Anne Barnard

“ We do not here give the continuation or second part of "Auld Robin Gray," in which the old gentleman is made to die, and "young Jamie" to marry the widow, as it is admitted on all hands to be a failure, and to destroy totally the beauty of the original story. In the present version we follow chiefly the old reading, which differs somewhat from that given by the authoress when late in life, as the alterations she then made do not appear to us to be improvements. ”

“ When the sheep are in the fauld, and the kye at hame,
And a' the world to sleep are gane;
The waes o' my heart fa' in showers frae my e'e,
While my gudeman lies sound by me.
Young Jamie lo'ed me weel and he sought me for his bride ”

“ There is an old tune, called "The Bridegroom greits when the sun gaes down," united to old words of a somewhat indelicate character. About the end of 1771 or beginning of 1772, a young lady in Fifeshire, the daughter of a noble family there, and then only in her twenty-first year, being very fond of the tune, but scrupulous about the words, thought she would try her hand at making new words to it. ”

“ This little ballad, which records a tragedy in domestic life unhappily of no uncommon occurrence and yet of heart-rending pathos, was called "Auld Robin Gray," and the name of its authoress was Lady Ann Lindsay, daughter of the Earl of Balcarras, by his countess, Ann Dalrymple, daughter of Sir Robert Dalrymple of Castletoun, Bart. She was born on the 8th Dec. 1750, and was married in 1793 to Sir Andrew Barnard, a son of the bishop of Limerick, and Colonial Secretary at the Cape of Good Hope. ”