Glen Collection of printed music > Printed music > Songs of Robert Burns

4i8
HISTORICAL NOTES
Dr. Blacklock had written a long ballad for the tune, about which Bums
made the following remark on the MS. of his own song to the editor of the
Museiim : 'Set the tune to these words. Dr. B.'s set of the tune is bad ; I here
enclose a better. You may put Dr. B.'s song after these verses, or you may
leave it out as you please.' The editor rejected Blacklock's ballad.
No. 198. Awa wi' your witchcraft o* beauty's alarms. Thomson's
Scotish Airs, 1799, 100. ' Written for this work by Robert Burns. Air,
Balina?nona OraJ The MS. is in the Thomson collection. From August,
1795 to January, 1796 is a blank in Burns's correspondence. At the request of
Thomson he resumes his work. Verses were wanted for Irish airs, and in
sending the present song Burns, in February, repeats what he has done in this
way. ' I strung up a kind of rhapsody to another Hibernian melody which
I admire much ... If this will do, you have now four of my Irish engage-
ments — Hutnours of Glen, Captain ff Kean, Oonaghs Waterfall, and Balina-
mona? In a line he disposes of his former ideal, Jean Lorimer : ' In my
by-past songs, I dislike one thing, the name Chloris.' There is a reminiscence
of Allan Ramsay's ' Gie me a lass wi' a lump o' land ' in the present song.
The tune Balinamona is in Thumoth's English and Irish Airs, c. 1760, 26;
in the Pej-th Musical Miscellany, 1786, loy, and Calliope, London, 1788, 2;6.
I was a popular air at public concerts in London during the last half of
the eighteenth century.
No. 199. Had I the wyte. Scots Musical Museufn, 1796, No. 41^,
signed ' Z.' The MS. is in the British Museum. The version in the Merry
Muses is slightly different. The chorus and a stanza which Bums did not
use are in Herd's MS. The tune can be traced to near the beginning of the
eighteenth century, and it is plain that it was sung to some other song besides
the present class. Apparently an earlier original in Ramsay's Miscellany ,
1724, My Jocky Myth for what thou hast done is marked for Cotne kiss
with ?ne, come clap with 7)ie. The tune is in Ramsay's TJ/wkV/^, c. 1726, and
with Ramsay's verses in the Orpheus Caledonius, 1733, No. jg. In Oswald's
Companin7i, c. 1755, vii. 20 there is an additional strain, and the title for the
first time is Had I the wate she bade me. In Campbell's Reels, 1778, 20,
it bears the naAne Highlatid Hills, the same as that named in the Merry Muses.
In Ross's Reels, 1780, g, it is called Mason laddie; lastly, Gow in his third
collection of Reels names it the Bob of Fettercairn. The popularity of this
gay attractive melody is by no means exhausted. In Northumbrian Minstrelsy ,
1882, ij6, a collection of Northumbrian tunes published by the Newcastle
Society of Antiquaries, there is a bad setting of it entitled Newhurn lads, and
it is still played on the small pipes in Northumberland. I heard it the other day
ground out of a barrel organ in the streets of Newcastle, preceded and followed
by airs from the newest operas. The foreign arti.st who turned the handle
knew it as a Scotch tune.
No. 200. Gat ye me, O, gat ye me. Scots Musical Museum, 1796,
No. 4J0, entitled The lass of Ecclcfechan. ' The MS. incomplete is in the
British Museum, entitled Lucky Laitig' (R. B.). A copy, with the exception
of alterations in the second four lines, is in the Merry Muses marked for the tune
Jacky Latin ; the following is the first stanza and chorus of a song of uncertain
age:—
' Bonie Jockie, braw Jockie,
Bonie Jocky Latin,
Because she wudna gie 'm a kiss.
His heart was at the breaking.
This capital pipe tune, as Jack Latin, is in the Caledonian Pocket Companion,
c. 1759, xii. 6; in M'^Gibbon's Scots Tunes, i'j6S,iio; and M'^Lean's Scots
Tunes, c. 1772, 27. It is still a favourite in Northumberland, where it is known
Bonie Jockie, braw Jockie,
Bonie Jockie Latin,
His skin was like the silk sae fine,
And mine was like the satin.'