This Highland Queen, music and poetry, was composed by Mr. M’Vicar, purser of the Solebay man-of-war.—This I had from Dr. Blacklock.
BESS THE GAWKIE.
This song shows that the Scottish muses did not all leave us when we lost Ramsay and Oswald, as I have good reason to believe that the verses and music are both posterior to the days of these two gentlemen. It is a beautiful song, and in the genuine Scots taste. We have few pastoral compositions, I mean the pastoral of nature, that are equal to this.
OH, OPEN THE DOOR, LORD GREGORY.
It is somewhat singular, that in Lanark, Renfrew, Ayr, Wigton, Kirkudbright, and Dumfries-shires, there is scarcely an old song or tune which, from the title, &c., can be guessed to belong to, or be the production of these countries. This, I conjecture, is one of these very few; as the ballad, which is a long one, is called, both by tradition and in printed collections, “The Lass of Lochroyan,” which I take to be Lochroyan, in Galloway.
THE BANKS OF THE TWEED.
This song is one of the many attempts that English composers have made to imitate the Scottish manner, and which I shall, in these strictures, beg leave to distinguish by the appellation of Anglo-Scottish productions. The music is pretty good, but the verses are just above contempt.