"Annie Laurie."

Many are familiar with the sweet song of "Annie Laurie," yet perhaps few know that the fair-faced maiden was not a creature of imagination, but one, of whose ancestry honorable mention is made in Scottish history.

Her father was Robert Laurie, a baronet. In the family register we find this entry: "At the pleasure of God, my daughter, Annie Laurie, was born upon the 16th day of December, 1682, about six o'clock in the morning, and was baptized by Mr. George Hunter (minister of Glencairn)." Recording the hour of birth is a survival of the era of faith in astrology. According to astrological notions the hour of birth decided the nature of one's career all through life, to its very close. The little stranger whose entry into life it announces, grew to be the most beautiful Dumfriesian lady of the day, and was the heroine of a song which has rendered her charms immortal:--

The well-known lyric, of which these lines form a part, was composed by Mr. Douglass Finland, an ardent admirer of "bonnie Annie." She did not, however, return his affection, but married his rival, Alexander Furgusson.

Some of our nursery rhymes claim even greater antiquity than this ballad. "Sing a Song of Sixpence" is as old as the sixteenth century. "Three Blind Mice" was found in a music book dated 1609. "The Frog and the Mouse" was licensed in 1580. "Three Children Sliding on the Ice" dates from 1539. "London Bridge is Broken Down" is of unfathomable antiquity. "Boys and Girls Come Out to Play" dates as far back as the reign of Charles II., as does also "Lucy Lost her Pocket Book," to the tune of which "Yankee Doodle" was written. "Pussy Cat, Pussy Cat, Where Have You Been?" belongs to the time of Queen Bess. "Little Jack Horner" is more than two hundred years old. "The Old Woman Tossed in a Blanket" is of the reign of James the II., to which monarch it is supposed to allude.