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No. XXIX.

G. THOMSON TO BURNS.

DEAR SIR:

Edinburgh, 1st Aug., 1793.

I HAD the pleasure of receiving your last two letters, and am happy to find you are quite pleased with the appearance of the first book. When you come to hear the songs sung and accompanied, you will be charmed with them.

"The bonnie brucket Lassie" certainly deserves better verses, and I hope you will match her. "Cauld Kail in Aberdeen," "Let me in this ae Night," and several of the livelier airs, wait the muse's leisure: these are peculiarly worthy of her choice gifts: besides, you'll notice, that in airs of this sort, the singer can always do greater justice to the poet, than in the slower airs of "The bush aboon Traquair," "Lord Gregory," and the like; for in the manner the latter are frequently sung, you must be contented with the sound without the sense. Indeed, both the airs and words are disguised by the very slow, languid, psalm-singing style in which they are too often performed: they lose animation and expression altogether, and instead of speaking to the mind, or touching the heart, they cloy upon the ear, and set us a yawning!

Your ballad, "There was a Lass, and she was fair," is simple and beautiful, and shall undoubtedly grace my collection.

XXX.

BURNS TO G. THOMSON.

MY DEAR THOMSON :

August, 1793.

I HOLD the pen for our friend Clarke, who, at present, is studying the music of the spheres at my elbow. The "Georgium Sidus," he thinks, is rather out of tune; so, until he rectify that matter, he cannot stoop to terrestrial affairs.

The

He sends you six of the Rondeau subjects, and if more are wanted he says you shall have them. Confound your long stairs!

S. CLARKE.

[The writer of this odd note was Stephen Clarke, teacher and composer of music; who superintended the publication of the Musical Museum, and through Burns was introduced to several good families in Dumfries-shire. He had a high opinion of his own merit, and a humble opinion of the merit of most of his brethren. He spoke contemptuously of the musical powers of the laird of Friars-Carse; though "The blue-eyed lass," as well as some other airs, might have saved him from the sar'casms of a brother composer.-Ed.]

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No. XXXI.

BURNS TO G. THOMSON.

August, 1793. YOUR objection, my dear Sir, to the passages in my song of " Logan Water," is right in one instance; but it is difficult to mend it; if I can I will. The other passage you object to does not appear in the same light to me.

I have tried my hand on "Robin Adair," and you will probably think, with little success; but it is such a cursed, cramp, out-of-the-way measure, that I despair of doing any thing better to it.

PHILLIS THE FAIR.

Tune-"Robin Adair."

I.

While larks with little wing
Fann'd the pure air,

Tasting the breathing spring,

Forth I did fare:

Gay the sun's golden eye

Peep'd o'er the mountains high;

Such thy morn! did I cry,

Phillis the fair.

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So much for namby-pamby. I may, after all, try

my hand on it in Scots verse.

myself most at home.

There I always find

I have just put the last hand to the song I meant for "Cauld kail in Aberdeen." If it suits you to insert it, I shall be pleased, as the heroine is a favorite of mine: if not, I shall also be pleased; because I wish, and will be glad, to see you act decidedly on the business. 'Tis a tribute as a man of taste, and as an editor, which you owe yourself.

[One of our poets inspires his writing-desk with the power of speech,—makes it complain of being obliged to endure all the fulsome compliments which he pays to beauty, the flattering dedications which he makes to wealth,—and humorously beg a remission from what is painful, because affected or unjust. Beauty is, in like manner, obliged to endure much at the hands of the wayward sons of song. It is, perhaps, not unfair for a poet to sing of his own sufferings: but a young lady has cause to complain, when a bard volunteers to embody in verse the imaginary woes of some fantastic person, and accuses her of inflicting visionary wounds on the fiddler to whose music she moves upon the floor, or on the musician who conducts her voice through a labyrinth of crotchets and quavers. Phillis M'Murdo is the heroine of this song: Burns wrote it at the request of Stephen Clarke, the musician, who believed himself in love with his " charming pupil."-ED.]

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