The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes (1907–21).
Volume IX. From Steele and Addison to Pope and Swift.
§ 13. William Hamilton of Bangour
Another contributor to The Miscellany was William Hamilton of Bangour, whose one notable composition is the imposingly melodious Braes of Yarrow, beginning “Busk ye, busk ye, my bony bride,” which, written in 1724, and circulated for some time in MS., appeared uninitialled at the close of the second volume of The Miscellany. It is probably a kind of fantasia on a fragmentary traditional ballad and may even have been suggested by the anonymous Rare Willie drowned in Yarrow, which appeared in the fourth volume of The Miscellany, and, consisting of only four stanzas, is by far the finest commemoration of the supposed Yarrow tragedy. If Hamilton wrote both of them, it is all the more regrettable that he mainly confined his poetic efforts to the celebration, in bombastic conventional form, of the charms of fashionable ladies. In 1745, he followed prince Charlie, and he wrote a Jacobite Ode to the battle of Gladsmuir, which was set to music by the Edinburgh musician, M’Gibbon.