LESLEY’S MARCH.

  March! march! 
  Why the devil do ye na march? 
  Stand to your arms, my lads,
  Fight in good order;
  Front about, ye musketeers all,
  Till ye come to the English border: 
    Stand til’t, and fight like men,
    True gospel to maintain. 
  The parliament’s blythe to see us a’ coming. 
    When to the kirk we come,
    We’ll purge it ilka room,
  Frae popish reliques, and a’ sic innovation,
    That a’ the warld may see,
    There’s nane in the right but we,
  Of the auld Scottish nation.
  Jenny shall wear the hood,
  Jocky the sark of God;
  And the kist-fou of whistles,
  That mak sic a cleiro,
    Our piper’s braw
    Shall hae them a’,
    Whate’er come on it: 
    Busk up your plaids, my lads! 
    Cock up your bonnets!
          Da Capo.

THE BATTLE OF PHILIPHAUGH.

This ballad is so immediately connected with the former, that the editor is enabled to continue his sketch of historical transactions, from the march of Lesly.

In the insurrection of 1680, all Scotland, south from the Grampians, was actively and zealously engaged.  But, after the treaty of Rippon, the first fury of the revolutionary torrent may be said to have foamed off its force, and many of the nobility began to look round, with horror, upon the rocks and shelves amongst which it had hurried them.  Numbers regarded the defence of Scotland as a just and necessary warfare, who did not see the same reason for interfering in the affairs of England.  The visit of King Charles to the metropolis of his fathers, in all probability, produced its effect on his nobles.  Some were allied to the house of Stuart by blood; all regarded it as the source of their honours, and venerated the ancient in obtaining the private objects of ambition, or selfish policy which had induced them to rise up against the crown.  Amongst these late penitents, the well known marquis of Montrose was distinguished, as the first who endeavoured to recede from the paths of rude rebellion.  Moved by the enthusiasm of patriotism, or perhaps of religion, but yet more by ambition, the sin of noble minds, Montrose had engaged, eagerly and deeply, upon the side of the covenanters He had been active in pressing the town of Aberdeen to take the covenant, and his success against the Gordons, at the bridge of Dee, left that royal burgh no other means of safety from pillage.  At the head of his own battalion, he waded through the Tweed, in 1640, and totally routed the vanguard of the king’s cavalry.  But, in 1643, moved with resentment against the covenanters who preferred, to his prompt and ardent character, the caution of the wily and politic earl of Argyle, or seeing, perhaps, that the final views of that party were inconsistent with the interests of monarchy, and of the constitution, Montrose