TO MR. THOMSON.
[The letter to which this is in part an answer, Currie says, contains many observations on Scottish songs, and on the manner of adapting the words to the music, which at Mr. Thomson’s desire are suppressed.]
April, 1793.
I have yours, my dear Sir, this moment. I shall answer it and your former letter, in my desultory way of saying whatever comes uppermost.
The business of many of our tunes wanting, at the beginning, what fiddlers call a starting-note, is often a rub to us poor rhymers.
“There’s braw, braw lads on Yarrow braes,
That wander through the blooming heather,”
you may alter to
“Braw, braw lads on Yarrow braes,
Ye wander,” &c.
My song, “Here awa, there awa,” as amended by Mr. Erskine, I entirely approve of, and return you.
Give me leave to criticise your taste in the only thing in which it is, in my opinion, reprehensible. You know I ought to know something of my own trade. Of pathos, sentiment, and point, you are a complete judge; but there is a quality more necessary than either in a song, and which is the very essence of a ballad—I mean simplicity: now, if I mistake not, this last feature you are a little apt to sacrifice to the foregoing.
Ramsay, as every other poet, has not been always equally happy in his pieces; still I cannot approve of taking such liberties with an author as Mr. Walker proposes doing with “The last time I came o’er the moor.” Let a poet, if he choose, take up the idea of another, and work it into a piece of his own; but to mangle the works of the poor bard, whose tuneful tongue is now mute for ever, in the dark and narrow house—by Heaven, ’twould be sacrilege! I grant that Mr. W.’s version is an improvement; but I know Mr. W. well, and esteem him much; let him mend the song, as the Highlander mended his gun—he gave it a new stock, a new lock, and a new barrel.
I do not, by this, object to leaving out improper stanzas, where that can be done without spoiling the whole. One stanza in “The lass o’ Patie’s mill” must be left out: the song will be nothing worse for it. I am not sure if we can take the same liberty with “Corn rigs are bonnie.” Perhaps it might want the last stanza, and be the better for it. “Cauld kail in Aberdeen,” you must leave with me yet awhile. I have vowed to have a song to that air, on the lady whom I attempted to celebrate in the verses, “Poortith cauld and restless love.” At any rate, my other song, “Green grow the rashes,” will never suit. That song is current in Scotland under the old title, and to the merry old tune of that name, which, of course, would mar the progress of your song to celebrity. Your book will be the standard of Scots songs for the future: let this idea ever keep your judgment on the alarm.
I send a song on a celebrated toast in this country, to suit “Bonnie Dundee.” I send you also a ballad to the “Mill, mill, O!”[218]
“The last time I came o’er the moor,” I would fain attempt to make a Scots song for, and let Ramsay’s be the English set. You shall hear from me soon. When you go to London on this business, can you come by Dumfries? I have still several MS. Scots airs by me, which I have picked up, mostly from the singing of country lasses. They please me vastly; but your learned lugs would perhaps be displeased with the very feature for which I like them. I call them simple; you would pronounce them silly. Do you know a fine air called “Jackie Hume’s Lament?” I have a song of considerable merit to that air. I’ll enclose you both the song and tune, as I had them ready to send to Johnson’s Museum.[219] I send you likewise, to me, a beautiful little air, which I had taken down from viva voce.[220]
Adieu.
R. B.