title or the first line of the old song. He might do this, yet
completely change the idea; or he might retain the idea but use none
of the old words. In other cases the first stanza or the chorus is
retained; in still others the new song is sprinkled with here a phrase
and there an epithet recalling the derelict that gave rise to it. Some
are made up of stanzas from several different predecessors, others are
almost centos of stock phrases.

The contribution thus made to Johnson's collection, of songs rescued
or remade or wholly original, amounted to some one hundred
eighty-four; to Thomson's about sixty-four. Some examples will make
clear the nature of his services.

_Auld Lang Syne_, perhaps the most wide-spread of all songs among the
English-speaking peoples, is in its oldest extant form attributed on
uncertain grounds to Francis Sempill of Beltrees or Sir Robert
Aytoun.[2] That still older forms had existed appears from its title
in the broadside in which it is preserved:

"An excellent and proper new ballad, entitled Old Long Syne. Newly
corrected and amended, with a large and new edition [sic] of
several excellent love lines."

[2] The melody to which the song is now sung is not that to which
Burns wrote it, but was an old strathspey tune. It is possible,
however, that he agreed to its adoption by Thomson.

It opens thus:

Should old acquaintance be forgot