Charcoal red—This circumstance marks the antiquity of the poem. While wood was plenty in Scotland, charcoal was the usual fuel in the chambers of the wealthy.
THE BROOMFIELD HILL.
The concluding verses of this ballad were inserted in the copy of Tamlane, given to the public in the first edition of this work. They are now restored to their proper place. Considering how very apt the most accurate reciters are to patch up one ballad with verses from another, the utmost caution cannot always avoid such errors.
A more sanguine antiquary than the editor might perhaps endeavour to identify this poem, which is of undoubted antiquity, with the "Broom Broom on Hill," mentioned by Lane, in his Progress of Queen Elizabeth into Warwickshire, as forming part of Captain's Cox's collection, so much envied by the black-letter antiquaries of the present day.—Dugdale's Warwickshire, p. 166. The same ballad is quoted by one of the personages, in a "very mery and pythie comedie," called "The longer thou livest, the more fool thou art." See Ritson's Dissertation, prefixed to Ancient Songs, p. lx. "Brume brume on hill," is also mentioned in the Complayat of Scotland. See Leyden's edition, p. 100.
THE BROOMFIELD HILL.
There was a knight and a lady bright,
Had a true tryste at the broom;
The ane ga'ed early in the morning,
The other in the afternoon.