Their uncouth
simplicity
was, as they say of wines, their race.
Robert Forst
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.
Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary? &c. [202]
"Gala Water" and "Auld Rob Morris" I think, will most probably be the
next subject of my musings. However, even on my verses, speak out your
criticisms with equal frankness. My wish is not to stand aloof, the
uncomplying bigot of _opiniatrete_, but cordially to join issue with
you in the furtherance of the work.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 200: Song CLXXVII]
[Footnote 201: It is something worse in the Edinburgh edition--"Behind
yon hills where Stinchar flows. "--Poems, p 322. ]
[Footnote 202: Song CLXXIX. ]
* * * * *
CCXXXVIII.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[The poet loved to describe the influence which the charms of Miss
Lesley Baillie exercised over his imagination. ]
_November 8th, 1792.
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.
Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary? &c. [202]
"Gala Water" and "Auld Rob Morris" I think, will most probably be the
next subject of my musings. However, even on my verses, speak out your
criticisms with equal frankness. My wish is not to stand aloof, the
uncomplying bigot of _opiniatrete_, but cordially to join issue with
you in the furtherance of the work.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 200: Song CLXXVII]
[Footnote 201: It is something worse in the Edinburgh edition--"Behind
yon hills where Stinchar flows. "--Poems, p 322. ]
[Footnote 202: Song CLXXIX. ]
* * * * *
CCXXXVIII.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[The poet loved to describe the influence which the charms of Miss
Lesley Baillie exercised over his imagination. ]
_November 8th, 1792.
