No More Learning

THOMSON.

[Burns in this letter speaks of the pecuniary present which Thomson
sent him, in a lofty and angry mood: he who published poems by
subscription might surely have accepted, without any impropriety,
payment for his songs. ]

_July, 1793. _

I assure you, my dear Sir, that you truly hurt me with your pecuniary
parcel. It degrades me in my own eyes. However, to return it would
savour of affectation; but, as to any more traffic of that debtor and
creditor kind, I swear by that HONOUR which crowns the upright statue of
ROBERT BURNS'S INTEGRITY--on the least motion of it, I will indignantly
spurn the by-past transaction, and from that moment commence entire
stranger to you! BURNS'S character for generosity of sentiment and
independence of mind, will, I trust, long outlive any of his wants which
the cold unfeeling ore can supply; at least, I will take care that such
a character he shall deserve.

Thank you for my copy of your publication. Never did my eyes behold in
any musical work such elegance and correctness. Your preface, too, is
admirably written, only your partiality to me has made you say too
much: however, it will bind me down to double every effort in the
future progress of the work. The following are a few remarks on the
songs in the list you sent me. I never copy what I write to you, so I
may be often tautological, or perhaps contradictory.

"The Flowers o' the Forest," is charming as a poem, and should be, and
must be, set to the notes; but, though out of your rule, the three
stanzas beginning,

"I've seen the smiling of fortune beguiling,"

are worthy of a place, were it but to immortalize the author of them,
who is an old lady of my acquaintance, and at this moment living in
Edinburgh. She is a Mrs. Cockburn, I forget of what place, but from
Roxburghshire.
[228] What a charming apostrophe is

"O fickle fortune, why this cruel sporting,
Why thus perplex us, poor sons of a day? "

The old ballad, "I wish I were where Helen lies," is silly to
contemptibility. My alteration of it, in Johnson's, is not much
better. Mr. Pinkerton, in his, what he calls, ancient ballads (many of
them notorious, though beautiful enough, forgeries), has the best set.
It is full of his own interpolations--but no matter.

In my next I will suggest to your consideration a few songs which may
have escaped your hurried notice. In the meantime allow me to
congratulate you now, as a brother of the quill. You have committed
your character and fame, which will now be tried, for ages to come, by
the illustrious jury of the SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF TASTE--all
whom poesy can please or music charm.

Being a bard of nature, I have some pretensions to second sight; and I
am warranted by the spirit to foretell and affirm, that your
great-grand-child will hold up your volumes, and say, with honest
pride, "This so much admired selection was the work of my ancestor! "

R. B.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 228: Miss Rutherford, of Fernilee in Selkirkshire, by marriage
Mrs. Patrick Cockburn, of Ormiston. She died in 1794, at an advanced
age. ]

* * * * *




CCLXII.