Familiar Songs - Their Authors & Histories
300 traditional songs, inc sheet music with full piano accompaniment & lyrics.
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OUR FAMILIAR SONGS. |
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There's ne'er a lass in a' the land But vows baith late and early,
To man she'll ne'er gie heart or hand Who wadna fight for Charlie.
Come through, etc. |
Then here's a health to Charlie's cause, And be't complete and early;
His very name my heart's blood warms -To arms for Royal Charlie ! Come through, etc. |
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CHARLIE IS MY DARLING.
Several Scottish poets have rung the changes upon both the air and words of " Charlie is my darling." Burns has a version, Hogg a version, Captain Charles Grey a version, and there are still others of less celebrity. But the words most in use were written by the Baroness Naikxe, although her authorship was not then known, and stanzas from the other versions were generally mingled with hers. I give her version entire. The song is, of course, a Jacobite effusion, and Lady Nairne's family were Jacobites of the Jacobites, nearly all the kith and kin having been in trOURle or exile on that account. A lock of Prince Charlie's hair, his bonnet, spurs, cockades, and crucifix, were cherished relics among them. The " Auld Laird," Lady Nairne's father, refused to acknowledge King George, and dismissed the family chaplain for taking the oath of fealty to him after the death of Charles Edward. The King who had graciously allowed him to return and spend his age in his old homo, sent this message to his obstinate subject: " The Elector of Hanover's compliments to the Laird of Gask, and wishes to tell him how much the Elector respects the Laird for the steadiness of his principles."
In his "Forty Years' Recollections," Charles Mackay, the song-writer, relates the followng anecdote of his childhood: "Grace Threlkeld, or as her husband always called her, 'Girzie,' taught me the alphabet, together with the tunes of many scores— I may say hundreds—of Scotch songs which she was fond of singing. Among the rest was the old Jacobite song of "Charlie is my darling, the young Chevalier." I imagined at the time that this was a song about myself, and that I was the veritable young Chevalier. I well remember my astonishment, when I was about six years old, at hearing a blackbird, whose cage hung from a window in Powis Street, Woolwich, |
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