No. XLV. To MRS. DUNLOP. Mossgiel, 7th March, 1788. MADAM, THE last paragraph in yours of the 30th February affected me most, so I shall begin my answer where you ended your letter. That I am often a sinner with any little wit I have, I do confess but I have taxed my recollection to no purpose, to find out when it was employed against you. I hate an ungenerous sarcasm, a great deal worse than I do the devil; at least as Milton describes him; and though I may be rascally enough to be sometimes guilty of it myself, I cannot endure it in others. You, my honoured friend, who cannot appear in any light, but you are sure of being respectableyou can afford to pass by an occasion to display your wit, because you may depend for fame on your your sense; or if you choose to be silent, you know you can rely on the gratitude of many, and the esteem of all; but, God help us, who are wits or witlings by profession, if we stand not for fame there, we sink unsupported! I am highly flattered by the news you tell me of Coila.* I may say to the fair painter who does me so much honour, as Dr. Beattie says to Ross the poet, of his muse Scota, from which, by the bye, I took the idea of Coila : ('Tis a poem of Beattie's in the Scottish dialect which perhaps you have never seen.) "Ye shak your head, but o' my fegs, Her fiddle wanted strings and pegs, Waes me, poor hizzie." No. * A lady (daughter of Mrs. Dunlop) was making a pic ture from the description of Coila in the Vision. E. No. XLVI. To MR. ROBERT CLEGHORN. Mauchline, 31st March, 1788. YESTERDAY, my dear Sir, as I was riding through a track of melancholy, joyless muirs, between Galloway and Ayrshire, it being Sunday, I turned my thoughts to psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs; and your favourite air, Captain Okean, coming at length in my head, I tried these words to it. You will see that the first part of the tune must be repeated.* I am tolerably pleased with these verses, but as I have only a sketch of the tune, I leave it with * Here the bard gives the first stanza of the Chevalier's Lament. E. with you to try if they suit the measure of the music. I am so harassed with care and anxiety, about this farming project of mine, that my muse has degenerated into the veriest prosewench that ever picked cinders, or followed a tinker. When I am fairly got into the routine of business, I shall trouble you with a longer epistle; perhaps with some queries respecting farming; at present, the world sits such a load on my mind, that it has effaced almost every trace of the in me. My very best compliments and good wishes to Mrs. Cleghorn. No. No. XLVII. From MR ROBERT CLEGHORN. Saughton Mills, 27th April, 1788. MY DEAR BROTHER FARMER, I WAS favored with your very kind letter of the 31st ult. and consider myself greatly obliged to you for your attention in sending me the song to my favorite air, Captain Okean. The words delight me much, they fit the tune to a hair. I wish you would send me a verse or two more; and if you have no objection, I would have it in the Jacobite style. Suppose it should be sung after the fatal field of Culloden by the unfortunate Charles. Tenducci personates the lovely Mary Stewart in the song, Queen Mary's Lamentation. |