While still in the bloom of youth, the Earl of Balcarres died, and the Dowager Countess having taken up her residence in Edinburgh, Lady Anne experienced increased means of acquainting herself with the world of letters. At her mother's residence she met many of the literary persons of consideration in the northern metropolis, including such men as Lord Monboddo, David Hume, and Henry Mackenzie. To comfort her sister, Lady Margaret Fordyce, who was now a widow, she subsequently removed to London, where she formed the acquaintance of the principal personages then occupying the literary and political arena, such as Burke, Sheridan, Dundas, and Windham. She also became known to the Prince of Wales, who continued to entertain for her the highest respect. In 1793, she married Andrew Barnard, Esq., son of the Bishop of Limerick, and afterwards secretary, under Lord Macartney, to the colony at the Cape of Good Hope. She accompanied her husband to the Cape, and had meditated a voyage to New South Wales, that she might minister, by her benevolent counsels, towards the reformation of the convicts there exiled. On the death of her husband in 1807, she again resided with her widowed sister, the Lady Margaret, till the year 1812, when, on the marriage of her sister to Sir James Burges, she occupied a house of her own, and continued to reside in Berkeley Square till the period of her death, which took place on the 6th of May 1825.
To entire rectitude of principle, amiability of manners, and kindliness of heart, Anne Barnard added the more substantial, and, in females, the more uncommon quality of eminent devotedness to intellectual labour. Literature had been her favourite pursuit from childhood, and even in advanced life, when her residence was the constant resort of her numerous relatives, she contrived to find leisure for occasional literary réunions, while her forenoons were universally occupied in mental improvement. She maintained a correspondence with several of her brilliant contemporaries, and, in her more advanced years, composed an interesting narrative of family Memoirs. She was skilled in the use of the pencil, and sketched scenery with effect. In conversation she was acknowledged to excel; and her stories[8] and anecdotes were a source of delight to her friends. She was devotedly pious, and singularly benevolent: she was liberal in sentiment, charitable to the indigent, and sparing of the feelings of others. Every circle was charmed by her presence; by her condescension she inspired the diffident; and she banished dulness by the brilliancy of her humour. Her countenance, it should be added, wore a pleasant and animated expression, and her figure was modelled with the utmost elegance of symmetry and grace. Her sister, Lady Margaret Fordyce, was eminently beautiful.
The popularity obtained by the ballad of "Auld Robin Gray" has seldom been exceeded in the history of any other metrical composition. It was sung in every fashionable circle, as well as by the ballad-singers, from Land's-end to John o' Groat's; was printed in every collection of national songs, and drew tears from our military countrymen both in America and India. With the exception of Pinkerton, every writer on Scottish poetry and song has awarded it a tribute of commendation. "The elegant and accomplished authoress," says Ritson, "has, in this beautiful production, to all that tenderness and simplicity for which the Scottish song has been so much celebrated, united a delicacy of expression which it never before attained." "'Auld Robin Gray,'" says Sir Walter Scott, "is that real pastoral which is worth all the dialogues which Corydon and Phillis have had together, from the days of Theocritus downwards."
During a long lifetime, till within two years of her death, Lady Anne Barnard resisted every temptation to declare herself the author of the popular ballad, thus evincing her determination not to have the secret wrested from her till she chose to divulge it. Some of those inducements may be enumerated. The extreme popularity of the ballad might have proved sufficient in itself to justify the disclosure; but, apart from this consideration, a very fine tune had been put to it by a doctor of music;[9] a romance had been founded upon it by a man of eminence; it was made the subject of a play, of an opera, and of a pantomime; it had been claimed by others; a sequel had been written to it by some scribbler, who professed to have composed the whole ballad; it had been assigned an antiquity far beyond the author's time; the Society of Antiquaries had made it the subject of investigation; and the author had been advertised for in the public prints, a reward being offered for the discovery. Never before had such general interest been exhibited respecting any composition in Scottish verse.
In the "Pirate," published in 1823, the author of "Waverley" had compared the condition of Minna to that of Jeanie Gray, in the words of Lady Anne, in a sequel which she had published to the original ballad:—
"Nae langer she wept, her tears were a' spent;
Despair it was come, and she thought it content;
She thought it content, but her cheek it grew pale,
And she droop'd like a snowdrop broke down by the hail!"
At length, in her seventy-third year, and upwards of half a century after the period of its composition, the author voluntarily made avowal of the authorship of the ballad and its sequel. She wrote to Sir Walter Scott, with whom she was acquainted, requesting him to inform his personal friend, the author of "Waverley," that she was indeed the author. She enclosed a copy to Sir Walter, written in her own hand; and, with her consent, in the course of the following year, he printed "Auld Robin Gray" as a contribution to the Bannatyne Club.
The second part has not acquired such decided popularity, and it has not often been published with it in former Collections. Of the fact of its inequality, the accomplished author was fully aware: she wrote it simply to gratify the desire of her venerable mother, who often wished to know how "the unlucky business of Jeanie and Jamie ended." The Countess, it may be remarked, was much gratified by the popularity of the ballad; and though she seems, out of respect to her daughter's feelings, to have retained the secret, she could not resist the frequent repetition of it to her friends.
In the character of Lady Anne Barnard, the defective point was a certain want of decision, which not only led to her declining many distinguished and advantageous offers for her hand, but tended, in some measure, to deprive her of posthumous fame. Illustrative of the latter fact, it has been recorded that, having entrusted to Sir Walter Scott a volume of lyrics, composed by herself and by others of the noble house of Lindsay, with permission to give it to the world, she withdrew her consent after the compositions had been printed in a quarto volume, and were just on the eve of being published. The copies of the work, which was entitled "Lays of the Lindsays," appear to have been destroyed. One lyric only has been recovered, beginning, "Why tarries my love?" It is printed as the composition of Lady Anne Barnard, in a note appended to the latest edition of Johnson's "Musical Museum," by Mr C. K. Sharpe, who transcribed it from the Scots Magazine for May 1805. The popular song, "Logie o' Buchan," sometimes attributed to Lady Anne in the Collections, did not proceed from her pen, but was composed by George Halket, parochial schoolmaster of Rathen, in Aberdeenshire, about the middle of the last century.