R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
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]