STRICTURES, &c. The Highland Queen. The Highland Queen, music and poetry, was composed by Mr. M.Vicar, purser of the Solbay man of war. This I had from Dr. Blacklock. Bess the Gawkie. This song shews that the Scottish Muses did not all leave us when we lost Ramsay and Oswald,* as I have good reason to believe that the verses and music are both posterior to the days of these two gentlemen. -It is a beautiful song, and is the genuine Scots taste. We have few pastoral compositions, I mean the pastoral of nature, that are equal to this. Oh, open the Door, Lord Gregory. It is somewhat singular, that in Lanark, Renfrew, Ayr, Wigton, Kirkcudbright, and Dumfrics-shires, there is scarcely an old song or tune which, from the titie, &c. can be guessed to belong to, or be the production of these countries. This, I conjecture, is one of these very few; as the ballad, which is a long one, * Oswald was a music-seller in London, about the year 1750. He published a large collection of Scottish tunes, which he called the Caledonian Pocket Companion. Mr. Tytler observes, that his genius in composition, joined to his taste in the performance of Scottish music, was natural and pathetic. RITSON. is called, both by tradition and printed collections, "The Lass o' Lochroyan," which I take to be Lochroyan, in Galloway. The Banks of the Tweed. This song is one of the many attempts that English composers have made to imitate the Scottish manner, and which I shall in these strictures, beg leave to distinguish by the appellation of Anglo-Scottish productions. The music is pretty good, but the verses are just above contempt. The Beds of sweet Roses. This song, as far as I know, for the first time appears here in print-When I was a boy, it was a very popular song in Ayrshire. I remember to have heard those fanatics, the Buchanites,* sing some of their nonsensical rhymes, which they dignify with the name of hymns, to this air.† Roslin Castle. These beautiful verses were the production of a Richard Hewit, a young man that Dr. Blacklock, to * A set of itinerant fanatics in the West of Scotland, so denominated from their leader, Mrs. Buchan. 86 Shakspeare, in his Winter's Tale, speaks of a Puritan who sing's psalms to hornpipes." Richard Hewit, Ritson observes, was taken when a boy, during the residence of Dr. Blacklock in Cumberland, to lead him. He addressed a copy of verses to the Doctor on quitting his service.-Among the verses are the following lines: "How oft these plains I've thoughtless prest; "Whistled or sung some Fair distrest, "When fate would steal a tear." “Alluding,” as it is said in a note, "to a sort of narrative songs, which make no inconsiderable part of the innocent whom I am indebted for the anecdote, kept for some years as an amanuensis. I do not know who is the author of the second song to the tune. Tytler, in his amusing history of Scots music, gives the air to Oswald; but in Oswald's own collection of Scots tunes, where he affixes an asterisk to those he himself composed, he does not make the least claim to the tune. Saw ye Johnnie commin? quo' she. This song for genuine humour in the verses, and lively originality in the air, is unparalleled. I take it to be very old. Clout the Caldron. A tradition is mentioned in the Bee, that the second Bishop Chisholm, of Dunblane, used to say, that if he were going to be hanged, nothing would soothe his mind so much by the way, as to hear Clout the Caldron played. I have met with another tradition, that the old song to this tune "Hae ye ony pots or pans, "Or onie broken chanlers," was composed on one of the Kenmure family, in the Cavalier times; and alluded to an amour he had, while under hiding, in the disguise of an itinerant tinker. The air is also known by the name of "The Blacksmith and his Apron," which from the rhythm, seems to have been a line of some old song to the tune. amusements with which the country people pass the wintry nights, and which the author of the present piece was a faithful rehearser." Blacklock's Poems, 1756, 8vo. p. 5. Saw ye my Peggy. This charming song is much older, and indeed su« perior to Ramsay's verses, "The Toast," as he calls them. There is another set of the words, much older still, and which I take to be the original one, but though it has a very great deal of merit it is not quite ladies' reading. The original words, for they can scarcely be called verses, seem to be as follows; a song familiar from the cradle to every Scottish ear. Saw ye my Maggie, Saw ye my Maggie, Saw ye my Maggie Linkin o'er the lea? High kilted was she, High kilted was she, High kilted was she, Her coat aboon her knee. What mark has your Maggie, That ane may ken her be? (by) Though it by no means follows that the silliest verses to an air must, for that reason, be the original song; yet I take this ballad, of which I have quoted part, to be the old verses, the two songs in Ramsay, one of them evidently his own, are never to be met with in the fire-side circle of our peasantry; while thatwhich I take to be the old song, is in every shepherd's mouth. Ramsay, I suppose, had thought the old verses unworthy a place in his collection. The Flowers of Edinburgh. This song is one of the many effusions of Scots jacobitism. The title, "Flowers of Edinburgh," has no manner of connection with the present verses, so I suspect there has been an older set of words, of which the title is all that remains. By the bye, it is singular enough that the Scottish Muses were all jacobites.-I have paid more attention to every description of Scots songs than perhaps any body living has done, and I do not recollect one single stanza, or even the title of the most trifling Scots air, which has the least panegyrical reference to the families of Nassau or Brunswick; while there are hundreds satirizing them. This may be thought no panegyric on the Scots Poets, but I mean it as such. For myself, I would always take it as a compliment to have it said, that my heart ran before my head.-And surely the gallant, though unfortunate house of Stewart, the kings of our fathers for so many heroic ages, is a theme Jamie Gay. Jamie Gay is another and a tolerable Anglo-Scottish piece. My dear Jockie. Another Anglo-Scottish production. Fye, gae rub her o'er wi' Strae. It is self-evident that the first four lines of this song are part of a song more ancient than Ramsay's beautiful verses which are annexed to them. As music is the language of nature; and poetry, particularly songs, are always less or more localized (if I may be allowed the verb) by some of the modifications of time and place, this is the reason why so many of our Scots airs have outlived their original, and perhaps many subse |