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FAMOUS SONGS
fortunes; I have already sent her Jamie to sea and broken her father's arm, and made her mother fall sick, and given her Auld Robin Gray for her lover; but I wish to load her with a fifth sorrow within the four lines—poor thing! Help me to one." " Steal the cow, sister Anne," said the little Elizabeth. " The cow," adds Lady Anne, " was immediately lifted by me, and the song completed. At our fireside among our neighbours, 'Auld Robin Gray' was always called for. I was pleased with the approbation it met with."
This is so circumstantially related that there seems no doubt whatever about the origin of the lyric.
The famous Miss Stephens, afterwards Count-ess of Essex, is believed to have made the song popular to English ears. It may be noted that the melody of the first four lines differs from the rest, and it is strongly believed that the first part was borrowed from some old Scottish air and the rest set by the Rev. William Leeves. This, indeed, appears certain, and some authorities declared Leeves's music not to be Scottish at all. In any case it was severely criticised by John Hullah. In 1880 the song was published by Messrs. Novello and Co. as " words by Lady Anne Lindsay, set to music by Rev. William
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