I manages. The first by labour mans' our breast to move, In Allan's verse sage sleeness we admire, In Rob's the glow of fancy and of fire, And genius bauld, that nought but deep distress, But lest ower lang I lengthen out my crack, CAROLINA OLIPHANT. 1766-1845. Probably the larger half, certainly not the worse half, of the songs which celebrate the lost Jacobite cause in Scotland, are the work of James Hogg and of the lady who became Baroness Nairne. For the number and beauty of her lyrics of all kinds, among the song-writers of Scotland Lady Nairne is excelled only by Burns and rivalled only by Tannahill. Born ten years after Culloden, of a family in the inner circle of Jacobitism, her memories and sympathies could not but be deeply coloured by the misfortunes of the House of Stuart. Her grandfather had taken part in the Rebellion of 1715, and both her grandfather and her father in that of 1745. On the later occasion her father was one of the first to join the Prince after his landing, and one of the last to exchange a word with him when Culloden was lost. In the "Auld House o' Gask," in Perthshire, where she was born, her grandfather had entertained Prince Charles, and her grandmother had cut a lock from the Prince's hair. Both her father and her grandfather suffered exile for years for the Stuart cause, and her cousin, Major Nairne, to whom she was married in 1806, only had his title restored late in life, in 1824. To his last day her father used to toast the health and happy restoration of the king "over the water"; when the newspaper was read to him he would not suffer the heads of the reigning house to be alluded to otherwise than by the initial letters K and Q; even in the Prayer Books which he gave his children the royal names were changed; and among the dearest treasures of Gask House were the bonnet, spurs, crucifix, and cockade which had been worn by the Prince, as well as the historic lock of his hair. So well known indeed were the prejudices of the Laird of Gask that George III. on one occasion when sending him a message of respect for his stern if mistaken principle, accompanied it with the compliments, not of the King of Great Britain, but of the Elector of Hanover. With this strong Jacobite feeling was no doubt mingled something of the pride of a race whose representatives had saved the life of David I. at Winchester, had held Stirling against Edward I., had been ennobled by James II., and had fallen at Flodden. Laurence Oliphant married his cousin, Margaret Robertson, a daughter of Robertson of Struan, Chief of Clan Donnachy, and the poetess, their third daughter and fourth child, was born July 16, 1766. As if to set a seal upon her sympathies, she was named after the Prince whose cause had been so enwoven with the destinies of her house. As a young lady she was celebrated throughout her native district for her loveliness and charm, and became known as the Flower of Strathearn. She began early to write, and her songs became immediately popular, but like more than one other sweet singer of her time, she kept the fact of her authorship a profound secret even from those who were nearest and dearest. "Her own husband, Lord Nairne, I am credibly informed," wrote Professor Masson lately in his Edinburgh Sketches and Memories, "remained ignorant to his dying day that his wife had been guilty of song-writing or any other kind of literary performance.' When she contributed to R. A. Smith's Scottish Minstrel it was under the pseudonym of “B.B.”—Mrs. Bogan of Bogan; and there are accounts of her mysterious visits to Purdie the publisher clad as a Scottish gentlewoman of the olden time. 66 Lady Nairne's Jacobite lyrics, though many of them remain among the finest, are not her only songs. Like her contemporary, Burns, she set herself frequently to write new words to some of the quaint and sweet old airs which had come down from the traditional past. Among such compositions are "The Land o' the Leal," to the old tune of Hey now the day daws," of James IVth's time, and "The Laird o' Cockpen," to the air of "When she cam' ben she bobbit." "The Land o' the Leal" was for long believed to have been written by Burns, but corrected copies in Lady Nairne's writing have attested her authorship. The old words of "When she cam' ben she bobbit were said to date from the days of Charles II., and formed a somewhat indelicate ditty. As improved by Burns for Johnson's Museum they were not without a certain spirit O when she cam' ben she bobbit fu' low, And wasna Cockpen richt saucy witha', O never look doun, my lassie, at a', O never look doun, my lassie, at a', Though thou ha'e nae silk and holland sae ma', This, it will be seen, has none of the dry humour which makes Lady Nairne's song immortal. At a later day Miss Ferrier added two stanzas to the composition as Lady Nairne left it, but the addition, like most sequels, is no improvement. With a genius which was equally at home in the pathetic, the humorous, and the patriotic, Carolina Oliphant remains not only the sweetest and most famous singer of the lost Jacobite cause, but far and away the greatest of all Scottish lyric poets of her sex, and in two of her pieces, the two above mentioned, it does not appear extravagant to say, she is not surpassed even by Burns himself. A collected edition of the works of Lady Nairne was edited with a memoir by the Rev. Charles Rogers, LL.D., in 1869, and has been reprinted again and again. THE LAND O' THE LEAL. I'm wearin' awa', John, Like snaw-wreaths in thaw, John I'm wearin' awa' To the land o' the leal1. There's nae sorrow there, John; There's neither cauld nor care, John The day is aye fair In the land o' the leal. Our bonnie bairn's there, John; And, oh! we grudged her sair To the land o' the leal. But sorrow's sel' wears past, John, In the land o' the leal. I loyal, true. |