No More Learning

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CCCXLIV.


TO JAMES GRACIE, ESQ.

[James Gracie was, for some time, a banker in Dumfries: his eldest son,
a fine, high-spirited youth, fell by a rifle-ball in America, when
leading the troops to the attack on Washington. ]

_Brow, Wednesday Morning, 16th July, 1796. _

MY DEAR SIR,

It would [be] doing high injustice to this place not to acknowledge
that my rheumatisms have derived great benefits from it already; but
alas! my loss of appetite still continues. I shall not need your kind
offer _this week_, and I return to town the beginning of next week, it
not being a tide-week. I am detaining a man in a burning hurry.

So God bless you.

R. B.

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REMARKS

ON

SCOTTISH SONGS AND BALLADS.

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[The following Strictures on Scottish Song exist in the handwriting of
Burns, in the interleaved copy of Johnson's Musical Museum, which the
poet presented to Captain Riddel, of Friars Carse; on the death of
Mrs. Riddel, these precious volumes passed into the hands of her
niece, Eliza Bayley, of Manchester, who kindly permitted Mr. Cromek to
transcribe and publish them in the Reliques.
]

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THE HIGHLAND QUEEN.

This Highland Queen, music and poetry, was composed by Mr. M'Vicar,
purser of the Solebay man-of-war. --This I had from Dr. Blacklock.

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BESS THE GAWKIE.

This song shows that the Scottish muses did not all leave us when we
lost Ramsay and Oswald, as I have good reason to believe that the
verses and music are both posterior to the days of these two
gentlemen. It is a beautiful song, and in the genuine Scots taste. We
have few pastoral compositions, I mean the pastoral of nature, that
are equal to this.

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OH, OPEN THE DOOR, LORD GREGORY.

It is somewhat singular, that in Lanark, Renfrew, Ayr, Wigton,
Kirkudbright, and Dumfries-shires, there is scarcely an old song or
tune which, from the title, &c. , can be guessed to belong to, or be
the production of these countries. This, I conjecture, is one of these
very few; as the ballad, which is a long one, is called, both by
tradition and in printed collections, "The Lass of Lochroyan," which I
take to be Lochroyan, in Galloway.

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THE BANKS OF THE TWEED.

This song is one of the many attempts that English composers have made
to imitate the Scottish manner, and which I shall, in these
strictures, beg leave to distinguish by the appellation of
Anglo-Scottish productions. The music is pretty good, but the verses
are just above contempt.