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Old Scottish songs are, you know, a favourite study and pursuit of mine, and now I am on that subject, allow me to give you two stanzas of another old simple ballad, which I am sure will please you. The catastrophe of the piece is a poor ruined female, lamenting her fate, She concludes with this pathetic wish: O that my father had ne'er on me smil'd; O that my mother had ne'er to me sung!

Soft came the breath of spring; smooth flow'd the tide; And blue the heaven in its mirror smil'd; The white sail trembled, swell'd, expanded wide, The busy sailors at the anchor toil'd. With anxious friends, that shed the parting tear, The deck was throng'd how swift the moments fly! The vessel heaves, the farewel signs appear; Mute is each tongue, and eloquent each eye!

Accordingly a Number went ashore, and carried with them the Dividend, which fell to his Share, which the Captain order'd to be given his Widow; when she saw the Money, she smil'd, and ask'd if all, all that was for her?

"He was counted the greatest poet of his day, and no age loves dullness! Listen a moment, sir; I will read only one stanza." He had found the "Hymn to the Light," and read: "First born of Chaos, who so fair didst come From the old Negro's darksome womb! Which when it saw the lovely Child, The melancholy Mass put on kind looks and smil'd."

She was pleas'd, and smil'd with such an air, that, she seem'd like the moon in all her glories breaking through a cloud, when addressing her self, her pretty fingers humouring the turn of her voice, "If a fine woman, and that but this year, has been acquaint'd with a man," said she, "may deserve your love, let me commend a mistress to you.

Quoth Richard, "Let Jessamine be, all of ye! she is meat for his masters." Freeman smil'd sourly, & shrug'd. I love not Freeman, nor do I hate him overmuch though he call'd me "Madame Jezebel." And then came Emily home from Visiting of her Aunts in London Town. And they made a Marriage between her and Richard, Richard that was mine. He had lov'd me an they had let us be.

More precious than silver or gold, Or all that this earth can afford; But the sound of the church-going bell, These valleys and rocks never heard, Ne'er sigh'd at the sound of a knell, Or smil'd when a sabbath appear'd." "'Ye winds, that have made me your sport, Convey to this desolate shore, Some cordial, endearing report Of a land I shall visit no more.

I smil'd on you; and sometimes kiss'd you too; but for my sister's sake, I play'd with you, suffer'd your hands and lips to wander where I dare not now; all which I thought a sister might allow a brother, and knew not all the while the treachery of love: oh none, but under that intimate title of a brother, could have had the opportunity to have ruin'd me; that, that betray'd me; I play'd away my heart at a game I did not understand; nor knew I when 'twas lost, by degrees so subtle, and an authority so lawful, you won me out of all.

And then will he rise and Speak strange and sometimes Terrible things, and Prophesy. In the old times my Father smil'd, and let him be. But here 't is otherwise. When Shooba's Spiritt made him Heavy and Sleepy, and when he woke again and Spoke, mine Uncle's new Overseer had the old man Whip't. Twice did this Happen before I knew of It.

This they laughed at, and endeavoured to make him sensible, that the taking away an enemy's treasure was to take away their strength; but all they could say was ineffectual; he was not to be perswaded out of what he thought reason and justice: and this conversation being afterward repeated to the duke, he smil'd and said, he was yet too young to know the value of money.