isle,
Did sweetly set yestreen;
But not his parting dewy smile
Could match the smile of Jean.
Her bosom swell'd with gentle woe,
Mine strove with tender war.
On Stinshar's banks, while wild-woods grow,
While rivers to the ocean flow,
With love of thee my heart shall glow,
Thou bonnie lass of Barr.

[74] The English pronouncing the name of this river _Stinkar_, induced
the poet Burns to change it to Lugar.

ROBERT TANNAHILL.

Robert Tannahill was born at Paisley on the 3d of June 1774. His father,
James Tannahill, a silk-gauze weaver, espoused Janet Pollock, daughter
of Matthew Pollock, owner of the small property of Boghall, near Beith;
their family consisted of six sons and one daughter, of whom the future
poet was the fourth child. On his mother's side he inherited a poetical
temperament; she was herself endowed with strong natural sagacity, and
her maternal uncle Hugh Brodie of Langcroft, a small landowner in
Lochwinnoch, evidenced poetic powers by composing "A Speech in Verse
upon Husbandry."[75] When a mere youth, Tannahill wrote verses; and
being unable, from a weakness in one of his limbs to join in the active
sports of his school-fellows, he occasionally sought amusement by
composing riddles in rhyme for their solution. As a specimen of these
early compositions, we submit the following, which has been communicated
to us by Mr Matthew Tannahill, the poet's surviving brother. It was
composed on old grumbling Peter Anderson, the gardener of King's Street,
a character still remembered in Paisley:--

"Wi' girnin' and chirmin',
His days they hae been spent;
When ither folk right thankfu' spoke,
He never was content."

Along with poetry Tannahill early cultivated the kindred arts of music
and song; a mere youth, he occasionally earned the payment of ten
shillings for playing on the fife at the Greenock parades; he afterwards
became eminent for his skill in the use of the flute. Having completed
his education at school, which consisted of instruction in the
elementary branches, he became apprenticed to a cotton-weaver.
Collecting old or obscure airs, he began to adapt to them suitable
words, which he jotted down as they occurred, upon a rude writing-desk
he had attached to his loom. His spare hours were spent in the general
improvement of his mind. For a period of two years at the commencement
of the century, he prosecuted his handicraf