It even vivifies the heel To skip and dance: Lifeless is he wha canna feel Its influence. Let mirth abound; let social cheer Nor envy, wi' sarcastic sneer, Our bliss destroy. And thou, great god of aqua vita! To hedge us frae that black banditti, The City Guard.2 'The Reel o' Tullochgorum' forms one of the most effective of Geikie's inimitable etchings. (1 vol. 4to, No. 17.) 1 Var. sportive. 2 This "cankered pack," as Fergusson calls the City Guard in 'Hallow-fair,' was a body of armed police which existed in Edinburgh from an early date up to 1817, when it was finally dissolved. It was composed of a hundred men or thereby, divided into three companies, the officers being generally decayed tradesmen, and the privates, so called, invalid members of (as from our Poet's humorous mimicry should have been supposed) Highland regiments. Many curious anecdotes and reminiscences of this notable band will be found in Kay's Portraits;' and likewise in Wilson's truly invaluable Memorials of Edinburgh in the Olden Time.' They are frequently mentioned by Scott, and especially in the Heart of Mid-Lothian,' in which, in describing the guard particularly, he adverts to the frequent notice which Fergusson takes of them, which, he says, "might have almost entitled him to be considered their poet-laureate." The Lochaber axes and other paraphernalia of the 'body' are now in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. ELEGY ON THE DEATH OF SCOTS MUSIC. Mark it, Cesario! it is old and plain, The spinsters and the knitters in the sun, And the free maids that weave their thread with bones, Do use to chant it. SHAKSPEARE'S TWELFTH NIGHT, Act ii. Sc. 4. ON Scotia's plains, in days of yore, In hamely weid; But Harmony is now no more, And Music dead. Round her the feather'd choir would wing, And sleely wake the sleeping string, Their sang to lead, Sweet as the zephyrs of the spring; Mourn ilka nymph and ilka swain, Let weeping streams and Naiads drain Their fountain head; Let echo swell the dolefu' strain, 1 Var. us'd. Since Music's dead." 2 Hogg, in his notes on Burns, has recorded that Scott once showed him "a very old metrical tale in heroic measure, as old apparently as Gawin Douglas's day, in which all the birds and beasts of the forest are called upon, as in his Elegy on the death of Captain Matthew Henderson, to 'lament:"" and that Scott said Burns' Elegy was taken therefrom. This is very problematical, as these old quaint-named poems were excessively rare and inaccessible to Burns. Is the Elegy not rather a magnificent expansion of the present stanza, with scattered suggestions from other lines of the elegy? Whan the saft vernal breezes ca' The grey-hair'd Winter's fogs awa', On chaunter or on aiten straw, Since Music's dead. Nae lasses now, on simmer days, Delight to chant their hameil lays, At glomin', now, the bagpipe's dumb, Whan weary owsen hameward come; Sae sweetly as it wont to bum, And pibrachs skreed; We never hear its warlike hum, For Music's dead. Macgibbon's1 gane: Ah! waes my heart! 1 M'Gibbon was celebrated in his time for his great execution on the violin. According to Tytler, in the Transactions of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, vol. i., he was for "many years leader of the orchestra of the Gentlemen's Concert at Edinburgh," and was thought to play the music of Corelli, Geminiani and Handel with, as observed, "great execution and judgment." He died, 1756, bequeathing the whole of his estates and effects' to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh. I annex a list of his Works, which are generally esteemed good: 1, Six Sonatos, or Solos for a German flute, or violin, composed by William Macgibbon. Edin. 1740. 2, A Collection of Scots tunes, some with variations for a violin, hautboy or German flute, with a bass for a violoncello or harpsichord. By William Macgibbon. Book i., 1743. 3, A second collection, &c. Edin. 1746. 4, A third collection, &c. Edin. 1755. There is a vignette portrait of M'Gibbon introduced in the title-page of Flores Musica or the Scots Musician, 1773, folio. The following notice of him occurs in Claudero's 'Lines on seeing a Scots Fidler in laced Clothes:' Wha cou'd sweet melody1 impart, And tune the reed, Wi' sic a slee and pawky art; But now he's dead. Ilk carline now may grunt and grane, The blythest sangster on the plain ! Now foreign sonnets bear the gree, Of sounds fresh sprung frae Italy, Unlike that saft-tongu'd melody 3 Which now lies dead. Can lav'rocks at the dawning day, -Apply to your cliff for crotchet and brief, His merit conspicuous through Britain did shine, No fribble was he, a true son of the Nine, And in plain simple dress he got pelf. Poems on Several Occasions. London, 1765. p. 36. Claudero is the assumed name of James Wilson, of whom a long and very curious account will be found in Wilson's 'Memorials of Edinburgh in the Olden Time,' vol. ii. pp. 213-20. 1 Var. Harmony. 3 Var. cou'd. 2 Var. deil ane. 4 Var. cou'd. Compare wi' Birks of Indermay ?1 O Scotland! that cou'd yence afford And fight till Music be restor❜d, Which now lies dead? THE KING'S 2 BIRTH-DAY IN EDINBURGH. O quale hoc hurly-burly fuit, si forte vidisses Dripantes, hominumque heartas et prælia faintas.] POLEMO-MEDDinia, (DrummoND OF HAWTHORNDEN.) [The patriarchal reign of George III. afforded many returning 'Birth-days; but in these more staid and starched times we have little sympathy with the enthusiastic loyalty expressed in 'Auld Reekie' on such occasions. By all, however, says Robert Chambers, "who remember the streets of Edinburgh on a king's birth-day previous to the year 1810, the fidelity of Fergusson's description will be acknowledged." And even yet, if not on a birth-day, at least on 'visits' such as those which 1 This truly delightful air, which is known to have been the favourite one of Fergusson, is variously named Inder-, Ender-, Inner-, and Invermay. Mallet, the author of the current words, calls it Endermay.' Will no one [Ballantyne or Vedder ?] arise to rescue this very beautiful air from the miserable rhymes of Mallet and Bryce An attempt has been made in Wood's 'Songs of Scotland,' vol. i. p. 72; but the author of 'The Social Cup,' who is so very capable of writing well, ought certainly, in justice to his own" fair fame," to have paused, after the severe animadversions on the elder' before hazarding such drawing-room verses in substitution. 2 George III. |