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61G ANGLO-SCOTTISII SONGS. |
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Graham of his quotations from old musical manuscripts. The former supposed Mr. Stenhouse "mistaken"—"deceived;" the variety of his accomplishments was not to he discovered at once. The second occasionally administered rehuke in more explicit language; but, to the present day, the depths of Stenhouse's invention have not been half fathomed.
Some of the effects of his ingenuity will never be wholly obviated. One class of inventions is very difficult to disprove, where he fixes upon an author for a song, or makes a tale of the circumstances under which it was written. Such evidence, as in the case of She rose and let me iny will not always be at hand to refute him (ante p. 509 to 511), and much of this class of fiction still remains for those who are content to quote from so imaginative a source.
It is to be hoped that any who may henceforth quote from him will give their authority, for he has sometimes been copied without acknowledgement, and thus his fictions have been endorsed by respectable names.a
It is a pleasure to turn from such an annotator, to the editor of Wood's Songs of Scotland, for, besides exposing a great number of Stenhouse's misstatings, he has given judgment with strict impartiality wherever he felt called upon to exercise it in cases of disputed nationality. It is only to be regretted that Mr. Graham's opinion upon the internal evidence of airs was not more frequently expressed, and that any portion of Stenhouse's imaginative notes should have been incorporated in the work. Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish between what is on the authority of Mr. Graham and what of Stenhouse, without having a copy of his notes by our side; but all I have had occasion to controvert originated with the latter.
The following two specimens of Anglo-Scottish songs will suffice as examples of that class of popular music of the olden time. |
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■ Although Dauney's Ancient Scottish Melodies were printed in 1838, and Stenhouse's Notes issued in 1839 (after having been kept for many years in Messrs. Blackwood's cellars), it is evident that Dauney had access to, and was one of those led into error by them. As an instance, at p. 17 he says, " It was in the year 1680 when the Scottish air, Katkerine Ogie, was sung by Mr. Abell, a gentleman of the Chapel Royal, at his concert in Stationers' Hall." The date of 1680 is purely Sten-housian, and can only have been copied from the following characteristic specimen of the Notes:—" This fine old Scottish song, beginning, 'As I went furth to view the plain,' was introduced and sung by Mr. John Abell, a gentleman of the Chapel Royal, at his concert in Stationers' Hall, London, in the year 1680, with great applause. It was also printed with the music and words, by an engraver of the name of Cross, as a single-sheet song, in the course of that year, a copy of which is now lying before me." In the first place, Cross did not engrave in 1680, and the single-sheet song, *' Bonny Kathern Oggy, as it was sung by Mr. Abell at his consort in Stationers' Hall," bears no date. Abell was a gentleman of the Chapel Royal during the latter part of the reign of Charles II. and the whole of that of James II, Having turned Papist when James became King, he quitted England at the Revolution of 1688, but was permitted to return by William III., towards the close of the year 1700. From that time, being without any fixed employment, and having acquired great repute as a singer, he occasionally gave public conceits, the first, |
of which I find any announcement, having taken place at Covent Garden, on the 29th Dec., 1702. Stenhouse, to make his story complete, tells us that Abell died " about the year 1702," although Hawkins (from whom he was copying so much of the story as suited his purpose) says that "about the latter end of Queen Anne's reign, Abell was at Cambridge with his lute."
Now, why all this invention ? It was to get rid of the fact that the earliest known copy of the tune is in the Appendix to The Dancing Master of 1686, under the title of '* Lady Catherine Ogle, a new Dance.*' D'TJrfey wrote the first song to it, " Bonny Katbern Loggy," commencing, " As I came down the Highland town." This is contained in the Pitts and in The Merry Musician or a Cure for the Spleen, i. 224 (1716). The latter publication includes also, the " New song to the tune of Katherine Loggy," commencing, " As I walk'd forth to view the plain" (i. 295), which Ramsay, after making some alterations, printed in the Tea Table Miscellany. The following is the first stanza of what Stenhouse terms the "fine old Scottish song," sung by Abell:— "As I went forth to view the spring, Upon a morning early, "With May's sweet scent to chear my brain,
When flowers grew fresh and fairly; A vary pratty maid I spy'd,
Sha shin'd tho* it was foggy, I ask'd her name, Sweet sir, sha said, My name is Kathern Oggy. |
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