No. XL.

BURNS TO G. THOMSON.

Sept. 1793.

I DARE say, my dear Sir, that you will begin to think my correspondence is persecution. No matter, I can't help it; a ballad is my hobby-horse, which, though otherwise a simple sort of harmless idiotical beast enough, has yet this blessed headstrong property, that when 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 pilgarlick, the bedlam jockey, quite beyond any useful point or post in the common race of man.

The following song I have composed for "Orangaoil," 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!

BEHOLD THE HOUR.

Tune-" Oran-gaoil.”

I.

Behold the hour, the boat arrive;

Thou goest, thou darling of my heart! Severed 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."

II.

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?

[The inspirer of this song is said to have been Clarinda: she meditated, it seems, a voyage to a certain Western isle, and the Poet has imagined the last farewell taken, and the parting looks interchanged. Some of his most impassioned lyrics were composed in honour of this accomplished lady.-ED.]

No. XLI.

G. THOMSON TO 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, intreated 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 taitie." Assuredly 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.

I have been running over the whole hundred airs of which I lately sent you the list, and I think "Lewie Gordon" is most happily adapted to your ode; at least with a very slight variation of the fourth line, which I shall presently 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 characterize 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:

Verse 1st, Or to "glorious" victorie.

2nd, "Chains "-chains and slaverie.
3rd, Let him, “let him " turn and flee.
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. The little alterations I submit with the greatest deference.

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

[The simple energy of this noble war-ode is weakened greatly by lengthening the fourth line of each verse to

suit the air of "Lewie Gordon." These changes are now generally rejected both by reader and singer. The appearance of the Scottish army on that eventful day is well described by a native Master in the art of song:"Responsive from the Scottish host,

Pipe clang and bugle sound were toss'd,
His breast and brow each soldier cross'd,
And started from the ground:
Arm'd and array'd for instant fight,

Rose archer, spearman, squire and knight
And in the pomp of battle bright,

The dread battalia frown'd."

A far inferior hand supplies us with the appearance of Edward's army nigh the close of the strife :

"Weep all ye English maidens-
Lo Bannock-brook's in flood,
Not with its own sweet waters,
But England's noblest blood:
For see your arrow-show'r has ceas'd,
The thrilling bow-string's mute;
And where rides fiery Glocester ?
All trodden under foot.
Wail all ye dames of England-

No more shall Musgrave know
The sound of the shrill trumpet-

And Argentine is low."-ED.]