Middlebay Times "To David Copperfield, Esq., the Eminent Author," he remarks "Nor have I been debarred, Though seas between us braid hae roared" (Burns), from participating in the intellectual feasts he has spread before us.'' Doubtless Mr. Micawber was one of the founders of the Port Middlebay Burns Club. The record among Burns celebrations is still, I imagine, held by the Centenary Banquet in the City Hall, Glasgow, on January 25, 1859. Over and above "The Immortal Memory," which was replied to by Burns's son, Colonel William Nicol Burns, there were twenty-two toasts and fifteen replies, with appropriate musical items between. The chairman was Sheriff Sir Archibald Alison, and among the other speakers were Henry Glassford Bell, Dr. Norman MacLeod, Professor Nichol, Sir David Brewster, Colin Rae-Brown, Monckton Milnes, and Samuel Lover. The band and organ were in full blast; the vocalists were Messrs. Fulcher (of "Hurrah for the Highlands!"), John Muir, Stembridge Ray, and Robson. The average middle-class audience in Scotland to-day is rather diffident about the Scottish National Anthem, perhaps regarding it as savouring of Sinn Feinism, or, worse still, of commonness." The 'fifty-niners, on whom the light of Kipling had not dawned, had no such qualms. Their memorable jamboree began with "Solo, Scots Wha Hae,' by Mr. Fulcher, Chorus to be sung by Company, standing." And the final item of the Gargantuan programme reads -"Solos, Solos, Auld Lang Syne '-the Vocalists-Chorus by the Company, standing, accompanied by Band and Organ." At which of the not so very wee short 'oors ayont the twal' this item was reached, and what proportion of the company responded to the call to Attention, tradition sayeth not. But one may be certain that on January 26, 1859, Blanket Bay was the favourite resort, and the druggists' shops were busier than the Exchanges. The notorious deficiencies of the British people in artistic, social, and even technical matters are due entirely to their persistent disregard of one of the leading maxims of life" If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing well." We miss golden opportunities by our casual and sliddery way of doing things. A dinner calls for as careful stage management as a play. "Auld Lang Syne" presupposes an audience able to stand, but an audience in that blissful state of intoxication which can be induced only by a judicious co-operation of Bacchus, the Muses, and genuine good fellowship. Heavy feeding, a careless collocation of guests, dull and rambling speeches, bad singing, an inferior piano, a poor accompanist, and a negligent chairman have their fitting culmination in a mumbled and mangled rendering of Burns's immortal Song of Friendship. The dragging tune, the self-conscious stare, the fish-like hand extended to the trusty "friend" "friend" (sic), the ghastly galvanism of the prestissimo, proclaim the feast a fiasco. The end is all. Let us get Let us get "Auld Lang Syne "right and make the feast lead up to it. Let us get it into our noddles that there are no "days of auld lang syne syne" in the song; that "And surely ye'll be your pint-stowp, And surely I'll be mine," means "You'll pay for one pint and I'll pay for another " (treat about or no treating); that "dine " means noon; that the last verse begins," And there's a hand (not "haun "), my trusty fiere," fiere meaning crony; and that "a right gudewilly waught means a right full-of-goodwill long draught. Finally, let us follow the example of the 'fifty-niners, and entrust each of the first four stanzas to one of four picked and reliable vocalists, and the last stanza to the four vocalists singing in parts, reserving our united energies for the recurrent and final chorus and the breaking-off "three cheers." Fortune gave us the greatest of the world's song-writers, who gave the world its best convivial songs. Why not show ourselves worthy of the honour? WILLIAM POWER. ADDENDUM. Notes on Scottish Song, written by Robert Burns in an interleaved copy of The Scots Musical Museum, with additions by Robert Riddell and others, and edited by James C. Dick (London, 1908), is not so well known as it deserves to be. For that reason there is printed here what the Poet says is "the original and by much the best set of the words of this song Should auld acquaintance be forgot, Chorus-And for auld lang syne, my jo, We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet, And surely ye'll be your pint-stowp! And we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet, And for, &c. We twa hae run about the braes But we've wander'd mony a weary foot And for, &c. We twa hae paidl'd i' the burn But seas between us braid hae roar'd And for, &c. And there's a hand, my trusty fiere! And we'll tak a right gude-willy waught, And for, &c. REVIEWS OF NEW BOOKS. "Scottish Poems of Robert Burns in his Native Dialect," by Sir James Wilson, K.C.S.I. (London: Oxford University Press, 1925, 6/-) Writing to his friend Samuel Rose on August 27, 1787, Cowper says, "Poor Burns loses much of his deserved praise in this country through our ignorance of his language. I despair of meeting with any Englishman who will take the pains that I have taken to understand him. . . I lent him to a very sensible neighbour of mine, but his uncouth dialect spoiled all; and before he had half read him through he was quite ramfeezled.” As a matter of fact, the proportion of what the English poet calls "uncouth dialect" is not so very alarming, and those to whom the vernacular is strange find Burns easier to read than to listen to when read by one "giving each guttural the true Anglo-Saxon enunciation, which is now forgotten in the southern parts of this realm," and reproducing the vowel sounds heard in Ayrshire. Such reading might puzzle a little those in other parts of Scotland. The reviewer has spoken at Burns Dinners from Morayshire to Dumfriesshire and in Dublin, and it was very interesting to listen to the varying pronunciation in the different localities. Then again, as Sir James Wilson points out in this excellent and instructive volume, "In his Scotch poems and songs Burns often introduces verses which he obviously meant to be pronounced as standard English. . Sometimes it is doubtful how far he meant his verses to be pronounced in English or in Scotch, and probably he himself would make them more English in reading them to a refined Edinburgh audience than when reading them to his friends and cronies in Central Ayrshire." Further, the author observes, Burns often adopts the English spelling as it stands, although the pronunciation of the word in Scotch may be very different. Thus one unfamiliar with the Scots Vernacular would mispronounce dogs, mill, will, would stumble over the rhyme "crouse-house," and would be all at sea with the rhymes in the opening stanza of "A Winter Night," a title certain to induce error. Verses meant to be pronounced as standard English are left as they stand, but, as regards the rest, by means of an easily mastered phonetic scheme Sir James Wilson reproduces the exact Ayrshire pronunciation, so that, with a little trouble, anyone can read Burns as he ought to be read. The plan of the book is that, on one page is the text, on the opposite page a phonetic rendering, and at the bottom a free translation |