of Lord Barnard in Jamieson's collection:--
O, wow for day!
And dear gin it were day!
Gin it were day and I were away,
For I haena long time to stay.
It is only the uneducated poets who have the courage to use language
arbitrarily with a purpose
1 It is needless to say that the supreme felicity of these
lines has been pointed out by other and more distinguished
critics.
more for melody than for meaning, and when an attempt is made to
reproduce its effect deliberately, as has been done by Dante Gabriel
Rossetti and William Morris, the result is simply artificial and
bizarre, in spite of the skill, the intensity, and the poetical power of
Sister Helen, and the melody of the most perfect example of the modern
imitation of the refrain in Morris's The Wind.
Wind, Wind, thou art sad, art thou kind?
Wind, Wind, unhappy; thou art blind,
Yet still thou wanderest the lily seed to find.
Perhaps the most perfect example of the lyric song, in which the melody
is mingled with and sustains and elevates the feeling, and both are
conjoined in an effect which melts the heart and possesses the ear,
although the strain is not of so high a rapture of love or sorrow as
parts of Burns's Ae Fond Kiss or Lady Anne Bothwell's Balow, and is of
a peaceful sweetness and resignation rather than passion, is The Land of
the Leal, by Carolina, Lady Nairne. In its original and simplest form,
before she had interpolated a verse to express some of her theological
ideas, it is the perfect interpretation of a sweet, solemn, and simple
thought, the tenderest and purest emotion, breathed in an equally
simple, but absolutely perfect melody, that is like the flowing of
limpid water, crystal clear and unbroken to the end. The heart of the
world has responded, and it has a place like none other in the tongue of
song.
I'm wearin' awa, John,
Like snaw-wreaths in thaw, John,
I 'm wearin awa'
To the land o' the leal.
There's nae sorrow there, John,
There's neither cauld nor care, John,
The day is aye fair
In the land o' the leal.
Our bonnie bairn's there, John,
She was baith gude and fair, John,
And, oh, we grudged her sair
To the land o' the leal.
But sorrow's sel' wears past, John,
And joy's a-comin' fast, John,
The joy that's aye to last,
In the land o' the leal.
Oh, dry your glist'ning ee, John,
My saul langs to be free, John,
And angels beckon me
To the land o' the leal.
O, haud ye leal and true, John,
Your day it's wearin' through, John,
And I 'll welcome you
To the land o' the leal.
Now fare-ye-weel, my ain John,
The world's cares are vain, John,
We 'll meet and will be fain
In the land o' the leal.
The fame of the authoress, so far as she can be said to have any of
her own individual personality, rests upon this song, and sufficiently,
while the English language shall last, but it was not the solitary
example of her genius, and her poetical work, although not great in
hulk, contains other lyrics of a very high quality, with a wide range
from high martial spirit and homely pathos to gay and frolicsome humor,
and instinct with the vital and living element of song. Lady Nairne was
almost morbidly anxious to retain her incognito as a writer during her
life, so that her own husband and nearest relatives were not in the
secret, and those who surmised or guessed it hardly dared to allude to
it in her presence, and the veil has rested over her personality to a
great degree in comparison with the flood of light poured over the
words and actions of her great contemporaries, Scott and Burns, and many
lesser figures in Scotch provincial literature like Professor Wilson and
Hogg. Nevertheless, since her death at a very advanced age in 1846, her
songs have been collected and published under her own name, and enough
has been made known concerning her life and character to give to her
poetry an individuality, and reveal a very gracious, noble and engaging
figure.
Carolina Oliphant was born in "the auld house of Gask," in Perthshire,
on the 16th of August, 1766, six years later than Robert Burns. She came
of stanch Jacobite stock on both sides, her father, Laurence Oliphant,
a name since made familiar by the singular and notable career of the
accomplished writer, traveler, and scholar, who puzzled the world not
less by his naïve religious aberrations than by his accomplishments,
took up arms for the Stuarts in "the Forty-five," and suffered attainder
and temporary banishment in company with his father, who had also been
"out" in the Earl of Mar's rebellion in "the Fifteen." Young Laurence
Oliphant, while in exile at Versailles, married his cousin, Margaret
Robertson, daughter of Duncan Robertson of Strowan, chief of the clan
Dorrochy. The Robertsons had also been ardent Jacobites, and suffered in
purse and person for their loyalty. The grandfather, Duncan Robertson,
was notable in character and personality as well in adventure and
misfortune, and had his portrait painted in immortal colors by Scott as
the Baron of Bradwardine. Carolina, baptized after the exiled prince,
spent her infancy and early childhood on the Continent in France and
Belgium, under the care of her grandmother, her parents being in feeble
health, and then returned with them to the old home at Gask, where she
spent her happy, healthy, and gay youth and young womanhood. From a
feeble and delicate child she had grown into a strong, vigorous, and
beautiful young woman, the beauty of the country-side, called "the
Flower of Strathearn" and "the lovely Car," and her life was of a kind
to strengthen her ardent patriotism and cultivate her fondness for the
native music, poetry, and song of which Scotland was full, but whose
transcendent merits were unknown and unappreciated by the literary world
until they were illuminated by the light of the genius of Burns a few
years later. The anecdotes of her life give a very charming picture
of innocent gayety, family affection, and friendship. She played the
Jacobite airs for her aged grandfather, as she afterward wrote Jacobite
songs for his pleasure, and with a skill and feeling which won the
difficult approval of the famous Neil Gow, the wandering fiddler, whose
skill on his instrument was like that of Scott's "Wandering Willie," and
whose presence at a laird's house would draw all the young people
for miles around to dance to the winged notes of his strathspeys and
hornpipes. She was foremost in all scenes of gayety, and is said to have
taken a carriage at midnight and driven several miles to bring one
of her young lady friends out of bed for a party where partners were
scarce. In the simple social pleasures of the local aristocracy, the
county balls and meetings, and the gatherings of the tenantry, "the
Flower of Strathearn" was a conspicuous figure, while her keen eyes
were taking in the queer figures that appeared later in all the glow of
bright humor in The Laird of Cockpen, The County Meeting, and Jamie, the
Laird. Her first verses, The Ploughman, were written for a harvest home
dinner, and were read by her brother as a contribution by an unknown
author. About this time the first poems of Burns made their appearance,
and stirred the heart of Scotland not less by their original genius than
by the revivification of the old airs and scraps of songs, finished and
cleansed of their coarseness, and made to speak to the hearts of the
people in the drawing-room as well as in the peasant's cottage and the
taproom of the country alehouse. It was the first acknowledgment, if not
the beginning, of that appreciation of the wealth of pathos and humor in
the peasant poetry of Scotland, among the cultivated classes, and drew
that attention and emulation to which all there is of value in modern
Scotch poetry is due. It was the inspiration of the genius of Carolina
Oliphant, and from this time she began to write the new verses to the
old airs, and to replace the imperfect, unworthy, and sometimes coarse
and vulgar scraps of songs with the beautiful ones of her own, equally
Scotch and racy of the soil, and full of the thoughts and sentiments
as well as the dialect of the people. The old grandfather, worn with
disease and living in the past light of fervid days, heard his favorite
airs of welcome, gathering, and victory, for the Young Chevalier sung to
new and glowing words, and the young ladies laughed at the funny lilts
in which were drawn the queer figures of the dullards and provincial
fops, without knowing to whose keen pen they were indebted. The Land
o' the Leal was written for Mrs. Archibald Campbell Colquhoun, a dear
friend of Miss Oliphant, upon the death of an infant daughter, and
to one other only was the secret of its authorship ever definitely
disclosed, although its aurora, more or less mysteriously, finally
settled around the head of Lady Nairne. Mrs. Colquhoun was born Mary
Anne Erskine, and was the sister of that William Erskine afterward Lord
Kinedder who was the dearest friend and associate of Walter Scott in his
early Edinburgh days, and the sister, who kept the house for her brother
until her marriage with Mr. Colquhoun, was the earliest and deepest love
of Scott.
Somewhat late in life Carolina Oliphant married her cousin, Major
William Nairne, the heir to the forfeited Barony of Nairne, Assistant
Inspector General of Barracks in Scotland, and with him removed to
Edinburgh, where she occupied for a time a cottage at Portobello and
afterward official quarters in Holyrood place. The impulse given by
Burns to the cultivation of native Scotch poetry still continued, and
was being strengthened by his contributions of songs for the music of
the old airs in Johnson's Museum, and a coterie of the literary ladies
of Edinburgh established the Scotch Minstrel for the same purpose.
To this Mrs. Nairne became a contributor, with a single friend for
a confidant, under the name of "Mrs. Bogan of Bogan," with other
pseudonyms, a disguised handwriting and other elaborate precautions
for concealment. There was, of course, a keen curiosity to discover the
author of these beautiful songs, but the secret was well guarded, and
not even the husband was aware of it. "I dare not even tell William"--
Mrs. Nairne wrote to her friend--"lest he blab." She and her friend at
one time cherished the purpose of "cleansing and moralizing" the songs
of Burns, as he had done those of his unknown predecessors, but a wiser
second thought restrained them. Miss Oliphant had been "converted," as
the phrase goes, when a young woman on a visit to England, and her
piety and religious feeling deepened with her years, until it took
on completely the rigid, depressing, and dismal forms of Scotch
denominationalism, and her genius for poetry shriveled under it. During
the visit of George the Fourth to Edinburgh he signalized his theatrical
clemency by a restoration of the forfeited titles of the Jacobite
nobility, and Major Nairne became Baron Nairne. Lord Nairne survived his
restoration but a few years, and died in 1829, leaving his widow with an
only son. To his education she devoted herself, residing for a time
in Bath, afterward in Ireland, and traveling on the Continent for the
health of the young lord, who was of feeble constitution, and who died
at Brussels in 1837. It is painful to read of the narrow bigotry and
theological gloom which enveloped the joyous and healthy spirit of Lady
Nairne. She would not allow her son to be taught to dance, and regarded
her poetry as the somewhat flagitious exercise of a worldly spirit, and
spent her days in the doubt and self-affliction of a harsh creed and in
the petty interests of a narrow church. She was deeply interested in the
hopeless task of "converting" the Catholics of Ireland and the Jews to
Scotch Presbyterianism, and was the mentor of her relatives after the
fashion of Mrs. Hannah More, the patroness of bazaars, and at one time
with her sister was expelled from an Italian town for distributing
Protestant Bibles to the people. But her native nobleness of character
shone through the theological clouds. She was regarded with affection
as well as reverence by her younger relatives and her servants, and
impressed all who came in contact with her by the cordial grace of her
manners, and the aristocratic and highly marked contour of her features,
which in the bloom of youth had made her "the Flower of Strathearn."
Her benevolence was unceasing and self-sacrificing, if not always wisely
directed, and at one time she had all her family plate sold and the
proceeds sent to Dr. Chalmers for the support of an industrial school
for the poor. She lived during her later years at the old house of Gask,
the honored guest of her nephew and his wife, and died in 1845 at the
advanced age of seventy-one, in peace and tranquillity, and with only
the gentle decay of her mental faculties and bodily forces. The year
after her death her poems were collected and published under her own
name, and the world for the first time knew to whom it was indebted
for the songs which had impressed themselves upon the popular heart and
become a distinct and notable part of the lyric poetry of Scotland.
As has been said, The Land o' the Leal reaches the highest note in its
inspiration, perfection, and completeness, within the limits of its
purpose, not only of Lady Nairne's work, but of all the lyric poetry of
Scotland, but it was not the solitary example of a genius which had
much of the versatility, if not the fecundity and strength, of Burns, in
interpreting the emotions and the thoughts, the passions and the humors,
of the Scotch people. Lady Nairne's poetical genius was entirely lyric.
There was no Cotter's Saturday Night, much less any scene from
Poosey Nancy's alehouse, or witch's gathering at Kirk Alloway, in her
interpretation of Scotch life, and her voice was only the pure lilt of
Scotch song, grave or gay. Without determined literary ambition and
the responsibility of a known name, the stimulus of production was
not absorbing and lasting, and a good deal of her work was simply
occasional, careless, and imperfect. The best, that which will live as
long as Scotch song, could be comprised within the limits of a dozen
pages. But its quality is of the very highest in inspiration and
execution, the pure voice of the lark lilting beneath the blue cloud,
the mourning of the croodlin' doo, and the gay warble of the cheery
thrush.
Almost as famous in its own and very different way as The Land o' the
Leal, and almost as perfect in its execution, the limitation of the
true lyric to the simplest and most absolute words, and the complete
interpretation of its spirit in the melody, is The Laird of Cockpen. It
was written, it is said, to supply proper words to the gay old air of
When She cam ben, She bobbit, which being interpreted, means that when
she came into the front of the house, she curtsied, and of which the
first verse of the imperfect and rather vulgar old song is--
When she cam' ben, she bobbit,
When she cam' ben, she bobbit,
When she cam' ben she kissed Cockpen
And syne denied that she did it.
But no one can doubt that it was the true picture of a character and
incident which had given laughter to Carolina Oliphant and her young
friends, and had been the joke of the country-side, ere it lilted itself
to the rollicking jig. The commonly printed version of The Laird of
Cockpen is injured by the fact that it has two additional verses,
contributed by Miss Ferrier, the novelist, which destroy its absolute
completeness and perfection of humor as it was written by Lady Nairne.
THE LAIRD OF COCKPEN.
The laird of Cockpen, he's proud an' he's great;
His mind is taen up wi' things o' the State.
He wanted a wife his braw house to keep,
But favour wi' wooin' was fasheous to seek.
Down by the dyke-side a lady did dwell,
At his table-head he thought she'd look well,
M'Clish's ae daughter o' Claverse-ha'-Lee,
A penniless lass wi' a long pedigree.
His wig was well pouthered, as gude as when new,
His waistcoat was white, his coat it was blue;
He put on a ring, a sword and cock'd hat,
And wha could resist a laird wi' a that.
He took the grey mare and rode cannily,
An' rapped at the yett o' Claverse-ha'-Lee.
"Gae tell Mistress Jean to come speedily ben--
She's wanted to speak wi' the Laird o' Cockpen."
Mistress Jean was makin' the elder-flower wine;
"O, what brings the laird at sic' a like time."
She put off her apron and on her silk gown,
Her mutch wi' red ribbons, and gaed awa' down.
An' when she cam' ben he bowed fu low,
An' what was his errand he soon let her know;
Amazed was the laird when the lady said "Na,"
And wi' a laigh curtsie she turned awa'.
Dumfoundered was he, nae sigh did he gie.
He mounted his mare--he rade cannily.
An' often he thought as he gaed thro' the glen,
She's daft to refuse the laird o' Cockpen.
Only a little less humorous and perfect is Jamie, the Laird, whose
doting mother may have persecuted Carolina Oliphant herself, or some of
her friends, with the story of his mental and physical perfections until
there was this burst of mocking vexation, to the tune of The Rock and
the Wee Pickle Tow:--
JAMIE, THE LAIRD.
Send a horse to the water, ye 'll no mak' him drink
Send a fule to the college, ye 'll no mak' him think;
Send a craw to the surgin, an' still he will craw;
An' the wee laird had nae rummelgumpshion ava;
Yet he is the pride o' his fond mother's e'e;
In body or mind nae faut can she see;
"He's a fell clever lad an' a bonnie wee man,"
Is aye the beginnin' an' end o' her sang.
An' oh, she's a haverin' Lucky, I trow,
An' oh, she's a haverin' Lucky, I trow.
"He's a fell clever lad, an' a bonnie wee man,"
Is aye the beginnin' an' end o' her sang.
His legs they are bow'd, his e'es they do glee,
His wig, whiles its off, an' when on, its ajee.
He's braird as he's long--an' ill-faur'd is he,
A dafter like body I never did see.
An' yet for this cretur she says I am deein';
When that I deny--she's fear'd at my leein'.
Obliged to pit up wi' the sair defamation,
I'm liken to dee wi' shame and vexation.
An' oh, she's a haverin' Lucky, etc.
An' her clish-ma-clavers gang a' thro' the town,
An' the wee lairdie trows I 'll hang or I 'll drown;
Wi' his gawkie like face yestreen he did say,
"I 'll maybe tak' you, for Bess I 'll no hae,
Nor Mollie, nor Effie, nor long-legged Jeanie,
Nor Nellie, nor Katie, nor skirlin' wee Beenie."
I stoppet my ears, ran off in a fury--
I'm thinkin' to bring them before Judge and Jury.
For oh, what a randy old Lucky is she, etc.
Frien's, gie yere advice--I 'll follow yere counsel.
Maun I speak to the Provost or honest Town Council?
Or the writers, or lawyers, or doctors? now say,
For the law o' the Lucky I shall and will hae.
The hale town at me are jibbin' an' jeerin',
For a leddy like me it's really past hearin';
The Lucky now maun hae done wi' her claverin',
For I 'll no pit up wi' her an' her haverin'.
For oh, she 's a randy, I trow, I trow,
For oh, she's a randy, I trow, I trow.
"He's a fell clever lad an' a bonnie wee man,"
Is aye the beginuin' an' end o' her sang.
The finest efflorescence of Scotch lyric poetry,
which is the richest and finest in the English language, if not in the
world, was that of the Jacobite era, and the influence which followed
it and inspired the renaissance of Scotch song is the genius of Burns,
Hogg, Cunningham, Lady Nairne, and many more of less distinction, who
made a galaxy of singers hardly less remarkable in their way, as marking
an era in literature, than the dramatists of the Elizabethan age.
The genius of folk-song and ballad poetry had always been remarkably
developed in Scotland, in comparison, at least, with England, and, in
spite of many characteristics among the Lowlanders, worldly thrift,
bitter and barren bigotry, and a sort of dourness and hardheadedness,
not calculated to encourage sentiment and emotion; and the student of
racial distinctions may be inclined to attribute it to the influence
of Celtic blood and tradition, creating a vein of sensitiveness,
tenderness, and susceptibility to the magic of song and music in the
strong and hard fabric of the Saxon character. But from whatever
cause the tendency of the native genius was created, its existence
was obvious, and from the very earliest time, since song began to
be preserved in written words, the quality and quantity of Scotch
folk-poetry and folk-music have been remarkable. The native faculty
and the inherited tendency were all present when the spark of an
inspiration, involving all the elements of patriotism, daring adventure,
personal devotion, despair, and lamentation, gave fire to the genius
of national poetry. All the incidents and events of the Rebellion of
Forty-five, the landing of the young Prince Charles at Moidart with
only seven followers, the blaze of fiery loyalty that swept through
the Highlands at his call, the extraordinary victories won by the
sheer impetus and hand-to-hand onslaughts of the Highland clans, the
picturesque entry into Edinburgh and the gallant court of Holyrood, the
swift march into England, which seemed at one time to promise to carry
the Chevalier into St. James's Palace by its rush, the retreat and
disorganization, and finally the woeful slaughter of Culloden, followed
by the attainders and executions and the romantic adventures of the
Prince in hiding from his hunters among the mountains and islands, all
contrived to create themes for song and poetry which have never been
surpassed in modern history. The enterprise was as foolish as it was
daring, an episode of knight-errantry after the age when success was
possible, but it had all the elements of chivalry in its impulse and
conduct, and no modern war has been less selfish and sordid, not even
the insurrections of Poland or the uprising of the Spanish and German
people against Napoleon. The young Chevalier himself, only twenty-four
years of age, tall, handsome, and martial, with his flowing yellow hair
and Tartan dress, and with the fascination of his race in his manner,
his courage, clemency, and misfortune, gave it the personal element so
necessary to the highest poetry, and altogether the circumstances and
the conditions combined to create an effervescence of popular poetry
which has never been surpassed. Its quantity was as remarkable as its
quality. The two large volumes of Hogg's Jacobite Relics by no means
exhausted the collection of songs in the Lowland dialect, and to
this day those in Gaelic are still being discovered by the labors of
Professor Blackie and others, as they are yet preserved in the bothies
of the Highlands and the islands. The inspiration of the later poets,
Burns, Hogg, Cunningham, and
Lady Nairne, was hardly less strong, fed as it was upon the vivid
traditions and by the stories and histories of the men living about
them, or of their own families, full of all the elements of poetry, and
their purpose to vivify and recreate the native song of Scotland must
have had its most fertile impulse and material in the Jacobite songs,
of which the country is full. In Lady Nairne the ancestral and personal
impulse must have been especially strong. Her father and mother had
been married in exile; her grandfather had been distinguished for his
services as well as for his misfortunes, and upon both sides her family
had been notable for more than one generation for its loyalty and its
importance in the Scotch struggle for the restoration of the Stuarts. An
old ballad says:--
Gask and Strowan were nae slack,