Edouard Bruguière, whose death date is also given as 1868 and 1871 (the Bibliothèque national uses "1863"), was a relatively popular composer of romances, this being one of his best-known—a setting of a text by Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, the outstanding female French poet of her time. The present score is a faithful transcription of the first edition, which has guitar accompaniment by Meissonier (Paris: Ph. Petit, 1822), except that the song is transposed a whole tone down and the accompaniment is spread over two staves for performance on the piano. RISM lists no concordances for the "Air Ecossais," which may or may not be an autograph.