No More Learning

R. B.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 280: Song CCLIII. ]

[Footnote 281: Song CCLIV. ]

* * * * *




CCCXIV.


TO MR. THOMSON.

[Thomson at this time sent the drawing to Burns in which David Allan
sought to embody the "Cotter's Saturday Night:" it displays at once
the talent and want of taste of the ingenious artist. ]

_May, 1795. _

Ten thousand thanks for your elegant present--though I am ashamed of
the value of it, being bestowed on a man who has not, by any means,
merited such an instance of kindness. I have shown it to two or three
judges of the first abilities here, and they all agree with me in
classing it as a first-rate production. My phiz is sae kenspeckle,
that the very joiner's apprentice, whom Mrs. Burns employed to break
up the parcel (I was out of town that day) knew it at once. My most
grateful compliments to Allan, who has honoured my rustic music so
much with his masterly pencil. One strange coincidence is, that the
little one who is making the felonious attempt on the cat's tail, is
the most striking likeness of an ill-deedie, d--n'd, wee,
rumblegairie urchin of mine, whom from that propensity to witty
wickedness, and man-fu' mischief, which, even at twa days auld, I
foresaw would form the striking features of his disposition, I named
Willie Nicol, after a certain friend of mine, who is one of the
masters of a grammar-school in a city which shall be nameless.
Give the enclosed epigram to my much-valued friend Cunningham, and
tell him, that on Wednesday I go to visit a friend of his, to whom his
friendly partiality in speaking of me in a manner introduced me--I
mean a well-known military and literary character, Colonel Dirom.

You do not tell me how you liked my two last songs. Are they
condemned?

R. B.

* * * * *




CCCXV.


TO MR. THOMSON.

[In allusion to the preceding letter, Thomson says to Burns, "You
really make me blush when you tell me you have not merited the drawing
from me. " The "For a' that and a' that," which went with this letter,
was, it is believed, the composition of Mrs. Riddel. ]

In "Whistle, and I'll come to ye, my lad," the iteration of that line
is tiresome to my ear. Here goes what I think is an improvement:--

Oh whistle, and I'll come to ye, my lad;
Oh whistle, and I'll come to ye, my lad;
Tho' father and mother and a' should gae mad,
Thy Jeanie will venture wi' ye, my lad.

In fact, a fair dame, at whose shrine I, the priest of the Nine, offer
up the incense of Parnassus--a dame whom the Graces have attired in
witchcraft, and whom the Loves have armed with lightning--a fair one,
herself the heroine of the song, insists on the amendment, and dispute
her commands if you dare?

This is no my ain lassie,[282] &c.

Do you know that you have roused the torpidity of Clarke at last?