The Northumbrian Minstrel

The Northumbrian Minstrel is a songbook, giving the lyrics of local, now historical songs, printed and published at Alnwick in 1811 by William Davison. The majority of the songs are from the north of the county, and therefore the content differs from most of the other popular Northumbrian chapbooks.

Northumbrian Minstrel

Language	English, many in Geordie dialect
Genre	chapbook
Publisher	William Davison
Publication date	1811
Publication place	United Kingdom
Media type	Print
Pages	60 pages

Details

The full title of the book is The Northumbrian Minstrel: A Choice selection of Songs. The book contains almost 60 pages and 45 song and folksong lyrics, many in Geordie dialect. The songs, from north Northumberland and southern Scotland, would have been popular, or topical, at the date of publication. There is nothing in the way of biographies of the authors or histories of the events. No music is included, only lyrics.

The book includes both anonymous or traditional lyrics and works by named authors, including a significant number by Robert Burns.

The book is included in Oliver Heslop's Bibliographical List of Works Illustrative of the Dialect of Northumberland, published in 1896 by the English Dialect Society.

The publication

The front cover of the book was as thus :-

THE
Northumbrian
MINSTREL
A
CHOICE SELECTION
OF
SONGS

---

_____
ALNWICK
PRINTED BY W. DAVISON

---

1811

Contents

Are as below :-

page	title	songwriter	tune	comments	Notes	Ref
5	The Northumbrian Minstrel			page heading
5	Cottager's Daughter (The)	Mr Vint
6	Beggar Girl (The)	Mr Sheridan
7	Banks of Doon	R Burns
8	Wandering Mary	not given
9	Down-Hill of Life (The)	Mr Collins
11	Woodlands (The)
11	Caledonia	R Burns
12	Wounded Hussar (The)	Mr Campbell
14	Auld Langsyne
15	The Days O' Langsyne
16	Cot on the Hill (The)
17	Parting Moments
18	Dull Care
18	Exile of Erin (The)	Mr Campbell
20	Wandering Beggar (The)
21	Lad for the Lasses (The)
22	Black-Eyed Susan
24	Prisoners Welcome (The)
25	Land O' the Leal (The)	R Burns
26	Soldier's Return (The)
27	Thorn (The)
27	Love and Glory
28	From Thee, Eliza, I Must Go	Burns
28	Beautiful Maid (The)
29	Peck O' Maut (The)	R Burns
30	My Nanie, O	R Burns
31	Blue Bell of Scotland (The)
32	A Man's A Man For A. That	R Burns
33	Tak' Your Auld Cloak About Yer	Allan Ramsey
35	Farewell to Ayrshire	R Burns
36	Death of Mary (The)	Mr G Solomon
36	Tomb of Love (The)
37	Negro Boy
38	Banks of the Dee (The)
39	Plato's Advice
40	Go, Gentle Sigh
41	Rose Tree (The)
41	Galley Slave (The)
42	Way-Worn Traveller (The)
43	When Our Country calls to Arms	Mr I Cross
44	Mary, I Believ'd Thee True	Mr Moore
44	Mary's Dream at Sandy's Tomb
45	Lass of Low Degree (The)	Mr M G Lewis
46	John Anderson, My Joe	R Burns
48	Negro's Complaint (The)
48	End of number first
49	blank
52	list of books printed for and by W Davison, Alnwick	William Davison
56	rear outer

See also

• Geordie dialect words

External links

• Full text of The Northumbrian Minstrel from the HathiTrust
• Northumbrian Minstrelsy