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

THE SCOTS MUSICAL MUSEUM. 153
ballad has not been traced to a more remote date than near the end of the
seventeenth century, and the original is evidently the composition of Lady
Elizabeth Wardlaw, in toto, a mere metrical romance founded on the battle.
It may as well be asserted that Eobert Burns did not write " Scots wha
hae," but that it was penned shortly after Bannockburn was fought, and he
put it only in a more modern form. That William Tytler of Woodhouse-
lee had any solemn assurance from William Thomson we have great reason
to doubt, as according to Burney, Thomson had a benefit concert in 1722,
presumably in London ; and when he published his "Orpheus Caledonius" in
1725, he resided in Leicester Fields. At the latter date, Tytler was only
in his 14th year, and in his 21st year when Thomson published his second
edition in 1733. Nothing has been learned of the latter's subsequent his-
tory. Our opinion is that Thomson and Tytler were unknown to one another.
The reference to Oswald's " Caledonian Pocket Companion," book v., which
was published about 1754, was unnecessary, as the tune is printed in the
"Second Collection of Curious Scots Tunes," dedicated to the Prince of
Wales, in 1742. Thomson could not possibly have told Tytler that he
heai-d several stanzas of the ballad sung long before 1719.
281. EPPIE ADAIR
The melody to which this song has been adapted is found in Oswald's
Caledonian Pocket Companion, book xi., page 19, called "My Appie," not in
book xii., as erroneously stated by Stenhouse. Burns is said to have con-
tributed the son» to Johnson.
282. THE BATTLE OF SHERRA-MOOR.
Tunc — " Cameronian Rant."
Stenhouse in his note tells us that Johnson was fond of the trine "which
is called the Cameron's March, and sometimes ' The Cameronian's Rant or
Reel.' " We have never seen the first name applied to the tune, and
it is evidently a mistake. It is a reel, which appears in print under the :
latter title in D. Rutherford's " 24 Country Dances, for the year 1750."
Oswald has it in " The Caledonian Pocket Companion," book xi., and Walsh £?
in his " Caledonian Country Dances," volume ii., part 1st (which means i
book v. of the work), and its publication may be anterior to Rutherford's
Country Dances. s-\ £ ■<
283. SANDY AND JOCKIE.
This is Anglo-Scottish, or at least a parody on a song and tune of the