Carolina Nairne

Carolina Lady Nairne (1766-1845), from Life and Songs of the Baroness Nairne, 1905. Courtesy Internet Archive.

Lady Carolina Nairne (16 August 1766 - 26 October 1845) was a Scottish poet, songwriter, and song collector.

Life

Overview

Nairne was born at the House of Gask ("the auld house"). She married in 1806 her 2nd cousin, Major Nairne, who on reversal of attainder became 5th Lord Nairne. On his death, after residing in various places in England, Ireland, and on the Continent, she settled at the new house of Gask (the old one having been pulled down in 1801). Of her songs (87 in number) many appeared anonymously in The Scottish Minstrel (1821-1824); a collected edition with her name, under the title of Lays from Strathearn, was published after her death. Although the songs, some of which were founded on older compositions, had from the beginning an extraordinary popularity, the authoress maintained a strict anonymity during her life. For direct simplicity and poetic feeling Lady Nairne perhaps comes nearer than any other Scottish song-writer to Burns, and many of her lyrics are enshrined in the hearts of her fellow-countrymen. Among the best of them are "The Land of the Leal" (1798), "Caller Herrin'," "The Laird o' Cockpen," "The Auld House," "The Rowan Tree," "The Hundred Pipers," and "Will ye no come back Again?" The Jacobitism of some of these and many others was, of course, purely sentimental and poetical, like that of Scott. She was a truly religious and benevolent character, and the same modesty which concealed her authorship withdrew from public knowledge her many deeds of charity.

Youth and education

Nairne was born Carolina Oliphant at Gask, Perthshire, the daughter of Laurence Oliphant. The latter, like his father, whom he succeeded in 1767, was an ardent Jacobite, and married in 1755 his 1st-cousin Margaret, eldest daughter of Duncan Robertson of Strowan, Perthshire, chief of the clan Donnochy. Carolina was named after Prince Charles Stuart; in a list of births and deaths in her father's hand it is written, "Carolina, after the King, at Gask, Aug. 16th 1766" (Oliphant, Jacobite Lairds of Gask, p. 349).

She soon became "a sturdy tod" in her mother's esteem,;and a nonjuring clergyman, who was her tutor for a time, reported that she was a very promising student. Although somewhat delicate in her early years — "a paper miss" her nurse called her — she became a skilful rider, and sang and danced admirably. Her beauty gained for her the title of "pretty Miss Car," and subsequently of "the Flower of Strathearn."

Adult life

Carolina induced her brother Laurence to become a subscriber to Burns's poems, announced from Edinburgh in 1786. She followed with eager interest Burns's improvements on the old Scottish songs in Johnson's Musical Museum and Thomson's Songs of Scotland. The 1st important result of this new stimulus was in 1792, when she gave her brother in strict secrecy a new version of "The Pleuchman" (ploughman) to sing at a gathering of the Gask tenantry. It instantly became popular. She followed up her success by writing other humorous and Jacobite songs.

In 1797 she joined her brother, who was about this time serving in the Perthshire light dragoons, when he went with his company to quarters in the north of England. There is a legend that during this sojourn she had the distinction of declining a royal duke in marriage. On 27 July 1797 another brother, Charles, died, and the following year when her friend, Mrs. Campbell Colquhoun, the sister of Scott's "Willie Erskine," lost her 1st child, Carolina sent her a copy of "The Land o' the Leal."

On 2 June 1806 she was married at Gask to her cousin, Major William Murray Nairne, assistant inspector of barracks (son of Lieutenant-colonel John Nairne). Major Nairne's duties required his presence at Edinburgh, and he and his wife settled at Portobello and afterwards at Wester Duddingston, in a house named Carolina Cottage, presented to them by their relative, Robertson of Strowan. Here their only child, William Murray, was born in 1808.

Major Nairne was of a humorous, joyous temperament, but was restrained by the reticence of his wife, who was a victim of that "unseasonable modesty" impatiently noted by the historian of the family as a failing of the Oliphants (Jacobite Lairds of Gask, p. 225). They met Sir Walter Scott occasionally, but the acquaintance never became friendship.

Although her friends admired her artistic accomplishments (she could draw and paint), and her wide knowledge of Scottish songs attracted attention in private life, she concealed, even from her husband, her poetic achievements. From 1821 to 1824, as Mrs. Bogan of Bogan, she contributed lyrics to the Scottish Minstrel of R.A. Smith, but even the publisher was not made aware of her identity. Without committing herself she managed to write and copy Jacobite songs and tunes for her kinsman Robertson of Strowan, who died in 1822.

That year George IV visited Scotland, and, on the invitation of Sir Walter Scott, interested himself in the fallen Jacobite adherents. The result was the bill of 17 June 1824, which restored them to their birthright. Major Nairne thus became a peer (being the 5th Lord Nairne of Nairne, Perthshire), and his wife was thenceforth known as Baroness Nairne.

Lady Nairne's chief object in life was now the training of her only son. Up to his 15th year she mainly taught him herself. Then she selected tutors with the greatest care. On the death of Lord Nairne in 1829 she left Edinburgh with the boy, settling 1st with relatives at Clifton, near Bristol. It was probably at this time that she wrote her vigorous and touching "Farewell to Edinburgh." In July 1831 they went to Kingstown, Dublin, and thence to Enniskerry, co. Wicklow. Here, as at Edinburgh, her friends noticed her artistic tastes, and she drew a striking landscape, with common blacklead, on the damp back wall of her dwelling (Rogers, Memoir, p. 60).

The summer of 1834 young Lord Nairne and his mother spent in Scotland. The young man's delicate health, however, constrained them to move in the autumn, and, along with Mrs. Keith (Lady Nairne's sister) and their niece, Margaret H. Steuart of Dalguise, Perthshire, they went to the continent, visiting Paris, the chief Italian cities, Geneva, Interlachen, and Baden. They spent the winter of 1835–6 in Mannheim; but after an attack of influenza the young Lord Nairne died at Brussels on 7 December 1837.

From June 1838 to the summer of 1841, with a little party of relatives and friends, Lady Nairne again visited various continental resorts. In 1842-3 the party was at Paris, and in the latter year Lady Nairne returned to Gask as the guest of her nephew, James Blair Oliphant, and his wife. Her health was growing uncertain, but she corresponded with her friends, and evinced a deep interest in the great movement which was just culminating in the disruption of the church of Scotland. "Would you be young again?" was written in 1842, when the authoress was 76.

In the winter of 1843 she had a stroke of paralysis, from which she rallied sufficiently to be able to interest herself in various Christian benefactions, to watch the development of the free kirk, and to give practical aid to the social schemes of Dr. Chalmers. She died on 26 October 1845, and was buried within the chapel at Gask. Her portrait at Gask was painted by Sir John Watson Gordon.

Writing

Nairne had in her last years consented to the anonymous publication of her poems, and a collection was in preparation at her death. With the consent of her sister, Mrs. Keith, in 1846, they were published in a handsome folio as Lays from Strathearn, by Carolina, Baroness Nairne; arranged with Symphonies and Accompaniments by Finlay Dun. In 1869 the Life and Songs of the Baroness Nairne appeared, under the editorship of Dr. Charles Rogers, the life being largely written by T.L. Kington Oliphant of Gask. Dr. Rogers revised and amended this volume in a new edition published in 1886.

Nairne excels in the humorous ballad, the Jacobite song, and songs of sentiment and domestic pathos. She skilfully utilised the example of Burns in fitting beautiful old tunes with interesting words; her admirable command of lowland Scotch enabled her to write for the Scottish people, and her ease of generalisation gave breadth of significance to special themes. In her "Land o' the Leal," "Laird o' Cockpen," and "Caller Herrin'," she is hardly, if at all, second to Burns himself. "The Land o' the Leal," set to the old tune "Hey tutti taiti," also used by Burns for "Scots wha ha'e," was translated into Greek verse by the Rev. J. Riddell, fellow of Balliol College, Oxford.

Nairne ranks with James Hogg in her Jacobite songs, but in several she stands 1st and alone. Nothing in the language surpasses the exuberant buoyancy of her "Charlie is my darling," the swift triumphant movement of "The Hundred Pipers," and the wail of forlorn desolation in "Will ye no' come back again?" Excellent in structure, these songs are enriched by strong conviction and natural feeling. The same holds true of all Lady Nairne's domestic verses and occasional pieces, "The Auld House," "The Rowan Tree," "Cradle Song," the "Mitherless Lammie," "Kind Robin lo'es me" (a tribute to Lord Nairne), and "Gude Nicht and joy be wi' ye a'."

Critical introduction

by William Minto

Like another Scotch lady, the authoress of "Auld Robin Gray", Miss Oliphant was 1st moved to song-writing by the desire of rescuing fine old tunes from coarse themes. This is her own account of the beginning of her poetic impulse; she saw, she says, with admiration how Burns was fitting popular melodies with worthy words, and longed to help him in the good work. That this object should have mixed with her poetic impulses is characteristic of her training, but no songs written with or without a moral object were ever more spontaneous in their lyric flow, more free from artificiality.

2 great motives may be distinguished in her verse — sympathy with the life of the common people among whom she moved with old-fashioned familiarity as a radiant comforter and joy-bringer, and sympathy with the chivalrous spirit of Jacobitism, which was the air she breathed in her own family. Her songs contain all that is best and highest in the Jacobite poetry of Scotland,—the tender regret that never sinks into wailing, the high-tempered gaiety that bends but will not break, the fiery spirit that reaches forward to victory and never thinks of defeat.

It was a misfortune for the Pretender that such a poet-laureate of his cause did not appear till 40 years after that cause was hopelessly lost. Lady Nairn’s Jacobite songs — she did not receive her title till her husband’s attainder was removed in 1824 — were written for the consolation of an aged kinsman who had followed "Prince Charlie’s" fortunes in 1745. Her grandfather, Oliphant of Gask, had been "out" in 1715 as well as 1745, and of her father the Pretender wrote — "He is as worthy a subject as I have, and his family never deroged from their principals." The atmosphere of sincere and chivalrous Jacobitism in which she was nurtured accounts in no small measure for the intense air of reality in her songs.

Recognition

"Caller Herrin'" was written for the benefit of Nathaniel Gow, son of the famous Perthshire fiddler Neil Gow, whose melody for the song, with its echoes from the peal of church bells, has been a favorite with composers of variations. 2 well-known settings are those by Charles Czerny and Philip Knapton (1788–1833).

Her lyric "Land o' the Leal" was included in the Oxford Book of English Verse, 1250-1900.

Publications

Poems and songs

• Life and Songs of the Baroness Nairne: With a memoir and poems of Caroline Oliphant the younger (edited by Rev. Charles Rogers). London: C. Griffin, 1869.
• Lady Nairne and Her Songs Paisley, UK:
• Songs of Lady Nairne, etc. Edinburgh: Nimmo, Hay, & Mitchell, 1910; Boston: HH.M. Caldwell, 1910.
• The Songs of Lady Nairne. London & Edinburgh: T.N. Foulis, 1911.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtes WorldCat.

See also

Bonnie Charlie (Will Ye No' Come Back Again?) Harmodion Accordion, Syntheway Strings, Clavinet VST

• List of British poets
• List of English-language songwriters

References

•  Bayne, Thomas Wilson (1894) "Nairne, Carolina" in Lee, Sidney Dictionary of National Biography 40 London: Smith, Elder, pp. 23-25  . Wikisource, Web, Mar. 17, 2017.
• For Lady Nairne's songs, see Lays from Strathearn, arranged with Symphonies and Accompaniments for the Pianoforte by Finlay Dun (1846); vol. i. of the Modern Scottish Minstrel (1857); Life and Songs of the Baroness Nairne, with a Memoir and Poems of Caroline Oliphant the Younger (edited by Charles Rogers). 1869. See also TL Kington-Oliphant, Jacobite Lairds of Gash (1870).

External links

Lyrics

• "The Land o' the Leal".
• Carolina Nairne profile & 2 poems at My Poetic Side
• Nairne in The English Poets: An anthology: "Wha ’ll Be King but Charlie?," "The Land o’ the Leal"
• Nairne in A Book of Women's Verse: "The Land o’ the Leal," "The Auld House," "Caller Herrin'," "Heavenward"
• Carolina Nairne - Poetry, Women's History, About.com

About

• Carolina Nairne, Baroness Nairne in the Encyclopædia Britannica
• Famous Scots - Carolina Oliphand, Lady Nairne at Rampant Scotland
• The Life of Carolina Olipant (Lady Nairne) at Musicanet
• "Women in History of Scots Descent: Song writers" at Electric Scotland

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain, the Dictionary of National Biography (edited by Leslie Stephen & Sidney Lee). London: Smith, Elder, 1885-1900. Original article is at: Nairne, Carolina