Oh, there beyond expression blest, 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. O, were my love yon lilach fair, Wi' purple blossoms to the spring; When wearied on my little wing. How I wad mourn, when it was torn But I wad sing on wanton wing, When youthfu' May its bloom renew'd. No. 173. MR. THOMSON TO MR. BURNS. 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 dispatched 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 gentlemen who originally agreed to join 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 it promises to be, I should be somewhat compensated for my labour, by the pleasure I shall 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 inclose 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. you for your I thank 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. No. 174. MR. BURNS TO MR. THOMSON. MY DEAR SIR, July 2d, 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.'-See Poems, p. 402. 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. 175. 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 crown the upright statue of ROBERT BURNS'S INTEGRITY-on the least motion of it, I will indignantly spurn the by-past transaction, and from that moment commence entire stranger to you! BURNS's 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, 'I hae seen the smiling o' fortune beguiling,' are worthy of a place, were it but to immortalize 'O fickle fortune, why this cruel sporting, 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 mean time, allow me to congratulate you now, as a brother of the quill. You have committed your character and fame; which * There is a copy of this ballad given in the account of the Parish of Kirkpatrick-Fleeming (which contains the tomb of fair Helen Irvine), in the Statistics of Sir John Sinclair, vol xiii. p. 275, to which this character is certainly not applicable. |