We canna gaze on the guidly sun, Quhen he schinis in the arch o the sky; O we canna weel luik on the Ingyne grit, That far yont oursellis may flye. And Invyis that plant quhilk growis in our hert, W. NOTICE TO THE SUBSCRIBERS. We should have finished our Second Volume with the present Number, but as we propose to finish our lucubrations altogether, we shall continue it for Three Numbers more, which will consume the matter we still have on hand. We hope our readers will not be displeased with this arrangement. Communications addressed to the Publisher, No. 8. Street, will be gratefully received. Greenock: printed by R. Donaldson. THE VISITOR, OR, LITERARY MISCELLANY. No. XIX.-VOL. II. JEAN ADAM. Continued from page 274. It is probable that the name of Jean Adam would have been forgotten ere now, and certainly we should not have been induced to make this inquiry into her life and writings, had it not been that the beautiful and well known song, Thair's nae luck about the House, has by many been attri-buted to her. A copy of this song was found. among the M.SS. of Mickle, the poet, in his own. hand writing; and it was consequently published as his, in an edition of his Works, by Mr Sim.* Mr Cromek has been at some pains to settle this disputed point: but with a degree of carelessness quite unpardonable in a man who ventures before the public, the first part of his short dissertation is written to prove Jean Adam the authoress of the The Poetical Works of William Julius Mickle; with a now Life of the Author, by the reverend John Sim, A.B. 18mo. London, 1806. S song, while the second consists of some new facts which he had procured, and which he confesses to be conclusive in favour of Mr Mickle. This is a flagrant instance of the carelessness of a mere bookmaker: the remodelling of three pages was all that was required to make him consistent with himself. We shall lay before the reader the evidence on both sides, dividing it according to the good and established usage, into external and internal. External.-Jean Adam published her book of poems in 1734, and she died in 1765. William Julius Mickle was born in 1734, and died in 1788. Burns remarks, concerning the song in question, "about the year 1771, or 1772, it first came upon the streets as a ballad; and I suppose the composition of the song was not much anterior to that period."* We may suppose it to have been at least ten or twelve years earlier, that Jean Adam may have a few years allowed her to recite the song before her death: and thus the first appearance of it will fall within the life of either claimant ; with this difference, that if it be Jean Adam's, she must have written it in her old age, twenty-five or twenty-six years after she had ceased to write poetry; whereas if it be Mickle's, he must have written it about the twenty-fifth or twenty-sixth year of his age, when he was just beginning to publish some of his pieces. It would be of importance to fix the age of the song precisely; it might either * Select Scottish Songs, &c. Vol. I. p. 67. confirm the claim in favour of the one candidate, or take it away from both. Perhaps some of the surviving friends of Jean Adam, about Greenock or Cartsdyke, might be able to tell at what time of her life she was accustomed to recite the song. If Mickle wrote it, he perhaps gave it to one of the periodical publications of the time. He lived in Edinburgh till the year 1763: if any person will be at the pains to search the volumes of the Scots Magazine, for a few years prior to that date, he may perhaps find the song. It appears that Jean Adam was in the practice of calling it her own. Mrs Fullarton states that she frequently heard her repeat it, and affirm it to be her own composition. The same lady's daughter, Mrs Crawfurd, writes to Mrs Fletcher of Edinburgh, that she had always been accustomed to hear it sung and spoken of, as a song of Jean Adam's, by those that had the best opportunities of knowing Jean.* This is the whole direct evidence in favour of Jean Adam; and it amounts merely to this, that she gave it out that she was the authoress of the song. On the other hand, the facts in support of Mr Mickle, are the following:-Mrs Mickle, the widow of the poet, affirmed to Mr Sim, that her husband presented her with a copy of the song, as a production of his own, and explained to her the Scot * Select Scottish Songs, &c. Vol. 1. p. 191. tish words and phrases; and she repeated the song to Mr Sim, with very little assistance. Besides, Mr Sim found, among Mr Mickle's M.SS. a copy of the song, considerably different from the one he had previously printed from. "I have," says he, in a letter to Cromek, "every reason to believe it, from its inaccuracy, and other evident marks of haste, to be the very first sketch of the ballad, There's nae Luck about the House, a copy of which I have inclosed. Besides the marks of haste which I have noticed in the margin, you will find Colin spelt once with two, and twice with a single 7; the verb mun (must) spelt with a u and an a, at the distance of only two lines: and the word make spelt twice with, and thrice without, the letter e. One stanza contains twelve, two stanzas eight, and the others only four lines a-piece; by which he seems undetermined whether the first four or the last four lines should form the chorus. Other inaccuracies and blunders you will perceive on comparing the MS. with the printed copy in my edition of Mickle's Poetry." The first of the following, exhibits Mickle's first and imperfect copy, the second his later and improved edition. THERE'S NAE LUCK ABOUT THE HOUSE. There's nae luck about the house There's nae luck at aw There's little pleasure in the housé When our gudeman's awa Select Scottish Songs, Vol. I. p. 197. |