Illustrations of the Lyric Poetry and Music of Scotland. Originally compiled to accompany the 'Scots' Musical Museum' [of J. Johnson] and now published separately with additional notes and illustrations

Preface

. In bringing before the Public a new edition of Johnson's collection of Scotish Songs, entitled The Scots Musical Museum, a few words of preface may be required, both in regard to the history of the work itself, and to the nature of the Notes or Illus trations with which it is now accompanied. The original publisher and the ostensible editor of the work, was James Johnson, a Musicseller and En graver in Edinburgh. His object, as first announced, was, " in a portable form, to unite the Songs and Music of Scotland in one general collection ;" and it was commenced in May 1787, by the publication of the First Part, or volume, containing One Hundred Songs, which appeared " under the patronage, direction, and review of a number of gentlemen of un disputed taste, who have been pleased to encourage, enrich, and adorn the whole literary part of the performance."

Johnson has nowhere stated who these gentlemen were, nor does it appear that any one of them took a prominent share in the publia PRKFACE. II cation.' Dr Blacklock was an occasional contributor both of songs and airs ; Dr Beattie has also been mentioned, along with Mr Tytler of Woodhouselee, as persons who interested themselves in the pro gress of the work ; but, whatever aid Johnson might have derived from these or other gentlemen " of undisputed taste," it may be confidently asserted, that, unless for one fortunate circumstance, " The Scots Musical Museum" might never have extended beyond a couple of parts or volumes ; or, at least, might never have acquired the reputation which it has enjoyed for half a century, and which it still pro mises to retain. The circumstance to which we allude was the visit of Burns the Poet to Edinburgh, in November 1786.

Having become acquainted with the publisher before the first part was completed, he furnished Johnson with two original Songs, Nos. 77 and 78, Green grow the Rashes, and Young Peggy blooms, to the tune of Loch Eroch Side ; and probably also rendered him other assistance. The Musical Museum was a work so congenial to the Poet's mind, that it evidently had a decided effect in directing his efforts more exclusively to Song-writing. The early associations connected with his love of ballad-poetry, and the rustic strains familiar to the peasantry, were thus awakened, and his intimate The volumes of the Musical Museum, as originally published, were " Humbly dedicated to the Catch Club, instituted at Edin burgh June 1771." On the completion of the Sixth and last volume, in 1803, Johnson substituted a new set of title-pages, dedicating the work •■ To the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland."

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. III acquaintance with the older and more popular melo dies with which such strains had long been happily united, enabled him, with a rare degree of felicity, thus to give vent to his feelings, by which he has attained the first rank as a Lyric Poet. The interest, or rather enthusiasm, which he felt in contributing to the success of Johnson's undertaking, appears very manifest in his correspondence ; and Burns, from this period, ought to be considered not simply as a contributor, but as the proper and efficient editor of the work. He not only contributed a large number of original songs, expressly written for it, but he applied to every person likely to render assistance ; and, while visiting different parts of the country, he diligently gleaned fragments of old songs, hitherto unpublished, which he completed with additional lines or stanzas, as might be required ; and, at the same time, he frequently determined the airs to which the words should be set, besides writing the prefa tory notices to the several parts or volumes of what he esteemed to be a national work.

The following are the terms in which Burns writes to some of his friends respecting Johnson's collection. To Mr Candlish, then at Glasgow, in June 1787, he says, " I am engaged in assisting an honest Scotch enthusiast, a friend of mine, who is an engraver, and has taken it into his head to publish a collection of all our Songs set to Music, of which the words and music are done by Scotsmen. This, you will easily guess, is an undertaking exactly to my taste. I have collected, begged, borrowed, and stolen, all the songs I could meet with." To the Rev. John Skinner,

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. author of Tullochgorum, in October 1787, he says, in reference to the Museum, " I have been absolutely crazed about it, collecting old stanzas, and any information remaining respecting their origin, authors, &c." In the same month, he informs another correspondent in the North, that " an engraver, James Johnson, in Edinburgh, has, not from mer cenary views, but from an honest Scotch enthusiasm, set about collecting all our native songs, and setting them to music, particularly those that have never been set before. Clarke, the well-known musician, presides over the musical arrangement ; and Drs Beattie and Blacklock, Mr Tytler of Woodhouselee, and your humble servant, to the utmost of his small power, assist in collecting the old poetry, or some times, for a fine air, make a stanza when it has no words."

To Johnson himself, in November 1788, he remarks, " I can easily see, my dear friend, that you will very probably have four volumes. Perhaps you may not find your account lucratively in this business ; but you are a patriot for the music of your country, and I am certain posterity will look on themselves as highly indebted to your public spirit. Be not in a hurry ; let us go on correctly, and your name shall be immortal." Johnson appears most wisely to have followed Burns's directions, and with such aid, he was enabled to give his collection a distinct original character, as well as greatly to extend his original plan; a Second, Third, and Fourth Part, each containing One Hundred Songs, having successively appeared in the months of March 1788, February 1790, and August 1792.

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. V Shortly after the appearance of the Fourth Part, Burns had engaged with a like congenial spirit to assist Mr George Thomson in his projected collection of Scotish Songs. His correspondence with that gentleman, extending from September 1792, to July 1796 (the month in which the Poet died), has now been nearly forty years before the public. This correspondence included upwards of sixty songs, written expressly for Mr Thomson's select and elegant publication. That the progress of the Musical Museum was retarded in consequence of this engagement, need scarcely be remarked. Hitherto, an average interval of two years had intervened between the publication of each part ; but five years elapsed,, and the Poet himself died before the Fifth Part was completed, to which he had, however, furnished the chief portion of the contents; and the Sixth Part, with which the work terminates, did not appear till June 1803, or eight years after the death of the Ayrshire bard.

Although Burns's attention had been thus diverted into another channel for a space of nearly four years, while giving form and vitality to that collection, his original predilection in favour of the Musical Museum was unchanged, as appears from his letters addressed to Johnson while the Fifth Part was in progress ; and more particularly from his last letter, which has no date, but which both Johnson and Cromek fix as having been written on the 4th of July 1796, or seventeen days before the Poet died. An accurate facsimile of that interesting and affecting letter is given at the end of this Preface, as VI

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. a suitable accompaniment to a work which the publisher might well acknowledge was indebted to him " for almost all of those excellent pieces which it contains." In this letter, Burns says, " You may probably think, that for some time past I have neglected you and your work ; but, alas ! the hand of pain, and sorrow, and care, has these many months lain heavy on me ! Personal and domestic afflictions have almost entirely banished that alacrity and life with which I used to woo the rural Muse of Scotia." And, in another part, he adds, " Your work is a great one ; and now that it is near finished, I see, if we were to begin again, two or three things that might be mended ; yet, I will venture to prophesy, that TO FUTURE AGES YOUR PUBLICATION WILL BE THE TEXT-BOOK AND STANDARD OF SCOTTISH SONG AND Music" To enlarge, in this place, on the services which Burns rendered to the Lyric Poetry of Scotland, might well be regarded as superfluous.

It is but proper, however, to consider, in how far such ser vices were influenced by his connexion with the present work. It has often been asserted, that all his best songs were expressly written for Mr Thom son's collection, thus virtually claiming for it a distinction to which it is in no respect entitled, that of having directed his mind to the subject of song writing. It is with no wish to lessen the importance of that work, the merits of which rest on somewhat different grounds from that of Johnson's, that I con ceive it necessary in this place to remark, that for six

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. VII years previous to its commencement, Burns had ex clusively contributed songs to Johnson's Museum, written too in his happiest moods, when nothing had occurred permanently to depress his spirits ; and that the original songs which it contains, not only exceed in number, but may fairly be put in competition in regard to merit, with those that were written for the later publication. In considering his contributions to these respective collections, there is like wise this marked difference, that while for the one the airs and subjects were generally suggested to the poet, for the other his fancy was altogether uncontrolled ; and although he was frequently led to write with a degree of carelessness, and with less delicacy, than if such effusions had to undergo the ordeal of criticism, and to bear his name as the author, this want of polish is amply compensated by the greater freshness, spirit, and vivacity of his compositions.

But, on this point, I cannot do better than quote Dr Currie's words, prefixed to his selec tion of the Songs by Burns contained in the Museum. " In his communications to Mr Johnson, to which his name was not in general affixed, our Bard was less careful than in his compositions for the greater work of Mr Thomson. Several of them he never intended to acknowledge, and others, printed in the Museum, were found somewhat altered afterwards among his manuscripts. In the selection [consisting of 47 Songs] which follows, attention has been paid to the wishes of the Author as far as they are known. The printed songs have been compared with the MSS., and the last corrections have been uniformly

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. VIII inserted. The reader will probably think many of the Songs which follow, among the finest produc tions of his Muse." * Nor was it alone by his original productions that Burns enriched the Musical Museum and the literature of his country. The diligence which he used in collecting, from all quarters, the remains of old un published ballads and songs, and snatches of popular melodies, has been emulated by persons without one spark of genius, and possessed of more zeal than judgment ; but the skill and happiness with which, as with a master-hand, he imparted spirit and life to mutilated fragments, or remodelled those effusions unfit for ordinary society, attributed to the Scotish Muse as she went " high-kilted o'er the lea," have never been surpassed. " Burns, who, of all poets that ever breathed (to use the fine words of a kindred spirit), possessed the most happy tact of pouring his genius through all the meanderings of music, was unrivalled in the skill of brooding over the rude conceptions of our old poets, and in warming them into grace and life.

He could glide like dew into the fading bloom of departing song, and refresh it into beauty and fragrance."3 He himself says, " The songs marked Z in the Museum, I have given to the world as old verses to their respective tunes ; but, in fact, of a good many of them little more than the chorus is ancient, though there is no reason for telling every body this piece of intelligence." 4 In regard to this skill, Sir Walter Scott remarks: " The Scotish 2 Burns's Works, by Currie, vol. iv. p. 269. 3 Cunningham's Songs of Scotland, vol. i. p. 66. 4 Letter quoted in Cromek's Select Scotish Songs, vol. ii. p. 194.

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. IX Songs and Tunes preserved for Burns that inex pressible charm which they have ever afforded to his countrymen. He entered into the idea of col lecting their fragments with all the zeal of an enthu siast ; and few, whether serious or humorous, past through his hands without receiving some of those magic touches, which, without greatly altering the song, restored its original spirit, or gave it more than it ever possessed. So dexterously are these touches combined with the ancient structure, that the rifac ciamento, in many instances, could scarcely have been detected, without the avowal of the Bard him self."5 It has indeed been questioned, by the same high authority, whether it were fortunate, or otherwise, that Burns, during the latter period of his life, should have exclusively confined himself to Song writing.

" Notwithstanding the spirit of many of the lyrics of Burns, and the exquisite sweetness and simplicity of others, we cannot but deeply regret that so much of his time and talents was frittered away in compiling and composing for musical collections Let no one suppose that we undervalue the songs of Burns. When his soul was intent on suiting a favourite air with words humorous or ten der, as the subject demanded, no poet of our tongue ever displayed higher skill in marrying melody to immortal verse. But the writing of a series of songs for large musical collections, degenerated into a slavish labour, which no talents could support, led to negligence, and above all, diverted the Poet from his grand plan of Dramatic composition."6 6 Ib. p. 32. 5 Quarterly Review, vol. i. p. 30.

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. X That Burns in many instances overtasked himself while complying with continuous requests to furnish songs to suit particular airs, is undeniable, but that the proper bent of his genius tended more especially to lyric poetry, is equally certain. The instantaneous and lasting popularity of his songs can be ascribed to no fortuitous circumstance, but solely to the mode in which he expressed those feelings, so true to nature, which could be appreciated alike by all classes. How many collections of Songs before and since his time have appeared and been forgotten ; and in the two works which owe their chief distinc tion to his aid, how immeasurably superior are the songs of Burns to the united contributions of the many distinguished names which are found standing in juxtaposition with his own.

May we not therefore be justified in expressing a doubt, whether, if Burns had succeeded in writing one or two successful dramas, this would in any way have been com parable to the advantage which our literature has gained by his Songs, or would have outweighed the almost unequalled influence which they have exercised not among his countrymen only. Happy, indeed, had it been, could the mention of Burns's name only call up the vision suggested by the words of our great English poet, when he speaks of Him who walked in glory and in joy, Following his plough upon the mountain side. But it is impossible to forget the depressing circum stances in which Burns was placed; his scanty annual income, which " was for some time as low as fifty,

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. XI and never rose to above seventy pounds a-year ;" his increasing cares, and his unremitting attention to the vexatious and harassing duties of his official situation, appointed " to guard ale-firkins ;" all these con joined, left him neither time nor disposition for any such sustained literary efforts. It must always be a humiliating consideration to think, that some suitable occupation or place had not been found, which might have left him unharassed by pecuniary diffi culties. From the date of publication of the subscription edition of his Poems at Edinburgh, to that of his decease, being a period of nine years, he may be said absolutely to have received no pecuniary advantage from his writinp-s. This doubtless was in some degree owing to his own lofty but mistaken notions, which led him to reject any stipulated recompense, as if this implied a mere sordid or speculating in ducement to literary enterprise.

There is no distinct proof that he ever received any acknowledgment for his contributions to the present work,7 beyond the occasional donation of copies to be presented to his friends. All the world likewise, unfortunately knows the extent of benefit which he derived from his connexion with its more costly and ambitious rival collection. With no prospect of amended circumstances, need we wonder, therefore, (as Dr Currie remarks,) " that as his health decayed, his proud and feeling heart sunk under the secret conscious- 7 In a printed paper, dated 15th of March 1819, soliciting Sub scriptions in favour of Johnson's widow, it is stated, that her husband had " on more than one occasion befriended our favourite Scotish Poet in his pecuniary distresses ;" but I am not aware of any thing to justify such a statement.

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. XII ness of indigence and the apprehensions of absolute want. Yet poverty never bent the spirit of Burns to any pecuniary meanness ;" 8 and the character of the Poet stands only the more nobly in having thus, in midst of poverty and personal distress, and the in creasing cares of a rising family, earned such an en during fame. All the lamented and unfortunate circumstances connected with his literary career are in deed long since past, and cannot be recalled ; but the recollection of them will remain indelible, as such incidents in the lives and fortunes of men of genius retain a peculiar and lasting degree of interest ; and these Songs, the fruits of his genius in matured life, for which he gained neither fee nor reward, "are likely to transmit the name of Burns to all future generations."9 — He died on the 21st of July 1796, in the thirty-eighth year of his age.

James Johnson, the original publisher of the Musical Museum, survived the completion of the work nearly eight years. Of his personal history not much is known. From the few letters still preserved, or that have been published, it appears that Burns entertained for him a sincere personal regard. In his first letter, .3d of May 1787, before setting out on his Border Tour, he sends him a song received from Dr Blacklock, and says, " Farewell, my dear Sir ! I wished to have seen you, but I have been dreadfully throng [busy], as I march to-morrow. Had my acquaintance with you been a little older, 8 Burns's Works, by Currie, vol. i. p. 229. 9 Edinburgh Review, vol. xiii. p. 263.

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. XIII I would have asked the favour of your correspond ence, as I have met with few people whose company and conversation gave me so much pleasure, because I have met with few whose sentiments are so con genial to my own." In a letter written in 1794, he says, " As to our Musical Museum, I have better than a dozen songs by me for the fifth volume to send with Mr Clarke when he comes. ... If we cannot finish the fifth volume any other way, what would you think of Scots words to some beau tiful Irish airs ? In the mean time, at your leisure, give a copy of the Museum to my worthy friend Mr Peter Hill, bookseller, to bind for me, interleaved with blank leaves, exactly as he did the Laird of GlenriddelFs, that [I may insert every anecdote I can learn, together with my own criticisms and remarks on the songs.

A copy of this kind I shall leave with you, the editor, to publish at some after period, by way of making the Museum a book famous to the end of time, and you renowned for ever]."1 In another letter, about the 6ame time, but without date, he says, " My dear Sir, I send by my friend Mr Wallace, forty-one songs for your fifth volume. Mr Clarke has also a good many, if he have not, with his usual indolence, cast them at the cocks. I have still a good parcel among my hands, in scraps and fragments, so that I hope we will make a shift for our last volume. You should 1 The words within brackets, in consequence of the original letter being mutilated, have been supplied from Cromek's Reliques. He, however, has formed strange compounds, by gleaning sentences out of three distinct communications to Johnson, and printing them as one letter.

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. XIV have heard from me long ago ; but over and above some vexatious share in the pecuniary losses of these accursed times, I have all this winter been plagued with low spirits and blue devils, so that I have almost hung my harp on the willow-trees." And in his last letter, already quoted (of which an exact sac-simile is afterwards given), he says to Johnson, " I am extremely anxious for your work, as indeed I am for every thing concerning your or you welfare. You are a good, worthy, honest fellow, and have a good right to live in this world — because you de serve it. Many a merry meeting this publication has given us, and possibly it may give us more, though, alas ! I fear it." Although numerous collections of Scotish Songs, with or without music, and in every possible form, have appeared during the last fifty years, the Musi cal Museum still keeps its ground.

Such collections as those of Mr George Thomson, of the late R. A. Smith, and of Messrs John Thomson and Finlay Dun, possess each of them strong and individual claims ; but the present work far exceeds these, or any others that have appeared, in the number of the genuine old melodies of Scotland. When the publi cation was first projected, Johnson's chief advisers, Dr Blacklock and Mr Tytler of Woodhouselee, it has been remarked, "were of opinion that these wild yet pathetic and melodious strains, these fine breath ings and heartfelt touches in our songs, which true genius can alone express, were bewildered and utterly lost in a noisy accompaniment of instruments. In their opinion, the full chords of a thorough bass

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. XV ought to be used sparingly and with judgment, not to overpower, but to support and strengthen the voice at proper pauses : that the air itself should be first played over, by way of symphony or introduc tion to the song ; and at the close of every stanza, a few bars of the last part of the melody should be repeated, as a relief to the voice, which it grace fully sets off;" &c. ..." The plan of publishing our Scottish songs in this simple, elegant, and chaste manner, was highly approved of by the late Mr Stephen Clarke. This celebrated organist and musician readily agreed to select, arrange, and har monize the whole of the melodies ; a task which, from his brilliant genius, fine taste, and profound scientific knowledge, he was eminently qualified to perform." 2 This want of every thing like florid accompaniments, has been held as a peculiar recom mendation.

In regard also to the Songs, the collec tion is unrivalled for the extent of the good old standard productions of the Lyric Muse, including so many of Burns's finest compositions. Johnson died at Edinburgh on the 26th of Feb ruary 181 1.3 He left a widow in such indigent circumstances, that at a subsequent period, it has been 2 Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, July 1817, p. 377. 3 " Died at Edinburgh [26th of February 1811], much re gretted, Mr James Johnson, Engraver, Musicseller, and Copper plate Printer ; — being the first who attempted to strike music upon pewter, whereby a great saving is made in the charge of that article. Mr Johnson will long be remembered in the musical world. He published several interesting pieces of late ; and in none was more successful than in his elegant work, ' The Scots Musical Museum,' in six volumes, &c." — (Scots Magazine, 1811, p. 318.)

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. stated, she had nothing more to subsist on than " the occasional donations of a few of her husband's old friends and acquaintance ;" and, after remaining for some time as an out-pensioner, she at length found shelter as an inmate of the Edinburgh Charity Workhouse. 4 Three or four years after Mr Johnson's death, the original pewter plates and remaining copies of " The Scots Musical Museum," including the copyright, and such of Burns's manuscript com munications5 as had been preserved, were ex posed to sale, and became the property of the late Mr William Blackwood, bookseller. In the view of bringing out the work in a new and improved form, he was desirous to have it accompanied with notes or illustrations. This was indeed part of the scheme originally contemplated by Burns, as appears from passages in other letters, besides the one above quoted.

Mr Thomson having informed him that he expected to receive from Dr Beattie, " an Essay upon the subject of our National music," to illustrate his own collection, Burns in his letter, dated 26th of January 1793, immediately replied : " Dr Beattie's essay will, of itself, be a treasure. On my part, I 4 This appears from a printed paper entitled " Notice respecting Mrs Johnson, widow of the late Mr James Johnson, Engraver in Edinburgh," dated March 15, 1819. 5 When Cromek was in Edinburgh collecting materials for his " Reliques of Burns," in the year 1808, he mentions having seen 180 Songs and Poems in Burns's autograph, which he had trans mitted to Johnson for the Musical Museum. The greater por tion of these interesting transcripts are still preserved.

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. XVII mean to draw up an appendix to the Doctor's essay, containing my stock of anecdotes, &c, of our Scots Songs. All the late Mr Ty tier's6 anecdotes I have by me, taken down in the course of my acquaintance with him, from his own mouth. I am such an enthusiast, that in the course of my several peregrinations through Scotland, I made a pilgrimage to the individual spot from which every song took its rise, ' Lochaber' and the ' Braes of Ballenden' excepted. So far as the locality, either from the title of the air or the tenor of the song, could be ascertained, I have paid my devotions at the particular shrine of every Scots Muse." Neither the Essay nor the Appendix was undertaken ; but Burns, in an interleaved copy of the first four volumes of the Musical Museum, which belonged to Riddell of Glenriddell, had inserted a number of occasional notes and remarks regarding the songs.

Mr Cromek7 having obtained the use of this copy, transcribed and published them in his volume of Burns's Reliques, 1808, and again in his collection of " Select Scotish Songs," 1810 ; and these notes usually form an in tegral part in the modern editions of the Poet's works. In preparing, therefore, to publish an edition of the Musical Museum, with notes, illustrative of the 6 William Tytler of Woodhouselee, Esq., writer to the signet, and author of a Dissertation on Scottish Music, a Vindication of Mary Queen of Scots, and other works. He died on the 12th of September 1792, in the eighty-first year of his age. 7 R. H. Cromek was an engraver in London. He died in 1812. See note respecting him in vol. v. p. 456*. b

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. XVIII Lyric Poetry and Music of Scotland, Mr Black wood applied, according to my recollection, to more than one individual supposed to be most competent, for such a task. It was finally intrusted to the late William Stenhouse, Esq., Accountant in Edin burgh, who, along with more than ordinary antiqua rian research, and much general information, possessed a thorough practical knowledge of music, and who, moreover, had been personally acquainted with Johnson, the publisher of the work, and with Clarke,8 by whom the airs had been chiefly harmonized. To one of the earliest numbers of " Blackwood's Edin burgh Magazine," Mr Stenhouse, under the signature of " Scotus," communicated a notice of the pro jected edition, accompanied with two specimens of his illustrations to Songs 37 and 66 ; which shows that at the time, in July 1817, he must have made considerable progress in his undertaking.

Having completed his series of Illustrations, the printing was commenced towards the close of 1820, and in the course of a few months was completed, extending in all to 512 pages. Some delay unfortunately occurred in regard to a general preface for the work, which eventually occasioned the publication to be laid aside. Whether this preface was intended to 8 Stephen Clarke was a teacher of music, and organist of the Episcopal Chapel in the Cowgate, Edinburgh. He survived Burns little more than twelve months, having died at Edinburgh on the 6th of August 1797. " He was composer of many musical pieces of considerable merit ;" and after his death, his son and successor, William Clarke, appears to have rendered Johnson the like service in harmonizing the airs for the concluding volume of the Musical Museum. Clarke died about the year 1820. ■■