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STORIES OF
spot on Irvine water, still called ' Patie's Mill/ where a bonnie lassie was ' tedding* hay, bare-headed on the green. My lord observed to Allan that it would be a fine theme for a song. Ramsay took the hint, and lingering behind he composed the first sketch of it, which he produced at dinner."
That magnificent song, "There's nae luck aboot the house," which Burns, in a burst of eloquence, declared to be the " finest love ballad of the kind in the Scottish, or perhaps any other language"—to which testimony we can mostly subscribe—it is usually placed to the credit of William Julius Mickle, the translator of Camoen's " Lusiad," and author of several tolerable poems, who was born in 1734, and died in 1788. The song has also been attri-buted to Jean Adams, who died unknown or for-gotten—she was a schoolmistress—in Greenock Workhouse; however, the weight of evidence is in favour of Mickle. But the fifth stanza, which I quote, and which is quite a gem of the com-position, was added by Dr. Beattie, the author4 of " The Minstrel," and a very close follower and disciple of Gray. He was born 1735, and died, after a sorely afflicted life, in 1803. Here is Dr. Beattie's contribution to "There's Nae Luck:"
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