IV. Wha for Scotland's king and law V. By oppression's woes and pains! But they shall be-shall be free! VI. Lay the proud usurpers low! Tyrants fall in every foe! Liberty's in every blow! Forward! let us do, or die! N.B.-I have borrowed the last stanza from the common stall edition of Wallace : : "A false usurper sinks in every foe, And liberty returns with every blow." A couplet worthy of Homer. Yesterday you had enough of my correspondence. The post goes, and my head aches miserably. One comfort—I suffer so much, just now, in this world, for last night's joviality, that I shall escape scot-free for it in the world to come. Amen! [The field on which this memorable battle was fought is annually visited by English tourists, and they seldom : leave it without carrying away something to remind them of the spot. Some even invaded the sanctity of the "Bore-stone," in which the standard of Bruce was placed, and carried bits with them as specimens. Those who reflect rightly on the upshot of the contest, feel that in the triumph of freeborn men the great cause of liberty triumphed no historian, save one with a contracted heart-nor no enlightened statesman, can regard the struggles of Scotland with other feelings than those of sympathy. Few Scotsmen can pass the porphyry tomb of Edward the First in Westminster Abbey, without a certain mounting of the blood; or look upon the "old black stone of Scone" without recollecting how it came there. These are not narrow-souled nationalities. The memorable "Scotch stone" is any thing but black; it is a rough-piled reddish-gray sandstone, such as may be found on the Solway-side at Arbigland: it is six and twenty inches long, sixteen inches wide, and eleven inches thick, and is fixed in the bottom of the chair with cramps of iron. The stone is unquestionably Scottish: troughs, crosses, and other ancient matters, at present to be found in the north, seem from the same quarry.— ED.] No. XLIV. G. THOMSON TO BURNS. 12th Sept. 1793. A THOUSAND thanks to you, my dear Sir, for your observations on the list of my songs. I am happy to find your ideas so much in unison with my own, respecting the generality of the airs, as well as the verses. About some of them we differ, but there is no disputing about hobby-horses. I shall not fail to profit by the remarks you make; and to reconsider the whole with attention. 66 Dainty Davie" must be sung, two stanzas together, and then the chorus; 'tis the proper way. I agree with you, that there may be something of pathos, or tenderness at least, in the air of " Fee him, Father," when performed with feeling: but a tender cast may be given almost to any lively air, if you sing it very slowly, expressively, and with serious words. I am, however, clearly and invariably for retaining the cheerful tunes joined to their own humorous verses, wherever the verses are passable. But the sweet song for "Fee him, Father," which you began about the back of midnight, I will publish as an additional one. Mr. James Balfour, the king of good fellows, and the best singer of the lively Scottish ballads that ever existed, has charmed thousands of companies with "Fee him, Father," and with "Todlin' hame" also, to the old words, which never should be disunited from either of these airs. Some Bacchanals I would I wish to discard. 66 Fye, let's a' to the bridal," for instance, is so coarse and vulgar, that I think it fit only to be sung in a company of drunken colliers: and "Saw ye my Father" appears to me both indelicate and silly. One word more with regard to your heroic ode. I think, with great deference to the poet, that a prudent general would avoid saying any thing to his soldiers which might tend to make death more frightful than it is. "Gory" presents a disagreeable image to the mind; and to tell them, "Welcome to your gory bed," seems rather a discouraging address, notwithstanding the alternative which follows. I have shewn the song to three friends of excellent taste, and each of them objected to this line, which emboldens me to use the freedom of bringing it again under your notice. I would suggest, "Now prepare for honour's bed, Or for glorious victorie." [Some of the opinions expressed in this letter are entitled to respect: others are so singular as to require notice. Neither "Fye, let us a' to the bridal," nor "Saw ye my Father," merit the hard words which Thomson applies to them for the time in which they were written, they are neither vulgar nor indelicate. Both songs till a late period continued to be sung in the best com panies in Scotland, nor has the noble descendant of a house-noble both by genius and birth-hesitated to claim the merit of writing "Fye, let us a' to the bridal," for one of his ancestors. Something like the taste of Thomson came a few years back over a small coterie of ladies in the north: they laid the songs of Scotland before them, and placing their fingers on all such parts as they reckoned indelicate, held a consultation upon the meaning, and after many shakings of the head and whisperings in the ear, they smoothed down without remorse whatever seemed to rise higher than their fanciful level of purity. The concluding paragraph of Thomson's communication requires no comment: that he was wrong the world has likely by this time convinced him. Who can read his altered lines after "Welcome to your gory bed, Or to victorie-" without feeling that such emendations crush the original spirit out of the verse, and give nothing in return, save increase of sound.-ED.] |