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FAMOUS SONGS
been sometimes claimed as Irish,"" It would be little less ridiculous if the editor had said 4t St. Patrick's Day" had been sometimes claimed as Irish. The air has long been coveted by the Scotch publishers and editors, for, as far ba ck as 1793 Burns thus writes to George Thomson, " You are quite right in inserting the last five in your list, though they are certainly Irish. 'Shepherds I have lost my Love' (Banks of Banna) is to me a heavenly air; what would you think of a set of Scottish verses to it ? . . . Set the tune to it and let the Irish verses follow/'
Burns wrote some verses, but they were rejected by Thomson. Says Lover, "For what could be hoped of a song beginning thus:
1 i ' Yestreen I got a pint of wine
A place where body saw na : Yestreen lay on this breast of mine The gowden locks of Anna.'
It is surprising how Burns could write such trash." Then in 1824 Thomson himself tried his hand at writing a lyric to fit the music, and a pretty mess he made of it. Moore, in 1810, wrote his charming lines " On Music" to it, and succeeded very well. In 1851, as the Scottish editor failed to secure suitable Caledonian verses, he got over his difficulty by calmly
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