ven."

Away, away, the burdies flew
Aye singing, "Adieu, kind heart, adieu!
They that hae blood on their hands may rue
Afore the day-beam kiss the dew.

There's naught sae heinous in human life
As taking a helpless baby's life;
There's naething sae kind aneath the sky
As cheering the heart that soon maun die."

The morning came wi' drift an' snaw,
And with it news frae the bridal-ha',
That death had been busy, and blood was spilt,
May Heaven preserve us all from guilt!

They tell of a deed--Believe't who can?
Such tale was never told by man;
The bridegroom is gone in fire and flood,
And the bridal-bed is steep'd with blood!

The poor auld matron died ere day,
And was found as life was passing away;
And twa bonny burdies sang in the bed,
The one at the feet, the other the head.

Now I have heard tales, and told them too,
Hut this is beyond what I could do;
And far hae I ridden, and far hae I gane,
But burdies like these I never saw nane.

_Fraser's Magazine._

* * * * *

ELLISTON AND THE ASS' HEAD.

Elliston was, in his day, the Napoleon of Drury-lane, but, like the
conqueror at Austerlitz, he suffered his declensions, and the Surrey
became to him a St. Helena. However, once an eagle always an eagle; and
Robert William was no less aquiline in the day of adversity than in his
palmy time of patent prosperity. He was born to carry things with a high
hand, and he but fulfilled his destiny. The anecdote which we are about to
relate, is one of the ten thousand instances of his lordly bearing. When,
the season before last, "no effects" was written over the treasury-door of
Covent-garden theatre, it will be remembered that several actors proffered
their services _gratis_, in aid of the then humble, but now arrogant and
persecuting establishment. Among these patriots was Mr. T.P. Cooke--(it
was just after his promotion to the honorary rank of Admiral of the Blue).
The Covent-garden managers jumped at the offer of the actor, who was in
due time announced as having, in the true play-bill style, "most
generously volunteered his services for six nights!" Cooke was advertised
for _William_; Elliston having "most generously lent [N.B. this was _not_
put in the bill] his musical score of _Black-Eyed Susan_, together with
the identical captains' coats, worn at a hundred-and-fifty court-martials
at the Surrey Theatre!" Cooke--the score--t