This accursed machine is scrolling up and down uncontrollably at times, and that's another premature Submission.

I'll leave it here (agree with you about the potential developments that could be made of some related material, and a post-graduate thesis might well treat of the period with the emphasis you suggest), except to add that the images posted on 30th May by MartinNail, in particular the five verses with Scots orthography in the earliest printing, that from Stirling, have led to my thinking to learn the song properly (as distinct from being broadly familiar with it) and finding out what it sounds like when the words are given as Watt would himself have heard them, or as close as may be.

The air itself, of course, is another issue entirely, and Jim McLean's research is of course invaluable. If I ever dare give this one publicly, I doubt if the diction will have the kind of perfection displayed by Alma Gluck, way back when singers always had a frying-pan of rashers hissing in the background.

Hope this makes some sense (it's not easy to treat a subject seriously and in some depth without sounding all "academic") with regard to my own thoughts on the work.

ABCD.
Are the violets blooming still?