The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-10-08

Where Marvellous BTdCS are
Bonnie.

The Heroine and Scene Of william
Douglas Immortal Love Song An.
ME Laurie Genuine, Unromantic
Personage Instead of Poetic Myth
Preferring Broad Acres and Broad
Scotch to the Doubtful Fortunes Of a
Jaoobite Poet, She Became a Com
monplace Country Lady, and Lived
and Died the Mistress of CraiRdar-
rooh House Winsome Scenes and
"Reminiscences.
tCopyrightl
Mouiavie. Scotland, sept. 1.-Two Of
the most fadeless songs of human affec-
ton were written by Scotchmen in the
eighteenth century. These are: John
Anderson. My 10. John" and "Annic
Laurie" Both were written near the
banks of the songful NTH in Dumfries
shire. Both were written by almost
strangers to their Temporary environment
Both were written as true peans of joy
out of almost inexpressible human happi-
ess And both gained their deathless-
ness from their directness, brevity and
simplicity, which ever most powerfully
appeal to the universal heart.
Robert Burns wrote John Anderson,
my 10, John" from a hint he received out
of the old doggerel rhyme upon one John
Anderson, the town piper of ancient
Kelso, preserved in Bishop Percy's old
manuscript of about 1860. The first two
lines of the rhyme were:
John Anderson, my 10, John, cum in as re
And re shah get a sleeps held weel baken in
pye;
but its matChless picture and lesson Of
changeless connubial affection and loyalty
was the legitimate outgrowth of his own
noble and Contented life with donnie
jean on the Ellisland farm, shortly af-
ter Burns removal from Ayrshire, be-
side the river NTH, about eight miles
above the city of Dumfries. The few
wears passed by the bard and his family
here were were years of unalloyed happi
ness and content; and this poem, written in
1889 is the Clearest, sweetest note to
reach us out of the brief Eden of that
idyllic time.
fannie Laurie" was written a little
more than half a century earlier, in
Maxwelltown, in Nithsdale, by William
Douglas, to a real flesh and blood Annie
Laurie, on the occasion of his departure
from MaXwelltOwn, after a period Of
stealthy TRUSTING and wCoing. which left
theAnnie Laurie of the song his betrOthed
This William Douglas, who never wrote
other immortal lines, was a native of
England a wild little district Of the par
ish of Carsphairn, in the northern part of
the adjoining shire, or stewartry, of
Kirkcudbright. There is little known of
his people. However, through his native
talents he became cadet TO the noble
Queensbury family, and their patronage
and support gained for him the position
and associations of a gentleman of rank.
At an Edingburgh ball he met and be-
came enamOred with Annie Laurie
daughter of Sir Robert Laurie, baronet of
MaXwelltown. She was born at the old
manor house of the latter place in 1852
Sir Robert, not fancying the prospects of
young Douglas, as a dependent of the
Queensbury family, and noticing that the
love affair between him and Annie was
becoming serious, suddenly left Edin burgh
and returned with his family to Max
welltown in Nithsdale, hoping thus to sep
arate the lovers and end an unfortunate
attachment. sfet ~
Had everything gone to the liking of the
baronet, the world would have missed the
sweet old song. Douglas shortly learned
of the whereabouts of his inamorita and
promptly followed. He remained secret
ly at MaXwelltown for months, and the
love-making went on famously betimes
among the glens, braes, woods, and shad-
owy ruins with which the locality
abounds. Douglas possessed Jacobite
afiliation and rumOrs suddenly coming
from the north of an impending Stuart
uprising, be fastened to Edinburgh to be
near the scene of action. But before
quitting the side of his Nithsdale love.
he secured her promise true" In the
citation of JOY upon this achievement he
wrote and left with his betrothed the. i'm
mortal lines, as imperishable as any that
Robert Burns ever left to Scotland and
the world, beginning:
Maxwelltown's braes are bonnie,
Where early fas the dew;
And twas there that Annie Laurie
Gied me her promise true;
Gied me her promise true
That ne or forgot wad be;
And for bonnie Annie Laurie
I'd lay me down and dee
But, save in Renaissance, it was not to
happen that "her promise true ne'er for
got wad be-" and William Douglas de-
clined to ''lie down and dec on account
of Annie Laurie or any other Scottish
lady fair Douglas adherence to the
Stuart case brought him under the ban of
the authorities, and he was soon com
PEELED to escape to France where he re-
manned in exile for a few years, until he
could secure, through the powerful
Queensbury family, his pardon from the
government. There is no proof that
either Tilted the other. Perhaps Annie
Laurie was as canny as her father, Sir
Robert, who was a staunch JaCObite hater
Perhaps Douglas found interesting TEN
porary attachments in Paris Perhaps
each unconsciOusly drifted away
from the other through the deadly
political and religious rancor
Of the time. 1t is doubtfulif Annie laurie
ever received another missive from her
impassioned poet lover after the one con
tanning the ballad, which must ever pre-
serve the memory of both. And it is Ger
tain that the pair never again met after
the sadly blisSful parting which gave
birth 10 this sweetest and tenderest of
songs. 1t is said that it was first given to
the public by Lady John Scott sister of
the late Duke of Buccleugh, who slightly
rearranged the words and the music, and
who secured their publication for the ben
eft of some charity in behalf of widows
and orphans of the Crimean war: but
there is no substantial proof that the
words and the tune are not now precisely
as they came from the soul and the pen of
the ardent Jacobite lover
The portraits of Annie Laurie, preserved
at Craigdarroch and Mansfield, seats of
her descendants, show her to have been a
woman of slender physique. with a pc
Culiarly slight and willowy figure Upon
this was set a head whose profile is as
markedly classic a over Hvac cbo,r-,, ,,,,,r