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.