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

THE SCOTS MUSICAL MUSEUM. 185
VOLUME V.
401. THE LOVELY LASS OF INVERNESS.
This song, Stenhouse tells us, was written by Burns with the exception
of the first half stanza, which is old ; and Cromek says, " Burns took up
the idea from the first half verse, which is all that remains of the old words,
and this prompted the feelings and tone of the time he wished to commem-
orate." Nowhere can we find any earlier trace of this ancient half-stanza.
Where does it occur ? In our opinion Burns was not indebted to any such
fragment. The song evidently received its title from Oswald's melody,
which was published about six years before the Battle of Culloden in his
Curious Collection of Scots Tunes, dedicated to James Duke of Perth,
1740. The tune is a good one, but its compass is too extensive for the
voice.
402. A BED RED ROSE.
Stenhouse says, " This song, beginning 0, my luves like a red red rose,
was written by Burns, and sent to Johnson for the Museum. The original
manuscript is now before me. Burns, in a note annexed to the verses, says,
' The tune of this song is in Neil Gow's first collection, and is there called
Major Graham.' It is to be found on page 6 of that collection." In
the advertisement prefixed to the second volume of P. Urbani's Selection
of Scots Songs the following occurs : " The words of the ' Red Red Rose '
were obligingly given to him by a celebrated Scots Poet, who was so struck
with them when sung by a country girl, that he wrote them down, and, not
being pleased with the air, begged the author to set them to music in the
stile of a Scots Tune, which he has done accordingly." George Thomson,
in the index to the poetry of his second volume, second edition, states,
" my love's like, &c, Author unknown," and on page 89 gives the song
under the. title of "0, my Love's like the Red Red Rose." From an old
MS. in the Editor's possession, " Air — Wishaw's Favourite — composed by
Mr Marshall." Johnson gives another air to the same song, No. 403,
entitled " Old set — Red, Red Rose," which we refer to in our note to the
following song, No. 404. The tune "Major Graham" is a palpable plagiarism
of Marshall's " Miss Admiral Gordon's Strathspey." Stenhouse, in his note,
blames Mr Clarke, who, he says, has made the second strain twice the length
of the first, and he states what was evidently the poet's intention. It is
not Clarke that is wrong, for he added nothing to Gow's second strain, and
we have no evidence whatever of the poet's intention, only Stenhouse's
assertion. The song first apppeared with Urbani's air, April 1794 ; next,
in the Museum with " Major Graham " and the " old set," May 1797 ;
afterwards with "Wishaw's Favourite" in Thomson's Selection, July 1799.
W. Scott Douglas has in his index, "A Red Red Rose," 1794, and " Johnson's
Museum, 1796." He adds, " Burns did not live to see the song attached to