"I come from heuin to tell The best nowellis that ever be fell." But we must take it up further on:-- "My saull and lyfe, stand up and see Quha lyes in ane cribe of tree; Quhat babe is that so gude and faire? It is Christ, God's Sonne and Aire. . . . . . . . O God, that made all creature, How art thou becum so pure, That on the hay and straw will lye, Amang the asses, oxin, and kye? "And were the world ten tymes so wide, Cled ouer with gold and stanes of pride, Unworthy zit it were to thee, Under thy feet ane stule to bee. "The sylke and sandell, thee to eis, Are hay and sempill sweiling clais, Quhairin thow gloiris, greitest king, As thow in heuin were in thy ring. . . . . . . . "O my deir hert, zoung Jesus sweit, Prepare thy creddill in my spreit, And I sall rock thee in my hert, And neuer mair from thee depart." The Star-song in this collection is, if our memory mislead us not, Herrick's, and taken from his "Noble Numbers." It begins:-- "Tell us, thou cleere and heavenly tongue, Where is the babe but lately sprung? Lies he the lillie-banks among? "Or say if this new Birth of our's Sleep, laid within some ark of flowers, Spangled with deaw-light; thou canst cleere All doubts, and manifest the where. "Declare to us, bright star, if we shall seek Him in the morning's blushing cheek, Or search the beds of spices through, To find him out?" The second part of Sandys's collection contains an imperfect version of a carol of which we find a full and corrected copy in Mr. Hone's "Ancient Mysteries," formed by that author's collation of various copies printed in different places. The beautiful verses which we quote are from Hone's version, and are wanting in that of Sandys. The ballad begins by elevating the Virgin Mary to a temporal rank which must rest upon that particular authority, and is probably a new fact for our readers: "Joseph was an old man, And an old man was he, And he married Mary, Queen of Galilee,"-- which, for a carpenter, was certainly a distinguished alliance. It goes on to describe Joseph and his bride walking in a garden,-- "Where the cherries they grew Upon every tree;" and upon Joseph's refusal, in somewhat rude language, to pull some of these cherries for Mary, on the ground of her supposed misconduct,-- "Oh! then bespoke Jesus, All in his mother's womb, 'Go to the tree, Mary, And it shall bow down; "'Go to the tree, Mary, And it shall bow to thee, And the highest branch of all Shall bow down to Mary's knee.'" And then, after describing Joseph's conviction and penitence at this testimony to Mary's truth, occur the beautiful verses to which we alluded: