MacPherson's Rant

DESCRIPTION: "I've spent my time in rioting, Debauch'd my health and strength... But now, alas! at length, I'm brought to punishment direct." MacPherson laments that he is to be hanged, blames the Laird of Grant and Peter Brown, and tells people to live well
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1829 (Chambers)
KEYWORDS: punishment execution betrayal outlaw
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
Nov 16, 1700 - Execution of James MacPherson
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland)
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Ord-BothySongsAndBallads, pp. 444-445, "M'Pherson's Farewell" (1 text)
Ford-SongHistories, pp. 219-226, "MacPherson's Farewell" (4 texts, one being the Burns "MacPherson's Lament" and three being ancestral or related pieces, probably forms of "MacPherson's Rant")
Olson-BroadsideBalladIndex, ZN1339, "I spent my time in rioting, debauch'd my health and stength" (?)
ADDITIONAL: Robert Chambers, The Scottish Songs (Edinburgh, 1829), Vol I, pp. 85-87, "MacPherson's Rant"
Roud #2160
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "MacPherson's Lament" (subject)
NOTES [215 words]: Often treated (e.g. by Roud) as a variant of the now-better-known "MacPherson's Lament," the two have so little in common that it seems certain that the two are separate, though they use the same tune. There is, at the very least, a great deal of editing (by Burns?) separating the two.
Maurice Lindsay, The Burns Encyclopedia, 1959, 1970; third edition, revised and enlarged, St. Martin's Press, 1980, p. 267, James MacPherson was "A freebooter and the illegitimate son of a member of the Invereshie MacPhersons by a gipsy mother. He had great strength and was also an excellent violinist. The counties of Aberdeen, Banff, and Moray went in fear of him and his gipsy followers, until he was seized by Duff of Braco and tried before the sheriff at Banff." He was convicted and sentenced to death.
Lindsay, p. 268, thinks that that this song is actually MacPherson's own and that the song we've indexed as "MacPherson's Lament" is Burns's rewrite. I am not convinced that this is actually MacPherson's own, but I agree that it is unlikely to be traditional by origin; it reads like a moralizing broadside, and it's much poorer poetry. It can be told from "MacPherson's Lament" by the first line in the description. For a little more about the MacPherson legend, see "MacPhersons' Lament." - RBW
Last updated in version 6.7
File: Ord444

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