powers equal to all the intellectual modulations of the human soul. Still, I am a very poet in my enthusiasm of the passion. The welfare and happiness of the beloved object is the first and inviolate sentiment that pervades my soul; and whatever pleasures I might wish for, or whatever might be the raptures they would give me, yet, if they interfere with that first principle, it is having these pleasures at a dishonest price; and justice forbids, and generosity disdains the purchase! Despairing of my own powers to give you va riety enough in English songs, I have been turning over old collections, to pick out songs, of which the measure is something similar to what I want; and, with a little alteration, so as to suit the rhythm of the air exactly, to give you them for your work. Where the songs have hitherto been but little noticed, nor have ever been set to music, I think the shift a fair one. A song, which, under the same first verse, you will find in Ramsay's Tea-Table Miscellany, I have cut down for an English dress to your Daintie Davie, as follows: SONG. SONG. Altered from an old English one. It was the charming month of May, From peaceful slumber she arose, CHORUS. Lovely was she by the dawn, The feather'd people, you might see They hail the charming Chloe; Till, painting gay the eastern skies, gay, You You may think meanly of this, but take a look at the bombast original, and you will be surprised that I have made so much of it. I have finished my song to Rothemurche's Rant; and you have Clarke to consult as to the set of the air for singing. T LASSIE WI' THE LINT-WHITE LOCKS. Tune-" ROTHEMURCHE'S RANT." CHORUS. Lassie wi' the lint-white locks, Bonnie lassie, artless lassie, Now Nature cleeds the flowery lea, And when the welcome simmer shower Lassie wi', &c. When When Cynthia lights, wi' silver ray, And when the howling wintry blast Lassie wi' the lint-white locks, This piece has at least the merit of being a regular pastoral: the vernal morn, the summer noon, * In some of the MSS. this stanza runs thus: And should the howling wintry blast VOL. IV. E. noon, the autumnal evening, and the winter night, are regularly rounded. If you like it, well if not, I will insert it in the Museum. I am out of temper that you should set so sweet, so tender an air, as, Deil tak the Wars, to the foolish old verses. You talk of the silliness of Saw ye my Father? by heavens ! the odds is gold to brass! Besides, the old song, though now pretty well modernized into the Scottish language, is originally, and in the early editions, a bungling low imitation of the Scottish manner, by that genius Tom D'Urfey: so has no pretensions to be a Scottish production. There is a pretty English song by Sheridan, in the Duenna, to this air, which is out of sight superior to D'Urfey's. It begins, "When sable night each drooping plant restoring." The air, if I understand the expression of it properly, is the very native language of simplicity, tenderness, and love. I have again gone over my song to the tune as follows:* Now * See the song in its first and best dress in page 181. Our bard remarks upon it, "I could easily throw this into "an English mould; but to my taste, in the simple and the "tender of the pastoral song, a sprinkling of the old Scot"tish has an inimitable effect." E. |