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C H A P T E R IX
" AULD ROBIN GRAY" AND " LES CONSTANTES AMOURS D'ALIX ET D ' A L E X I S "
UP to the present no one has ever questioned Lady Anne Barnard's claim to the authorship of the words of "Auld Robin Gray," and, though I am not going to cast doubt upon the fame of the writer at this late day, I shall shortly show that prior, not only to the appearance but to the writing of the world-famous song, there was a French ballad extant containing the gist of the story and the plot, by Paradis de Moncrif, entitled " Les Constantes Amours d'Alix et d'Alexis." But there is one very curious thing about Lady Anne Barnard, and that is that we have no record whatever of her ever having written any other song or composed anything else of literary merit whatever, with one slight exception, and yet she is said to have been in-spired with the idea of " Auld Robin Gray" when " she was quite a girl,"—as a matter of fact, when she was twenty-one—in the year 1771. It seems to have been almost a preco-144 |
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