[A composite volume : containing The ballads and songs of Ayrshire ...

I
WHEN
—
!
I UPON THY BOSOM LEAN.
never look upon him now, as the honest auld Lapraik.' ' Is this
harsh Ed."
Most assuredly, we say, it is. That there has been gross plagiarism
somewhere, the Editor of the Thistle has shown—and he deserves
credit for the discovery ; but what is the evidence upon
which he so rashly convicts Lapraik What proof has he that the
guilt does not lie on the other side Bm-ns first heard the song in
question, at a " rockin" in 1785. Common report attributed it to
Lapraik, who was then, it ought to be remarked, in his fifty-eighth
year—old enough to have written songs forty years previously
Burns, who had frequent and familiar intercoui'se with Lapraik afterwards,
says— " He has often told me that he composed this song one
day when his tvife had been fretting o'er their misfortunes." In
the face of this direct testimony, and the popular belief that the
song was the composition of Lapraik, we would be slow to conceive
that he had plagiarised, or rather copied it only twelve years previously
from a magazine with which Burns was as likely to be
acquainted as himself. The probability seems as great—if not
greater—that some contributor to the Weekly Magazine had picked
up the verses—and, altering them, adopted them as his own. Until
stronger evidence of the plagiarism of Lapraik is produced, we
must still regard him as the author of " Wlien I upon thy bosom
lean."
John Lapraik, the senior of all the Ayrshire contemporaries of
Burns, was born in 1727, at Laigh Dalquhram (or, as now pronounced,
Dalfram), situated on the road to Sorn, about three miles west of
Muirkirk. Here his father lived before him, and the property had
been in possession of the family for several generations. He was the
eldest son, and, by the death of his father, succeeded at an early
period to the paternal inheritance. His education, though equal, if
not superior, to the common range of parochial instruction at that
period, was by no means classical ; and, as observed by himself, he
had little leisure to improve his mind by extensive reading. At what
period he first attempted verse it is impossible to guess ;
but it must
have been long prior to the attempts of his youthful friend—the inimitable
Bard of Coila.
Lapraik married in March 1754. He had then attained his twentyseventh
year. The object of his choice was Margaret Rankin, eldest