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great good humour, is clapping John's should- | ers, while he smiles and looks at her with such glee, as to show that he fully recollects the pleasant days and nights when they were first acquent. The drawing would do honour to the pencil of Teniers.

Gaoil," and a fine air it is. Do ask honest Allan, or the Rev. Gaelic Parson, about these matters.

No. XXXIII.

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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 "Oran

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"Let me in this ae night," I will reconsider. I am glad you are pleased with my song, I a cave," &c. as I liked it myself.

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.†

O happy be the woodbine bower,

Nae nightly bogle make it eerie ;
Nor ever sorrow stain the hour,

The place and time I met my dearie !
Her head upon my throbbing breast,
She, sinking said, "I'm thine for ever!'
While mony a kiss the seal imprest,

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.

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Bravo! say I; it is a good song. Should I poetry; that I have endeavoured to supply as you think so too, (not else) you can set the follows. music to it, and let the other follow as English verses.

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I make

Autumn is my propitious season. more verses in it than in all the year else. God bless you!

No. XXXV.

MR BURNS to MR THOMSON.

August, 1793,

Is "Whistle and I'll come to you, my lad," one of your airs? I admire it much: and yesterday I set the following verses to it. Urbani, 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

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Another favorite air of mine, is, The muckin o' Geordie's byre. When sung slow, with expression, I have wished that it had had better *In some of the MSS. the first four lines run thus :

O whistle and I'll come to thee, my jo,
O whistle and I'il come to thee, my jo;
Tho' father and mother and a' should say no,
O whistle and I'll come to thee, my jo.

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,
They never wi' her can compare:
Whaever has met wi' my Phillis,
Has met wi' the queen o' the fair.

The daisy amus'd my fond fancy,

So artless, so simple, so wild; Thou emblem, said I, o' my Phillis, For she is Simplicity's child. Awa, &c.

The rose bud's the blush o' my charmer,
Her sweet balmy lip when 'tis prest;
How fair and how pure is the lily,
But fairer and purer her breast.
Awa, &c.

Yon knot of gay flowers in the arbour,
They ne'er wi' my Phillis can vie
Her breath is the breath o' the woodbine,
Its dew-drop o' diamond, her eye.
Awa, &c.

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,
The bloom of a fine summer's day!
While worth in the mind o' my Phillis
Will flourish without a decay.*
Awa, &c.

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.

NO XXXVI.

MR BURNS to MR THOMSON August, 1793. THAT tune Cauld Kail, is such a favourite of

This song, certainly beautiful, would appear to more advantage without the chorus: as is indeed the case with several other songs of our author.

yours, that I once more roved out yesterday for a gloamin shot at the muses; when the muse that presides o'er the shores of Nith, or rather my old inspiring dearest nymph, Coila, whispered me the following. I have two reasons for thinking that it was my early, sweet, simple inspirer that was by my elbow, "smooth gliding without step,” and pouring the song on my glowing fancy. In the first place, since I left Coila's native haunts, not a fragment of a poet has risen to cheer her solitary musings, by catching inspiration from her; so I more than suspect that she has followed me hither, or at least makes me occasional visits; secondly, the last stanza of this song I send you in the very words that Coila taught me many years ago, and which I set to an old Scots reel in Johnson's Museun.

Air-" Cauld Kail."

COME let me take thee to my breast, And pledge we ne'er shall sunder And I shall spurn as vilest dust

'The warld's wealth and grandeur : And do I hear my Jeanie own, That equal transports move her? I ask for dearest life alone

That I may live to love her.

Thus in my arms, wi' a' thy charms,

I clasp my countless treasure ; I'll seek nae mair o' heaven to share, Than sic a moment's pleasure: And by thy een, sae bonnie blue, I swear I'm thine for ever! And on thy lips I seal my vow, And break it shall I never.

If you think the above will suit your idea of your favourite air, I shall be highly pleased. The last time I came o'er the Moor, I cannot meddle with, as to mending it: and the musical world have been so long accustomed to Ramsay's words, that a different song, though positively superior, would not be so well received. I am not fond of choruses to songs, so I have not made one for the foregoing.

No. XXXVII.

MR BURNS to MR THOMSON.

August, 1793.

DAINTY DAVIE.

Now rosy May comes in wi' flowers,
To deck her gay, green spreading bowers;
And now comes in my happy hours,
To wander wi' my Davie.

* Gloamin,--twilight, propably from glooming. A eautiful poetical word which ought to be adopted in England. A gloamin-shot, a twilight interview.

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MY DEAR SIR, Edinburgh, 1st Sept. 1793. SINCE writing you last, I have received half a dozen songs, with which I am delighted beyond expression. The humour and fancy of Whistle and I'll come to you, my lad, will render it nearly as great a favourite as Duncan Gray. Come let me take thee to my breast, Adown winding Nith, and By Allan stream, &c. are full of ima gination and feeling, and sweetly suit the airs for which they are intended. Had I a cave on some wild distant shore, is a striking and affecting composition. Our friend, to whose story it refers, read it with a swelling heart, I assure you. The union we are now forming, I think can never be broken; these songs of yours will descend with the inusic to the latest

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posterity, and will be fondly cherished so long as genius, taste, and sensibility exist in our island.

While the muse seems so propitious, I think it right to inclose a list of all the favours I have to ask of her, no fewer than twenty and three! I have burdened the pleasant Peter with as many as it is probable he will attend to most of the remaining airs would puzzle the English poet not a little; they are of that peculiar measure and rhythm, that they must be familiar to him who writes

for them.

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You know that my pretensions to musical taste, are merely a few of nature's instincts, untaught and untutored by art. For this reason, many musical compositions, particularly where much of the merit lies in counterpoint; however they may transport and ravish the ears of you connoisseurs, affect my simple lug no otherwise than merely as melodious din. On the other hand, by way of amends, I am delighted with many little melodies, which the learned musician despises as silly and insipid. I do not know whether the old air Hey tuttie taittie may rank among this number; but well I know that, with Fraser's hautboy, it has often filled my eyes with tears. There is a tradition, which I have met with in many places of Scotland, that it was Robert Bruce's march at the battle of Bannockburn. This thought, in my solitary wanderings, warmed me to a pitch of enthusiasm on the theme of Liberty and Independence, which I threw into a kind of SCOTTISH ode, fitted to the air that one might suppose to be the gallant ROYAL SCOT's address to his heroic followers on that eventful morning.*

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and Liberty, as he did that day!—Amen. So may God ever defend the cause of Truth

highly pleased with it, and begged me to make P. S.-I showed the air to Urbani, who was soft verses for it; but I had no idea of giving myself any trouble on the subject, till the ac. cidental recollection of that glorious struggle for freedom, associated with the glowing ideas of some other struggles of the same nature, not quite so ancient, roused my rhyming mania. you will find in the Museum; though I am Clarke's set of the tune, with his bass, afraid that the air is not what will entitle it to a place in your elegant selection.

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yet this blessed headstrong property, that when I and I think Lewie Gordon is most happily once it has fairly made off with a hapless wight, it gets so enamoured with the tinkle-gingle, tinkle-gingle of its own bells, that it is sure to run poor pil-garlick, the bedlam jockey, quite beyond any useful point or post in the common race of man.

The following song I have composed for Oran-gaoil, the Highland air that you tell me, in your last, you have resolved to give a place to in your book. I have this moment finished the song; so you have it glowing from the mint. If it suit you, well! if not, 'tis also well!

Tune—“ Oran-gaoil.””

BEHOLD the hour, the boat arrive ;
Thou goest, thou darling of my heart;
Sever'd from thee can I survive-

But fate has will'd, and we must part. I'll often greet this surging swell,

Yon distant isle will often hail : "E'en here, I took the last farewell; "There latest mark'd her vanish'd sail."

Along the solitary shore,

While flitting sea fowl round me cry, Across the rolling, dashing roar,

I'll westward turn my wistful eye : Happy, thou Indian grove, I'll say,

Where now my Nancy's path may be ! While thro' thy sweets she loves to stray, O tell me, does she muse on me!

adapted to your ode; at least with a very short
variation of the fourth line, which I shall pre-
sently submit to you. There is in Lewie
Gordon more of the grand than the plaintive,
particularly when it is sung with a degree of
spirit, which your words would oblige the
singer to give it. I would have no scruple
about substituting your ode in the room of
Lewie Gordon, which has neither the interest,
the grandeur, nor the poetry that characterise
your verses. Now the variation I have to
suggest upon the last line of each verse, the only
line too short for the air, is as follows:
Or to glorious victorie.

Verse 1st, 2d,

3d,

Chains-chains and slaverie. Let him, let him turn and flie.

4th,

Let him bravely follow me.

5th,

But they shall, they shall be free.

6th,

Let us, let us do, or die!

If you connect each line with its own verse, I do not think you will find that either the sentiment or the expression loses any of its energy. The only line which I dislike in the whole of the song is, "Welcome to your gory bed." Would not another word be preferable to welcome? In your next I will expect to be informed whether you agree to what I have proposed. These little alterations I submit with the greatest deference.

The beauty of the verses you have made for Oran-gaoil will insure celebrity to the air.

No. XLI.

MR THOMSON to MR BURNS.

Edinburgh, 5th Sept. 1793.

I BELIEVE it is generally allowed that the greatest modesty is the sure attendant of the greatest merit. While you are sending me verses that even Shakspeare might be proud to own, you speak of them as if they were ordinary productions! Your heroic ode is to me the noblest composition of the kind in the Scottish language. I happened to dine yesterday with a party of your friends, to whom I read it. They were all charmed with it, entreated me to find out a suitable air for it, and reprobated the idea of giving it a tune so totally devoid of interest or grandeur as Hey tuttie taittie. suredly your partiality for this tune must arise from the ideas associated in your mind by the tradition concerning it, for I never heard any person, and I have conversed again and again with the greatest enthusiasts for Scottish airs -I say I never heard any one speak of it as worthy of notice.

As

I have been running over the whole hun. dred airs, of which I lately sent you the list;

No. XLII.

MR BURNS to MR THOMSON

September, 1793.

I HAVE received your list, my dear sir, and here go my observations on it. *

Down the burn Davie. I have this moment tried an alteration, leaving out the last half of the third stanza, and the first half of the last stanza, thus:

As down the burn they took their way,
And thro' the flowery dale;
His cheek to hers he aft did lay,
And love was aye the tale.

With "Mary, when shall we return,
Sic pleasure to renew ;"
Quoth Mary," Love, I like the burn,

And aye shall follow you."†

Thro' the wood laddie-I am decidedly of opinion, that both in this and There'll never be

* Mr Thomson's list of songs for his publication. In his remarks, the bard proceeds in order, and goes through the whole; but on many of them he merely signifies lis approbation. All his remarks of any importance are presented to the reader.

This alteration Mr Thomson has adopted, (or af least intended to adopt,) instead of the original song, which is objectionable in point of delicacy.

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