Dumbarton Drums.

THIS is the last of the West Highland airs; and from it, over the whole tract of country to the confines of Tweed-side, there is hardly a tune or song that one can say has taken its origin from any place or transaction in that part of Scotland. The oldest Ayr-shire reel is Stewarton Lasses, which was made by the father of the present Sir Walter Montgomery Cunningham, alias Lord Lysle; since which period there has indeed been local music in that country in great plenty.-Johnnie Faa is the only old song which I could ever trace as belonging to the extensive county of Ayr.

[The author of this song is unknown: there is some good sense in the lady's musings, though the poetic merit of the ditty is not so great :DUMBARTON drums beat bonny, O, When they mind me of my dear Johnnie, O,

How happy am I
When my soldier is by,

While he kisses and blesses his Annie, O,
'Tis a soldier alone can delight me, O,
For his graceful looks do unite me, O,
While guarded in his arms,
I'll fear no war's alarms,

Neither danger nor death shall e'er fright me, O.
My love is a handsome laddie, O,
Genteel but ne'er foppish nor gaudie, O,

Tho' commissions are dear
Yet I'll buy him one this year,
For he shall serve no longer a caddie, O;
A soldier has honour and bravery, O;
Unacquainted with rogues and their knavery, O,

He minds no other thing
But the ladies or the King,

For every other care is but slavery, O.
Then I'll be the Captain's lady, 0;
Farewell all my friends and my daddy, 0;
I'll wait no more at home,
But I'll follow with the drum,
And whene'er that beats I'll be ready, O,
Dumbarton Drums sound bonny, 0;
They are sprightly like my dear Johnnie, O:

How happy shall I be
When on my soldier's knee,

And he kisses and blesses his Annie, O!]

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

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 in Bogie.-

["The Cauld Kail" of his Grace of Gordon has long been a favourite in the north, and deservedly so, for it is full of life and manners. It is almost needless to say that kail is colewert, and much used in broth; that castocks are the stalks of a common cabbage, and that coggie is a wooden dish for holding porridge; it is also a drinking vessel.

"THERE's cauld kail in Aberdeen,
And castocks in Stra'bogie;
Gin I but hae a bonny lass,
Ye're welcome to your coggie:
And ye may sit up a' the night,
And drink till it be braid day-light;
Gie me a lass baith clean and tight,
To dance the Reel o' Bogie.

In cotillons the French excel;

John Bull loves countra-dances;
The Spaniards dance fandangos well;
Mynheer an allemande prances:
In foursome reels the Scots delight,
At threesome they dance wond'rous light:
But twasome ding a' out o' sight,
Danc'd to the Reel o' Bogie.

Come, lads, and view your partners well,
Wale each a blythsome rogie;
I'll tak this lassie to mysel,

She looks sae keen and vogie!
Now, piper lad, bang up the spring;
The countra fashion is the thing,
To prie their mou's e'er we begin
To dance the Reel o' Bogie.

Now ilka lad has got a lass,
Save yon auld doited fogie;
And ta'en a fling upo' the grass,
As they do in Stra'bogie:
But a' the lasses look sae fain,

We canna think oursels to hain,
For they maun hae their come-again
To dance the Reel o' Bogie.

Now a' the lads hae done their best,
Like true men o' Stra'bogie;
We'll stop awhile and tak a rest,
And tipple out a coggie:
Come now, my lads, and tak your glass,
And try ilk other to surpass,
In wishing health to every lass
To dance the Reel o' Bogie."]

For Lack of Gold.

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.

This song was written by the late Dr. Austin, physician at Edinburgh. He had courted

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.

[The doctor gave his woes an airing in song, and then married a very agreeable and beautiful lady, by whom he had a numerous family. Nor did Jean Drummond, of Megginch, break her heart when James, Duke of Athole, died: she dried her tears, and gave her hand to Lord Adam Gordon. The song is creditable to the

author. CUNNINGHAM.

"FOR lack of gold she's left me, oh!
And of all that's dear bereft me, oh!
For Athole's duke, she me forsook,

And to endless care has left me, oh!
A star and garter have more art
Than youth, a true and faithful heart,
For empty titles we must part,

And for glitt'ring show she's left me, oh!

No cruel fair shall ever move
My injur'd heart again to love,
Thro' distant climates I must rove,

Since Jeannie she has left me, oh!
Ye pow'rs above, I to your care
Resign my faithless lovely fair,
Your choicest blessings be her share,
Tho' she's for ever left me, oh!"]

ful that one of them should compose a pretty piece of music." - CUNNINGHAM.

The words are as follow:

To me what are riches encumber'd with care!
To me what is pomp's insignificant glare!
No minion of fortune, no pageant of state,

Shall ever induce me to envy his fate.

Their personal graces let fops idolize,
Whose life is but death in a splendid disguise;
But soon the pale tyrant his right shall resume,
And all their false lustre be hid in the tomb.

Let the meteor discovery attract the fond sage,
In fruitless researches for life to engage;
Content with my portion, the rest I forego,
Nor labour to gain disappointment and woe.

Contemptibly fond of contemptible self,
While misers their wishes concentre in pelf;
Let the god-like delight of imparting be mine,
Enjoyment reflected is pleasure divine.

Extensive dominion and absolute power,
May tickle ambition, perhaps for an hour;
But power in possession soon loses its charms,
While conscience remonstrates, and terror
alarms.

With vigour, O teach me, kind heaven, to
sustain
Those ills which in life to be suffer'd remain;
And when 'tis allow'd me the goal to descry,
For my species I liv'd, for myself let me die.]

'to move

In perfect phalanx to the Dorian mood
Of flutes and soft recorders.'

These horns, indeed, are the only music ever mentioned by Barbour, to whom any particular march would have been too important a circumstance to be passed over in silence; so that it must remain a moot point whether Bruce's army were cheered by the sound of even a solitary bagpipe."

Who would take Ritson's word for this or anything else? for certainly a more capricious and dogmatic trifler never put pen to paper. I conceived it to have been a matter perfectly understood over all Scotland, that this air was 'Bruce's March; and, if Ritson had had the ear of a bullock, he would have perceived that this ancient air had been composed exclusively for the bugles.-HOGG.]

[The following are the two songs which accompany this air in the Musical Museum, the one is a regular tippling chant, while the other is a Jacobite effusion :

"LANDLADY, count the lawin,
The day is near the dawin;
Ye're a' blind drunk, boys,
And I'm but jolly fou.

CHORUS.

Hey, tutti, taiti,
How, tutti, taiti,
Wha's fou' now?

Cog an ye were ay fou,
Cog an ye were ay fou,
I wad sit and sing to you,
If ye were ay fou.

Hey, tutti, &c.

Weel may we a' be!
Ill may we never see!
God bless the Queen

And the companie!

Hey, tutti, &c."

Same Tune.

"HERE is to the King, Sir, Ye ken wha I mean, Sir, And to every honest man That will do't again.

CHORUS.

Fill up your bumpers high,
We'll drink a' yere barrels dry,
Out upon them, fy, fy,

That winna do't again.

Here's to the chieftains
Of the Scots Highland clans,
They hae done it mair than ance,
And will do't again.

Fill up, &c.

When you hear the trumpet sound
Tutti taiti to the drum,
Up your swords, and down your gun,
And to the louns again.

Fill up, &c.

Here is to the king o' Swede! Fresh laurels crown his head! Pox on every sneaking blade That winna do't again!

Fill up, &c.

But to mak a' things right, now, He that drinks maun fight, too, To shew his heart's upright, too, And that he'll do't again.

Fill up, &c."

The glorious song of "Scots wha hae wi Wallace bled" has made this air immortal. That animating strain is now sung wherever freedom is felt, and the British language understood. The more like recitation it is sung, the effect is better; scientific ornament injures the simple vigour of the words and air.]

Tak your auld Cloak about pr.

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

[In the drinking scene in Othello - Iago sings: "KING Stephen was a worthy peer,

His breeches cost him but a crown; He held them sixpence all too dear, With that he called the tailor lown; He was a wight of high renown, And thou art but of low degree: 'Tis pride that pulls the country down, Then take thine auld cloak about thee."

The old Song from which these stanzas are taken was recovered by Dr. Percy, and preserved by him in his Reliques of Ancient Poetry.

The economic spirit of Stephen has been transferred by a northern minstrel to Robert Bruce: the song, of which the following is a part, is one of our best as well as oldest.

"In winter when the rain rain'd cauld,
And frost and snaw on ilka hill,
And Boreas, with his blasts sae bauld,
Was threat'ning a' our kye to kill :
Then Bell my wife, wha loves na strife,
She said to me right hastily,
Get up, goodman, save Cromie's life,
And tak your auld cloak about ye.

My Cromie is an useful cow,
And she is come of a good kyne;
Aft has she wet the bairns' mou',
And I am laith that she shou'd tyne.
Get up, goodman, it is fu' time,
The sun shines in the lift sae hie;
Sloth never made a gracious end,

Go tak your auld cloak about ye.

My cloak was ance a good grey cloak,
When it was fitting for my wear;
But now it's scantly worth a groat,
For I have worn't this thirty year?
Let's spend the gear that we have won,
We little ken the day we'll die :
Then I'll be proud, since I have sworn
To have a new cloak about me.

In days when our king Robert rang,
His trews they cost but haff a crown;
He said they were a groat o'er dear,
And call'd the taylor thief and loun.
He was the king that wore a crown,
And thou the man of laigh degree,
"Tis pride puts a' the country down,

Sae tak thy auld cloak about thee."]

Ve Gods, was Strephon's Picture blest?

Tune-Fourteenth of October.

THE title of this air shews 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."

[William Hamilton, of Bangour, wrote this song on hearing that a young lady of birth and beauty wore his picture in her bosom. Ramsay obtained a copy from the author, and published it in the Tea Table Miscellany.

"YE gods, was Strephon's picture blest
With the fair heaven of Chloe's breast?
Move softer, thou fond flutt'ring heart,
Oh gently throb, too fierce thou art.
Tell me, thou brightest of thy kind,
For Strephon was the bliss design'd?
For Strephon's sake, dear charming maid,
Did'st thou prefer his wand'ring shade?

And thou bless'd shade, that sweetly art
Lodg'd so near my Chloe's heart,

Sutor.-A Shoemaker.

For me the tender hour improve,
And softly tell how dear I love.
Ungrateful thing! it scorns to hear
Its wretched master's ardent prayer,
Ingrossing all that beauteous heaven
That Chloe, lavish maid, has given.

I cannot blame thee: were I lord
Of all the wealth these breasts afford;
I'd be a miser too, nor give
An alms to keep a god alive.
Oh! smile not thus, my lovely fair,
On these cold looks that lifeless are:
Prize him whose bosom glows with fire,
With eager love and soft desire.

'Tis true thy charms, O pow'rful maid!
To life can bring the silent shade:
Thou canst surpass the painter's art,
And real warmth and flames impart.
But, oh! it ne'er can love like me,
I ever lov'd, and lov'd but thee :
Then, charmer, grant my fond request;
Say, thou canst love, and make me blest."

Pastoral designations were the fashion of Hamilton's day: how the ladies would have blushed and fluttered their fans to have been spoken of in song in the language of life.]

Since robb'd of all that charm'd
my View.

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

[The verse is melodious, and the sentiments of the purest nature; the subject-unrequited love. We can only give the first and last verses, as the song is a long one:

SINCE robb'd of all that charm'd my view,
Of all my soul e'er fancied fair,
Ye smiling native scenes, adieu,

With each delightful object there!
Oh! when my heart revolves the joys
Which in your sweet recess I knew,
The last dread shock, which life destroys,

Is Heaven compar'd with losing you!

Ah me! had Heaven and she prov'd kind,
Then full of age, and free from care,
How blest had I my life resign'd,
Where first I breath'd this vital air:
But since no flatt'ring hope remains,
Let me my wretched lot pursue;
Adieu! dear friends and native scenes!
To all but grief and love, adieu!"]

Young Damon.

THIS air is by Oswald.

[This is one of the hurried effusions of Robert

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 ancles, as is

were few and sometimes not very happy.

Tune-Highland Lamentation.

"AMIDST a rosy bank of flowers

Young Damon mourn'd his forlorn fate,
In sighs he spent his languid hours,
And breath'd his woes in lonely state;
Gay joy no more shall ease his mind,
No wanton sports can sooth his care,
Since sweet Amanda prov'd unkind,
And left him full of black despair.

His looks, that were as fresh as morn,
Can now no longer smiles impart;
His pensive soul on sadness borne,

Is rack'd and torn by Cupid's dart; Turn, fair Amanda, cheer your swain, Unshroud him from this vale of woe; Range every charm to soothe the pain That in his tortur'd breast doth grow."]

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 tha 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

• Glenae, on the small river Ae, in Annandale; the seat and designation of an ancient branch, and the present repre

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 unt he falls on the floor; yet still, in all his riet, 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.

[There are many versions of this Nithsdale song; here is one of the least objectionable, but not the least curious.

"I AM a silly puir man,

Gaun hirplin owre a tree;
For courting a lass in the dark
The kirk came haunting me.
If a' my rags were off,
And nought but hale claes on,
O I could please a young lass
As well as a richer man.

The parson he ca'd me a rogue,
The session an a' thegither,
The justice he cried, You dog,
Your knavery I'll consider:
Sae I drapt down on my knee
And thus did humbly pray,
O, if ye'll let me gae free,
My hale confession ye'se hae.

'Twas late on tysday at e'en,
When the moon was on the grass;
O, just for charity's sake,

I was kind to a beggar lass.
She had begged down Annan side,
Lochmaben and Hightae;
But deil an awmous she got,
Till she met wi' auld Glenae."