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I'll. LOVE-SONGS : HUMOROUS 411 |
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1788, No. 149, entitled Duncan Davison. Signed'Z.' This merry rustic song is not named by Burns in any of his writings, neither is it among the Burns MS. in the British Museum. Stenhouse states : ' I have recovered his original MS. of the song, which is the same as that inserted in the Museum' {Illustrations, p. ijg). The model is a song of two double stanzas, which Burns wrote in the Merry Muses, and a fragment of another of the same sort, You'll aye be welcome back, is in Herd's MS.
The tune, as in our text, is in Bremner's Reels, 1759, }6, entitled Ye'll ay be welcome back again; in Campbell's Reels, 1778, }i, entitled Duncan Davie. In McGlashan's Strathspey Reels, 1780,14, it bears the name Duncan Davidson, by which it has since been known. It is in Dale's Scotch Songs, 1794, i. j8, with Burns's verses. For another setting of the tune, see No. j6.
No. 177. The blude-red rose at Yule may blow. Scots Musical Museum, 1788, No. 182, entitled To daunton me. Two'MSS. containing the complete song in his handwriting are in the British Museum; and into the Interleaved Museum he copied two stanzas (apparently from memory) of the following good Jacobite song, which is ini Loyal Songs, 1750, and refers to the Revolution of 1688:—
' To daunton me, to daunton me,
Do you ken the thing that would daunton me ?
Eighty-eight, and eighty-nine,
And a' the dreary years sinsyne,
With cess and press and presbytrie,
Good faith 1 this had liken till a daunton me. 'But to wanton me, but to wanton me,
Do you ken the thing that would wanton me?
To see gude corn upon the rigs,
And banishment to all the Whigs,
And right restor'd where right should be;
O, these are the things that wad wanton me. ' But to wanton me, but to wanton me,
And ken ye what maist would wanton me ?
To see King James at Edinb'rough Cross,
With fifty thousand foot and horse,
And the usurper forc'd to flee;
O, this is what maist would wanton me.' Several versions of this song exist, satirizing the Whigs and in praise of the Stuarts. The domestic song of Burns harps on the old tale of the attempted purchase of a young wife by an old man. The subject is one of Poggio's Jocose Tales of the beginning of the fifteenth century.
The tune of Burns's song in the Museum is printed incorrectly. It embraces eight lines, but the original stanza, as above, is six lines. The memorandum written by Burns in his copy of the Caledonian Pocket Companion, 1743> i. 16, runs: ' The chorus is set to the first part of the tune, which just suits it when played or sung once over.' The music is in Atkinson's MS., 1694, ij; Oswald's Curious Collection, 1740, j8 ; McGibbon's Scots Times, 1746, .27; Aird's Airs, 1782, ii. No. 60, and elsewhere.
Ho. 178. Her daddie forbad, her minnie forbad. Scots Musical Museum, 1788, No. i}8, with the tune Jumpin John. Stenhouse states that this is the fragment of an earlier song, which Burns mended to illustrate a melody requiring words. But nothing is known of any song of the kind except one with the title My daddie forbad, my minnie forbad in Ramsay's Tea-Table Miscellany, 1724, not at all resembling Burns's verses. It is in Herd's Scots Songs, 1769,133. The title Jumpin John is in Burns's handwriting in Gray's Museum Lists. The tune, although well known in Scotland |
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