Glen Collection of printed music > Printed music > Scots musical museum > Volume 6

MAGGY LAUDliU. 523
friend, Mr P. A. Ramsay, it is to be hoped that the pro-
ject will not be abandoned.
My good friend, William Tennant, Esq., the author
of the inimitable poem of " Anster Fair," mentioned at page
478, as then newly appointed Teacher, or Professor of
Languages in Dollar Academy, has since (in 1835) ob-
tained higher and more congenial preferment, as Professor
of Oriental Languages in St Mary's College, St Andrew's —
an appointment alike honourable to the patrons and to
himself, as the reward of learning and genius. — A short
Memoir of Professdr Tennant is prefixed to Chambers's late
edition of " Anster Fair," Edinb. 1838, 8vo.
" In former times, the singers of this ditty used to in-
form their audience that Maggie was at last burnt for a
witch ; I could never find her name in any lists of Satan's
Seraglio which I have had an opportunity of inspecting.
" Some amusing verses were said to have been composed
to this air, by a very eccentric person, Lady Dick of Pres-
tonfield : before the reader peruses them, a short account
may be given of the reputed authoress. She was the daugh-
ter of Lord Royston, a Lord of Session, son of the Earl
of Cromarty, and the wife of Sir William Dick, with whom
she did not live on the best of terms, having a high spirit,
much satirical wit, and no children to endear their conjugal
union. Her strange fancies and frolics were well remem-
bered fifty years ago ; and that with considerable spleen, as
she made herself many enemies by the lampoons she was in
the habit of composing. Among her other odd freaks, she
took it into her head to enact the she-Petrarch to Sir Peter
Murray of Balmanno, whose perfections she celebrated in
several other copies of verses, besides the subjoined song —
two of these have been printed in a small ballad book, de-
dicated to Sir Walter Scott, There seems to have been
nothing criminal in her admiration, as she made no secret
of her poetical effusions— but those whom she had offended
by poems of a different stamp, were naturally eager enough