Studies In Folk-song And Popular Poetry

An Extensive Investigation Into The Sources And Inspiration Of National Folk Song

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	LADY NAIRNE AND HER SONGS. 123
	in his appreciation. The greater portion of her Jacobite songs were composed under this inspira­tion, and so long as she wrote at all they were her favorite themes. They are among the finest in what may be termed the modern Jacobite songs, unsurpassed by anything of the kind by Burns, Hogg, or Cunningham, and only so by that con­summate flower of all Scotch Jacobite poetry by William Glen: — A wee bird cam' to our ha* door, while in the pure singing quality, the lilt and the verse, there is nothing to exceed the power of — The news from Moidart cam' yestreen. The story of The Hundred Pipers an' A' is his­torically correct in that there were so many mu­sicians of the class attached to the little army of the Prince, and that the Highland lads did dance themselves dry to the pibroch's sound after fording the Esk, but it was not on the advance to Carlisle, but on the retreat from England, and the scene had doubtless been often described by the old laird of Strowan. THE HUNDRED PIPERS. Wi' a hundred pipers an' a', an' a', Wi' a hundred pipers an' a', an' a' ;