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

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O father, O fathei", an ye think it fit,
We'll send him a year to the college yet ; .
We'll sew a green ribbon round about his hat
And that will let them ken he's to marry yet.
Lady Mary Ann was a flower in the dew,
5 Sweet was its smell, and bonnie was its hue,
5 And the langer it blossomed, the sweeter it grew ;
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For the lily in the bud will be bonnier yet.
Young Charlie Cochran was the sprout o' an aik,
Bonnie and blooming and straight was its make.
The sun took delight to shine for its sake ;
And it will be the brag o' the forest yet.
The summer is gane when the leaves they were green.
And the days are awa' that you and I hae seen.
But far better days I trust will come again ;
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For my bonnie laddie's young but he's growin' yet.
The Editor of " Scottish Historical and Romantic Ballads," says
— " I
have extracted these beautiful stanzas from Johnson's ' Poetical Museum.'
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They are worthy of being better known—a circumstance which may lead
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to a discovery of the persons whom they celebrate." Motherwell, who
also regarded the stanzas as " certainly beautiful," copied them into his
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" Minstrelsy ; Ancient and Modern." He thought it probable that they
referred to " some of the Dundonald family"—one lady of that noble house
having been commemorated in a local ditty to the same air :
"My Lady Dundonald sits singing and spinning,
Drawing a thread frae her tow rock ;
And it weel sets me for to wear a gude cloak.
And I span ilka thread o't my sel', so I did," &c.
The lady of John, fourth Earl of Dundonald—second daughter of Charles,
first Earl of Dunmore—died at Paisley, in 1710. She was celebrated
for her beauty, as well as for every virtue which could adorn the female
character ; and her death was universally lamented. She belonged to the
Episcopalian Church—notwithstanding which, even Wodrow, while he