Note 80 — ROBERT TANNAHILL.
Reading edition
The poet and one of his particular friends, Charles Marshall (whose son, the Rev. Charles Marshall, of Dunfermline, is author of a respectable volume, entitled "Lays and Lectures"), had met one evening in a tavern, kept by Tom Buchanan, near the cross of Paisley. The evening was enlivened by song-singing; and the landlord, who was present, sung the old song, beginning, "There grows a bonny brier-bush," which he did with effect. On their way home together, Marshall remarked that the words of the landlord's song were vastly inferior to the tune, and humorously suggested the following burlesque parody of the first stanza:—
"There 's mony a dainty cabbage-stock in our kail-yard, There 's mony a dainty cabbage-stock in our kail-yard, They were set by Charlie Marshall, And pu'd by Nannie Laird, Yet there 's mony a dainty cabbage-stock in our kail-yard."
He added that Tannahill would do well to compose suitable words for the music. The hint sufficed; the friends met after a fortnight's interval, when the poet produced and read the song of "Yon burn side." It immediately became popular. Marshall used to relate this anecdote with much feeling. He died in March 1851, at the age of fourscore.