Note 47 — Vol. I.—7.

The text of the corrected copy is followed.

[48] “I must also mention” (says lady Anne, in the letter already quoted) “the laird of Dalziel’s advice, who, in a tête-à-tête, afterwards said, ‘My dear, the next time you sing that song, try to change the words a wee bit, and instead of singing, ‘To make the crown a pound, my Jamie gaed to sea,’ say, to make it twenty merks, for a Scottish pund is but twenty pence, and Jamie was na such a gowk as to leave Jenny and gang to sea to lessen his gear. It is that line [whisper’d he] that tells me that sang was written by some bonnie lassie that didna ken the value of the Scots money quite so well as an auld writer in the town of Edinburgh would have kent it.’”