| Share page | Visit Us On FB |
|
IX. MISCELLANEOUS 473 |
||
|
have had a personal acquaintance with Clarke, the musical editor of the Museum, and that Stenhouse himself communicated to Hogg the ' genuine copy of the air' which consists principally in leaving out the accidental sharps. The modern set of the air differs from that of the original as in our text.
No. 305. Frae the friends and land I love. Scots Musical Museum, 1792, No._?02. Tune, Carron side. The MS. is in the British Museum. The first of a series of Jacobite songs printed in the fourth volume of the Museum. In the Interleaved Museum Burns says of the present verses: ' I added the four last lines by way of giving a turn to the theme of the poem, such as it is.' No other song of the kind has been discovered, and I have failed to find it. The present verses were printed in the Museum with a bad copy of the tune Carron side. The music in the text is taken from the Caledonian Pocket Companion, c. t 756, viii. 70, there designated ' a plaintive air,' which was originally published in 1740.
No. 306. As I came o'er the Oairney mount. Scots Musical Museum, 1796, No. 467, signed 'Z.' Centenary Burns, 1897, I'll. iyz. The MS. is in the British Museum. The fragment is a much revised version of an old song of four stanzas in the Merry Muses. The tune was first printed as The highland lassie in Oswald's Curious Collection of Scots Tunes, 1740,37; it is in Caledonian Pocket Companion, 1743, i. 12; in McGibbon's Scots Tunes, 1742, 13 it is entitled The highland laddie, one of the numerons tunes of the name. The editor of the Museum copied the music from Aird's Airs, I'll. No. 164 as Burns directed on his manuscript. In the Interleaved Museum the note of Burns is: ' The first and indeed the most beautiful set of this tune was formerly, and in some places is still, known by the name of As I cam o'er the Cairney mount, which is the first line of an excellent but somewhat licentious song still sung to the tune.' This is the whole of the note written by Burns which Cromek has expanded and garbled in Reliques, 1808, pp. X07 and 208. |
||
|
IX. MISCELLANEOUS.
No. 307. The sun he is sunk in the -west. Chambers, Works, 1853, entitled 'Song:—In the character of a ruined farmer. Tune, Go from my window, love, do' The MS. of this doleful ditty in the handwriting of Burns, refers to the early farming distress, and represents his lather as a ' brave man struggling with adversity.' The metre is peculiar and uncommon for Scottish verse, bnt it was constructed for a tune which Burns however, at a later time, is said to have communicated to the editor of the Scots Musical Museum, accompanied by some traditional verses. See Appendix, ' As I lay on my bed on a night.'
No.- 308. There was a lad was born in Kyle. Cromek's Reliques, 1808, 341, entitled 'Fragment. Tnne, Dainty Davie.' This is one of the best known and most popular of Burns's songs, and his note on the MS. of the second stanza states ' the date of my Bardship's vital existence.' He sent a parody of it to Mrs. Dunlop, of which the following is the first stanza in the Second Commonplace Book:—
' There was a birkie bom in Kyle, But what na day, o' what na style, I doubt its hardly worth the while
To be sae nice wi' Davie. Leeze me on thy curly pow,
Bonie Davie, dainty Davie; Leeze me on thy curly pow,
Thou'se ay my Dainty Davie.' |
||