And for fair Scotia, hame again, At length I reach'd the bonnie glen, Down by her mother's dwelling! And turn'd me round to hide the flood That in my een was swelling. Wi' alter'd voice, quoth I, sweet lass, Sweet as yon hawthorn's blossom, O! happy, happy may he be, That's dearest to thy bosom : My purse is light, I've far to gang, And fain wad be thy lodger; I've serv'd my king and country lang, Take pity on a sodger. Sae wistfully she gaz'd on me, She gaz'd-she redden'd like a rose- The wars are o'er, and I'm come hame, For gold the merchant ploughs the main, The farmer ploughs the manor; But glory is the sodger's prize, The sodger's wealth is honour; MEG O' THE MILL. Air-" O Bonnie Lass will you lie in a Barrack !" O KEN ye what Meg o' the Mill has gotten, An' ken ye what Meg o' the Mill has gotten? She has gotten a coof wi' a claut o' siller, And broken the heart o' the barley Miller. The Miller was strappin', the Miller was ruddy; A heart like a lord and a hue like a lady; The Laird was a widdiefu', bleerit knurl; She's left the guid fellow and ta'en the churl. The Miller he hecht her, a heart leal and loving; The Laird did address her wi matter mai moving: A fine pacing horse wi' a clear chained bridle, O wae on the siller, it is sae prevailing ; No. XIX. MR BURNS to MR THOMSON 7th April, 1793. THANK you, my dear sir, for your packet. You cannot imagine how much this business of composing for your publication has added to my enjoyments. What with my early attachment to ballads, your book, &c. ballad-making is now as completely my hobby-horse, as ever fortification was Uncle Toby's; so I'll e'en canter it away till I come to the limit of my race, (God grant that I may take the right side of the winning-post!) and then cheerfully looking back on the honest folks with whom I have been happy, I shall say, or sing, "Sae merry as we a' hae been," and raising my last looks to the whole human race, the last words of the voice of Coila* shall be "Good night and joy be wi' you a'!" So much for my last words; now for a few present remarks as they have occurred at random on looking over your list. The first lines of The last time I came o'er the Moor, and several other lines in it, are beautiful: but in my opinion-pardon me, revered shade of Ramsay! the song is unworthy of the divine air. I shall try to make, or mend. For ever, Fortune wilt thou prove, is a charming song; but Logan burn and Logan braes, are sweetly susceptible of rural imagery: I'll try the banks of any other river in Sootland. Exotic rural imagery is always comparatively flat. If I could hit on another stanza equal to The small birds rejoice, &c. I do myself honestly avow that I think it a superior song." John Anderson my jo-the song to this tune in Johnson's Museum, is my composition, and I think it not my worst: If it suit you, take it and welcome. Your collection of sentimental and pathetic songs, is in my opinion, very complete; but not so your comic ones. Where are Tullochgorum, Lumps o' puddin, Tibbie Fowler, and several others, which, in my humble judgment, are well worthy of preservation. There is also one sentimental song of mine in the Museum, which never was known out of the immediate neighbourhood, until I got it taken down from a country girl's singing. It is called Craigieburn Wood; and in the opinion of Mr Clarke, is one of our sweetest Scottish songs. He is quite an enthusiast about it; and I would take his taste in Scottish music against the taste of most connoisseurs. This is surely far unworthy of Ramsay, or your book. My song, Rigs of Barley, to the same tune, does not altogether please me, but if I can mend it, and thresh a few loose sen timents out of it, I will submit it to your consideration. The Lass o' Patie's Mill is one of Ramsay's best songs; but there is one loose sentiment in it, which my much-valued friend, Mr Erskine, will take into his critical con- You are quite right in inserting the last five sideration. In Sir J. Sinclair's Statistical in your list, though they are certainly Irish. volumes are two claims, one, I think, from Shepherds I have lost my love, is to me a Aberdeenshire, and the other from Ayrshire, heavenly air-what would you think of a set for the honour of this song. The following of Scottish verses to it? I have made one to anecdote, which I had from the present Sir it a good while ago, which I think . . . . William Cunningham, of Robertland, who had.... but in its original state is not quite a it of the late John, Earl of Loudon, I can on such authorities believe. Allan Ramsay was residing at Loudon Castle with the then Earl, father to Earl John; and one forenoon, riding, or walking out together, his Lordship and Allan passed a sweet, romantic spot on Irwine water, still called "Patie's Mill," where a bonnie lass was "tedding hay, bareheaded on the green." My Lord observed to Allan, that it would be a fine theme for a song. Ramsay took the hint, and lingering behind, he composed the first sketch of it, which he produced at dinner. One day I heard Mary say, is a fine song; but for consistency's sake, alter the name "Adonis." Was there ever such banns published, as a purpose of marriage between Adonis and Mary? I agree with you that my song, There's nought but care on every hand, is much superior to Poortith cauld. The original song The mill, mill O, though excellent, is, on account of delicacy, inadmissible; still I like the title, and think a Scottish song would suit the notes best; and let your chosen song, which is very pretty, follow, as an English set. The Banks of the Dee is, you know, literally Langolee to slow time. The song is well enough, but has some false imagery in it, for instance, lady's song. I enclosed an altered, not amend- Let me know just how you like these random hits. "And sweetly the nightingale sung from the MSS. beginning,tree." "Yestreen I got a pint of wine, sentiment does not correspond with the air, to which he proposes it should be allied. I know there are a good many lively songs! of merit that I have not put down in the list sent you; but I have them all in my eye. My Patie is a lover gay, though a little unequal, is a natural and very pleasing song, and I humbly think we ought not to displace or alter it, except the last stanza. * No. XXI. MR BURNS to MR THOMSON. April, 1793. I HAVE yours, my dear sir, this moment. I shall answer it and your former letter, in my desultory way of saying whatever comes uppermost. I do not, by this, object to leaving out improper stanzas, where that can be done without spoiling the whole. One stanza in The Lass o' Patie's Mill, must be left out: the song will be nothing worse for it. I am not sure if we can take the same liberty with Corn Rigs are bonnie. Perhaps it might want the last stanza, and be the better for it. Cauld Kail in Aberdeen, you must leave with me yet a while. I have vowed to have a song to that air, on the lady whom I attempted to celebrate in the verses, Poortith cauld and restless Love. At any rate, my other song, Green grow the Rashes, will never suit. That song is current in Scotland under the old title, and to the merry old tune of that name; which of course would mar the progress of your song to celebrity. Your book will be the standard of Scots songs for the future: let this idea ever keep your judgment on the alarm. The business of many of our tunes wanting, I send a song, on a celebrated toast in this at the beginning, what fiddlers call a starting-country, to suit Bonnie Dundee. I send you note, is often a rub to us poor rhymers. "There's braw, braw lads on Yarrow braes, That wander thro' the blooming heather," You may alter to "Braw, braw lads on Yarrow braes, Ye wander," &c. My song, Here awa there awa, as mended by Mr Erskine, I entirely approve of, and return you.+ Give me leave to criticise your taste in the on. ly thing in which it is in my opinion reprehensible. You know I ought to know something of my own trade. Of pathos, sentiment, and point, you are a complete judge; but there is a quality more necessary than either, in a song, and which is the very essence of a ballad, I mean simplicity; now, if I mistake not, this last feature you are a little apt to sacrifice to the foregoing. Ramsay, as every other poet, has not been always equally happy in his pieces: still I cannot approve of taking such liberties with an author as Mr W. proposes doing with The last time I came o'er the Moor. Let a poet, if he chooses, take up the idea of another, and work it into a piece of his own; but to mangle the works of the poor bard, whose tuneful tongue is now mute for ever, in the dark and narrow house-by Heaven 'twould be sacrilege! I grant that Mr W's version is an improvement; but I know Mr W. well, and esteem him much; let him amend the song, as the Highlander mended his gun :-he gave it a new stock, and a new lock, and a new barrel. The original letter from Mr Thomson contains many observations on the Scottish songs, and on the manner of adapting the words to the music, which, at his desire, are suppressed. The subsequent letter of Mr Burns refers to several of these observations. The reader has already seen that Burns did not finally adopt al. of Mr Erskine's alterations. also a ballad to the Mill, mill O.* The last time I came o'er the Moor, I would fain attempt to make a Scots song for, and let Ramsay's be the English set. You shall hear from me soon. When you go to London on this business, can you come by Dumfries? I have still several MS. Scots airs by me which I have picked up, mostly from the singing of country lasses. They please me vastly; but your learned lugs would perhaps be displeased with the very feature for which I like them. I call them simple; you would pronounce them silly. Do you know a fine air called Jackie Hume's Lament? I have a song of considerable merit to that air. I'll enclose you both the song and tune, as I had them ready to send to Johnson's Museum . I send you likewise, to me a beautiful little air, which I had taken down from viva voce §. No. XXII. Adieu ! MR BURNS to MR THOMSON. April, 1793. Tune-"The last time I came o'er the Moor." FAREWELL thou stream that winding flows The song to the tune of Bonnie Dundee, is that in No. XVI. The ballad to the Mill, mill O, is that beginning, "When wild war's deadly blast was blawn." + Ears. The song here mentioned is that given in No. XVIII. surely Mr Burns' own writing, though he does not Oken ye what Meg o' the mill has gotten. This song is generally praise his own songs so much.-Note by Mr Thomson. The air here mentioned is that for which he wrote the ballad of Bonny Jean to be found p. 203. Ah 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, 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 But versant than I have been with country people, would perhaps call simple and natural. 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. "Wi' mony a sweet babe fatherless, And mony a widow mourning." first number of Mr Thomson's Musical Work was in the press, this gentleman ventured, by Mr Erskine's advice, to substitute for them in that publication, As our poet had maintained a long silence, and the "And eyes again with pleasure beamed That had been bleared with mourning." Though better suited to the music, these lines are in. ferior to the original. This is the only alteration, adopted by Mr Thomson, which Burns 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. I 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: Trembling, I dow nocht but glowr, Sighing, dumb, despairing If she winna ease the thraws, In my bosom swelling; Underneath the grass green sod, Soon maun be my dwelling. 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 water; 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 hae o'er us run, Like Logan to the simmer sun. But now the flowery banks appear Again the merry month o' May, Within yon milk-white hawthorn bush, O wae upon you, men o' state, Do you know the following beautiful little fragment, in Witherspoon's Collection of Scots Songs? Air-" Hughie Graham. "O gin my love were yon red rose "That grows upon the castle wa', "And I mysel' a drap o' dew, "Into her bonnie breast to fa'! "Oh, there beyond expression blest, "I'd feast on beauty a' the night; "Seal'd on her silk-saft faulds to rest, "Till fley'd awa by Phoebus' light." 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 eries." |