will find a great deal of information in an article by Mr Frank Kidson, in the appendix to Vol. V. of Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, under "Auld Lang Syne." The first recorded song or poem with the theme is said to be by Francis Sempil, of Beltrees, a Scottish poet of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The piece is in ten stanzas, and the first stanza is as follows:

The air presumed to have been united to this song is first found in A Collection of Original Scotch Tunes, printed for Henry Playford, 1700 and 1701.

The air "Auld Lang Syne," fitted to what may be called Burns's words, appears for the first time in print in the third set of A Collection of Original Scottish Airs, edited by George Thomson, July, 1799. The tune is the version now familiar, and the words are stated to be "from an old MS. in the editor's possession-air, ‘Auld Lang Syne.'" Burns says he took it down from an old man's singing, and again, in a letter dated December, 17th, 1788, he speaks of the song as an old one.

Kidson says that it must be remembered that the tune "Auld Lang Syne " is a reel, and is bound to possess certain characteristics common to reel music. Many early tunes bear resemblance to it, and several are claimed as "originals."

The tune most frequently asserted as the original of "Auld Lang Syne" and as the composition of William Shield is a passage in the overture to Rosina (produced at Covent Garden in 1783). This is the final passage of

the overture, the oboe playing the treble, and the bassoons to imitate the bagpipe in a drone bass. But this overture contains several tunes that cannot be claimed as Shield's. For instance, the opening strain is the German Volkslied "Fruhlingsempfindung," which is not Shield's. Another tune included in the overture is a French air, used in the body of the opera, which, it may be mentioned, also contains Scottish airs.

A further claim for the composition of "Auld Lang Syne" is made on behalf of Sir Alexander Don, an amateur musician and a friend of Sir Walter Scott. The air was called "Sir Alex. Don's Strathspey" (Gow's first Collection of Strathspey Reels, 1784). But in Johnson's Scots Musical Museum, 1792, is an air and song commencing "O, can ye labour lea, young man?" The tune is practically the tune we now know as Auld Lang Syne," and "it may fairly be presumed to be an old traditional Scottish song current before Shield's overture was composed."

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"Roger's Farewell," from Aird's third Selection (1788), also bears a close resemblance to the tune we all know as "Auld Lang Syne."

These tunes are printed in the article in Grove's Dictionary, and can be easily compared. I would also refer those interested to the article on Scottish Music in Grove.

It does not appear possible to say authoritatively that Shield did actually compose the air as we now know it or its "original." The known data seem to point to it being a folk-song.-Yours, &c., R. F. JARMAN.

32 Ewesley Road, Sunderland,

February 24th, 1914.

Sir, I have read the "Auld Lang Syne" letter in last night's Echo, which is worthless as disproving, or even attempting to disprove, Stenhouse's assertion that the air from Rosina was merely an old Scotch tune very

.

slightly altered by William Shield. It is easy enough to add word to word and line to line like the writer, but being able to do this certainly does not prove either his having the necessary knowledge or is guided by the required judgment. I have every confidence in my authority, whose very profession trained and fitted his mind for accuracy. With this I am done with " Auld Lang Syne." -Yours, &c. THOMAS RAY.

February 27th, 1914.

Sir, I have no leisure or desire to continue a correspondence on the question of the original composer of the air sung to the song of " Auld Lang Syne," especially when your correspondent who differs with me on the subject so far forgets the ordinary rules of courtesy and civility as to descend to abuse and imputations. I therefore decline to discuss the question further on such lines. After a more extended study of Border music and musicians, which he will find material in other authorities as well as in the one bulky volume" he refers to, I have no doubt he will be all the better for his increased information. The question of the original composers of tunes is not so simple a matter of study as to allow anyone to dogmatise as to the original composer of any one old air, especially by one who had read only one authority. If my contribution to the controversy has stimulated a study of North-country music and folk-lore I am content with the result.

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Just one last word about the question I introduced in my first letter to the editor of the Echo. Burns admitted that the first tune to his song of "Auld Lang Syne" was only mediocre. If the air now sung to the song was originally a Scotch strathspey, what reason can be given why the name of the composer, or the name of the music, should not be given, rather than to quote that "Mr Stenhouse says Mr Thomson got the words arranged to an air introduced by Shield in his overture to the opera of Rosina"?

The air from Rosina became a favourite with the musical public from the first performance of the opera in London in 1783, ten years before Burns's song was given to the world, and was acknowledged to be by William Shield, the foremost musical composer of his age.Yours, &c.

Sunderland, Shrove Tuesday, 1914.

JOHN ROBINSON.

[The disputants are evidently not conversant with the exhaustive and erudite note on this song in The Songs of Robert Burns, by that eminent authority the late Jas. C. Dick, of Newcastle, which was published in 1903 by Henry Frowde. Shield's claim to the authorship of the air is therein exhaustively examined and conclusively disproved. We commend Mr Dick's volume to all interested in the history of Scottish Song as a standard work on the subject which is not so well known as it ought to be.-ED.].

DEATH OF A GRANDDAUGHTER OF

Ο

ROBERT BURNS.

N Sunday afternoon, 24th September, another link with the National Poet of Scotland was severed

by the death, at her home in Dumfries, of Mrs Burns Brown, granddaughter of Robert Burns, at the age of 85.

Jane Emma Burns was the second child of Robert Burns, eldest son of the Poet, and Emma Bland; her brother being the third Robert in succession, and for a