women singers of SCOTLAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 2572, 1 July 1903, Page 76

women singers of SCOTLAND.

By Je^ie JLvrKAY.

ii. A far k^s illustrious person, though a writer of far gieater vol'ime than Grizel 13<ullie, was Jtvm Adjm, the authoress of "There""' nae Luck Aboot the Hoose.'' Her authorship of that song is novv fully conceded; though for borne time after her dcitli .1 tonti'ovei\v a-> bii^k. if not as

far-reaching, as t!i it peiiodically raided about ' The LmJ o' the Leal" was earned on abuit ' There* in? Luck." Claims weie made for it on bJialf of William Miekl-, -T poet of Dumfries, now mainly inn' iiiliTed on account of the ball id ' Cunmim 'i Hail." which u-htes the fvto of Amy Robaart, wife of Leicester, and which is t'.ui'-eribcd in the preface of Scott's novel

' Kenilwoitb." Like tb? other eontro\ei\v, it was partly laistj on the alleged repiesent^tions of the poet's widow, but Mis Miekle seems to have been a much weaker rted to lean upon in ma.ters of literary impoit than Mrs Bums and a veiy poor cieature altogether. One of the saddest of the many sad poinU in the life of Jean Adam is such an exaggeration of the poet's u«ual lack of discrimination concerning his own woik as allowed her to kave the authorship of this graphic and chaiacteiistic folk "ong in doubt, while scores of stiff -stilted dielactics in the English, winch was to hfv a foreign tongue, were treasured with pathetic care. The soirowful life of Paine, the author of "Home, sweet home,"' was curiously duplicated in the case of poor Jean, who wrote the Scottish song of wedded love which is judged next/ to "John Anderson, my Jo," that pearl of domestic lyrics. Jean Adam never had a husband ; much worse than that, she never had a home. She did, indeed, own four walls of her own in her palmiest days ; but the family ties which make home, be they embodied in parent, sister, niece, or dear friend (such a tie as glorified the lives of the famous umvedded Ladies of Llangollpn), nev-.r made these four walls into a home for impulsive hero-worshipping Jean Adam. ""Jean wa.s born in 1710. when good Queen Anne sat on the throne of England. She was the daughter of a seafearing man of Greenoek, who, dying early, left his daughttr to make her own way henceforth. Fortune was so kind to the poor young lass as to send her to the household of a Greenoek minister, where, though hard worked, she was kindly tieated and made not only one of tlw family, but a sharer in whatever culture the- well-filled shelves and homely company of the manse afforded. A cheerful sonsy lass it seems she was ; the education she had already doubtless received in the excellent parish schools of Scotland had prepared her for the feasting on Milton, Shakespeare, and other jlassics that came within the scope of her rare bits of leisure ; but Jean Adam could never have been a mere bookw oim ; the very sympathy that peeps out so unmistakably in her bright songs shows that her eyes and heart were receptive of the buoyant, cheerful life around her. It is a tradition that "There's nae Luck was composed on a Scottish Darby and Joan in Jean's district — a certain Colin Campbell, a sea captain, and bis wife Jean. But, much as Jean doubtless enjoyed watching these homely idylls of the busy coast life, it is plain that she considered them unworthy of the dignity of a piint-ed volume, and wasted herself in conscientious laboured imitations of the solid didactic poetry that prevailed so largely in the eaily part of the seventeenth century. Such titles as "On Grief,'' "On Cleopatra,*' "On Astrea," "On the Meihod of Grace" do not souiwl very inciting to modern readers of verse. Yet Jtan won her laurels e\vn before lea\ing tlip bii'-v sphere of the manse; was well fMppmed ap a poetess — the name well fits the conventional condescension t-hat whipped the ide-a, of tins kind of fame. The -tein simplicity of " writer' 1 would lien Ii 111 1 have appeal' d to poor Jean oi her potions. But life did not promise so nl f«ir the stiong, enthusiastic joung singpr — the \eiy reverse of the Claiiosa.s and L^dia Languishes of higher lank in her day. She counted he-iself happy, on quitting the kn.dlv family of the minister, to earn her lue.id <is a school teaJitr. Before this her poems had been passed fiom hand to hand, admiud, and finally published by subscription: the quaint old preface i« still extant, and the li^t of subscribers, which included most of the little "great folk of the distiid, whose names must have add*d no little consequence to the modest volume.

The gieat adventure of Jean's life was lw-r journey to London — a jouinev of «ix weeks, performed mostly on foot, like that of Jeainc Deans — to j-ee Samuel RicharcKon, whose "Clarissa Hiirlowe"' had given Jem as much pleasme as any of the English d.imes -who crowded to sit at the author's feet. Whether she actually performed this fe.it — a wild and daring one enough in tlio^e day* for a poor Scottish .schoolmi.stref>h — is not (fit.un; her sthnljr.s helifved did. Whether, if she did, the dapper little linen diaper fully .ijipreci ited this wonderful tubule. iKitu ith'-t uidmg his uveiwe<niiiii \anitv, i>> al-o not knnwu. But wlieiher s>h'- touk too long .i holid.iv for an object dt-enn d Quixotic, if nor bliniewini'iv by licr l'.tlvi[ii->t'c- j> ii ion-: whether ■-he oPmrtpd them by too nithu^i i<tic readiiiL rl - with lur eiils of t'm^o light and woildlv fant.i^ie. 1 - tbmwn off by the gra< c- ]. <-s plrivcr of Stratfoul. or v fx-ther the fi-lnon of &r l»o<il-l.e">pin{£ t-bb^d and chnnped ihen no li'-s than nr.w. Jea'i Adam's Ining f. 11 frff in middle .igp A fuither di^astiwis s])Fculation, in *-hi)>|>in_, r hei- <.xiri)lu* book-, cif poems to Anif-iifi. fiom which no iptuin^ cnnn 1 . .cwillnwrl up her s ( \mc«. and left her to f.fp the wrald nlo'ii', fiiendh'v<i, liennilr 1-*-.1 -*-. wh'-n her hair wis giey and her lngli hoprv wcie dashed fole^tr. Then btg in a >-')ii i>'v ful iourneyini; fmm hmi'-e to huu-i, wLtie\er a nui'-e, a ncdltw oman,

or a house-help was wanted. Her fingers had either lo^t iheir youthful cunning since the blithe days of the manse, or her temper had lost its even buoyancy in the withering disillusion that had followed. No house seems to have need:d poor Jean for long; no friend <>tood between her and the bitter end of her honest, pure-hearted life. An existence that had sunk by sad mischance to little higher than a beggar's found its re«t at last in the cold ward of the Glasgow poorhouse. "A poor woman in distress., a stranger who had been wandenng about" — that is the last recoid of Jean Adam living; a pauper' 3 death, a pauper's burial v.ms all Seothud had to give this lonely, high-spirited daughter of song. And yet we nviv well believe that poor loyal Jean turned her face to the cold wall of' the paush and waited death with a lighter heart than royal Eliz-ibeth. writhmj^on her velvet cushions, with a waiting people without who had ontHved their glamourerl worship of the variable "Gloi i.viii."

A folk =onir, instinct in every line with the true inwardness of us Minnie environment, is tins of Jean's:

And are ye sur? the news is true? And are ye sure lie's we-el ? Is tins the'time to think o' waTk? Ye jauds, fLig by your wheel. Is this a t.me to tlvnk o' wark? When Colm's at the dcor? Eax me my cloak, I'll to the quay, And see him come ashore. For there's nas luck about the hoose, There's nae luck at a' ; There's little pleasure in thclioose When our quid man's awa'. And gie to me my bigoret, liy bi=hop-sat:n gown ; For I maun tell the baillie's wife That Cohn's come to town. Rise up and mak' a clean fireside, Put on the niuckle pot ; Gie little Kate her Sunday gown, And Jock his button coat. Since Colm's weel I'm weel content, I hae nae mair to crave ; Coukl I but live to make him blest, I'm blest aboon the lave. And will I see his face again ? A_nd will I hear him speak? I'm dowimcht dizzy wi' the thocht, In truth, I'm like to gieet.