hills, his warlike name resounds."

OH, MY LOVE, LEAVE ME NOT![20]

AIR--_"Bealach na Gharraidh."_

Oh, my love, leave me not!
Oh, my love, leave me not!
Oh, my love, leave me not!
Lonely and weary.

Could you but stay a while,
And my fond fears beguile,
I yet once more could smile,
Lightsome and cheery.

Night, with her darkest shroud,
Tempests that roar aloud,
Thunders that burst the cloud,
Why should I fear ye?

Till the sad hour we part,
Fear cannot make me start;
Grief cannot break my heart
Whilst thou art near me.

Should you forsake my sight,
Day would to me be night;
Sad, I would shun its light,
Heartless and weary.

[20] From Albyn's "Anthology," vol. i. p. 42. Edinburgh, 1816, 4to.

JOHN MAYNE.

John Mayne, chiefly known as the author of "The Siller Gun," a poem
descriptive of burgher habits in Scotland towards the close of the
century, was born at Dumfries, on the 26th of March 1759. At the grammar
school of his native town, under Dr Chapman, the learned rector, whose
memory he has celebrated in the third canto of his principal poem, he
had the benefit of a respectable elementary education; and having chosen
the profession of a printer, he entered at an early age the printing
office of the _Dumfries Journal_. In 1782, when his parents removed to
Glasgow, to reside on a little property to which they had succeeded, he
sought employment under the celebrated Messrs Foulis, in whose printing
establishment he continued during the five following years. He paid a
visit to London in 1785, with the view of advancing his professional
interests, and two years afterwards he settled in the metropolis.

Mayne, while a mere stripling, was no unsuccessful wooer of the Muse;
and in his sixteenth year he produced the germ of that poem on which his
reputation chiefly depends. This production, entitled "The Siller Gun,"
descriptive of a sort of _walkingshaw_, or an ancient practice which
obtained in his native town, of shooting, on the king's birth-day, for a
silver tube or gun, which had been presented by James VI. to the
incorporated trades, as a prize to the best marksman, was printed at
Dumfries in 1777, on a small quarto page. The original edition consisted
of twelve stanzas; in two years it increased to two cantos; in 1780, it
was printed in three cantos; in 1808, it was published in London with a