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 bridal,” with several others of that cast, are to me highly pleasing; while “Saw ye my father, or saw ye my mother?” delights me with its descriptive simple pathos. Thus my song, “Ken ye what Meg o’ the mill has gotten?” pleases myself so much, that I cannot try my hand at another song to the air, so I shall not attempt it. I know you will laugh at all this: but “ilka man wears his belt his ain gait.”
R. B.