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.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 218: Songs CXCII. and CXCIII.]
[Footnote 219: Song CXCIV.]
[Footnote 220: Song CXCVIII.]
* * * * *
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.
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