HE BONNIE BAIRNS. This exquisitely touching ballad

we take from the "Songs of Scotland, Ancient and Modern," edited by Allan Cunningham. The editor modestly states that he "has ventured to arrange and eke out these old and remarkable verses; but," he says, "I have no right to claim any more merit from their appearance than what arises from inducing the stream of the story to glide more smoothly away." He adds, "It is seldom, indeed, that song has chosen so singular a theme; but the superstition it involves is current in Scotland." The extent of the alterations to which the old "and remarkable verses" were subjected must now be left to conjecture; but it is probable that the original was really nothing more than the crude outline of a story referred to in the "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," and printed entire in Motherwell's "Minstrelsy, Ancient and Modern," and in Buchan's "Ancient Ballads." If so, the ballad we here publish must be considered as, in reality, the composition of Mr. Cunningham; for the leading incident is altogether different, and infinitely more pathetic as well as more natural, while it is superior in style and imagery to the rough old rhymes that occur in the collections referred to. One of them, that which Motherwell prints, we give in a note. Buchan, in his copy, prints other "burthens of no meaning and much childishness," and his version differs in several respects from that of Motherwell; but the variations are probably only those to which it had been subjected in its transfer "from mouth to mouth." A stanza or two of Buchan's ballad will content the reader :

"She had her to her father's ha', Edinbro', Edinbro',
She had her to her father's ha', Stirling for aye;

She had her to her father's ha',

She was the meekest maid amang them a',

So proper Saint Johnston stands fair upon Tay.

"It fell ance upon a day, Edinbro', Edinbro',

It fell ance upon a day, Stirling for aye;

It fell ance upon a day

She saw twa babies at their play,

So proper Saint Johnston stands fair upon Tay."

Both the Ballads are called "The Cruel Mother;" but Mr. Buchan prints another entitled "The Minister's Daughter of New York," in which, also, occurs the incident of the mother meeting the spirits of her dead bairns. Here the mother asks what sort of death she must die, in atonement for her sin; to which the babes reply

"Yes, cruel mother, we'll tell to thee, Hey wi' the rose and the lindie, O, What sort of death for us you maun die,

Alone by the green burn sidie, O.

"Seven years a fool in the woods,

Hey wi' the rose and the lindie, O;
Seven years a fish in the floods,
Alone by the green burn sidie, O.

"Seven years to be a church bell,

Hey wi' the rose and the lindie, O;
Seven years a porter in hell,

Alone by the green burn sidie, O."

The ballad of "Lady Anne," referred to as contained in the "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," is but a fragment. The story indicated is similar to that recorded in the poems we have quoted. The following are three of the stanzas, of which only nine have been preserved :

"Out of the wood came three bonnie boys,
Upon the simmer's morn,

And they did sing and play at the ba',
As naked as they were born.

"O seven lang years wad I sit here,
Amang the frost and snaw,

A' to hae but ane o' these bonnie boys,
A playing at the ba'.'

"Then up and spake the eldest boy,
Now listen thou fair ladie,

And ponder well the rede that I tell,

Then make ye a choice of the three.""

In the introduction, Sir Walter states it to correspond with a fragment, containing the following verses, which he "had often heard sung in his childhood:

All the ancient copies picture the bairns as consigning their wretched mother to eternal misery. Mr. Cunningham, it will be observed, gave the story a more natural and far more touching character-making the children intercede for the sinner at the throne of grace. In its present form it is an exquisite poem-one of the most beautiful and most valuable of the many relics left to us by Allan Cunningham; and which are often so completely allied to the spirit of the old minstrels, as to leave us uncertain whether the authorship really belongs to the modern poet, or to some rhymer of many centuries ago.

The poetical reputation of Allan Cunningham was made and is sustained by his ballads and lyrical pieces. They are exquisite in feeling and character, elegant in style, graceful in expression, and natural in conception. They seem, indeed, the mere unstudied outpourings of the heart; yet they bear the strictest and most critical inspection of those who consider elaborate finish to be at least the second requisite of writers of song. His own country supplied him with fertile themes; but the peculiar dialect of Scotland (in which he frequently wrote), his good taste prevented from rendering harsh or even inharmonious to southern ears.

When his compositions first found their way into Cromek's "Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Song," where they were printed as ancient, they were received with an applause that at once startled and amused the writer. Dr. Percy boldly declared they were too good to be old; and Sir Walter Scott has more than once said that not even Burns himself had enriched Scottish song with more beautiful effusions.

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