The second part has not acquired such decided popularity, and it has not
often been published with it in former Collections. Of the fact of its
inequality, the accomplished author was fully aware: she wrote it
simply to gratify the desire of her venerable mother, who often wished
to know how "the unlucky business of Jeanie and Jamie ended." The
Countess, it may be remarked, was much gratified by the popularity of
the ballad; and though she seems, out of respect to her daughter's
feelings, to have retained the secret, she could not resist the frequent
repetition of it to her friends.
In the character of Lady Anne Barnard, the defective point was a certain
want of decision, which not only led to her declining many distinguished
and advantageous offers for her hand, but tended, in some measure, to
deprive her of posthumous fame. Illustrative of the latter fact, it has
been recorded that, having entrusted to Sir Walter Scott a volume of
lyrics, composed by herself and by others of the noble house of Lindsay,
with permission to give it to the world, she withdrew her consent after
the compositions had been printed in a quarto volume, and were just on
the eve of being published. The copies of the work, which was entitled
"Lays of the Lindsays," appear to have been destroyed. One lyric only
has been recovered, beginning, "Why tarries my love?" It is printed as
the composition of Lady Anne Barnard, in a note appended to the latest
edition of Johnson's "Musical Museum," by Mr C. K. Sharpe, who
transcribed it from the _Scots Magazine_ for May 1805. The popular song,
"Logie o' Buchan," sometimes attributed to Lady Anne in the Collections,
did not proceed from her pen, but was composed by George Halket,
parochial schoolmaster of Rathen, in Aberdeenshire, about the middle of
the last century.
[7] The name of this old melody is, "The Bridegroom greets when the Sun
gangs down."--See Stenhouse's Notes to Johnson's "Musical Museum," vol.
iv. p. 280; the "Lives of the Lindsays," by Lord Lindsay, vol. ii., pp.
314, 332, 392. Lond. 1849, 3 vols., 8vo.
[8] "She was entertaining a large party of distinguished guests at
dinner, when a hitch occurred in the kitchen. The old servant came up
behind her and whispered, 'My lady, you must tell another story--the
second course won't be ready for five minutes!'"--Letter of General
Lindsay to Lord Lindsay, "Lives of the Lindsays," vol. ii. p. 387.
[9] The Rev. William Leeves, of Wrington, to whose tune the ballad is
now sung.--See an account of Mr Leeves' claims to the authorship of the
tune, &c., in Johnson's "Musical Museum;" Stenhouse's Notes, vol. iv. p.
231.
AULD ROBIN GRAY.
PART I.
When the sheep are in the fauld, and the kye 's come hame,
And a' the warld to rest are gane,
The waes o' my heart fa' in showers frae my e'e,
Unkent by my gudeman, wha sleeps sound by me.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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