How do you like the foregoing? I have written it within this hour: so much for the speed of my Pegasus; but what say you to his bottom?

R. B.

FOOTNOTES:

[284] [Song CCLVIII.]

CCCXVII.

TO MR. THOMSON.

[The unexampled brevity of Burns’s letters, and the extraordinary flow and grace of his songs, towards the close of his life, have not now for the first time been remarked.]

Last May a braw wooer.[285]

Why, why tell thy lover.[286]

Such is the peculiarity of the rhythm of this air, that I find it impossible to make another stanza to suit it.