No. LXXXIII. G. THOMSON TO BURNS. MY DEAR SIR: 3d June, 1795. YOUR English verses to "Let me in this ae night," are tender and beautiful; and your ballad to the "Lothian Lassie" is a master-piece for its humour and naïveté. The fragment for the " Caledonian Hunt" is quite suited to the original measure of the air, and, as it plagues you so, the fragment must content it. I would rather, as I said before, have had Bacchanalian words, had it so pleased the Poet; but, nevertheless, for what we have received, Lord make us thankful. [It was not without reason that Thomson wrote in this gentle and conciliatory strain: the Poet was suffering from ill health and depressed fortune, and that slow consuming illness which arrested him in his bright career was more than beginning to manifest itself. To Thomson he seems not to have unbosomed himself so fully as he did to Johnson.-" You should have heard,” he thus writes to the latter, "from me long ago; but, over and above some vexatious share in the pecuniary losses of these accursed times, I have all this winter been plagued with low spirits and blue devils, so that I Give a have almost hung my harp on the willow trees. copy of the Museum to my worthy friend Mr. Peter Hill, bookseller, to bind for me, interleaved with blank leaves, exactly as he did the Laird of Glenriddel's, that I may insert every anecdote I can learn, together with my own criticisms and remarks on the songs. A copy of this kind I shall leave with you, the editor, to publish at some after period, by way of making the Museum a book famous to the end of time, and you renowned for ever. Thank you for the copies of my volunteer ballad, Does haughty Gaul invasion threat.' Our friend Clarke has done, indeed, well: 'tis chaste and beautiful. I have not met with any thing that has pleased me so much. You know I am no connoisseur, but that I am an amateur will be allowed me." The five following songs were communicated about this period to Johnson. They help to preserve the train of the Poet's musings unbroken, and shew what he was about during the hours that ill health, lowness of spirits, and a dread of the darkening future gave him a respite.— ED.] THE HIGHLAND WIDOW'S LAMENT. I. Oh! I am come to the low countrie, Och-on, och-on, och-rie! Without a penny in my purse, To buy a meal to me. II. It was na sae in the Highland hills, III. For then I had a score o' kye, Och-on, och-on, och-rie! Feeding on yon hills so high, And giving milk to me. IV. And there I had three score o' yowes, Och-on, och-on, och-rie! Skipping on yon bonnie knowes, And casting woo' to me. V. I was the happiest of a' the clan, For Donald was the brawest lad, VI. Till Charlie Stewart cam' at last, Sae far to set us free; My Donald's arm was wanted then, For Scotland and for me. VII. Their waefu' fate what need I tell, VIII. Oh! I am come to the low countrie, Och-on, och-on, och-rie ! Nae woman in the world wide Sae wretched now as me. [This song is said to be a homely version of a Highland lament for the ruin which followed the rebellion of the "forty-five." Burns heard it sung in one of his northern excursions, and begged a translation. It gives no exaggerated picture of the desolation wrought in the north by the Duke of Cumberland, whose atro cities made the prophecy of Peden be credited-“ The day is at hand when a man may ride fifty miles in Scotland, and not see a reeking house, nor hear a crowing cock." To subdue and root out rebellion was a duty; but "Butcher Willie," as the peasantry with great propriety called the Duke, in accomplishing this, was savage and remorseless. Smollett, who lived in those melancholy times, has given us a lasting picture of the sufferings of his country in his inimitable "Tears of Scotland:" nor has Sir Walter Scott spared either sympathy for the sufferers, or reproaches on him who was so wantonly barbarous. The castles and homes of the rebels were given to the flames; their cattle driven away, and their wives and children were to be seen roaming, houseless and famishing, among the lonely glens and desolate moors of the north. The execution, too, of those taken in arms was beyond all belief barbarous: they were hung by the neck for five minutes, cut down before they were dead-their bosoms opened, and their hearts torn out: several were observed by the bystanders to struggle with the executioner in performing the last part of this terrible tragedy. Human nature shudders at such proceedings; yet the public heart and eye of London must have been hardened that endured the exhibition of the ghastly heads of Lovat, Balmerino, and Kilmarnock, on Temple Bar, for forty years and more !—ED.] * |