CCLIV.

TO MR. THOMSON.

[Thomson, it would appear by his answer to this letter, was at issue with Burns on the subject-matter of simplicity: the former seems to have desired a sort of diplomatic and varnished style: the latter felt that elegance and simplicity were "sisters twin."]

_April, 1793._

MY DEAR SIR,

I had scarcely put my last letter into the post-office, when I took up the subject of "The last time I came o'er the moor," and ere I slept drew the outlines of the foregoing.[221] How I have succeeded, I leave on this, as on every other occasion, to you to decide. I own my vanity is flattered, when you give my songs a place in your elegant and superb work; but to be of service to the work is my first wish. As I have often told you, I do not in a single instance wish you, out of compliment to me, to insert anything of mine. One hint let me give you--whatever Mr. Pleyel does, let him not alter one iota of the original Scottish airs, I mean in the song department, but let our national music preserve its native features. They are, I own, frequently wild and irreducible to the more modern rules; but on that very eccentricity, perhaps, depends a great part of their effect.

R. B.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 221: Song CCXXXIV.]

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