The Sun.
London, England, 1841-12-18 00:00:00

LECTURES ON SCOTTISH SONG

AND MUSIC.
A second lecture, as richly interspersed as the pre-
ceding with song, anecdote, and reminiscences, was deli-
vered by Mr. Wilson on Thursday evening at the Music
Hall, Store-street. The numbers of his audience were
trebled, and his reception throughout enthusiastic.
Oral tradition appears to have handed down from re-
mote antiquity most of the Scottish airs and songs.
Transmitted from one generation to another, they were
sung "at the wheel and at the flail"—by the spinster in
the cot, and the shepherd on the hill. The first collec-
tion of printed songs in 1547, under the title of the
" Complaint of Scotland," was composed of songs which
had " theretofore been sung in the wholesome green
field, and by the rinnin' brook." The earliest instru-
ments which accompanied them were the bagpipe, re-
corder, trump, and corn-pipe : the last was the calamus
of the Roman shepherd. The trump was the plain jews'-
harp—the recorder was an instrument whose soft and
mellow tone had.smote the harmonious heart of Milton,
and led him to make "flutes and soft recorders" warble
in his verse. Rut the bagpipe was leader of all. At
Waterloo its tones, powerful as those of the " shrill
Spartan fife," cried aloud for the victory. Clarke, the
piper of the 71st, when sorely wounded, called out to his
fellows, "Hold to't, lads, ye canna' fight without music ;"
and a Highlander, who met a regiment playing the fan-
tastic airs of the Rhine, cried out to them to cease their
" German jinglings," and strike up " Over the hills and
far away." Even upon brutes themselves the pipe has
operated with the "voice of the charmer." A Scotch
piper was pursued by a wolf—he threw him scrap by
scrap, every individual content of his wallet--still the
wolf followed ; having no other resource be struck up
his bagpipes—the wolf fled incontinently. " Ho, ho ;"
cried Davie "if I'd known ye to be so fond o' the pipes,
ye should had the music before your supper.
In 1666, Forbes printed a collection of Scottish songs,
the chief curiosity of which was the preface, which being
dedicated to the Provost and Aitigistrates of Edinburgh,
expressed itself as " an harmonious and heavenly concert
of as many musicians as Magistrates." But the publi-
cation of the famous " Tea- Table Miscellany," by Allan
Ramsay, and the music subsequently adapted to it,
brought on the true " golden age " of Scottish song.
Haydn was an enthusiast in this department of melody,
and the immortal harmonist had the walls of his room
covered with Caledonian songs and airs. The "Beggar's
Opera " had, on its first appearance, most of its catches
and roundelays set to Scotch airs. In truth, the—
,, were
about this period universal favourites, and Allan Ramsay
attests, in a passage of his poems, that from "Lady Char-
lotte" and "Lady Jane," down to "Bonny Bess dancing
barefoot on the green, they were trilled by every tongue,
and sweet-warbled by every lip.
The first air sung by Mr. Wilson, being the first of
the ten in his evenings programme was " Ely love is like
the red, red rose '—a song which, though now addressed
to a blooming, bright-cheeked beauty, originally sung
to an ill-natured set of words, most crabbed in their im-
port, commencing " My father is a cankered carve," but
filial piety and parental love has happily found forget-
fulness for these by its sweeter and fairer substitute.
The slow and mellowed progression of "Roy's wife of
Aldivalloch " cadenced most harmoniously to the ear ;

strange, hOWever, to say, this equable flowing tnelo4
was anciently adapted to a set of words called "The
Ruffian's RanL"

Arcady might be ransacked, and the Bucolica of its
shepherd-singers tasked, before a more beautiful pastoral
melody than " The Broom of Cowdenknowes " might
be discovered. Its antiquity manifests itself in
its etymology. The song alludes to two little
hills situate in Berwickshire, and its compound syllables
are expressive of those " wooded mounts" which existed
at the period when the Celts occupied those regions.
Mr. Wilson's method of singing it, combined with its
euphonious lines, made one dream of Drummond of
Hawthornden, as he distilled the sweetness of his Doric
pipe. The finest string or wire could not have surpassed
Mr. Wilson's tenor. The-sighings of the fond shepherdess
after her true-love swain were most felicitously expressed
in "'Saw ye Johnnie cumin', quo' she ;" and no lint
white singing in the broom could have warbled it with
more simple and .delicate beauty. In contrast with the
liveliness of the preceding, " John Anderson, my Jo,"
proceeded in a slow and mournful measure. But
the wildness and sprightliness of "Up in the morning
early," removed the shade of melancholy from his audience
which it produced. Assimilating itself in simplicity
to the Swiss,—" Up in the morning early," was first
committed to paper in 1578, being in the reign of Queen
Elizabeth, and in a MS. still extant in the Advocates'
Library at Edinburgh, it is set as a country dance, with
an injunction at certain bars that stoppage was here to
be made for the couple "to drink." The Puritans when
they adapted their sacred psalms to music adopted this
for one of their devotional tunes, and Queen Elizabeth
had it frequently played before her by Purcell, while
Mrs. Arabella Hunt sang it with touches of the
1 lute. It is bold, jocund, and spirited. The flinging
forth of the vocalist's voice in some passages was
royal ; and the tripping trochaic movement at the
words " gang supperless," exhibited a most masterly
and skilful variation. To give it with due execution,
much lusty strength of voice is required ; and it
is told of Abram the singer, that he was lifted up in a
chair by order of one of the Stewarts, ever a court-yard
filled with bears, and so compelled to sing it as heartily
as ho could, whereby he confessed that h never sang it
hatter in his life. The exquisitely pathetic ballad of
Barns's sweetheart, or " Highland Mary," in addition to
its sadness of melody, has a painful history attached to
it. Mary Campbell, when Burns first plighted him-
self to her was a dairywoman at Codstield House,
and on a subsequent visit to him at a distance,
vas attacked with fever, and died before she saw
him. Burns dearly worshipped her memory in
Isis heart, until one night his hallowed remembrances
clothed themselves in words. Agitated by his thoughts,
Mrs. Burns describes the poet to have left the house,
and throwing himself on the top of a corn• stack, laid
upon his back, with full face gazing on the mid-
night skies. The stars were bright, and almost lumi-
nous as the moon. After two hours in this situation he
came in doors, and then wrote these lines, and his ode
"To Mary in Heaven." "My Boy Tammie" was a
choice little niorceau descriptive of a robust little boy-
squireen who goes wooing the " White Ammie," with
her " dimpled cheek and cherry mote." In addition
to the naivete and artless beauty infused into it by Mr.
Wilson's manner, the sweet and simple touches which
make up the unsophisticated "Ammie," compose a more
beautifully delineated character than even Moliere has
achieved in his " Innocent Maiden."
Mr. Wilson, on conclusion of his lecture, informed
his audience that at his third lecture, to be delivered on
the 27th instant, he should treat upon Highland as well
as Lowland melodies. This subdivision will afford his
powers an opportunity for greater versatility, and even
richer variety of display. I

MEETING OF MIDDLESEX MA-
GISTRATES.

Yesterday there was a full attendance of the County
Magistrates at the Sessions-house, Clerkenwell-green, in
consequence of its being known that the Report of the
Visiting Justices of th Hanwell Lunatic Asylum was
appointed to be discussed upon that day. Mr. Sergeant
Adams took the chair.
Mr. EDMONDES, the Deputy-Clerk of the Peace, having
read the minutes of the previous meeting, addresses to
the Queen, Prince Albert and the Duchess of Kent, on
the birth of the Prince of Wales were unanimously
agreed to.

HOUSE OF CORRECTION.
The Report of the Visiting Justices of the House of
Correction was received and read. It stated that the
number of prisoners now was 1,117, viz., 833 males and
284 females, besides 18 children. The prisoners were
stated to be generally healthy, and it was stated that
there had been but two deaths in the prison during
the last three months.