John French (1753-1803), fiddler-composer of Ayr, compiled a Collection of "New Strathspeys, Reels &c." dedicated to Mrs Boswell of Auchinleck. It was published posthumously by Gow & Shepherd in 1801, "for behoof of Mr French's widow and children", which suggests they may have been left in needy circumstances. Much of the music seems to have been composed by French himself. -- From theHighland Music Trust page at: http://www.heallan.com/french.asp Occasional rhythm problems have been fixed, mostly by moving pickup notes to the start of the phrase. Most tunes have been transcribed with 4-bar staff lines, which is often but not always the same as in the MS. A few obvious typos have been corrected.