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.]
* * * * *
CCLV.
TO JOHN FRANCIS ERSKINE, ESQ.,
OF M A R.
[This remarkable letter has been of late the subject of some
controversy: Mr. Findlater, who happened then to be in the Excise, is
vehement in defence of the "honourable board," and is certain that
Burns has misrepresented the conduct of his very generous masters. In
answer to this it has been urged that the word of the poet has in no
other thing been questioned: that in the last moments of his life, he
solemnly wrote this letter into his memorandum-book, and that the
reproof of Mr.
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