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

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Wha ance was your match at a stoup and a tale
Wi' a voice like a sea, and a drouth like a whale
Now ye peep like a powt ;
ye glumph and ye gaunt
Oh, Tammy, my man, are ye turned a saunt
Come, lowse your heart, ye man o' the muir ;
We tell our distress ere we look for a cure
There's laws for a wrang, and sa's for a sair
Sae, Tammy, my man, what wad ye hae mair
Oh !
neebour, it neither was thresher nor thief,
That deepened my ee, and lichtened my beef;
But the word that makes me sae waefu' and wan.
Is—Tam o' the Balloch's a married man I
The foregoing song is by Hugh Ainslie, whose fame is by no means commensurate
with his deserts.
He was born at Bargany Mains, near Dailly,
about the year 1792. His father, George Ainslie, was for a long time in
the service of Sir Hew Dalrymple Hamilton, at Bargany. In that neighbourhood—
" by Girvan's fairy-haunted stream"—the Poet passed the first
nineteen years of his life, receiving such education as the place afforded.
In 1809, George Ainslie removed with his family to his native place, Rosi
lin, near Edinburgh. After prosecuting his education in Edinburgh for
some months, Hugh was employed as a copying clerk in the Register
House in that city, under the auspices of Mr Thomson, the Deputy Clerk-
Register, whose father had been minister of Dailly, and who on that account
took an interest in the success of the youth.
For such an occupation
Ainslie was well fitted, his hand^vl•iting being remarkable for beauty,
accm-acy, and expedition.
On the recommendation of Mr Thomson, he
was occasionally employed as amanuensis to the celebrated Dugald Stewart,
who, having resigned his chair as Professor, lived in elegant retirement
at Kinniel House, a seat of the Duke of Hamilton, about twenty
miles distant from Edinburgh. There, in the society of the philosopher
and the distinguished persons who visited him, Ainslie passed some months
both pleasantly and profitably. If aught annoyed him, it was the repeated
transcriptions of manuscript compositions, which the fastidious taste of Mr
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