No More Learning

--Johnie Faa is the only old song which I could ever trace as
belonging to the extensive county of Ayr.

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CAULD KAIL IN ABERDEEN.

This song is by the Duke of Gordon. --The old verses are,

"There's cauld kail in Aberdeen,
And castocks in Strathbogie;
When ilka lad maun hae his lass,
Then fye, gie me my coggie.

CHORUS.

My coggie, Sirs, my coggie, Sirs,
I cannot want my coggie;
I wadna gie my three-girr'd cap
For e'er a quene on Bogie. --

There's Johnie Smith has got a wife,
That scrimps him o' his coggie,
If she were mine, upon my life
I wad douk her in a bogie. "

* * * * *


FOR LAKE OF GOLD.

The country girls in Ayrshire, instead of the line--

"She me forsook for a great duke,"

say

"For Athole's duke she me forsook;"

which I take to be the original reading.

These were composed by the late Dr. Austin, physician at
Edinburgh. --He had courted a lady, to whom he was shortly to have been
married; but the Duke of Athole having seen her, became so much in
love with her, that he made proposals of marriage, which were accepted
of, and she jilted the doctor.

* * * * *


HERE'S A HEALTH TO MY TRUE LOVE, &c.

This song is Dr. Blacklock's.
He told me that tradition gives the air
to our James IV. of Scotland.

* * * * *


HEY TUTTI TAITI.

I Have met the tradition universally over Scotland, and particularly
about Stirling, in the neighbourhood of the scene, that this air was
Robert Bruce's march at the battle of Bannockburn.

* * * * *


RAVING WINDS AROUND HER BLOWING.

I Composed these verses on Miss Isabella M'Leod, of Raza, alluding to
her feelings on the death of her sister, and the still more melancholy
death of her sister's husband, the late Earl of Loudon; who shot
himself out of sheer heart-break at some mortifications he suffered,
owing to the deranged state of his finances.

* * * * *


TAK YOUR AULD CLOAK ABOUT YE.

A part of this old song, according to the English set of it, is quoted
in Shakspeare.

* * * * *


YE GODS, WAS STREPHON'S PICTURE BLEST?

Tune--"Fourteenth of October. "

The title of this air shows that it alludes to the famous king
Crispian, the patron of the honourable corporation of shoemakers. --St.
Crispian's day falls on the fourteenth of October old style, as the
old proverb tells:

"On the fourteenth of October
Was ne'er a sutor sober. "

* * * * *


SINCE ROBB'D OF ALL THAT CHARM'D MY VIEWS.

The old name of this air is, "the Blossom o' the Raspberry. " The song
is Dr.