CLOUT THE CALDRONA ▲ TRADITION is mentioned in the Bee, that the second Bishop Chisholm, of Dunblane, used to say, that if he were going to be hanged, nothing would soothe his mind so much by the way, as to hear Clout the Caldron played. I have met with another tradition, that the old song to this tune was composed on one of the Kenmure family, in the Cavalier times; and alluded to an amour he had, while under hiding, in the disguise of an itinerant tinker. The air is also known by the name of The Blacksmith and his Apron, which from the rhythm, seems to have been a line of some old song to the tune. SAW YE NAE MY PEGGY? THIS charming song is much older, and indeed superior, to Ramsay's verses, "The Toast," as he calls them. There is another set of the words, much older still, and which I take to be the original one, but though it has a very great deal of merit, it is not quite ladies' reading. Saw ye nae my Peggy, Saw ye nae my Peggy, Saw ye nae my Peggy, Coming o'er the lea? Ne'er was form'd by nature, So divine is she. O! how Peggy charms me; Lest she love nae me. Peggy doth discover Nought but charms all over; Nature bids me love her, That's a law to me. The original words, for they can scarcely be called verses, seem to be as follows; a song familiar from the cradle to every Scotish ear. Saw ye my Maggie, Saw ye my Maggie Linkin o'er the lea? High kilted was she, High kilted was she, High kilted was she, Her coat aboon her knee. What mark has your Maggie, What mark has your Maggie That ane may ken her be? (by) Though it by no means follows that the silliest verses to an air must, for that reason, be the original song; yet I take this ballad, of which I have quoted part, to be the old verses. The two songs in Ramsay, one of them evidently his own, are never to be met with in the fire-side circle of our peasantry; while that which I take to be the old song, is in every shepherd's mouth. Ramsay, I suppose, had thought the old verses unworthy of a place in his collection. THE FLOWERS OF EDINBURGH. THIS song is one of the many effusions of Scots jacobitism.-The title, Flowers of Edinburgh, has no manner of connexion with the present verses, so I suspect there has been an older set of words, of which the title is all that remains. By the bye, it is singular enough that the Scotish Muses were all Jacobites.-I have paid more attention to every description of Scots songs than perhaps any body living has done, and I do not recollect one single stanza, or even the title of the most trifling Scots air, which has the least panegyrical reference to the families of Nassau or Brunswick; while there are hundreds satirizing them.— This may be thought no panegyric on the Scots Poets, but I mean it as such. For myself, I would always take it as a compliment to have it said, that my heart ran before my head;*—and surely the * Poor Burns!-Thy heart indeed ran always before thy head; but never didst thou fail to carry thy reader's heart along with thee. Instead of kindling at the indignities offered to thy native land, hadst thou been a wise and a prudent poet, thou would'st have tuned thy lyre to the praise of some powerful family, and carefully abstained from drawing on thy head the resentment |