In '09 Jim Dixon posted the text from "Whistle-Binkie" (1878).

That book was published earlier in Glasgow in 1853. It is a very substantial literary anthology of over 900 pages, with extensive biographies of many of the contributors. Unfortunately, Ritchie - the author of "The Bard of Armagh" indicated in the 1847 "National Songster," isn't one of them.

However, "Whistle-Binkie" credits it to a different Ritchie. Maddeningly, the book presents his (or her) name not in print but as a facsimile of his signature! The first name is hard to read, but it looks to me like "Alexander A."

/mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=11606&messages=86&page=1&desc=yes

A brief biography of this Ritchie appears in Charles Rogers' "The Modern Scottish Minstrel," Vol. IV, 1857. Born in Edinburgh in 1816 Alexander A. Ritchie became a successful painter, recognized by the Scottish Academy, of Romantic and local Edinburgh scenes.

He also penned a ballad-influenced song, "The Wells o' Wearie," to the tune of "The Bonnie House of Airlie."

Ritchie died in 1850 at the age of thirty-four.