Annotation:Lady Dunbar of Boath's Strathspey

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X:1 T:Lady Dunbar of Boath's Strathspey M:C L:1/16 R:Strathspey N:”This tune may be played slow.” B:Donald Grant – Collection of Strathspeys, Reels, Jigs &c. (c. 1790, p. 6) N:Reprinted 1820-21 N:The collection was dedicated to Mrs. Col. Grant of Grant (“Sir James and N:Lady Grant of Grant”). S: https://digital.nls.uk/special-collections-of-printed-music/archive/105813892 Z:AK/Fiddler’s Companion K:Eb ec|B3E (cB).A.G {G}F4 F3G|B3EG3B C3EB,3E|C3EB,3E G3FF3G|BB3c3B {B}e4e2:| g2|e3g efge Tf3ecf3|e3gf3g c3eB3c|(cB).A.G e3G TF3EF3G|BB3c3B {B}e4 e2g2| e3g efge Tf3ecf3|e3g f3g c3eB3c|(cB).A.G e3G TF3EFG3|BB3c3B {B}e4e2||

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LADY DUNBAR OF BOATH'S STRATHSPEY. Scottish, Strathspey (whole time). E Flat Major (Grant): F Major (Taylor). Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB. "Lady Dunbar of Boath's Strathspey" was composed by biography:Sir Archibald Dunbar of Northfield, Elgin, according to the attribution in James Taylor's c. 1835 volume (Donald Grant gave no tune attribution). Discerning who 'Lady Dunbar' was is a conundrum depending on the dating of Donald Grant's Collection of Strathspeys Reels, Jigs &c., which has been suggested was first published c. 1790, though republished in 1821/22. One Lady Dunbar of Boath was born Jane (or Jean) Burnett of Kemney (1744-1783). She became Lady Dunbar of Boath on marrying Alexander Dunbar (1741-1783), Baron of Boath, at Auldearn. Jane was reputed to be a great beauty in her day.

However, if the 1820's date for Grant's collection is the correct one, then the composer attribution to Sir Archibald Dunbar of Northfield would indicate that "Lady Dunbar" was Archibald's niece, Helen Coull, daughter of James Coull of Ashgrove in Elginshire, who married knighted naval Captain James Dunbar (1770-1836) in 1814, the same year he was created 1st Baronet of Dunbar. Helen spent much of her life at Boath House, she lived in Forres, Moray. Helen had a keen mind and an interest in literature and learning. She impressed geologist and writer Hugh Miller (1802-1856), whose reminiscence is worth quoting:

She possessed, however, a singular buoyancy of spirits, which years and frequent illness had failed to depress; and her interest and enjoyment in nature and in books remained as high as when, long before, her friend Mrs Grant had addressed her as

Helen, by every sympathy allied,
By love of virtue and by love of song,
Compassionate in youth and beauty's pride.

Her mind was imbued with literature, and stored with literary anecdote: she conversed with elegance, giving interest to whatever she touched; and, though she seemed never to have thought of authorship in her own behalf, she wrote pleasingly and with great facility, in both prose and verse. Her verses, usually of a humorous cast, ran trippingly off the tongue, as if the words had dropped by some happy accident—for the arrangement bore no mark of effort—into exactly the places where they at once best brought out the writer's meaning, and addressed themselves most pleasingly to the ear. The opening stanzas of a light jeu d'esprit on a young naval officer engaged in a lady-killing expedition in Cromarty, dwell in my memory; and—first premising, by way of explanation, that Miss Dunbar's brother, the late Baronet of Boath, was a captain in the navy, and that the ladykiller was his first lieutenant—I shall take the liberty of giving all I remember of the piece, as a specimen of her easy style:—

In Cromarty Bay,
As the 'Diver' snug lay,
The Lieutenant would venture ashore;
And, a figure to cut,
From the head to the foot
He was fashion and finery all o'er.

A hat richly laced,
To the left side was placed,
Which made him look martial and bold;
His coat of true blue
Was spick and span new,
And the buttons were burnished with gold.

His neckcloth well puffed,
Which six handkerchiefs stuffed,v And in colour with snow might have vied,v Was put on with great care,
As a bait for the fair,
And the ends in a love-knot were tied. &c. &c.

I greatly enjoyed my visits to this genial-hearted and accomplished lady. No chilling condescensions on her part measured out to me my distance: Miss Dunbar took at once the common ground of literary tastes and pursuits; and if I did not feel my inferiority there, she took care that I should feel it nowhere else. There was but one point on which we differed. While hospitably extending to me every facility for visiting the objects of scientific interest in her neighbourhood—such as those sandwastes of Culbin in which an ancient barony finds burial, and the geologic sections presented by the banks of the Findhorn—she was yet desirous to fix me down to literature as my proper walk; and I, on the other hand, was equally desirous of escaping into science.

Boath House, Auldearn, was built for James in 1727 by Aberdeen architect Archibald Simpson, replacing the 'great stane-house' that had been in the Dunbar family since the mid-16th century. Today Boath House is a hotel.

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