Annotation:Bonniest Lass in a' the World (1) (The)
X:1 T:Bonniest Lass in a’ the Warld [1] M:C L:1/8 R:Air B:William Thomson - Orpheus Caledonius, vol. II (1733, No. 24, p. 98) B: https://digital.nls.uk/special-collections-of-printed-music/archive/91481666 N:Thomson (c. 1695-1753) was a Scottish singer and folk song collector N:who lived in London for most of his adult career. Z:AK/Fiddler’s Companion K:F FG|A2 C2 D2F2|TG3F D2 CE|F2f2 cdf c| d4 c2fg| agf d c>df A|BAG F D2 CD|F2 f2 cd Bc|A4 {G}F2|| de|fe dc d>ef d|gfe d e>fg e|cd fg afg a|Td4 c2fg| ag fd c>df A|BA GF D2 CD|F2 f2 cd Bc|TA4 {G}F2||
BONNIEST LASS IN A' THE WORLD [1], THE. AKA and see "Hamilla." Scottish, Scots Measure and Air (cut time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (Thomson): AA'BB'. The song appears in numerous 18th century publications, though it may be older. Scottish poet Allan Ramsay used the melody as the indicated tune for his song "To Mrs. A.H. on seeing her at a consort"[1] printed in his Tea Table Miscellany (1724). An instrumental version was printed in Alexander Stuart's Musick for Allan Ramsey's Collection of Scots Songs (Edinburgh, 1724). The melody also appears in Joseph Mitchell's 1731 ballad opera The Highland Fair; or, Union of the Clans, John Watts' Musical Miscellany, vol. 6 (London, 1731), William Thompson's Orpheus Caledoneus (London, 1733), and James Oswald's Caledonian Pocket Companion (London, 1760), among other publications. "Bonniest Lass in all the World" also can be found on various song sheets and in fiddlers' manuscript collections on both sides of the Atlantic. In America, it was published in Riley's Flute Melodies, vol. 2 (New York, 1817).
The melody was employed as the air to the song "Hamilla" in James Johnson's Scots Musical Museum vol. 2 (1788).
