| Share page | Visit Us On FB |
|
454 HISTORICAL NOTES |
|||
|
Chorus. Let us drink and go hame, drink and go hame, If we stay any longer we'll get a bad name. We'll get a bad name, and we'll fill ourselves fon, And the strong walls of Derry it's ill to go through.'
The tune Failte na miosg or The musket salute is Celtic. The second part is inferior to the opening four lines, and is probably an excrescence. The tune is in Oswald's Curious Collection Scots Tunes, 1740, }i), and the Caledonian Pocket Companion, 1743, i. 22. English and foreign composers have set to original music these melodious verses of Burns.
No. 264. Fareweel to a' our Scottish fame. Setts Musical Museum, 1792, No. ]}&, entitled Such a parcel of rogues in a nation. The original MS., is in the British Museum. ' Mr. B— words,' (Gray's MS. Lists). An invective in twenty-seven stanzas entitled Upon the rogues in Parliament, ryo^f is in Maidment's Scotish Pasquils, 1868,^79. The union of the two countries was exeerated in Scotland, except among the Whig nobles. The Commissioners who carried through the treaty were styled the thirty-one rogues, and were made targets for the most bitter satire, and held up individually to public ridicule. The rhyming ware of that period is not very well known. I quote the penultimate stanza of The Rogues PasqI'lll.
' In such an array of rogues Argyle may come in, Whose blood bears the stain of original sin, And if he 's like to go on, as they did begin, Then he'll follow the fate of his grandsire.'
The Curse, written and circulated immediately after the Union was completed, is still more violent, and swears at large. It is as follows:— |
|||
|
|
|||
|
' Scotland and England now must be
United in one nation; So we again must perjured be,
And taik the abjuration.
The Stuarts antient true born race,
We must now all give over; We must receive into their place,
The mungrells of Hanover.
Curst be the papists who first drew
Our King to their persuasion ; Curst be the covenanting crew,
Who gave the first occasion To strangers to ascend the throne, |
Curst be the wretch who seized his
throne . And marred our Constitution; Curst be all those who helped on Our cursed Revolution!
Curst be those treacherous traitors who, By their perfidious knaverie,
Have brought the nation now unto Ane everlasting slaverie!
Curst be the Parliament that day They gave the Confirmation;
And curst for ever be all they Shall swear the abjuration.' |
||
|
By a Stuart's abdication!
Lockhart of Carnwath states the amounts paid by England to each of the Scottish Union Commissioners—the thirty-one rogues. The blood money ranged from ^1104 15*. id. paid to the Earl of Marchmont down to Lord Banff, the most easily squared traitor, who agreed to dispose of himself for £11 is. sterling besides throwing in his religion, in order that he might qualify himself to act. The key note of the stanzas of Burns is that what could not be effected by reason or force, was at last obtained by gold and guile.
The model of Burns's verse has been lost, and no existing song fits the rhythm of the tune. A parcel of rogues in a nation is in Oswald's Companion, 1752, 'iv. 26, and in McGibbon's Scots Tunes, 1755, 19.
On the Museum manuscript of the song Burns wrote, ' I enclose what I think the best set of the tune,' but this like nearly all Burns's musical MS. has disappeared.
No. 265. The Thames flows proudly to the seaScots Musical |
|||