Cockburn, Alicia (1713–1794)

Scottish poet and author of the well-known Scottish ballad, "Flowers of the Forest." Name variations: Alison Cockburn. Born Alicia Rutherford or Rutherfurd on October 8, 1713; died in 1794; daughter of Robert Rutherfurd of Fairnalee, Selkirkshire; married in 1731.

There are two versions of the song "Flowers of the Forest," one by Alicia Cockburn, the other by Jean Elliot (1727–1805). Both versions were based on an ancient Border ballad. Cockburn's first line, "I've seen the smiling of Fortune beguiling," is said to have been written before her marriage in 1731. Though her song was not published until 1765, it was composed many years before Jean Elliot's companion verses, written in 1756, which begin, "I've heard them liltin' at our ewe-milkin'." Biographer Robert Chambers claims that Cockburn's ballad was written on the occasion of a great commercial disaster that ruined the fortunes of some Selkirkshire lairds. Later biographers, however, have thought it probable that it was written on the departure to London of a man named John Aikman, with whom Cockburn shared an early attachment.

In 1731, she was married to Patrick Cockburn of Ormiston, and following her marriage she associated with the intellectual and aristocratic celebrities of her day. In 1745, she expressed her predilection for Whiggism in a lampoon about Prince Charlie and narrowly escaped being arrested by the Highland guard as she was driving through Edinburgh in the family coach with the parody in her pocket. Cockburn was an indefatigable letter writer and a composer of parodies, squibs, toasts, and character sketches (then a favorite form of composition), but the "Flowers of the Forest" is considered her only work of great literary merit. At her house on Castlehill, and afterwards in Crichton Street, she received many illustrious friends, among whom were novelist Henry Mackenzie, historian William Robertson, philosopher David Hume, judge and pioneer anthropologist Lord James Monboddo, as well as the Keiths of Ravelston, the Balcarres, and Lady Anne Lindsay , author of "Auld Robin Gray." As a Rutherford, Cockburn was related to Sir Walter Scott's mother with whom she had an intimate friendship. In a letter written by Cockburn in 1777, she describes a barely six-yearold Walter Scott, during one of her visits, remarking that he liked Cockburn because she was a "virtuoso like himself." Alicia Cockburn died on November 22, 1794. Her Letters and Memorials, with notes by T. Craig Brown, was published in 1900.