BARNARD, Lady Anne,
(born Lindsay,) authoress of the beautiful and
touching ballad of ‘Auld Robin Gray,’ was the eldest
daughter of the fifth earl of Balcarres, by his
Countess Anne, daughter of Sir Robert Dalrymple of
Castleton, knight, an account of whom will be found
under the BALCARRES branch of the Lindsays. She was
born on the 8th of December, 1750. Her
youth was chiefly spent at her father’s seat in
Fife, varied by occasional visits to Edinburgh. At
her mother’s house in that city she became, in early
life, acquainted with all the men of character and
distinction of the day in the Scottish metropolis,
among whom were Hume the historian, Henry Mackenzie,
the author of ‘The Man of Feeling’ Lord Monboddo,
and other eminent literary men of that period. When
Dr. Johnson visited Edinburgh in 1773, she also had
an opportunity of becoming known to him. Later in
life she and her sister Lady Margaret, who had been
married while very young to a gentleman named
Fordyce, resided together in London, her sister
being then a window. Her nephew, Col. Lindsay of
Balcarres, mentions that her hand was sought in
marriage by several of the fist men of the land, as
her friendship and confidence were by the most
distinguished women, but her heart had never been
captured, and she remained single till 1793, when
she married Andrew Barnard, Esq., the son of the
bishop of Limerick, an accomplished but not wealthy
gentleman, younger than herself, whom she
accompanied to the Cape of Good Hope, when he went
out as colonial secretary under Lord Macartney. The
journals of her residence at the Cape, and
excursions into the interior country, illustrated
with drawings and sketches of the scenes described,
are preserved among the family MSS. in the library
of Lord Balcarres. A few extracts from them,
remarkable for a style at once lively and graphic,
are printed in the third volume of the ‘Lives of the
Lindsays.’ Nine years afterwards she returned to
Scotland, Her husband died at the Cape, in 1807,
without issue, and, after his death, Lady Anne, and
her sister Lady margaret, again resided together in
Berkeley Square, London, till the latter was
married, for the second time, in 1812, to Sir James
Burgess. Of Lady margaret, who was celebrated alike
for her personal charms and mental accomplishments,
an account has been given under the BALCARRES branch
of the Lindsays.
Among their familiar guests and friends in
London were Burke, Sheridan, Wyndham, Dundas, and
the Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV. The
attachment of the latter to Lady Anne Barnard
continued unabated during life. “I recollect,” says
her nephew, Colonel Lindsay, “George IV. sending for
her to come and see him when he was very ill. He
spoke most affectionately to her, and said, ‘Sister
Anne (the appellation he usually gave her). I wished
to see you, to tell you that I love you, and wish
you to accept this golden chain for my sake, – I may
never see you again.’” The Ballad of ‘Auld Robin
Gray’ was written by Lady Anne in 1771, when in her
twenty-first year, soon after her sister’s first
marriage, and consequent departure from the family
home. Notwithstanding the popularity to which it
immediately attained, being translated into almost
every European language, the real author of it long
remained unknown, and it was claimed by more than
one person, and in particular by a clergyman
residing on the coast. It was not till about two
years before her death that Lady Anne publicly
acknowledged the authorship of this simple and
celebrated ballad. In ‘the Pirate,’ which appeared
in 1823, the author of Waverley compared the
condition of Minna to that of Jeanie Gray, “the
village-heroine in Lady Anne Lindsay’s beautiful
ballad,” and quoted the second verse of the
continuation, or second part. This induced Lady Anne
to write to Sir Walter Scott, and confide its
history to him. From her characteristic letter,
dated July 8, 1823, the following are interesting
extracts: “Robin Gray, so called from its being the
name of the old herd at Balcarres, was born
soon after the close of the year 1771. My sister
Margaret had married, and accompanied her husband to
London, I was melancholy and endeavoured to amuse
myself by attempting a few poetical trifles. There
was an English Scotch melody of which I was
passionately fond, Sophy Johnstone, who lived before
your day, used to sing it to us at Balcarres. She
did not object to its having improper words, though
I did. I longed to sing old Sophy’s air to different
words and give to its plaintive tones some little
history of virtuous distress in humble life, such as
might suit it While attempting to effect this in my
closet, I called to my little sister, now Lady
Hardwicke, who was the only person near me, ‘I have
been writing a ballad, my dear; I am oppressing my
heroine with many misfortunes. I have already sent
her Jamie to sea, and broken her father’s arm, and
made her mother fall sick, and given her auld Robin
Gray for a lover; but I wish to load her with a
fifth sorrow within the four lines, poor thing! Help
me to one! – ‘Steal the cow, sister Anne,’ said the
little Elizabeth. The cow was immediately lifted
by me, and the song completed. At our fireside, and
amongst our neighbours, ‘Auld Robin Gray’ was always
called for. I was pleased in secret with the
approbation it met with; but such was my dread of
being suspected of writing anything, perceiving the
shyness it created in those who could write nothing,
that I carefully kept my own secret. – Meantime,
little as this matter seems to have been worthy a
dispute, it afterwards became a party question
between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries.
“Robin Gray’ was either a very ancient ballad,
composed, perhaps, by David Rizio, and a great
curiosity, or a very modern matter, and no curiosity
at all. I was persecuted to avow whether I had
written it or not, – where I had got it. Old Sophy
kept my counsel, and I kept my own, in spite of the
gratification of seeing a reward of twenty guineas
offered in the newspapers to the person who should
ascertain the point past a doubt, and the still more
flattering circumstance of a visit from Mr.
Jerningham, secretary to the Antiquarian Society,
who endeavoured to entrap the truth from me in a
manner I took amiss. Had he asked me the question
obligingly, I should have told him the fact
distinctly and confidently. The annoyance, however,
of this important ambassador from the antiquaries,
was amply repaid to me by the noble exhibition of
the ‘Ballat of auld Robin Gray’s Courtship,’ as
performed by dancing dogs under my window. It proved
its popularity from the highest to the lowest, and
gave me pleasure while I hugged myself in my
obscurity.” The following were the words with which
Lady Anne closed the interview with Mr. Jerningham,
after having a very fine tune put to it by a doctor
of music, (the Rev. William Leeves, rector of
Wrington, who died in 1828, ages 80); was sung by
youth and beauty for five years and more, had a
romance composed from it by a man of eminence, was
the subject of a play, of an opera, and of a
pantomime, was sung by the united armies in America,
acted by Punch, and afterwards danced by dogs in the
street – but never more honoured than by the present
investigation.” The old air is now only retained to
the first verse. It belonged to a song of no great
delicacy, called ‘The Bridegroom greits when the sun
gaes down.”
Sir Walter Scott printed in 1824, in a thin
quarto volume for the Bannatyne club, a revised
version of ‘Auld Robin Gray,’ and two continuations
by the authoress, sent to him by her ladyship at his
request for the purpose. The preface contains her
letter to him, explanatory of the origin of the
ballad. The second part was written many years after
the first, at the request of the countess, her
mother, who often said, “Annie! I with you would
tell me how that unlucky business of Jeanie and
Jamie ended.” It is far inferior to the first,
although it has touches that are both beautiful and
characteristic. In it auld Robin falls sick,
confesses that it was he who stole the cow, in order
to oblige Jeanie to marry him, then leaving all his
wealth to his widow, dies, and Jamie of course is at
last married to his Jeanie. Writing to her ladyship
subsequently, Sir Walter Scott says: “I have
sometimes wondered how many of our best songs have
been written by Scotchwomen of rank and condition.
The Hon. Mrs. Murray (Miss Baillie of Jerviswood
born), wrote the very pretty Scots song,
‘An ‘twere not my heart’s
light I wad die,’ –
Miss Elliot, of Minto, the verses to the ‘Flowers of
the Forest,’ which begin
‘I have heard a lilting,’ &
c.
Mrs. Cockburn composed other verses to the same
tune,
‘I have seen the smiling of
fortune beguiling,’ & c.
Lady Wardlaw wrote the glorious old ballad of ‘Hardyknute:’
– Place ‘Auld Robin[ at the head of this list, and I
question if we masculine wretches can claim five or
six songs equal in elegance and pathos out of the
long list of Scottish minstrelsy.”
Lady Anne Barnard died 6th May,
1825, in her 74th year. “Her face,” says
Mr. Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, “was pretty, and
replete with vivacity; her figure light and elegant;
her conversation lively; and, like the rest of her
family, peculiarly agreeable. Though she had wit,
she never said ill-natured things to show it; she
gave herself no airs either as a woman of rank, or
as the authoress of Auld Robin Gray.” “Her stores of
anecdote,” says her relative Lord Lindsay, “on all
subjects and of all persons, her rich fancy,
original thought, and ever-ready wit, rendered her
conversation delightful to the last, while the
kindness of her heart, – a very fountain of
tenderness and love, – always overflowing, and her
sincere but unostentatious piety, divested that wit
of the keenness that might have wounded – it
flashed, but it was summer lightning.” His lordship
has given ample extracts from her lively and
interesting sketches of the home-circle of her youth
in the second volume of his ‘Lives of the Lindsays,’
a work from whence have been derived most of the
materials for this notice.
