This air is Oswald's.
* * * * *
THE BUSH ABOON TRAQUAIR.
This is another beautiful song of Mr. Crawfurd's composition. In the
neighbourhood of Traquair, tradition still shows the old "Bush;"
which, when I saw it, in the year 1787, was composed of eight or nine
ragged birches. The Earl of Traquair has planted a clump of trees near
by, which he calls "The New Bush."
* * * * *
CROMLET'S LILT.
The following interesting account of this plaintive dirge was
communicated to Mr. Riddel by Alexander Fraser Tytler, Esq., of
Woodhouselee.
"In the latter end of the sixteenth century, the Chisolms were
proprietors of the estate of Cromlecks (now possessed by the
Drummonds). The eldest son of that family was very much attached to a
daughter of Sterling of Ardoch, commonly known by the name of Fair
Helen of Ardoch.
"At that time the opportunities of meeting betwixt the sexes were more
rare, consequently more sought after than now; and the Scottish
ladies, far from priding themselves on extensive literature, were
thought sufficiently book-learned if they could make out the
Scriptures in their mother-tongue. Writing was entirely out of the
line of female education.
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