No More Learning

[Thomson had delivered judgment on some old Scottish songs, but the
poet murmured against George's decree. ]

MY DEAR SIR,

Let me tell you, that you are too fastidious in your ideas of songs
and ballads. I own that your criticisms are just; the songs you
specify in your list have, all but one, the faults you remark in them;
but who shall mend the matter? Who shall rise up and say, "Go to! I
will make a better? " For instance, on reading over "The Lea-rig," I
immediately set about trying my hand on it, and, after all, I could
make nothing more of it than the following, which, Heaven knows, is
poor enough.

When o'er the hill the eastern star, &c. [200]

Your observation as to the aptitude of Dr. Percy's ballad to the air,
"Nannie, O! " is just. It is, besides, perhaps, the most beautiful
ballad in the English language. But let me remark to you, that in the
sentiment and style of our Scottish airs, there is a pastoral
simplicity, a something that one may call the Doric style and dialect
of vocal music, to which a dash of our native tongue and manners is
particularly, nay peculiarly, apposite. For this reason, and upon my
honour, for this reason alone, I am of opinion (but, as I told you
before, my opinion is yours, freely yours, to approve or reject, as
you please) that my ballad of "Nannie, O! " might perhaps do for one
set of verses to the tune. Now don't let it enter into your head, that
you are under any necessity of taking my verses.
I have long ago made
up my mind as to my own reputation in the business of authorship, and
have nothing to be pleased or offended at, in your adoption or
rejection of my verses. Though you should reject one half of what I
give you, I shall be pleased with your adopting the other half, and
shall continue to serve you with the same assiduity.

In the printed copy of my "Nannie, O! " the name of the river is
horribly prosaic. [201] I will alter it:

Behind yon hills where Lugar flows.

Girvan is the name of the river that suits the idea of the stanza
best, but Lugar is the most agreeable modulation of syllables.

I will soon give you a great many more remarks on this business; but I
have just now an opportunity of conveying you this scrawl, free of
postage, an expense that it is ill able to pay: so, with my best
compliments to honest Allan, Gude be wi' ye, &c.

_Friday Night. _

_Saturday Morning. _

As I find I have still an hour to spare this morning before my
conveyance goes away, I will give you "Nannie, O! " at length.

Your remarks on "Ewe-bughts, Marion," are just; still it has obtained
a place among our more classical Scottish songs; and what with many
beauties in its composition, and more prejudices in its favour, you
will not find it easy to supplant it.

In my very early years, when I was thinking of going to the West
Indies, I took the following farewell of a dear girl. It is quite
trifling, and has nothing of the merits of "Ewe-bughts;" but it will
fill up this page. You must know that all my earlier love-songs were
the breathings of ardent passion, and though it might have been easy
in aftertimes to have given them a polish, yet that polish, to me,
whose they were, and who perhaps alone cared for them, would have
defaced the legend of my heart, which was so faithfully inscribed on
them. Their uncouth simplicity was, as they say of wines, their race.