stone of Thomas-a-Becket," submits it cheerfully at set times and seasons to the curiosity of his friends, reeking to the brim with the fragrant liquid which its first great owner loved. The bowl is made of black Scottish marble, brimmed and bottomed with silver.

GALLA-WATER.

There's braw braw lads on Yarrow braes,

That wander through the blooming heather;

But Yarrow braes nor Ettrick shaws
Can match the lads o' Galla-water.

But there is ane, a secret ane,

Aboon them a' I lo'e him better; And I'll be his, and he'll be mine, The bonnie lad o' Galla-water.

Although his daddie was nae laird, -
And though I hae nae meikle tocher;
Yet rich in kindest, truest love,

We'll tent our flocks by Galla-water.
It ne'er was wealth, it ne'er was wealth,

That coft contentment, peace, or pleasure;

The bands and bliss o' mutual love,

O that's the chiefest warld's treasure!

"Braw braw Lads of Galla-water" is the name of an ancient song, of which too little remains, and even that little seems of a mingled yarn.

Braw braw lads of Galla-water,
Braw braw lads of Galla-water;

I'll kilt my coats aboon my knee,
And follow my love through the water.

A merrier eye, a whiter foot,

Ne'er shone, and ne'er was wet in water,
As had the lass who followed me,

In fair moonlight, through Galla-water.

I imagine that the original song celebrated the bravery of the young men from the banks of the Galla, a district which sent to the field many gallant warriors. The song of Burns is sweet, but the air is sweeter still; and who can hope to match with suitable words the divinest of all the airs of Caledonia?

MARY.

Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary,
And leave auld Scotia's shore?
Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary,
Across th' Atlantic's roar?

O sweet grows the lime and the orange,
And the apple on the pine;

But a' the charms o' the Indies
Can never equal thine:

I hae sworn by the heavens to my Mary, I hae sworn by the heavens to be true; And sae may the heavens forget me, When I forget my vow!

O plight me your faith, my Mary,
And plight me your lily-white hand!
O plight me your faith, my Mary,
Before I leave Scotia's strand.

We hae plighted our troth, my Mary,
In mutual affection to join,

And curst be the cause that shall part us,

The hour, and the moment o' time!

Of this song Burns says, "In my early years, when I was thinking of going to the West Indies, I took the following farewell of a dear girl. You must know that

all my earlier love songs were the breathings of ardent passion; and though it might have been easy in aftertimes to have given them a polish, yet that polish to me, whose they were, and who perhaps alone cared for them, would have defaced the legend of my heart, which was so faithfully inscribed on them. Their simplicity was, as they say of wines, their race."

"Phillis the fair" was no imaginary lady with a pastoral name, but Miss Phillis Macmurdo of Drumlanrig, a young lady of great accomplishments, on whom Clarke, the friend of Burns, lavished many praises, and the poet himself another set of verses. She was sister to "Bonnie Jean." He wrote another song to the same air-that song so full of pathetic reproach:

Had I a cave on some wild distant shore.

The heroine whose fickleness it laments was a Miss Stuart, and the forsaken hero was Alexander Cunningham, the poet's friend.