Of a somewhat similar character to the chap-book just noticed is The Coalman’s Courtship of the Creelwife’s Daughter, though it is by no means so valuable as an exhibition of manners and superstitions. It contains, nevertheless, many interesting references, and it gives a vigorous description of real life among the lower classes in and around Edinburgh. Motherwell, it has been seen, only hesitatingly ascribed this work to Graham; but M‘Vean inserts it in his bibliography without any reservation, though it is curious that both these writers should make a mistake in naming it The Creelman’s Courtship. There is no good reason to doubt that Graham was the author of it, for the broad treatment of the subject, the animated dialogue, and the graphic descriptions, are all in Dougal’s best style. The edition reproduced in these volumes is the earliest to which any reference has yet been made, having been issued by Messrs. J. & J. Robertson, from their Saltmarket press, in 1782, though it bears on the title-page to be the tenth edition of the work. M‘Vean stated that the chap contained only two parts, but he had fallen into a mistake, for it really consists of three parts. The modern editions, with the exception of a few typographical alterations, are exact reprints of the one of 1782. Among those we have seen are two undated editions, bearing the following imprints—‘Glasgow: Printed for M‘Kenzie & Hutchison, Booksellers, 16, Saltmarket’; ‘Edinburgh: Printed by J. Morren, Cowgate.’
Very different in its design from the two works already mentioned is Lothian Tom, a narrative of the ‘comical transactions’ of a roguish fellow while sowing his wild oats. Many of the stories told of the hero of the work are far from being new, but they have been given a local colouring which imparts an appearance of consistency to the book; and, incidentally, little circumstances of life and character are brought in, giving additional value to it as illustrating the home life of the Scottish peasantry of last century. In the chap-literature of England and Scotland, there are many other productions of a similar kind, in which the heroes rejoice in the name of Tom; a circumstance that has given point to a suggestion that the word ‘tomfoolery’ may owe its origin to the mad pranks of the Toms of popular story. South of the Tweed the great favourites were—Wanton Tom, or the Merry History of Tom Stitch the Taylor; The Merry Conceits of Long Tom the Carrier; The Mad Pranks of Tom Tram; and another one with the euphonious title of Swalpo. All these, like Lothian Tom, are but collections of jokes of which their respective Toms are made the central figures. There is no reason to believe that any of them were in the slightest degree really biographical. The modern reprints of Lothian Tom consist only of five parts, and in this and several minor details they differ from the earlier editions, in which there are six parts. Messrs. J. & M. Robertson, of the Saltmarket, Glasgow, in 1793 and 1807, published editions of the work; and in 1816 another was issued in Edinburgh, while there are several editions still to be found without any date. A six-part edition, without the song to be referred to further on, was issued by C. Randall, Stirling, in 1801. The edition which has been used by the editor of these volumes, was published in Edinburgh, in three numbers—including all the six parts—the title-page of each being embellished with a rough woodcut of a chapman full stride on the road-way. The first number bears the imprint—‘Printed and Sold in Niddery’s Wynd, 1775’; the second is dated 1777; while the third has no date, though it appears to be quite as old as the others. This, the earliest edition of which mention has yet been made, is a most unique copy. Each number occupies eight pages. No attention is paid to the breaking off in the middle of a part, or even of a sentence, and the folios run right through. A large portion of the third number is taken up by ‘Pady’s New Catechism,’ properly belonging to another of Graham’s chap-books, entitled, Pady from Cork, and on that account it has been left out here.
At the close of the third number of this edition of Lothian Tom, and reproduced in the second volume, is ‘The Plowman’s Glory; or, Tom’s Song,’ a doggrel description of the pleasures of country life; but it is a piece which requires more than passing reference. The first eight lines are as follow:—
‘As I was a walking one morning in the spring,
I heard a young plowman so sweetly to sing,
And as he was singing, these words he did say,
No life is like the plowman’s in the month of May.
The lark in the morning rises from her nest,
And mounts in the air with the dew on her breast,