Notes on Scottish Song

seventy years, and we may assume one or other took out the leaf. Robert Riddell was an amateur musician; he composed his Seventh of November and printed it in his Collection New Music, 1787; the tune for which Burns wrote his verses. See Dick's Burns, 1903, P. 363.

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Page 73. The gloomy night is gath’ring fast.' The substance of this Note is in Burns's Letter to Dr. Moore, which Currie printed in Works of Burns, 1800, i. 56. The song was originally published in the first Edinburgh edition, 1787, and there marked for the tune Roslin Castle. This tune, having been appropriated in the first volume of Johnson's Museum, the beautiful verses of Burns The gloomy night is gath'ring fast', when published in the third volume, were set to a worthless composition by Allan Masterton. George Thomson, in his Scotish Airs, got nearer an expression of the verses with the Celtic air Druimon dubh. No music publisher apparently has discovered the proper tune, Roslin Castle, one of the best Scottish Airs (supra, 83). See Dick's Burns, p. 477.

IV.

SPURIOUS NOTES. (See pp. 74-81.)

These, which are not in the Interleaved Museum, were obtained from several sources, and it is quite certain many of the statements did not proceed from Burns at all. The Notes may be divided into three classes: (1) Those which, under the same or different titles, have been already noted. Cromek was ignorant of the identity of some of the songs, and for others he ignored what was written, and compiled his Notes from various sources or his inner consciousness; Clout the Caldron is taken from Ramsay's article in The Bee; The lass o' Liviston was altered in order to quote the four lines of the old song in the Merry Muses, which, it may be remarked, are not verbatim; that on Jockie's gray breeks is a second note on that entitled The gentle swain; Highland laddie is a long composite invention, superseding the short note which Burns wrote. Here Cromek refers to the fifth volume of the Museum, which did not exist. It was not published until six months after the death of Burns, and therefore could not have been noticed by him particularly, as the last Notes in the Interleaved Museum were penned about three or four years before the volume was published, and before any final arrangements were made for sketching its contents. Kirk wad let me be refers to the same tune of Riddell's Note. The blithsome bridal and the story of the old interlude was probably supplied by Allan Cunningham; Auld lang syne omits what Burns wrote, and refers again to the posthumous fifth volume of the Museum; and that on Dainty Davie is a suppression of the Note in the Manuscript, to interpolate and repeat in detail the old chestnut about the Rev. David Williamson and the daughter of the Laird of Cherrytrees.

(a) Those Notes, which are not anywhere in the manuscript, The posie, the verses of which Burns wrote for the Museum; Waukin o' the fauld; Polwarth on the green; Mill, Mill O, which quotes eight lines of a song in the Merry Muses almost verbatim; and The bonie lass made the bed to me, the ballad of Burns which only appeared in the posthumous fifth volume of the Museum.

Lastly, (3) those on Songs which are not in any of the six volumes of the Scots Musical Museum; The Shepherd's Complaint; We ran and they ran; and Bob o' Dumblane.