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FAMOUS SONGS
the most part. " Maggie Lauder," which is claimed to be of both Fifeshire and Renfrew-shire descent, I deal with in the next chapter. Only a certain not very edifying version is Scottish—the original is Irish. It was James Ballantine who wrote the beautiful piece called " Ilka blade o* grass keps its ain drap o' dew." When the author was introduced to Miss Stirling Graham, of Duntrune, then an old lady, she drew him to the window and paid him the delicate compliment, " I would like to see the man who wrote ' Ilka blade o' grass keps its ain drap o' dew.' " Ballantine, however, modestly disclaimed it by saying he got the line from an old Fife proverb.
Everybody knows "Jessie, the Flower of Dunblane.'' It was written to an old folk air by John Tannahill, for, perhaps, his friend R. A. Smith. The son of a weaver of silk gauze, born at Paisley, 1774, in the days when Paisley was a flourishing town, he followed in his father's footsteps and became a weaver also; but his great hobby was his flute, and he amused him-self by hunting up old melodies and writing fresh words to them, generally, "weaving threads and verses" alternately while engaged in his daily occupations. He paid such court to the muses that, after having had many of his pieces
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