afar to visit
their banks and braes, which have been rendered classical by the pen
of our inspired ploughman.
By the kindness of a friend, we have been favoured with the perusal
of a letter fi-om ^inslie, dated Louisville, June 20, 1846 ; from it
we have been permitted to take a few extracts, without doing any
violation, we trust, to private friendship ; for although Mr A., long
since, sought a foreign shore, he is still a Scotsman at heart, and his
name will live in the poetry of his country. Ayrshire may well be
proud of him, and the readers of the News-Letter rejoice to hear that
he is still iii the land of the living. Ainslie says to his friend :
" What days o' daffin did not your letter bring back ! but let that flee
stick to the wa'.
Glad am I to find that you are still hale and hearty,