Platt, when they were struck
with this tune, which an old woman, spinning on a rock at her door,
was singing. All she could tell concerning it was, that she was taught
it when a child, and it was called "What will I do gin my Hoggie die?"
No person, except a few females at Moss Platt, knew this fine old
tune, which in all probability would have been lost had not one of the
gentlemen, who happened to have a flute with him, taken it down.

* * * * *

I DREAM'D I LAY WHERE FLOWERS WERE SPRINGING.

These two stanzas I composed when I was seventeen, and are among the
oldest of my printed pieces.

* * * * *

AH! THE POOR SHEPHERD'S MOURNFUL FATE.

Tune--"Gallashiels."

The old title, "Sour Plums o' Gallashiels," probably was the beginning
of a song to this air, which is now lost.

The tune of Gallashiels was composed about the beginning of the
present century by the Laird of Gallashiel's piper.

* * * * *

THE BANKS OF THE DEVON.

These verses were composed on a charming girl, a Miss Charlotte
Hamilton, who is now married to James M'Kitrick Adair, Esq.,
physician. She is sister to my worthy friend Gavin Hamilton, of
Mauchline, and was born on the banks of the Ayr, but was, at the time
I wrote these lines, residing at Herveyston, in Clackmannanshire, on
the romantic banks of the little river Devon. I first heard the air
from a lady in Inverness, and got the notes taken down for this work.

* * * * *

MILL, MILL O.

The original, or at least a song evidently prior to Ramsay's is still
extant.--It runs thus,

CHORUS.

"The mill, mill O, and the kill, kill O,
And the coggin o' Peggy's wheel, O,
The sack and the sieve, and a' she did leave,
And danc'd the miller's reel O.--

As I came down yon waterside,
And by yon shellin-hill O,
There I spied a bonie bonie lass,
And a lass that I lov'd right well O."

* * * * *

WE RAN AND THEY RAN.

The author of "We ran and they ran"--was a Rev. Mr. Murdoch M'Lennan,
minister at Crathie, Dee-side.

* * * * *

WALY, WALY.

In the west country I have heard a different edition of the second
stanza.--Instead of the four lines, beginning with, "When
cockle-shells, &c.," the other way ran thus:--

"O wherefore need I busk my