The Highland Fair
The Highland Fair is probably from “The Highland Fair or Union of the Clans”
which was billed as a Scots opera containing fifty-one Scots tunes.
The ballad opera was produced in London in 1731 and was the work of Joseph Mitchell.
Mitchell was born in Scotland in 1684, the son of a stone mason.
He went to London to seek his fortune
and was introduced to John Dalrymple, 2nd Earl of Stair,
and to Sir Robert Walpole, later 1st Earl of Oxford,
upon whom he was dependent for the greater part of his life.
In addition to “The Highland Fair”, Mitchell wrote “Fatal Extravagance”, a tragedy in 1720,
“Poems on Several Occasions”, published in two volumes in 1729,
and various of his poems were included in William Thomson’s
Orpheus Caledonius
and in James Johnson’s
The Scots Musical Museum
.
Mitchell died on 6 February, 1738.
From “Scotland Dances”, by Eugenia (Jeannie) Callander Sharp
(Used by permission.)