+The Text+ is from Allan Ramsay's _Tea-Table Miscellany_ (1763). It was
not included in the first edition (1724-1727), nor until the ninth
edition in 1740, when to the original three volumes there was added a
fourth, in which this ballad appeared. There is also a Scotch version,
_Sir John Grehme and Barbara Allan_. Percy printed both in the
_Reliques_, vol. iii.
+The Story+ of Barbara Allan's scorn of her lover and subsequent regret
has always been popular. Pepys records of Mrs. Knipp, 'In perfect
pleasure I was to hear her sing, and especially her little Scotch song
of Barbary Allen' (January 2, 1665-6). Goldsmith's words are equally
well known: 'The music of the finest singer is dissonance to what I felt
when an old dairymaid sung me into tears with _Johnny Armstrong's Last
Goodnight_, or _The Cruelty of Barbara Allen_.' The tune is excessively
popular: it is given in Chappell's _English Song and Ballad Music_.