JAMIE GAY.
Jamie Gay is another and a tolerable Anglo-Scottish piece.
MY DEAR JOCKIE.
Another Anglo-Scottish production.
FYE, GAE RUB HER O’ER WI’ STRAE.
It is self-evident that the first four lines of this song are part of a song more ancient than Ramsay’s beautiful verses which are annexed to them. As music is the language of nature; and poetry, particularly songs, are always less or more localized (if I may be allowed the verb) by some of the modifications of time and place, this is the reason why so many of our Scots airs have outlived their original, and perhaps many subsequent sets of verses; except a single name or phrase, or sometimes one or two lines, simply to distinguish the tunes by.
To this day among people who know nothing of Ramsay’s verses, the following is the song, and all the song that ever I heard:
“Gin ye meet a bonnie lassie,
Gie her a kiss and let her gae;
But gin ye meet a dirty hizzie,
Fye, gae rub her o’er wi’ strae.