with critical observations and biographical notices, by Robert Burns

28
I gang like a ghaist, and I carena to spin,
I darena think on Jamie, for that wad be a sin
But I'll do my best a gudewife to be.
For auld Robin Gray is kind unto me.^
* Mr. Pinkerton, after observing that none of the " Scotch
amatory ballads," as he remembers, ^' are written by ladies j"
and that the " profligacy of manners which always reigns before
women can so utterly forget all sense of decency and propriety
as to commence authors, is yet almost unknown in Scotland,"
adds, in a note, that " there is, indeed, of very late years, one
insignificant exception to this rule: Auld Robin Gray, having
got his silly psalm set to soporific music, is, to the credit of our
taste, popular for the day. But after lulling some good-natured
audiences asleep, he will soon fall asleep himself." Little Rit-
son, with a becoming boldness and indignation at the author of
these ungracious and ungallant remarks, steps forward with his
accustomed Bantom-cock courage, and thus strikes at the hard
forehead of Pinkerton. " Alas ! this ' silly psalm' will continue
to be sung, ' to the credit of our taste,' long after tjje author of
this equally ridiculous and malignant paragraph shall be as com-
pletely forgotten as yesterday's Ephemeron, and his printed
trash be only occasionally discernible at the bottom of a pye.-
Of the 24 Scotish Song-writers whose names are preserved,
four, if not five, are females; and, as poetesses, two more might
be added to the number."
At the time Mr. Pinkerton made this unmanly remark,
he must have been aware that an examination of the cha-
racters of our principal female authors would have convinced
him of its fallacy. Nor would he find many instances at the
present day, to bear him out in it j and the spotless and ho-
nourable