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

THE SCOTS MUSICAL MUSEUM. 127
may be deemed real and spurious stanzas ; we direct our attention to
the melody, or rather the earliest version of it we can discover. We
find no trace of it previous to Bremner's " Thirty Scots Songs for a
Voice and Harpsichord," published in 1*757. The melody alone appears
in Oswald's " Caledonian Pocket Companion," book xii., also in Francis
Peacock's "Fifty Favourite Scotch Airs," 1762; where it is marked "very
slow." Stenhouse says, " In singing or rather chanting this old Ballad,
the two last lines of every stanza are repeated. In 1786 I heard a lady,
then in her 90th year, sing the Ballad in this manner." We doubt the
truth of this statement, as we are convinced it would take the nonagenarian
about an hour to get through all the verses. Bishop Percy says that "Gill
Morice" was printed at Glasgow for the second time in 1755. When was
the first ? We have no evidence of the air before 1757, but though not in
any of his Collections, it was probably, as supposed by Biddell of Glen-
riddell, composed by M'Gibbon, who died the previous year.
204. I LOVE MY LOVE IN SECEET.
In the Museum, Johnson has printed two songs to this old air of the
Scots measure class. It is found in Henry Playford's " Collection of
Original Scotch Tunes," 1700, page 2, entitled, " I love my love in secreit,"
also in Margaret Sinkler's MS. Music Book, 1710 ; and Stenhouse says it is
inserted in Mrs Crockat's MSS., written in 1709, and without name in
Agnes Hume's, 1704.
205. WHEN I UPON THY BOSOM LEAN.
Tune — " Scots PiECluse."
This song is by John Lapraik, a contemporary of Burns, who published
it to the tune of " Johnny's Gray Breeks " in Poems on Several Occasions,
by John Lapraik, printed by Wilson, Kilmarnock, in 1788. The tune in
the Museum, the Scots Eecluse, is an early composition of James Oswald,
which he published in his Curious Collection of Scots Tunes in 1740. In
that work he did not claim the tune, nor several others which he after-
wards claimed in the Caledonian Pocket Companion, by putting to their
titles in the Index the asterisk which denotes his own compositions.
206. COLONEL GAEDENEE.
Tune — "Sawnies Pipe."
This melody is contained in Oswald's Caledonian Pocket Companion,
book ix., page 20, under the title of " Sawney's Pipe." It is a very pretty