Inglis Collection of printed music > Printed text > Early Scottish melodies

THE SCOTS MUSICAL MUSEUM. 81
73. MABY SCOT.
Stenhouse says, " This ancient Border-air originally consisted of one
simple strain. The second, which, from its skipping from octave to octave,
is very ill adapted for singing, appears to have been added about the same
year, 1709 (what does he mean by same when he has not alluded to any
year), and was printed in Thomson's Orpheus Caledonius, 1725." Sten-
house is wrong about the second strain; the tune, with both strains, is
found in Apollo's Banquet, 1687, and is there called " Long Cold Nights."
Gow in his first " Eepository " gives " ' Carrack's Bant,' a strathspey.
The old Scotch Song of Mary Scott is taken from this tune." "We agree
with Stenhouse in saying that, " The converse of this supposition is the
fact; for Carrick's Bant is nothing else than Clurie's Beel, printed in
Angus Cumming's Collection. But the tune of Mary Scott was known at
least a century before either Clurie's Beel or Carrick's Bant were even
heard of." We cannot, however, endorse Stenhouse's assertion regarding
the age of Carrick's Bant, for we know it to have been published in Walsh's
Caledonian Country Dances about forty years before Cumming's Collection
of 1780.
74. DOWN THE BUBN DAVIE.
This is a fine old tune ; it is the last air in the Orpheus Caledonius, 1725.
It appears also in the second edition, first volume, 1733, where it is
considerably altered and improved. The tune we have not found in any
earlier source, and is probably not much older than the date of the
Orpheus. It is one of the airs which Thomson ascribes to David Bizzio, a
piece of sheer nonsense. The song of " Down the burn Davie " is now
usually sung to music by James Hook, an English composer, but we greatly
prefer the Scottish tune, as given in the Musical Miscellany, 1786, and in
the Museum, 1787, which are identical. According to Stenhouse, " Mr
Burns says, I have been informed that the tune of ' Down the barn
Davie ' was the composition of David Maigh, Keeper of the blood slough
hounds belonging to the Laird of Biddell in Tweed-dale. But he was
probably misinformed, for the tune occurs note for note in the Orpheus
Caledonius printed in 1725." This latter statement is a gross exaggera-
tion. It is probable that Burns meant the version printed in the Museum,
which is infinitely superior to any of the earlier sets, though not greatly
different from the Orpheus of 1733.
75. THE BANKS OF FORTH.
This melody is a composition of James Oswald, who published it in his
" Curious Collection of Scots Tunes," 1740. It also appeared in the
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