No More Learning

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KIRK WAD LET ME BE.

Tradition in the western parts of Scotland tells that this old song,
of which there are still three stanzas extant, once saved a
covenanting clergyman out of a scrape. It was a little prior to the
revolution, a period when being a Scots covenanter was being a felon,
that one of their clergy, who was at that very time hunted by the
merciless soldiery, fell in, by accident, with a party of the
military. The soldiers were not exactly acquainted with the person of
the reverend gentleman of whom they were in search; but from
suspicious circumstances, they fancied that they had got one of that
cloth and opprobrious persuasion among them in the person of this
stranger. "Mass John" to extricate himself, assumed a freedom of
manners, very unlike the gloomy strictness of his sect; and among
other convivial exhibitions, sung (and some traditions say, composed
on the spur of the occasion) "Kirk wad let me be," with such effect,
that the soldiers swore he was a d----d honest fellow, and that it
was impossible _he_ could belong to those hellish conventicles; and so
gave him his liberty.

The first stanza of this song, a little altered, is a favourite kind
of dramatic interlude acted at country weddings, in the south-west
parts of the kingdom. A young fellow is dressed up like an old beggar;
a peruke, commonly made of carded tow, represents hoary locks; an old
bonnet; a ragged plaid, or surtout, bound with a straw rope for a
girdle; a pair of old shoes, with straw ropes twisted round his
ankles, as is done by shepherds in snowy weather: his face they
disguise as like wretched old age as they can: in this plight he is
brought into the wedding-house, frequently to the astonishment of
strangers, who are not in the secret, and begins to sing--

"O, I am a silly auld man,
My name it is auld Glenae," &c.

He is asked to drink, and by and bye to dance, which after some
uncouth excuses he is prevailed on to do, the fiddler playing the
tune, which here is commonly called "Auld Glenae;" in short he is all
the time so plied with liquor that he is understood to get
intoxicated, and with all the ridiculous gesticulations of an old
drunken beggar, he dances and staggers until he falls on the floor;
yet still in all his riot, nay, in his rolling and tumbling on the
floor, with some or other drunken motion of his body, he beats time to
the music, till at last he is supposed to be carried out dead drunk.

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MUSING ON THE ROARING OCEAN.

I composed these verses out of compliment to a Mrs. M'Lachlan, whose
husband is an officer in the East Indies.

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BLYTHE WAS SHE.

I composed these verses while I stayed at Ochtertyre with Sir William
Murray. --The lady, who was also at Ochtertyre at the same time, was
the well-known toast, Miss Euphemia Murray, of Lentrose; she was
called, and very justly, "The Flower of Strathmore. "

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JOHNNIE FAA, OR THE GYPSIE LADDIE.
The people in Ayrshire begin this song--

"The gypsies cam to my Lord Cassilis' yett. "--

They have a great many more stanzas in this song than I ever yet saw
in any printed copy. --The castle is still remaining at Maybole, where
his lordship shut up his wayward spouse, and kept her for life.

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TO DAUNTON ME.

The two following old stanzas to this tune have some merit:

"To daunton me, to daunton me,
O ken ye what it is that'll daunton me? --
There's eighty-eight and eighty-nine,
And a' that I hae borne sinsyne,
There's cess and press and Presbytrie,
I think it will do meikle for to daunton me.

But to wanton me, to wanton me,
O ken ye what it is that wad wanton me--
To see gude corn upon the rigs,
And banishment amang the Whigs,
And right restor'd where right sud be,
I think it would do meikle for to wanton me. "

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THE BONNIE LASS MADE THE BED TO ME.

"The Bonnie Lass made the Bed to me," was composed on an amour of
Charles II. when skulking in the North, about Aberdeen, in the time of
the usurpation. He formed _une petite affaire_ with a daughter of the
house of Portletham, who was the "lass that made the bed to him:"--two
verses of it are,

"I kiss'd her lips sae rosy red,
While the tear stood blinkin in her e'e;
I said, My lassie, dinna cry,
For ye ay shall make the bed to me.

She took her mither's holland sheets,
And made them a' in sarks to me;
Blythe and merry may she be,
The lass that made the bed to me. "

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ABSENCE.

A song in the manner of Shenstone.

This song and air are both by Dr. Blacklock.