The song is by Richard Gall and is in 'Scots Musical Museum', #531, (1803) and Graham's 'Songs of Scotland', II, p. 138, but it is not "My Jo and only dearie". It is to the tune of "My Jo and only dearie".

The tune, untitled in 'The Scots Musical Museum', is called "My only Jo and dearie" in the 3rd book of Gow's 'Complete Repository', 1806, and there said 'supposed Irish'. Wm. Stenhouse in 'Illustrations to SMM' gave a verse remembered by Mr. Thomas Oliver to the tune from the pantomime of 'Harlequin Highlander', which goes as follows:

My love's the sweetest creature That ever trod the dewy green; Her cheeks they are like roses, Wi' the op'ning gowan wet between.

Oliver could remember no more and requested Gall to write a song to the tune.

This fragment is undoubtably connected to the same tune in 'Riley's Flute Melodies', I, #277 (1816), where it's called "My Love's the Kindest Creature'.

"My love's the fairest creature" is a song by Sidney Owenson, 1805, to a different Irish tune not found earlier, but later found as "Little Sheila O'Connollan".