There Is No Luck

DESCRIPTION: "There's nae luck about the house... When our goodman's awa'" The mariner is due home and his wife is getting the house and children and herself ready. "I'm downright dizzy with the joy In troth I'm liker to greet!"
AUTHOR: see NOTES
EARLIEST DATE: 1776 (Herd)
KEYWORDS: love return reunion separation nonballad children wife husband sailor
FOUND IN: Ireland
REFERENCES (6 citations):
OCroinin/Cronin-TheSongsOfElizabethCronin 182, "There Is No Luck" (2 texts)
Kane-SongsAndSayingsOfAnUlsterChildhood, p. 32, "There's nae luck aboot the hoose" (1 text)
Tobitt-TheDittyBag, pp. 138-140, "There's Nae Luck About the House" (1 text, 1 tune, heavily arranged)
Tobitt-YoursForASong, pp. 28-30, "There's Nae Luck About the House" (1 text, 1 tune, heavily arranged)
Ford-SongHistories, pp. 65-76, "There's Nae Luck About the House" (1 text
ADDITIONAL: David Herd, editor, Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs, Heroic Ballads, etc. (facsimile of (Edinburgh,1776) with an "Appendix... containing the pieces substituted in the 1791 reprint for those omitted of the 1776 edition, &c.") ("Digitized by Google")), Vol II, pp. 152-154, "The Mariners Wife" (1 text)
Roud #3717
SAME TUNE:
Durham Gaol (File: SCWKC247)
NOTES [345 words]: OCroinin/Cronin-TheSongsOfElizabethCronin credits this to William Julius Mickle (1735-1788), who according to Ford-SongHistories, p. 65 was best known for his translation of Camoen's "The Luciad." Mickle apparently once gave a copy of this poem, in his own hand, to his wife, saying he had written it. A copy in his hand was indeed found among his papers (Ford-SongHistories, p. 66).
But, of course, there is always the problem that, when someone claims to have "written" a piece, that may not mean "created" but "wrote out," i.e. "copied down."
Cromeck initially credited it instead to a Mrs. Jean Adam.
Ford-SongHistories, prefers Adam, noting that the only evidence that Mickle wrote it is his wife's ambiguous statement, the counter-argument being that Mickle never wrote anything else in this style or dialect.
That seems a strong argument against Mickle. Whether it is a strong argument for Adam is altogether another question.
Kunitz/Haycraft, p. 352, declare, "Although there is some doubt about it, Mickle probably wrote a tender ballad called The Mariner's Wife, more popularly known by its first line, 'There's nae luck about the house.' If he wrote it, it is his masterpiece. It was in the simpler forms of balladry that he excelled. Scott said of hi that he would have been a better writer 'had he known his own strength, and trusted in the implulses of his heart, instead of his ambition."
NewCentury, p. 765, says, "He translated the Lusiad (1775) and is the reputed author of the song There's nae luck about the hoose. Among his other works are a Spencerian poem, The Concubine (or Syr Martin, 1765),and Cumnor Hall (1784), which Sir Walter Scott used as a basis in writing Kenilworth.
Furthermore, Mickle was trying to make a living as a writer. He was not very successful. If he had had a hit in the 1770s, wouldn't he have claimed it in order to promote his other works? Yet he didn't.
Most of my other literary references don't even mention Mickle. Based on the available evidence, I think we have to list this as "author unknown." - RBW
Bibliography

Kunitz/Haycraft: Stanley J. Kunitz and Howard Haycraft, Editors, British Authors Before 1800: A Biographical Dictionary, H. W. Wilson, 1952 (I use the fourth printing of 1965)
NewCentury: Clarence L. Barnhart with William D. Haley, editors, The New Century Handbook of English Literature, revised edition, Meredith Publishing, 1967

Last updated in version 6.7
File: OCC182

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