LET me tell you that you are too fastidious in your ideas of songs and ballads. I own that your criticisms are just; the songs you specify in your list have, all but one, the faults you remark in them; but who shall mend the matter? Who shall rise up and say-Go to, I will make a better? For instance, on reading over the "The Lea-rig," I immediately set about trying my hand on it, and, after all, I could make nothing more of it than the following, which, Heaven knows, is poor enough : My ain kind Dearie, O. Tune-" The Lea-Rig. I. When o'er the hill the eastern star Return sae dowf and weary, O; Down by the burn, where scented birks Wi' dew are hanging clear, my jo; I'll meet thee on the lea-rig, My ain kind dearie, O! II. In mirkest glen, at midnight hour, I'd rove, and ne'er be eerie, O; [VAR.-For "scented birks," in some copies, "birken buds."] ["In the copy transmitted to Mr. Thomson, instead of wild, was inserted wet. But in one of the manuscripts, probably written afterwards, wet was changed into wild-evidently a great improvement. The lovers might meet on the lea-rig, although the night were ne'er so wild,' that is, although the summer-wind blew, the sky lowered, and the thunder murmured; such circumstances might render their meeting still more interesting. But if the night were actually wet, why should they meet on the lea-rig? On a wet night, the imagination cannot contemplate their situation there with any complacency. Tibullus, and after him Hammond, has conceived a happier situation for lovers on a wet night. Probably Burns had in his mind the verse of an old Scottish song, in which wet and weary are naturally enough conjoined: 'When my ploughman comes hame at e'en, Cast off the wet, put on the dry, And gae to bed, my deary.'"-CURRIE.] [The original or old name of this song was the Warehorse. "Burns and Fergusson,' says Mr. Buchan, "have exerted their skill to make words worthy of so fine an air; but my great grandmother's way ran thus: 'I hae been at the ware-horse, If thro' that glen I gaed to thee, My ain kind dearie, O! Altho' the night were ne'er sae wild,† And I were ne'er sae wearie, O, I'd meet thee on thee lea-rig, My ain kind dearie, O ! III. The hunter lo'es the morning sun, To rouse the mountain deer, my jo; Along the burn to steer, my jo; My ain kind dearie, O! Į Your observation as to the aptitude of Dr. Percy's ballad to the air, “Nannie, 0,” is just. It is besides, perhaps, the most beautiful balad in the English language. But let me remark to you, that in the sentiment and style of our Scottish airs there is a pastoral simplicity, a something that one may call the Doric styl and dialect of vocal music, to which a dash our native tongue and manners is particularly, nay peculiarly, apposite. For this reason, and. upon my honour, for this reason alone, I am c opinion (but, as I told you before, my opinia is yours, freely yours, to approve or reject, s you please) that my ballad of "Nannie, 0! might perhaps do for one set of verses to the tune. Now don't let it enter into your hea that you are under any necessity of taking my verses. I have long ago made up my mis as to my own reputation in the business of authorship; and have nothing to be pleased or offended at, in your adoption or rejection of y verses. Though you should reject one half of what I give you, I shall be pleased with your I'll row you up, I'll row you down, But how are ye sae bauld, sir, And you my father's cotter, O; As row me up, and row me down, Then tho' the night be ne'er sae dark, I'll hap you in my petticoat, Then row me up, and row me down, "To those unacquainted with the term or name of wa horse, it may be necessary to add, by way of explanation. that along the rocky and steep coast of the east of Scotian the adjoining lands were manured with a kind of sea-werd called ware, which was carried on the backs of dwarf bors in wooden creels or curroches, and led by the young wo belonging to the farm.-The men's duty was to gather from the sea, load the horses, and afterwards spread it on the land."] dopting the other half, and shall continue to erve you with the same assiduity. In the printed copy of my "Nannie, O," the name of the river is horridly prosaic. I will alter it : "Behind yon hills where Lugar flows." Girvan is the name of the river that suits the idea of the stanza best, but Lugar is the most agreeable modulation of syllables. I will soon give you a great many more remarks on this business; but I have just now an opportunity of conveying you this scrawl, free of postage, an expense that it is ill able to pay so, with my best compliments to honest Allan, Gude be wi' ye, &c. Friday Night. R. B. Your remarks on "Ewe-bughts, Marion," are just; still it has obtained a place among our more classical Scottish songs; and, what with many beauties in its composition, and more prejudices in its favour, you will not find it easy to supplant it. In my very early years, when I was thinking of going to the West Indies, I took the following farewell of a dear girl. It is quite trifling, and has nothing of the merits of " Ewe-bughts;" but it will fill up this page. You must know that all my earlier love-songs were the breathings of ardent passion, and though it might have been easy in after-times to have given them a polish, yet that polish, to me, whose they were, and who perhaps alone cared for them, would have defaced the legend of my heart, which was so faithfully inscribed on them. Their uncouth simplicity was, as they say of wines, their race. Will you go to the Indies, my Mary? [The first line of this song seems to have been taken from an old Irish one, beginning,— "Will ye go to Dublin, my Molly?''] [This song Mr. Thomson has not adopted in his collection. It deserves, however, to be preserved.-CURRIK.] [There are many sets of this old song on which this one is framed, to be found both in print and on the breath of tradition. In Herd's Collection, vol. ii. p. 230, we have the following version : We hae plighted our troth, my Mary, "Galla Water," and "Auld Rob Morris," I think, will most probably be the next subject of my musings. However, even on my verses, speak out your criticisms with equal frankness. My wish is, not to stand aloof, the uncomplying bigot of opiniâtreté, but cordially to join issue with you in the furtherance of the work. No. V. BURNS TO G. THOMSON. November 8th, 1792. IF you mean, my dear Sir, that all the songs in your collection shall be poetry of the first merit, I am afraid you will find more difficulty in the undertaking than you are aware of. There is a peculiar rhythmus in many of our airs, and a necessity for adapting syllables to the emphasis, or what I would call the featurenotes of the tune, that cramp the poet, and lay him under almost insuperable difficulties. For instance, in the air, "My wife's a wanton wee thing," if a few lines smooth and pretty can be adapted to it, it is all you can expect. The following were made extempore to it; and though, on farther study, I might give you something more profound, yet it might not suit the light-horse gallop of the air so well as this random clink : My Wife's a winsome wee Thing. † I. SHE is a winsome wee thing, She is a handsome wee thing, "My wife's a wanton wee thing, She'll never be guided by me. The traditional copies celebrate the virtues and vices of a pigmy drunken wife.-M.] IV. The Deil he could na scaith thee, Nor aught that wad belang thee; He'd look into thy bonnie face, And say, "I canna wrang thee." V. The powers aboon will tent thee; Misfortune sha' na steer thee: Thou'rt like themselves sae lovely, That ill they'll ne'er let near thee. VI. Return again, fair Lesley, Return to Caledonie! That we may brag we hae a lass I have hitherto deferred the sublimer, more pathetic airs, until more leisure, as they will take, and deserve, a greater effort. However, they are all put into your hands, as clay into the hands of the potter, to make one vessel to honour, and another to dishonour.--Farewell, &c. R. B. No. VI. BURNS TO G. THOMSON. Highland Mary. Tune-Katherine Ogie. I. YE banks, and braes, and streams around II. How sweetly bloom'd the gay green birk! How rich the hawthorn's blossom! of his celestial home, among the coarse, polluted, far inferr sons of men, to deliver to them tidings that make ther hearts swim in joy, and their imaginations soar in transport -such, so delighting and so pure, were the emotions of soul on meeting the other day with Miss Lesley Baillie, rou neighbour. Mr. Baillie, with his two daughters, acco panied by Mr. H. of G., passing through Dumfries a few days ago, on their way to England, did me the honour calling on me; on which I took my horse (though God knows I could ill spare the time,) and accompanied them fourte or fifteen miles, and dined and spent the day with them 'Twas about nine, I think, when I left them; and riding home, I composed the following ballad." You must know that there is an old one beginning with : My bonnie Lizzie Baillie, The Poet, in a letter to Mrs. Dunlop, dated August, 1792, describes the influence which the beauty of Miss Lesley Baillie exercised over his imagination. "Know then," said he, "that the heart-struck awe, the distant humble approach, the delight we should have in gazing upon and listening to a messenger of Heaven, appearing in all the unspotted purity Sol parodied it as above. R. B. I'll rowe thee in my plaidie, &c. The golden hours, on angel wings, Flew o'er me and my dearie; For dear to me, as light and life, Was my sweet Highland Mary! III. Wi' mony a vow, and lock'd embrace, But, oh! fell Death's untimely frost, [In the notes to "My Highland Lassie, O," and "To Mary in Heaven," as well as in the Life of Burns, not a little has been said of Highland Mary, of whose loveliness and too early death the Poet sung with so much beauty and pathos. The following interesting particulars have been communicated by John Kerr, Esq., writer in Glasgow:"The parents of Highland Mary lived in Greenock, and she crossed the firth of Clyde to visit some relations in Cowal, previous to her marriage. Her father was a mariner; had two sons, Archibald and Robert; and, besides Mary, a daughter, named Anne, who married James Anderson, a stone-mason. All these individuals are now dead: Mary was not long outlived by her father and brothers: her mother died in great poverty in the year 1828. The representatives of Highland Mary, therefore, now consist of Anderson's children-two sons and two daughters. Mary, it appears, was not hurried to the grave immediately after her return from Cowal: she lived several weeks with her father, and every week received a letter from her lover. The circumstance of a girl in her humble condition receiving a letter weekly excited the curiosity of the neighbours: the secret was carefully hunted out, and one of the gossips informed her father and mother that Mary was in the habit of receiving letters from a person named Burns. who was known to be a strange character, and 'a great scoffer at women.' Mary was questioned on the subject, and admitted the correspondence, laughing heartily at the description of her lover, whose scoffing, she said, she was ready to trust to. After this, Mary was allowed to receive her letters openly: one of them, it appears, contained the song of 'The Highland Lassie, O;' for her mother got it by heart from the Poet s correspondence, and, in her declining years, soothed her grand-children with strains which recorded the charms of her favourite daughter. "It is to be regretted that none of these letters are now in existence. After Mary's death, her father disliked all allusions to her or her lover; and when Burns wrote a moving letter, requesting some memorial of her he loved so dearly, the stern old man neither answered it, nor allowed any one to speak about it in his presence. His grand-children can sing some scraps of the songs which he wrote in the praise of their aunt; and these, save the Bible presented to her by the Poet, are all that the relatives of Highland Mary have to bear testimony of the love that was between her and Burns. Before the last farewell,' commemorated in the song of Highland Mary,' was taken, the lovers plighted mutual faith, and, exchanging Bibles, stood, with a running stream between, and, lifting up its waters in their hands, vowed love while the woods of Montgomery grew and its waters ran. The spot where this took place is still pointed out. Mary's Bible was of the commonest kind, and consisted of one volume only-that of Burns was elegantly bound, and consisted of two volumes. In the first volume he had written, And ye shall not swear by my name falsely-I am the Lord. Levit. chap. xiv., v. 12.-In the second-Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oath. St. Matth. chap. v., v. 33;' and on a blank leaf of both volumes. Robert Burns, Mossgiel.' By the death of Mary, this Bible came into the possession of her mother, who, about twelve years ago, gave it to her only surviving daughter, Mrs. Anderson. The circumstance of its being in two volumes seemed, at one period, to threaten its dismemberment; for, upwards of five years since, Mrs. Anderson presented a volume to each of her two daughters; but on the approaching marriage of these two females sometime afterwards, her eldest son, William Anderson, a Renton, prevailed upon each of his sisters to dispose of the volumes they had received to him; and thus both volumes, once more united, now remain in the custody of the senior mason in Now green's the sod, and cauld's the clay, That wraps my Highland Mary! IV. Oh pale, pale now, those rosy lips, nephew of Highland Mary. The sacred verses we have quoted above remain in the bold, distinct hand-writing of the Poet; but his signature, on the opposite leaves, is almost wholly obliterated. In the first volume, a masonic emblem, drawn by Burns, below his signature, is in complete preservation. Mr. William Anderson is also possessed of a pretty large lock of his aunt, Highland Mary's, hair, a portion of which he presented to us, as a relic of the Bard's first love. "We now come to another era in the history of this Bible. Mr. Archibald, schoolmaster, in Largs, an admirer of Burns, and a votary of the Scottish muse, waited, it is said, on old widow Campbell, some time before her death, for the purpose of purchasing the volumes. He learnt, however, that she was a pauper on the roll of the Kirk Session of Greenock, who, in consequence, were entitled to take possession of her little property as soon as death removed her from this world; but in the mean time, to secure a right to them, he is said to have bargained with her that he should become the possessor of the volumes when that event took place, at such a price as might be agreed upon between him and the Session. February last, Mr. Archibald, having heard that the Bible had found its way into the custody of one of the elders, presented the following memorial to the Session: In "Your Memorialist will not presume to dictate to your Reverend Body what you may or ought to do with the Bible. He takes leave, however, to say, that if you do not see fit to retain them as public property, estimable to the people of Greenock, in consequence of the historical circumstances connected with these volumes, having been within their locality, be, the Memorialist, will be proud to be one of those who will gladly come forward to offer you a handsome sum of money for behoof of the poor, for the possession of the Sacred Pledges of Burns' purest affection. He has no doubt that many will compete with him in the generous strife of obtaining the books, and that, if you see fit in this way to raise it, a considerable sum may be realized for the necessities of the poor.' "On this memorial the Session pronounced the following judgment upon it : The Kirk Session of the Old Parish of Greenock, with their Heritors, being met-inter alia, the Kirk Treasurer laid before the meeting a letter from Mr. Joseph J. Archibald, teacher at Largs, containing an offer of £10 for the effects (including furniture, books, &c. &c.) left by widow Campbell, mother to Burns' Highland Mary, which effects became the property of the Kirk Session, in consequence of the said Widow Campbell being, for several years, a pauper on their roll. The Session agreed to resign their hypothec in said effects to and in favour of the said Mr. Joseph J. Archibald, for the aforesaid sum of £10, and authorize their clerk to intimate this to him.' "Notwithstanding the grave and formal tenor of this resolution, we suspect that the Bible is the unquestionable property of its present possessor, and, if the account we have received of his character and conduct approach the truth, he is well worthy of remaining their custodier in perpetuity."] [Mr. Joseph J. Archibald, alluded to in the preceding narrative, had the Bibles for a considerable time in his possession, and deposited them, along with a lock of Mary's hair, for some time in the hands of Mr. Crawford, Dalry, Ayr-shire, who still retains a small portion of the hair. Archibald was afterwards in the employment of Dr. Kirk, late of Greenock, now of Glasgow, where he fell ill, and his mother went from Dalry to nurse him. On his death, inquiry was made after the Bibles, but they were no where to be found. It is therefore impossible to say into whose possession these precious relics have found their way.] MY DEAR SIR: 14th November, 1792. I AGREE with you that the song, "Katherine Ogie," is very poor stuff, and unworthy, altogether unworthy, of so beautiful an air. I tried to mend it; but the awkward sound, Ogie, recurring so often in the rhyme, spoils every attempt at introducing sentiment into the piece. The foregoing song pleases myself; I think it is in my happiest manner: you will see at first glance that it suits the air. The subject of the song is one of the most interesting passages of my youthful days; and I own that I should be much flattered to see the verses set to an air which would ensure celebrity. Perhaps, after all, 'tis the still glowing prejudice of my heart that throws a borrowed lustre over the merits of the composition. I have partly taken your idea of "Auld Rob Morris." I have adopted the first two verses, and am going on with the song on a new plan, which promises pretty well. I take up one or another, just as the bee of the moment buzzes in my bonnet-lug; and do you, sans ceremonie, make what use you choose of the productions.—Adieu, &c. R. B. I WAS just going to write to you, that on meeting with your Nannie, I had fallen violently in love with her. I thank you, therefore, for sending the charming rustic to me, in the dress you wish her to appear before the public. She does you great credit, and will soon be admitted into the best company. I regret that your song for the "Lea-rig" is so short; the air is easy, soon sung, and very pleasing: so that, if the singer stops at the end of two stanzas, it is a pleasure lost ere it is well possessed.* Although a dash of our native tongue and manners is doubtless peculiarly congenial and appropriate to our melodies, yet I shall be able to present a considerable number of the very Flowers of English Song, well adapted to these melodies, which, in England at least, will be the means of recommending them to still greater attention than they have procured there. But, you will observe, my plan is, that every air shall in the first place have verses wholly by Scottish poets; and that those of English writers shall follow as additional songs, for the choice of the singer. What you say of the "Ewe-bughts" is just; I admire it, and never meant to supplant it.All I requested was, that you would try your which are hand on some of the inferior stanzas, apparently no part of the original song; but this I do not urge, because the song is of suificient length, though those inferior stanzas be omitted, as they will be by the singer of taste. You must not think I expect all the songs to be of superlative merit: that were an unreasonable expectation. I am sensible that no poet can sit down doggedly to pen verses, and succeed well, at all times. I am highly pleased with your humorous and amorous rhapsody on " Bonnie Lesley ;" it is a thousand times better than the "Collier's Las"The deil he cou'd na scaith thee," &c. sie." is an eccentric and happy thought. Do you not think, however, that the names of such old heroes as Alexander sound rather queer, unless in pompous or mere burlesque verse? Instead of the line, "And never made anither,” 1 would humbly suggest, "And ne'er made sic anither," and I would fain have you substitute some other line for "Return to Caledonie,” in the last verse, because I think this alteration of the orthography, and of the sound of Caldonia, disfigures the word, and renders à Hudibrastic. Of the other song-"My Wife's a Winsome wee Thing," I think the first eight lines very good: but I do not admire the other eight, because four of them are a bare repetition of the first verse. I have been trying to spin & stanza, but could make nothing better than the following: do you mend it, or, as Yorick d with the love-letter, whip it up in your own way : O leeze me on my wee thing, Tho' warld's care we share o't, And ne'er a word repine. You perceive, my dear Sir, I avail myself of the liberty, which you condescend to allow me, by speaking freely what I think. Be assured. it is not my disposition to pick out the faults of any poem or picture I see: my first and chief object is to discover and be delighted with the beauties of the piece. If I sit down to examine critically, and at leisure, what, perhaps you have written in haste, I may happen to observe careless lines, the re-perusal of which might lead you to improve them. The wre will often see what has been overlooked by the eagle.—I remain yours faithfully, &c. G. T P.S. Your verses upon "Highland Mary" are just come to hand; they breathe the genuine |