RATTLIN' ROARIN' WILLIE.

Tune-" Rattlin', roarin' Willie."

1.

O RATTLIN', roarin' Willie,
O, he held to the fair,

An' for to sell his fiddle,

An' buy some other ware; But parting wi' his fiddle,

The saut tear blin't his ee; And rattlin', roarin' Willie, Ye're welcome hame to me!

II.

O Willie, come sell your fiddle,
O sell your fiddle sae fine;
O Willie, come sell your fiddle,
And buy a pint o' wine!

If I should sell my fiddle,

The warl' would think I was mad;

For mony a rantin' day

My fiddle and I hae had.

III.

As I cam by Crochallan,

I cannily keekit ben

Rattlin', roarin' Willie

Was sitting at yon board en';

Sitting at yon board en',

And amang guid companie;

Rattlin', roarin' Willie,

Ye're welcome hame to me!

"The hero of this chant was," says Burns, one of the worthiest fellows in the world-William Dunbar, Esq., writer to the Signet, Edinburgh, and colonel of the Crochallan corps-a club of wits, who took that title at the time of raising the Fencible regiments." The Rattlin', roarin' Willie of Border song was another sort of person :

"Our Willie's away to Jeddart,

To dance on the rood-day;
A sharp sword by his side,
A fiddle to cheer his way.
The joyous thairms o' his fiddle,
Rob Roole he handled rude;

And Willie left New-Mill banks,

Red wat wi' Robin's blude."

Willie was pursued by Elliot of Stobbs, and taken sleeping among the broom in one of the links of Ousenamwater. What happened to him may be gathered from another stanza :

"Now may the name of Elliot

Be cursed frae firth to firth !

He has fettered the gude right hand
That keepit the land in mirth;

That keepit the land in mirth,

And charmed maids' hearts frae dool;

O sair will they want thee, Willie,
When birks are bare at Yule."

BRAVING ANGRY WINTER'S STORMS.

Tune-" Neil Gow's Lamentation for Abercairny."

I.

WHERE, braving angry winter's storms,

The lofty Ochels rise,

Far in their shade my Peggy's charms
First blest my wondering eyes;
As one who by some savage stream,
A lonely gem surveys,
Astonish'd, doubly marks its beam,
With art's most polish'd blaze.

II.

Blest be the wild, sequester'd shade,
And blest the day and hour,

Where Peggy's charms I first survey'd,
When first I felt their pow'r !
The tyrant death, with grim control,
May seize my fleeting breath;
But tearing Peggy from my soul

Must be a stronger death.

The heroine of this fine song is Margaret Chalmers. The Poet calls her "one of the most accomplished of women." He stood much in awe of her unaffected modesty and good sense, and tamed down the ruder part of his nature whenever he wrote to her.

The air to which Burns wrote this pleasant little song

was composed, it is said, by John Girvan, who named it after himself.

M'Gill, a fiddler of
Other words have

been added to the song; but they want the easy air of

their elder companions: :

"O, see yon green mountain

Beneath yon bright star!

O, see yon moon shining

On turret and scaur !
O, haste thee and mount thee,
For we maun fly far;

It is time to be going,
Sweet Tibbie Dunbar.

"O, far have I ridden, love,
All for to see thee;
Much have I bidden, love,

All to be near thee;

For he that loves truly

Maun dree an' maun daur

So come now or never,

Sweet Tibbie Dunbar !"

The heroine of the song has never been named, nor has it succeeded in becoming a favourite, though the air is good and the words natural.