AITKEN'S SCOTTISH SONG.*

WE do not wonder that Scottish poetry should be the pride of Scotchmen. It is so instinct with national feeling, so racy of the soil, so fitted, as it were, to take a part in the every-day events which make up the happiness or the sorrow of life, that few men North of the Tweed, however absorbed they may be in money- getting or in theological controversies, fail to keep a warm place in their hearts for their country's poets. Next to Shakespeare, we suspect that the most popular poet of Great Britain is Robert Burns. He is the prince of song-writers, and in this kind of writing as great an artist as he is a poet. The most genuine simplicity is united to the most consummate, although probably unconscious skill ; the bird-like notes he pours forth when once heard keep a permanent place in the memory. So great indeed is Burns as a lyric poet, that although several other Scotch song- writers have produced exquisite work. his supremacy is universally acknowledged. In her interesting selection of " Scottish song," Miss Aitken has found some difficulty in consequence of the extraordinary wealth of Burns, who has written lyrics enough, and lyrics, too, deserving to be ranked with the choicest of Scotland, to fill the larger portion of a volume like this :— " The smallness of the space at my command," she writes, " while

allowing me to exclude such as I deemed inferior, has compelled nfe to leave out many excellent songs of Burns, whose name will be lovingly

* Scottish Song: a Selection of the Choicest Lurks of Scotland. Compiled and Arranged, with Brief Notes, by Mary Carlyle Aitken. London : Macmillan and Co. cherished as long as there are Scotch hearts in the world. Mr. Carlyle says of him, It will seem a small praise if we rank him as the first of all our song-writers, for we know not where to find one worthy of being second to him.' I should have preferred to make these songs the founda- tion of this selection, but they have been so often printed, and are so well known, that it has been thought advisable to introduce them rather as a spice than as the piece de resistance."

The great Scotchman whose words are quoted by his niece has given her, it is understood, the aid of his fine critical sagacity in the compilation of this volume, which is likely, we think, to prove one of the most popular of the " Golden Treasury Series." In all selections of poetry it must inevitably happen that the reader will miss pieces which, from association perhaps, he has been ac- customed to regard as favourites. Among the omissions of this volume, he may regret the absence of " Lady Ann Bothwell's Lament ;" of Hector Macneill's " Saw ye my wee thing? " and "My Boy Tarcanie ;" of Nicoll's " Bonnie Bessie Lee ;" of Thomson's song commencing, "For ever, Fortune, wilt thou prove," all the more valuable since he wrote so little lyric verse ; and of the "R'oo'd and married and a" of Joanna Baillie, whose name does not appear at all, while that of her friend Sir Walter Scott appears only as the author of " Jock o' Hazeldean." Scott's wonderful genius as a song-writer cannot be adequately represented by any one poem, and assuredly not by " Jock o' Hazeldean," and we must think that Miss Aitken has made a great mistake in omitting such pieces as "Proud Maisie," "An hour with thee, 'Bonny Dundee," " Pibroch of Donald Dhu," " He is gone on the mountain," an " The Young Lochinvar." The editor, however, may have some sound reasons for publishing a selection of Scottish song, and leaving Walter Scott out in the cold, and at all events, we may be thankful that beyond the exceptions just mentioned, exceptions made no doubt after careful consideration, the volume contains, as Miss Aitken intended it should, the choicest songs of Scotland- Between the ballad and the song the boundary is sometimes very slight, the difference being that a ballad must contain a narrative, while a song may. It need not surprise us, therefore,. to find some of the poems inserted in selections of ballad poetry by Mr. Allimgham and others, placed here among the songs.. " 0 waly, waly, up yon bank," "Barbara Allan," and similar pieces may be put in either category: The editor has divided the songs into four parts, classed according to subject, not according to date, this arrange- ment being the only one practicable, " for not only are the dates of many of the gems unknown, but even the names of their authors have perished." Part I. is devoted to serious love-songs ; Part II. to social and drinking-songs ; Part ILL to love-songs, admitting the comic and jovial element ; and Part IV. to Jacobite and war-songs. Each of these departments is admirably represented by feminine genius. Indeed, putting Burns out of the question, it is not too much to say that some of the best of Scottish songs are the production of women. It was Elizabeth Hamilton who wrote " My AM Fireside ;" it is, we think, nearly if not quite certain that Jean Adam wrote the admirable song, "There's nae Luck about the House ;" Jane Elliot wrote one version of " The Flowers of the Forest," and Mrs. Cockburn another ; Mrs. Grant is the author of the well- known song, " 0 where, tell me where, is your Highland laddie gone ?" Mrs. Hunter, the wife of the celebrated anatomist, wrote the little song, " My mother bids me bind my hair," which, when sung with the sweetness and feeling it deserves, brings tears into the eyes ; Lady Anne Lindsay produced " Auld Robin Gray," a poem which in its own line of simple pathos has never been surpassed; and Lady Nairne, seven of whose songs appear in this selection, has proved that she had at her command the springs of humour as well as pathos. As the author of " The Land o' the Leal," of " The Laird o' Cockpen," of " Caller Herrin," of "Charlie is my Darling," and "John Tod," Lady Nairne, despite her dread of literary reputation, has won a secure and no mean place among the song-writers of Scotland. We note, by the way, that in " There's nae Luck about the House," Miss Aitken has inserted a stanza omitted by Mr. Palgrave on the ground that it was inter- polated by Beattie, and is quite out of harmony with the original poem. We observe, too, that her transcript of "The Land o' the Leal" differs considerably from that given in the " Golden Treasury of Songs and Lyrics."

If several of the best Scottish songs are the work of women, many are the production of comparatively insignificant or of unknown writers. In this respect they resemble our old ballads, which have been kept alive by their intrinsic worth, while the authorship is forgotten. The Rev. John Skinner, an unfamiliar name, at all events South of the Tweed, has written several capi- tal songs, and one called " Tullochgorum," which Burns wasp

rash enough to call the best that Scotland ever saw. William Laidlaw, best known as Sir Walter Scott's steward and friend, wrote one lovely little song, entitled " Lucy's Flitting," in which the common occurrence of a servant-girl flitting to a new place is described in language which carries this ordinary event into the region of poetry. There is a simple song here, written by Thomas Pringle, the first editor of Biackwood's Magazine, called the " Emigrant's Farewell," the words of which must have been repeated by many a Scotchman on leaving his native land. We quote the last three stanzas

"Home of our love! our fathers' home, Land of the brave and free ! The sail is flapping on the foam, That bears us far from thee !

We seek a wild and distant shore, Beyond the western main ; We leave thee to return no more, Nor view thy cliffs again!

Our native land, our native vale, A long, a last adieu!

Farewell to bonny Teviotdale, And Scotland's mountains blue."

The well-known and well-loved songs written by obscure authors, are indeed so numerous as to form a prominent feature in a collection of Scottish poetry. Another observation that will strike every reader is the breezy, out-of-door life that pervades the love-songs ; the love-making of Scotch lads and lassies is carried on in the glen or on the moorland, among the yellow broom or purple heather. The air is scented with the perfume of flowers, you listen to the lowing of cattle, the murmur of the stream, or the song of the birds, and are charmed by a sweet picture of rural life. Unfortunately, many of the songs of Scotland, which would be otherwise admirable, are injured by coarse language or prurient suggestions. Allan Ramsay, who is still, in Miss Aitken's judgment, with the exception of Burns, the best of Scottish song-writers, was the first to make a selection of his country's songs, including, however, many pieces that had their birthplace in England. In the preface to that volume—the Tea- Table Miscellany—he recommends his collection to the ladies, observing that he has been careful to keep out of it "all smut and ribaldry, that the modest voice and ear of the fair singer might meet with no affront,"—an amazing assertion, in the judgment of the modern reader, who will consider that many of the pieces are of the grossest character, but one which was, no doubt, honestly made by Allan when he wrote his preface in 1724. Miss Aitken, it need scarcely be said, has retained nothing which is unfitted for general reading, and her book is one that should delight everybody. The advantage of finding" a lass wi' a tocher," or a man with a " weel-stocked mailing," is stated with consider- able emphasis in some of the humorous songs. Love may be all well enough, but it will not do without worldly gear. As Allan Ramsay sings, and the words represent, a sentiment stated in a variety of forms,— " Gie me a lass with a lump of land, And we for life shall gang thegither,—

Tho' daft or wise, I'll ne'er demand, Or black or white, it mak's na whether.

Fm aff with wit, and beauty will fade,

And blood alane's no' worth a shilling, But she that's rich, her market's made, For ilka charm about her's killing."

Here is a characteristic and business-like courtship, described by some anonymous writer. Jocky is evidently not a " fleeching " lover, perhaps because, being a man of some substance, he is pretty sure of his ground :—

"Jocky said to Jenny, Jenny, wilt thou do't ? Ne'er a fit, quo' Jenny, for my tocher good ; For my tocher good, I winna marry thee. E'en's ye like, quo' Jocky; ye may let it be ! I ha'e gowd and gear, I ha'e land enough, I ha'e seven good owsen gangin' in a plough, Ganging In a plough, and linkin' ewer the lea: And, gin ye winna tak' me, I can let ye be.

I ha'e a gads ha' house, a barn, and a byre, A stack afore the door, I'll mak' a rantin fire ; I'll mak' a rantin fire, and merry shall we be And, gin ye winna tak' me, I can let ye be.

Jenny said to Jocky, Gin ye winna tell, Ye shall be the lad ; I'll be the lass mysel': Ye're a bonnie lad and I'm a lassie free ; Ye're welcomer to tak' me than to let me be."

Poverty is the great barrier to marriage, a fact feelingly deplored in a well-known song :- " Out spake the bride's sister, As she came free the byre, 0 ! gin I were but married, It's a' that I desire;

But we poor folk rnaun live single, And do the best we can ; I dinna care what I should want If I could but get a man."

Even wealth, however, does not always allure the stronger sex, for there is an old song the heroine of which complains that although she has seven braw-new gowns and seven milk-kye, her wooer has turned his back ; what is worse, no " young spark " ever ventures into the house. Poor slighted Nancy hopes and prays at first for a handsome young lad, " wi' muckle gear ;" after a time, she ceases to fash her head about gear, if she can but get a hand- some young man ; gradually her expectations lessen, until in the last verse she declares that if a beggar would come and take her, she would be ready to go with him :- "And 0! what'll come o' me ! And 0 ! and what will I do ! That sic a braw lassie as I

Should die for a wooer, I trow 1"

A much more modern song expresses the same maidenly anxiety, for unfortunately the difficulty of finding a husband is not diminished by the progress of society. Jenny has seen a lad that she likes, and says that if she had her will she would marry him :- "I gied him a look as a kind lassie should, My frien's, if they kenn'd it, would surely run wud ; For tho' bonnie and gnid, he's no worth a bawbee, Oh! a'body's like to be married but me."

Miss Aitken's exquisite collection of Scottish song is so alluring, and suggests so many topics, that we find it difficult to lay it down. Great care and taste, it is evident, have been expended upon it, and doubtless the reward will be great. The book is one that should find a place in every library, we had almost said in every pocket, and the summer tourist who wishes to carry with him into the country a volume of genuine poetry, will find it difficult to select one containing within so small a compass so much of rarest value.