The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border

  Far in the green isle of the west.—­P. 103. v. 2. 
    The Flathinnis, or Celtic paradise.

  Ah! sure, as Hindú legends tell.—­P. 104. v. 1.

The effect of music is explained by the Hindús, as recalling to our memory the airs of paradise, heard in a state of pre-existence—­Vide Sacontala.

  Did “Bathwell’s banks that bloom so fair.”—­P. 106. v. 3.

“So fell it out of late years, that an English gentleman, travelling in Palestine, not far from Jerusalem, as he passed through a country town, he heard, by chance, a woman sitting at her door, dandling her child, to sing, Bothwel bank thou blumest fair.  The gentleman hereat wondered, and forthwith, in English, saluted the woman, who joyfully answered him; and said, she was right glad there to see a gentleman of our isle:  and told him, that she was a Scottish woman, and came first from Scotland to Venice, and from Venice thither, where her fortune was to be the wife of an officer under the Turk; who being at that instant absent, and very soon to return, she entreated the gentleman to stay there until his return.  The which he did; and she, for country sake, to shew herself the more kind and bountiful unto him, told her husband, at his home-coming, that the gentleman was her kinsman; whereupon her husband entertained him very kindly; and, at his departure gave him divers things of good value.”—­Verstigan’s Restitution of Decayed Intelligence. Chap. Of the Sirnames of our Antient Families. Antwerp, 1605.