MINSTRELSY, VOL. II ***

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MINSTRELSY OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER:

CONSISTING OF HISTORICAL AND ROMANTIC BALLADS, COLLECTED IN THE SOUTHERN COUNTIES OF SCOTLAND; WITH A FEW OF MODERN DATE, FOUNDED UPON LOCAL TRADITION.

IN THREE VOLUMES.

VOL. II.

The songs, to savage virtue dear. That won of yore the public ear, Ere Polity, sedate and sage, Had quench'd the fires of feudal rage.--WARTON.

THIRD EDITION.

1806.

CONTENTS TO THE SECOND VOLUME.

LESLEY'S MARCH The Battle of Philiphaugh The Gallant Grahams The Battle of Pentland Hills The Battle of Loudonhill The Battle of Bothwell-bridge

PART SECOND.

_ROMANTIC BALLADS._

Scottish Music, an Ode Introduction to the Tale of Tamlane The Young Tamlane Erlinton The Twa Corbies The Douglas Tragedy Young Benjie Lady Anne Lord William The Broomfield-Hill Proud Lady Margaret The Original Ballad of the Broom of Cowdenknows Lord Randal Sir Hugh Le Blond Graeme and Bewick The Duel of Wharton and Stuart, Part I. Part II. The Lament of the Border Widow Fair Helen of Kirkonnel, Part I. Part II. Hughie the Graeme Johnie of Breadislee Katherine Janfarie The Laird o' Logie A Lyke-wake Dirge The Dowie Dens of Yarrow The Gay Goss Hawk Brown Adam Jellon Grame Willie's Ladye Clerk Saunders Earl Richard The Lass of Lochroyan Rose the Red and White Lilly

MINSTRELSY OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER.

PART FIRST.--CONTINUED.

_HISTORICAL BALLADS._

LESLY'S MARCH.

"But, O my country! how shall memory trace "Thy glories, lost in either Charles's days, "When through thy fields destructive rapine spread, "Nor sparing infants' tears, nor hoary head! "In those dread days, the unprotected swain "Mourn'd, in the mountains, o'er his wasted plain; "Nor longer vocal, with the shepherd's lay, "Were Yarrow's banks, or groves of Endermay." LANGHORN--_Genius and Valour_.

Such are the verses, in which a modern bard has painted the desolate state of Scotland, during a period highly unfavourable to poetical composition. Yet the civil and religious wars of the seventeenth century have afforded some subjects for traditionary poetry, and the reader is here presented with the ballads of that disastrous aera. Some prefatory history may not be unacceptable.

That the Reformation was a good and a glorious work, few will be such slavish bigots as to deny. But the enemy came, by night, and sowed tares among the wheat; or rather; the foul and rank soil, upon which the seed was thrown, pushed forth, together with the rising crop, a plentiful proportion of pestilential weeds. The morals of the reformed clergy were severe; their learning was usually respectable, sometimes profound; and their eloquence, though often coarse, was vehement, animated, and popular. But they never could forget, that their rise had been achieved by the degradation, if not the fall, of the crown; and hence, a body of men, who, in most countries, have been attached to monarchy, were in Scotland, for nearly two centurie...

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