Glen Collection of printed music > Printed music > Scots musical museum > Volume 5

382 ccccxxxii. — WIDOW, are ye waking ?
lany, 1724. It is there entitled « The Auld Man's best Ar-
gument," and is directed to be sung to the tune of " Widow
are ye wakin," a licentious but witty old song, long anterior
to the days of Ramsay. The Editor is in possession of a very
old copy of this tune, but it is nearly the same as that in the
Museum.
CCCCXXXIII.
THE MALTMAN.
This is another production of Ramsay. It possesses un-
common humour, but a sort of double meaning runs through
the verses, and renders them somewhat liable to objection.
The lively old air to which the words are adapted appears in
Oswald's Caledonian Pocket Companion,
ccccxxxiv.
LEEZIE LINDSAY.
This beautiful old air was communicated by Burns. The
stanza to which it is adapted, beginning " Will ye go to the
Highlands, Leezie Lindsay," was written by Burns, who in-
tended to have added some more verses, as appears from the
following memorandum, written by Johnson on the original
manuscript of the music. " Mr Burns is to send words ;*"
but they were never transmitted. He appears to have had
the old fragment of the ballad called Leezie Baillie in view,
when he composed the above stanza. See Notes on Song'
No 456. A large fragment of the old ballad of Leezie Lind.
say, however, may be seen in Jamieson's Popular Ballads and
Songs, vol, ii.
ccccxxxv.
THE AULD WIFE AYONT THE FIRE.
The genuine air inserted in the Museum likewise appears
in Crockat's Manuscript Music Book, written in 1709, under
the title of " The old Wife beyond the Fire." It would there-
fore seem, as if Ramsay had softened down an older and less
Scotified song, preserving as much of the spirit and broad
humour of the original as might appear consistent with the
manners and taste of the times in which he lived. His bio-
grapher, however, attributes the whole of the song to Ram-