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. NO XXVII. MR BURNS to MR THOMSON. MY DEAR SIR, July 2, 1793, I HAVE just finished the following ballad, and as I do think it in my best style, I send it you. Mr Clarke, who wrote down the air from Mrs Burns' wood-note wild, is very fond of it; and has given it a celebrity by teaching it to some young ladies of the first fashion here. If you do not like the air enough to give it a place in your collection, please return it. The song you may keep, as I remember it. THERE was a lass, and she was fair, At kirk and market to be seen; When a' the fairest maids were met, The fairest maid was bonnie Jean. And aye she wrought her mammie's wark, Had ne'er a lighter heart than she. But hawks will rob the tender joys That bless the little lintwhite's nest ; He gaed wi' Jeanie to the tryst, The moon-beam dwells at dewy e'en ; 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 ? O Jeanie fair, I lo'e thee dear; O canst thou think to fancy me? Or wilt thou leave thy mammie's cot, And learn to tent the farms wi' me. At barn or byre thou shalt na drudge, Or naething else to trouble thee; But stray amang the heather-bells, And tent the waving corn wi' me. 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 commence 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 immor. talize 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." I No. XXIX. MR THOMSON to MR BURNS Edinburgh, August, 1793. 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 No. XXXI. MR BURNS to MR THOMSON. August 1793. MY GOOD SIR, August, 1793. 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, 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. 193. MY DEAR SIR, August, 1793. "Let me in this ae night," I will reconsider. I am glad you are pleased with my song, “Had I a cave," &c. as I liked it myself. THAT crinkum-crankum tune, Robin Adair, has run so in my head, and I succeeded so ill in my last attempt, that I have ventured in this" morning's walk, one essay more. You, my dear sir, will remember an unfortunate part of our worthy friend C.'s story, which happened about three years ago. That struck my fancy, and I endeavoured to do the idea justice, as follows. SONG. HAD I a cave on some wild, distant shore, Where the winds howl to the wave's dashing roar : There would I weep my woes, Ne'er to wake more. Falsest of womankind, canst thou declare, By the way, I have met with a musical Highlander, in Breadalbane's fencibles, which are quartered here, who assures me that he well remembers his mother's singing Gaelic songs to both Robin Adair and Gramachree. They certainly have more of the Scotch than Irish taste in them. This man comes from the vicinity of Inverness; so it could not be any intercourse with Ireland that could bring them ;-except, what I shrewdly suspect to be the case, the wandering minstrels, harpers, and pipers, used to go frequently errant through the wilds both of Scotland and Ireland, and so some favourite airs might be common to both.-A case in point-They have lately, in Ireland, published an Irish air, as they say, called "Caun du delish." The fact is, in a publication of Corri's, a great while ago, you will find the same air, called a Highland one, with a Gaelic song set to it. Its name there, I think, is "Öran I walked out yesterday evening, with a volume of the Museum in my hand; when turning up Allan Water," "What numbers shall the muse repeat," &c. as the words appeared to me rather unworthy of so fine an air and recollecting that it is on your list, I sat and raved under the shadow of an old thorn, till I wrote out one to suit the measure. I may be wrong; but I think it not in my worst style. You must know, that in Ramsay's Tea-table, where the modern song first appeared, the ancient name of the tune, Allan says, is "Allan Water." or, My love Annie's very bonnie." This last has certainly been a line of the original song; so I took up the idea, and, as you will see, have introduced the line in its place, which I presume it formerly occupied; though I likewise give you a "choosing line," that should not hit the cut of your fancy. By Allan-stream I chanced to rove, While Phoebus sank beyond Benleddi ;* The winds were whispering through the grove, The yellow corn was waving ready: I listen'd to a lover's sang, And thought on youthfu' pleasures mony: And aye the wild-wood echoes rangO dearly do I lo'e thee Annie.t O happy be the woodbine bower, Nae nightly bogle make it eerie ; The place and time I met my dearie ! The sacred vow, we ne'er should sever The haunt o' spring's the primrose brae, The simmer joys the flocks to follow; How cheery, thro' her shortening day, Is autumn in her weeds o' yellow; But can they melt the glowing heart, Or chain the soul in speechless pleasure, Or thro' each nerve the rapture dart, Like meeting her, our bosom's treasure. * A mountain west of Strath-Allan, 3009 feet high. -R. B. + Or, "O my love Annie's very bonnie-R. B. Bravo! say I; it is a good song. Should you think so too, (not else) you can set the music to it, and let the other follow as English verses. Autumn is my propitious season. I make more verses in it than in all the year else. God bless you! No. XXXV. MR BURNS to MR THOMSON. August, 1793, my lad," and yesUrbani, Is "Whistle and I'll come to you, one of your airs? I admire it much terday I set the following verses to it. whom I met with here, begged them of me, as he admires the air much; but as I understand that he looks with rather an evil eye on your work, I did not choose to comply. However, if the song does not suit your taste, I may possibly send it to him. The set of the air which I had in my eye, is in Johnson's Mu seum. O WHISTLE and I'll come to you, my lad,* But warily tent when ye come to court me, O whistle, &c. At kirk, or at market, whene'er ye meet me, O whistle, &c. Aye vow and protest that ye care na for me, O whistie, &c. poetry; that I have endeavoured to supply as follows. ADOWN winding Nith I did wander, To mark the sweet flowers as they spring; Adown winding Nith I did wander, Of Phillis to muse and to sing. CHORUS. Awa wi' your belles and your beauties, The daisy amus'd my fond fancy, The rose bud's the blush o' my charmer, Yon knot of gay flowers in the arbour, Her voice is the song of the morning That wakes thro' the green-spreading grove, When Phoebus peeps over the mountains, On music, and pleasure, and love. Awa, &c. But beauty, how frail and how fleeting, Mr Clarke begs you to give Miss Phillis a corner in your book, as she is a particular flame of his. She is a Miss P. M. sister to bonnie Jean. They are both pupils of his. You shall hear from me, the very first grist I get from my rhyming mill. |