Annotation:I Saw My Love Come Passing By Me

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Tune properties and standard notation


I SAW MY LOVE COME PASS(ING) ME BY. AKA - "Duchess of Northumberland's Delight." English, Reel. England, Northumberland. G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB (Stokoe): AABBBCC (Raven): AABBCCDDEEFF (Peacock). "This tune has at some remote period been used for a song, of which now only a fragment in known—

I saw my love come passing by me,
But shame to the hade, she ne'er cam' nigh me.

In some very old copies it is marked as the 'Duchess of Northumberland's Delight'--in allusion, probably, to Elizabeth, the first Duchess, who (with her husband) by her patronage and support greatly encouraged the use of the pipes in the country" (Bruce & Stokoe).

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Peacock (Peacock’s Tunes), c. 1805; No. 23, p. 8. Raven (English Country Dance Tunes), 1984; p. 183. Bruce & Stokoe (Northumbrian Minstrelsy), 1882; p. 147.

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Tune properties and standard notation