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II. LOVE-SONGS : GENERAL 391 |
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tends the goats. For the tune, see No. 114. The Clouden is a small tributary of the Nith near Dumfries.
No. 119. "When the drums do beat. Scots Musical Museum, 1790, No. 233, entitled The Captains lady. I have definitely identified Barns with this song in the musical MS. made up for the engraver of the Museum. The poet entitled the tune Mount my baggage, then drew his pen through the words and wrote above them The Captains lady, as printed in the Museum (Gray's Museum Lists). In Law's MS. List, Burns wrote: ' Mr. Burns's old words.' The following stanza is from an English song of the seventeenth century:— ' I will away, and I will not tarry, I will away and be a Captain's lady. A Captain's lady is a dame of honour— She has her maid ay to wait upon her, To wait upon her, and get all things ready, I will away and be a Captain's lady.'
Burns's first title is that of a ballad in the Dalmeny Collection, quoted in the Centenary Burns as The Liggar lady, or the ladle's love to a soldier, to the tune of Mount the baggage. This most prosaic production is apparently the original of Burns's verses.
The time with the title Mount my baggage is in Caledonian Pocket Companion, 1755, vii. 26, and in Bremner's Feels, 1768, iop; as the Cadie laddie, it is in Walsh's Caledonian Country Dances; and as Mount your baggage in Aird's Airs, 1782, ii. No. 74. A song Ramillies, attributed to one ot the Sempills of Beltrees, does not fit the tune. The first stanza and chorus reads thus: — 'My daddie marrie't me too young To an auld man baith deaf and dumb; He laid beside me like a rung, He wadna turn unto his lassie.
Och ! laddie munt and go, Dear sailor, hoise and go; Och ! laddie, munt and go,
Go, and I'se go with thee, laddie.'
(Sempill's Poems, 1849, xcv.)
No. 120. Young Joekie was the blythest lad. Scots Musical Museum, 1790, No. 287; signed ' Z;' Cromek's Reliques, 1808, 438. Hitherto this song has been accepted on the sole authority of Stenhouse, who stated that the whole of it, with the exception of three or four lines, was written by Burns. I have before me now the MS. music of the tune, and the words which Johnson proposed to insert in the Museum, entitled The devoted maid, by Dr. Blacklock, beginning ' My virgin heart when Jockey woo'd.' Tune, Jockey was the blythest lad in a' our town. The MS. was sent to Burns for his approval. He returned it with a note in the margin, in his own handwriting, ' Take Mr. Burns's old words,' so accordingly the song was changed, and his verses with the title were printed. In Law's MS. List he wrote : ' Mr. Burns's old words.' The Jockies and Jennys of the English parodies of Scots Songs are as common as blackberries in autumn. In The Goldfinch, 1771, is a song beginning 'Young Jockey was the blithest lad,' but it has little resemblance to Burns's song.
The tune is entitled Jockie the blithest in McGibbon's Scots Tunes, 1746, 36. It has the gait of an English melody. A different tune with the title Jockey was the'blithest lad is in Atkinson's MS., 1694. In the Caledonian Pocket Companion, 1755, vii. 8, there is a corrupted form of the melody.
No. 121. Sweet are the banks—the banks o' Doon. This is the first of three versions of the Banks o' Doon. Originally published in the Edinburgh edition, 1877, \\. 331. There is not much verbal difference between this and the |
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