Ab cruel mem'ry! spare the throes Yet dare not speak my anguish. The wretch of love, unseen, unknown, I know my doom must be despair, Thou wilt, nor canst relieve me; But oh, Maria, hear one prayer, For pity's sake forgive me. The music of thy tongue I heard, The wheeling torrent viewing; 'Mid circling horrors yields at last To overwhelming ruin. MY DEAR SIR, I HAD scarcely put my last letter into the postoffice, when I took up the subject of The last time I came o'er the Moor, and ere I slept drew the outlines of the foregoing. How far I have succeeded, I leave on this, as on every other oc casion, to you to decide. I own my vanity is flattered, when you give my songs a place in your elegant and superb work; but to be of service to the work is my first wish. As I have often told you, I do not in a single instance wish you, out of compliment to me, to insert any thing of mine. One hint let me give you--whatever Mr Pleyel does, let him not alter one iota of the original Scottish airs; I mean, in the song department; but let our national music preserve its native features. They are, I own, frequently wild and irreducible to the more modern rules; but on that very eccentricity, perhaps, depends a great part of their effect. No. XXIII. MR THOMSON to MR BURNS. Edinburgh, 26th April, 1793. I HEARTILY thank you, my dear sir, for your last two letters, and the songs which accompanied them. I am always both instructed and entertained by your observations; and the frankness with which you speak out your mind, is to me highly agreeable. It is very possible I may not have the true idea of simplicity in composition. I confess there are several songs of Allan Ramsay's, for example, that I think silly enough, which another person more con versant than I have been with country people, would perhaps call simple and natural. But the lowest scenes of simple nature will not please generally, if copied precisely as they are. The poet, like the painter, must select what will form an agreeable as well as a natural picture. On this subject it were easy to enlarge; but at present suffice it to say, that I consider simplicity, rightly understood, as a most essential quality in composition, and the ground-work of beauty in all the arts. I will gladly appropriate your most interesting new ballad When wild war's deadly blast, &c. to the Mill, mill, O, as well as the other two songs to their respective airs; but the third and fourth line of the first verses must undergo some little alteration in order to suit the music. Pleyel does not alter a single note of the songs. That would be absurd indeed! With the airs which he introduces into the sonatas, I allow him to take such liberties as he pleases, but that has nothing to do with the songs. P. S.-I wish you would do as you proposed with your Rigs o' Barley. If the loose sentiments were threshed out of it, I will find an air for it; but as to this there is no hurry. No. XXIV. MR BURNS to MR THOMSON. June, 1793. WHEN I tell you, my dear sir, that a friend of mine, in whom I am much interested, has fallen a sacrifice to these accursed times, you will easily allow that it might unhinge me for doing any good among ballads. My own loss, as to pecuniary matters, is trifling; but the total ruin of a much-loved friend, is a loss indeed. Pardon my seeming inattention to your last commands. I cannot alter the disputed lines in the Mill mill O. What you think a defect I esteem as a positive beauty: so you see how doctors differ. I shall now, with as much alacrity as I can muster, go on with your commands. You know Fraser, the hautboy player in Edinburgh-he is here instructing a band of music for a fencible corps quartered in this The lines were the third and fourth. See p. 197. As our poet had maintained a long silence, and the first number of Mr Thomson's Musical Work was in the press, this gentleman ventured, by Mr Erskine's ad. vice, to substitute for them in that publication, "And eyes again with pleasure beamed Though better suited to the music, these lines are in ferior to the original. This is the only alteration, adopted by Mr Thomson, which Burus did not approve or at least assent to. country. Among many of the airs that please me, there is one well known as a reel by the name of The Quaker's Wife; and which I remember a grand aunt of mine used to sing, by the name of Liggeram cosh, my bonny wee lass. Mr Fraser plays it slow, and with an expression that quite charms me. I became such an enthusiast about it, that I made a song for it, which I here subjoin; and enclose Fraser's set of the tune. If they hit your fancy, they are at your service; if not, return me the tune, and I will put it in Johnson's Museum. think the song is not in my worst manner Tune-" Liggeram cosh." BLYTHE hae I been on yon hill, As the lambs before me; Careless ilka thought and free, As the breeze flew o'er me: Now nae langer sport and play, Mirth or sang can please me: Lesley is sae fair and coy, Care and anguish seize me. Heavy, heavy is the task, Hopeless love declaring: I should wish to hear how this pleases you. NO. XXV. MR BURNS to MR THOMSON. January 5, 1793, HAVE you ever, my dear sir, felt your bosom ready to burst with indignation on reading of those mighty villains who divide kingdom against kingdom, desolate provinces, and lay nations waste out of the wantonness of ambition, or often from still more ignoble passions? In a mood of this kind to day, I recollected the air of Logan waler; and it occurred to me that its querulous melody probably had its origin from the plaintive indignation of some swelling, suffering heart, fired at the tyrannic strides of some public destroyer; and overwhelmed with private distress, the consequence of a country's ruin. If I have done any thing at all like justice to my feelings, the following song, composed in three quarters of an hour's meditation in my elbow chair, ought to have some merit. Tune-"Logan water. O, LOGAN Sweetly didst thou glide, That day I was my Willie's bride; And years sinsyne bae o'er us run, Like Logan to the simmer sun. But now the flowery banks appear Within yon milk-white hawthorn bush, This thought is inexpressibly beautiful; and quite, so far as I know, original. It is too short for a song, else I would forswear you altogether, unless you gave it a place. I have often tried to eke a stanza to it, but in vain. after balancing myself for a musing five minutes, on the hind-legs of my elbow chair, I produced the following. The verses are far inferior to the foregoing, I frankly confess; but if worthy of insertion at all, they might be first in place; as every poet, who knows any thing of his trade, will husband his best thoughts for a concluding stroke. * Originally, "Ye mind na 'mid your cruel joys, "The widow's tears, the orphan's cries." Monday, 1st July, 1793, I AM extremely sorry, my good sir, that any thing should happen to unhinge you. The times are terribly out of tune, and when harmony will be restored, heaven knows. The first book of songs, just published, will be despatched to you along with this. Let me be favoured with your opinion of it frankly and freely. I shall certainly give a place to the song you have written for the Quaker's Wife; it is quite enchanting. Pray, will you return the list of songs, with such airs added to it as you think ought to be included. The business now rests entirely on myself, the gentleman who originally agreed to join in the speculation having requested to be off. No matter; a loser I cannot be. The superior excellence of the work will create a general demand for it, as soon as it is properly known. And were the sale even slower than what it promises to be, I should be somewhat compensated for my labour, by the pleasure I should receive from the music. I cannot express how much I am obliged to you for the exquisite new songs you are sending me; but thanks, my friend, are a poor return for what you have done as I shall be benefited by the publication, you must suffer me to enclose a small mark of my gratitude, and to repeat it afterwards when I find it convenient. Do not return it, for by heaven, if you do, our correspondence is at an end and though this would be no loss to you, it would mar the publication, which, under your auspices, cannot fail to be respectable and interesting. : Wednesday morning. I thank you for your delicate additional verses to the old fragment, and for your excellent song to Logan water: Thomson's truly elegant one will follow for the English singer. Your apostrophe to statesmen, is admirable, but I am not sure if it is quite suitable to the supposed gentle character of the fair mourner who speaks it. • L.5. He gaed wi' Jeanie to the tryst, He danced wi' Jeanie on the down; And lang ere witless Jeanie wist, Her heart was tint, her peace was stow. As in the bosom o' the stream, The moon-beam dwells at dewy e'en ; So trembling pure, was tender love Within the breast o' bonnie Jean. * And now she works her mammie's wark, And aye she sighs wi' care and pain; Yet wist na what her ail might be, Or what wad mak her weel again, But did na Jeanie's heart loup light, And did na joy blink in her e'e, As Robie tauld a tale o' love Ae e'enin, on the lily lea? The sun was sinking in the west, The birds sang sweet in ilka grove; His cheek to hers he fondly prest, And whisper'd thus his tale o' love. In the original MS. our poet asks Mr Thomson if this stanza is not original? Now what could artless Jeanie do? I have some thoughts of inserting in your index, or in my notes, the names of the fair ones, the themes of my songs. I do not mean the name at full; but dashes or asterisms, so as ingenuity may find them out. The heroine of the foregoing is Miss M. daughter to Mr M. of D. one of your subscribers. I have not painted her in the rank which she holds in life, but in the dress and character of a cottager. No. XXVIII. MR BURNS to MR THOMSON. July, 1793. I ASSURE you, my dear sir, that you truly hurt me with your pecuniary parcel. It degrades me in my own eyes. However, to return it would savour of affectation; but as to any more traffic of that debtor and creditor kind, I swear by that HONOUR which crowns the upright statue of ROBERT BURNS' INTEGRITY-on the least motion of it, I will indignantly spurn the bypast transaction, and from that moment com mence entire stranger to you? BURNS' character for generosity of sentiment and independence of mind will, I trust, long outlive any of his wants, which the cold unfeeling ore can supply at least, I will take care that such a character he shall deserve. Thank you for my copy of your publication. Never did my eyes behold, in any musical work, such elegance and correctness. Your preface, too, is admirably written; only, your partiality to me has made you say too much; however, it will bind me down to double every effort in the future progress of the work. The following are a few remarks on the songs in the list you sent me. I never copy what I write to you, so I may be often tautological, or perhaps contradictory. The Flowers of the Forest is charming as a poem; and should be, and must be, set to the notes; but, though out of your rule, the three stanzas, beginning, are worthy of a place, were it but to immortalize the author of them, who is an old lady of my acquaintance, and at this moment living in Edinburgh. She is a Mrs Cockburn; I forget of what place; but from Roxburghshire. What a charming apostrophe is "O fickle fortune, why this cruel sporting, Why, why torment us-poor sons of a day!" * The old ballad, I wish I were where Helen lies, is silly, to contemptibility. My alteration of it, in Johnson's, is not much better. Mr Pinkerton, in his, what he calls, Ancient Ballads (many of them notorious, though beautiful enough forgeries) has the best set. It is full of his own interpolations-but no matter. In my next, I will suggest to your consideration, a few songs which may have escaped your hurried notice. In the meantime, allow me to congratulate you now, as a brother of the quill. You have committed your character and fame; which will now be tried, for ages to come, by the illustrious jury of the Sons and DAUGHTERS of TASTE-all whom poesy can please, or music charm. Being a bard of nature, I have some pretensions to second sight; and I am warranted by the spirit to foretell and affirm, that your great grandchild will hold up your volumes, and say, with honest pride, "This so much admired selection was the work of my ancestor." No. XXIX. MR THOMSON to MR BURNS, Edinburgh, August, 1793. I HAD the pleasure of receiving your last two letters, and am happy to find you are quite pleased with the appearance of the first book. When you come to hear the songs sung and accompanied, you will be charmed with them. The bonnie bruchet Lassie, certainly deserves better verses, and I hope you will match her. Cauld Kail in Aberdeen, Let me in this ae night, and several of the livelier airs, wait the muse's leisure: these are peculiarly worthy of her choicest gifts; besides, you'll notice, that in the airs of this sort, the singer can always do greater justice to the poet, than in the slower airs of The bush aboon Traquair, Lord Gregory, and the like; for in the manner the latter are frequently sung, you must be contented with the sound, without the sense. Indeed, both the airs and words are disguised by the very slow, languid, psalm-singing style in which they are too often performed: they lose animation and expression altogether, and in *There is a copy of this ballad given in the account of the parish of Kirkpatrick-Fleming, (which contains the tomb of Fair Helen Irvine,) in the statistics of Sir "I hae seen the smiling o' fortune beguiling," John Sinclair, Vol. XIII. p. 275, to which this character is certainly not applicable stead of speaking to the mind, or touching the heart, they cloy upon the ear, and set us a yawn. ing! Your ballad, There was a lass and she was fair, is simple and beautiful, and shall undoubtedly grace my collection. No. XXX. MR BURNS to MR THOMSON. MY DEAR THOMSON, August, 1793. I HOLD the pen for our friend Clarke, who, at present, is studying the music of the spheres at my elbow. The Georgium Sidus, he thinks, is rather out of tune; so until he rectify that matter, he cannot stoop to terrestrial affairs. He sends you six of the Rondeau subjects, and if more are wanted, he says you shall have them. Confound your long stairs! S. CLARKE. No. XXXI. MR BURNS to ML THOMSON. August 1793. Rosebuds bent the dewy spray; Down in a shady walk, So much for namby-pamby. I may, after I have just put the last hand to the song I meant for Cauld Kail in Aberdeen. If it suits you to insert it, I shall be pleased, as the heroine is a favourite of mine: if not, I shall also be pleased; because I wish, and will be glad, to see you act decidedly on the business.* 'Tis a tribute as a man of taste, and as an editor, which you owe yourself. I CONSIDER it one of the most agreeable circumstances attending this publication of mine, that it has procured me so many of your much valued epistles. Pray make my acknowledgments to St Stephen for the tunes: tell him I YOUR objection, my dear sir, to the passages admit the justness of his complaint on my in my song of Logan Water, is right in one in-stair-case, conveyed in his laconic postscript to stance; but it is difficult to mend it: If I can, I will. The other passage you object to does not appear in the same light to me. I have tried my hand on Robin Adair, and you will probably think, with little success; but it is such a cursed, cramp, out of the way measure, that I despair of doing any thing bet ter to it. PHILLIS THE FAIR. Tune-"Robin Adair." WHILE larks with little wing, Forth I did fare; In each bird's careless song, your jeu d'esprit; which I perused more than once, without discovering exactly whether your discussion was music, astronomy, or politics; though a sagacious friend, acquainted with the convivial habits of the poet and the musician, offered me a bet of two to one, you were just drowning care together; that an empty bowl was the only thing that would deeply affect you, and the only matter you could then study how to remedy! I shall be glad to see you give Robin Adair a Scottish dress. Peter is furnishing him with an English suit for a change, and you are well matched together. Robin's air is excellent, though he certainly has an out of the way measure as ever poor Parnassian wight was plagued with. I wish you would invoke the muse for a single elegant stanza to be substituted for the concluding objectionable verses of Down the burn Davie, so that this most exquisite song may no longer be excluded from good company. Mr Allan has made an inimitable drawing from your John Anderson my Jo, which I am to have engraved, as a frontispiece to the humorous class of songs; youwill be quite charmed with it, I promise you. The old couple are seated by the fireside. Mrs Anderson, in The song sent herewith is that in p. 199. |