Page:History of Will & Jean.pdf/1



For half a century, this poetical narration has been one of the most popular ditties in Scotland. Purporting to describe in simple verse the miseries produced by intemperance, its publication in the present form cannot, it is hoped, fail to prove gen- erally acceptable. The author, Hector Macneill, was born at Bosebank, near Boslin, in 1746, and he died in Edinburgh in 1818. “Will and Jean” was first published in 1795.