Glen Collection of printed music > Printed music > Wood's edition of the songs of Scotland

THE SONGS OF SCOTLAND.
113
> = 100
MODERATO.
JOCK 0' HAZELDEAN.
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bride ;
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seen :" — But aye she loot the tears down fa", For Jock o' Ha - zel - dean.
" Now let this wilful grief be done,
And dry that cheek so pale :
Young Frank is chief of Errington,
And lord of Langley dale ;
His step is first in peaceful ha',
His sword in battle keen :" —
But aye she loot the tears down fa',
For Jock o' Hazeldean.
" A chain o' gold ye sail not lack,
Nor braid to bind your hair,
Nor mettled hound, nor managed hawk,
Nor palfrey fresh and fair ;
And you, the foremost o' them a',
Shall ride our forest queen :" —
But aye she loot the tears down fa',
For Jock o' Hazeldean.
The kirk was deck'd at morning-tide,
The tapers glimmer'd fair ;
The priest and bridegroom wait the bride,
And dame and knight were there ;
They sought her baith by bower and ha' ;
The ladye was not seen ! —
She's o'er the border and awa'
Wi' Jock o' Hazeldean !
" Jock 6' Hazeldean." There is mention made by some writers of an old ballad called " Jock o' Hazelgreen," but
without documentary authority. It appears that Mr. Thomas Pringle gave, in Constable's Magazine, the first stanza
of the present song, as that of an old ballad which he had heard his mother sing ; and that Sir Walter Scott, upon
inquiry, adopted that stanza as old, and added to it those that now make up his very popular song of " Jock o' Hazel-
dean," which he wrote for the first volume of Mr. Alexander Campbell's work, named " Albyn's Anthology." The
melody, in an older and more Scottish form, occurs in the Leyden MS., No. 50, under the name of " The bony brow ;"
but we give the version of the air now more generally current. 1 The melody published in Book Second of Jo. Play-
ford's " Choice Ayres," London, 1679, appears to have been that sung to an imitation of a Scottish song by Thomas
D'Urfey, in his comedy of" The Fond Husband, or the Plotting Sisters," acted in 1676 ; and closely resembles the air
given in the Leyden MS. Mr. Stenhouse, in his Note upon " The glancing of her apron," No. 445 of Johnson's
Museum, says : — " With regard to the tune to which the words were originally adapted, it is evidently a florid set of
the old simple air of ' Willie and Annet,' which has lately been published in Albyn's Anthology, under the new title
of ' Jock o' Hazeldean,' a ballad written by Sir Walter Scott."
Thomas Moore, in the Preface to the fifth volume of his Works collected by himself, London, 1841, remarks — that,
" with the signal exception of Milton, there is not to be found, among all the eminent poets of England, a single
musician," — p. v. In the same Preface he touches, gently, upon Sir Walter Scott's deficiency of musical ear. The
Editor of this work was personally acquainted with Sir Walter Scott, and had his own good-humoured confession that
he was totally destitute of an ear for music. Sir Walter himself, in his " Autobiography," after speaking of his
ineffectual attempts at sketching or drawing landscapes, says : — " With music it was even worse than with painting.
My mother was anxious we should at least learn psalmody ; but the incurable defects of my voice and ear soon drove
my teacher to despair. 2 It is only by long practice that I have acquired the power of selecting or distinguishing
melodies ; and although now few things delight or affect me more than a simple tune sung with feeling, yet I am sen-
sible that even this pitch of musical taste has only been gained by attention and habit, and as it were by my feeling of
the words being associated with the tune ; although my friend Br. Clarke, and other musical composers, have sometimes
been able to make a happy union between their music and my poetry." See Lockharfs Life of Scott, vol. i. pp. 73, 74.
1 A copy of that Leyden MB. was deposited by the Editor in the Library of the Faculty of Advocates on 26th November 1847.
2 That teacher may hare been ignorant and unskilful, as too many were in Scott's early days. They required to go to school themselves. — Ed.