The original words, for they can scarcely be called verses, seem to be as follows; a song familiar from the cradle to every Scottish ear.
“Saw ye my Maggie,
Saw ye my Maggie,
Saw ye my Maggie
Linkin o’er the lea?
High kilted was she,
High kilted was she,
High kilted was she,
Her coat aboon her knee.
What mark has your Maggie,
What mark has your Maggie,
What mark has your Maggie,
That ane may ken her be?”
Though it by no means follows that the silliest verses to an air must, for that reason, be the original song; yet I take this ballad, of which I have quoted part, to be old verses. The two songs in Ramsay, one of them evidently his own, are never to be met with in the fire-side circle of our peasantry; while that which I take to be the old song, is in every shepherd’s mouth. Ramsay, I suppose, had thought the old verses unworthy of a place in his collection.
THE FLOWERS OF EDINBURGH.
This song is one of the many effusions of Scots Jacobitism.—The title “Flowers of Edinburgh,” has no manner of connexion with the present verses, so I suspect there has been an older set of words, of which the title is all that remains.
By the bye, it is singular enough that the Scottish muses were all Jacobites.—I have paid more attention to every description of Scots songs than perhaps anybody living has done, and I do not recollect one single stanza, or even the title of the most trifling Scots air, which has the least panegyrical reference to the families of Nassau or Brunswick; while there are hundreds satirizing them.—This may be thought no panegyric on the Scots Poets, but I mean it as such. For myself, I would always take it as a compliment to have it said, that my heart ran before my head,—and surely the gallant though unfortunate house of Stewart, the kings of our fathers for so many heroic ages, is a theme * * * * * *