Tell me how you like this. I differ from your idea of the expression of the tune. There is, to me, a great deal of tenderness in it. You cannot, in my opinion, dispense with a bass to your addenda airs. A lady of my acquaintance, a noted performer, plays and sings at the same time so charmingly, that I shall never bear to see any of her songs sent into the world, as naked as Mr. Whát-d'ye-call-um has done in his London collection. * . .' .i

These English songs gravel me to death. I have not that command of the language that I have of my native tongue. I have been at Duncan Gray, to dress it in English, but all I can do is deplorably stupid. For instance. !

Let not woman e'er complain,

Of inconstancy in love ;
Let not woman e'er complain,
Fickle man is apt to rove;

N 2

Look abroad through nature's range,
Nature's mighty law is change ;
Ladies would it not be strange,

Man should then a monster prove?

Mark the winds, and mark the skies ;

Ocean's ebb, and ocean's flow :
Sun and moon but set to rise,

Round and round the seasons go :

Why then ask of silly man,
To oppose great nature's plan ?
We'll be constant while we can-

You can be no more you know.

mo

W

Since the above, I have been out in the country taking a dinner with a friend, where I met with the lady whom I mentioned in the second page of this odds-and-ends of a letter. As usual, I got into song ; and returning home, I composed the following.

The

The Lover's morning salute to bis Mistress.

Sleep'st thou, or wak’st thou fairest creature;

Rosy morn now lifts his eye,
Numbering ilka bud which nature

Waters wi' the tears o' joy :
Now through the leafy woods,

And by the reeking floods ;
Wild nature's tenants, freely, gladly stray ;

The lintwhite in his bower
Chants, o'er the breathing flower :
The lav'rock to the sky

Ascends wi' sangs o' joy,
While the sun and thou arise to bless the day. *

Phæbus

The hartwining hounet pours.

* Variation. Now to the streaming fountain,

Or up the heathy mountain
The hart, hind, and roe, freely, wildly-wanton stray;

In twining hazel bowers
His lay the linnet pours :
The lay'rock, &c.

Phæbus gilding the brow o' morning,

Banishes ilk darksome shade,
Nature gladdening and adorning ;

Such to me my lovely maid.
When absent frae my fair,

The murky shades o care
With starless gloom o'ercast my sullen sky;

But when, in beauty's light,
She meets my ravish'd sight,
When through my very heart :

Her beaming glories dart ;
'Tis then I wake to life, to light and joy. *

If you honor my verses by setting the air to them, I will vamp up the old song and make it English enough to be understood.

* Variation. When frae my Chloris parted,

Sad, cheerless, broken-hearted,
Then night's gloomy shades, cloudy, dark, o'ercast my sky:

But when she charms my sight,
In pride of beauty's light; .
When thro' my very heart

Her beaming glories dart;
'Tis then, 'tis then I wake to life and joy.

Joye

E.

I inclose you a musical curiosity, an East Indian air, which you would swear was a Scottish one. I know the authenticity of it, as the gentleman who brought it over is a particular acquaintance of mine.. Do preserve me the copy I send you, as it is the only one I have. Clarke has set a bass to it, and I intend putting it into the musical Museum. Here follow the verses I intend for it.

THE AULD MAN.

But lately seen in gladsome green

The woods rejoic'd the day,
Thro' gentle showers the laughing flowers

In double pride were gay : .
But now our joys are fled,

On winter blasts awa!
Yet maiden May, in rich array,

Again shall bring them a'.

W

But my white pow, nae kindly thowe

Shall melt the snaws of age;
My trunk of eild, but buss or beild,

Sinks in time's wintry rage.