No More Learning

If it does not suit you as an editor, you may be pleased to have
verses to it that you can sing in the company of ladies.

Sae flaxen were her ringlets. [260]

Not to compare small things with great, my taste in music is like the
mighty Frederick of Prussia's taste in painting: we are told that he
frequently admired what the connoisseurs decried, and always without
any hypocrisy confessed his admiration. I am sensible that my taste in
music must be inelegant and vulgar, because people of undisputed and
cultivated taste can find no merit in my favourite tunes. Still,
because I am cheaply pleased, is that any reason why I should deny
myself that pleasure? Many of our strathspeys, ancient and modern,
give me most exquisite enjoyment, where you and other judges would
probably be showing disgust. For instance, I am just now making verses
for "Rothemurche's rant," an air which puts me in raptures; and, in
fact, unless I be pleased with the tune, I never can make verses to
it. Here I have Clarke on my side, who is a judge that I will pit
against any of you. "Rothemurche," he says, "is an air both original
and beautiful;" and, on his recommendation, I have taken the first
part of the tune for a chorus, and the fourth or last part for the
song. I am but two stanzas deep in the work, and possibly you may
think, and justly, that the poetry is as little worth your attention
as the music.

[Here follow two stanzas of the song, beginning "Lassie wi' the
lint-white locks. " Song CCXXXIII. ]

I have begun anew, "Let me in this ae night. " Do you think that we
ought to retain the old chorus? I think we must retain both the old
chorus and the first stanza of the old song.
I do not altogether like
the third line of the first stanza, but cannot alter it to please
myself. I am just three stanzas deep in it. Would you have the
_denouement_ to be successful or otherwise? --should she "let him in"
or not?

Did you not once propose "The sow's tail to Geordie" as an air for
your work? I am quite delighted with it; but I acknowledge that is no
mark of its real excellence. I once set about verses for it, which I
meant to be in the alternate way of a lover and his mistress chanting
together. I have not the pleasure of knowing Mrs. Thomson's Christian
name, and yours, I am afraid, is rather burlesque for sentiment, else
I had meant to have made you the hero and heroine of the little piece.

How do you like the following epigram which I wrote the other day on a
lovely young girl's recovery from a fever? Doctor Maxwell was the
physician who seemingly saved her from the grave; and to him I address
the following:

TO DR. MAXWELL,

ON MISS JESSIE STAIG'S RECOVERY.

Maxwell, if merit here you crave,
That merit I deny:
You save fair Jessy from the grave? --
An angel could not die!

God grant you patience with this stupid epistle!

R.