Chapter 40

Last May a braw wooer cam’d down the lang glen,And sair wi’ his love he did deave me;I said there was naething I hated like men,The deuce gae wi’ ’m to believe me, believe me,The deuce gae wi’ ’m to believe me.

What a chaste pleasure—what a gladdening influence over the most stoical mind, any of the following songs yield, when well sung to their own tunes, by a half dozen young ladies in the parlour, or by a chorus of bonnie lassies in the kitchen, as the former pursue their sewing and knitting, and the latter birr their wheels, and stir the sowens in an evening, in the opulent farmer’s dwelling; or when heard in the most humble cottage of a Scottish peasant. Well might the farmer’s dog, Luath, say, “And I for e’en down joy hae barkit wi’ them.”

Let these classes come to Upper Canada to-morrow, and they will tire of its dulness. Nature’s face is fair enough; but after the traveller leaves the last faint sounds of the Canadian boatsman’s song, as it dies on the still waters of the St. Lawrence, music will be done with.—I had forgotten however, I must now quote the songs alluded to; and I well can frommemory:—

I must have done—I have named so many songs to put my readers in mind of

“Auld lang syne;”

and I could add as many more, of truly Scottish origin, that I should like to see in Canada, as would fill up the “Advocate;” but I must stop—the politicians would complain. I have heard a few of these well sung in Canada—the last, a lintie in Queenston braes sings now and then. Would there were ten thousand such in Upper Canada!

The English version of the following line, is not near so pretty as the Scots original, which goesthus:—

“I once was a bachelor, both early and young,And I courted a fair maid with a flattering tongue:I courted her, I wooed her, I honoured her then,And I promised to marry her, but never told her when.O, I never told her when,” &c.

With this may be contrasted a verse of sir Walter Scott’s Mary, in “ThePirate:”—

“O were there an island,Though ever so wild,Where woman could smile, andNo man be beguiled—Too tempting a snareTo poor mortals were given,And the hope would fix there,That should anchor on heaven.”

This is beguiling on both sides; but the latter stanzas finely express an idea fit for an oriental paradise.

There is another kind of ballads which, though akin to those I have named, are in many points essentially different:—and the first of this class,

“Duncan Gray came here to woo,”

when sung in chorus, would be almost enough to cause the venerable age of eighty-eight to shake a foot all over Scotland. A merry party, of which I was one, once tried “Duncan,” on the Table Rock at Niagara Falls; and when we came to that line, where the poor neglected lover

“Spak o’ loupin ower a linn,”

I thought we should have all died with laughing, the scene was so in unison with the stanza. Moore’s two lovers,who—

“’thout pistol or dagger, aMade a desperate dash down the Falls of Niagara,”

is good; but it is nothing to “Duncan Gray,” sung by half a dozen tenor voices on the Table Rock.

I mean, when I have leisure, to continue these reminiscences of Scottish song, and as I at this time must have taxed the patience, and tried the politeness of my numerous Irish and English readers, I will, in some future number, leave Ramsay, Burns, Tannahill, and Ferguson—for Chaucer and Shakspeare, Goldsmith and Moore.

Tannahill has some pieces, scarce excelled by any of our Scottish poets—he has also a virtue which endears him to me beyond even Robert Burns. He does not often laud in song the drinking of ardent liquors. If, as a printer, I were to publish an American edition of Burns, I think I would leave his songs in praise of Highland whisky out. They have done much harm in his native land; and to spread them here, would be like firing a match.

This month may close with a delightful sonnet, from one of the best books put forth in recent years for daily use and amusement.

Summer.Now have young April and the blue eyed MayVanished awhile, and lo! the glorious June(While nature ripens in his burning noon,)Comes like a young inheritor; and gay,Altho’ his parent months have passed away;But his green crown shall wither, and the tuneThat ushered in his birth be silent soon,And in the strength of youth shall he decay.What matters this—so long as in the pastAnd in the days to come we live, and feelThe present nothing worth, until it stealAway and, like a disappointment, die?For Joy, dim child of Hope and Memory,Flies ever on before or follows fast.Literary Pocket Book

Summer.

Now have young April and the blue eyed MayVanished awhile, and lo! the glorious June(While nature ripens in his burning noon,)Comes like a young inheritor; and gay,Altho’ his parent months have passed away;But his green crown shall wither, and the tuneThat ushered in his birth be silent soon,And in the strength of youth shall he decay.What matters this—so long as in the pastAnd in the days to come we live, and feelThe present nothing worth, until it stealAway and, like a disappointment, die?For Joy, dim child of Hope and Memory,Flies ever on before or follows fast.

Literary Pocket Book

Mean Temperature 57·97.

[192]Milner’s Hist. of Winchester.

Back to Index Next