Happy Friendship

DESCRIPTION: The singer and friends are together for a drink. "Freenship maks us aa mair happy... Freenship consecrates the drappie." Friendship is more satisfying than riches.
AUTHOR: unknown, but see notes re authorship by Robert Burns
EARLIEST DATE: 1840 (Cunningham)
KEYWORDS: money drink nonballad
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Bord))
REFERENCES (4 citations):
McMorland/Scott-HerdLaddieOTheGlen, pp. 144-145, 156, "In Freenship's Name" (1 text, 1 tune)
Whitelaw-BookOfScottishSong, p. 477, "Happy Friendship" (1 text)
ADDITIONAL: Allan Cunningham, The Works of Robert Burns (London: C Daly, 1840 ("Digitized by the Internet Archive")), pp. 392-393, "Happy Friendship" (1 text)
Nathan Haskell Dole, editor, The Songs of Robert Burns (New York: Thomas Y Crowell and Co, 1900 ("Digitized by Google")), pp. 363-364, "Happy Friendship" (1 text)
Roud #21761
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Here Around the Ingle Bleezing
NOTES [312 words]: Allan Cunningham (1784-1842) attributed this song to Robert Burns in his 1840 edition; the song is not in Cunningham's 1834 edition -- as he explains in 1840 -- nor in Dick's authoritative The Songs of Robert Burns (London, 1903 ("Digitized by Microsoft")). [Nor is it in either of my complete Burns collections, one of which, by James Kinsley, is also considered quite authoritative. - RBW] In fact, while it appears again in Cunningham's posthumous editions it is not in the 1842 edition, in which he writes "I cannot give to my country this embellished edition of one of its favorite poets without stating that I have deliberately omitted several pieces of verse ascribed to Burns by other editors, who too hastily, and I think on insufficient testimony, admitted them among his works." He names some of those errors by other editors but does not explain why he omitted "Happy Friendship." (Allan Cunningham, The Complete Works of Robert Burns(London: George Virtue, 1842 ("Digitized by Internet Archive")), Preface).
In 1843 Whitelaw commented about "Happy Friendship": "This song is attributed to Burns, but without much certainty." Dole includes the song in a section of "Poems Rejected by Latest Editors of Burns": "The following poems have been printed in nearly all the earlier editions of Burns, and many of them are reprinted in late editions, as being undoubtedly the poet's productions. Other editors have been more critical and have rejected them as being either spurious, or not verified" (p. 361). Cunningham's own 1840 story of the song, "now for the first time communicated to the public," is that he had a copy of the original manuscript from a Captain Hendries, nephew of a friend of Burns upon whose request Burns wrote the poem for a party. Cunningham writes that he first saw the text while his 1840 edition was already in the printer's hands. - BS
Last updated in version 3.2
File: McSc144

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