No More Learning

The business of many of our tunes wanting, at the beginning, what
fiddlers call a starting-note, is often a rub to us poor rhymers.

"There's braw, braw lads on Yarrow braes,
That wander through the blooming heather,"

you may alter to

"Braw, braw lads on Yarrow braes,
Ye wander," &c.

My song, "Here awa, there awa," as amended by Mr. Erskine, I entirely
approve of, and return you.

Give me leave to criticise your taste in the only thing in which it
is, in my opinion, reprehensible. You know I ought to know something
of my own trade. Of pathos, sentiment, and point, you are a complete
judge; but there is a quality more necessary than either in a song,
and which is the very essence of a ballad--I mean simplicity: now, if
I mistake not, this last feature you are a little apt to sacrifice to
the foregoing.

Ramsay, as every other poet, has not been always equally happy in his
pieces; still I cannot approve of taking such liberties with an author
as Mr. Walker proposes doing with "The last time I came o'er the
moor. " Let a poet, if he choose, take up the idea of another, and work
it into a piece of his own; but to mangle the works of the poor bard,
whose tuneful tongue is now mute for ever, in the dark and narrow
house--by Heaven, 'twould be sacrilege! I grant that Mr. W. 's version
is an improvement; but I know Mr. W. well, and esteem him much; let
him mend the song, as the Highlander mended his gun--he gave it a new
stock, a new lock, and a new barrel.
I do not, by this, object to leaving out improper stanzas, where that
can be done without spoiling the whole. One stanza in "The lass o'
Patie's mill" must be left out: the song will be nothing worse for it.
I am not sure if we can take the same liberty with "Corn rigs are
bonnie. " Perhaps it might want the last stanza, and be the better for
it. "Cauld kail in Aberdeen," you must leave with me yet awhile. I
have vowed to have a song to that air, on the lady whom I attempted to
celebrate in the verses, "Poortith cauld and restless love. " At any
rate, my other song, "Green grow the rashes," will never suit. That
song is current in Scotland under the old title, and to the merry old
tune of that name, which, of course, would mar the progress of your
song to celebrity. Your book will be the standard of Scots songs for
the future: let this idea ever keep your judgment on the alarm.

I send a song on a celebrated toast in this country, to suit "Bonnie
Dundee. " I send you also a ballad to the "Mill, mill, O! "[218]

"The last time I came o'er the moor," I would fain attempt to make a
Scots song for, and let Ramsay's be the English set. You shall hear
from me soon. When you go to London on this business, can you come by
Dumfries? I have still several MS. Scots airs by me, which I have
picked up, mostly from the singing of country lasses.