In my very early years, when I was thinking of going to the West Indies, I took the following farewell of a dear girl. It is quite trifling, and has nothing of the merits of "Ewe-bughts", but it will fill up this page. You must know that all my earlier love-songs were the breathings of ardent passion, and though it might have been easy in after-times to have given them a polish, yet that polish, to me, whose they were, and who perhaps alone cared for them, would have defaced the legend of my heart, which was so faithfully inscribed on them. Their uncouth simplicity was, as they say of wines, their _race_. Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary, (etc.) "Gala Water," and "Auld Rob Morris," I think, will most probably be the next subject of my musings. However, even on _my verses_, speak out your criticisms with equal frankness. My wish is, not to stand aloof, the uncomplying bigot of _opiniatrete_, but cordially to join issue with you in the furtherance of the work. Gude speed the wark! Amen. [Footnote 140: David Allan, the artist.] * * * * * III. _November_ 8_th_, 1792, If you mean, my dear Sir, that all the songs in your collection shall be poetry of the first merit, I am afraid you will find more difficulty in the undertaking than you are aware of. There is a peculiar rhythmus in many of our airs, and a necessity of adapting syllables to the emphasis, or what I would call the _feature-notes_ of the tune, that cramp the poet, and lay him under almost insuperable difficulties. For instance, in the air, "My Wife's a wanton wee Thing", if a few lines, smooth and pretty, can be adapted to it, it is all you can expect. The enclosed were made extempore to it; and though, on farther study, I might give you something more profound, yet it might not suit the light-horse gallop of the air so well as this random clink. I have just been looking over the "Collier's bonny Dochter", and if the enclosed rhapsody which I composed the day, on a charming Ayrshire girl, Miss Baillie, as she passed through this place to England, will suit your taste better than the "Collier Lassie", fall on and welcome. I have hitherto deferred the sublimer, more pathetic airs until more leisure, as they will take, and deserve a greater effort. However, they are all put into your hands, as clay into the hands of the potter, to make one vessel to honour, and another to dishonour. Farewell, etc. * * * * * IV. Inclosing "Highland Mary".--Tune--_Katharine Ogie_. Ye banks, and braes, and streams around, (etc.) 14_th November_ 1792.