CAULD KAIL IN ABERDEEN. This song is by the Duke of Gordon. The old verses are,— THERE'S cauld kail in Aberdeen, And castocks in Strathbogie; When ilka lad maun ha'e his lass, Then fye, gi'e me my coggie. My coggie, sirs, my coggie, sirs, I canna want my coggie: I wadna gi'e my three-girred cup For e'er a quean in Bogie. There's Johnnie Smith has got a wife, My coggie, sirs, my coggie, sirs, [Premising that coggie signifies both a wooden platter for holding porridge and a drinking vessel, that castocks are the stalks of cabbages, and that kail is that commonest ingredient in broth, colewort-here is the world-famous song of his Grace of Gordon : There's cauld kail in Aberdeen, Gin I but ha'e a bonnie lass, Ye're welcome to your coggie: And ye may sit up a' the night, In cotillons the French excel; John Bull loves countra dances; The Spaniards dance fandangoes well; Mynheer an allemande prances: In foursome reels the Scots delight, At threesome they dance wond'rous light: But twasome ding a' out o' sight, Danced to the reel o' Bogie. Come, lads, and view your partners well, Wale each a blithesome rogie; I'll tak' this lassie to mysel', She looks sae keen and vogie! "For Athole's duke she me forsook," which I take to be the original reading. This song was written by the late Dr. Austin, physician, at Edinburgh. He had courted a lady, to whom he was shortly to have been married; but the Duke of Athole, having seen her, became so much in love with her, that he made proposals of marriage, which were accepted of, and she jilted the Doctor. [FOR lack of gold she 's left me, O! And to endless care has left me, O! SINCE ROBBED OF ALL THAT CHARMED MY VIEW. The old name of this air is "The Blossom o' the Raspberry." The song is Dr. Blacklock's. [SINCE robbed of all that charmed my view, O! when my heart revolves the joys Ah me! had Heaven and she proved kind, But since no flattering hope remains, Let me my wretched lot pursue; Adieu! de ir friends and native scenes! To all but grief and love, adieu !] YOUNG DAMON. This air is by Oswald. [The words of the song are the following. They were written by Robert Fergusson, and the melody they were set to goes by the name of "The Highland Lamentation." AMIDST a rosy bank of flowers, Young Damon mourned his forlorn fate; In sighs he spent his languid hours, And breathed his woes in lonely state. Gay joy no more shall ease his mind, His looks, that were as fresh as morn, Turn, fair Amanda, cheer your swain, Unshroud him from this vale of woe; Range every charm to soothe the pain That in his tortured breast doth grow.] KIRK WAD LET ME BE. Tradition, in the western parts of Scotland, tells that this old song, of which there are still three stanzas extant, once saved a covenanting clergyman out of a scrape. It was a little prior to the Revolution, a period when being a Scots covenanter was being a felon, that one of their clergy, who was at that very time hunted by the merciless soldiery, fell in, by accident, with a party of the military. The soldiers were not exactly acquainted with the person of the reverend gentleman of whom they were in search; but, from suspicious circumstances, they fancied that they had got one of that cloth and opprobrious persuasion among them in the person of this stranger. "Mass John,' to extricate himself, assumed a freedom of manners very unlike the gloomy strictness of his sect; and, among other convivial exhibitions, sung (and some traditions say composed, on the spur of the occasion) "Kirk wad let me be," with such effect, that the soldiers swore he was a d-d honest fellow, and that it was impossible he could belong to those hellish conventicles; and so gave him his liberty. The first stanza of this song, a little altered, is a favourite kind of dramatic interlude, acted at country weddings in the south-west parts of the kingdom. A young fellow is dressed up like an old beggar. A peruke, commonly made of carded tow, represents hoary locks; an old bonnet; a ragged plaid, or surtout, bound with a straw rope for a girdle; a pair of old shoes, with straw ropes twisted round his ankles, as is done by shepherds in snowy weather. His face they disguise as like wretched old age as they can. In this plight he is brought into the wedding-house, frequently to the astonishment of strangers, who are not in the secret, and begins to sing, "O, I am a silly auld man, ""T was late on Tysday at e'en, I was kind to a beggar lass. But de'il an awmous she got, Till she met wi' auld Glenae."] -0 JOHNNY FAA, OR THE GYPSIE The people in Ayrshire begin this song, "The gypsies cam' to my Lord Cassilis' yett." He is asked to drink, and by-and-by to dance, which, after some uncouth excuses, he is prevailed on to do, the fiddler playing the tune, which here is commonly called "Auld Glenae:" in They have a great many more stanzas short, he is all the time so plied with in this song than I ever yet saw in any liquor, that he is understood to get intoxi- printed copy. The castle is still remaincated, and, with all the ridiculous gesticu-ing at Maybole where his lordship shut lations of an old drunken beggar, he dances up his wayward spouse, and kept her for and staggers until he falls on the floor; yet still, in all his riot-nay, in his rolling and tumbling on the floor, with some or other drunken motion of his body-he beats time to the music, till at last he is supposed to be carried out dead drunk. [I AM a silly puir man, Gaun hirplin' owre a tree; And nought but hale claes on, The parson he ca'd me a rogue, My hale confession ye'se ha'e. life. [THE gypsies cam' to our lord's gate, And wow, but they sang sweetly; That down cam' the fair ladie. When she cam' tripping down the stair, "O come with me," says Johnnie Faa; For I vow and I swear by the hilt of my sword, Then she gied them the gude wheit breid, "Gae tak' frae me this gay mantile, For if kith and kin and a' had sworn, |