What a chaste pleasure—what a gladdening influence over the most stoical mind, any of the following songs yield, when well sung to their own tunes, by a half dozen young ladies in the parlour, or by a chorus of bonnie lassies in the kitchen, as the former pursue their sewing and knitting, and the latter birr their wheels, and stir the sowens in an evening, in the opulent farmer’s dwelling; or when heard in the most humble cottage of a Scottish peasant. Well might the farmer’s dog, Luath, say, “And I for e’en down joy hae barkit wi’ them.”

Let these classes come to Upper Canada to-morrow, and they will tire of its dulness. Nature’s face is fair enough; but after the traveller leaves the last faint sounds of the Canadian boatsman’s song, as it dies on the still waters of the St. Lawrence, music will be done with.—I had forgotten however, I must now quote the songs alluded to; and I well can from memory:—

• 1. Gloomy winter’s now awa’.
• 2. Roy’s wife of Aldivalloch.
• 3. Beneath the pretty hawthorn that blooms in the vale.
• 4. And she showed him the way for to woo.
• 5. I gaed a waefu’ gate yestreen.
• 6. John Anderson, my Joe, John, when we were first acquent.
• 7. Thy cheek is o’ the rose’s hue,
  My only joe and dearie, O.
• 8. Coming o’er the craigs o’ Kyle.
• 9. O, lassie, art thou sleeping yet;—and the answer.
• 10. There’s nae luck about the house,
  There’s nae luck ava’;
  There’s little pleasure in the house,
  When our gudeman’s awa’.
• 11. The sun had gone down o’er the lofty Ben Lomond.
• 12. My uncle’s dead—I’ve lands enew.
• 13. For lack of gold she’s left me, O.
• 14. O’ a the airths the wind can blaw.
• 15. When honey-dyed bells o’er the heather was spreading.
• 16. Loudon’s bonny woods and braes.
• 17. The Highland Laddie.
• 18. Upon a simmer’s afternoon.
  Awee afore the sun gaed down.
• 19. There’s cauld kail in Aberdeen, the new way.
• 20. Mirk and rainy was the night.
• 21. My Pattie is a lover gay.
• 22. I’m wearin’ awa’, Jean,
  Like sna’ when its thaw, Jean.
• 23. Its Logie o’ Buchan, o’ Logie the laird.
• 24. With the garb of old Gaul, and the fire of old Rome.
• 25. Come under my plaide.
• 26. O’ Bessie Bell and Mary Gray.
• 27. Ye banks and braes of bonny Doon.
• 28. The laird of the drum, a wooing has gone,—
  And awa’ in the morning early:
  And he has spied a weel fa’red May,
  A shearing her father’s barley.
• 29. My bonny Lizzie Baillie.
• 30. Green grow the rushes, O!

I must have done—I have named so many songs to put my readers in mind of

and I could add as many more, of truly Scottish origin, that I should like to see in Canada, as would fill up the “Advocate;” but I must stop—the politicians would complain. I have heard a few of these well sung in Canada—the last, a lintie in Queenston braes sings now and then. Would there were ten thousand such in Upper Canada!

The English version of the following line, is not near so pretty as the Scots original, which goes thus:—

With this may be contrasted a verse of sir Walter Scott’s Mary, in “The Pirate:”—

This is beguiling on both sides; but the latter stanzas finely express an idea fit for an oriental paradise.

There is another kind of ballads which, though akin to those I have named, are in many points essentially different:—and the first of this class,

when sung in chorus, would be almost enough to cause the venerable age of eighty-eight to shake a foot all over Scotland. A merry party, of which I was one, once tried “Duncan,” on the Table Rock at Niagara Falls; and when we came to that line, where the poor neglected lover

I thought we should have all died with laughing, the scene was so in unison with the stanza. Moore’s two lovers, who—

is good; but it is nothing to “Duncan Gray,” sung by half a dozen tenor voices on the Table Rock.

I mean, when I have leisure, to continue these reminiscences of Scottish song, and as I at this time must have taxed the patience, and tried the politeness of my numerous Irish and English readers, I will, in some future number, leave Ramsay, Burns, Tannahill, and Ferguson—for Chaucer and Shakspeare, Goldsmith and Moore.

Tannahill has some pieces, scarce excelled by any of our Scottish poets—he has also a virtue which endears him to me beyond even Robert Burns. He does not often laud in song the drinking of ardent liquors. If, as a printer, I were to publish an American edition of Burns, I think I would leave his songs in praise of Highland whisky out. They have done much harm in his native land; and to spread them here, would be like firing a match.

End of May

This month may close with a delightful sonnet, from one of the best books put forth in recent years for daily use and amusement.

NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR.

Mean Temperature 57·97.