the supposition that these were not common in the experience of the people. An old poet, possibly of the fifteenth century, of whom almost nothing but his name Clapperton is known, commences the dirge over the death of bridal hopes in a song, Wa worth Maryage, which is the lament of a wife longing to be a maiden once more. Another old song, God gif I wer Wedo now, which is perhaps by the same author, is a still stronger lamentation on the part of an unfortunate husband, who consoles himself, not by the vain wish that what is done might be undone, but by the prospect of a deliverance which, in the course of nature, must come to him sooner or later-the sooner the better. The hope of such a deliverance forms a solitary source of cheer in Burns' song of a husband who has learnt only too late to know his wife's temper.

"How we live, my Meg and me,
How we love, and how we gree,
I carena by how few may see;

Sae, whistle ower the lave o't.
Wha I wish were maggots' meat,
Dished up in her winding sheet,
I could write,-but Meg maun see't;

Sae, whistle ower the lave o't."

On the other hand, the unhappy wretch whose wife will. neither drink, feast, spend, dress, strike, sleep, nor speak, "hooly and fairly," would, in the perplexity of his despair, hail any possible escape.

1 Both of these songs will be found in Sibbald's "Chronicles of Scottish Poetry," vol. iii. pp. 195–8.

I wish I were single, I wish I were freed,
I wish I were doited, I wish I were dead,

Or she in the mools, to dement me nae mair, lay;
What does't avail to cry hooly and fairly?

Hooly and fairly, hooly and fairly,

Wasting my breath to cry hooly and fairly!"1

Scottish lyrical poetry, therefore, contains not only many general satires on marriage, but also many satirical representations of particular incidents in unhappy marriages. Among the general satires, it is somewhat unpleasant to notice a parody on the cheerful little song, Bide ye yet, quoted above-a parody perpetrated by Miss Jenny Graham, a maiden lady of Dumfries, whose views are thus thrown into striking contrast with the generous sentiment ascribed to the reputed authoress of Nae Luck about the House. Fortunately the parody is never likely, on the ground of its poetical merits, to supplant the original, even if its theme had been more popular. The opening verse, with the chorus, will form a sufficient quotation:

Alas, my son, you little know

The sorrows that from wedlock flow;
Farewell to every day of ease,

When you have gotten a wife to please.
Sae bide ye yet, and bide ye yet,
Ye little ken what's to betide ye yet;
The half of that will gane you yet,
If a wayward wife obtain you yet."

1 This is from a version, by Joanna Baillie, of an older song, in which the husband's complaint is merely that his wife will not "drink hooly and fairly."

The representation of conjugal differences has formed a favourite subject of humorous sketches in all literatures; and particular stories of this class seem to be the common property of various races. One of the most distinctively Scotch is the well-known ballad, Get up and bar the Door, which is excelled by none in liveliness of narrative and sharp portraiture of character. The quotation of it in its integrity will not be tedious, even to those who are familiar, not only with its general plot, but also with its detailed incidents :

"It fell about the Martinmas time,

And a gay time it was than,

That our gudewife got puddings to mak,
And she boiled them in the pan.

'The wind blew cauld frae east and north,
And blew into the floor;

Quoth our gudeman to our gudewife,
'Get up and bar the door.'

"My hand is in the hussy-skep,

Gudeman, as ye may see;

An it shouldna be barred this hunder year,

It's ne'er be barred by me.'

They made a paction 'tween them twa,

They made it firm and sure,

That the first word whaever spak,

Should rise and bar the door.

"Then by there cam twa gentlemen
At twelve o'clock at night,
When they can see nae ither house.
And at the door they light.

"Now, whether is this a rich man's house,
Or whether is it a poor?'

But ne'er a word wad ane o' them speak
For barring o' the door.

"And first they ate the white puddings,
And syne they ate the black:

Muckle thought the gudewife to hersel'
Yet ne'er a word she spak.

"Then ane unto the other said,

Here, man, tak ye my knife;

Do ye tak aff the auld man's beard,
And I'll kiss the gudewife.'

"But there's nae water in the house,
And what shall we do than?'
'What ails ye at the pudding bree
That boils into the pan?'

"O up then started our gudeman,
An angry man was he;

'Will ye kiss my wife before my een,
And scald me wi' pudding bree?'

"O up then started our gudewife,
Gied three skips on the floor;

Gudeman, ye've spoken the foremost word;
Get up and bar the door.""

Another ballad of a similar strain, in which also the wife comes out victorious, is that commonly entitled Tak your auld Cloak about ye. Here the dispute arises from the wife requesting the husband one day when the wintry winds were threatening the safety of the

cattle, to put on his cloak and go out to look after the cow. This ballad, however, is greatly inferior to the other in the peculiar excellences which have won for the latter its popularity.

Besides these more distinctively Scottish lyrics, there are others whose theme is met with in other literatures. Chief among these must be ranked The Wyf of Auchtermuchty, preserved in the Bannatyne MS., where it is attributed to "Moffat"-Sir John Moffat, a poet belonging to the beginning of the sixteenth century. The ballad pictures a man of Auchtermuchty, who was not unmindful of comfort,

"Quha weill could tippill owt a can,

And naithir luvit hungir nor cauld,"

coming home tired with his work at the plough on a day which had been "foull for wind and rane," and finding his wife seated comfortably at a tidy hearth. He cannot repress a grumble over the difference in the toil which falls to the lot of men and the comfortable ease which women seem to him to enjoy; whereupon the wife consents to his request to take the plough in hand next day, if he will attend to the affairs of the house. I shall not attempt to reproduce the inimitable humour with which the results are detailed in the old ballad, the wife returning home after a good day's ploughing to find her husband distracted with the multiplicity of his labours, none of which, in his perplexity, he had succeeded in finishing.

This story is attempted again in a more modern. snog, John Grumlie, which Allan Cunningham found