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undisturbed by the general mourning for the dead, and general fears of the living, to devote himself to the task of collecting and recording the triumphs of human genius in the poetry of his age and country;-thus, amid the wreck of all that was mortal, employing himself in preserving the lays by which immortality is at once given to others, and obtained for the writer himself. He informs us of some of the numerous difficulties he had to contend with in this self-imposed task. The volume containing his labours, deposited in the Library of the Faculty of Advocates at Edinburgh, is no less than eight hundred pages in length, and very neatly and closely written, containing nearly all the ancient poetry of Scotland now known to exist.

This Caledonian association, which boasts several names of distinction, both from rank and talent, has assumed rather a broader foundation than the parent society, the Roxburghe Club in London, which, in its plan, being restricted to the reprinting of single tracts, each executed at the expense of an individual member, it follows as almost a necessary consequence, that no volume of considerable size has emanated from it, and its range has been thus far limited in point of utility. The Bannatyne holding the same system with respect to the ordinary species of Club reprints, levies, moreover, a fund among its members of about 500l. a-year, expressly to be applied for the editing and printing of works of acknowledged importance, and likely to be attended with expense beyond the reasonable bounds of an individual's contribution. In this way either a member of the Club, or a competent person under its patronage, superintends a particular volume, or set of volumes. Upon these occasions, a very moderate number of copies are thrown off for general sale; and those belonging to the Club are only distinguished from the others by being printed on the paper, and ornamented with the decorations peculiar to the Society. In this way several useful and eminently valuable works have recently been given to the public for the first time, or at least with a degree of accuracy and authenticity which they had never before attained.-Abridged from the Quarterly Review-ART. Pitcairn's Ancient Criminal Trials. February, 1831.]

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THE BOLD DRAGOON;1

OR,

THE PLAIN OF BADAJOS.

"Twas a Maréchal of France, and he fain would

honour gain,

And he long'd to take a passing glance at Portugal from Spain;

With his flying guns this gallant gay,

And boasted corps d'armée

Ohe fear'd not our dragoons, with their long swords, boldly riding,

Whack, fal de ral, &c.

To Campo Mayor come, he had quietly sat

down,

Just a fricassee to pick, while his soldiers sack'd the town,

[This song was written shortly after the battle of Badaios, (April, 1812,) for a Yeomanry Cavalry dinner. It was first printed in Mr George Thomson's Collection of Select Melodies, and stands in vol. vi. of the last edition of that work.]

When, 'twas peste! morbleu! mon General,

Hear the English bugle call!

And behold the light dragoons, with their long swords, boldly riding,

Whack, fal de ral, &c.

Right about went horse and foot, artillery and

all,

And as the devil leaves a house they tumbled through the wall ;1

They took no time to seek the door,

But best foot set before

O they ran from our dragoons, with their long swords, boldly riding,

Whack, fal de ral, &c.

Those valiant men of France they had scarcely fled a mile,

When on their flank there sous'd at once the
British rank and file;

For Long, De Grey, and Otway, then
Ne'er minded one to ten,

But came on like light dragoons, with their long swords, boldly riding,

Whack, fal de ral, &c.

Three hundred British lads they made three thousand reel,

1 In their hasty evacuation of Campo Mayor, the French pulled down a part of the rampart, and marched out over the glacis.

Their hearts were made of English oak, their swords of Sheffield steel,

Their horses were in Yorkshire bred,

And Beresford them led;

So huzza for brave dragoons, with their long swords, boldly riding,

Whack, fal de ral, &c.

Then here's a health to Wellington, to Beresford, to Long,

And a single word of Bonaparte before I close

my song:

The eagles that to fight he brings

Should serve his men with wings,

When they meet the bold dragoons, with their long swords, boldly riding,

Whack, fal de ral, &c.

FOR A' THAT AN' A' THAT.'

A NEW SONG TO AN OLD TUNE.

THOUGH right be aft put down by strength,
As mony a day we saw that,
The true and leilfu' cause at length

Shall bear the grie for a' that!

For a' that an' a' that,

Guns, guillotines, and a' that,
The Fleur-de-lis, that lost her right,
Is queen again for a' that!

We'll twine her in a friendly knot
With England's Rose, and a' that;
The Shamrock shall not be forgot,
For Wellington made bra' that.
The Thistle, though her leaf be rude,
Yet faith we'll no misca' that,

1 [Sung at the first meeting of the Pitt Club of Scotland and published in the Scots Magazine for July, 1814.]

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