must stand as it stands--I won’t put my hand to it again.’ In later years Thomson, to sustain his pose as whole-hearted admirer of all Burns’s work, carefully inked over that sentence in the manuscript. But he was guilty of worse than that. Burns, as always, was steeping himself in the rhythms of the airs to which he was composing; Thomson had to display his own musical knowledge by suggesting that the proffered song be set to another tune. The fact that to Burns the words and the tune were always inseparable never penetrated his mind. Occasionally Burns came forward with a lyric written to an air not on Thomson’s list, and at such times the editor’s taste and tact were most fully displayed. For instance, Lady Elizabeth Heron, wife of Patrick Heron, from whom Burns hoped for political favours, had composed a little tune called ‘Banks of Cree’ and asked Burns to supply it with words. Burns told the lady he would like her permission to publish the song, and sent the words to Thomson, saying that ‘the air I fear is not worth your while,’ but evidently hoping that Thomson would ask for it. Thomson instead proposed setting the words to an air on his own list, ‘Young Jockey was the blithest lad’. Burns replied sharply: ‘My English song, “Here is the glen & here the bower” cannot go to this air; it was written on purpose for an original air composed by Mrs. Heron of Heron.’ But after the poet’s death Thomson erased the vetoing phrase and published the words to the tune, ‘The Flowers of Edinburgh’, thereby leaving Burns under the imputation of having lied to Lady Elizabeth in promising to publish her music.