No More Learning

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.

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TAK YOUR AULD CLOAK ABOUT YE.

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

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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. "

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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. Blacklock's.

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YOUNG DAMON.

This air is by Oswald.

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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.

* * * * *


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.

* * * * *


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. "

* * * * *


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.