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STORIES OF
appearance wedded together twelve years after Shield's " Rosina" was given to the world. And then, as I have said, Thomson issued the song in his collection (1799). Apart from the fact that the dates are all in favour of Shield, there is another point. When Shield had occasion in his operas to introduce the melodies of other writers, he was careful in every case to studi-ously acknowledge his obligations. The air known as "Auld Lang Syne" he distinctly claimed as his own composition; therefore, as no one has ever been able to disprove Shield's claim, there is every evidence that his statement must be accepted and he is proclaimed com-poser of this immortal song. In the " Popular Songs and Melodies of Scotland/' however, there is a quotation note, without the authority being named, which runs : " Shield introduced it into his overture to the opera of ' Rosina' written by Mr. Brooks (query Miss Brooke?) and acted at Covent Garden in 1783. It is the last movement of that overture, and in imita-tion of a Scottish bagpipe tune, in which the oboe is substituted for the channter and the bas-soon for the drone"
In the "Musical Times" for January 1896, Mr. W. H. Cummings gives the air from "Rosina," and says "My edition of Shield's
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