THE POSY.

“When Maggy and I was acquaint,I carried my noddle fu’ hie;Nae lintwhite on a’ the green plain,Nor gowdspink sae happy as me:But I saw her sae fair and I lo’ed:I woo’d, but I came nae great speed;So now I maun wander abroad,And lay my banes far frae the Tweed.”—

It appears evident to me that Oswald composed hisRoslin Castleon the modulation of this air.—In the second part of Oswald’s, in the three first bars, he has either hit on a wonderful similarity to, or else he has entirely borrowed the three first bars of the old air; and the close of both tunes is almost exactly the same. The old verses to which it was sung, when I took down the notes from a country girl’s voice, had no great merit.—The following is a specimen:

“There was a pretty May, and a milkin she went;Wi’ her red rosy cheeks, and her coal black hair;And she has met a young man a comin o’er the bent,With a double and adieu to thee, fair May.O where are ye goin, my ain pretty May,Wi’ thy red rosy cheeks, and thy coal black hair?Unto the yowes a milkin, kind sir, she says,With a double and adieu to thee, fair May.What if I gang alang with thee, my ain pretty May,Wi’ thy red rosy cheeks, any thy coal-black hair;Wad I be aught the warse o’ that, kind sir, she says,With a double and adieu to thee, fair May.”

“There was a pretty May, and a milkin she went;Wi’ her red rosy cheeks, and her coal black hair;And she has met a young man a comin o’er the bent,With a double and adieu to thee, fair May.

O where are ye goin, my ain pretty May,Wi’ thy red rosy cheeks, and thy coal black hair?Unto the yowes a milkin, kind sir, she says,With a double and adieu to thee, fair May.

What if I gang alang with thee, my ain pretty May,Wi’ thy red rosy cheeks, any thy coal-black hair;Wad I be aught the warse o’ that, kind sir, she says,With a double and adieu to thee, fair May.”

The Mary here alluded to is generally supposed to be Miss Mary Macghie, daughter to the Laird of Airds, in Galloway. The poet was a Mr. John Lowe, who likewise wrote another beautiful song, called Pompey’s Ghost.—I have seen a poetic epistle from him in North America, where he now is, or lately was, to a lady in Scotland.—By the strain of the verses, it appeared that they allude to some love affair.

This Dudgeon is a respectable farmer’s son in Berwickshire.

I never heard more of the words of this old song than the title.

This Allan Water, which the composer of the music has honoured with the name of the air, I have been told is Allan Water, in Strathallan.

This is one of the most beautiful songs in the Scots, or any other language.—The two lines,

“And will I see his face again!And will I hear him speak!”

as well as the two preceding ones, are unequalled almost by anything I ever heard or read: and the lines,

“The present moment is our ain,The neist we never saw,”—

are worthy of the first poet. It is long posterior to Ramsay’s days. About the year 1771, or 72, it came first on the streets as a ballad; and I suppose the composition of the song was not much anterior to that period.

This is a very pretty song; but I fancy that the first half stanza, as well as the tune itself, are much older than the rest of the words.

The song of Gramachree was composed by a Mr. Poe, a counsellor at law in Dublin. This anecdote I had from a gentleman who knew the lady, the “Molly,” who is the subject of the song, and to whom Mr. Poe sent the first manuscript of his most beautiful verses. I do not remember any single line that has more true pathos than

“How can she break that honest heart that wears her in its core!”

But as the song is Irish, it had nothing to do in this collection.

The first half stanza is much older than the days of Ramsay.—The old words began thus:

“The collier has a dochter, and, O, she’s wonder bonnie!A laird he was that sought her, rich baith in lands and money.She wad na hae a laird, nor wad she be a lady,But she wad hae a collier, the colour o’ her daddie.”

The old words of this song are omitted here, though much more beautiful than these inserted; which were mostly composed by poor Fergusson, in one of his merry humours. The old words began thus:

“I’ll rowe thee o’er the lea-rig,My ain kind dearie, O,I’ll rowe thee o’er the lea-rig,My ain kind dearie, O,Altho’ the night were ne’er sae wat,And I were ne’er sae weary, O;I’ll rowe thee o’er the lea-rig,My ain kind dearie, O.”—

Mr. Robertson, in his statistical account of the parish of Selkirk, says, that Mary Scott, the Flower of Yarrow, was descended from the Dryhope, and married into the Harden family. Her daughter was married to a predecessor of the present Sir Francis Elliot, of Stobbs, and of the late Lord Heathfield.

There is a circumstance in their contract of marriage that merits attention, and it strongly marks the predatory spirit of the times. The father-in-law agrees to keep his daughter for some time after the marriage; for which the son-in-law binds himself to give him the profits of the first Michaelmas moon!

I have been informed, that the tune of “Down the burn, Davie,” was the composition of David Maigh, keeper of the blood slough hounds, belonging to the Laird of Riddel, in Tweeddale.

The old words, all that I remember, are,—

“Blink over the burn, sweet Betty,It is a cauld winter night:It rains, it hails, it thunders,The moon, she gies nae light:It’s a’ for the sake o’ sweet Betty,That ever I tint my way;Sweet, let me lie beyond theeUntil it be break o’ day.—O, Betty will bake my bread,And Betty will brew my ale,And Betty will be my love,When I come over the dale:Blink over the burn, sweet Betty,Blink over the burn to me,And while I hae life, dear lassie,My ain sweet Betty thou’s be.”

O, Betty will bake my bread,And Betty will brew my ale,And Betty will be my love,When I come over the dale:Blink over the burn, sweet Betty,Blink over the burn to me,And while I hae life, dear lassie,My ain sweet Betty thou’s be.”

I find the “Blithsome Bridal” in James Watson’s collection of Scots poems, printed at Edinburgh, in 1706. This collection, the publisher says, is the first of its nature which has been published in our own native Scots dialect—it is now extremely scarce.

John Hay’s “Bonnie Lassie” was daughter of John Hay, Earl or Marquis of Tweeddale, and late Countess Dowager of Roxburgh.—She died at Broomlands, near Kelso, some time between the years 1720 and 1740.

The two first lines of this song are all of it that is old. The rest of the song, as well as those songs in the Museum marked T., are the works of an obscure, tippling, but extraordinary body of the name of Tytler, commonly known by the name of Balloon Tytler, from his having projected a balloon; a mortal, who, though he drudges about Edinburgh as a common printer, with leaky shoes, a sky-lighted hat, and knee-buckles as unlike as George-by-the-grace-of-God, and Solomon-the-son-of-David; yet that same unknown drunken mortal is author and compiler of three-fourths of Elliot’s pompous Encyclopedia Britannica, which he composed at half a guinea a week!

This song is beautiful.—The chorus in particular is truly pathetic. I never could learn anything of its author.

Chorus.

“Sae merry as we twa ha’e been,Sae merry as we twa ha’e been;My heart is like for to break,When I think on the days we ha’e seen.”

This air is Oswald’s.

This is another beautiful song of Mr. Crawfurd’s composition. In the neighbourhood of Traquair, tradition still shows the old “Bush;” which, when I saw it, in the year 1787, was composed of eight or nine ragged birches. The Earl of Traquair has planted a clump of trees near by, which he calls “The New Bush.”

The following interesting account of this plaintive dirge was communicated to Mr. Riddel by Alexander Fraser Tytler, Esq., of Woodhouselee.

“In the latter end of the sixteenth century, the Chisolms were proprietors of the estate of Cromlecks (now possessed by the Drummonds). The eldest son of that family was very much attached to a daughter of Sterling of Ardoch, commonly known by the name of Fair Helen of Ardoch.

“At that time the opportunities of meeting betwixt the sexes were more rare, consequently more sought after than now; and the Scottish ladies, far from priding themselves on extensive literature, were thought sufficiently book-learned if they could make out the Scriptures in their mother-tongue. Writing was entirely out of the line of female education. At that period the most of our young men of family sought a fortune, or found a grave, in France. Cromlus, when he went abroad to the war, was obliged to leave the management of his correspondence with his mistress to a lay-brother of the monastery of Dumblain, in the immediate neighbourhood of Cromleck, and near Ardoch. This man, unfortunately, was deeply sensible of Helen’s charms. He artfully prepossessed her with stories to the disadvantage of Cromlus; and, by misinterpreting or keeping up the letters and messages intrusted to his care, he entirely irritated both. All connexion was broken off betwixt them; Helen was inconsolable, and Cromlus has left behind him, in the ballad called ‘Cromlet’s Lilt,’ a proof of the elegance of his genius, as well as the steadiness of his love.

“When the artful monk thought time had sufficiently softened Helen’s sorrow, he proposed himself as a lover: Helen was obdurate: but at last, overcome by the persuasions of her brother, with whom she lived, and who, having a family of thirty-one children, was probably very well pleased to get her off his hands—she submitted, rather than consented to the ceremony; but there her compliance ended; and, when forcibly put into bed, she started quite frantic from it, screaming out, that after three gentle taps on the wainscot, at the bed-head, she heard Cromlus’s voice, crying, ‘Helen, Helen, mind me!’ Cromlus soon after coming home, the treachery of the confidant was discovered,—her marriage disannulled,—and Helen became Lady Cromlecks.”

N. B. Marg. Murray, mother to these thirty-one children, was daughter to Murray of Strewn, one of the seventeen sons of Tullybardine, and whose youngest son, commonly called the Tutor of Ardoch, died in the year 1715, aged 111 years.

Another beautiful song of Crawfurd’s.

The old set of this song, which is still to be found in printed collections, is much prettier than this; but somebody, I believe it was Ramsay, took it into his head to clear it of some seeming indelicacies, and made it at once more chaste and more dull.

I am not sure if this old and charming air be of the South, as is commonly said, or of the North of Scotland. There is a song, apparently as ancient us “Ewe-bughts, Marion,” which sings to the same tune, and is evidently of the North.—It begins thus:

“The Lord o’ Gordon had three dochters,Mary, Marget, and Jean,They wad na stay at bonie Castle Gordon,But awa to Aberdeen.”

This air is a proof how one of our Scots tunes comes to be composed out of another. I have one of the earliest copies of the song, and it has prefixed,

“Tune of Tarry Woo.”—

Of which tune a different set has insensibly varied into a different air.—To a Scots critic, the pathos of the line,

“‘Tho’ his back be at the wa’,”

—must be very striking. It needs not a Jacobite prejudice to be affected with this song.

The supposed author of “Lewis Gordon” was a Mr. Geddes, priest, at Shenval, in the Ainzie.

Dr. Blacklock informed me that this song was composed on the infamous massacre of Glencoe.

This is another of Crawfurd’s songs, but I do not think in his happiest manner.—What an absurdity, to join such names asAdonisandMarytogether!

All the old words that ever I could meet to this air were the following, which seem to have been an old chorus:

“O corn rigs and rye rigs,O corn rigs are bonie;And where’er you meet a bonie lass,Preen up her cockernony.”

The chorus of this song is old; the rest is the work of Balloon Tytler.

There is a beautiful song to this tune, beginning,

“Alas, my son, you little know,”—

which is the composition of Miss Jenny Graham, of Dumfries.

There are two stanzas still sung to this tune, which I take to be the original song whence Ramsay composed his beautiful song of that name in the Gentle Shepherd.—It begins

“O will ye speak at our town,As ye come frae the fauld.”

I regret that, as in many of our old songs, the delicacy of this old fragment is not equal to its wit and humour.

“Tranent-Muir,” was composed by a Mr. Skirving, a very worthy respectable farmer near Haddington. I have heard the anecdote often, that Lieut. Smith, whom he mentions in the ninth stanza, came to Haddington after thepublication of the song, and sent a challenge to Skirving to meet him at Haddington, and answer for the unworthy manner in which he had noticed him in his song. “Gang away back,” said the honest farmer, “and tell Mr. Smith that I hae nae leisure to come to Haddington; but tell him to come here, and I’ll tak a look o’ him, and if I think I’m fit to fecht him, I’ll fecht him; and if no, I’ll do as he did—I’ll rin awa.”—

The chorus of this song is old, the rest of it is mine. Here, once for all, let me apologize for many silly compositions of mine in this work. Many beautiful airs wanted words; in the hurry of other avocations, if I could string a parcel of rhymes together anything near tolerable, I was fain to let them pass. He must be an excellent poet indeed whose every performance is excellent.

The author of “Polwarth on the Green” is Capt. John Drummond M’Gregor, of the family of Bochaldie.

The following account of this song I had from Dr. Blacklock.

The Strephon and Lydia mentioned in the song were perhaps the loveliest couple of their time. The gentleman was commonly known by the name of Beau Gibson. The lady was the “Gentle Jean,” celebrated somewhere in Hamilton of Bangour’s poems.—Having frequently met at public places, they had formed a reciprocal attachment, which their friends thought dangerous, as their resources were by no means adequate to their tastes and habits of life. To elude the bad consequences of such a connexion, Strephon was sent abroad with a commission, and perished in Admiral Vernon’s expedition to Carthagena.

The author of this song was William Wallace, Esq. of Cairnhill, in Ayrshire.

The chorus of this song is old. The rest of it, such as it is, is mine.

M’Pherson, a daring robber, in the beginning of this century, was condemned to be hanged at the assizes of Inverness. He is said, when under sentence of death, to have composed this tune, which he called his own lament or farewell.

Gow has published a variation of this fine tune as his own composition, which he calls “The Princess Augusta.”

Johnson, the publisher, with a foolish delicacy, refused to insert the last stanza of this humorous ballad.

The words by a Mr. R. Scott, from the town or neighbourhood of Biggar.

I composed these stanzas standing under the falls of Aberfeldy, at or near Moness.

This was a composition of mine in very early life, before I was known at all in the world. My Highland lassie was a warm-hearted, charming young creature as ever blessed a man with generous love. After a pretty long tract of the most ardent reciprocal attachment, we met by appointment on the second Sunday of May, in a sequestered spot by the banks of Ayr, where we spent the day in taking a farewell before she should embark for the West Highlands, to arrange matters among her friends for our projected change of life. At the close of autumn following she crossed the sea to meet me at Greenock, where she had scarce landed when she was seized with a malignant fever, which hurried my dear girl to the grave in a few days, before I could even hear of her last illness.

This song is Dr. Blacklock’s. He, as well as I, often gave Johnson verses, trifling enoughperhaps, but they served as a vehicle to the music.

Lord Hailes, in the notes to his collection of ancient Scots poems, says that this song was the composition of a Lady Grissel Baillie, daughter of the first Earl of Marchmont, and wife of George Baillie, of Jerviswood.

This song is the composition of Balloon Tytler.

This air in the composition of one of the worthiest and best-hearted men living—Allan Masterton, schoolmaster in Edinburgh. As he and I were both sprouts of Jacobitism we agreed to dedicate the words and air to that cause.

To tell the matter-of-fact, except when my passions were heated by some accidental cause, my Jacobitism was merely by way ofvive la bagatelle.

The chorus of this is old; the two stanzas are mine.

Dr. Blacklock told me that Smollet, who was at the bottom a great Jacobite, composed these beautiful and pathetic verses on the infamous depredations of the Duke of Cumberland after the battle of Culloden.

Dr. Walker, who was minister at Moffat in 1772, and is now (1791) Professor of Natural History in the University of Edinburgh, told the following anecdote concerning this air.—He said, that some gentlemen, riding a few years ago through Liddesdale, stopped at a hamlet consisting of a few houses, called Moss Platt, when they were struck with this tune, which an old woman, spinning on a rock at her door, was singing. All she could tell concerning it was, that she was taught it when a child, and it was called “What will I do gin my Hoggie die?” No person, except a few females at Moss Platt, knew this fine old tune, which in all probability would have been lost had not one of the gentlemen, who happened to have a flute with him, taken it down.

These two stanzas I composed when I was seventeen, and are among the oldest of my printed pieces.

Tune—“Gallashiels.”

The old title, “Sour Plums o’ Gallashiels,” probably was the beginning of a song to this air, which is now lost.

The tune of Gallashiels was composed about the beginning of the present century by the Laird of Gallashiel’s piper.

These verses were composed on a charming girl, a Miss Charlotte Hamilton, who is now married to James M’Kitrick Adair, Esq., physician. She is sister to my worthy friend Gavin Hamilton, of Mauchline, and was born on the banks of the Ayr, but was, at the time I wrote these lines, residing at Herveyston, in Clackmannanshire, on the romantic banks of the little river Devon. I first heard the air from a lady in Inverness, and got the notes taken down for this work.

The original, or at least a song evidently prior to Ramsay’s is still extant.—It runs thus,

Chorus.

“The mill, mill O, and the kill, kill O,And the coggin o’ Peggy’s wheel, O,The sack and the sieve, and a’ she did leave,And danc’d the miller’s reel O.—As I came down yon waterside,And by yon shellin-hill O,There I spied a bonie bonie lass,And a lass that I lov’d right well O.”

“The mill, mill O, and the kill, kill O,And the coggin o’ Peggy’s wheel, O,The sack and the sieve, and a’ she did leave,And danc’d the miller’s reel O.—

As I came down yon waterside,And by yon shellin-hill O,There I spied a bonie bonie lass,And a lass that I lov’d right well O.”

The author of “We ran and they ran”—was a Rev. Mr. Murdoch M’Lennan, minister at Crathie, Dee-side.

In the west country I have heard a different edition of the second stanza.—Instead of the four lines, beginning with, “When cockle-shells, &c.,” the other way ran thus:—

“O wherefore need I busk my head,Or wherefore need I kame my hair,Sin my fause luve has me forsook,And sys, he’ll never luve me mair.”

Dr. Blacklock informed me that he had often heard the tradition, that this air was composed by a carman in Glasgow.

This is the last of the West-Highland airs; and from it over the whole tract of country to the confines of Tweedside, there is hardly a tune or song that one can say has taken its origin from any place or transaction in that part of Scotland.—The oldest Ayrshire reel, is Stewarton Lasses, which was made by the father of the present Sir Walter Montgomery Cunningham, alias Lord Lysle; since which period there has indeed been local music in that country in great plenty.—Johnie Faa is the only old song which I could ever trace as belonging to the extensive county of Ayr.

This song is by the Duke of Gordon.—The old verses are,

“There’s cauld kail in Aberdeen,And castocks in Strathbogie;When ilka lad maun hae his lass,Then fye, gie me my coggie.

Chorus.

My coggie, Sirs, my coggie, Sirs,I cannot want my coggie;I wadna gie my three-girr’d capFor e’er a quene on Bogie.—There’s Johnie Smith has got a wife,That scrimps him o’ his coggie,If she were mine, upon my lifeI wad douk her in a bogie.”

My coggie, Sirs, my coggie, Sirs,I cannot want my coggie;I wadna gie my three-girr’d capFor e’er a quene on Bogie.—

There’s Johnie Smith has got a wife,That scrimps him o’ his coggie,If she were mine, upon my lifeI wad douk her in a bogie.”

The country girls in Ayrshire, instead of the line—

“She me forsook for a great duke,”

say

“For Athole’s duke she me forsook;”

which I take to be the original reading.

These were composed by the late Dr. Austin, physician at Edinburgh.—He had courted a lady, to whom he was shortly to have been married; but the Duke of Athole having seen her, became so much in love with her, that he made proposals of marriage, which were accepted of, and she jilted the doctor.

This song is Dr. Blacklock’s. He told me that tradition gives the air to our James IV. of Scotland.

I Have met the tradition universally over Scotland, and particularly about Stirling, in the neighbourhood of the scene, that this air was Robert Bruce’s march at the battle of Bannockburn.

I Composed these verses on Miss Isabella M’Leod, of Raza, alluding to her feelings on the death of her sister, and the still more melancholy death of her sister’s husband, the late Earl of Loudon; who shot himself out of sheer heart-break at some mortifications he suffered, owing to the deranged state of his finances.

A part of this old song, according to the English set of it, is quoted in Shakspeare.

Tune—“Fourteenth of October.”

The title of this air shows that it alludes to the famous king Crispian, the patron of the honourable corporation of shoemakers.—St. Crispian’s day falls on the fourteenth of October old style, as the old proverb tells:

“On the fourteenth of OctoberWas ne’er a sutor sober.”

The old name of this air is, “the Blossom o’ the Raspberry.” The song is Dr. Blacklock’s.

This air is by Oswald.

Tradition in the western parts of Scotland tells that this old song, of which there are still three stanzas extant, once saved a covenanting clergyman out of a scrape. It was a little prior to the revolution, a period when being a Scots covenanter was being a felon, that one of their clergy, who was at that very time hunted by the merciless soldiery, fell in, by accident, with a party of the military. The soldiers were not exactly acquainted with the person of the reverend gentleman of whom they were in search; but from suspicious circumstances, they fancied that they had got one of that cloth and opprobrious persuasion among them in the person of this stranger. “Mass John” to extricate himself, assumed a freedom of manners, very unlike the gloomy strictness of his sect; and among other convivial exhibitions, sung (and some traditions say, composed on the spur of the occasion) “Kirk wad let me be,” with such effect, that the soldiers swore he was a d——d honest fellow, and that it was impossiblehecould belong to those hellish conventicles; and so gave him his liberty.

The first stanza of this song, a little altered, is a favourite kind of dramatic interlude acted at country weddings, in the south-west parts of the kingdom. A young fellow is dressed up like an old beggar; a peruke, commonly made of carded tow, represents hoary locks; an old bonnet; a ragged plaid, or surtout, bound with a straw rope for a girdle; a pair of old shoes, with straw ropes twisted round his ankles, as is done by shepherds in snowy weather: his face they disguise as like wretched old age as they can: in this plight he is brought into the wedding-house, frequently to the astonishment of strangers, who are not in the secret, and begins to sing—

“O, I am a silly auld man,My name it is auld Glenae,” &c.

He is asked to drink, and by and bye to dance, which after some uncouth excuses he is prevailed on to do, the fiddler playing the tune, which here is commonly called “Auld Glenae;” in short he is all the time so plied with liquor that he is understood to get intoxicated, and with all the ridiculous gesticulations of an old drunken beggar, he dances and staggers until he falls on the floor; yet still in all his riot, nay, in his rolling and tumbling on the floor, with some or other drunken motion of his body, he beats time to the music, till at last he is supposed to be carried out dead drunk.

I composed these verses out of compliment to a Mrs. M’Lachlan, whose husband is an officer in the East Indies.

I composed these verses while I stayed at Ochtertyre with Sir William Murray.—The lady, who was also at Ochtertyre at the same time, was the well-known toast, Miss Euphemia Murray, of Lentrose; she was called, and very justly, “The Flower of Strathmore.”

The people in Ayrshire begin this song—

“The gypsies cam to my Lord Cassilis’ yett.”—

They have a great many more stanzas in this song than I ever yet saw in any printed copy.—The castle is still remaining at Maybole, where his lordship shut up his wayward spouse, and kept her for life.

The two following old stanzas to this tune have some merit:

“To daunton me, to daunton me,O ken ye what it is that’ll daunton me?—There’s eighty-eight and eighty-nine,And a’ that I hae borne sinsyne,There’s cess and press and Presbytrie,I think it will do meikle for to daunton me.But to wanton me, to wanton me,O ken ye what it is that wad wanton me—To see gude corn upon the rigs,And banishment amang the Whigs,And right restor’d where right sud be,I think it would do meikle for to wanton me.”

But to wanton me, to wanton me,O ken ye what it is that wad wanton me—To see gude corn upon the rigs,And banishment amang the Whigs,And right restor’d where right sud be,I think it would do meikle for to wanton me.”

“The Bonnie Lass made the Bed to me,” was composed on an amour of Charles II. when skulking in the North, about Aberdeen, in the time of the usurpation. He formedune petite affairewith a daughter of the house of Portletham, who was the “lass that made the bed to him:”—two verses of it are,

“I kiss’d her lips sae rosy red,While the tear stood blinkin in her e’e;I said, My lassie, dinna cry,For ye ay shall make the bed to me.She took her mither’s holland sheets,And made them a’ in sarks to me;Blythe and merry may she be,The lass that made the bed to me.”

“I kiss’d her lips sae rosy red,While the tear stood blinkin in her e’e;I said, My lassie, dinna cry,For ye ay shall make the bed to me.

She took her mither’s holland sheets,And made them a’ in sarks to me;Blythe and merry may she be,The lass that made the bed to me.”

A song in the manner of Shenstone.

This song and air are both by Dr. Blacklock.

This story is founded on fact. A John Hunter, ancestor to a very respectable farming family, who live in a place in the parish, I think, of Galston, called Bar-mill, was the luckless hero that “had a horse and had nae mair.”—For some little youthful follies he found it necessary to make a retreat to the West-Highlands, where “he feed himself to aHighlandLaird,” for that is the expression of all the oral editions of the song I ever heard.—The present Mr. Hunter, who told me the anecdote, is the great-grandchild of our hero.

This edition of the song I got from Tom Niel, of facetious fame, in Edinburgh. The expression “Up and warn a’ Willie,” alludes to the Crantara, or warning of a Highland clan to arms. Not understanding this, the Lowlanders in the west and south say, “Up andwaurthem a’,” &c.

This song I composed on Miss Jenny Cruikshank, only child of my worthy friend Mr. William Cruikshank, of the High-School, Edinburgh. This air is by a David Sillar, quondam merchant, and now schoolmaster in Irvine. He is theDavieto whom I address my printed poetical epistle in the measure of the Cherry and the Slae.

It is remark-worthy that the song of “Holy and Fairly,” in all the old editions of it, is called “The Drunken Wife o’ Galloway,” which localizes it to that country.

The last stanza of this song is mine; it was composed out of compliment to one of the worthiest fellows in the world, William Dunbar, Esq., writer to the signet, Edinburgh, and Colonel of the Crochallan Corps, a club of wits who took that title at the time of raising the fencible regiments.

This song I composed on one of the most accomplished of women, Miss Peggy Chalmers, that was, now Mrs. Lewis Hay, of Forbes and Co.’s bank, Edinburgh.

This song I composed about the age of seventeen.

This song is by Dr. Blacklock.

This song was composed by the Rev. John Skinner, nonjuror clergyman at Linshart, near Peterhead. He is likewise author of “Tullochgorum,” “Ewie wi’ the crooked Horn,” “John o’ Badenyond,” &c., and what is of still more consequence, he is one of the worthiest of mankind. He is the author of an ecclesiastical history of Scotland. The air is by Mr. Marshall, butler to the Duke of Gordon; the first composer of strathspeys of the age. I have been told by somebody, who had it of Marshall himself, that he took the idea of his three most celebrated pieces, “The Marquis of Huntley’sReel,” his “Farewell,” and “Miss Admiral Gordon’s Reel,” from the old air, “The German Lairdie.”

This plaintive ballad ought to have been called Child Maurice, and not Gil Maurice. In its present dress, it has gained immortal honour from Mr. Home’s taking from it the ground-work of his fine tragedy of Douglas. But I am of opinion that the present ballad is a modern composition; perhaps not much above the age of the middle of the last century; at least I should be glad to see or hear of a copy of the present words prior to 1650. That it was taken from an old ballad, called “Child Maurice,” now lost, I am inclined to believe; but the present one may be classed with “Hardyknute,” “Kenneth,” “Duncan, the Laird of Woodhouselie,” “Lord Livingston,” “Binnorie,” “The Death of Monteith,” and many other modern productions, which have been swallowed by many readers as ancient fragments of old poems. This beautiful plaintive tune was composed by Mr. M’Gibbon, the selector of a collection of Scots tunes. R. B.

In addition to the observations on Gil Morice, I add, that of the songs which Captain Riddel mentions, “Kenneth” and “Duncan” are juvenile compositions of Mr. M’Kenzie, “The Man of Feeling.”—M’Kenzie’s father showed them in MS. to Dr. Blacklock, as the productions of his son, from which the Doctor rightly prognosticated that the young poet would make, in his more advanced years, a respectable figure in the world of letters.

This I had from Blacklock.

This tune is said to be the composition of John M’Gill, fiddler, in Girvan. He called it after his own name.

This song was the work of a very worthy facetious old fellow, John Lapraik, late of Dalfram, near Muirkirk; which little property he was obliged to sell in consequence of some connexion as security for some persons concerned in that villanous bubblethe ayr bank. He has often told me that he composed this song one day when his wife had been fretting o’er their misfortunes.

Tune—“Highlander’s Lament.”

The oldest title I ever heard to this air, was, “The Highland Watch’s Farewell to Ireland.” The chorus I picked up from an old woman in Dumblane; the rest of the song is mine.

This tune was the composition of Gen. Reid, and called by him “The Highland, or 42d Regiment’s March.” The words are by Sir Harry Erskine.

There is in several collections, the old song of “Leader-Haughs and Yarrow.” It seems to have been the work of one of our itinerant minstrels, as he calls himself, at the conclusion of his song, “Minstrel Burn.”

This air is the march of the corporation of tailors. The second and fourth stanzas are mine.

I composed this song out of compliment to Miss Ann Masterton, the daughter of my friend Allan Masterton, the author of the air of Strathallan’s Lament, and two or three others in this work.

The first half stanza is old, the rest is Ramsay’s. The old words are—

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