This air is a proof how one of our Scots tunes comes to be composed
out of another. I have one of the earliest copies of the song, and it
has prefixed,
"Tune of Tarry Woo."--
Of which tune a different set has insensibly varied into a different
air.--To a Scots critic, the pathos of the line,
"'Tho' his back be at the wa',"
--must be very striking. It needs not a Jacobite prejudice to be
affected with this song.
The supposed author of "Lewis Gordon" was a Mr. Geddes, priest, at
Shenval, in the Ainzie.
* * * * *
O HONE A RIE.
Dr. Blacklock informed me that this song was composed on the infamous
massacre of Glencoe.
* * * * *
I'LL NEVER LEAVE THEE.
This is another of Crawfurd's songs, but I do not think in his
happiest manner.--What an absurdity, to join such names as _Adonis_
and _Mary_ together!
* * * * *
CORN RIGS ARE BONIE.
All the old words that ever I could meet to this air were the
following, which seem to have been an old chorus:
"O corn rigs and rye rigs,
O corn rigs are bonie;
And where'er you meet a bonie lass,
Preen up her cockernony.
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