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

174 EAELY SCOTTISH MELODIES.
authoress of ' Auld Robin Gray.' " Peter Buchan, in his " Gleanings of
scarce old Ballads," Peterhead, 1825, says, " Lady Anne Lindsay was
certainly not the authoress of this song or ballad, which is said to have
been composed by George Halket, Schoolmaster at Rathan, in the year
1736-7." So far as we have seen, there is no direct proof to substantiate
either assertion, but as this is not our province, we pass on to the air. The
late John Muir Wood, searching for ancient tunes or their origins,
fixed upon a tune called " Tak tent to the Eippells," in a manuscript of
1694; also on " Beware of the Ripples,"' in Oswald's Caledonian Pocket
Companion, book xi., but we consider this to be rather far fetched, and
offer our readers copies of both, along with the version of Johnson and
Napier for comparison. The Museum melody is in the minor key. In
1798 there appeared a song on the aurrender of the French to Earl Corn-
wallis at Ballinamuk in Ireland, to the tune " Logie o' Buchan," which
shows that the air had become popular, but we have no knowledge of the
version used.
359. KENMURE'S ON AND AWA, WILLIE.
It is not our intention to make any remarks on this song commemorat-
ing the part taken by Lord Kenmure in the Rebellion of 1715, further
than to state that, like " Scots wha hae," it was not written at the time.
We have not seen any copy of this tune in any publication prior to the
Museum, and we suspect that neither verses nor melody existed earlier.
At least we have no knowledge that either were printed before 1792.
360. BESS AND HER SPINNING WHEEL.
This song was written by Burns for the Museum. Stenhouse makes the
following reference to the tune : " The beautiful melody to which the verses
are adapted was composed by Oswald, and published in the fifth book of his
Caledonian Pocket Companion, page 10, under the title of ' Sweet's the
Lass that loves me.' " This is an error for which we cannot entirely blame
Stenhouse, as an asterisk is attached to the title in the index to Oswald's
publication denoting that it was his own composition. We think it pro-
bably a mistake of the engraver : the index has been carelessly got up, and
is defective. The tune is an old Scots measure, and was in print before
Oswald was born. It appeared in Henry Playford's Original Scots Tunes,
dated 1700, under the title of " Cosen Cole's Delight."
361. MY COLLIER LADDIE.
In this instance we cannot do better than quote a part of Stenhouse's
note : — " The words of this song, beginning ' Where live ye, my bonny lass,'