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FAMOUS SONGS
" Comin' thro' the Rye/' according to Chap-pell, was first sung in a Christmas pantomime in London in 1795, when it was called "If a body meet a body going to the fair." But though some have said Rye with a capital R referred to a streamlet of that name in Ayrshire, it has been proved that Burns scratched a stanza of the song on a pane of glass at Maucliline in this form :
" Gin a body kiss a body comin' through the grain, Need a body grudge a body what's a body's ain."
But did Burns really write the lyric at all ? I have read at least six different versions of the song, and the one attributed by Joseph Skipsey to Burns is the least meritorious. Mr. Anon., I fancy, was the author. Dr. Mackay, in his "Book of Scotch Songs," published about 1852, says it is anonymous, but altered by Burns! He also gives a "stage" version. It is very old, and that is all that can be safely said of it. A version of the tune appeared in Gow's col-lection, 1784, as the " Miller's Daughter."
This " Comin' thro* the Rye" has, of course, no connection with Allan Ramsay's " Gin ye meet a bonnie Lass," which is a happy para-phrase of Horace's celebrated " Vides ut alta."
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