with critical observations and biographical notices, by Robert Burns

u^
HUGHIE GRAHAM.
Our lords are to the mountains gane,
A hunting o' the fallow deer,
And they have gripet Hughie Graham
For stealing o' the bishop's mare.
never more touching than in the picture of the hero singling out
his poor aged father from the crowd of spectators ; and the sim-
ple grandeur of preparation for this afflicting circumstance in the
verse that immediately precedes it is matchless.
That the reader mzty properly appreciate the value of Burns's
touches, I here subjoin two verses from the most correct copy of
the ballad, as it is printed in the Border Minstrelsy, vol. ii.
p. 324.
" He looked over bis left shoulder,
And for to see what he might see ;
There was he aware of his auld father,
Came tearing his hair most piteouslie.
" O hald your tongue, my father, he says,
And see that ye dinna weep for me
For they may ravish me o' my life,
But they canna banish me from heaven hie !"
The Grahames were a warlike and restless clan, who held the
debatable land on the Scotish border by the uncertain and dan-
gerous tenure of plundering warfare. Though mostly Scotch-
men, we find them on the skirts of the English armies, when
!
*
they