249: Song CCXI.]

* * * * *

CCLXXVI.

TO MR. THOMSON.

[For "Fy! let us a' to the bridal," and "Fy! gie me my coggie, Sirs,"
and "There's nae luck about the house," Burns puts in a word of
praise, from a feeling that Thomson's taste would induce him to
exclude the first--one of our most original songs--from his
collection.]

_September, 1793._

I have been turning over some volumes of songs, to find verses whose
measures would suit the airs for which you have allotted me to find
English songs.

For "Muirland Willie," you have, in Ramsay's Tea-Table, an excellent
song beginning, "Ah, why those tears in Nelly's eyes?" As for "The
Collier's Dochter," take the following old bacchanal:--

"Deluded swain, the pleasure, &c."[250]

The faulty line in Logan-Water, I mend thus:

How can your flinty hearts enjoy
The widow's tears, the orphan's cry?

The song otherwise will pass. As to "M'Gregoira Rua-Ruth," you will
see a song of mine to it, with a set of the air superior to yours, in
the Museum, vol. ii. p. 181. The song begins,

Raving winds around her blowing.[251]

Your Irish airs are pretty, but they are rank Irish. If they were like
the "Banks of Banna," for instance, though really Irish, yet in the
Scottish taste, you might adopt them. Since you are so fond of Irish
music, what say you to twenty-five of them in an additional number? We
could easily find this quantity of charming airs; I will take care
that you shall not want songs; and I assure you that you would find it
the most saleable of the whole. If you do not approve of "Roy's wife,"
for the music's sake, we shall not insert it. "Deil tak the wars" is a
charming song; so is, "Saw ye my Peggy?" "There's nae luck about the
house" well deserves a place. I cannot say that "O'er the hills and
far awa" strikes me as equal to your selection. "This is no my ain
house," is a great favourite air of mine; and if you will send me your
set of it, I will task my muse to her highest effort. What is your
opinion of "I hae laid a herrin' in saut?" I like it much. Your
jacobite airs are pretty, and there are many others of the same kind
pretty; but you have not room for them. You cannot, I think, insert
"Fy! let's a' to the bridal," to any other words than its own.

What pleases me, as simple and _naive_, disgusts you as ludicrous and
low. For this reason, "Fy! gie me my coggie, Sirs," "Fy let's a' to
the brid