Annotation:Hamilla
X:1 % T:Hamilla T:Bonniest Lass in all the World M:C L:1/8 R:Air S:John Rook music manuscript collection (Waverton, Cumbria, 1840, p. 207) Z:AK/Fiddler’s Companion K:G G>A|B2D2E2G2|cBAG E2 D>E|G2g2 degd|e4 d2 ef| gfed efgB|cBAG E2 DE|G2g2 (d>e)(c>d)|B3A G2|| (ef)|gfed efge|agfe f>gaf|gfga bgab|e4 d2 ga| bage degB|cBAG E2 DE|G2g2 decd|B3A G2||
HAMILLA. AKA - "Look where my Hamilla smiles." AKA and see "Bonniest Lass in a' the World (1) (The)." Scottish, Scots Measure and Air (whole time). D Major (Johnson): G Major (Rook). Standard tuning (fiddle). AB. The words to the song were written by poet Robert Crawfurd and printed by Allan Ramsay in the first volume of his Tea Table Miscellany (1724) with the following title:-- "To Miss A.H. (i.e. Miss Anne Hamilton, afterwards married to Professor M______, in the University of Edinburgh), on seeing her at a concert, to the tune of 'Bonniest Lass in a' the World'." She was a relative of Crawfurd's friend, William Hamilton of Bangour (an estate in Ayrshire), who was himself a poet and an Edinburgh wit. The music itself was printed in Music for the Scots Songs in the Tea Table Miscellany (1726), and both words and music appear in the second volume of Thomson's Orpheus Caledonius (1733). The first stanza goes:
Look where my dear Hamilla smiles,
Hamilla, heav'nly charmer!
See how with all their arts and wiles,
The loves and graces arm her!
A blush dwells glowing on her cheek,
Fair seat of youthful pleasure!
There love in smiling language speaks,
There spreads the rosy treasure.