or you the following:--

Now in her green mantle, &c.[274]

How does this please you? As to the point of time for the expression,
in your proposed print from my "Sodger's Return," it must certainly be
at--"She gaz'd." The interesting dubiety and suspense taking
possession of her countenance, and the gushing fondness, with a
mixture of roguish playfulness, in his, strike me as things of which a
master will make a great deal. In great haste, but in great truth,
yours,

R. B.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 274: Song CCXXXVIII.]

* * * * *

CCCX.

TO MR. THOMSON.

[In this brief and off-hand way Burns bestows on Thompson one of the
finest songs ever dedicated to the cause of human freedom.]

_January_, 1795.

I fear for my songs; however, a few may please, yet originality is a
coy feature in composition, and in a multiplicity of efforts in the
same style, disappears altogether. For these three thousand years, we
poetic folks have been describing the spring, for instance; and as the
spring continues the same, there must soon be a sameness in the
imagery, &c., of these said rhyming folks.

A great critic (Aikin) on songs, says that love and wine are the
exclusive themes for song-writing. The following is on neither
subject, and consequently is no song; but will be allowed, I think, to
be two or three pretty good prose thoughts inverted into rhyme.

Is there for honest poverty.[275]

I do not give you the foregoing song for your book, but merely by way
of _vive la bagatelle_; for the piece is not really poetry. How will
the following do for "Craigieburn-wood?"--

Sweet fa's the eve on Craigieburn.[276]

Farewell! God bless you!

R. B.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 275: Song CCLXIV.]

[Footnote 276: Song CCXLV.]

* * * * *

CCCXI.

TO MR. THOMSON.

[Of this letter, Dr. Currie writes "the poet must have been tipsy
indeed to abuse sweet Ecclefechan at this rate;" it is one of the
prettiest of our Annandale villages, and the birth-place of that
distinguished biographer.]

_Ecclefechan_, 7_th February_, 1795.

MY DEAR THOMSON,

You cannot have any idea of the predicament in which I write to you.
In the course of my duty as supervisor (in which capacity I have acted
of late), I came yesternight to this unfortunate, wicked little
village. I have gone forward, but snows of ten feet deep have impeded
my progress: I have t