No. LXVII. G. THOMSON TO BURNS. 29th November, 1794. I ACKNOWLEDGE, my dear Sir, you are not only the most punctual, but the most delectable correspondent I ever met with. To attempt flattering you, never entered my head; the truth is, I look back with surprise at my impudence, in so frequently nibbling at lines and couplets of your incomparable lyrics, for which, perhaps, if you had served me right, you would have sent me to the devil. On the contrary, however, you have, all along, condescended to invite my criticism with so much courtesy, that it ceases to be wonderful if I have sometimes given myself the airs of a reviewer. Your last budget demands unqualified praise: all the songs are charming, but the duet is a chef d'œuvre. "Lumps of pudding" shall certainly make one of my family dishes: you have cooked it so capitally that it will please all palates. Do give us a few more of this cast, when you find yourself in good spirits: these convivial songs are more wanted than those of the amorous kind, of which we have great choice. Besides, one does not often meet with a singer capable of giving the proper effect to the latter, while the former are easily sung, and acceptable to every body. I participate in your regret that the authors of some of our best songs are unknown: it is provoking to every admirer of genius. I mean to have a picture painted from your beautiful ballad, "The Soldier's Return," to be engraved for one of my frontispieces. The most interesting point of time appears to me, when she first recognizes her ain dear Willy, "She gaz'd, she reddened like a rose." The three lines immediately following are, no doubt, more impressive on the reader's feelings; but were the painter to fix on these, then you'll observe the animation and anxiety of her countenance is gone, and he could only represent her fainting in the soldier's arms. But I submit the matter to you, and beg your opinion. in considering by the side of Allan desires me to thank you for your accurate description of the stock and horn, and for the very gratifying compliment you pay him, him worthy of standing in a niche, Burns, in the Scottish Pantheon. He has seen the rude instrument you describe, so does not want you to send it; but wishes to know whether you believe it to have ever been generally used as a musical pipe by the Scottish shepherds, and when, and in what part of the country chiefly. I doubt much if it was capable of any thing but routing and roaring. A friend of mine says, he remembers to have heard one in his younger days (made of wood instead of your bone), and that the sound was abominable. Do not, I beseech you, return any books. No. LXVIII. BURNS TO G. THOMSON. December, 1794. Ir is, I assure you, the pride of my heart to do any thing to forward, or add to the value of your book; and as I agree with you that the jacobite song in the Museum, to "There 'll never be peace till Jamie comes home," would not so well consort with Peter Pindar's excellent love-song to that air, I have just framed for you the following: MY NANNIE'S AWA. Tune-" There'll never be peace," &c. I. Now in her green mantle blithe nature arrays, And listens the lambkins that bleat o'er the braes, While birds warble welcome in ilka green shaw ; But to me it's delightless-my Nannie's awa! II. The snaw-drap and primrose our woodlands adorn, They pain my sad bosom, sae sweetly they blaw, III. Thou lav'rock that springs frae the dews of the lawn, The shepherd to warn o' the gray-breaking dawn, And thou mellow mavis that hails the night fa', Give over for pity-my Nannie's awa! IV. Come autumn, sae pensive, in yellow and gray, How does this please you?-As to the point of time for the expression, in your proposed print from my "Sodger's Return," it must certainly be at-" She gaz'd." The interesting dubity and suspense taking possession of her countenance, and the gushing fondness, with a mixture of roguish playfulness in his, strike me as things of which a master will make a great deal.-In great haste, but in great truth, yours. [Rumour says that Clarinda was the Nannie whose absence Burns laments in this pretty pastoral. His thoughts were often in Edinburgh. On festive occasions, when toasts were called for, Syme used to exclaim, Come, we all know what Burns will give-here's Mrs. Mac." The laverock was a favourite bird with him; and many happy images it has supplied him with. It is, indeed, pleasant both to eye and ear to be out by gray day light on a summer morning, when a thousand larks are ascending into the brightening air; the warblings of some are near, and the songsters may be seen, a stone-throw high, mounting as they sing others are unseen in the cloud; and the whole atmosphere is full of melody. The sketch of the "Sodger's Return," by Allan, was comparatively a failure; the Poet intimated the right point of time; but to express suspense, gushing fondness, and roguish playfulness was too much for the painter, and perhaps for his art. The five succeeding songs, compositions, it is believed, of this season, supply a short pause in the correspondence with Thomson, and show us what Burns was about during "The mirk night o' December."-ED.] O WHA IS SHE THAT LO'ES ME. Tune-" Morag.” I. O wha is she that lo'es me, O that's the queen of womankind, |