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

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of
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extracts,
\ land,
'^
We
'/
Ainslie
—
ber of a publication, entitled The Poets of ' Ayrshire,' in which my
history is given as if I had been one of the depa,rted, for, as following
the maxim of Never speak ' ill of the dead," my biographer gives it to
me thick enotigh !" A report had gone abroad that it was Ainslie's
intention to visit his native land last summer, and in his letter he
says— "of surety, it was so; but I need not tell you how the best ' ',
laid schemes o' mice an' men' are treated in this wicked world. * *
'/
Things must have changed awfully since I left it twenty-four years J
ago ! But, O man ! it made me proud to see that neither your heart )
nor your hand had altered. * * * Atween us twa I don't despair j
shaking you yet by the han' o' fiesh." It will be seen from these
that Mr Ainslie has lost none of his devotion to his father-
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nor affection for the friend of his youth ; and it is quite clear
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heart is as green and as glowing as in the days of old. Should it ever
be Hew Ainslie's lot to make a second " Pilgrimage to the Land of I
S Burns," many a friendly hand will be held out to bid him welcome. <
How we should like to introduce him to the Irvine Burns Club, and
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show him, that while the members of it venerated the memory of our
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I
i departed poet, they felt a due appreciation of what was excellent in )
\ living worth and genius.
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entirely agree with the Editor, that the " fame of Hew [not (
I
'
Hugh'] Ainslie, as a Scottish poet, is by no means commensurate I
his deserts."
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with
has not written his poems of the highest
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; order ; but we feel no hesitation in saying that he possesses, by far,
the most poetical mind that has sprung up in Ayrshire since the days
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of Burns. He has a fine command of the idiomatic words and phrases
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\ of his native country, which he uses with great dexterity. On reading
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the song before us, one might imagine that the humorous was his
^ forte, but he is equally at home in the pathetic and the descriptive.
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He sketches a full length portrait of his " Muirland" worthy, Vvith a
stroke or two of his graphic pencil—
I
(
" Wha once was your match at a stoup and a tale
\ Wi' a voice like a sea, and a drouth like a ivhale "
5 What
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a man to fill a corner at the fireside of a country clachan in a
Just mark, for a moment, his convivial qualities
long winter's night !
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combined with his large capacity as a boon companion ! Wlio, like
I him, could lilt up the matchless ditties of " Todlin' hame," " Andro'
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wi' his cuttie gun," and do so much justice to the " Tappit hen," at a
down-sitting ! The conception of this song is excellent, and the idea
well brought out. The transformation wrought upon " Muirland Tam,"
from his having
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" A briest like a buird, and a back like a door,"'
\ is only disclosed in the last line of the song :
"
> But the word that makes me sae waefu' and wan,
Is Tam o' the Balloch's a married man '."
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Many songs, in the same style, have been written, some of them by
men of mark and likelihood, but " Tam o' the Balloch," as yet, stands