sit, &c. you cannot mend; but such insipid stuff as To Fanny fuir, could I impart, &c. usually set to The Mill Mill O, is a disgrace to the collections in which it has already appeared, and would doubly disgrace a collection that will have the superior merit of yours. But more of this in the farther prosecution of the business, if I am called on for my strictures and amendments-I say, amendments; for I will not alter except where I myself, at least, think that I amend. As to any remuneration, you may think my songs either above or below price; for they shall absolutely be the one or the other. In the honest enthusiasm with which I embark in your undertaking, to talk of money, wages, fee, hire, &c. would be downright prostitution of soul! A proof of each of the songs that I compose or amend, I shall receive as a favour. In the rustic phrase of the season, "Guid speed the wark!" I am, Sir, your very humble servant, P. S. I have some particular reasons for wishing my interference to be known as little as possible. tongue, as you elegantly express it, and, moreover, we will patiently wait your own time. One thing only I beg, which is, that however gay and sportive the muse may be, she may always be decent. Let her not write what beauty would blush to speak, nor wound that charming delicacy, which forms the most precious dowry of our daughters. I do not conceive the song to be the most proper vehicle for witty and brilliant conceits: simplicity, I believe, should be its prominent feature; but in some of our songs, the writers have confounded simplicity with coarseness and vulgarity; although, between the one and the other, as Dr Beattie well observes, there is as great a difference as between a plain suit of clothes and a bundle of rags. The humorous ballad, or pathetic complaint, is best suited to our artless melodies; and more interesting indeed in all songs than the most pointed wit, dazzling descriptions, and flowery fancies. With these trite observations, I send you eleven of the songs, for which it is my wish to substitute others of your writing. I shall soon transmit the rest, and at the same time, a prospectus of the whole collection: and you may believe we will receive any hints that you are so kind as to give for improving the work, with the greatest pleasure and thankfulness. I remain, dear Sir, No. III. MR THOMSON TO MR BURNS. MY DEAR SIR, No. IV. DEAR SIR, Edinburgh, 13th October, 1792. MR BURNS TO MR THOMSON. I RECEIVED, with much satisfaction, your pleasant and obliging letter, and I return my warmest acknowledgments for the enthusiasm with which you have entered into our undertaking. We have now no doubt of being able to produce a collection highly deserving of public attention, in all respects. I agree with you in thinking English verses, that have merit, very eligible, wherever new verses are necessary; because the English becomes every year, more and more, the language of Scotland; but if you mean that no English verses, except those by Scottish authors, ought to be admitted, I am half inclined to differ from you. I should consider it unpardonable to sacrifice one good song in the Scottish dialect, to make room for English verses; but if we can select a few excellent ones suited to the unprovided or ill-provided airs, would it not be the very bigotry of literary patriotism to reject such, merely because the authors were born south of the Tweed? Our sweet air My Nannie O, which in the collections is! joined to the poorest stuff that Allan Ramsay ever wrote, beginning, While some for pleasure pawn their health, answers so finely to Dr Percy's beautiful song, O Nancy wilt thou go with me, that one would think he wrote it on purpose for the air. However, it is not at all our wish to confine you to English verses: you shall freely be allowed a sprinkling of your native LET me tell you, that you are too fastidious in your ideas of songs and ballads. I own that your criticisms are just; the songs you specify in your list have all but one the faults you remark in them; but who shall mend the matter? Who shall rise up and say-Go to, I will make a better? For instance, on reading over The Lea-rig, I immediately set about trying my hand on it, and, after all, I coul make nothing more of it than the following which, Heaven knows, is poor enough. When o'er the hill the eastern star, Tells bughtin-time is near, my jo; Return sae dowf and weary O; In mirkest glen at midnight hour, In the copy transmitted to Mr Thomson, instead of I'd meet thee on the lea-rig, My ain kind dearie O. Your observation as to the aptitude of Dr Percy's ballad to the air Nannie O, is just. It is, besides, perhaps the most beautiful ballad in the English language. But let me remark to you, that in the sentiment and style of our Scottish airs, there is a pastoral simplicity, a something that one may call the Doric style and dialect of vocal music, to which a dash of our native tongue and manners is particularly, nay, peculiarly, apposite. For this reason, and, upon my honour, for this reason alone, I am of opinion (but as I told you before, my opinion is yours, freely yours, to approve or reject, as you please) that my ballad of Nannie Ŏ might perhaps do for one set of verses to the tune. Now don't let it enter into your head, that you are under any necessity of taking my verses. I have long ago made up my mind as my own reputation in the business of authorship; and have nothing to be pleased or offended at, in your adoption or rejection of my verses. Though you should reject one half of what I give you, I shall be pleased with your adopting the other half, and shall continue to serve you with the same assiduity. In the printed copy of my Nannie O, the name of the river is horridly prosaic. I will alter it, "Behind yon hills where Lugur flows." Girvan is the name of the river that suits the idea of the stanza best, but Lugar is the most agreeable modulation of syllables. I will soon give you a great many more remarks on this business; but I have just now an opportunity of conveying you this scrawl, free of postage, an expense that it is ill able to pay; so, with my best compliments to honest Allan, Good be wi' ye, &c. Friday Night. Saturday Morning. As I find I have still an hour to spare this morning before my conveyance goes away, I will give you Nannie O at length. (See p. 138.) Your remarks on Ewe bughts, Marion, are just; still it has obtained a place among our more classical Scottish songs; and what with wild, was inserted wet. But in one of the manuscripts, probably written afterwards, wet was changed into wild, evidently no great improvement. The lovers might meet on the lea-rig," although the night were ne'er so wild," that is, although the summer-wind blew, the sky loured, and the thunder murmured; such circumstances might render their meeting still more interesting. But if the night were actually wet, why should they meet on the lea-rig? On a wet night, the imagination cannot contemplate their situation there with any compla cency-Tibullus, and after him Hammond, has conceived a happier situation for lovers on a wet night. Probably Burns had in his mind the verse of an old many beauties in its composition, and more prejudices in its favour, you will not find it easy to supplant it. In my very early years, when I was thinking of going to the West Indies, I took the following farewell of a dear girl. It is quite trifling, and has nothing of the merit of Ewe bughts; but it will fill up this page. You must know, that all my earlier love-songs were the breathing of ardent passion, and though it might have been easy in after-times to have given them a polish, yet that polish, to me, whose they were and who perhaps alone cared for them, would have defaced the legend of my heart, which was so faithfully inscribed on them. Their uncouth simplicity was, as they say of wines, their race. Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary, And leave auld Scotia's shore? Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary, Across th' Alantic's roar? O sweet grows the lime and the orange, I bae sworn by the Heavens to my Mary, O plight me your faith, my Mary, And plight me your lily white hand: O plight me your faith, my Mary, Before I leave Scotia's strand. We hae plighted our troth, my Mary, Galla Water and Auld Rob Morris, I think, will most probably be the next subject of my musings. However, even on my verses, speak out your criticisms with equal frankness. My wish is, not to stand aloof, the uncomplying bigot of opiniâtreté, but cordially to join issue with you in the furtherance of the work. Scottish song, in which wet and weary are naturally enough conjoined. "When my ploughman comes hame at e'en Cast off the wet, put on the dry, And gae to bed my deary." This song Mr Thomson has not adopted in his collection. It deserves, however, to be preserved. No. V. MR BURNS to MR THOMSON. November 8th, 1792. Ir you mean, my dear sir, that all the songs in your collection shall be poetry of the first merit, I am afraid you will find more difficulty in the undertaking than you are aware of. There is a peculiar rhythmus in many of our airs and a necessity of adapting syllables to the emphasis, or what I would call the feature notes, of the tune, that cramp the poet, and lay him under almost insuperable difficulties. For instance, in the air, My wife's a wanton wee thing, if a few lines, smooth and pretty, can be adaptto it, it is all you can expect. The following were made extempore to it; and though, on farther study, I might give you something more profound, yet it might not suit the light-horse gallop of the air so well as this random clink. MY WIFE'S A WINSOME WEE THING. She is a winsome wee thing, She is a handsome wee thing, She is a bonnie wee thing, This sweet wee wife o' mine. I never saw a fairer, I never lo'ed a dearer, And neist my hear I'll wear her, She is a winsome wee thing, The warld's wrack we share o't, The wrastle and the care o't: Wi' her I'll blythely bear it, And think my lot divine. I have just been looking over the Collier's bonny Dochter, and if the following rhapsody, which I composed the other day, on a charm. ing Ayrshire girl, Miss, as she passed through this place to England, will suit your taste better than the Collier Lassie, fall on and welcome. O saw ye bonnie Lesley As she gaed o'er the border? She's gane, like Alexander, To spread her conquests farther. To see her is to love her, And love but her for ever; For Nature made her what she is, And never made anither. Thou art a queen, fair Lesley, Thy subjects we, before thee: Thou art divine, fair Lesley, The hearts o' men adore thee. The Deil he could na scaith thee, Or aught that wad belang thee; He'd look into thy bonnie face, And say, "I canna wrang thee." The powers aboon will tent thee; Return to Caledonie ! I have hitherto deferred the sublimer, more pathetic airs, until more leisure, as they will take, and deserve, a greater effort. However, they are all put into your hands, as clay into the hands of the potter, to make one vessel to honour, and another to dishonour. Farewell, &c. No. VI. MR BURNS to MR THOMSON. HIGHLAND MARY. Tune" Katharine Ogie." Ye banks, and braes, and streams around Green be your woods, and fair your flowers, How sweetly bloom'd the gay, green birk, Was my sweet Highland Mary. Wi' mony a vow, and lock'd embrace, We tore our selves asunder; I AGREE with you, that the song, Katherine Ogie, is very poor stuff, and unworthy, altogether unworthy, of so beautiful an air. I tried to mend it, but the awkward sound Ogie, recurring so often in the rhyme, spoils every attempt at introducing sentiment into the piece. The foregoing song pleases myself; I think it is in my happiest manner; you will see at first glance that it suits the air. The subject of the song is one of the most interesting passages of my youthful days; and I own that I should be much flattered to see the verses set to an air, which would insure celebrity. Perhaps after all, 'tis the still glowing prejudice of my heart, that throws a borrowed lustre over the merits of the composition. But you will observe, my plan is, that every air shall, in the first place, have verses wholly by Scottish poets; and that those of English writers shall follow as additional songs, for the choice of the singer. What you say of the Ewe-bughts is just; I admire it, and never meant to supplant it. All I requested was, that you would try your hand on some of the inferior stanzas, which are apparantly no part of the original song; but this I do not urge, because the song is of sufficient length though those inferior stanzas be omitted, as they will be by the singer of taste. You must not think I expect all the songs to be of superlative merit; that were an unreasonable expectation. I am sensible that no poet can sit down doggedly to pen verses and succeed well at all times. I am highly pleased with your humorous and amorous rhapsody on Bonnie Leslie: it is a thousand times better than the Collier's Lassie: "The deil he couldna scaith thee," &c. is an eccentric and happy thought. Do you not think, however, that the names of such old heroes as Alexander, sound rather queer, unless in pompous or mere burlesque verse? Instead of the line, "And never made anither," I would humbly suggest, "And ne'er made sic anither;" and I would fain have you substitute some other line for I have partly taken your idea of Auld Rob" Return to Caledonie," in the last verse, beMorris. I have adopted the two first verses, and am going on with the song on a new plan, which promises pretty well. I take up one or another, just as the bee of the moment buzzes in my bonnet lug; and do you, sans ceremonie, make what use you choose of the productions. Adieu! &c. I WAS just going to write to you, that on meeting with your Nannie, I had fallen violently in love with her. I thank you therefore, for sending the charming rustic to me in the dress you wish her to appear before the public. She does you great credit and will soon be admitted into the best company. I regret that your song for the Lea-Rig, is so short; the air is easy, sung soon, and very pleasing; so that if the singer stops at the end of two stanzas, it is a pleasure lost, ere it is well possessed. Although a dash of our native tongue and manners is doubtless peculiarly congenial and appropriate to our melodies, yet I shall be able to present a considerable number of the very Flowers of English Song, well adapted to those melodies which in England, at least, will be the means of recommending them to still greater attention than they have procured there. cause I think this alteration in the orthography, and of the sound of Caledonia, disfigures the word, and renders it Hudibrastic. Of the other song, My wife's a winsome wee thing, I think the first eight lines are very good; but I do not admire the other eight, because four of them are bare repetitions of the first verses. I have been trying to spin a stanza, but could make nothing better than the following; do you mend it, or as Yorick did with the love-letter, whip it up in your own way. O leeze me on my wee thing, Tho' warld's care we share o't, You perceive, my dear sir, I avail myself of the liberty which you condescend to allow me by speaking freely what I think. Be assured, it is not my disposition to pick out the faults of any poem, or picture I see; my first and chief object is to discover and be delighted with the beauties of the piece. If I sit down to examine critically, and at leisure, what perhaps you have written in haste, I may happen to observe careless lines, the re-perusal of which The wren might lead you to improve them. will often see what has been overlooked by the eagle. I remain yours, faithfully, &c. P. S. Your verses upon Highland Mary are just come to hand; they breathe the genuine spirit of poetry, and, like the music, will last for ever. Such verses united to such an air, with the delicate harmony of Pleyel supperadded, might form a treat worthy of being presented to Apollo himself. I have heard the sad story of your Mary: you always seem inspired when you write of her. No. VIII. MR BURNS to MR THOMSON. Dumfries, 1st December, 1792. YOUR alterations of my Nannie O are perfectly right. So are those of "My wife's a wanton wee thing." Your alteration of the second stanza is a positive improvement. Now, my dear sir, with the freedom which characterises our correspondence, I must not, cannot alter "Bonnie Leslie." You are right, the word "Alexander" makes the line a little uncouth, but I think the thought is pretty. Of Alexander, beyond all other heroes, it may be said, in the sublime language of scripture, that "he went forth conquering and to conquer." "For nature made her what she is, [is.) And never made anither," (such a person as she This is in my opinion more poetical than "Ne'er made sic anither." However, it is immaterial: Make it either way.* "Caledonie," I agree with you, is not so good a word as could be wished, though it is sanctioned in three or four instances by Allan Ramsay; but I cannot help it. In short, that species of stanza is the most difficult that I have ever tried. No. IX. MR BURNS to MR THOMSON. AULD ROB MORRIS.* THERE'S auld Rob Morris that wons in yon glen, He's the king o' guid fellows and wale o' auld men; He has gowd in his coffers, he has owsen and kine, And ae bonnie lassie, his darling and mine. She's fresh as the morning, the fairest in May; She's sweet as the ev'ning amang the new hay; As blythe and as artless as the lambs on the lea, And dear to my heart as the light to my e'e. But Oh! she's an heiress, auld Robin's a laird, And my daddie has nought but a cot-house and yard; A wooer like me maunna hope to come speed, The wounds I must hide that will soon be my dead. |