with critical observations and biographical notices, by Robert Burns

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Vm as bold, rm as bold,
Fill as bold, an' more, ladie
He that daurs dispute my word
Shall feel my guid claymore, lady.*
* The history of Rob Roy the reader may find at great length
in Maclaurin's Criminal Trials. He was the son of the Rob Roy
Macgregor who figures in the Rebellion, 1715. The short ac-
count of him is. this. He was outlawed by sentence of the Court
of Justiciary in Scotland, in 1736, for not appearing to stand
trial for the murder of a raau of the name of Maclaren. In this
state of outlawry, he formed the mad and desperate project of
carrying off and forcibly accomplishing a marriage with Jane
Key, heiress of Edinbelly, and thus getting possession of her
estate. He and his brother James Macgregor, at the head of a
band of armed ruffians, entered her mother's house, dragged her
out, and tying her, hand and foot with ropes, laid her across a
horse, and brought her in this situation to the house of one of
their clan, in a wild and sequestered part of the mountains of
Argyleshirej where, after some show of a marriage ceremony,
she was put to bed, and forcibly compelled to submit to his
embraces.
On a discovery of the place of her concealment she was res-
cued by her relations, and Rob Roy, and his brother James, were
tried capitally for the crime. James made his escape from pri-
son before sentence, was outlawed in consequence, and some
years afterwards obtained a pardon. Rob Roy was condemned
and executed, February, 1753.
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