maiden at the hay-field,
or when the _kye cam' hame_ at "the farmer's ingle," and in the _bien_
cottage of the _but_ and _ben_, where at eventide the rustics delighted
to meet. As experience gave him increased command over the hill harp,
his ambition to produce strains of greater beauty and refinement also
increased. By and by his minstrel numbers manifested a vigour and
perfection which rendered them the admiration of persons of higher rank,
and more competent powers of judgment.

If, with the very simple and seemingly insignificant weapon of Scottish
song, the Baroness Nairn "stooped," the Shepherd stood up "to conquer."
Both adhered to the dictates of nature, and in both cases the result was
the same; nor could the most marked inconveniences which circumstances
imposed hinder that result. A time comes when false things shew their
futility, and things depending upon truth assert their supremacy. The
difference between the authoress and the author lay in those external
circumstances of station and position which could not long, much less
always, be of avail. Their minds were directed by a power of nature to
do essentially the same thing; the difference only being that each did
it in her and his own way. We may suppose that while Lady Nairn in her
baronial hall wrote--

"Bonnie Charlie 's now awa',
Safely ower the friendly main,
Mony a heart will break in twa
Should he ne'er come back again;"

the Ettrick Shepherd seated on "a moss-gray stane," or a heather-bush,
and substituting his knee for his writing desk, might be furnishing
forth for the world's entertainment the lament, commencing--

"Far over yon hills of the heather sae green,
And down by the corrie that sings to the sea,
The bonnie young Flora sat sighing alane,
Wi' the dew on her plaid and the tear in her e'e."

Or when the lady was producing "The land o' the leal," a lay which has
reached and sunk so deeply into all hearts, the Shepherd might be
singing among the wild mountains the affecting and popular ditty, the
truth of which touched his own heart so powerfully, of "The moon was a'
waning," or saying to the skylark--

"Bird of the wilderness,
Blithesome and cumberless,
Sweet be thy matin o'er moorland and lea;
Emblem of happiness,
Blest is thy dwelling-place,
Oh! to abide in the desert with thee!"

Tannahill has likewise written a number of songs which hav