[1377] See Fraser-Mackintosh’s Antiquarian Notes, p. 242.
[1378] Burton’s Scotland after Revolution, vol. ii. p. 537.
[1379] Among others, the Rev. John Skinner, well known as the author of the song of “Tullochgorum,” was a sufferer: he was imprisoned for six months.
[1380] Dunbar’s Social Life in Former Days, 1st series, p. 390.
[1381] When the Princess of Wales, mother of George III., mentioned, with some appearance of censure, the conduct of Lady Margaret M’Donald, who harboured and concealed Prince Charles, when in the extremity of peril, he threw himself on her protection; “And would not you, madam,” answered Prince Frederick, “have done the same, in the same circumstances? I am sure—I hope in God you would.” Captain Stuart of Invernahoyle’s singular remark was not, it seems, quite without foundation. A gentleman, in a large company, gibed him for holding the king’s commission, while, at the same time, he was a professed Jacobite. “So I well may,” answered he, “in imitation of my master: the king himself is a Jacobite.” The gentleman shook his head, and remarked, that the thing was impossible. “By G—,” said Stuart, “but I tell you he is, and every son that he has. There is not one of them who (if he had lived in my brave father’s days) would not to a certainty have been hanged.”—Hogg’s Jacobite Relics.
[1382] “We find that the whole of national song during that period inclined towards the ancient dynasty, and the whole force of the ludicrous, the popular, and the pathetic, volunteered in the Jacobite service. It is beyond question that the merit of these Jacobite songs eclipsed, and still eclipses, every attempt at poetry on the other side, which has produced little beyond a few scraps of verses in ridicule of the bare knees, the kilts, and bad English of the Highlanders.”—Stewart’s Sketches, vol. i. p. 100.
[1383] “These songs are a species of composition entirely by themselves. They have no affinity with our ancient ballads of heroism and romance, and one part of them far less with the mellow strains of our pastoral and lyric muses. Their general character is that of a rude energetic humour, that bids defiance to all opposition in arms, sentiments, or rules of song-writing. They are the unmasked effusions of a bold and primitive race, who hated and despised the overturning innovations that prevailed in church and state, and held the abettors of these as dogs, or something worse—drudges in the lowest and foulest paths of perdition—beings too base to be spoken of with any degree of patience or forbearance. Such is their prevailing feature; but there are amongst them specimens of sly and beautiful allegory. These last seem to have been sung openly and avowedly in mixed parties, as some of them are more generally known, while the others had been confined to the select social meetings of confirmed Jacobites, or hoarded up in the cabinets of old Catholic families, where to this day they have been preserved as their most precious lore.”—Hogg’s Jacobite Relics.
[1384] The gentleman referred to in a former note appends the following:—
“There is also an Irish version of the ‘White Cockade.’ It has been translated from the Irish by J. J. Callanan. The following is the last verse:—
‘No more the cuckoo hails the spring,