[6] This song, set to music by Mr Peter M'Leod, was published in a separate form, and the profits, which amounted to a considerable sum, given for the purpose of placing a parapet and railing around the monument of Burns on the Calton Hill, Edinburgh.
[7] This exquisite lay forms a portion of "The Cottagers of Glendale," Mr Riddell's longest ballad poem.
[8] This song was composed by Mrs Inglis, in honour of the Ettrick Shepherd, shortly after the period of his death.
[9] Printed for the first time.
[10] Of this song a new version was composed by Burns, the original chorus being retained. Burns' version commences—"Hark the mavis' evening sang."
[11] This song was addressed by Mr Jamieson to Miss Jane Morrison of Alloa, the heroine of Motherwell's popular ballad of "Jeanie Morrison," and who had thus the singular good fortune to be celebrated by two different poets. For some account of Miss Morrison, now Mrs Murdoch, see vol. iii. p. [233].
[12] A MS. copy of this song had been sent by the author to the Ettrick Shepherd. Having been found among the Shepherd's papers after his decease, it was regarded as his own composition, and has consequently been included in the posthumous edition of his songs, published by the Messrs Blackie. The song appears in Imlah's "May Flowers," published in 1827.
[13] The chorus of this song, which is said to have been originally connected with a plaintive Jacobite ditty, now lost, has suggested several modern songs similar in manner and sentiment. Imlah composed two songs with this chorus. The earlier of these compositions appears in the "May Flowers." It is evidently founded upon a rumour, which prevailed in Aberdeenshire during the first quarter of the century, to the effect, that a Scottish officer, serving in Egypt, had been much affected on hearing a soldier's wife crooning to herself the original words of the air. We have inserted in the text Imlah's second version, as being somewhat smoother in versification. It is the only song which we have transcribed from his volume, published in 1841. But the most popular words which have been attached to the air and chorus were the composition of a student in one of the colleges of Aberdeen, nearly thirty years since, who is now an able and accomplished clergyman of the Scottish Church. Having received the chorus and heard the air from a comrade, he immediately composed the following verses, here printed from the author's MS.:—
Oh, an' I were where Gadie rins,
Where Gadie rins, where Gadie rins,
Oh, an' I were where Gadie rins,
At the back o' Bennachie!
I wish I were where Gadie rins,
'Mong fragrant heath and yellow whins,
Or, brawlin' doun the bosky lins
At the back o' Bennachie;