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indebted for Kenilworth. Mr. Chambers says that of this ballad an imperfect, altered, and corrected copy, was found among his manuscripts after his death; and his widow, being applied to, confirmed the external evidence in his favor, by an express declaration that her husband had said the song was his own, and that he had explained to her the Scottish words.

And are ye sure the news is true?

And are ye sure he's weel?
Is this a time to think o' wark?
Ye jades, fling bye your wheel.
Is this a time to think o' wark,
When Colin's at the door?

Gie me my cloak,-I'll to the quay,
And see him come ashore.

For there's nae luck about the house,
There's nae luck ava';

There's little pleasure in the house,
When our gudeman's awa'.

And gie me down my biggonet,
My bishop-satin gown,

And rin and tell the bailie's wife

That Colin's come to town.

My Sunday shoon they maun gae on,

My hose o' pearlin blue;

It's a' to please my ain gudeman,

For he's baith leal and true.

For there's nae luck about the house,
There's nae luck ava';

There's little pleasure in the house,
When our gudeman's awa'.

Rise up and mak' a clean fireside,
Put on the muckle pot;

Gie little Kate her cotton gown,

And Jock his Sunday coat.

And mak' their shoon as black as slaes,

Their hose as white as snaw;

It's a' to please my ain gudeman

He likes to see them braw.

For there's nae luck about the house,
There's nae luck ava';

There's little pleasure in the house,
When our gudeman's awa'.

There's twa fat hens upon the bouk,
They've fed this month and mair;'

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Mak' haste and thraw their necks about,
That Colin weel may fare.

And spread the table neat and clean.
Gar ilka thing look braw;-

For wha can tell how Colin fared

When he was far awa'!

For there's nae luck about the house,
There's nae luck ava';

There's little pleasure in the house,
When our gudeman's awa'.

Sae true his heart, sae smooth his speech,
His breath's like caller air;

His very foot has music in't,
As he comes up the stair.
And will I see his face again?
And will I hear him speak?

I'm downright dizzy wi' the thought,—
In troth I'm like to greet.

For there's nae luck about the house,
There's nae luck ava';

There's little pleasure in the house,
When our gudeman's awa'.

The cauld blasts o' the winter's wind,
That thirled through my heart,
They're a' blawn by, I hae him safe,
Till death we'll never part.

But what puts parting i' my heid?
It may be far awa';

The present moment is our own,

The neist we never saw.

For there's nae luck about the house,

There's nae luck ava';

There's little pleasure in the house
When our gudeman's awa'.

Since Colin's weel, I'm weel content,
I hae nae mair to crave;
Could I but live to mak' him blest,
I'm blest aboon the lave:

And will I see his face again?

And will I hear him speak?

I'm downright dizzy wi' the thought,-
In troth I'm like to greet.

For there's nae luck about the house,

There's nae luck ava';

There's little pleasure in the house,

When our gudeman's awa'.

Mr. Chambers may well call this song "the fairest flower in Mickle's poetical chaplet." Many a laureled bard might have proudly owned such a ballad.

P.S. I was reading this song to a friend, as well as a tongue not Scottish would let me, while an intelligent young person, below the rank that is called a lady, sat at work in the room. She smiled as I concluded, and said, half to herself, "Singing that song got my sister a husband!"

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Is she so fine a singer?" inquired my friend.

"No, ma'am, not a fine singer at all; only somehow every body likes to hear her, because she seems to feel the words she sings, and so makes other people feel them. But it was her choosing that song that won William's love. . He said that a woman who put so much heart into the description of a wife's joy at greeting her husband home again, would be sure to make a good wife herself. And so she does. There never was a happier couple. It has been a lucky song for them, I am sure. Now it seems to me that this true story is worth all the criticisms in the world, both on this particular ballad, and on the manner of singing ballads in general. Let the poet and his songstress only put heart into them, and the lady, at least, sees her reward.

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XXIX,

AUTHORS ASSOCIATED WITH PLACES.

JOHN KENYΟΝ.

IN one of Mr. Kenyon's charming volumes, there is a slight and graceful poem, addressed to Mary Anning, of Lyme Regis, the first discoverer of the Saurian remains for which that picturesque coast is now so famous, which has for me an interest quite distinct from literature or geology. In that old historical town, so deeply interwoven with the tragedy of Monmouth and the triumph of William III., that old town so finely placed on the very line where Dorsetshire and Devonshire meet, I spent the eventful year when the careless happiness of childhood vanished, and the troubles of the world first dimly dawned upon my heart—felt ir its effects rather than known-felt in its chilling gloom, as we feel the shadow of a cloud that passes over the sun on an April day.

My dear mother, the only surviving child of a richly beneficed clergyman, had been for her station and for those times what might be called an heiress, and when she married my father, brought him, besides certain property in house and land, a portion in money of eight-and-twenty thousand pounds. He himself, the younger son of an old family, with a medical education as good as the world could afford, a graduate of Edinburgh, a house pupil of John Hunter, and personally all that attracts the sexclever, handsome, young and gay, had won her heart almost without design when he came to settle to his profession in the little Hampshire town where after the death of both parents she had taken up her abode, and was easily persuaded by friends more worldly-wise than he to address himself to a lady who, although ten years his senior, had every recommendation that heart could desire-except beauty. So they married. She full of con

fiding love refused every settlement beyond twc nundred a-year pin-money, out of his own property, on which he insisted; and he justified her choice by invariable kindness and affection, an affection that knew no intermission from her wedding-day to the day of her death, and by every manly and generous quality, excepting that which is so necessary to stability and comfort in this work-a-day world-the homely quality called prudence. Independent to a fault, frank in speech and rash in act, a zealous and uncompromising Whig, in those days when Whiggery was sometimes called sedition and sometimes treason, he first ruined his fair professional prospects in a place where he was known and loved, by plunging into the fervent hatreds of a hotly contested county election; and then, when he had removed into Berkshire, contrived by some similar outbreak to affront and alienate a rich cousin, of whom my mother was the declared heir, and who, after being violently angry with her for marrying, and with me for being a girl, had been propitiated by my bearing the magic name of Russell; and might perhaps have again relented had he not died within a few months, just after leaving his money to a child whom he had never seen, who had not even the baptismal Russell to recommend him. Then in his new residence he got into some feud with that influential body the corporation; and whether impatient of professional restraints, or of the slow progress of a physician's fortunes, he attempted to increase his own resources by the aid of cards (he was unluckily one of the finest whist-players in England), or by that other terrible gambling, which assumes so many forms, and bears so many names, but which, even when called by its milder term of speculation, is that terrible thing gambling still; whatever might be the manner of the loss or whether, as afterward happened, his own large-hearted hospitality and too-confiding temper were alone to blame for the detail was never known to me, nor do I think it was known to my mother; he did not tell, and we could not ask -whatever the actual cause, it seems to me certain that about this time nearly all of his own paternal property, except the reserved pin-money, and much of my mother's fortune, was in some way sunk.

Under these circumstances, just as a remarkable cure was beginning to make his medical talent advantageously known, he resolved to remove to Lyme, feeling with characteristic sanguine

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