Anne; Aften Water; Charlie he's my darling; Gin my love were yon red rose; Kellyburn braes, the air of Last May a braw wooer; The Highland widow's lament; How lang and dreary is the night; Gudewife count the lawin, a variation. of Hey tutti taiti; Kenmure's on and awa' Willie; Tam Glen and The brown dairy maid. His book of manuscript airs, like most of the other musical relics, has disappeared. The music of an unpublished air, The German lairdie, and one or two detached sheets, are about all the written specimens of music which can be found. He forwarded to Johnson and Thomson a considerable number of tunes during the course of his correspondence with them, and we can only surmise that both destroyed the manuscript music sheets when they were finished with them.

At this distance of time it is not easy to determine whether Burns had sufficient technical knowledge and experience of music to enable him to write the notation of melodies which he heard. Burns has stated more than once that Stephen Clarke wrote for him the music of several traditional airs, but whether from the voice of the original singer, or secondhand through Burns himself, is not known. It may be taken for certain that Clarke revised the proofs in the Museum, but I think it unlikely that he noted all Burns' traditional tunes. Burns resided in Dumfries and the district for the most part of the time he was closely associated with Johnson, and Clarke, who lived in Edinburgh and only saw him occasionally, could not be at his elbow all over the country at the time he heard the numerous airs sung. It is not easy for the ordinary musical amateur to write a melody when he hears it, but it can be carried in the memory and be recorded at leisure with the aid of an instrument, and there was nothing to prevent Burns from sketching on paper with the assistance of his violin any simple air which he had previously heard sung or played. With a retentive memory and an acute ear for minute gradations of musical sound, combined with a passionate love of old tunes, his penetrative genius would enable him

d

to do readily what would be laborious for an ordinary amateur, and I see no reason why his remark 'I took down the tune from the voice of a girl', or some other unconditional assertion, should not be accepted literally.

Burns has embodied the whole cycle of Scottish Song, both as a writer of original songs and as, for want of a better definition, a reconstructor of the songs of the past. Modern critics have made many curious comments on what Burns himself designated generally 'Mr. Burns' old words' in the MS. Lists, and they appear to be under the impression that a recent editor made a new discovery, which is calculated to dim the lustre of Burns' fame and detract from his literary reputation. This is all very amusing; but the repetition of what Burns himself has said, or what he never attempted to conceal, is not likely to affect his memory very much. He never in any way, publicly or privately, claimed more of these 'old words' than were his, and he did not publish them in authorized editions. The numerous anonymous songs in the Museum or elsewhere have gradually been inserted in Burns' works by successive editors, who found evidence in manuscripts that he wrote them from a line, a title, or a chorus of some previously existing fragment. He took little trouble to record his part in them. What he has said of it tends rather to efface himself. As a national poet Burns is unique. He has done for Scottish Song what Shakespeare did in a fragmentary way for English Song in the snatches of exquisite verse scattered through his dramas.

The Burns tunes are chiefly anonymous, originating from the beginning of the sixteenth up to the close of the eighteenth century. They illustrate Scottish music from the wild erratic airs peculiar to the country, framed on scales and movements so regardless of the scholastic rules of musical composition that no satisfactory accompaniments have yet been written for them as a whole. The following apologetic note, written to the dilettante Thomson, defines Burns' musical taste and his enthusiasm for Scottish airs in

such a manner as to make it interesting to the student of folk-music. He says:

'I am sensible that my taste in music must be inelegant and vulgar, because people of undisputed and cultivated taste can find no merit in any of my favourite tunes. Many of our strathspeys ancient and modern give me most exquisite enjoyment where you and other judges would probably be showing signs of disgust.' (Works, vi.)

Burns was probably not aware that the enjoyment of folkmusic exists alongside of that of the highest forms of the musical art. Shakespeare loved the music of 'the old and plain song' as well as the madrigal compositions of his learned friend John Dowland; Browning has somewhere said that music has had more influence on the human race than all the other arts combined, and he enjoyed the intricate music of the string quartett; Brahms, Germany's recent greatest musician, wove My heart's in the highlands into one of his sonatas, and could not get the melody out of his head while he was composing. Was Burns in the guise of humility obliquely conveying to Thomson his opinion that the editor had no sympathy with Scottish music and satirizing him as unfit to edit a collection of Scottish music? Early in the correspondence he cautions Thomson in these words: 'Whatever Mr. Pleyel does, let him not alter one iota of the original Scots airs. Let our national airs preserve their native features.' The anticipation of Burns was not altogether groundless, and Thomson altered the music of many of the songs as he altered everything else in his Scottish Airs. For example, he corrupted Galla Water, one of the simplest and most interesting Scottish tunes, by adding a fifth line to the stanza and closing the air on the key note instead of the fifth. He manipulated Ay waukin O in precisely the same way.

It is generally believed that few changes are made in popular melodies in transmission through course of time. That is not correct by any means, as one can find who listens to a melody sung in the streets. Every ragged Apollo has some originality and invention of a kind to

interpolate something new into his performance. Written and printed copies of the same tune vary considerably, and in small points scarcely two copies are exactly alike.

In dance books the vivacity necessary to mark the steps has caused running alterations. Traditional melodies are insensibly altered in the same way as language. The features are modified sometimes to a considerable extent, but not entirely changed. Tunes are subject to the individual tastes of editors, who, in the desire to improve, introduce new variations.

The Scottish musical scales are unique and peculiar to the country, and many fruitless attempts have been made to explain their origin. I can find no trace of resemblance in the early music of other European countries, except in a few Scandinavian melodies not sufficiently numerous or striking on which to base any family resemblance. The melodies of France, Germany, and Holland give no clue whatever, and I have failed to discover any racial affinity in these countries. The alliance with France and the continued intercourse of two centuries might be supposed to have affected the music, but there is no trace of that friendship in the music of Scotland.

I have endeavoured to prove that Burns had a phenomenal appreciation of melody and was as familiar with the music of Scotland as he was with its poetry; he had an elementary knowledge of music, as much as enabled him to compose an original melody, though worthless, as he said; he knew intimately several hundred different airs, not in a vague and misty way, but familiarly as regards time, tune, and rhythm, so that he could distinguish one from another, and point out minute variations in different copies that he knew; he wrote nearly all his songs for particular melodies, some of which were dance tunes never before adapted to, or associated with poetry; he explained in detail to his publishers and others. how dance music and other tunes which he selected should be applied to his songs; he criticized music he had heard or which he knew in an original manner; he spent hours

listening to the singing and playing of unfamiliar music, so that he might learn the swing and cadence of the melodies, and form an impression of their import, in order that he might write suitable verses for them; he discovered many traditional melodies in his excursions through Scotland, and was the means of getting the notation printed, thus preserving a considerable collection of folk music which otherwise would have perished; finally, Scotland is as much indebted to him for the perpetuation of its music as it is for its lyrics.