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No. XXIII.

G. THOMSON TO BURNS.

Edinburgh, 26th April, 1793.

I HEARTILY thank you, my dear Sir,

for your last two letters, and the songs which accompanied them. I am always both instructed and entertained by your observations; and the frankness with which you speak out your mind is to me highly agreeable. It is very possible I may not have the true idea of simplicity in composition. I confess there are several songs, of Allan Ramsay's for example, that I think silly enough, which another person, more conversant than I have been with country people, would perhaps call simple and natural. But the lowest scenes of simple nature will not please generally, if copied precisely as they are. The poet, like the painter, must select what will form an agreeable as well as a natural picture. On this subject it were easy to enlarge; but at present suffice it to say, that I consider simplicity, rightly understood, as a most essential quality in composition, and the groundwork of beauty in all the arts. I will gladly appropriate your interesting new ballad, "When wild War's deadly Blast," &c., to the "Mill, Mill, O," as well as the two other songs to their respective airs; but the third and fourth lines of the first verse must undergo some little alteration in order to suit the

music. Pleyel does not alter a single note of the songs. That would be absurd indeed! With the airs which he introduces into the sonatas, I allow him to take such liberties as he pleases, but that has nothing to do with the songs.

P.S.-I wish you would do as you proposed with your "Rigs of Barley." If the loose sentiments are threshed out of it, I will find an air for it; but as to this there is no hurry.

[It is quite plain, from this letter, that Thomson was at issue with his correspondent on the subject-matter of simplicity. Burns, like old Burton, was a plain man, calling a spade a spade :" simplicity of expression was dear to his heart, and he considered it as essential in song. Thomson says, 66 I confess there are several songs, of Allan Ramsay's for example, that I think silly enough, which another person, more conversant than I have been with country people, would perhaps call simple and natural." He desired to vindicate the diplomatic language of the polished city; but Burns felt that elegance and simplicity were "sisters twin," and that words which failed to convey a clear meaning, or present a distinct image, were not for him.-ED.]

No. XXIV.

BURNS TO G. THOMSON.

June, 1793.

WHEN I tell you, my dear Sir, that a friend of mine, in whom I am much interested, has fallen a sacrifice to these accursed times, you will easily allow that it might unhinge me for doing any good among ballads. My own loss, as to pecuniary matters, is trifling: but the total ruin of a much-loved friend is a loss indeed. Pardon my seeming inattention to your last commands.

I cannot alter the disputed lines in the "Mill, Mill, O."* What you think a defect, I esteem as a positive beauty: so you see how doctors differ. I shall now, with as much alacrity as I can muster, go on with your commands.

You know Fraser, the hautboy-player in Edinburgh-he is here, instructing a band of music for a fencible corps quartered in this country. Among

The lines were the third and fourth :

"Wi' mony a sweet babe fatherless,
And mony a widow mourning."

many of his airs that please me, there is one, well known as a reel, by the name of "The Quaker's Wife," and which I remember a grand-aunt of mine used to sing, by the name of "Liggeram Cosh, my bonnie wee lass." Mr. Fraser plays it slow, and with an expression that quite charms me. I became such an enthusiast about it that I made a song for it, which I here subjoin, and enclose Fraser's set of the tune. If they hit your fancy they are at your service; if not, return me the tune, and I will put it in Johnson's Museum. I think the song is not in my worst manner.

BLYTHE HAE I BEEN.

Tune-" Liggeram Cosh.”

I.

Blythe hae I been on yon hili
As the lambs before me;
Careless ilka thought and free
As the breeze flew o'er me.
Now nae langer sport and play,
Mirth or sang can please me;

Lesley is sae fair and coy,

Care and anguish seize me.

II.

Heavy, heavy is the task,

Hopeless love declaring:
Trembling, I dow nocht but glow'r,
Sighing, dumb, despairing!
If she winna ease the thraws
In my bosom swelling;
Underneath the grass-green sod
Soon maun be my dwelling.

I should wish to hear how this pleases you.

[Though Miss Lesley Baillie, the heroine of this song, passed before the eyes of the Poet like a vision which never returns, her loveliness seems to have been long remembered. In expressing the hopelessness of misplaced love, Burns has surpassed all other poets: this song, and that of Jessy, would go far to sustain the assertion; but there are others of equal tenderness, which cannot but be present to the minds of all readers. Of the old song, from which he has borrowed nothing but the air, little is known: it was sometimes sung in Nithsdale, and, if I remember right, had a touch of the nursery about it.-Ed.]

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