t for me!
There 's health in the bucket, there 's wealth in the bucket,
There 's mair i' the bucket than mony can see;
An' aye whan I leuk in 't, I find there 's a beuk in 't
That teaches the essence o' wisdom to me.

Whan whisky I swiggit, my wifie aye beggit,
An' aft did she sit wi' the tear in her e'e;
But noo--wad you think it?--whan water I drink it
Right blithesome she smiles on the bucket an' me.
The bucket 's a treasure nae mortal can measure,
It 's happit my wee bits o' bairnies an' me;
An' noo roun' my ingle, whare sorrows did mingle,
I 've pleasure, an' plenty, an' glances o' glee.

The bucket 's the bicker that keeps a man sicker,
The bucket 's a shield an' a buckler to me;
In pool or in gutter nae langer I 'll splutter,
But walk like a freeman wha feels he is free.

Ye drunkards, be wise noo, an' alter your choice noo--
Come cling to the bucket, an' prosper like me;
Ye 'll find it is better to swig "caller water,"
Than groan in a gutter without a bawbee!

ROBERT NICOLL.

One of the most gifted and hopeful of modern Scottish song writers,
Robert Nicoll, was born at Little Tulliebeltane, in the parish of
Auchtergaven, Perthshire, on the 7th January 1814. Of a family of nine
children, he was the second son. His father, who bore the same Christian
name, rented a farm at the period of his birth and for five years
afterwards, when, involved in an affair of cautionary, he was reduced to
the condition of an agricultural labourer. Young Nicoll received the
rudiments of his education from his mother, a woman of superior
shrewdness and information; subsequently to his seventh year he tended
cattle in the summer months, to procure the means of attending the
parish school during the other portion of the year. From his childhood
fond of reading, books were his constant companions--in the field, on
the highway, and during the intervals of leisure in his father's
cottage. In his thirteenth year, he wrote verses and became the
correspondent of a newspaper. Apprenticed to a grocer and wine-merchant
in Perth, and occupied in business from seven o'clock morning till nine
o'clock evening, he prosecuted mental culture by abridging the usual
hours of rest. At the age of nineteen he communicated a tale to
_Johnstone's Magazine_, an Edinburgh periodical, which was inserted, and
attracted towards him the notice of Mr