GEORGE THOMSON 
 ^\}t ifrieuD of 115urn0
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 Cl)e JTrienD of T5utn0 
 
 HIS LIFE e? CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 BY 
 
 J. CUTHBERT HADDEN 
 
 LONDON 
 JOHN C. NIMMO 
 
 14 KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND 
 
 MDCCCXCVIII
 
 Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson &r> Co. 
 At the Ballantyne Press
 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 Georgk Thomson was so intimately connected with 
 the last years of Robert Burns that the lack hitherto 
 of any biography of the man is somewhat surpris- 
 ing. All that is generally known about him is 
 derived from works on Burns, and in these it has 
 happened, rather by misconception than from malice, 
 that he has been placed in a far from favourable 
 light. It is my aim in this volume to present for 
 the first time a full and true picture of George 
 Thomson. If it be objected by some that Thomson 
 was of no such individual importance as to need a 
 biography, I can only hope that the justification of 
 my volume will be furnished by the interest of those 
 pages which deal with his close and long-continued 
 relations with greater men. In particular, I hope 
 that every student of Burns will take pleasure in 
 my disproof of the allegations commonly brought 
 against Thomson's treatment of the poet. It is not 
 unadvisedly that I have adopted for my sub-title 
 a phrase of Lockhart's, and called Thomson "the 
 friend of Burns." 
 
 The materials for the Life having been neces- 
 sarily, for the most part, collected at first hand, it is 
 not surprising that several scraps of information 
 have come to light too late for incorporation in
 
 vi PREFACE 
 
 the text. These I have collected in an Appended 
 Note placed at the end of the volume. 
 
 The correspondence now published has been 
 put into my hands by Mrs. Thomson-Sinclair, of 
 Dunbeath Castle, Caithness, whose relationship to 
 George Thomson is explained in the Life. It 
 is, however, but right to say that the editing of it 
 was undertaken at the suggestion of her cousin, 
 Miss Chalmers, of Rothie Brisbane, Fyvie, Aber- 
 deenshire. All the letters and extracts are printed 
 from the originals with the following exceptions : 
 Scott, Hogg, Byron, Moore, Campbell, Lockhart, 
 Mrs. Burns, Gilbert Burns, Beethoven, and Haydn. 
 In the case of these the letters are printed from copies 
 made for me by Miss Chalmers ; and while I have 
 no reason to doubt that the transcripts are literally 
 and verbally correct, I think it advisable to make 
 this explanation in view of the possibility of the 
 originals coming by-and-by into other hands. For 
 Thomson's own letters I have had the use of his 
 letter-books — four calf bound folios, the first volume 
 opening with the year 1803, ^^^ ^^^ ^^^^ extending 
 to the year 1850. 
 
 In dealing with the correspondence generally, 
 my plan has been to give rather too much than 
 too little. I am well aware that to some readers 
 certain portions of it may seem trivial and per- 
 haps dull. I would, however, ask such readers 
 to believe that what is uninteresting to them may 
 for sufficient reasons be of considerable interest to 
 others. Even as it is, I shall probably not have 
 contented the specialists. Sir George Grove, for
 
 PREFACE vii 
 
 example, whom I consulted as the leading- Beethoven 
 authority in this country, assured me that I must 
 "print every word that Beethoven wrote." I have 
 not in any case printed every word ; but readers, 
 Sir George Grove and others, may be satisfied 
 that what I have not printed is the driest of dry 
 bones. 
 
 The Burns - Thomson correspondence, being- 
 already so well known and so easily accessible in 
 various editions of the poet, I have not thought it 
 necessary to print at all. From the British Museum 
 annual report, just issued, I learn that amongst 
 recent acquisitions are " the proof-sheets of the cor- 
 respondence between Burns and George Thomson, 
 annotated by the latter." The annotations are no 
 doubt those which were made for Dr. Currie ; but 
 I am unwilling to delay the issue of my volume 
 for the sake of a possibly vain inquiry into their 
 history. 
 
 It only remains for me to acknowledge the help 
 I have received from various hands in the course of 
 the work. First I must mention my friend Mr. 
 George H. Ely, whose frank criticism and whose 
 practical interest in the book, both in MS. and 
 proof, it is impossible for me too gratefully to ac- 
 knowledge. To Mr. Ely I am indebted for the 
 translation of the Beethoven correspondence, and 
 indeed for the casting into form of the matter in 
 that section from p. 322 to p. 344. To Mr. C. I{. S. 
 Chambers, of Messrs. \V. & R. Chambers, I owe 
 the courtesy of being allowed to copy several letters 
 
 of George Thomson addressed to Robert Chambers. 
 
 b
 
 viii PREFACE 
 
 These letters have enabled me to add certain par- 
 ticulars to the Life which otherwise I should have 
 found it difficult to obtain. To Mr. A. W. Inglis, 
 the present Secretary of the Board of Manufactures, 
 I owe the information as to Thomson's salary at 
 various periods. This has never been published, 
 and it is — as I believe I have shown— of much direct 
 value in its bearing on the question of Thomson's 
 pecuniary treatment of Burns. The extracts from 
 the Banff records referring to Thomson's father have 
 been made for me by Mr. James Grant, LL. B., 
 solicitor and Town Clerk of Banff, to whom my 
 warmest thanks are due. To my friends Mr. A. 
 H. Millar, of the Dundee Advertiser, Mr. F. G. 
 Edwards, editor of the Musical Times, and Mr. 
 James Love of Falkirk, I am obliged for much 
 generous and helpful assistance. Other incidental 
 obligations are acknowledged in the text and foot- 
 notes. 
 
 J. C. H. 
 
 Edinburgh, November 1897.
 
 C O N T li N T S 
 
 LIFE OF GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 PAGH 
 I 
 
 THE THOMSON COLLECTIONS OF NATIONAL MUSIC. 117 
 
 THOMSON AND BURNS 
 
 134 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONCJS 
 Scorr 
 Hogg 
 Byron 
 
 MOORK 
 CaMI'BEI.I. 
 
 lockhakt 
 
 Alkxander Boswei.i. 
 Joanna Baillie 
 Amelia OriE . 
 1). M. MoiK (" Delta ") 
 David VEDnER 
 1'koeessor Tennant 
 Other Cokrestondents , 
 
 152 
 171 
 1S7 
 
 193 
 
 200 
 20S 
 
 215 
 226 
 249 
 
 259 
 263 
 277 
 284
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CORRESPONDKNCK AlKJUT THE I 
 
 MUSIC : 
 
 I'LEYEI 
 
 292 
 
 KOZELUCH .... 
 
 294 
 
 Haydn 
 
 303 
 
 Bkethoven .... 
 
 309 
 
 Weber 
 
 346 
 
 HUiMMEI 
 
 349 
 
 15ISHOP 
 
 353 
 
 THE MUSIC OF "THE JOLLY BECiGARS ^ 
 
 BURNS FAMILY LETTERS 
 
 APPENDED NOTE TO THE LIFE 
 
 INDEX 
 
 356 
 367 
 385 
 
 387 
 
 INDEX TO SONGS AND AIRS 
 
 591
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 Writing in 1838 to Robert Chambers in answer 
 to a request for some particulars of his life and 
 work, George Thomson, then an octogenarian, de- 
 clared that he could not believe himself so old 
 as a numbering of the years since his fancied 
 birth-date proved him to be. Age, however, is 
 reckoned by years, and not by faith ; and a right 
 enumeration gave the " brisky juvenal " two more 
 summers even than he supposed. To Chambers 
 he stated his birth-year as 1759, desiring perhaps, 
 like Hogg, to share a date with Robert Burns. 
 But parish records are fatal to sentiment, and the 
 Dunfermline register of births gives the hard fact 
 as follows : 
 
 1757. Mr. Robert Thomson, schoolmaster at Lime- 
 kilns, had a son born to him of Anne Stirling, his wife, 
 March 4th and baptized 6th, named George. Witnesses 
 Rolland Cowie, wigmaker in Dunfermline, and Mr. 
 Andrew Reeky, preceptor to the children of Mr. Robert 
 Wellwood of Easter Gellet, advocate. 
 
 Thus George Thomson came into the world in 
 the year of Plassey, fathered by a schoolmaster, 
 and a schoolmaster for one of his sponsors. These 
 connections will have a recurring interest as we 
 
 A
 
 2 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 note by-and-by the pedagogic tendencies in our 
 hero's own character. That Thomson was bap- 
 tized at Dunfermline and not at Limekilns is ex- 
 plained by the circumstance that there was then 
 no church, and probably no meeting-house, in the 
 latter place. The Secession body were alone repre- 
 sented in Limekilns, and it was not until 1784 that 
 even they held a separate existence there. Before 
 that date they were associated with the congregation 
 of Queen Anne Street, Dunfermline, and it has been 
 suggested that Robert Thomson made one of the 
 members of this congregation. It might count for 
 something if it could be shown that the Thomson 
 family, father and son, were really connected with 
 the Secession Church. But the former at any rate 
 could hardly be a Secessionist in days when it was 
 a sine qua non of his office that the schoolmaster 
 should be a Churchman ; while as for the latter, 
 we know what to infer from that reference to the 
 "canting old Seceder," upon which we shall stumble 
 later on. 
 
 Of George's early years absolutely nothing is 
 recorded. The position of schoolmaster in a little 
 Fifeshire parish could not have been of great emolu- 
 ment, and there is very good reason for supposing 
 that the family had but too intimate an acquaintance 
 with the chill penury which was then the not un- 
 common experience of the race to which Goldsmith's 
 village oracle belonged. When the boy was in his 
 fifth year, Robert Thomson, no doubt to better 
 himself, moved northwards to Banff. What tempted 
 him to go so far is clear from the local records. It
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 3 
 
 appears that in February 1762 the magistrates and 
 Town Council of Banff, taking into consideration 
 "the increase of the inhabitants and number of 
 children sent to this place for education," resolved 
 to establish three additional schools within the burgh 
 — one " for teaching writing, accompts, book-keep- 
 ing, the principles of mathematics and navigation " ; 
 another "for teaching the English language accord- 
 inof to the new or Enorlish method, under the direc- 
 tion of a master, with nine pounds sterling of yearly 
 salary to him " ; and a third for teaching " white and 
 coloured seam," under the direction of a school- 
 mistress. The minute records that, with the view 
 of securing "proper qualified candidates, the tenor 
 of this Act and the minute of Council shall be adver- 
 tised in the Edinburgh and Aberdeen newspapers," 
 with an intimation to applicants that they are to 
 appear at Banff, "with proper recommendations of 
 their moral character," on the 15th of April, "in 
 order to a trial of their qualifications." How many 
 candidates responded to the Council's advertise- 
 ments, or what was the nature of the " trial," it 
 is impossible to determine. All we know is that 
 Robert Thomson left Limekilns to teach "the 
 English language according to the new or English 
 method " at Banff 
 
 The "new schoolmaster," as we find from the 
 treasurer's accounts, received his first payment on 
 the 26th of June ; and on the 9th of August the 
 Council discussed his finances. We have already 
 seen that his salary from the town was to be ^9 
 per annum ; it was now decided that there should
 
 4 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 be paid to him in addition "for each scholar learn- 
 ing to read English according to the new method 
 eighteenpence sterling quarterly." We gather fur- 
 ther that the treasurer had paid him on his arrival 
 two guineas " for defraying his expenses in coming 
 north," and later on had advanced him £6, los. 
 "in respect of his being a stranger, and to enable 
 him to provide necessaries for his family." Alas! 
 it is only of such pecuniary embarrassments that 
 the Banff records now inform us. On the loth of 
 February 1765 the kirk-session "give ten shillings to 
 Robert Thomson, master of the English school, to 
 assist in paying the funeral charges of his wife, he 
 being in indigent circumstances." Things, in short, 
 went hardly with the dominie, though, to be sure, 
 his " indigent circumstances " did not prevent his 
 marrying again. His salary remained stationary, 
 his family increased ; and on the 19th of November 
 1772 he appeared before the Council to sign a deed 
 of renunciation, "having a view of departing from 
 this place as at Whitsunday next, in hopes of 
 obtaining a better settlement." There is no further 
 trace of the "new schoolmaster" in Banff; but 
 according to his son George, he, with a credulity 
 common to needy professional men, remained there 
 until 1774 engaged in "some mercantile means of 
 enlarging his income." Meeting with no success 
 in that direction, he then took the venturesome step 
 of removing to Edinburgh, where he exchanged the 
 schoolmaster's gown for the livery of a messenger- 
 at-arms. After this we lose sight of him entirely. 
 There is not a single reference to him in the extant
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 5 
 
 correspondence of his son ; nor, so far as I can 
 ascertain, is his death recorded in any of the then 
 existing media for such notices. Of George's 
 mother I have been unable to learn anything ; as 
 to his stepmother there is no occasion to inquire. 
 In 1772 a son was born of the second marriage, and 
 of him we hear a good deal afterwards in connec- 
 tion with the musical life of Inverness. As there 
 will be no need to mention Keith Thomson agfain, 
 the following extract from the Inverness Courier 
 of November 22, 1S55, may be given here : 
 
 Death ok Mr. Keith Thomson, Music-Master. — 
 Many of our readers, both at home and abroad, will 
 learn with regret, though scarcely with surprise, that this 
 venerable citizen has at length departed from among us. 
 Mr. Thomson died on the 17th inst., aged 83. He was 
 one of the gentlest and most amiable of men, retiring 
 and unobtrusive, but as a teacher of music, a citizen, 
 and elder of the Church, he was regarded with the 
 highest esteem and respect. Mr. Thomson was a half- 
 brother of Mr. George Thomson, the correspondent of 
 Burns, and, like him, was enthusiastically devoted to 
 music. The magistrates of Inverness induced him to 
 teach here, guaranteeing him a sum of X40 per annum ; 
 and arriving in 1795, Mr. Thomson taught for the long 
 period of sixty years. 
 
 Of this half-brother mention is not once made in 
 George Thomson's correspondence ; nor does he 
 appear, as we might expect, among the contributors 
 to the National Collections. One brother, William, 
 became a major in the Royal Engineers ; another, 
 David, became an artist, and will come into our 
 story again by-and-by. There must have been
 
 6 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 other brothers or sisters, judging from references to 
 the "increasing family," but of these there is no 
 trace in the correspondence or elsewhere. Pro- 
 bably Paton Thomson, described by Redgrave as 
 "an English engraver, born about the middle of the 
 eighteenth century,"^ was a brother. I suggest this 
 not only because several of the plates in George 
 Thomson's collections are engraved by him, but 
 also because in letters of David, the artist, he is 
 always referred to familiarly by his Christian name. 
 But there is nothing in the correspondence to 
 enable us to establish the relationship, and I must 
 be content to leave it an open question. 
 
 Young Thomson was in his seventeenth year 
 when he arrived with his family in Edinburgh. He 
 had been fairly educated, first no doubt by his father, 
 and then at the Grammar School of Banff, where, 
 as he informs us, he learnt the dead languages. 
 From his letter-books I at first concluded — hastily, 
 as it appears — that he could both read and write 
 French, in which languao-e most of the letters to 
 and from Beethoven are written ; and that he could 
 at least read Italian, in which Haydn usually, and 
 Beethoven occasionally wrote. With regard to 
 Italian, we have nothing by which to decide except 
 the request which Thomson once specially made to 
 Beethoven to write only in French, But in regard 
 to French we are left in no doubt : Vv'e have his own 
 confession that he did not know the lanfjuaee. 
 Writing from Paris in August 1819, he tells his 
 
 1 See Redgrave's Dictionary of the Eitglish ScJiool ; also Bryan's 
 Dictionary of Painters and Engravers.
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 7 
 
 wife — "When I jumped upon French ground I felt a 
 curious and rather an unpleasant sensation. Here, 
 thought I, am I going among a people who will 
 scarce understand a word I say, and whose language 
 will be nearly unintelligible to me, but I must just 
 blether on as I best can, and draw largely on the 
 patience and politeness of those to whom I address 
 myself." It is clear, therefore, that Thomson in his 
 intercourse with the Continental composers must 
 have had the assistance of some one with an in- 
 timate knowledge of French. That he is not in 
 these pages credited with the possession of this 
 knowledge himself, is due solely to the fortunate 
 discovery at the last moment of a number of letters 
 giving an account of a visit to the Continent, from 
 one of which the above quotation is made. 
 
 It is hardly likely, considering the circumstances 
 of the family, that Thomson was allowed to reach 
 his seventeenth year without earning his wage ; but 
 there are no means of ascertaining in what occupa- 
 tion he was employed on leaving the Banff school. 
 In Edinburgh he was ere long engaged in the office 
 of a Writer to the Signet; and in 1780, when he 
 was twenty-three, he was fortunate enough, through 
 the influence of John Home, the author oi Douglas, 
 to secure the post of junior clerk to the Board of 
 Trustees for the Encouragement of Art and Manu- 
 factures in Scotland. 
 
 Since it was in this office that Thomson spent 
 the whole of his after business life, it will be well 
 to indicate here what precisely was the nature of 
 the institution — what was its oriofin and what were
 
 8 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 its functions. The Board of Trustees owed its ex- 
 istence to an article of the Treaty of Union with 
 England. By that article it was agreed that, among 
 other provisions for giving Scotland an equivalent 
 for the increase of Customs and Excise duties, a 
 sum of ^2000 should be applied for some years, by 
 the new Imperial Parliament, towards the encourage- 
 ment and formation of manufactures in the coarse 
 wool of those counties that produced it, the amount 
 to be afterwards wholly employed towards " en- 
 couraging and promoting the fisheries and such 
 other manufactures and improvements in Scotland 
 as may conduce to the general good of the United 
 Kingdom." In 1727 twenty-one trustees were ap- 
 pointed under letters patent ; and the institution, after 
 passing through a period of some difficulty, emerged 
 at last on a prosperous career. 
 
 In 1766 the British Linen Hall was opened by 
 the Trustees for the Custody and Sale of Scottish 
 Linens, which the owners thereof might sell either 
 personally or by their factors. " For whatever 
 period the goods should remain unsold," says Arnot, 
 the historian of Edinburgh, " their respective owners 
 pay nothing to the proprietors of the hall, but upon 
 their being sold, five per cent, upon the value of the 
 linens sold is demanded by way of rent. As the 
 opening of this hall v/as found to be attended with 
 good consequences to the linen manufactures, so in 
 1776 the trustees extended it upon the same terms 
 to the woollen manufactures of Scotland." The 
 business of the Board was continued pretty much 
 on these lines until 1828, when new letters patent
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 9 
 
 were issued giving the trustees a wider discretion, 
 and empowering them to "apply their funds to the 
 encouragement not only of manufactures but also of 
 such undertakings in Scotland as should most con- 
 duce to the general welfare of the United Kingdom." 
 It was under the fostering care of the Board of 
 Manufactures that the Scottish School of Design 
 sprang up in 1760 — the first school of design estab- 
 lished in the three kingdoms at the public expense. 
 It was also with the money of the Board, and mainly 
 for the Board's accommodation, that the Edinburgh 
 Royal Institution was reared ; and Lord Cockburn 
 was certainly right in his contention that this build- 
 ing should have been named after the old historical 
 Board of Trustees. The " Trustees' Hall " had been 
 the title, ever since the Union, of the place in the old 
 town where the Board were in the habit of meeting. 
 
 This, then, was the institution to which George 
 Thomson gave the working years of his life. Not 
 long after he became connected with it the principal 
 clerk died, and Thomson, succeeding to his post, 
 remained in the office until his retirement in 1839, 
 having then completed a term of fifty-nine years' 
 service. He began work in 1780 with a salary ot 
 ^40 per annum ; in 1784 the amount was increased 
 ^^ ^70 J iri 1794 to ^100; and in 1797 ^^ ^^S^- 
 In 1824, as we shall find later on, he was being paid 
 ;^300. When he retired, he received a pension 
 amounting to his full pay at that time of ^420. 
 The bearing of some of these facts will be seen 
 afterwards. 
 
 Thomson's official life was as uneventful as in
 
 lo GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 the nature of the case the Hfe of a victim of routine 
 must be. A situation in a public office, as Hazlitt 
 has told us, is laborious and mechanical, and void of 
 the two great springs of life, hope and fear. Never- 
 theless, it secures a competence, and leaves leisure 
 for the practice of the most engaging pursuits of 
 idleness. Thomson seems to have found his work 
 pleasant and his superiors considerate, and ap- 
 parently his duties were so little laborious that he 
 could devote a good deal of business time to his 
 hobby. We hear no complaints of being chained 
 to the desk's dead wood, as in the case of Charles 
 Lamb ; but on the other hand, when Thomson 
 "went home — for ever" in 1839, we do not learn 
 that he was fain, like Elia, to visit his old desk-fel- 
 lows, or that he felt remorse at quitting the faithful 
 partners of his toil. "The brain of a true Cale- 
 donian is constituted upon quite a different plan." 
 
 On several details in his own career Thomson 
 was most provokingly inaccurate. We have seen 
 how he understated his age at eighty-one ; it seems 
 that his memory kept him equally ill informed about 
 the date of his marriage. He says that he married 
 when he was twenty-five, which, as he believed that 
 he was born in 1759, brings out the year as 1784. 
 The date was in fact the nth of December 17S1, 
 when the bridegroom had been a year in the em- 
 ployment of the Board, and was receiving the hand- 
 some salary of ^^40 per annum. One is inclined 
 to think that Thomson must have added to his 
 income by "perquisites" in some way. It is almost 
 inconceivable that he should have set up house upon
 
 GEORGE THOMSON ii 
 
 the modest salary which made the classic village 
 preacher "passing rich." But the suggestion is 
 entirely conjectural. The bride, then in her twen- 
 tieth year, was Miss Katherine Miller, the daughter 
 of a lieutenant in the 50th Regiment, and a native 
 of Kelso. She is said to have been a great beauty, 
 and to have been the "toast" of Edinburgh before 
 her marriage ; and the Raeburn portrait at Dun- 
 beath Castle is certainly that of a handsome woman. 
 Indeed, she has been so described to me by one 
 who remembers her well, and remembers also the 
 devoted way in which her husband attended her. 
 By this lady Thomson had two sons and six 
 daughters, regarding whom all that it is neces- 
 sary to say may as well be said at once.^ Robert, 
 the elder son, entered the army, and attained the 
 rank of lieutenant-colonel of Engineers. A son 
 of his, the Rev. Frederick Forsyth Thomson, a re- 
 tired naval chaplain, is the only male descendant 
 
 ^ The following record of his family is from Thomson's Bible, now 
 in the hands of Mrs. Thomson-Sinclair : Katherine, the eldest, born 
 1783, died young; Alsie, the second, born 1785, died same year; 
 Robert, the eldest son, born 1786; Margaret, third daughter, born 
 1787 ; Anne, fourth daughter, born 1788 ; William, second son, born 
 1790; Georgina, fifth daughter, born 1793; Helen, sixth daughter, 
 born 1795. For a more detailed account of the family, see Rogers' 
 Book of Robert Burns, ii. 283. Rogers must, however, be taken with 
 caution. He says Thomson had only five daughters, and he blunders 
 most unaccountably in regard to Keith Thomson, the half-brother 
 already mentioned. He calls him "uterine brother of George Thom- 
 son," and gives the date of his death rightly enough as " November 
 1855, at the age of eighty-three." But a " uterine brother" is a brother 
 by the same mother, of a different father. And yet Rogers tells us, 
 again rightly enough, that Robert Thomson came with his family to 
 Edinburgh in 1774, when the "uterine brother'' would be two years 
 old!
 
 12 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 of George Thomson now living. William, the 
 younger son, joined the Civil Service, and became 
 assistant-commissary-general. He served in Ger- 
 many, in the West Indies, in Canada, and in Malta, 
 and was ultimately employed in the Audit Office 
 in London. He married Barbara Sinclair, an 
 heiress, whose name it was a condition of the 
 marriage that he should take. On the death of 
 her only brother she succeeded to the estate of 
 Freswick in Caithness. There was one child 
 of this marriage, William Thomson-Sinclair, and 
 it is through his widow that the correspondence of 
 Georgre Thomson is now brouQ^ht to lig-ht. 
 
 Thomson's daughters have been spoken of as 
 "pleasant and accomplished women"; Anne and 
 Helen are often referred to as possessing musical 
 gifts of a high order. Special mention must be 
 made of Georgina, who on the ist of June 1814 
 was married to George Hogarth, the musical critic 
 and historian, then a W.S. in Edinburgh.^ A 
 daughter of that union became in 1836 the wife of 
 Charles Dickens. The novelist's children are thus 
 the great-grandchildren of the " clean-brushed, com- 
 monplace old gentleman in scratch wig " whom 
 Carlyle "spoke a few words to, and took a good 
 look of" as a young man visiting Annan in com- 
 
 ^ Hogarth gave up the law in 1831. About 1834 he settled in 
 London and became sub-editor and music critic of the Mo7-ni>ig 
 Chronicle. For twenty years (1846-66) he was music critic of the 
 Daily Neivs. A sister of his was the wife of James Ballantyne, Scott's 
 " Aldiborontiphoscophornio." In the notice of Hogarth in the 
 Dictio7iary of National Bioi^raphy George Thomson is oddly described 
 as the " biographer of Beethoven '' !
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 13 
 
 pany with Irving. There is a letter of Burns, 
 written to Thomson in July 1793, in which the 
 poet, speaking of the first volume of Thomson's 
 Scottish Collection, then recently published, says : 
 
 Allow me to congratulate you now as a brother 
 of the quill. You have committed your character and 
 fame, which will now be tried for ages to come by 
 the illustrious jury of the sons and daughters of 
 TASTE — all whom poesy can please or music charm. 
 Being a bard of nature, I have some pretensions to 
 second sight ; and I am warranted by the spirit to 
 foretell and affirm that your great-great-grandchild 
 will hold up your volumes and say with honest pride : 
 "This so much-admired selection was the work of my 
 ancestor." 
 
 One may doubt whether Burns' prediction has 
 been fulfilled In this particular ; but In any case, it 
 was a tolerably reasonable anticipation compared 
 with some of the astonishing forecasts which were 
 afterwards to be made by certain poetical corre- 
 spondents who allowed themselves to be carried 
 away by the flatteries of the Edinburgh clerk. 
 
 Thomson's domestic life seems, from the absence 
 of any hint to the contrary, to have been passed 
 in placid content. Mrs. Thomson had one great 
 security for a quiet existence in the fact that 
 her husband had a hobby. Music, Indeed, Is not 
 always the genius of harmony at the fireside. Mrs. 
 Merrythought in the old play is driven to forsake 
 the husband who " lives at home, and sings and holts 
 and revels " amonof his drunken fiddlers, with never a 
 penny in his purse. George Thomson's passion for 
 music assumed a soberer form. It fired him to collect
 
 14 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 the national tunes of his country, and, not satisfied 
 with that, shot him off on flights of search for the 
 tunes of Ireland and Wales. Long before his hobby 
 took this form, however, he seems to have identi- 
 fied himself with the musical life of Edinburgh. We 
 have no account of his musical abilities other than 
 that which he furnishes himself, but it is evident 
 that, whatever may have been his theoretical attain- 
 ments, he was in practice a very capable amateur. 
 His instrument was the violin, upon which several 
 people still living remember him as playing remark- 
 ably well.^ He speaks very early of his " Cremona," 
 but whether he possessed a " Cremona " at that time 
 seems doubtful : the term is often used in a loose 
 way as merely a synonym for violin. Mrs. Thom- 
 son-Sinclair says : "He had a ' Cremona,' of which 
 he was very proud. It was sold after his death, 
 but I can give no particulars, as there is no catalogue 
 of the sale in existence." The references in the 
 correspondence are unfortunately anything but clear 
 on the point. In 1814 his brother David writes: 
 "Your Forster^ has been at Norris' almost ever 
 since your violin was there — I believe before. A 
 gentleman offered twenty guineas for the Forster, 
 but I have not heard of any offer for the Amati." 
 Thomson, as we shall subsequently discover, was in 
 pecuniary straits about this time, and the probability 
 is that he was attempting to secure a little money 
 
 ^ " He played beautifully on the violin, which was always beside 
 him," says Mrs. Annie Dowie, a daughter of Robert Chambers, to me 
 in a letter. 
 
 ^ This was doubtless a violoncello or a double bass.
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 15 
 
 by the sale of his instruments. Later on, in 1824, 
 his brother William writes : "I am glad to find 
 your Parisian purchase turn out so well in the opinion 
 of so good a judge as Allday. There was a Stradi- 
 varius to be had at Davis' some months ago for ^50. 
 It was acknowledged by all the world to be one." 
 Whatever we may think of these references, it is cer- 
 tain that two years before his death, a patriarch of 
 ninety-two, Thomson was making efforts to secure 
 an indubitable specimen of old Italian workmanship. 
 In the year 1849 he was endeavouring to sell the 
 copyright of certain compositions (to be dealt with 
 afterwards) which Beethoven had written for him ; 
 and in a letter to Messrs. Breitkopf & H artel, the 
 music publishers of Leipzig, he says : " I have long 
 wished to possess an old violin of the best quality 
 by Stradivarius or Joseph Guarnerius. If you have 
 a violin of either master of undoubted originality 
 and in good preservation, I would give you all the 
 MSS. of Beethoven above mentioned in exchange 
 for the instrument." As the MSS. in question 
 were valued by Thomson at one hundred and 
 twenty-five ducats (say ;^62), it is evident that 
 Cremona violins were not then the costly things 
 that they are now, when an instrument of "un- 
 doubted originality and in good preservation " can 
 seldom be procured under ^1000. The Leipzig 
 firm was unwilling to purchase the Beethoven 
 MSS., and Thomson's last two years were not 
 solaced by the desired "Cremona." 
 
 What his skill with the violin was we have just 
 seen. He was a vocalist as well. In his leisure
 
 i6 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 hours, he tells us, he used "to con over our Scottish 
 melodies and to devour the choruses of Handel's 
 oratorios, in which, when performed at St. Cecilia's 
 Hall, I generally took a part/ ... I had so much 
 delight in singing these matchless choruses and in 
 practising the violin quartets of Pleyel and Haydn 
 that it was with joy I hailed the hour when, like the 
 young amateur in the good old Scotch song, I could 
 hie me hame to my Cremona and enjoy Haydn's 
 admirable fancies." Upon these concerts at the St. 
 Cecilia Hall he dwells with loving reminiscence in 
 many communications to his friends and correspond- 
 ents. Late in life he wrote a special account of 
 them for Robert Chambers, and in a private letter 
 accompanying the manuscript he says : 
 
 I have added my own name to the note as to the gentle- 
 men who sung in the choruses of the oratorios, as I was 
 one of them regularly ; and laborious practice at home 
 did they cost me. Many were the times and oft that I 
 sung myself hoarse as a raven at " Wretched Lovers ! " 
 " Behold the Monster, Polypheme," &c. I almost wept 
 for sweet Galatea when the amorous giant hurled a rock 
 at the head of his beloved Acis, and deaved the whole 
 house with my din singing the sorrows of the young 
 lovers. Do try your hand on Handel's choral fugues 
 when you have a mind to puzzle yourself. 
 
 In another letter to Chambers he speaks of his 
 recollections as referrinof to "the Aupfustan a^e of 
 music in Auld Reekie," upon which he looks back 
 
 ^ Thomson's voice was a bass, as we gather from a reference in a 
 letter of 1848 : " I with my poor old voice will take the bass part [in 
 certain quartets], though perhaps you will hear pipes and whistles in 
 the sound."
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 17 
 
 with "indescribable pleasure," as forming the one 
 green spot in the held of his musical memory.-^ 
 
 These St. Cecilia concerts of which Thomson 
 makes so much were a notable institution in the 
 Edinburgh of a hundred years ago and earlier. He 
 calls the undertaking- "one of the most interesting 
 and liberal musical institutions that ever existed in 
 Scotland or indeed in any country," and allowing a 
 little for excusable exaggeration the claim may be 
 admitted. The concerts, to quote from Chambers 
 {Traditions of EdiiiburgJi), were attended by "all 
 the rank, beauty, and fashion of which Edinburgh 
 could then boast " ; and in addition to the profes- 
 sional performers, "many amateurs of great musical 
 skill and enthusiasm, such as Mr. Tytler of Wood- 
 houselee, were pleased to exhibit themselves for 
 the amusement of their friends, who alone were 
 admitted by ticket." Thomson himself, writing 
 in 1847, says : 
 
 Let me call to mind a few of those whose lovely faces 
 at the concerts gave us the sweetest zest for music : Miss 
 Cleghorn of Edinburgh, still living in single blessedness ; 
 Miss Chalmers of Pittencrief, who married Sir William 
 Miller of Glenlee, Bart. ; Miss Jessie Chalmers of Edin- 
 burgh, who married William Pringle of Raining ; Miss 
 Hay of Hayston [Scott's first love], who married Sir 
 William Forbes, Bart. ; INIiss Murray of Lintrose, who 
 was called the Flower of Strathmore, and upon whom 
 
 ' There is a letter of Cieorge Farquhar Graham to Chambers, 
 dated 9th Decemljer 1846, warning Chambers that Thomson's 
 memory was failing and that he was not to be implicitly trusted as 
 to all he might say about the St. Cecilia concerts. Graham, however, 
 as we shall see, had some reason for not regarding Thomson in the 
 most friendly manner. 
 
 B
 
 1 8 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 Burns wrote the song " Blythe, blythe, and merry was 
 she"; Miss Jardine of Edinburgh, who married Home 
 Drummond of Blair Drummond ; Miss Kinloch of Gil- 
 m.erton, who married Sir Foster Cunlihe of Acton, Bart. ; 
 Miss Lucy Johnston of East Lothian, who married Mr. 
 Oswald of Auchincruive ; Miss Halket of Pitferran, who 
 became the wife of the celebrated Count Lally Tollen- 
 dall ; and Jane, Duchess of Gordon, celebrated for her 
 wit and spirit as well as her beauty. These, with Miss 
 Burnett and Miss Home, and many others whose names 
 I do not distinctly recollect, were indisputably worthy of 
 all the honour conferred upon them. 
 
 In their first form these aristocratic gatherings 
 were known as "The Gentlemen's Concerts." Coun- 
 cillor Pleydell in Guy M ainieriug is a member of 
 " The Gentlemen's Concert," "scraping a little upon 
 the violoncello." At first the place of meeting was 
 the upper room of St. Mary's Chapel in Niddry's 
 Wynd ; but by the year 1762 the Society, whose 
 history went as far back as 1728, had so increased 
 in popularity that a hall, named after the patron 
 saint of music, was specially built at the foot of the 
 wynd. Lord Cockburn in his Me7norials says this 
 hall was " the only public resort of the musical, and 
 besides being our most selectly fashionable place of 
 amusement was the best, the most beautiful concert- 
 room I have ever yet seen. And there have I 
 myself seen most of our literary and fashionable 
 gentlemen predominating with their side curls and 
 frills, and ruffles, and silver buckles ; and our stately 
 matrons stiffened in hoops and gorgeous satins ; and 
 our beauties with high-heeled shoes, powdered and 
 pomatumed hair, and lofty and composite head-
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 19 
 
 dresses. All this was in the Cowgate, the last 
 retreat, nowadays, of destitution and disease." The 
 hall was designed on the plan of the Grand Opera 
 House at Parma, though, of course, on a smaller 
 scale. The annals of the Society which met re- 
 gularly within its walls are not without records of 
 scenes which later generations know only at Burns 
 celebrations. Some of its members, like the " com- 
 mon singing-men" of Bishop Earle, "roared deep 
 in the choir, deeper in the tavern." Its palmiest 
 days were the days when convivial knights-errant 
 used to "save the ladies" by toasting their idols 
 in a bumper from glasses of "vast length." The 
 deepest drinker "saved" his lady; and Thomson, 
 speaking of the suppers at Fortune's Tavern, which 
 generally followed the performance of an oratorio, 
 declares that the bold champion had often consider- 
 able difficulty in "saving" himself from the floor in 
 his efforts to regain his seat. 
 
 The concerts went on until the spring of i 798, 
 by which time, owing to the attractions of the New 
 Town, it was beginning to be felt that Niddry's 
 Wynd was not quite a convenient locale for a 
 concert-room. In 1801 the Society was formally 
 wound up, and next year the hall was sold to 
 the Baptists. In 1809 it was purchased by the 
 Grand Lodge of Scotland ; in 1844 by the Town 
 Council as trustees for Dr. Bell's Trust ; and now 
 (1897) it has been converted into a warehouse. It 
 has thus seen a good many changes since George 
 Thomson and other grave amateurs of his time 
 made music within its doors ; but enough of the
 
 20 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 original remains to show how admirably the place 
 was adapted for concert purposes.^ 
 
 I have dwelt at this length upon the old St. 
 Cecilia concerts, not only because of the practical 
 share which Thomson had in them, but because it 
 was in Niddry's Wynd that he conceived the idea 
 which dominated the rest of his life, and but for which 
 posterity would in all probability never have heard 
 his name. So important is this part of his story 
 that his own account of it may be given in full. I n the 
 little paper written for Robert Chambers, he says : 
 
 At the St. Cecilia concerts I heard Scottish songs sung 
 in a style of excellence far surpassing any idea which I 
 had previously had of their beauty, and that, too, from 
 Italians, Signor Tenducci the one, and Signora Domenica 
 Corri the other. Tenducci's "I'll never leave thee" 
 and " Braes of Ballenden," and the Signora's " Ewe- 
 Bughts, Marion," and *' Waly, Waly," so delighted every 
 hearer that in the most crowded room not a whisper was 
 to be heard, so entirely did they rivet the attention and 
 admiration of the audience. Tenducci's singing was full 
 of passion, feeling, and taste, and, what we hear very 
 rarely from singers, his articulation of the words was no 
 less perfect than his expression of the music. It was in 
 consequence of my hearing him and Signora Corri sing 
 a number of our songs so charmingly that I conceived 
 the idea of collecting all our best melodies and songs, 
 and of obtaining accompaniments to them worthy of 
 their merit. 
 
 ^ An illustration of the interior of the hall is given in Grant's 01^^ 
 and New Edinburgh^ i. 231. The view is, however, misleading, as it 
 makes prominent {evidently believing it to have been the orchestra) a 
 gallery above the doorv.ay which could have formed no part of the 
 arrangements of the hall when in the hands of the musical society. 
 Cf. Marr's Music for the People, p. xxix.
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 21 
 
 Tenducci — one remembers how Humphrey 
 Clinker heard him, "a thing from Italy" — comes 
 in for compliment again and again. " He it was," 
 remarks Thomson in a letter of 1838 to Robert 
 Chambers, "he it was who inoculated me for Scot- 
 tish song. Oh that Mrs. Chambers had heard 
 him ! He would have beguiled her of her tears as 
 he oft drew mine. I have heard all the great 
 singers of the last fifty years, and not one of them 
 surpassed him for singing to the heart." Again, in 
 a letter of 1844 to William Tait, the publisher,^ we 
 read : 
 
 The most judicious charmingly expressive singer of 
 Scottish songs I ever had the pleasure of listening to was 
 Signer Tenducci, whose passionate feeling and exquisitely 
 touching expression of the melody was not more remark- 
 able than his marked delivery of the words, which he 
 spoke as effectively as a Kemble would have recited 
 them. If I were to live ever so long I could not 
 forget the effect of his performance of " Roslin Castle," 
 ** Lochaber," or "The Braes of Ballenden." The only 
 young lady whose expressive singing brings Tenducci to 
 my remembrance is the amiable and talented Miss Jane 
 Wilson, of Maitland Street. 
 
 There is an unconscious irony in the statement 
 that the beauty of Scottish song was first revealed 
 
 ^ There was good ground, by the way, for Thomson's intimacy 
 with the Taits. Mr. John Glen, of Edinburgh, informs me that 
 WilHam played the tlute. " His abilities," says Mr. Glen, " I do not 
 know, but I suspect he was of the old school, from his having flutes in 
 all keys to enable him to avoid difficult scales." On the same authority 
 Charles B. Tait, a brother of the puljlisher, was a 'celloist, and had 
 frequent musical gatherings at his house. Thomson, we may be 
 pretty sure, often carried his fiddle to both houses.
 
 22 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 to Thomson by a couple of Italians ; but the musical 
 Edinburgh of his day, as indeed it has always been 
 to some extent, was dominated mainly by foreigners. 
 There was ChristoffSchetky, the principal 'celloist of 
 the St. Cecilia Society ; there was Pietro Urbani ; 
 there were various members of the Corri family ; 
 there were Tenducci and others, all Continental 
 artists, and all more or less intimately associated 
 with the music of the capital ; while only the Gows 
 and Stephen Clarke and such like had a footing as 
 representing the native element in art. Tenducci 
 was very fond of singing Scotch songs, and there is 
 a unity of testimony to the fact that he sang them 
 very well. He came to Edinburgh to take part 
 in the St. Cecilia concerts in 1768, and he appeared 
 regularly before the Society for some time after. 
 All the while he was giving lessons in singing, and 
 one of his pupils, it is interesting to note, was the 
 Alexander Campbell who so miserably failed to 
 teach psalmody to Sir Walter Scott owing to the 
 "incurable defects" of the novelist's ear. The 
 Corris were rather a numerous and confusing 
 family, but the one with whom Thomson had 
 specially to do was Natale Corri, a brother of the 
 more famous Domenico, whose wife had charmed 
 him by her singing at the hall in Niddry's 
 Wynd. 
 
 How long it was before the notion thus dimly 
 shadowed in Thomson's mind developed into the 
 fixed determination to collect and edit the melodies 
 of his country, we cannot ascertain. Before setting 
 out on his independent task, he examined, he tells
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 23 
 
 us, every collection within his reach, and found 
 them "all more or less exceptionable — a sad mix- 
 ture of good and evil, the pure and the impure." 
 Generally "there were no symphonies to introduce 
 and close the airs, and the accompaniments (for the 
 piano or harpsichord only) were meagre and com- 
 monplace, while the words were in a great many 
 cases such as could not be tolerated or sung in good 
 society." The collections thus referred to may be 
 identified with tolerable certainty, for the number ot 
 such works up to Thomson's time was by no means 
 great. 
 
 There would be first of all the Orpheus Cale- 
 donhis of William Thomson, the first edition of 
 which was issued in 1725, a second following in 
 1733. In the 1725 edition Thomson pilfered 
 his lyrics, without any acknowledgment, from Allan 
 Ramsay's Tea-Table Miscellany. This Thomson 
 (there were three Edinburgh Thomsons connected 
 with three separate collections of Scottish song !) 
 was an Edinburgh musician, who in the early 
 years of the century went to London, where he 
 acquired some fame as a singer. Burney has a 
 reference to him in his well-known History of Music, 
 which is not without interest here. He says (iv. 
 647) : " In February [1722] there was a benefit con- 
 cert for Mr. Thomson, the first editor of a collection 
 of Scots tunes in England. To this collection, for 
 which there was a very large subscription, may be 
 ascribed the subsequent favour of these national 
 melodies south of the Tweed." A poor collection 
 it was, in all conscience, but it had at least the
 
 24 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 merit of being a pioneer in a field which was then 
 but thinly cultivated. 
 
 After Thomson, the next collector of any note was 
 James Oswald, who published several sets of" Scots 
 tunes," and notably (c. 1 742-1 759), his Caledonian 
 Pocket Companion. If George Thomson went to 
 Oswald for guidance he was certainly in danger of 
 going astray. Oswald had no idea of preserving 
 the airs in their original form, but "decked them 
 out with embellishments in order to display the skill 
 of the singer." Moreover, with the view no doubt 
 of securing additional celebrity for certain melodies 
 in his collection, he passed them off as the composi- 
 tion of the luckless David Rizzio, who was just 
 enough of a musician to give a plausible appearance 
 to the trick. Oswald's impositions in this way are 
 pointedly referred to in a poetical epistle addressed 
 to him in the Scots Magazine for October 1741. 
 Scott certainly knew of them, as we gather from 
 the following in the Fair Maid of Perth : " It's no 
 a Scotch tune, but it passes for ane. Oswald made 
 it himsel', I reckon — he has cheated mony ane, but 
 he canna cheat Wandering Willie." Oswald, it 
 may just be added, was originally a teacher of 
 music, first in Dunfermline and then in Edin- 
 burgh. About 1 74 1 he settled as a music pub- 
 lisher in London, where he attained the distinction 
 of "chamber composer" to George III., a distinc- 
 tion which in those days was as little a proof of 
 merit as it was to hold the office of poet-laureate. 
 
 The collections of Pietro Urbani and William 
 Napier came quite close to George Thomson's
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 25 
 
 venture in the matter of date. Urbani's name has 
 survived in certain references of Burns, but for 
 which it would probably have been entirely for- 
 gotten. An Italian singer and music teacher re- 
 sident for some years in Edinburgh, he was both 
 a good musician and a good vocalist. He had 
 the distinction of being practically the first person 
 who attempted at great cost to get up some of 
 Handel's oratorios in the Scottish capital. Burns 
 seems to have met him for the first time in 
 1793, when he was on his tour in Galloway. In 
 that year at anyrate the poet wrote to Thomson 
 regarding him : "He is, entre nous, a narrow, con- 
 ceited creature, but he sings so delightfully that 
 whatever he introduces at your concert \i.e. the 
 St. Cecilia concerts] must have immediate celebrity." 
 In the same letter Burns remarks to Thomson that 
 Urbani "looks with rather an evil eye" on his 
 collection, which was likely enough, seeing that 
 Urbani and Thomson were both rivals for public 
 favour. Thomson no doubt reciprocated the feel- 
 ing. From a letter of his to Kozeluch, dated 
 February 28, 1800, it appears that some one, whom 
 Thomson suspected to be Urbani, had written 
 to the composer to ask if the accompaniments 
 which Thomson had ascribed to him were really 
 from his pen. " You astonish me," says Thomson, 
 " by the letter which you mention respecting the 
 songs. It has either been written by an Italian 
 here who has published a water-gruel collection of 
 these songs, and would see me at the devil on 
 account of my collection ; or by another worthy
 
 26 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 gentleman, Mr Dale, whom I exposed in the news- 
 papers for publishing a parcel of trash which he 
 called Sonatas with Scottish airs by Pleyel, of 
 which Pleyel did not write one note. And being 
 in the habit of borrowing a composer's name to 
 cheat the public himself, he probably thinks other 
 men disposed to try the same trick. Away with 
 such fellows ! " It is evident that no love was lost 
 between Thomson and his brother editor. 
 
 The first volume of Urbani's Selection of Scots 
 Songs, harmonised and improved^ with Simple and 
 Adapted Graces, appeared about the end of the 
 century. The second volume was entered at 
 Stationers' Hall in 1794; we may therefore con- 
 jecture that the initial volume was published about 
 1792. The work extended finally to six folio 
 volumes, the last volume being published in 1804. 
 It contained upwards of 150 Scottish melodies 
 with their associated songs. The airs were all 
 harmonised by Urbani himself, the harmonies 
 being filled up in notes for the right hand ; and 
 the first four volumes, in addition to the piano- 
 forte part, had accompaniments for two violins and 
 a viola. The number and kind of instruments was 
 rather novel, but still more novel at that time was 
 the extending of the harmonies, and the addition 
 of introductory and concluding symphonies to the 
 airs. Even in the collection of William Napier, 
 the first volume of which was published in 1 790, 
 there were no opening or closing symphonies, and 
 the harmony consisted merely of what was called a 
 " figured bass " for the harpsichord. These " figured
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 27 
 
 basses " could be interpreted only by trained musi- 
 cians, so that in the matter of accompaniments the 
 amateurs of last century were left to shift for them- 
 selves as best they could. Napier's was rather an 
 important work. The first volume contained eighty- 
 one songs, and the airs were harmonised by four 
 professional musicians, who together represented 
 a somewhat varied nationality. There were Dr. 
 Samuel Arnold and William Shield, both English- 
 men ; there was Thomas Carter, an Irishman ; and 
 there was F. H. Barthelemon, a Frenchman, who 
 is described as "a singular character, and a 
 Swedenborgian." The second volume, issued in 
 1792, contained one hundred airs, all harmonised 
 by Haydn, who was presently to do so much work 
 of the same kind for Thomson. This, it will be 
 admitted, was coming tolerably near to a repre- 
 sentation of the "Concert of Europe"! 
 
 Of Johnson's Museum as one of the collec- 
 tions coming under the ban of our editor, it is 
 hardly necessary to speak, that work being so well 
 known from the intimate connection which Burns 
 had with it. Though the last volume did not 
 appear until 1803, the first was issued as early 
 as 1787, so that Thomson could easily include 
 the work amongst the unsatisfactory collections of 
 which he afterwards wrote. He certainly held a 
 very low opinion of the Museum. He refers to 
 it several times in his correspondence, and always 
 in opprobrious terms. Thus in a letter dated 
 September 7, 182 1, he speaks of it as "an om- 
 nium gaiJicj'zcm in six volumes, containing a num-
 
 28 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 ber of tawdry songs which I would be ashamed 
 to publish." It is, he presumes, "as much a 
 book for topers as for piano players." It was 
 *' brought out in a miserable style and without 
 letterpress," and yet, he is pained to add, it has 
 "had a good sale at seven shillings per volume." 
 Criticisms of this kind are abundant, but there is 
 no need to dwell on the matter. The Museu77t 
 was Thomson's most serious rival ; and one read- 
 ing between the lines can easily see that he was 
 chagrined at having to share with Johnson the 
 honour of having Burns as a contributor. He 
 did not appear to realise that in condemning the 
 Museum he was to some extent condemningf Burns, 
 who, as everybody knows, was the practical editor 
 of the earlier volumes of the collection. At the 
 same time it is perfectly true that the Museiim 
 did leave a good deal to be desired, alike as to 
 the purity and taste of its poetical contents, the 
 quality of its musical equipments, and the general 
 character of its get-up. In these respects Thom- 
 son's collections showed an immense improve- 
 ment.-^ 
 
 It was in the year 1792 that Thomson took 
 the first practical steps towards the publication of 
 a collection of national sone- At the outset he 
 
 ^ Thomson slightly modified his opinion of the Museum when 
 David Laing, in conjunction with Stenhouse, edited a new edition 
 of it for Blackwood, published in 1838. Writing to Robert Chambers 
 about the editorial work of " my old acquaintance " (Laing), he 
 says he is "far from insensible of the merit of a work in which 
 there is so much of Burns, though mixed with too many fragmentary 
 bits bearing his name, which he never owned." When he learned 
 that Blackwood had purchased Johnson's work with a view to the
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 29 
 
 was not the sole moving spirit in the enterprise, as 
 indeed we learn from the first letter which he 
 wrote to Burns. " For some time past," he tells 
 the poet, " I have, with a friend or two, employed 
 my leisure hours in collating and collecting the 
 most favourite of our national melodies for publi- 
 cation." So far as I know, the identity of only one 
 of Thomson's coadjutors has been established.^ 
 This was the Hon. Andrew Erskine, a brother 
 of the musical Earl of Kellie, who took a leading 
 part in the St. Cecilia concerts. Erskine was a 
 well-known wit and versifier of the period, who 
 had settled in Edinburg-h after serving for some 
 time in the army. He was on intimate terms 
 with James Boswell, who too generously described 
 him as "both a good poet and a good critic"; 
 and in 1763 he published his correspondence with 
 that prince of biographers. Writing to Thomson 
 many years after this, Sir Alexander Boswell says : 
 " I imbibed a favourable opinion of you and your 
 work from poor Andrew Erskine, my fathers early 
 friend ; and on an ardent mind these connections 
 of idea have a wonderful effect." Erskine is de- 
 scribed as "a silent, dull man, much beloved by 
 his friends, and, like David Hume, extremely fond 
 of children." Unhappily he was fond of gamb- 
 
 new edition, Thomson offered him the sixteen designs whicli David 
 Allan had made for his own collection. For these he asked 150 
 guineas, while for about forty unengraved designs his price was 100 
 guineas. Blackwood of course declined to purchase on these terms. 
 
 ^ He tells Burns in January 1793 ^^^'^t- ^^^ had several conver- 
 sations with William Tytler of Woodhouselce about his plan when 
 it was in embryo, but there is nothing to shov. that Tytler took 
 any practical interest in the concern.
 
 30 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 bling as well, and it appears to have been some 
 losses in which this propensity involved him which 
 led in 1793 to his drowning himself in the Forth. 
 Thomson communicated an account of him in a 
 letter to Burns which, as we learn from Currie, he 
 afterwards suppressed. 
 
 Thomson undoubtedly looked to Erskine and 
 his other collaborators, whoever they were, to 
 share the expenses of the projected publication, 
 though, as he told Burns (January 20, 1793), the 
 scheme w^as managed entirely by himself. Even 
 before Erskine's suicide, he wrote to Burns : ' 
 "The business now rests solely on myself, the 
 gentlemen who originally agreed to join the specu- 
 lation having requested to be off No matter ; a 
 loser I cannot be." Erskine's financial embarrass- 
 ments sufficiently explain his withdrawal, but there 
 is nothing to account for the withdrawal of the 
 unknown partner or partners, unless we may sur- 
 mise that Thomson's self-confidence led to develop- 
 ments in which more timid souls could not follow 
 him. His idea when he first applied to Burns 
 was to issue only a limited number of ?cngs, but 
 only four months had passed when he wrote to 
 say that he had resolved to publish every Scottish 
 air and song worth singing — a task of sufficient 
 magnitude to appal men of less dogged enthusiasm 
 than our editor. 
 
 It will be as well here to note exactly what 
 Thomson set himself to accomplish, and the means 
 he adopted to attain his end. Briefly, then, he 
 
 ^ July I, 1793. Erskine's suicide took place in September.
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 31 
 
 aimed at forming and publishing an eclectic col- 
 lection of characteristically Scottish tunes/ with the 
 words to which they were traditionally sung, if these 
 were good and " proper " ; with other words, specially 
 written, if there was anything in the originals which 
 offended his taste. The tunes, as he found them 
 in existing collections, were not always correct or 
 beautiful ; the words were too often tawdry and 
 indecent. To secure perfection in the former, he 
 carefully collated existing versions, and noted down 
 the airs as he heard them sung by " people of 
 taste," relying — not always with satisfactory result 
 — on his own judgment to detect the pure form 
 of an air from the corrupt. For the words he 
 could not do better than apply to Burns, who had 
 already gained considerable experience of such 
 work in connection with Johnson's ]\hiseum ; but 
 wishing to provide a number of the airs with an 
 alternative set of English words for the use of 
 Southrons, he applied for these to various English 
 writers, the first of whom was the once famed 
 " Peter Pindar." He was careful to explain to Burns 
 (October 13, 1792) that he would never dream 
 of ousting g^ood Scotch words for anv Encrlish 
 words whatever, but he added, sensibly enough, 
 that "it would be the very bigotry of literary pat- 
 riotism to reject such because the authors were 
 born south of the Tweed." 
 
 Thomson's plan had, however, a peculiarity — a 
 
 ' The scheme was soon enlarged, at the sULjj^estion of Burns, to 
 include Irish airs, of which, as well as of Welsh airs, Thomson made 
 separate collections.
 
 32 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 peculiarity which promised, indeed, to raise his 
 publications in merit far above earlier collections, 
 but which made his task, as later pages will show, 
 one of special difficulty. His musical education 
 had been sufficiently thorough to disenchant him 
 with the almost uniform bareness with which the 
 airs had hitherto been presented, and so, to fit them 
 for concert use and for the favourable consideration 
 of the " sons and daughters of taste," he decided 
 to equip them with accompaniments and sym- 
 phonies, the latter being independent passages for 
 instruments, to precede and follow the airs proper. 
 There was, as he believed, no one in the Scottish 
 capital to whom he could entrust the composition 
 of these appanages, and London itself was equally 
 destitute of talent. The only resource, therefore, 
 seemed to be to seek the aid of foreign composers, 
 and thus it came about that Pleyel, Kozeluch, 
 Haydn, and Beethoven, were each applied to in 
 turn on behalf of the Edinburgh enterprise. 
 
 The results of these applications will be dis- 
 cussed later on ; meanwhile it may be pointed out 
 that there was obviously considerable risk in this 
 enlistment of Continental aid. At best, distin- 
 guished composers are apt to look askance at the 
 artless melodies of the people ; and these foreigners 
 were under the special disadvantage of having no 
 first-hand acquaintance with the characteristics of 
 Scottish music. Moreover, in the majority of cases 
 they were not supplied with the words belonging 
 to the airs sent them, and thus they had to spin, 
 out of their inner consciousness of the spirit of
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 33 
 
 the airs, accompaniments which should be elegant, 
 pleasing, not too difficult, and not unsuited to the 
 words which Mr. George Thomson in Edinburgh 
 might afterwards connect with them. It is not sur- 
 prising that a great part of Thomson's correspond- 
 ence with the celebrated composers was marked on 
 his part by complaints and requests for alterations ; on 
 their part, by remonstrances, refusals, and demands 
 for more money ; and on both parts, by irritation, 
 heart-burning, and even at length downright despair. 
 Further, even when the accompaniments and 
 symphonies were thoroughly to Thomson's liking, 
 there remained the difficulty of fitting words to 
 the airs. There was difficulty even with Burns, 
 though in his case the new verses were in many in- 
 stances modelled closely on the old ones, which for 
 decency's sake the editor had discarded. When, 
 however, he came to apply to Scott, Hogg, Byron, 
 Campbell, and the rest, as we shall see he did apply, 
 the difficulty often became insuperable. Some of 
 the poets confessed that they knew nothing about 
 music, and had to fix upon their metres by the 
 mechanical process of counting the notes. All of 
 them soon or late showed, either in plain words 
 or by innuendo, that they felt the irksomeness of the 
 task. It was makino- the Muse walk the ti^ht- 
 rope ; it was hobbling Pegasus in a circumscribed 
 and by no means flowery field. A perusal of the 
 voluminous correspondence between Thomson and 
 his poets and composers gives one indeed a vast 
 admiration for the unquenchable enthusiasm with 
 which the editor pursued the uneven tenor of his 
 
 c
 
 34 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 way. It gives one also a new belief in the funda- 
 mental kindliness of human nature in general and 
 the much-aspersed artistry in particular. 
 
 With this general statement we may leave all 
 details to be filled in from the sections devoted to 
 Thomson's several correspondents. From the date 
 of his first letter to Burns, for upwards of forty 
 years, Thomson's life is practically the history of 
 his work as editor. That was his life ; all else was 
 but a shadow of it. In the course of his search 
 for songs and song-writers, as also in the ordinary 
 course of his official duties, he entered into relations 
 of various degrees of intimacy with people of im- 
 portance in their day, and otherwise. Of these 
 all that is necessary to be said will be said in 
 the following pages. 
 
 In 1802, the year of the publication of his third 
 volume, Thomson, as we learn afterwards from his 
 correspondence, was engaged in editing and super- 
 intending the publication of the poems of Mrs. 
 Grant of Laggan, issued in 1803. ^ ^^7 ^-^ we 
 learn afterwards, for it is not until the year 1844, 
 when Mrs. Grant's Memoir and Correspondence 
 was published by her son, Mr. J. P. Grant, an 
 Edinburgh lawyer, that we discover the part which 
 Thomson really took in promoting the lady's literary 
 and financial interests at this time. The matter 
 presents some curious features. In Thomson's first 
 extant letter to Mrs. Grant, dated December 22, 
 1803, he enters into certain particulars regarding 
 some copies of her book which have not been paid 
 for by subscribers in London, and encloses ^19, 5s.
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 35 
 
 a sum received by him on her account from his 
 agents there. This is indication clear enough of 
 his taking a leading hand in the transactions. But 
 in her statement, in the autobiographical part of the 
 Memoir, of the circumstances which led to the publi- 
 cation of her poems, Mrs. Grant totally ignores the 
 good offices of Thomson. The passage had better 
 be quoted ; it is as follows : 
 
 Before I had ever heard of the project for my ad- 
 vantage — indeed before the materials were collected — 
 proposals were dispersed all over Scotland for pub- 
 lishing a volume of my poems. To these proposals a 
 specimen was annexed in what my friends in Edinburgh 
 considered my best manner. . . . I\Iy personal friends 
 were not only zealous themselves, but procured new 
 friends for me, who afterwards showed the warmest 
 interest in my welfare. Being much attached to my 
 humble neighbours, I had at one time written, as part 
 of a letter, a page or two of poetical regret at the hard 
 necessity which forced so many to emigrate. The friends 
 who had preserved this effusion sent it home, and ad- 
 vised me to enlarge and complete the sketch. I did so ; 
 and thus was finished *'The Highlanders," the principal 
 poem in the published collection ; the rest I did not see 
 again till I saw them in print. Of the living I must not 
 speak ; but in gratitude to the departed I must mention 
 the unwearied exertions on this occasion of Robert 
 Arbuthnot, Esq., the father of the present Sir William, 
 and the late Sir William Forbes, neither of whom were 
 personally known to me. Three thousand names appear 
 as subscribers to the volume of poems — a number, I am 
 told, unequalled. Some of them I owed to esteem, but 
 certainly the greatest number to compassion or to in- 
 fluence ; so that my gratitude was mingled with a sense 
 of humiliation.
 
 26 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 When Thomson read this passage he was natu- 
 rally in some indignation at the omission of all 
 reference to the services he had rendered entirely ex 
 gratia, and he at once wrote from Brighton to Mr. 
 J. P. Grant to supplement his mother's information. 
 He was first introduced to Mrs. Grant, he says, by 
 his friend Mr. Brown, whose wife became "the 
 most cherished of her friends and correspondents." 
 About the time of Mr. Grant's death, Mrs. Brown 
 showed Thomson a MS. poem written by Mrs. 
 Grant, "mentioninof at the same time her beino- 
 burdened with a large young family dependent on 
 her exertions." After considering the "pleasing 
 specimen of her poetical powers," and consulting 
 with some of her most attached friends. Thomson 
 "suggested the publication of her poems by sub- 
 scription, of which they decidedly approved, if an 
 editor could be found." The letter continues : 
 
 In order to get the better of any scruples which 
 perhaps might be felt on the part of ^Irs. Grant in her 
 then distressed state of mind at Laggan, it was thought 
 prudent, and agreed on, that we should at once issue 
 proposals for the publication upon my undertaking the 
 editorship, relying on ]\Irs. Grant's approbation when all 
 matters should be explained to her. Accordingly, I pro- 
 ceeded to draw up and print proposals, adding a brief 
 specimen of her versification, which I soon after de- 
 spatched to every friend and acquaintance I had, as well 
 as to your mother's friends and those of Mrs. Brown and 
 of the Dunchattan family. And having of course in- 
 formed vour mother that we had thus committed her, 
 she acquiesced, and in a short time sent me the MSS. that 
 were to form the volume, which I arranged and put into 
 the printer's hands.
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 37 
 
 When proofs were sent me from time to time, how- 
 ever, and I had thus to examine every hne closely and 
 critically, I found that a good deal of pruning and little 
 alterations and retouchings were necessary in order to 
 produce a more clear connection of the parts than the 
 original manuscript contained, all which of course I 
 regularly transmitted to your mother for her considera- 
 tion and directions, till at length the volume was com- 
 pleted to her entire satisfaction. And never was man 
 more gratified than I when all the subscription papers 
 were returned to me, containing the largest number of 
 names that any literary work, with the exception perhaps 
 of Burns' Poems, ever obtained in Scotland. 
 
 This is the essential part of the story, though it 
 is not more than a fourth part of the letter. Few 
 people nowadays read the poems of Mrs. Grant, and 
 it matters little who stood sponsor for them ; but 
 Thomson's reputation has suffered so much from 
 unsupported charges that it is well to restore to bim 
 the credit which is plainly his due. His work for 
 Mrs. Grant occupied, he tells her son, the leisure 
 hours of a twelvemonth. The Mr. Arbuthnot 
 whose " unwearied exertions " the lady so warmly 
 commends, was Thomson's official superior at the 
 Board, and Thomson declares that Arbuthnot's 
 exertions were confined to taking charge of the 
 subscription sheets which he gave him. It is 
 not unlikely : did not Vernon Whitford, in The 
 Egoist, write those striking letters which appeared 
 in the newspapers above the name of Sir Wil- 
 loughby Patterne ? " Methinks," adds Thomson 
 plaintively, "methinks my name might not un- 
 worthily have stood in the same page of the memoir
 
 38 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 with his." The whirligig of time has brought in its 
 revenges : Thomson is in the firmament with Burns ; 
 Arbuthnot and Mrs. Grant are together in the Hmbo 
 of the forgotten dead. 
 
 Thomson corresponded with Mrs. Grant for 
 many years, and several references to her occur in 
 his letters to others. In August 1805 he describes 
 her to Mrs, Hunter as " extremely interesting and in- 
 genious," and says she "possesses uncommon powers 
 of conversation." In 1807 he writes to Lady Cunliffe 
 (with whom, as Miss Kinloch of Gilmerton, he had 
 been associated at the concerts in Niddry's Wynd) : 
 "I am happy to find that the 'Letters' of my 
 mountain friend have met with so many warm 
 admirers in the South. The first edition is sold off, 
 and Mrs. Grant is preparing the second, which is 
 to have the names instead of the initial letters." 
 Writing to Mrs. Hunter in 1808, he says he has 
 just had a note from Mrs. Grant telling him that 
 the first edition, 1000 copies, of her Memoirs of an 
 American Lady is already sold. "It is to the 
 liberal-minded inhabitants of the South that she 
 is obliged. The supercilious and fastidious Scottish 
 critics and literati have scarcely yet deigned to 
 read or notice her productions. They have for 
 some time talked almost of nothing but the poems 
 of Mr Walter Scott. How long they will continue 
 to be talked about I know not." The last sentence 
 reads like a covert sneer at the literary and fastidious 
 folk who found so much to talk about in Scott's 
 poetry. This is not to say that Thomson alone, of 
 all the world, refused it his admiration : we shall see
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 39 
 
 by-and-by that he made profession to the con- 
 trary ; it may be merely a common-sense protest 
 against allowing the new poet's merits to eclipse 
 all others. Or it may be that Thomson, with 
 unusual critical foresight, perceived that the general 
 praise was rating Scott too high, in which case he 
 has been justified by posterity. What became of 
 all Mrs. Grant's letters to Thomson — there must 
 have been a large number — it is impossible to 
 say. In the letter to J. P. Grant already quoted, 
 Thomson, rather petulantly, asks him to "put up 
 the letters of your mother to me which I gave you," 
 and "return them to the care of Mr. Hogarth at the 
 office of the John Bicll." Perhaps the request was 
 never attended to. 
 
 Thomson, as a man of business-like habits, had 
 always kept drafts of his letters relating to the 
 collection of songs, but it was not until 1803 that 
 he began to copy them into the large leather- 
 bound folios which have been put into my hands. 
 The earlier letters in the initial volume are con- 
 cerned with the collection of Welsh airs, and we 
 hear of little else for two or three years. At 
 first he depended for his material largely on the 
 help of correspondents in Wales, but finding that 
 implicit reliance could not be placed on them, 
 he made, in 1806, a tour of the Principality him- 
 self, taking with him his brother David, " to 
 draw the most striking scenes in that romantic 
 country."^ He carried with him introductions to 
 
 ^ The Welsh collection contains engravings of two paintings of 
 his — Llangollen Vale and Conway Castle.
 
 40 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 such "amateurs and antiquaries" as were likely to 
 be of service to him ; but many of his airs were 
 taken down by himself from the singing or playing 
 of the native harpers, of whom, as a storehouse 
 of national melody, he entertained a very exalted 
 opinion. So highly indeed did he think of these 
 harpers, that he conceived the idea of importing 
 one to Edinburgh. In 1807 ^^ tells Lady Cunliffe 
 that he has suggested to the managers of the 
 local Blind Asylum the advisability of having " a 
 good blind harper come down here for a winter 
 or a year to teach the Welsh harp in the Asylum." 
 He adds that " there are no harpers in Scotland 
 except Elouis, who teaches the pedal-harp in Edin- 
 burgh " ; and a good player, from the novelty of 
 the Welsh harp, would, he is sure, " pick up a deal 
 of money by playing to parties throughout the 
 winter." Whether the suggestion was ever carried 
 out it is not worth w^hile to inquire. 
 
 In 1807 Thomson had a curious experience 
 w^hich led to the only piece of authorship — apart 
 from his editorial work — associated with his name. 
 In this year he published, under the nom de guerre 
 of "Civis," a "Statement and Review of a recent 
 decision of the Judge of Police in Edinburgh, 
 authorising his officers to make domiciliary visits 
 in private to stop dancing." The circumstances 
 which led to the penning of this "Statement" (an 
 octavo pamphlet of fourteen pages, well "leaded," 
 and in rather large type) were sufficiently amus- 
 ing, though certainly not to Thomson. From the 
 pamphlet itself we learn that the Thomson children
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 41 
 
 had "asked a party of their dancing school com- 
 panions to drink tea and have a dance." An old 
 bachelor named Balvaird, who lived below/ com- 
 plained of the noise, and sent his maid to ask that 
 it be stopped. The girl lost her temper, and so 
 far forgot herself as to say that the Thomson 
 dwelling was no better than a "bawdy house"! 
 Meanwhile, the dancing went on, and later in the 
 evening two police officers, at the instigation of 
 Balvaird, entered Thomson's house and insisted that 
 the dancing should be discontinued. "This," says 
 Thomson, " I positively refused, and after a good 
 many words, Murray [the police sergeant] told me in 
 the rudest manner that if it was continued after ten 
 he would return with a party and carry me and my 
 friends to the watch-house. ... I had told the young 
 people before they began that they were to stop at 
 half-past ten, and they did so, as I can also prove, 
 though I presume that they might have continued till 
 twelve, without transgressing the law of the land." 
 
 ^ Thomson's house at this time was in Baxter Place. In the 
 matter of residences he beHeved with Cowper that " variety's the 
 very spice of hfe." IMy friend Mr. John Glen has been before me in 
 hunting out his various abodes from old advertisements and direc- 
 tories. Here is Mr. Glen's list: Blair Street (1793-96) ; York Place 
 (1801-1S04) ; Duke Street (1804-1805); Baxter Place (1805-1808); 
 3 Royal Exchange (1813-19); 140 Princes Street (1824-28); 42 
 York Place (1828-31); Baxter Place (1832-34); 73 Queen Street 
 (1835-40); I Vanbrugh Place, Leith (1S50-51). There are several 
 blanks here. The first (1796-1801) and the second (1808-13) cannot 
 be filled up ; the third (1819-24) should be filled by Queen Street, as 
 appears from Thomson's Continental letters of 1819 ; from 1840 to 
 1845 Thomson was in London and in Brighton ; from 1845 to 1848 
 in Edinburgh, at 13 Antigua Street ; and in 1848-49 in London 
 again. I do not think this information very important, but it is 
 perhaps well to preserve it while it exists.
 
 42 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 Thomson very properly objected to the in- 
 trusion which had thus been made on his privacy, 
 and soon after brought two actions ao-ainst the 
 parties concerned. The first action was taken 
 "against his neighbour's maid-servant for disturb- 
 ing the peace of, and insulting him and his family." 
 This case was dismissed without evidence being 
 heard, the magistrate holding that there had been 
 no " breaking of the peace." The second case 
 was brought against Murray, the sergeant of police, 
 whose dismissal, it appears, had been claimed by 
 the inspector, as demanded by Thomson. This case 
 was also — on the 30th of April — decided against 
 Thomson. In the British Museum copy of the 
 "Statement" some undiscoverable " H. C." (can it 
 be Henry, Lord Cockburn ?) has written the follow- 
 ing on the inside of the front cover : 
 
 This statement is by George Thomson, the corre- 
 spondent of Burns and the editor of his songs. The 
 Judge was a hot-headed blockhead of the name of 
 Tait, who first rode on the rigging of his commission 
 till he spoiled the first police system, and then had 
 the good luck to get about X300 a year to give up 
 his office. H. C. 
 
 The judge's view was, it seems, that people 
 living in a fiat ought, when giving a dance, to 
 invite their neighbours above and below. Against 
 this very literal interpretation of a scriptural in- 
 junction Thomson rightly felt entitled to make a 
 protest, and he made it by addressing his " State- 
 ment " to the judge. The incident shows that his
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 43 
 
 deference to Mrs. Grundy did not go the length of 
 puritanical notions about the sinfulness of dancing/ 
 Indeed, this was not the only time that Thomson 
 pleaded for the dance. Many years later we find 
 him trying to argue Robert Chambers out of a 
 strange, but, in him, perfectly consistent antipathy 
 to the harmless diversion. In a letter of October 
 1835 ("from worthy old George Thomson," 
 Chambers has inscribed it) Thomson says : 
 
 Some time ago I sent for your excellent Jotir?ial a 
 letter on the subject of recreations for the working 
 classes, to which you stated two objections, first that 
 you do not insert anything epistolary purporting to 
 come from a correspondent, and next that you felt some 
 scruple in recommending any facility for dancing to 
 our common people, although it is known to be the 
 primary amusement of all other people from Indus to 
 the Pole. If you saw the happiness it produces among 
 the peasantry and the other working classes in France 
 and Belgium as I have seen, - and the perfect decorum 
 
 ^ The following pamphlets, in addition to the 'Statement' noticed 
 in the text, arose out of this case : (i) "Report of two cases decided 
 in the Police Court on Thursday, 30th April [1807]," a four-page tract 
 probably written by Thomson. (2) '' Letter explanatory of a late 
 judgment in the Court of Police, with a copy of the judgment," signed 
 "John Balvaird." This, also a four-page tract, is dated April 22, 
 1807, eight days before the date of the judgment. It was therefore 
 probably written soon after the "raid.'' (3) "Postscript to Mr. Thom- 
 son's 'Statement' in reply to a letter published as 'Explanatory of 
 a late judgment in the Court of Police,' " four pages ; dated 8th June 
 1807, and signed " G. Thomson." These tracts seem to be very rare. 
 The only complete set known to me, and to which my attention was 
 directed by Mr. J. D. Brown of the Clerkenwell Public Library, is 
 among the Whitefoord- Mackenzie pamphlets in the Mitchell Library, 
 Cilasgow. 
 
 ^ For an account of Thomson's Continental tour, see pp. 52-61
 
 44 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 with which it is conducted, and if you consider that 
 many of the proprietors of spinning mills have a room 
 for dancing in their establishments which they find 
 conducive to the health as well ^ ... of the young 
 people, I think ^ ... to wish with me that an amuse- 
 ment so exhilarating should not be denied to the working 
 classes in our own country. I have drawn up and 
 enclose a paper recommending the study of music to 
 the working classes as a source of the purest pleasure 
 to them. If you like it you may give it a place when it 
 suits your convenience ; if not, you can return it to me.^ 
 
 Chrysostom was of opinion that "where there 
 is dancing the devil is present " ; Thomson clearly 
 took a different view, though he would hardly have 
 gone so far as Basilius, who urged the faithful 
 to practise the dance as a preparation for the 
 noblest enjoyment of the angels in heaven ! 
 
 At this point the biographer, searching about 
 for facts, has to confess himself fairly stranded 
 for the time being, for the years from 1807 to 
 181 1 are practically a blank. Thomson's whole 
 energfies outside his official duties were at this 
 period being given to his various collections, and 
 there Is nothing whatever to tell of him apart 
 from his labours In that direction. By the year 
 
 ^ Part of letter torn away here. 
 
 -There is no article in the Journal answering in any way to this 
 description until 1838. In the number for October 20 of that year 
 there is a paper entitled " Music as a branch of education " which 
 may be Thomson's. Another entitled "A village oratorio" (January 
 19) 1839), by George Hogarth, is quoted from the White Rose of 
 York, "at the request of a relative of the author [obviously Thomson] 
 who takes an interest in the diffusion of a musical taste among the 
 people, as it might be of service in amusing and elevating the 
 people."
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 45 
 
 181 1 he had begun to feel the necessity of getting 
 rid of some of his properties. He had not "the 
 command of money " ; and the large sums which 
 he had laid out upon his various works pinched 
 him so much that he now resolved to "sell the 
 property of one or both of my Welsh volumes 
 merely for what they cost me." This, he remarks, 
 is "truly mortifying, but to go a-borrowing is to 
 me still more so, and of two evils I prefer the 
 least." It is well to mention this circumstance here 
 because of the light it throws on the question of 
 his pecuniary relations with Burns, to be afterwards 
 discussed. His income being what it was, it is 
 not surprising to find him confessing that from the 
 very first he was "exceedingly in want of money" ; 
 and although he w^as able in his old age to invest 
 over ^1300 in the Caledonian Railway and to 
 purchase house property, there is not the least doubt 
 that the costs of his various collections were for many 
 years a very harassing drain upon his resources. 
 
 Unfortunately for himself he failed to effect any 
 sale in 181 1, and in 18 14, by which time the first 
 volume of the Irish collection had been published, 
 he again opens negotiations in various quarters. 
 Writing on the 14th of June to Preston, the 
 London music-seller who acted as his agent in 
 England, he says : 
 
 The money which I have expended upon my Welsh 
 and Irish works lias brought me into difticulties that 
 bear heavily upon me. I have bills to the extent of 
 nearly ;^40o which must necessarily be paid by the 
 beginning of August, and open accounts to an equal
 
 4.6 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 extent that I must pay in less than six months, and I 
 have no other funds but my musical works out of which 
 the payments can be made. It becomes absolutely 
 necessary, therefore, that I should endeavour to dispose 
 of what will relieve me. 
 
 Thomson must, indeed, have been in sore 
 pecuniary straits about this time. At the date 
 of the above letter he offers to sell the first and 
 second Welsh volumes for ;^300, and this offer 
 being declined he, on the 2nd of July, proposes to 
 throw in the first Irish volume in addition for the 
 same sum, " so urgent Is my need of money." But 
 he had to bring his wares unsold from the market : 
 great as their merits were, not even an offer was 
 made for them. We have no means of knowing 
 how he met his pressing bills ; but he must have 
 found some way of tiding over the immediate 
 difficulty, for we hear of no further serious efforts 
 to get rid of the collections until nearly the end of 
 his life, when there was certainly not the same 
 necessity. 
 
 While he was engaged in these fruitless negotia- 
 tions, the question of erecting a memorial to Burns 
 at Dumfries was beino- ao^itated. Thoug-h his cir- 
 cumstances were, according to his own statement, 
 so embarrassed, Thomson w-as able to subscribe five 
 guineas to the memorial fund. He seems to have 
 considered that his subscription, if not his former 
 connection with the poet, entitled him to a voice 
 in the arrangements, for in sending the money 
 to John Syme of Ryedale on May lo, 1814, he 
 writes as follows :
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 47 
 
 I cannot help feeling some anxiety that a design 
 should be obtained worthy of the illustrious dead, and 
 honourable to those who take charge of it. This will 
 depend entirely on the artist to whom you apply ; and 
 it is of the utmost importance therefore to fix upon one 
 who is decidedly eminent for invention, knowledge, and 
 classical taste, and to be guided entirely by him. For if 
 gentlemen get various designs and then exercise their 
 own judgment upon them, the chance of their choosing 
 the worst is much greater than that they would choose 
 the best : for this obvious reason, that there is no art or 
 science in which our countrymen are so utterly ignorant 
 as that of architecture or sculpture. . . . Even those who 
 live by the profession of architecture in Scotland are 
 notoriously uneducated and ignorant, and since the recent 
 death of the truly ingenious Mr. Stark,i I don't know one 
 of our countrymen who deserves the name of an archi- 
 tect. If there are any whose fame has not reached 
 Edinburgh, I ask their pardon. 
 
 The gentleman to whom I would strongly recommend 
 you to apply for a design is Mr. Smirke, R.A., London, an 
 eminent painter, well known to every amateur of the fine 
 arts, or to his son the architect in London, well known 
 for his design for Covent Garden Theatre, the front of 
 which is worthy to have stood in Athens. ... I had a 
 conversation soon after the lamented death of Burns 
 with Mr. Smirke, R.A., upon the very subject of a monu- 
 ment to the poet. Upon that occasion he expressed the 
 highest admiration of his genius and WTitings, said he 
 would be happy to furnish a design, and I understood 
 him to say that profit would be the last thing he should 
 
 ' The "truly ingenious Mr. Starl< " — William, not Robert, as Dr. 
 Rogers has it— had married Thomson's eldest daughter, Catherine, 
 in 1805. Scott, in a letter of the same year to the Mausoleum Com- 
 mittee, rather supports Thomson's opinion. He says: "We have 
 to regret the loss of Mr. Stark, the only architect in Scotland, as I 
 greatly fear, who could have given a plan of simplicity and dignity 
 corresponding to the genius of the author." Stark died in 181 3.
 
 48 GEORGE THGiMSON 
 
 have in view. And I remember well he expressed it to 
 be his conviction that if any respectable character upon 
 " 'Change " in London would take charge of a subscrip- 
 tion paper for erecting a monument to Burns, and set 
 about it in earnest, he would get many hundred pounds 
 in two or three days. What would you think of writing 
 to Sir James Shaw or any other warm-hearted Scotsman 
 on this subject who has influence among those most 
 liberal of all men, the London merchants ? 
 
 This letter is interesting in several ways. It 
 indicates that Thomson had devoted some atten- 
 tion to artistic matters, as indeed was to be ex- 
 pected of one holding his position ; and that he 
 at least was not conscious of any arrogance in 
 writing as one who spoke with authority. It 
 further shows that he had not lived nearly three- 
 score years without shrewd observation of the 
 eccentricities of committees. Finally, it gives evi- 
 dence of that cosmopolitan width of sympathy 
 which saved him from the "bigotry of patriotism" 
 in matters of music, literature, art, and commerce. 
 His advice unfortunately was not accepted : in- 
 stead of Smirke, the committee employed Hunt, 
 the outcome of whose desisfn, tog^ether with the 
 trumpery Turnerelli sculptures,^ was first exposed 
 to the public in September 1815. What Thomson 
 thought of the w'hole thing is not recorded. He 
 has plenty to say to correspondents about the 
 absurdity of his countrymen going to Italy for 
 
 1 " What a sorry piece of sculpture is Burns' monument in Dum- 
 fries churchyard ! Monstrous in conception and clumsy in execution, 
 it is a disgrace to the memory of the poet." — W'ordstvorth to Allan 
 Ciin7ii7i<;ha}n.
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 49 
 
 their daughters' music ; no doubt he felt equally 
 indignant that they should go to Italy for their 
 sculptors, more especially when he learned that 
 Turnerelli's model of a plough, "not being con- 
 sidered anything like the ploughs used in Scotland," 
 had to be superseded by a model obtained in 
 Edinburgh. But after all, had he not himself erred 
 in a similar direction when he went abroad for his 
 accompaniments ? 
 
 The death in 181 5 of his brother David in 
 London affected Thomson greatly. They were 
 warmly attached to each other, and had a com- 
 munity of tastes and interests, which drew them 
 very closely together. Thomson describes the 
 brother as "a landscape painter, a tolerable poet, 
 and a very fine musician" — a young man "who 
 would have been an honour to his family had his 
 life been prolonged," Joanna Baillie, writing soon 
 after his death, says: "We have truly sympathised 
 with you in the loss of a brother so justly endeared 
 to you by his worth and his various talents. I 
 wish we had been better entitled to your thanks 
 for kindness shown to him. He was fitted to be a 
 very pleasing and valuable member of any society, 
 and we have now to regret that we saw him so 
 seldom." One or two of David's letters are 
 extant, from which it would be easy to make a 
 number of interesting extracts if space could be 
 found for them. In 18 13 he remarks that he is 
 so bent on going on with his artistic studies in 
 London that nothing would tempt him to leave the 
 city except a visit to the Continent. Next year, 
 
 D
 
 50 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 speaking of his devotion to the brush, he says : 
 " I scarcely know why one should take so much 
 trouble about it except for the pleasure it affords. 
 There is only one landscape painter in London 
 who may be said to have made anything by the 
 art. I mean Turner, and he has made very little 
 lately by all accounts." He contributed various 
 songs to his brother's collections, but he tells how 
 he longs to spend his little leisure in "writing 
 something of greater length. I think,"' he adds, 
 " if I once fixed on a good subject I could much 
 more easily and in less time finish a poem of some 
 extent than I could write on so many different 
 subjects." Another scheme is referred to in a letter 
 of 1813 : 
 
 There is an idea come into my head of a work which 
 I think will be a fortune to whoever does it first — that is 
 to say if it is done well. I mean a complete edition of 
 the Scottish poets. Allan's etchings might be admirably 
 applied to such a work, together with views of the most 
 classical spots to which the poets refer. Depend upon 
 it, this will be done as soon as the copyright of Burns 
 expires. 
 
 He had a keen interest in music, and was at one 
 time favourably known by a collection of Mozart's 
 songs, duets, &c. ("a most difficult undertaking," 
 he calls it), to which he had set verses of his own. 
 Another work upon which he spent much time was 
 a collection of " The Melodies of different nations." 
 He published with Clementi, whom he had heard 
 on one occasion in the company of Madame de 
 Stael, and whose playing he describes as "so rich
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 51 
 
 and cantabile that he seems to fill up everything 
 and to make it smg at the same time." After 
 his death some difficulty arose with the Clementi 
 firm about the payment of the share which would 
 have accrued to him from his works. " They have 
 done nothing without threats," writes his brother 
 William, who had taken up the matter. ** It is 
 of no use therefore to talk of conciliatory letters 
 to such people. Their character on this point is 
 well known in London. Even David told me he 
 was aware of it." But it is time to return to our 
 main theme. 
 
 In this same year — that is to say in 18 15 — 
 Thomson was very much engaged on the arrange- 
 ments for the first Edinburgh musical festival, which 
 filled the week between October 30 and Novem- 
 ber 5. According to the Scots Magazine the celebra- 
 tion created such excitement that " for many miles 
 round in all directions there was not a post-horse 
 to be had on any roads, and before the festival 
 began, the hotels, inns, and lodging-houses were so 
 full that, unless in private houses, there was abso- 
 lutely not room for another individual." George 
 Thomson was one of the directors, and his son- 
 in-law, George Hogarth, one of the secretaries of 
 this phenomenal festival, and these two enthusiasts 
 are undoubtedly entitled to no small credit for the 
 success which attended the affair. 
 
 After this there is another blank in the Thomson 
 biography. The letter-books give no indications 
 of any interests in life apart from the collections 
 of national melody, and an appeal to the available
 
 52 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 sources of contemporary information is as barren of 
 result as if such an individual as George Thomson 
 had no existence. In the summer of 1819 he 
 spent his annual holiday on the Continent, being 
 then in somewhat indifferent health. His account 
 of the tour is contained in' eight long letters to 
 his wife, who remained at home for the removal 
 of the household to Queen Street. The letters 
 are not entrancing to read, for Thomson, though 
 shrewd and observant, was also stolid and unima- 
 ginative ; but as they may help us in trying to 
 form an estimate of the writer, it will be well to 
 give them some attention. 
 
 The first letter is dated from Portsmouth, where 
 Thomson has landed after " a most agreeable 
 voyage." One of the passengers on the boat was 
 an unnamed Count, with whom he "chatted some- 
 times," but " as I am deficient in modest assurance, 
 I interchanged but few words with the Countess, 
 for I cannot bear to be thought an intruder." In 
 the next letter, Thomson is able to tell of his first 
 experiences on the Continent. At the hotel at 
 Havre, the landlord of which was "a rosy-faced 
 little man, with powdered hair and curls as stiff and 
 round as Mr. Creech's were," he had "greatly the 
 best " dinner he ever sat down to. At Rouen he 
 was much interested in a certain convent, the abbess 
 of which "allowed us to peep through a rail at all 
 the young ladies at dinner," and then "carried us 
 to a large old tower, the same in which the heroic 
 enthusiast, Joan of Arc, was confined by the Eng- 
 lish." The "extensive" boulevards here set him
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 53 
 
 reflecting on the improvement it would be to plant 
 Leith Walk with trees. He wishes, too, that 
 " Sandy Douglas would make haste to drain and 
 plant and beautify the ground in front of Princes 
 Street, and let it no longer remain a reproach to 
 us," At the theatre he saw Beaumarchais' Mar- 
 riage of Figaro, but was "too little conversant with 
 the language to enjoy it." He asked a member of 
 the orchestra if they occasionally performed Figaro 
 with Mozart's music : "he had never heard of it — 
 was sure there was no such music, and would not 
 believe my assertion to the contrary." 
 
 From Rouen the traveller went on to Paris 
 by "diligence," behind a postillion " with powdered 
 hair, tied and bobbing at the neck of his short 
 jacket all the way, his legs in a pair of immense 
 jack - boots, and armed with a tremendous whip 
 — in short the identical La Fleur of Sterne to a 
 tittle." His brother William, just created a major, 
 joined him in the French capital, but soon returned 
 home without having greatly enjoyed himself. " No 
 quartettes to be got," says George, "and to all 
 other objects he seems quite indifferent." ^ As for 
 our hero, he completely fatigued himself day after 
 day with sight-seeing. He found everything ad- 
 mirable except the streets " where there are no 
 boulevards." These are abominable : " nothino- but 
 
 ' William was apparently, like George, an amateur violinist. In 
 one of his letters he speaks lovingly of his Stainer violin. A letter of 
 1828 from Naples is full of musical small-talk. He tells of hearing 
 Lablache, the famous basso, '" whose voice is heard above the fortissimo 
 of the band."
 
 54 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 the rough causeway, with the nasty gutter in the 
 middle." He " cannot imagine why they do not 
 alter the streets into the convenient form of our 
 own, as it appears to me quite practicable." But if 
 the streets are nasty the people are nice. At the 
 Fete of the King on August 25th (I am now quot- 
 ing from the Parisian letters without regard to order 
 of date) he saw many thousands avail themselves of 
 the wine bounty, and although "all had as much as 
 they asked, I neither saw nor heard of any of the 
 people getting drunk, nor was there any riot or dis- 
 turbance during the day or night. How fearfully 
 different would be the result of such a distribution 
 in London or Edinburgh!" Indeed "the orderly 
 demeanour, good manners, and submission to autho- 
 rity which characterise the lower orders" in France, 
 form, he is sorry to say, " a complete contrast to 
 those on our side of the water." 
 
 Even the frail sisterhood here are all under the eye of 
 the never-slumbering police, and the state of their health 
 [is] regularly attended to ; the consequence of which is 
 that one never sees such miserable wretches as disgust 
 us on our own High Street, nor any assemblages either 
 in the theatres or gardens such as those that disgrace the 
 saloons of the London theatres. I am far from beheving 
 that there is any more virtue here, but there is infinitely 
 more decorum, and a woman in Hquor is never seen. 
 
 The Parisian women, however, do not seem to 
 him to have " that winning sweetness and beauty 
 of features which one finds in the English women, 
 but in general their eyes are darker and express 
 more of character and intelligence, and in manner
 
 GEORGE THOMSON ^^ 
 
 they appear to have greatly the advantage." For 
 the Parisian Sunday, Thomson, being what Steven- 
 son calls "a countryman of the Sabbath," had 
 naturally no toleration. The churches "seem to 
 be attended by poor old people only. Many shops 
 open, at least for the greater part of the day ; trades- 
 men at work ; the theatres open, and all the gardens 
 filled with people ; families of itinerant musicians 
 with circles around them ; riding rings furnished 
 with cars and hobby-horses. Punch's opera, and all 
 sorts of buffoonery." This was really too much 
 for one accustomed to the Sunday silence which 
 Crabbe, speaking of Edinburgh, declared to be 
 itself religious. Nor was the "stiff ungodly Pro- 
 testant" any better pleased with the churches. He 
 went to a service in Notre Dame, but " of all the 
 mummery I have ever beheld, and of all the mono- 
 tonous music (if music I may call it) that I ever 
 heard 'twas the most tiresome, and instead of 
 wondering why I found none but old women on 
 the former Sunday at another great church, I am 
 rather surprised that anybody should go to hear 
 such an unmeaning service. Let us be thankful for 
 rational Episcopacy or Presbyterianism, instead of 
 this sacerdotal and empty pomp. No wonder that 
 the people laugh at it." This it is to have had a 
 Protestant education, to have been brought up in a 
 land famed for its little and contentious ecclesiastical 
 differences ! Thomson, in fact, like the majority of 
 his countrymen at that time, was quite incapable 
 of doing justice to any other form of religion than 
 his own.
 
 56 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 The Palace of the Tuileries he thought "of 
 very fine architecture, with the exception of its 
 high pavilion roofs, which I do not like." He 
 greatly admired the Palais Bourbon: "our House 
 of Commons is as inferior to it, outside and inside, 
 as their speakers are inferior to ours." At the 
 Hospital of Invalids he asked his conductor whether 
 Napoleon had done anything for the institution, and 
 was answered: " Nothing, monsieur, but added men." 
 At the Royal Library he thought it worth noting 
 that "an elegant young lady was writing away with 
 all possible celerity," having no doubt expected to 
 see only the typical "blue stocking" so engaged. 
 At the Palace of St. Cloud the thing that impressed 
 him most was the absence from the entire buildino- 
 of any instrument of music: "You know what 
 Shakespeare says about people without music." 
 Two days were spent in the Louvre, where he saw 
 enough to make him wish to spend a fortnight. 
 In short he "enjoyed the treat excessively." The 
 colouring of Rubens, "rich as a flower-garden," 
 specially delighted his eye. Titian, " next to 
 Rubens, has the greatest number [of canvases], 
 and their excellence in composition, expression, 
 grace, nature, and breadth and beauty of colour also 
 is indescribable. I am inclined to prefer him to 
 them all." The works of the French artists did 
 not excite his admiration. "With a few exceptions 
 they appear to me too gaudy and seldom natural, 
 and the portraits are extremely hard and stiff, not 
 a Rubens, nor a Turner, nor a Wilkie among them 
 all — scarcely an approach to them." He visited
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 57 
 
 Pere la Chaise, and unpatriotically exclaimed, "Alas ! 
 for the Greyfriars, the Canongate, &c." He never 
 supposed it possible that he "'could take an interest 
 in a foreign burying-ground," but this he " really 
 found it difficult to leave." 
 
 Music, of course, had his attention. At the 
 Grand Opera he witnessed "the most graceful, 
 beautiful, and astonishing dancing ever seen in 
 the world ; " the whole spectacle was " inconceivably 
 grand." 
 
 The orchestra has about four-score performers, con- 
 ducted by the celebrated Kreutzer, who stands in the 
 centre close to the stage, and gives the time by the up 
 and down motion of a small baton, without a single beat 
 or any noise whatever. Whenever he announces by his 
 attitude and upraised arm that the overture is about to 
 commence, the audience instantly become mute, and will 
 not permit a whisper ; they remain in breathless expec- 
 tation of the first stroke of the bow, which is electrifying, 
 and listen to every bar of the overture with the same 
 attention as if Catalani were singing. 
 
 At this house he heard Gluck's Iphig^nie, 
 " which, though not without very considerable 
 merit, pleased me but little. The music is too con- 
 tinually noisy, and the singers much more ardent 
 and impassioned than I can bear, and the gran- 
 deur of the orchestra, with its trumpets, kettle- 
 drums, cymbals, serpents, and double basses, be- 
 comes oppressive." The Italian Opera, with an 
 orchestra not half so large, is "worth an hun- 
 dred" of the Grand Opera. He went to the 
 Opera Comique, "where the singing was good, the
 
 58 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 orchestra equally so, and the acting most excel- 
 lent, for the truth is that a bad comic actor or 
 actress is not to be found at one of the theatres 
 here." On the whole, however, he has heard 
 nothing in the way of music "which will in the 
 least prevent my enjoyment of our own excellent 
 performances." In view of these "excellent per- 
 formances," he tells of several visits to the music 
 shops in search of scores. Here is an interesting- 
 little extract from one of the letters. Dr. Chalmers, 
 it may be premised, had just been proposed as a 
 candidate for the Chair of Natural Philosophy in 
 Edinburgh University. 
 
 I confess 1 am surprised that Dr. Chalmers should 
 think of doffing his spiritual robe or of seeking a double 
 gown, considering his lofty pretensions as a gospel mini- 
 ster ; but I daresay he will make a good professor in 
 Edinburgh as he has done in Glasgow. Is my worthy 
 friend Dr. MacKnight a candidate ? If you meet the 
 doctor tell him that though I had not his list of musical 
 wants, I have purchased for him at Pleyel's some of the 
 very best operas [works] of Haydn and Beethoven, par- 
 ticularly the sonatas of Haydn complete, as beautifully 
 printed as the quartettes, and containing a number of 
 pieces that never appeared in England. 'Tis such a 
 work as one is delighted to glower [stare] at. If he 
 does not receive it with thankfulness, I shall be much 
 disappointed. 
 
 But Thomson was beginning to have enough 
 of Paris, and being alone, was feeling himself 
 drawn nearer to the absent in Edinburgh. During 
 his last days in the French capital he was apos-
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 59 
 
 trophising his "burning soles" in the following 
 doggerel : 
 
 Rest ye, poor feet, on the sofa so soothing, 
 Soon we'll quit Paris, how happy ye'U be ; 
 
 Though rich are her palaces, theatres, and gardens. 
 West Queen Street, I ween, is worth all in the three. 
 
 Yes, however much he has been gratified in visiting 
 Paris, he feels no reluctance "in turning my face 
 again towards my own happy home, to enjoy the 
 society of my dear family and friends." 
 
 But Thomson was not yet at the end of his 
 travels. From Paris he set out for Brussels, where 
 he saw the usual sights and described them in the 
 usual way. The Cathedral as a building he did 
 not think "remarkable for beauty," but the pulpit 
 — that same Garden-of-Eden pulpit which excited 
 the scorn of Thackeray — "exceeds everything of 
 the kind I have met with." Of course he went to 
 Waterloo, but his only reflection there is that he 
 can "now read the account of the battle over aeain 
 with much interest." With Antwerp, the place 
 above all others which he has for many years 
 longed to see, he was " abundantly gratified." 
 Rubens' " Descent from the Cross " in the Cathedral 
 he preferred to every picture he had seen of "this 
 immortal genius," and indeed to any painting he ever 
 beheld : "much that [as] I had heard and read of it, 
 its sublimity and pathos exceeded all expectation." 
 
 Thoui^h Rubens is often delicient in the grace of 
 his women, yet there is such power and majesty and 
 splendour in his pictures that he must unquestionably 
 be placed in the same rank with Raphael, Titian, and
 
 6o GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 Correggio. A portrait of his mistress, which has re- 
 mained in his family ever since it was painted, has 
 lately, on the death of his last descendant, been pur- 
 chased for between two and three thousand pounds by 
 a Mr. Van Haveren here, who is rich enough and has 
 taste enough to have refused ;^40oo for it, offered by an 
 English gentleman the other day. I saw it with some 
 difficulty ; 'tis matchless. I do not believe at least that 
 such a . . .^ portrait is to be found in any collection. 
 
 From Antwerp he went on to Rotterdam by way 
 of Utrecht, Amsterdam, Haarlem, and the Hague, 
 noting as he travelled the difference in national 
 character between the French and the Dutch : 
 " The Laird of Dumbledykes and Francis Jeffrey 
 are not more dissimilar."' At Haarlem he heard 
 the remarkable organ of which Campbell has given 
 so fantastic a description in one of his letters. " It 
 is," says Thomson, "the finest organ that ever was 
 built, which I heard for an hour with inexpressible 
 pleasure. 'Tis a glorious instrument, and sorely 
 vexed was I to leave it so soon. When the or- 
 ganist made use of the Vox Him tana stop, so perfect 
 is the imitation that I at first thought there was a 
 fine singer in the organ gallery." At Rotterdam 
 he went into the principal church, " where the 
 service is just like our own, only that the psalms 
 are accompanied by the organ. The moment the 
 minister finishes his prayer and proceeds to preach, 
 the ill-bred coofs put on their hats." So ends our 
 traveller's tale. From Rotterdam he sets sail for 
 
 ^ The adjective is entirely obliterated by an ink-blot, and there is 
 no use guessing at it.
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 6i 
 
 home, telling his wife before he embarks that " I 
 have seen nothing in the slightest degree comparable 
 to mine own romantic town, and I would not ex- 
 change it for my choice of all that I have visited." 
 
 There is a vaeue hint in one letter that Thomson 
 meant to publish this journal of his tour on the 
 Continent ; and the letters themselves read as if 
 the intention had been present in his mind when 
 he penned them. They are for the most part 
 as stiff and formal as if they had been written 
 to an utter stranger instead of to the wife of 
 his bosom. No words are wasted in exordiums 
 or perorations. But perhaps this was Thomson's 
 way : for all we know, his letters to his friends and 
 relations may have been as cold and precise as his 
 letters to his poets and musicians. In any case the 
 Continental letters were never published. They 
 remained in the obscurity of the family drawers, 
 and their very existence is here for the first time 
 made known. 
 
 In 182 1 and the three following years we find a 
 very large portion of the correspondence given up 
 to an attempt to recover a sum of money from 
 Natale Corri and his daughter. Corri was for 
 many years a singing-master in Edinburgh, and 
 Thomson, as we learn, had become security for him 
 to the Royal Bank in a sum which, with interest, 
 amounted at this time to ^^363. In 1821 he writes 
 to the Directors of the Bank regretting that " wc 
 find it impossible to pay this debt at present or in 
 any other way but by instalments," Corri and 
 Thomson, it appears, divided the sum in three
 
 62 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 bills, payable at twelve, twenty-four, and thirty-six 
 months, but in the end Thomson had to pay the 
 whole — or nearly the whole — amount. 
 
 Corri died soon after the bills were drawn 
 (June 24, 1822), and his eldest daughter, Frances, 
 who had subscribed them jointly with her father, 
 now became the object of Thomson's anxious at- 
 tention, Thomson having meantime got James 
 Ballantyne to join him as security. In 1822 
 the Bank threatened to arrest Miss Corri, but 
 Thomson good - naturedly took steps to prevent 
 this. In a letter addressed to her at Florence 
 in March 1824, he reminds her that she had ac- 
 cepted his bills for ^200, "being one half of the 
 sum which I am now paying for your late father 
 to the Royal Bank here by instalments of ;^6o a 
 year out of my very limited income." He goes 
 on to say that the lady's father had declared that 
 " the whole sum which I am now obliged to pay 
 was laid out by him for your education in London, 
 and that you had assured him in the strongest terms 
 that you would not permit me to be a loser. You 
 may easily conceive," he adds, "how hard it bears 
 upon me and my family out of a salary of ^300 
 to carry ^15 every three months to the Bank." 
 
 This letter was sent under cover to Mr. Haig 
 of Bemerside, who was then in Florence, " with an 
 earnest request to him to endeavour to get the 
 money from her either in whole or in part." The 
 appeal proved unsuccessful, and the matter now 
 entered upon a new phase. It will not be amiss 
 to remark that Miss Corri ought certainly to have
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 63 
 
 been in a position to pay. Thomson himself told 
 the Directors of the Bank in 1821 that "by the 
 exertion of her great musical talents she now earns 
 a considerable income," and in this very year, 
 when Thomson was writing to her at Florence, a 
 musical critic was declaring of her that "she pro- 
 mises in a few years to be one of the greatest orna- 
 ments of the Italian stage." Even before that, she 
 was thought good enough to be associated with the 
 great Catalani in a long professional tour through 
 the Continent. But she was in Italy and Thomson 
 was in Edinburgh, and under these circumstances 
 debts were as difficult to recover then as they are 
 now. 
 
 Smarting as Thomson thus was under "the pay- 
 ment of a much larger sum than I can afford from 
 a small income," there was nothing left for him to 
 do but to rank himself with the creditors of the 
 deceased Italian. Hence it is that with the year 
 1825 there begins a protracted correspondence about 
 the sale of the old Corri " Rooms," erstwhile digni- 
 fied by the name of the Pantheon, and at this date 
 known as the Caledonian Theatre. The earlier 
 history of this building, upon the site of which the 
 Theatre Royal now stands, is both perplexing and 
 tedious, and I do not propose to follow it out ; those 
 who wish to do so may profitably consult Mr. 
 Dihdms A iif 2 a/s 0/ ^/ie Edhibiivf^Ji Stage. In 1825 
 the Pantheon (the correspondence retains the old 
 name) had been "standing very little occupied, and 
 producing a mere trifle of rent for many years," and 
 Thomson, who had been appointed by the assignees
 
 64 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 to look after their interests, in which, of course, his 
 own were involved,^ began to press for the imme- 
 diate sale of the property. 
 
 The opening of the correspondence is not in 
 existence, but from the first letter of Thomson 
 (June 22, 1825) it seems that the lessee of the 
 Theatre Royal had been offered the Pantheon 
 for £jOQO, and had "not thought the offer worthy 
 of an answer." Thomson says his " chief hope of a 
 purchaser all along was fixed on the manager of 
 the Theatre Royal," but Siddons "told me that it 
 would not suit them at all": the stage was far too 
 narrow. The agent for the property, as we gather, 
 held out stoutly against advertising the upset price 
 below ^6000, whereas Thomson declared that it was 
 not worth more than ^5000, if it was worth so much. 
 He had several objections to the Pantheon, with its 
 shops and houses. It was built up on all four sides, 
 and so could never be enlarged ; it was clogged by 
 the privilege of free admission to the shareholders ; 
 the theatrical part of the property was risky " from 
 the great difficulty of getting it let to a decent 
 tenant, and the uncertainty after it is let whether 
 the rent will be paid, owing to the poverty of the 
 class of strolling players who in general are the 
 managers of the Pantheon " ; and worst of all " there 
 is a vile dub before it, the opposite houses in King 
 Street and those adjoining in James' Street being 
 occupied as brothels, and deserted by all decent 
 tenants." The rental of the whole property, in- 
 
 ^ His claim on the estate now amounted, with interest, to £.i,oo.
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 6^ 
 
 eluding the "theatrical part," was only ^291,^ and 
 this being so, it was no surprise to Thomson when 
 "not a soul appeared to make an offer to the 
 agent's advertisement." What was ultimately done 
 in the matter of a sale I have been unable to dis- 
 cover, but it is clear from subsequent references in 
 his letters that Thomson got back but a very small 
 portion of his money. The Caledonian Theatre was 
 subsequently leased by Murray of the Theatre Royal, 
 who then changed the name to the Adelphi, and in 
 1853 the building was burnt down, just when the pro- 
 prietors had practically decided to reconstruct it. 
 
 Meanwhile Thomson secured relief from his 
 pecuniary burden in a somewhat unexpected way. 
 And this introduces to us the name of Sir David 
 Wilkie, who is first mentioned in the correspond- 
 ence in connection with the picture of " Duncan 
 Gray," which he had executed for Thomson. It 
 appears that Wilkie objected to Thomson's pro- 
 posal to publish the engraving of this picture on 
 small paper in his royal octavo edition of 1822, of 
 which we have yet to speak. W^ilkie offered to 
 purchase the plate from Thomson rather than have 
 it used in this way, and Thomson asked him to 
 name his price. But in the meantime Thomson 
 promised not to publish the engraving unless the 
 demand for his folio edition should practically cease, 
 in which case he says he ?^i7cs^ publish it in his 
 octavo. This seems to have produced an angry 
 letter from Wilkie, for on the 19th of November 
 
 ^ Mr. Dibdin puts the rental at /"465, but the above statement 
 from the correspondence with the agent is decisive. 
 
 E
 
 66 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 1822 Thomson addressed the artist with the re- 
 mark that he "little expected such a letter as yours 
 of the 13th," which he read "with more surprise" 
 than he can express. He reminds Wilkie that he 
 never agreed to any restriction in the use of the 
 print of " Duncan Gray," and he feels perfectly 
 entitled to use it with any edition of his sono's 
 which he may publish. He would far rather give 
 the print to his subscribers for nothing than "sell 
 the plate for so small a price as that you offer me. 
 Mackintosh the print-seller told me he could sell 
 every proof for half-a-guinea." 
 
 We hear nothinof further of the matter until 
 1828, when Wilkie has just returned from Italy. 
 Thomson then writes to say that "by the advan- 
 tageous sale of my delightful ' Duncan Gray ' (which 
 I fondly hoped when I got it would have gladdened 
 my eyes as long as I lived) I had the satisfaction 
 to relieve myself from an unfortunate cautionary 
 obligation." Over this piece of luck he is so rejoiced 
 that he begs to present his "good friend" with a 
 subscription copy of Hollo way's engravings of 
 Raphael's cartoons. Thus the old Corri business 
 comes to an end, and editor and artist metaphori- 
 cally embrace. 
 
 There is, however, something further to say 
 about Thomson's connection with Wilkie, and it 
 may as well be said here. Allan Cunningham, in 
 his Life of the artist (i. 32), had stated that on 
 Wilkie's first coming to Edinburgh he waited on 
 Thomson as chief clerk of the Board of Trustees, 
 in the hope of being admitted to the Board's Draw-
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 67 
 
 ing School. He brought some specimen sketches 
 and a letter of introduction from the Earl of Leven ; 
 but Thomson — such is Cunningham's statement — 
 refused to admit him because his drawings were not 
 sufficiently good ; and it required the interposition 
 of the Earl himself to overcome the scruples of the 
 chief clerk. When Thomson read all this he at once 
 sent to the editor of the Morning Chronicle a letter 
 which was inserted on May 10, 1843, He says : 
 
 Where the biographer picked up the account of my 
 scruples and the necessity of the Earl's interposition to 
 overcome them, 1 know not. But I flatter myself that 
 as everything relating to the early education of a genius 
 so distinguished is interesting, I may be allowed an 
 opportunity of stating exactly what took place on the 
 occasion alluded to. When Wilkie waited on me as 
 above mentioned he delivered the Earl of Leven's letter, 
 which, according to the best of my remembrance, stated 
 that the bearer of it was the son of a worthy clergyman, 
 his Lordship's neighbour in the countrv, who had taken 
 a fancy to be a painter, and begged me t(^ look at his 
 drawings and endeavour to put him in the way of being 
 instructed in the principles of his art at the Board's 
 Academy or otherwise as I might think proper, in my 
 conversation with the young man, after examining his 
 drawings, I told him that I considered the Academy of 
 the Board the very best school, either for artists or 
 decorative manufacturers, that Scotland could boast of ; 
 . . . that here he would receive sound instruction which 
 would cost his father nothing, and that I liad little doubt 
 i)f getting him admitted into it. He replied that this 
 was just what he wished, and that nothing could in. ike 
 him more happy ; upon which I drew up a petition to 
 the Board for him, and having presented it along with 
 his specimens of drawing, they accordingly admitted
 
 68 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 him, for I myself had no power either to admit or reject 
 him. . . . He continued four years at the Academy, 
 giving intense appHcation to study, and annually carry- 
 ing off a prize for his drawings, though contending with 
 several remarkably clever fellow-students. He was a 
 favourite with Mr. Graham, the master, who told me 
 that he felt it a pleasure to guide his studies ; while the 
 grateful pupil repeatedly expressed to me how deeply 
 he felt indebted to the master for his kind and valuable 
 instructions. For the very little service which 1 had it 
 in my power to render him I received and possess letters 
 of grateful acknowledgment both from the father and son. 
 
 This letter, it may be remarked in passing, was 
 written in Thomson's eighty-sixth year. It bears 
 no mark of failing powers, but is expressed with 
 as much clearness and as fixed an assurance of 
 his accuracy as the letters ot his early official life. 
 It shows, too, that his position at the Board of 
 Trustees was always a subordinate one, thouQ-h one 
 also of increasing influence and emolument. As 
 for Allan Cunningham, it was perhaps hardly to 
 be expected that he should do justice to Thomson. 
 The two had corresponded frequently with each 
 other at one time, and Cunningham had contributed 
 several songs to the Thomson collections ; but 
 Cunningham's treatment of Burns had excited the 
 ire of Thomson, and the rather free utterances of 
 the latter were not calculated to cement a friendship 
 which had never been very close. 
 
 Returning now to the year 1S21, we find Thom- 
 son engaged at this date upon the preparation of 
 an octavo edition of his collections. The "state of 
 the times," he tells us, had put it out of the power
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 69 
 
 of people to buy expensive books, and althouorh 
 they would not buy his ten folio volumes at a 
 guinea a volume, he, with his usual hopefulness, 
 felt sure they would buy six volumes at somethino^ 
 like a fourth of that price each. Hence came 
 the octavo edition of 1822, Some account of this 
 edition will follow in the proper place. Meanwhile 
 Thomson, who could brook no rivals in what he 
 regarded as his own peculiar field, was sadly con- 
 cerned about the appearance of the Scottish Min- 
 strel, the first volume of which had been published 
 in 1821. 
 
 The Scottish Minstrel was projected by Robert 
 Purdie, an Edinburgh music-seller, to whom Thom- 
 son afterwards proposed to sell his own collections ! 
 It was conducted by a coterie of ladies, whose mode 
 of dealing with the songs may be guessed from 
 their subsequent proposal to prepare a "family 
 edition" of Burns. Erring stanzas they "cut out 
 or re-wrote, and as for drinkino- soncfs, thev would 
 have none of them." R. A. Smith was the musical 
 editor of the work, and the situation was compli- 
 cated by the fact that Smith was one of Thomson's 
 correspondents and helpers. Writing to him in 
 1822. Thomson "cannot help regretting" that his 
 name should be connected with a publication " so 
 utterly tasteless." Such "wretched doggerel, so 
 copiously distributed, such mangling of good verses, 
 for what purpose Heaven knows, unless to please- 
 absolute fools ; such interpolations with(Hit the least 
 acknowledgment" — all this provoked the; unmeasured 
 wrath and scorn of Mr. George Thomson. In a
 
 70 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 letter of December 1823 to Allan Cunningham he 
 is even more severe. He says : 
 
 It mortifies me not a little to find that a paltry collec- 
 tion called the Scottish Minstrel, recently published here 
 under the auspices of some canting old maids, in five 
 volumes octavo, ^ partly copied from my folio, and partly 
 filled with the most vulgar rants ever chanted by the 
 lowest of the rabble, is selling better than my collection ! 
 It is ushered into notice by a prudish preface, in which a 
 protest is entered against the songs of Burns, many of 
 which, the writer says, have been purposely omitted 1 
 One might think this sufficient to damn the book ; but 
 the sisterhood go a great deal further, and without 
 mercy have castrated all the songs ancient and modern 
 in which the dangerous word "kiss" occurs, and have cut 
 and carved in the most curious fashion all such couplets 
 or verses as contain sentiments of tenderness or endear- 
 ment, changing what is natural and beautiful into stiff 
 and wretched doggerel. ... Is not this unpardonable 
 impudence and folly, and a fit subject of reprobation 
 for those connected with the press as guardians of the 
 literary reputation of those who have gone down to the 
 narrow house ? 
 
 A year later he breaks out on the same subject 
 to Sir Adam Ferguson, who had apparently sug- 
 gested his taking something from the rival publica- 
 tion. "Heaven forfend," he exclaims, "that it 
 should be thought that I could borrow anything 
 from such a miserable farrao-o ! " The editor must 
 be "a silly, tasteless, canting old Seceder " ; it is 
 impossible to "conceive who else could so merci- 
 
 1 The Minstrel is in six vols., but only five had been published 
 at this date.
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 71 
 
 lessly mangle our harmless and beautiful amatory 
 ballads." 
 
 It is very rarely that Thomson shows so much of 
 the natural man as he does in the letters just quoted. 
 A discount must be taken from his denunciation 
 for his admission that the Minstrel was selling 
 better than his own cherished works — a fact which 
 was nevertheless an offence rather to his sense of 
 the fitness of things than to his commercial ambition. 
 But it ought not to have surprised him. Time 
 after time, as subsequent pages will show, he took 
 occasion to reprobate the general lack of musical 
 culture in his day. The Minstrel succeeded because 
 of those very defects which Thomson could not 
 condemn too strongly: these "lean and flashy 
 songs" were just as popular as those others in 
 Milton's time, and Thomson's censure was just as 
 unlikely to alter things as Milton's before him. 
 Moreover, it was open to cavillers to retort tiiat 
 Thomson was at the risky game of throwing stones 
 in a oflass house. Had lie never cut ;uid carved 
 the old soncrs, for much the same reason as the 
 canting old maids? Had he not sought to improve 
 even "my own Burns"? It was his constant boast 
 that a man might put his volumes without fear 
 "into the hands of a sister, a daughter, (^x any 
 modest girl of his acquaintance." Was that achieved 
 without adopting some of the methods of tb.e '^iliy 
 old Seceders ? There is this much to Ix.' said :■ r 
 Thomson, however, that Jiis alterations were; in the 
 main made with the knowledge and consent ot the 
 original writers, or, at his suggestion, by writers
 
 72 
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 of higher eminence and skill. Burns might, like 
 Moliere, have remarked, Je prends inon bien ou je 
 le trouve ; and, like him— like Shakespeare and 
 Burton and Sterne — have justified his thefts by 
 the use he put them to. Burns altered songs for 
 Thomson ; and Thomson could at least claim, with 
 fair chance of absolution, that he never played the 
 wanton in his editing. 
 
 In 1822 Thomson was again posthumously 
 brought into connection with Burns. ^ The birth- 
 day of the bard was in those days celebrated tri- 
 ennially, and for the meeting due to be held in 
 1822 Thomson had been deputed to secure a chair- 
 man. Nine years before, when the same duty had 
 fallen to him, he had ineffectually tried to entice 
 Walter Scott to the chair. He had failed a second 
 time, as we learn from a letter of Sir Alexander 
 Boswell ; but (such was his irrepressible hopeful- 
 ness) he now made another effort to fix Scott, 
 urging him the more strenuously perhaps because 
 he was now a baronet, and thus more likely to lend 
 lustre to the proceedings. Writing to James Bal- 
 lantyne on January 2 (1822), he says: 
 
 I have long set down Sir Walter as the fittest and best 
 chairman that Scotland can furnish for such a celebra- 
 tion. He is just the man that would be polled by 
 universal suffrage whether he likes it or not. I spoke 
 to him about it, but did not obtain his promise : he pled 
 his great dislike of public meetings, his unfitness, and so 
 
 1 In January of this year he was elected an honorary member 
 of the Dumfries Burns Club, along with Scott, Campbell, Professor 
 Tennant, Allan Cunningham, and others.
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 73 
 
 forth. In the disHke I sincerely sympathise with him, for 
 I hate them ; but there are occasions on which we must 
 act contrary to our inchnations, and the world will natu- 
 rally think that Sir Walter should do for the memory of 
 Burns what Burns would certainly have done for that of 
 Sir Walter had they changed places. The plea of unfit- 
 ness cannot be listened to by any creature frae Maiden- 
 kirk to John o' Groat's. Five hundred reasons might be 
 urged for his taking the chair, but I cannot think of 
 one against it. Such being the case, I earnestly wish 
 that you would talk to the worthy baronet on the subject 
 and bring me his consent. Then I should be very glad 
 if he will also nominate any good Whig of his acquaint- 
 ance as a croupier. I would upon this endeavour to 
 get a list of respectable stewards from both sides of 
 politics, such as are likely to be agreeable to each other — 
 alas ! no easy matter in these times. 
 
 The "worthy baronet," however, declined to 
 yield to the blandishments of Ballantyne ; and on 
 the 19th we find Thomson writing, at Scott's sug- 
 pfestion, to the Hon. William Maule, M.P., of 
 Panmure, who had also refused the honour on a 
 previous occasion. 
 
 Once more the years pass on with(jut recorded 
 incident in the life story. The letter-books are 
 appealed to in vain ; nothing is to be learnt from 
 them but the old tale of requests for songs, of the 
 unparalleled merits of the Thomson collections, of 
 the foolishness of a fickle public which persistently 
 refused to pick up the pearls that were placed before 
 them. With the year 18 28 we enter upon an 
 extensive correspondence regarding the bxlinburgh 
 statue of Burns. The marble statue of the poet 
 begun by Flaxman had just been finished by Uen-
 
 74 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 man, his brother-in-law and pupil ; and a surplus 
 of over ^looo remained. Thomson was a member 
 of the committee. He took a great interest in 
 the matter, and the question of applying the sur- 
 plus engaged his special attention. On the loth 
 of March 1828 he writes on the subject to Sir 
 Charles Forbes, who had asked him to give his 
 opinion as to the best means of expending the 
 monev. Sir Charles himself suggested a statue 
 for Westminster Abbey. Thomson "most heartily" 
 concurred, the more especially "as we know that 
 such was the wish of your excellent and respectable 
 friend, Mr. Forbes Mitchell, with whom the sub- 
 scription originated." But the statue must not 
 be a mere copy of Flaxman's : " that would never 
 do." It must be "an original design by an accom- 
 plished sculptor," and the "accomplished sculptor" 
 has been found, if the committee will only consent 
 to his employment. Thomson then proceeds to 
 advocate the claims of Samuel Joseph, who had 
 settled in Edinburgh five years before this, and 
 who is well known by his statue of William W^ilber- 
 force in Westminster Abbey. 
 
 He has lately modelled a most spirited head and 
 fine likeness of Burns from the best existing painting of 
 him, and has attired the brow with much taste from 
 the beautiful lines which the poet put into the mouth of 
 the genius of Caledonia in "The Vision." I carried to 
 Joseph's studio two old and intimate friends of Burns, 
 one of them Beugo, , . . and both expressed their warm- 
 est admiration and surprise at the felicity of the likeness, 
 and the energy and line character which the sculptor has 
 infused into the countenance. . . . No artist living but
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 75 
 
 Sir Thomas Lawrence or Chantrey or Joseph could pro- 
 duce such a striking portrait, I am convinced. ... 1 
 have sounded Joseph on tlie subject of the statue, in 
 case you should agree with me on the propriety of 
 putting it into his hands, and have the satisfaction to 
 find that he would undertake it, the size of life, for 
 _^'iooo ; and that for whatever additional surplus there 
 may be he would give a copy of the head in marble 
 to decorate the interior of a temple which has been 
 erected to the memory of the poet close to the scene 
 of "Tarn O'Shanter." 
 
 Of course no commission was found fir 
 Thomson's nominee to execute. In the mean- 
 time Thomson had arranged with " the Commis- 
 sioners of the Collefre buildincfs " in Edinburirh to 
 have the Flaxman statue placed in the University 
 Library. " It is," said he to Denman, " the very 
 best situation for it in Edinburgh, and I am happy 
 that we have got it." The arrangement neverthe- 
 less fell through at this time, although it was 
 carried out temporarily later on. The Library 
 was in the hands of the painters when the agree- 
 ment to place the statue in the apartment was 
 arrived at, and the statue remained in London 
 pending the clearing of the room for its reception. 
 Before this process was completed, however, there 
 had arisen in the minds of the London committee 
 some doubts as to the advisability ot placing the 
 statue in the Library at all. We hear first about 
 these misgivings in a letter of Thomson to Sir 
 Charles Forbes dated No\ember 1S30. Thomson 
 has " pondered and reflected " on the question 
 "with the utmost attention to all the lights in
 
 76 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 which it is necessary to view it," and has come to 
 a definite conclusion upon these several points : 
 First, it is not to be thought of for a moment that 
 a marble statue can be placed in an open " temple " 
 in Scotland. It would be at the risk of the climate, 
 of mischievous boys and of drunken blackguards, 
 and "we might lose our ^1400 in the course of a 
 night." The statue of Hygeia in the open temple 
 over St. Bernard's mineral well is a warning, with 
 its one arm and its chipped face and figure. If 
 the statue is to be enshrined in a temple at all, it 
 must be a close one. That being decided, there 
 follows the important consideration of the situation. 
 The terrace of the Princes Street Gardens would 
 be suitable, but it would cost about ^200 to "pile 
 the foundation," and there is besides some doubt as 
 to certain proprietors in Princes Street giving their 
 consent. The gates of the Gardens, too, are always 
 locked, and can only be opened by those who pur- 
 chase keys at three guineas each annually.^ 
 
 We are therefore obHged to turn our eyes to the 
 Calton Hill. Our architect and the artists to a man 
 decidedly recommend that Burns' Temple should be 
 placed there and on the rock called the Miller's Knowe, 
 where the temple would really form a conspicuous and 
 striking object. . . . Were you to prefer the other rocky 
 eminence on the opposite side of the road, and some 
 hundred yards further to the east, then we would have 
 to lay out ;^ioo at least in erecting a dwarf parapet wall 
 and an iron rail around the temple, both for its pre- 
 servation and ornament. 
 
 ^ We have improved upon these arrangements
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 77 
 
 On the whole, however, Thomson would prefer 
 the Miller's Knowe ; and he proceeds to show h(jw 
 he would use the £ioo which would thus be saved. 
 He would make over the monument to the Town 
 Council as a public trust, give them the money, and 
 stipulate with them to pay the interest of it annually 
 to the janitor of the High School near by, " as 
 remuneration for keeping the key of the monu- 
 ment and opening the door without fee or re- 
 ward." Still, he cannot help feeling that, after 
 all, the proper place for the statue is the College 
 Library. He would approve of the "temple," but 
 to lock Burns into it would be to "doom the 
 poet to perpetual imprisonment" — to set him in 
 no proper sense before the public. With this 
 letter to Sir William Forbes, Thomson encloses 
 a lengthy communication from Lord Cockburn, to 
 a great extent supporting his views. Cockburn 
 
 writes : 
 
 I still remain decidedly, most decidedly, of opinion 
 that to enclose Burns in a box and to let people L^et :i 
 glimpse of him by opening a locked door and then clo-^- 
 ing the lid on him is an cnitrage on all taste and on all 
 the uses of such monuments. 1 think it will expose the 
 city to eternal and most jubt ridicule. If he were made 
 of a material which mischief alone could injure, 1 think 
 1 mij^ht safely enj^age to preserve him from it, for 1 am 
 certain the tendency of our countrymen to hurt mk h 
 things is exaggerated, and has hitherto been the re-ult 
 chiefly of their never bein,^ trusted— alwavs exehulecl 
 and never punished when wronj^. Our tat tneiul, 
 Hygeia, is no case : she has been a tar.^et lor ycar>, 
 and what bov was ever even frowned at for pelting; /u'r '
 
 78 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 What person in all Scotland was ever tried and punished 
 for injuring public decoration ? 
 
 But this statue is of white marble, a substance which 
 fades and darkens even under the blue of a Grecian sky, 
 and must speedily be ''greened" and dissolved under the 
 Borean clouds. Therefore, I admit that it must be put 
 under cover. But why covered by a box ? You may 
 call it a temple ; but if it is to be a temple so small that 
 it holds nothing but this deity and is never to be used 
 except to get a peep of the kernel, it is a shell, use what 
 other more dignified word you may. I think that no- 
 thing — no rules, no necessity, and no external beauty — 
 can ever save this mode of packing the bard from con- 
 tempt and laughter. Get, therefore, some worthy large 
 place where he can be seen freely, safely, and with 
 dignity. You will say, Where is it ? To which I 
 answer. In the College Library, in the new Library 
 begun for the Faculty of Advocates, in the splendid 
 hall of the Writers to the Signet, in the Exhibition 
 Room of the Royal Institution, in the circular dome 
 of the Register House. . . . Disposing of the statue in 
 this way leaves you, I understand, some hundred pounds 
 over — a strong additional recommendation ; for, besides 
 the statue, sacred to the rich, it enables you to erect 
 some architectural edifice, sacred to his memory with 
 the poor. The very carters must have some memorial 
 of Burns. Had I the Miller's Knowe and even a marble 
 statue, I am confident that such is the admiration in 
 which he is held that, with due caution, even that raga- 
 muffin race would leave him for ages unclipt. But I 
 cannot be answerable for the gods, and so he must be 
 covered. But wae's me on the names of those by whom 
 he shall be covered by a tomb I 
 
 When Thomson next writes on the subject it is 
 to the chairman of the Town Councirs committee 
 appointed to look after the matter of the monu-
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 79 
 
 ment. The committee had suggested that the 
 Burns enthusiasts should hold themselves and their 
 heirs and successors " responsible to keep the monu- 
 ment in repair." To this Thomson, in the name of 
 his committee, very naturally demurs. "We shall," 
 he says, "erect a handsome and substantial struc- 
 ture, and whenever the distant time comes that it 
 may need repair, there will doubtless be many 
 citizens of Edinburgh whose generous enthusiasm 
 will require no prompting to do whatever is re- 
 quisite to preserve the monument of Robert Burns. 
 We trust, therefore, that the grant of the bit of 
 ground will not be clogged with the new and un- 
 necessary condition which I understand has been 
 proposed, and which I really believe would render 
 the grant nugatory." Clearly the Burns cult had 
 not yet touched the civic rulers of the Scottish 
 capital. 
 
 Meantime Thomson was engaged in "the most 
 ungracious task of sturdy begging" from all and 
 sundry for the additional funds required for the 
 erection of the "temple." He writes to George 
 Rennie, the civil engineer, on the suggestion of 
 Louis Stevenson's father — "my worthy neighbour, 
 Mr. Stevenson, the engineer," who has assured him 
 that Rennie "could easily do something for us" 
 amone "our warm-hearted countrvmen to \vh(^in 
 fortune has been kind in London." " Do. then, he 
 says, "speak to them, those more particularly who 
 are unencumbered with wife and bairns, and send 
 me their subscrii)tions." The subscrii)tions came 
 in, until at lencrth a sum of more than /3300 was
 
 8o GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 secured, and the foundation-stone of the "temple" 
 was laid in 1831. Soon after, the statue was 
 "entombed," and the matter disappears from the 
 correspondence until 1846. On the 6th of May 
 that year Thomson writes to tell Professor Smyth 
 of Cambridge that the Town Council has on his 
 application "placed the statue in the noble hall of 
 our University Library, out of the damp and smoky 
 atmosphere where it stood, in the vicinity of our 
 gas-works, breweries, and foundries." But, "in an 
 anonymous printed circular recently sent me from 
 London, I am arraigned for the act, of which I am 
 not at all repentant," the ground of objection being 
 that the College Library is quite an inappropriate 
 situation for the poet, " because he was not educated 
 there, but was solely indebted to the force of his 
 native genius for his high position on the Par- 
 nassian heights." This objection had, it appears, 
 been stated when Thomson first proposed to place 
 the statue in the Library, and he now asks Smyth 
 to tell him, with the view of supporting his action, 
 " whether in the halls of your University or of Oxford 
 there are marble statues or busts of Shakespeare 
 and Homer." All this time a correspondence on 
 the subject was going on in the Scotsviaji, and on 
 the i6th of May Thomson has "a few last words " 
 in reply mainly to "the anonymous sheet, penned 
 and printed in Edinburgh, he doubts not." With 
 this letter the matter ends entirely so far as 
 Thomson is concerned, Burns beino- left "mean- 
 time in the most fit place we can find for him — 
 in the noblest and most splendid hall that Edin-
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 8i 
 
 burgh can boast of." The statue remained in the 
 University Library until 1861, when it was taken 
 to the National Gallery, to be again removed, in 
 1889, to the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. 
 Among the Watson MSS. in the Gallery, it may 
 just be added, is a letter from Flaxman to Thomson 
 (April 14, 1823) regarding the statue, and another 
 (December 29, 1845) from Thomson to W. F. 
 Watson about its removal from the "temple." 
 
 It had been left to Thomson from the beginning 
 to arrange about an inscription to be placed on the 
 statue. For this inscription he applied first to Scott. 
 Writing in July 1828 he says : 
 
 Of all men living who should pen tliis inscrij^tion, 
 thou art the man. Were I to apply to any t)ther, the 
 world would write me down for an ass, there being no 
 one who can so fully appreciate tiie genius of the poet, 
 the value of his productions, or the independence of his 
 mind. . . . I flatter myself, my good sir, from your kindred 
 poetical feelings, and your regard for the memory of him 
 who preceded you in the bright career you have botli 
 run for the honour of Caledonia and the delight of the 
 world, that you will gratify the friends of I3urn>, ali(js 
 the public at large, with what you think should form the 
 inscription. ... I asked the sculptor when he applied to 
 me for an inscription whether it might not suftice to >ay : 
 
 BURNS 
 
 BORN JANUARY 1759 
 DIED JULY 1 796 
 
 This, he says, may do for one of the ^ide> of the pedotal, 
 but should not preclude a proper niscrii'tion tor the 
 other side, for which he tells me theie i> a great pre- 
 ponderance of examples in Westnnnster Abbey, (S:c. 
 
 1'
 
 82 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 Thomson may by this appHcation have saved 
 himself from being written down an ass, and seeing 
 the application had no other result, that may be 
 regarded as highly satisfactory. Scott, with his 
 usual prudence, declined to have anything to do 
 with the inscription ; the chances were that no one 
 would succeed in pleasing the Immortal's admirers, 
 and Scott was the last man to rush in where angels 
 might fear to tread. His letter to Thomson on the 
 subject is not extant, but we learn the purport of 
 it from what Thomson says to Denman in again 
 urging the simple name and dates of birth and 
 death. " Sir Walter Scott, in whose extraordinary 
 mind judgment is eminently conspicuous, has ex- 
 pressed that opinion to me by letter, and said he 
 could not please himself with anything he had 
 thought of. ' Give the name of the poet,' says he ; 
 ' who does not know the rest ? ' " Thomson " must 
 therefore recommend the adoption of Sir Walter's 
 opinion." He does not say, however, that he had 
 applied to Thomas Campbell for an inscription after 
 being refused by Scott. Campbell's " Ode to the 
 Memory of Burns," written for a London meeting 
 of the poet's admirers, had done him " immortal 
 honour," and marked him out as the only man 
 qualified to ''pen the requisite inscription." Here, 
 as elsewhere, we see Thomson's only really objec- 
 tionable trait — his extreme facility in transferring 
 the ne phis 2tltra of praise. But Campbell was not 
 to be drawn any more than Scott. What he said 
 in answer to Thomson's request we have no means 
 of ascertaining, but at any rate no inscription came
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 83 
 
 from his pen. Nevertheless Thomson continued to 
 entertain the idea of an inscription. Eleven years 
 after this, in August 1839, he revives the subject in 
 a letter to Lord Cockburn. He says : 
 
 Having consulted you as my standing counsel from 
 the beginning, allow me to submit the enclosed inscrip- 
 tions to your consideration, and to beg you to tell me 
 whether any one of them, and which of them, might be 
 engraved on the pedestal. Perhaps the last, being the 
 least ambitious, is the most eligible. The more simple 
 the better, unless we could think of something burning 
 with high poetic fancy, and remarkable for vigour and 
 for the utmost felicity of expression. Would you take 
 the trouble to ask your excellent friend Lord Jeffrey's 
 opinion? If he chose to pen an inscription it would be 
 worthy of all acceptation. It is desirable to mention 
 that the subscription originated at Bombay, because of 
 the amiable person there (Mr. Forbes Mitchell) who did 
 a great deal for it, both in India and after he came home. 
 I should like to hear from you soon as to the inscription, 
 as I wish it to be cut under my own eye. 
 
 It is a pity that the correspondence on the sub- 
 ject ends with this letter. Thomson clearly believed 
 that he was now within reach of the practical con- 
 clusion of the matter ; but something must have 
 occurred to prevent the carrying out of his intention, 
 for the Flaxman statLie to-day bears nothing more 
 in the way of inscription than Scott had said it 
 should bear. It only remains to be recorded that 
 Thomson, according to a promise made to him by 
 Flaxman, received a terra-cotta model of the statue, 
 which he afterwards presented to Colonel Burns, 
 " deeming the statuary likeness of the poet by our
 
 84 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 most eminent sculptor a proper object to be in pos- 
 session of the family." The Colonel's note acknow- 
 ledging the gift is printed among the Burns family 
 letters at the end of this volume. 
 
 Sixteen years after Thomson had poured out 
 his vexed soul on the subject of the Minstrel, he 
 was again disturbed by the appearance of another 
 rival to his Scottish collection. This was the Vocal 
 Melodies of Scotland, projected by John Thomson, 
 a son of the musical clergyman who wrote the 
 psalm tune known as " St, George's, Edinburgh." 
 The two Thomson families were on the most 
 intimate terms, often havincr musical evenings to- 
 gether at their respective homes, and it grieved 
 our Thomson to think that he should be thus taken 
 advantage of by " mine own familiar friend." On 
 the iith of October 1837, he writes to the rival 
 editor to say how mortitied he is (Thomson had 
 a special regard for the word "mortified") that 
 "old and esteemed friends " of his should "lend 
 themselves to a music-seller in raising up a publica- 
 tion of Scottish sonars with a view to rival one that 
 cost me not only a very large sum of money but 
 the labour and research and correspondence of 
 many years, such as never was bestowed, nor ever 
 will be, upon our national songs by any other." 
 These "friends," not being able to "find a Burns 
 for themselves," take and use "the very songs that- 
 Burns wrote for my work, which in justice and 
 in delicacy should not be transplanted from that 
 work into another musical publication, at least 
 during my lifetime." If Mr. John Thomson thinks
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 85 
 
 lightly of what he has done it surprises his corre- 
 spondent, who "would not have done so to you 
 had you been in my position, if a music-seller had 
 offered me a thousand pounds." 
 
 Of course it was ridiculous for George Thom- 
 son to claim at this time of day an exclusive right 
 to what he calls his "beautiful Burns crop." Never- 
 theless, in letters to the offending editor he con- 
 tinues to insist not only on his moral but on his 
 legal right to the sole use of these songs, declaring 
 that he is prevented from enforcing his right only 
 because of the "fearful expense" which would be 
 involved. The "ungracious subject" drags on 
 through several letters, but nothing is to be made 
 of John Thomson, who takes the disconcerting view 
 that the earlier collection has become common 
 property. Nay, he even adds insult to injury by 
 pleading that what he had done the Scottish Min- 
 strel had done before him.-^ On that point George 
 Thomson has this to say : 
 
 You remind me that the Scottish Minstrel did the 
 same. True, but two blacks do not make a white. I 
 do not think the Scottish Minstrel, as you do, a noble 
 monument of skill ; quite the contrary. I thought it on 
 the whole a poor affair, not likely to interfere with the 
 sale of my work, and took no notice of it. The wortiiy 
 and clever man [Smith] who harmonised the airs for 
 the Minstrel, told me that he was absolutely ashamed to 
 have his name connected with it, because lie would 
 probably be considered the author of certain wretched 
 
 ^ Curiously enough, R. A. Smith, the musical editor of the Minstrel, 
 was Dr. Andrew Thomson's precentor at St. George's, Edinburgh.
 
 86 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 mutilations and alterations upon [of] some of the old 
 songs which the unco guid ladies perpetrated on them 
 from sickly and false delicacy. . . . These doings, he 
 said, would be thought his — "but they treat me kindly 
 and pay me liberally : what can I do ? " . . . What will 
 the reader think who, not having seen the originals, 
 forms his idea of our old Scottish songs from the trum- 
 pery in the Minstrel 1 a work which you dignify by 
 calling it " a noble monument." I am sorry you put my 
 work into the same sentence with it, and with Johnson's 
 Museum, which I conceive will be very short-lived, 
 containing as it does such a number of tawdry and 
 vulgar lilts, unfit either for woman's eye or ear, and only 
 suited to alehouse topers over their midnight potations. 
 It degrades my name to place it in such company. 
 
 And so, with the remark that his latest rival's 
 conduct is "most mortifying and sickens me of 
 the whole concern," George Thomson takes his 
 leave of the matter by throwing at the head of his 
 correspondent the precept : " Do ye unto all men 
 as ye would that they should do unto you " — 
 a precept which, so far as one can learn, Thom- 
 son himself carried into practical effect throughout 
 his Hfe. 
 
 The main result of the publication of the Vocal 
 Melodies of Scotland was to incite Thomson to 
 the preparation of a new edition of his own Scot- 
 tish collection. Writing to Messrs Coventry & 
 Hollier, the London music-sellers, in December, 
 1837, he says: 
 
 The letterpress of some of the volumes being ex- 
 hausted, I am just now printing a new edition of these, 
 with such novelties or additions as have come under
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 87 
 
 my notice since the last edition was given to the piibhc. 
 For I shall not sleep upon my oars while others are vainly 
 trying to upset my trim-built wherry. Let them puff 
 and push as they best can, I do not consider my danger 
 to be great till they are able to convince the public of 
 this paradox, that two or three singing-masters here or 
 anywhere else are a match for a Haydn, a Beethoven, or 
 a Weber. . . . Buyers must be shallow and superficial 
 indeed who will take a paste in preference to a diamond, 
 and at the same price too. 
 
 The new edition w-as ready by August 1839. 
 It was enlarged, to quote Thomson himself, "by 
 above twenty additional melodies and songs, and 
 embellished by eight beautifully engraved illus- 
 trations, chiefly from the designs of Stothard, and 
 by new vignette titles in addition to the five former 
 large frontispieces." In a circular letter to the 
 Edinburgh music-sellers, Thomson remarks that he 
 does not expect ever to be repaid for the labour 
 which the work has cost him, and fears it will be 
 long before he gets back even the money he has 
 recently laid out upon it. This had been his plaint 
 from the very beginning, and, assuming it to be well 
 founded, as there is good reason to believe it was, 
 it says something for his enthusiasm that he should 
 continue for so many years a work for which he 
 could only be repaid by the praises of posterity. 
 
 It was in this year (1839) that Thomson retired 
 from his official duties. The minutes of the Board 
 of Manufactures contain the following testimonial 
 to his worth, through the formal phraseology of 
 which runs a more prominent vein of personal
 
 88 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 esteem than such writings usually show. The minute 
 is dated 28th June 1839 : 
 
 Upon the motion of Lord Meadowbank, the Board, 
 considering that Mr. Thomson, their first clerk, is, in 
 consequence of the authority of the Lords of the 
 Treasury, about to retire from the situation he has so 
 long held in this department, Resolve hereby to record 
 their full and entire approbation of his faithful, zeal- 
 ous, and unremitting attention to all matters to which 
 their proceedings have been directed, as well as of the 
 manner in which he has invariably discharged his official 
 duties, and that the chairman should communicate to 
 Mr. Thomson their thanks for his conduct accordingly, 
 and the united good wishes of all the members for his 
 health and happiness. 
 
 Shortly after his retirement Thomson went to 
 London, with the view of being near his two sons 
 and their families. Mrs. Thomson fell into delicate 
 health about this time, and in September 1841 was 
 being "attended almost daily by a physician." She 
 died on the 1 3th of October while on a visit to her 
 daughter, Mrs. Hogarth ; and a few weeks later 
 Thomson is telling a friend that his "pride and 
 chief comfort for three-score years " has been laid to 
 rest at Kensal Green Cemetery, " on the spot next 
 to that which belongs to Charles Dickens, Esq." 
 Dickens had buried his wife's sister, "poor dear 
 Mary," here in 1837, and sadly enough Mary's 
 brother, George, had to be laid in her grave about 
 a fortnight after Mrs. Thomson's death. There 
 is a touching letter (see Forster's Life, i. 264), in 
 which Dickens speaks of the grief it caused him
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 89 
 
 to allow the grave to be opened. He says: "It 
 is a great trial to me to give up Mary's grave — 
 greater than I can possibly express. I thought of 
 moving her to the catacombs and saying nothing 
 about it ; but then I remembered that the poor old 
 lady [Mrs. Thomson] is buried next her at her own 
 desire, and could not find it in my heart, directly 
 she is laid in the earth, to take her grandchild 
 away." It seems there was no ground to be had 
 on the left of Mary's grave : the Thomsons' grave 
 is on the right. 
 
 Among Thomson's letters there is one addressed 
 in April 1842 to the managers of the cemetery, 
 askinof to be allowed to raise a monumental stone 
 to his wife's memory in a perpendicular position, 
 "like that of Mr. Dickens." The first stone had 
 been laid flat, according to certain rules of the 
 cemetery, but in this position it gave the surviving 
 partner pain to view it, and it is therefore his 
 "most earnest wish and prayer" that the managers 
 will be pleased to permit him to "raise it up and 
 assimilate it with that of our kinsman adjoining it." 
 The permission was granted, the stone was raised 
 to the position It now occupies ; and Thomson was 
 henceforward able to look with tranquil feelings 
 upon the little mound of earth where his own 
 remains were by-and-by to rest. 
 
 It was hardly to be expected that life In London 
 would prove agreeable to the old man thus bereft 
 of one who had for so many years been the centre 
 and attraction of his home ; and we feel no surprise 
 when we find him, early in 1842, telling a Calcutta
 
 90 
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 correspondent that he is thinking of returning to 
 "dear old Edinburgh " in a few months, to pass his 
 "small remnant of life." He has transferred his 
 London house to "a worthy friend of mine, Mr. 
 William Webb, wine merchant in the city," who will 
 take possession of it and part of the furniture at 
 Lady-day. The metropolis, he has discovered, is 
 not a fit residence for a man of his years, "owing 
 to its immense distances, bustle, and danger from 
 its thousand carriages, tiying up and down in all the 
 streets as if they were driven by as many furies intent 
 only on diminishing the excess of population." To 
 Robert Chambers he writes in November (1842) : 
 
 Oh that I were near you to join in your cracks and 
 to fiddle and accompany a ballad with Mrs. Chambers I 
 And would I were able to wield a club as in former 
 days, and have a game at golf with you, so much ex- 
 celling the English cricket. Oh the well-remembered 
 pleasure of driving a tee'd ba' some twa three hundred 
 yards over the links 1 The exercise and refreshing sea- 
 breeze [Chambers was at this time at St. Andrews] will 
 add ten years to the pen-and-ink life you would have 
 at the bottom of the Luckenbooths Close, and will cheer 
 you on to all the sedentarv tasks which you and the pen 
 must still encounter in the mornings and evenings of 
 your literary retreat. . . . Has not Dickens done himself 
 great honour by his Notes on America ? Saying nothing 
 of the wit and playful humour with which they abound, 
 has he not gloriously pled the cause of humanity in his 
 eloquent exposition of the horrors of American slavery 
 and their system of solitary imprisonment ? Dickens 
 has made a sad exposition, too, of the filthy practice 
 of spitting in America. I should think he has demolished 
 it, and if so he has done them an important service.
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 91 
 
 But Thomson, home-sick though he was, did 
 not at once return to " dear old Edinburgh " ; he 
 went to Brighton, whence his letters of 1843-45 ^^^ 
 dated. At this time he seems to have corresponded 
 almost solely with Robert Chambers. One letter, 
 that of May 14, 1844, gives an interesting glimpse 
 of Mrs. John Ballantyne, "a good old friend of 
 mine." Thomson writes : 
 
 I am not sure whether you have ever seen Mrs. 
 Ballantyne. Her husband was, as you probably know, 
 thoughtless and extravagant, otherwise he might have 
 left her in easy circumstances ; but except a s;/ia// pro- 
 vision from one of her own friends I believe she got 
 nothing and that she has had a hard struggle ever since 
 John's death/ and has practised a rigid economy and 
 much self-denial. At the time of her marriage she was 
 one of the loveliest women that could be seen, her face 
 singularly beautiful and her person so elegant and sym- 
 metrical that when she entered the theatre or passed 
 along the streets of Edinburgh she attracted and riveted 
 all eyes. Her countenance when I last saw it some half- 
 dozen years since was still beautiful, but her tine form 
 had become very stout and round. She wrote a sort of 
 novel, eccentric, but not good nor successful. It were 
 much to be wished that out of her reminiscences of the 
 many curious and humorous scenes she must have 
 witnessed between Sir Walter and the Ballantynes, (S:c., 
 she would spin a few more yarns as good as those in the 
 Journal. I thought that my suggesting the thing to her 
 might please her, and may stimulate her to try what she 
 can bring forth of hidden treasure. 
 
 Thomson had enclosed a letter to Mrs. Ballan- 
 tyne, leaving Chambers to forward it if he desired 
 
 ' "Jocund Johnny'' died in June 1821.
 
 92 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 to have the suggested "yarns." We see the result 
 in a couple of papers which followed from Mrs. 
 Ballantyne's pen. She had already, in 1843, con- 
 tributed two articles to the Journal under the title 
 of "Rambling Reminiscences of Scott"; she now 
 furnished (July 27, 1844) a paper on William 
 Creech, and (September 7, 1844) some further 
 "Rambling Reminiscences" of Scott. The latter 
 was printed with the following note : " Two papers 
 under this name, drawn up by Mrs. John Ballantyne, 
 appeared in this Journal last year. At the request 
 of some friends she has been induced to draw upon 
 her memory for one more paper on the same 
 theme." Why, it may be asked, did Thomson not 
 draw upon his own memory for reminiscences of 
 Scott and the other literary lions of- the Edinburgh 
 of his day ? The man who had met Burns at table, 
 who had sung to Scott and fiddled to Hogg, who 
 was on intimate terms with Lockhart and Jeffrey, 
 who supped with Siddons and sat to Raeburn — such 
 a man must have had somethinor of interest to tell. 
 And yet how little he tells ! Speaking of Scott 
 and Jeffrey in 1844, he says: "I saw more of the 
 poet than the critic in consequence of my intimacy 
 with his friend James Ballantyne, at whose table, ^ 
 as well as at his own, and occasionally at my own 
 
 ^ Lockhart tells of one supper at Ballantyne's at which "old 
 George Thomson, the friend of Burns," was ready with " The Moor- 
 land Wedding" (" Muirland Willie") or "Willie brewed a peck o' 
 maut" for the benefit of the company. "Muirland Willie" was 
 Thomson's favourite song for such occasions. Mr. George Croal, of 
 Edinburgh, informs me that he heard him sing it when he was an 
 octogenarian, "with great spirit and with all the humour it demands." 
 And there are thirteen stanzas, too !
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 93 
 
 house, I had frequent intercourse with him. . . . 
 Indescribable was the pleasure of his society ; no 
 praise can exceed both his goodness and his great- 
 ness." Even from this short reference it is possible 
 to realise what opportunities Thomson enjoyed for 
 playing the part of Boswell. If he had lived in 
 these later days he would certainly have written 
 his "Reminiscences"; as it was, he probably enjoyed 
 himself too well to think of turninof tale-bearer for 
 the benefit of posterity. 
 
 But to return from this digression : when Thom- 
 son next writes to Chambers, in September 1844, 
 it is to express his "grief" that "the gude town 
 is about to sell Trinity [College] Church to be 
 demolished for giving elbow-room to the railway 
 terminus." He can scarce believe that Mr. Adam 
 Black, who was Lord Provost at this time, will 
 be brought to sanction such a proceeding. The 
 church is "a chaste Gothic edifice of great 
 antiquity, and I do not know any great city that 
 possesses so little of that architecture as Edinburgh. 
 It would be barbarous, if not sacrilegious, to pull it 
 down, and I would fain hope that some potential 
 voices among you will be raised to prevent it. It 
 were infinitely better in this kirk-building time to 
 carry out the original plan of the Trinity Church, 
 with its tower, and make it one of the ornaments 
 of Edinburgh, as it would be if comjileted." The 
 barbarous and sacrilegious act was nevertheless 
 committed, in spite of the most strenuous efforts of 
 Black and others to make some kind of restora- 
 tion of the church a condition of the railway
 
 94 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 company's obtaining possession ; and it was not 
 until 1871-72, after a period of nearly twenty years' 
 litigation, that the present Trinity College Church 
 was erected, with the carefully numbered stones of 
 the ancient structure. It can hardly be described 
 as "one of the ornaments of Edinburgh," but it em- 
 bodies at least the spirit of Thomson's suggestion. 
 
 If Thomson went to Brighton with the object of 
 getting over his home-sickness, he soon found that a 
 cure was hopeless there. Brighton, in short, pleased 
 him as little as London. There were handsome 
 buildings, no doubt, but nothing else to look at 
 "except the sea without ships, which are only to be 
 seen dimly in the far offing." There were "no 
 meadows, gardens, plantations, shrubberies, or any 
 rural scenery," and for these his soul yearned. In 
 this connection, part of a letter addressed to his son 
 William may be quoted ; it will give, besides, some 
 notion of his views on the eternal Irish question. 
 Thomson, it will be seen, had a higher opinion of 
 the Irish people than Shelley, who daringly de- 
 scribed them as " of scarcelv ofreater elevation in the 
 scale of intellectual being than the oyster." 
 
 If I get the house I am in sublet before winter, we 
 shall be off to good old Scotland again, where I shall be 
 much more safe [he has just been speaking of London 
 dangers] during the remainder of my evening of life, and 
 can live more economically. Coals, which we get for los. 
 a ton there, cost us 31s. here. A Brighton friend who 
 has just returned from a visit to the North of Ireland 
 quite surprised me by his account of the cheapness of 
 provisions there : 6d. for a pair of fowls, and lamb 3d. 
 a pound. The gentleman himself is a bright-hearted
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 95 
 
 Irishman. His countrymen in general are a merry, 
 witty, nice, laughing people. What a million of pities 
 they have been so cruelly governed and oppressed ! 
 Instead of wondering at their occasional outbreaks, I 
 am amazed to see them so quiet and peaceable. The 
 judges on the late Assize had white gloves presented to 
 them ! O'Connell seems to have wrought wonders, and 
 Father Mathew in his way has preached to better pur- 
 pose than their clergy, who — that is the Protestant part 
 of it — are so immensely overpaid, while the Catholics are 
 fed on crumbs, and the talented, benevolent, good-doing 
 Father gets nothing at all at all for his labours of love, 
 as far as I have heard. O'Connell and Father Mathew 
 together are a matchless pair, let Tory croakers or 
 Crokers say what they will. 
 
 Obviously, if Thomson had hved some forty or fifty 
 years later, he would have been found on the Home 
 Rule side. This letter shows, too, that although he 
 was ready to laugh at the Catholics in France, he was 
 equally ready to give them his sympathy in Ireland. 
 But these are questions upon which it is unneces- 
 sary to dwell. It is more to our purpose to note 
 that Thomson, returnino- now to Edinbun^h,^ had 
 barely got settled when certain friends (he mentions 
 specially Charles Black, Robert Chambers, and Mr. 
 Robertson, a member of the Town Council) pro- 
 posed to give him a public dinner. We hear first 
 about the matter in a letter to \\ illiam Tait, dated 
 October 9, 1845. Thomson is "truly grateful" to 
 his friends, but he really has "' not the slightest 
 appetite " for the proposed honour, and he earnestly 
 
 ^ The first communication in his letter-book after liis return is 
 dated from 13 Antigua Street in July 1S45.
 
 96 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 pleads that they would abandon the project. He 
 never cared for public dinners, has been quite 
 unaccustomed to such functions, and would greatly 
 dislike to be the object of one. Moreover, his 
 infirmities (he calls himself eighty-six, while he was 
 in fact eighty-eight) unfit him altogether for large 
 parties. " I particularise my loss of teeth and my 
 deafness only, the one making me a mumbler, and 
 the other depriving me of the pleasure of hearing 
 much of what passes, even at a family party. In 
 a public meeting I could hear almost nothing that 
 is said, and you can easily imagine how perfectly 
 blank, or rather how stupid -like a man appears 
 when so situated, and when words are addressed 
 to himself" Tait seems to have called to arcrue 
 the matter with Thomson, and to have left him 
 to think it over. 
 
 The following April (1846), however, still found 
 him of the same mind. He is really "too old for 
 such convivial excitement," and must "absolutely 
 decline the honour " his friends would confer upon 
 him. But his friends were not to be put off, and 
 the distinction thus resolutely refused took another 
 form — the form of a testimonial. The date of the 
 presentation was the 3rd of March 1847, just one day 
 before Thomson completed his ninetieth year. The 
 best account of the meeting is that given in the Cale- 
 donian Merairy of the following day. The gather- 
 ing was held in Gibb's Royal Hotel, and Thomson's 
 old friend. Lord Cockburn,^ was in the chair. He 
 
 1 " You have ever treated me in the most friendly and condescend- 
 ing manner, and be assured that your many acts of kindness have not
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 97 
 
 made a long speech, the main feature of which was 
 a vigorous protest against the manner in which 
 Thomson's pecuniary treatment of Burns had been 
 criticised in certain quarters. Indeed, his Lordship 
 stated expressly that it was partly with the view of 
 removing the evil impression thus created that the 
 presentation was being made. As to that, we shall 
 have something to say later on. Here the following 
 quotation will be more in place. Speaking of the 
 reason which prompted the presentation, Lord 
 Cockburn said : 
 
 It would not be sufficient to account for it merely 
 upon the ground of personal affection or our respect 
 for Mr. Thomson individually. He has been spared — 
 I thank God in saying it — he has been spared to live 
 amongst us for a very long time, and during all that pro- 
 tracted period his life has been devoted, in one course of 
 unchanging gentleness, to public and private duty. But 
 it is not upon these grounds alone — it is upon no ground 
 of personal attachment only — that this assemblage of 
 his friends have met to do him honour. He has been 
 engaged in some, and in particular in two vocations which 
 entitle him to the public gratitude not of us merely 
 but of the whole community both of Edinburgh and 
 Scotland. He was for a very long time secretary [clerk] 
 of a public Board, which brought him into immediate con- 
 nection with all persons engaged in and with all measures 
 intended to promote the advancement of manufactures 
 and of the arts, and of design in art of a higher order. 
 Though not actually in the chair of that institution, it was 
 
 been conferred upon an ungrateful man ; for go where he may, and 
 whether to stay or return, he will ever reflect with pride and pleasure 
 on having been honoured with the friendship of Lord Cockburn."^ 
 Thomson to Cockbur/i, 24//; Aui^ust 1S39. 
 
 G
 
 98 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 his mind that predominated and directed its proceedings. 
 I may vouch from what I used to see that there was no 
 man under that Board, or under its patronage, who did 
 not bless the name of Mr. Thomson. In everything that 
 related to the advancement of the useful or the elegant 
 arts he was an instructor and guide ; and if there was a 
 single young man who had the promise of merit united 
 with a humble disposition, it was to Mr. Thomson he 
 looked for countenance, and it was his house that was 
 always ready to receive him. 
 
 The chairman after this proceeded to dilate upon 
 Thomson's work in connection with his country's 
 song, and in particular on his work in connection 
 w^ith Burns. In closing he said, rather grandilo- 
 quently, and with a lordly negligence of grammar : 
 " There is no place, no language, no individual who 
 does not bless not only the person who produced 
 the words, but he who first connected them with 
 their beautiful and appropriate sounds." His Lord- 
 ship then presented Thomson with a handsome silver 
 vase, described by the Mercury as " of massive 
 appearance and beautiful design," and of "chaste 
 and elaborate workmanship." The vase bore the 
 following inscription : 
 
 Presented to George Thomson, Esq., by one hun- 
 dred of his friends and admirers, to record their regard 
 for him as a man, and their concurrence in the gratitude 
 of his country for his earlv, continuous, and at first 
 hazardous exertions for the improvement and diffusion 
 of the united national music and poetry of Scotland. 
 Edinburgh, 1846.^ 
 
 ' The Mercury notice has 1847, but this is an error. The inscrip- 
 tion had evidently been cut some months before the presentation.
 
 GEORGE THOMSON ^ cy 
 
 Thomson's reply was quiet, and devoid of an y 
 striking points. He began in the " proudest moment 
 of my life " style usual on such occasions, and after- 
 wards wandered into a disquisition on the history 
 of Scottish song. He would " never get back the 
 money " his collections had cost him, but they had 
 brought some honour to his humble name which 
 would in a manner make up for his loss. He 
 ended by wishing his friends a hundred years of 
 life, "in as good health as I at present enjoy in 
 my eighty-sixth year." It will be seen that, even 
 accepting his own birth-date, Thomson was steadily 
 growing younger ! The presentation vase is now 
 in the possession of Mrs. Thomson-Sinclair. A 
 silver salver also in her keeping bears the in- 
 scription : " The gift of friendship to George 
 Thomson of Edinburgh, 1815." This, too, was 
 given to him by some of his cronies in the 
 capital. If Thomson had his detractors, he clearly 
 had a large number of friends who thought well 
 of him. 
 
 From the date of the presentation in 1847 
 onwards, very little is to be learnt about the old 
 man who refused to feel old, except from the 
 few letters he now wrote. In the same year he 
 writes to Robert Chambers about the sale (jf his 
 pictures. He says : 
 
 Being an annuitant and tar advanced in years, I wish 
 to convert such superfluities as I have into money for 
 tlie sake of the woman-kind tliat are to survive me. Tlic 
 line arts have been my hobby through life, and my cliief 
 associates have been artists and lovers of art and belles
 
 100 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 lettres, from Runciman to Raeburn and Williams. . . . 
 I have thus acquired an ardent love of pictures and 
 drawings, which I have collected from time to time as 
 opportunities offered and my means permitted me to 
 obtain. And having always had the advice of counsel 
 learned in the art of making purchases, my collection, 
 though small, is quite select, and the subjects are beauti- 
 ful — about twenty in number. If you are intending to 
 embellish the walls of your handsome house ^ I should 
 be well pleased to transfer my collection to you, or such 
 part of it as suits your fancy, at reasonable prices, as I 
 would rather avoid bringing them to a public sale. You 
 might look at them any morning when the sun is in the 
 sky, for on a cloudy day you can form no judgment of 
 pictures. Believe me, however, that I have not the 
 slightest wish to press a single picture upon you — far 
 from it. I seek not any undue advantage by selling. . . . 
 If your brother William is a collector of pictures, tell 
 him of mine. 
 
 There is no record of any transfer being made 
 to the walls of the handsome house ; nor, on the 
 other hand, do the artistic "superfluities" seem 
 ever to have been converted into cash. The 
 greater number of the Thomson pictures are, in 
 fact, still in the possession of the family. Mrs. 
 Thomson- Sinclair, writing to me from Dunbeath 
 Castle, says : " This house is full of treasures. 
 Many of the pictures have descended from George 
 Thomson. Those by David Allan, Stothard, and 
 Smirke were painted for Mr. Thomson to order. 
 I have, as well, two portraits of Mr. and Mrs. 
 
 ^ Mr. C. E. S. Chambers thinks that probably the house i Doune 
 Terrace is here referred to.
 
 GEORGE THOMSON loi 
 
 Thomson painted by Sir Henry Raeburn. Mrs. 
 Thomson he painted and presented to her husband ; 
 the other portrait was an order. There is also a 
 very good portrait of Mr. David Thomson, the 
 artist, here, as well as several pictures painted 
 by him, which are considered very clever." It 
 would be presumptuous for an untutored art critic 
 to say anything of Thomson's tastes in the matter 
 of pictures. Something may be gathered from his 
 comments on the works of Rubens and others 
 already quoted ; for the rest I can only cite the ob- 
 servation of Constable's partner, Mr. A. G. Hunter, 
 who described him as "a nominal connoisseur in 
 painting." That remark was of course meant to 
 be depreciatory, but surely to be even a nominal 
 connoisseur is something in a man's favour. 
 
 Towards the close of the year 1848 Thomson 
 went a second time to London — a bold undertakingf 
 for such a patriarch.^ He had now let his house, 
 73 Queen Street, Edinburgh, for five years, at a 
 rent of ^56 per annum, which he is "informed by 
 persons of skill" is lower than it ought to be. In 
 January of next year we find him writing to Mrs, 
 Robert Chambers to say how anxious he is to be 
 among his friends in the North. " Dearly do I 
 like dear Edinburgh — its Cockburns, its Jeffreys, 
 and its Scotts ; men ever to be remembered, and 
 a' its honest men and bonnie lasses, God bless 
 them!" In short, London was more unendurable 
 
 ' The statement of Dr. IvOLjers {Book of Robert Burns, ii. 2S3), in 
 so far as it suggests that Thomson first went from Edinburgh to 
 London in 1848, should be corrected.
 
 I02 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 than ever, and he must seek his home once 
 more in Edinburgh. In October, accordingly, he 
 was negotiating about the purchase of the house 
 I Vanbrugh Place, Leith. Ultimately he con- 
 cluded the bargain, paying ,^650 for the property, 
 and returned to his "first, best country," there to 
 await the inevitable call. 
 
 From this time on to the end, it was a noise- 
 less passing "along the cool sequestered vale of 
 life " for Thomson. To one of his friends ^ he 
 writes telling that he is "leading a quiet exist- 
 ence in the bonny links of Leith, forming a lawni 
 of some forty acres, on which I look from my 
 windows, and within a few minutes' walk of the 
 seaside." The company of his unmarried daughters 
 was a great solace to him in these later days. 
 Since her mother's death, MarQ-aret had acted as 
 his housekeeper. " She was devoted to her father, 
 and never left him," says Miss Moir. In spite 
 of his buoyant temperament, Thomson was begin- 
 ning to feel the weight of the accumulating years. 
 ' I suffer from cough, and from weakness of sight 
 not a little," he writes in March 1850. "I must 
 lay aside my pen entirely and make one of 
 my daughters my secretary. They read to me 
 every evening." Unhappily there were other 
 
 ' Miss Mary Arbuthnot Moir, of 27 Hamilton Place, Edinburgh. 
 Miss Moir is now (1897) over ninety, but is still alert and full of 
 interesting reminiscences. Her father was intimate with Scott, and 
 she was in the next box to Sir Walter in the Theatre Royal when 
 " Rob Roy" was first performed. It was to Mr. Moir that Scott was 
 referred as " the prince of the Jacobites"' when he conceived the idea 
 of the ballads. Miss Moir was a great favourite with Hogg, who was 
 a frequent visitor at her father's house.
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 103 
 
 things to disquiet him besides his faiHng physical 
 powers. Several years before this he had pur- 
 chased a number of shares in the Caledonian 
 Railway. He had paid ;^50 for each share, and 
 now the shares were selling for £']. The result 
 was that "many hundred pounds which I expected 
 to leave for the support of my daughters when I 
 am gone, I have too much reason to fear I shall 
 never see again." In connection with this un- 
 fortunate business Thomson wrote a letter to the 
 secretary of the company, which, with the excep- 
 tion of a long communication addressed to Robert 
 Chambers on the old Burns theme, is the last 
 letter he has copied into his letter-book. It is 
 dated 25th March 1850, and although the gist of 
 it has just been given from another source, there 
 are obvious reasons for quoting it in full. It is 
 as follows : 
 
 I have received your printed circular report by the 
 Directors of the Caledonian Railway to the meeting of tlie 
 proprietors to be held on the 28th of tlic present month, 
 which enclosed a proxy for my signature as a proprietor, 
 authorising certain gentlemen therein mentioned to vote 
 in my name. And having glanced at the very com- 
 plicated statements and immensity of figures contained 
 in those papers, I feel it necessary to return the proxy 
 enclosed unsigned, because I am t(~)tally unable to raise 
 any more money for the railway, and ciuite unwilling if 
 1 had it so to applv it, having sinc^' 1845 paid .^.134- f(»r 
 the Caledonian Railway, not for other railways to which 
 it has been most improperly and ^.urely illegally applied ; 
 all which, with its interest, I had destined for the support 
 of my children after my death, an event that cannot be
 
 104 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 far off, as I am now in my ninetieth [ninety-second] 
 year. Thus I have reason to lament the day I invested 
 all the money I could command in the hands of such a 
 company, who, not confining themselves to their adver- 
 tised object, became speculators in other concerns, by 
 which means and by unexampled prodigality of expense 
 of management we poor shareholders, it is plain, must 
 lose our money. 
 
 There is always a pathos about a man's last 
 words, and these last (or all but last) written words 
 of George Thomson are specially pathetic. They 
 cannot fail of inspiring regret that any cloud should 
 have darkened the old man's eventide ; and the 
 long involved sentences, so unlike his wonted lucid 
 style, tell their own tale of enfeeblement and decay. 
 The end he anticipated, apparently with no shrink- 
 ing fear, was nearer even than probably he ex- 
 pected. During the winter his health sensibly 
 declined, and he was almost entirely confined to 
 the house. On the i8th of February (1851) he 
 died. On the 20th the Courant in a short obituary 
 notice stated that "only a few days before his 
 death he examined with evident gratification a 
 collection of fine old prints shown him by his 
 friend Mr. Watson, bookseller, Princes Street." His 
 "kindness of heart endeared him to a large circle 
 of friends, who entertained towards him the deepest 
 affection" ; and "during even his last moments his 
 mild and genial disposition exerted all its former 
 sway." His remains were laid beside those of his 
 wife in Kensal Green Cemetery, where may now be 
 read the following inscription, written by Charles
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 105 
 
 Dickens, on a stone which stands sadly in need of 
 restoration : 
 
 THE FAMILY GRAVE 
 
 OF 
 
 GEORGE THOMSON, Esq«s 
 
 TO THE MEMORY OF 
 
 KATHERINE MILLER 
 
 FOR SIXTY YEARS THE IJELOVED WIFE OF 
 
 GEORGE THOMSON, Esq^^ 
 
 OF EDINBURC.H 
 
 HER sweetness OF DISPOSITION ENDEAR'd HER TO ALL 
 
 AROUND HER : WHILE HER CONJUGAL AND MATERNAL 
 
 AFFECTIONS, HER CHEERFUL AND HUMBLE 
 
 PIETY, REALIS'd to HER HUSBAND 
 
 AND CHILDREN THE PUREST 
 
 DOMESTIC HAPPINESS 
 
 BORN AT KELSO THE 2ND OF JULY 1 764 
 DIED AT BROMPTON THE 13TH DAY OF OCTOBER 1 84 1 
 
 ALSO 
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 THE AFFECTIONATE HUSBAND OF THE ABOVE 
 
 WHO DIED AT EDINBURGH ON THE I STH FEBRUARY 1S5I 
 
 IN HIS 94TH YEAR. 
 
 TENDERLY UNITED IN LIFE, IT WAS HIS DESIKK 1 HAT Hl- 
 
 REMAINS SHOULD BE IJROUGHT TO BE LAID BESIDE 
 
 HIS BELOVED WIFE IN THIS LAST 
 
 RESTING PLACE
 
 io6 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 The foregoing pages will have shown how 
 meagre are the data for an estimate of Thomson 
 the man, and the correspondence subsequently to be 
 dealt with makes but sliorht addition to them. His 
 letters are mainly the plain straightforward com- 
 munications of a business man, who, if occasionally 
 he does use fine words, uses them in the way of 
 business. His letter-books are very far indeed 
 from presenting the least feature of a jotirnal 
 intime ; and if, like most men, he did share intimate 
 communing with familiar friends, there is no record 
 of it remaining. Of external testimony to his ways, 
 whims, ideas, there is practically none. Even his 
 tombstone tells no more than that he was a loving 
 husband, as most men, on their tombstones, are. 
 All that can be done therefore is to piece together 
 such scraps of suggestion as his letters may contain, 
 into what can only be a tentative "character." 
 
 Of Thomson's personal appearance we have 
 no trustworthy means of judging, save by the 
 portrait painted by Sir Henry Raeburn, repro- 
 duced for this volume.^ The portrait, it will be 
 seen, represents a man in the prime of life, with 
 shapely head, in its upper part showing a noticeable 
 likeness to Byron's ; the well-cut lips, firm round 
 chin, and slightly impending nose bespeaking — so 
 the physiognomists Vv-ould tell us — no mean reso- 
 luteness of will and tenacity of purpose ; the eyes 
 expressing a mild thoughtfulness not repugnant to 
 
 ^ One or two people indeed remember him, but only as a very 
 old man.
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 107 
 
 laughter. It is withal the face of a man shrewd, 
 easy-going, self-reliant, ready to form and to hold 
 an opinion of his own ; regarding the world with 
 a steadfast countenance, and prepared to take calmly 
 whatever of joy or sorrow, prosperity or adversity, 
 it may have to give him. 
 
 As regards personal habits, we can glean only 
 a hint or two. A good deal is revealed by 
 Carlyle's single epithet of "clean brushed"; and 
 Thomson's handwriting ("your fine Roman hand," 
 is Tennant's phrase) confirms one's impression 
 of the writer as spick and span and methodical 
 in his ways — an impression supported again by 
 the careful and precise manner in which he has 
 docketed and "red-taped" his correspondence. 
 And this is the best guarantee of cheerfulness 
 and geniality, in giving him which qualities all 
 his friends concur. Miss Moir describes him as 
 " charming, most hospitable, kind and amiable, sen- 
 sible and friendly." Robert Chambers' daughter, 
 Mrs. Dowie, says : " I knew him well, and often 
 went to see him when he lived in Antigua Street. 
 He was a most eager, active, and amiable man. 
 very fond of us young people.' Such testimonies 
 amply support the inferences which one draws from 
 his correspondence. One can hardly imagine him 
 in a temper. His pen was never dipped in the 
 " consuminof fire" with which Shellcv tiireatened to 
 burn his critics ; and even when he had a clear 
 case against piratical publishers who had robbed 
 him of his property, he willingly forbore to exercise 
 the powers which the law put in his hands. His
 
 io8 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 kindliness of disposition engaged him in thankless 
 and unprofitable undertakings, like the publication 
 of Mrs. Grant's poems, and the financial backing 
 of an impecunious Italian. He threw himself with 
 disinterested ardour into whatever projects won 
 his sympathy, and ever tendered his advice, as in 
 regard to the Burns statues, with a single eye to 
 the common good. The position he held at the 
 Board, and the relations he must have had with 
 people of varied rank and temperament, demanded 
 a tactful circumspection, in which he seems never 
 to have come short. Even in arranging a Burns 
 supper he gave himself no little trouble in selecting 
 croupiers who would be agreeable to each other. 
 
 His freedom from the "bigotry of patriotism" 
 has already been noted. He was not so fanati- 
 cally Scotch but that he could write : " If we are to 
 sing of battles, Waterloo is worth ten thousand 
 Cromdales." Nay, he was unpatriotic enough to 
 denounce the bagpipe as "a great, noisy, untuneable, 
 monotonous instrument " ; and even the Doric itself 
 he regarded as a dialect only for menials and 
 the vulgar. Indeed his amor patrice comes out 
 strongly only when he is in the stranger's country. 
 On the Continent he sighs for "mine own romantic 
 town," as Scott sighed for the heather ; and when 
 as an old man "on the way homewards," to use 
 Browning's phrase, he finds himself far from the 
 scene of his life's work, his heart turns with all 
 a lover's fondness to " dear old Edinburgh," whither 
 he hopes to return, and " die at home at last." 
 
 He had a certain amount of proper pride, more
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 109 
 
 than once speaking out frankly when he thought 
 that he was slighted, and resenting with amusing 
 blufifness the unlucky designation of Beethoven/ 
 which made him a "music-seller in Edinburgh." 
 But he was not without a gracious modesty too, a 
 quality of which he said in a letter to Burns (almost 
 paraphrasing Horace), "the greatest modesty is 
 the sure attendant of the greatest merit." He dis- 
 claimed having done anything to deserve a public 
 dinner ; and when David Vedder would have ranked 
 him with Shakespeare and Burns, he bade him for 
 God's sake keep the fulsome stanza from the press. 
 To Mrs. Grant he describes himself as a "poor 
 prose man," and hopes that if the world ever knows 
 anything of his career it will give him due credit 
 for his humility. He has not become "vain and 
 consequential," although he has " the first poets of 
 the age pouring in their contributions " to his work, 
 telling him to "take or reject or alter" according 
 to his will and pleasure. " There's honour for 
 you ! " he exclaims, with the frank pleasure of the 
 schoolboy. 
 
 Everybody spoke well of him, but it could 
 not be said of him — what Sir Oliver Surface in 
 Sheridan's play says of such well-reputed people — 
 that " he bowed as low to knaves and fools as to 
 the honest dignity of genius and virtue." He did 
 in truth employ a somewhat sycophantic flattery 
 towards the people of genius and virtue whose 
 favours he had to ask : his minstrels were all, in the 
 
 ' See the Beethoven correspondence, pa^'^e 329.
 
 no GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 phrase of Keats, dieted with praise. But he knew 
 his men. " We artists — how well praise agrees 
 with us ! " says Balzac ; and Thomson certainly 
 wrote as if he meant to test the truth of the saying. 
 At any rate, his adulation was so open and in- 
 genuous that it never offended ; and all his great 
 correspondents seem to have regarded him with 
 unfailing respect. 
 
 Of his religious opinions we know practically 
 nothing. There was assuredly no cant about him ; 
 he did not salute all and sundry with scraps of 
 morality ; and the careful purging of his songs was 
 a perfectly frank concession to the frailty (shall it 
 be said ?) of the ladies. When he heard from 
 Cunningham that Burns proposed for the three a 
 meeting at the Bield Inn, where they would "pour 
 out a drink offering before the Lord, and enter into 
 a Solemn League and Covenant, never to be broken 
 nor forgotten" — when he heard this, he did not lift 
 his hands in horror and indite a sermon, thinking 
 because he was virtuous there should be no more 
 cakes and ale ; he simply said : " Your bacchanalian 
 challenge almost frightens me, for I am a miserably 
 weak drinker." In short, we would fain believe that 
 his religion, like the religion of Louis Stevenson's 
 old gardener, was " neither dogmatic nor sectarian." 
 
 The main features of Thomson's character, natu- 
 rally enough, come out best in connection with his 
 life-work. One cannot too much admire the singular 
 devotion with which he prosecuted through many 
 years an enterprise that made demands so heavy 
 on his time, his thought, and his purse. His en-
 
 GEORGE THOMSON m 
 
 thusiasm amounted almost to genius. He seemed 
 to have a sheer disdain of difficulties. When he 
 found one road blocked, he blithely went in search 
 of another. Nor did his enthusiasm run-amuck 
 through his judgment. His letters are invariably 
 calm, clear, and business-like, with scarce a spot of 
 colour or a glint of fire ; he says in plain words 
 what he has to say, knowing well his own mind, 
 and has done with it. When he had to criticise 
 and find fault, as often — too often — he was obliged 
 to do, he set about it with the same courtesy 
 and good humour. Campbell said of him that he 
 possessed " the uncatholic quality of candour in a 
 hiofh deofree " ; and Joanna Baillie, who of all his 
 poetical correspondents was the least submissive to 
 his maijisterial correction, never shows one touch of 
 personal resentment. The accusation of niggardli- 
 ness in his dealings with his helpers is quite un- 
 substantiated. He was not la\-ish, but he was not 
 mean. To his composers he offered at the outset 
 what he considered fair prices for their work ; he 
 did not refuse to increase his terms when a recjuest 
 for increase seemed reasonable : but he knew the 
 limits of his purse, and said plainly what he could 
 or could not afford. It is impossible not to believe 
 that, in his early days at least, he managed to pay 
 his composers only by the severest self-denial. In 
 regard to his poets the case was different.^ With 
 insignificant exceptions they all refused to be paid. 
 Joanna Baillie, indeed, with a touchiness incompre- 
 
 ' For the Iiurns-Thonison controversy see sci)aratc section.
 
 112 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 hensible in our sordid day of so-much per thousand 
 words, flung back a present he sent her, forbidding 
 him to do the Hke again. The others for the most 
 part accepted the gifts he made them, and these 
 were of no inconsiderable value. The whole truth 
 seems to be that in money matters Thomson was 
 careful, as he was bound to be ; and we shall not be 
 far wrong if we give him his justification in the 
 Horatian precept : " Does a man live stingily ? Let 
 us call him a thrifty fellow." ^ 
 
 It is natural to ask what qualifications besides 
 his manifest enthusiasm Thomson had for his self- 
 imposed task. On the musical side one finds it diffi- 
 cult to give a definite answer. To entrust his work 
 to composers like Haydn and Beethoven certainly 
 seems — leaving aside the question of judgment — to 
 argue good taste, and his letters to several of his 
 helpers, those to Beethoven in particular, are full of 
 denunciations of the depraved tastes of the public of 
 his day. His expressions of commendation are, how- 
 ever, so general, made up so largely of vague words 
 like "exquisite," "charming," "elegant," that it is 
 impossible to take any just measure of his critical 
 faculty. In regard to the literary side we are not 
 left in much doubt. Thomson so constantly had to 
 find fault with the work of his versifiers, and so 
 carefully coupled his censure with suggestions, that 
 one can form a very fair estimate of his literary skill. 
 His general attitude is defined in a letter to Burns, 
 dated November 1792. In this letter he says that 
 
 ^ Parciiis hie vivit: frugi dicatiir^ Sat. I. iii. 49.
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 113 
 
 his disposition is not to pick out faults ; that his 
 chief object is to discover and to be delighted with 
 beauties ; but that in examining critically and at 
 leisure what perhaps was written in haste, he may 
 happen to observe careless lines. "The wren will 
 often see what has been overlooked by the eagle." 
 Here he makes the gratuitous supposition that the 
 verses sent him were written in haste ; and the 
 obvious retort to his metaphor is that what the eagle 
 has overlooked is probably too insignificant to be of 
 value except to the wren. In Pope's words, " not 
 to know some trifles is a praise." Thomson's eye 
 was all for the trifles. He had but the merest touch 
 of instinct for the poetry of imagination as distinct 
 from that of reason. In other words, his taste was 
 purely academic, and everything that came before 
 him had to be judged by mechanical rule. So 
 true is this that Keats' words — although their origi- 
 nal application was very different — might almost 
 have been directly addressed to him : 
 
 Ye were dead 
 To things ye knew not of, — were closely wed 
 To musty laws lined out with wretched rule 
 And compass vile ; so that ye taught a school 
 Of dolts to smooth, inlay, and clip, and fit, 
 Till, like the certain wands of Jacob's wit. 
 Their verses tallied. 
 
 Except that Thomson's minstrels were not dolts. 
 this was pretty much the position. The intellectu- 
 ally feeble were ever in his mind's eye, and in their 
 interests he would have dissected the rainbow itself 
 In a letter to Burns (October 13, 1792) he says. 
 
 H
 
 114 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 what is true enough, that simpHcity should be the 
 prominent feature of a song. "I do not con- 
 sider the song," he says, "to be the most proper 
 vehicle for witty and brilliant conceits." Some 
 months later he says again : "Simplicity is a most 
 essential quality in composition, and the ground- 
 work of beauty in all the arts." Yet Burns is 
 obliged to tell him once that he is "inclined to 
 sacrifice simplicity to pathos, sentiment to point." 
 In truth his criticisms are mainly of a niggling- 
 sort, many of them being wholly without justifi- 
 cation, and springing either from a defective ear, 
 a deficient imagination, or an exaggerated sense 
 of propriety. He wishes to substitute "all-telling" 
 for " descriving," which Burns properly remarked 
 would spoil the rusticity of the stanza. Resting on 
 the infallible authority of Johnson's dictionary, he 
 tells Joanna Baillie that "hight" is obsolete, and 
 suggests that "vestment" is a better word than 
 "mantle" for a nun's dress. All these are simply 
 prosaic, and it is not surprising that Miss Baillie 
 retorted somewhat sharply, though not perhaps 
 very felicitously, that a measure of obscurity is 
 allowable in poetry. 
 
 Nor were Thomson's criticisms only prosaic. 
 Some of them, as we shall find from the Corre- 
 spondence, are so absurd as to remind one of the 
 imbecile who provoked the mirth of Frederick the 
 Great and his philosophers by changing Schiller's 
 line, "All the world rests," into "Now half the 
 world doth rest." Dr. Holmes calls him a " silly 
 body" with reference to his suggestions for "Scots,
 
 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 115 
 
 wha hae,"^ and a "silly body" his letters too often 
 show him to have been. Nevertheless, it would 
 be unfair to grudge him some measure of praise. 
 There is no doubt that he gave himself an immense 
 amount of trouble over the "perfecting" of the 
 various songs written for his collections ; and his 
 criticisms did in many cases produce improvements 
 by the authors themselves. He claims to have 
 gone over and to have critically discussed with them 
 three - fourths of all that was sent to him, and 
 havang read every word of his correspondence 
 I have no hesitation in saying that it bears him 
 out in the claim. But on the whole he was not 
 happy as a critic and an " improver " ; and one 
 can only regret that he had not taken to heart 
 the precocious advice of Pope : 
 
 Launch not beyond your depth, but be discreet, 
 And mark that point where sense and duhiess meet. 
 
 Of original verse Thomson has left a consider- 
 able number of specimens scattered throughout his 
 various collections. Regarding these it is possible 
 to say only that while they might have been better, 
 they might also have been worse. Thomson's 
 Pegasus was but a rocking-horse after all : there 
 was nothinof of what Plato calls "the muse's mad- 
 ness " in his soul ; and these songs of his, in passing, 
 as they have done, into dumb forgetfulness. have but 
 met their inevitable fate. Some of the airs which 
 
 1 " Wlio was that silly body that wanted lUiins to alter 'Scots. 
 wha hae,' so as to lengthen the last line, thus — /•-'./:.•./;</! Chains 
 and slavery? " — TJic Atitocrat,
 
 ii6 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 he composed for his collections show him to have 
 had the gift of melody in no inconsiderable degree ; 
 and if they had been wedded to words with some- 
 thing of the "ampler ether" in them, they might 
 have taken a place among the nation's songs. 
 
 But George Thomson lives not by his original 
 work : he lives by his connection with Burns. It 
 was his own belief, as it was his desire, that this 
 would constitute his title to fame, and his biographer 
 will not therefore be held to wrong him in saying 
 that, but for this connection, he would long since 
 have gone down into the immortality of oblivion. 
 He lives, as Lara lives, in the halo of another's 
 glory.
 
 THE THOMSON COLLECTlOiNS 
 
 It seems necessary, in order to the better under- 
 standing of the correspondence which is to follow, 
 to give some separate account of the various works 
 which led to that correspondence. It was one of 
 Thomson's fond delusions that his collections of 
 national music would ensure his name's abiding with 
 posterity, " fast anchored in the deep abyss of time." 
 So much he believed to be due to the sheer merit 
 of his works. " My publications," he declared to 
 one of his correspondents, " are not the flimsy 
 productions of a day, but works that will ever stand 
 the test of examination." Alas I who now but the 
 antiquary and the collector seeks to examine them ? 
 — who else indeed has an opportunity of examin- 
 ing them ? The Thomson collections are as com- 
 pletely neglected as if they had never existed ; 
 while the " masterly symphonies and accompani- 
 ments," the constant boast of their editor, have 
 long since been dissociated from the airs which 
 were weighted by their ill-matched harmonies and 
 superfluous embellishments. 
 
 Thomson edited three separate collections of 
 national song — the Scottish, the Welsh, and the 
 Irish. The Scottish collection was published in 
 six volumes, under the general title ot "A Select 
 Collection of oriofinal Scottish Airs for the voice, 
 
 "7
 
 ii8 GEOI^E THOMSON 
 
 with introductory and concluding symphonies for 
 the pianoforte, violin, and violoncello." The title- 
 pages of the various volumes bear no dates, but 
 the following are Thomson's own dates of entry 
 at Stationers' Hall as furnished to George Farquhar 
 Graham (Wood's Songs of Scotland, Introduc- 
 tion, vi.) : 
 
 Vol. I. — The first Book or half vol. of Airs 
 
 and Songs, 25 in numbei-, entered 
 
 at Stationers' Hall . . . June 1795. 
 Second Book of ditto ; together, a 
 
 volume ..... Aug. 1798. 
 Vol. 2. — The 3rd and 4th Books of 50 Airs 
 
 and Songs ..... July 1799. 
 Vol. 3. — The 5th and 6th Books, of 50 ditto July 1802. 
 Vol. 4. — The 7th and 8th Books, of 50 ditto June 1805. 
 Vol. 5. — The 9th and loth Books, 33 ditto 
 
 and 32 ditto .... Aug. 1818-1826. 
 Vol. 6. — The nth and 12th Books, of 50 ditto Sept. 1841. 
 
 It had been Thomson's intention originally to 
 have only five volumes ; but in 1822 he tells 
 Allan Cunningham that he has so many fine songs 
 and airs in his portfolio that he will be compelled 
 to have a sixth volume, "greatly against my 
 will." In 1830 he prepared a new edition of the 
 five volumes, which contained twenty additional 
 airs and songs and eight extra illustrations. The 
 original price of each of the first five volumes was 
 a guinea, but Thomson subsequently reduced it to 
 fifteen shillings, at which the sixth volume was 
 published. 
 
 The Scottish collection, although the most suc- 
 cessful of all Thomson's ventures, was at no time
 
 COLLECTIONS 
 
 119 
 
 a really popular work. Hogarth, who had good 
 means of knowing, said it barely paid its costs. 
 The connection of the name of Burns with the 
 earlier volumes gave to them a certain measure of 
 success, but even in the case of these volumes the 
 success was only temporary. The comparative 
 failure of the work was clearly a puzzle to Thom- 
 son, who cast about for reasons, without finding 
 any to satisfy him. Now it was the prevailing 
 fashion in favour of Italian music which militated 
 against him ; anon it was some rival work which had 
 caught the fancy of the musical public. 
 
 It never once occurred to him that the fault 
 might lie at his own door. That this, however, was 
 the case, only a panegyrist could venture to deny. 
 The fact is that Thomson made a gigantic mistake 
 in the matter of the accompaniments to his songs. 
 The very line of action upon which he so greatly 
 prided himself was one for which we must deny him 
 not only credit, but the possession of judgment and 
 common-sense. To put it frankly, it was the 
 acme of absurdity to go to these eminent con- 
 tinental composers for accompaniments to Scottish 
 airs. Such airs require intimate treatment if any 
 ever did ; and, although Thomson could not be 
 brought to realise the fact, it was far more likely 
 that his despised native musicians should do them 
 justice than his much-vaunted Apollos. Beethoven 
 and Haydn, as composers, might be — indeed were 
 — all that Thomson declared them to be ; but they 
 failed nevertheless in the great majority ot instances 
 to catch the characteristic style of the music.
 
 I20 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 Beethoven especially failed, proving once more 
 that the greater the genius, when misapplied, the 
 more signal the failure. It may be that Thomson 
 was partly to blame for this failure. As the writer 
 of the article on Scottish music in Grove's Dic- 
 tionary of Music has remarked, the versions of the 
 airs sent to Beethoven must have been wretchedly 
 bad. They seem to have imbued him with the 
 idea that the " Scotch snap " was the chief feature 
 in the music. He has introduced this "snap" in 
 such profusion, even when quite foreign to the air, 
 that the result is at times nothing short of comical. 
 Yet Thomson, for many years, could not see this. 
 ''Beethoven," said he in 1815, "is a genius 
 strikingly original, and has absolutely done wonders 
 for the airs ; " and again, a year later : " The origin- 
 ality and exquisite beauty of Beethoven's accom- 
 paniments surprise me more and more. They 
 require only to be heard to command admiration." 
 The surprise may be admitted, but it is a surprise 
 that would have been readily exchanged by the 
 Scottish people for a little more appropriateness. 
 Haydn succeeded better, as a rule, but even in 
 his case the result, with few exceptions, is not 
 an eminent success ; while as for Weber, Hummel, 
 Pleyel, and Kozeluch, they were still less happy in 
 their endeavours to decorate the Scottish airs. 
 
 It must not be supposed that Thomson was 
 left in ignorance of all this. The Edinburgh Review 
 indeed (see the number for October 1823) gave him 
 unstinted praise for his " enterprise " in engaging 
 Beethoven and other great composers for his collec-
 
 COLLECTIONS I2i 
 
 tion ; but, on the other hand, the Encyclopcrdia 
 Britan7iica spoke out strongly against "the absurd 
 incono-ruities and monstrosities " of the continental 
 accompaniments. The EiicyclopcEciia article was 
 written by Thomson's friend, Farquhar Graham, 
 and the circumstance naturally caused him "in- 
 expressible surprise. " In one of his letter-books 
 I find a copy of a long reply to Graham's criticisms, 
 addressed to William Dauney, one of the leading 
 musical amateurs of Edinburgh, and Graham's 
 "particular friend." There is no need to quote 
 any part of this reply. Thomson declared that 
 his composers could as little err in fitting accom- 
 paniments to the Scottish tunes "as JeftVey and Scott 
 could have written ungrammatically." Nothing at 
 this time would shake his faith in the men he had 
 employed — not "quires of reasoning" from the 
 most enlightened critics in the country I But his 
 faith did get shaken notwithstanding, his purse 
 having taught him a lesson which his head was 
 slow to learn. Sadly he says in 182 i : " I have no 
 expectation of ever receiving any benefit from what 
 Beethoven has done for me. He composes for 
 posterity. I hoped that his gigantic genius would 
 bend and accommodate itself to the simple char- 
 acter of national melodies, but in general he has 
 been too learned and eccentric for my purpose, and 
 all my gold ducats have been thrown away." Just 
 so ! Experience is an excellent schoolmaster, but 
 unfortunately his fees are high. 
 
 In regard to the verses, it is difhcult to know 
 what to say. Thomson's intentions were no doubt
 
 122 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 excellent, but the plan of employing versifiers of 
 all grades to write to order was bound to fail in 
 a very large proportion of cases. That so many 
 good songs were secured is no less surprising than 
 that so many inferior ones were admitted. These 
 remarks apply to all the three collections — more 
 indeed to the Welsh and Irish than to the Scotch. 
 Nor were the writers of the songs always to be 
 blamed for their want of success : they had to act 
 on instructions. Thomson had a pathetic devotion 
 to "local colour" ; if Snowdon or Llangollen could 
 only be introduced into a song it might pass for 
 Welsh at once ; while Limerick or Killarney was 
 sufficient to turn a lyric in favour of Ireland. In 
 such manner did he give his orders for a large 
 number of his lyrics. Nor, again, can it be said that 
 he was always justified in the divorcements which 
 he pronounced between old song and old melody. 
 It was a praiseworthy thing, no doubt, to purify the 
 indelicate muse, but the question is whether Thom- 
 son did not carry the process too far. Surely there 
 were others to be considered besides his "fair 
 countrywomen." But what does it all matter now? 
 The law of the survival of the fittest has proved 
 itself here : what of good Thomson was the means 
 of producing has passed into the national song ; 
 what was worthless is sunk in mere oblivion. 
 
 Thomson's researches for his collection of 
 Scottish (with Irish) melodies naturally led him 
 to think of the Welsh airs too. In the matter 
 of date the Welsh collection comes next to the 
 Scottish. It was published in three volumes (vol.
 
 COLLECTIONS 
 
 123 
 
 i., 1809; vol. ii., 181 1 ; vol. iii., 1814), under the 
 title of "A Select Collection of Original Welsh 
 Airs adapted for the voice, united to characteristic 
 English poetry never before published, with intro- 
 ductory and concluding symphonies and accom- 
 paniments for the pianoforte or harp, violin or 
 violoncello." The first volume, Thomson explains 
 to Lady Cunliffe in 1808, would have been pub- 
 lished long before but for the circumstance that 
 he decided at the last moment to have an accom- 
 paniment for the harp. He says : 
 
 After I got all my airs harmonised for the voice and 
 pianoforte I began to think my work would be incom- 
 plete if none of the airs had an accompaniment for the 
 pedal harp, moie particularly as the Welsh music has 
 all along been played on the harp. The more I thought 
 of this, and of the gradual progress which the pedal 
 harp is making, I became more convinced of my own 
 error in getting the whole airs done for the pianoforte ; 
 and in short I sent one half of the airs again to Vienna 
 to be done anew for the harp. But for this you would 
 have seen the first volume long ago ; and from the many 
 inquiries after it I believe its non-appearance has been 
 a great loss to me. I fiatter myself, however, that in the 
 end I shall be no loser, as the work will now be rendered 
 equally interesting to singers, to pianoforte-players, and 
 to harp-players. 
 
 The first volume was published at a guinea. 
 the second and third at fifteen shillings,^ all subse- 
 quently reduced to half-a-guinea. Each volume 
 
 ' At least this is the (printed) price on the title-pag-es of the only 
 copies of the second and third volumes which I have I)een able to see.
 
 124 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 contained thirty airs, and there were the usual 
 " embellishments." The accompaniments were 
 divided between Beethoven, Haydn, and Kozeluch, 
 three airs in the second volume being furnished 
 with duplicate accompaniments by the two last- 
 named composers. 
 
 Thomson flattered himself that the Welsh 
 public would give him credit " for the high affini- 
 ties which, with incredible trouble," he had procured 
 for their national melodies, "the value of which is 
 now increased a hundred-fold." But the Welsh 
 were no more impressed with the importance of 
 Thomson's labours on their behalf than were the 
 Irish in connection with //lezr national airs. They 
 seem to have freely purchased the first volume of 
 the collection, for in 1 8 1 2 Thomson is able to 
 say that some six hundred copies of that volume 
 have so far been sold. But the sale did not con- 
 tinue. Early in 18 14 Thomson remarks hope- 
 fully that "the Welsh work has not yet got into 
 general circulation, but the great merit both of 
 the poetry and the music must sooner or later 
 bring it into the public favour all over the king- 
 dom." A little later, and his hope has given 
 way to something like black despair. Writing to 
 Professor Smyth, he says : 
 
 I cannot tell you how much I have been mortified 
 and surprised at the little notice my Welsh work has 
 obtained. One would think that the Cambrians would 
 be proud and fond of their native melodies when pre- 
 sented to them in a form so infinitely more interesting 
 than before, more particularly when united to poetry
 
 COLLECTIONS 
 
 125 
 
 that makes all their hills and valleys vocal, and joined 
 to accompaniments by the greatest master that Europe 
 has produced. It will be prized as it deserves sone 
 time^ but I fear not till my copyright has expired, and 
 thus all my anxious exertions and all my expense are to 
 me fruitless. 
 
 Fruitless, indeed, I fear they proved, in an ar- 
 tistic as well as in a pecuniary sense. Even in 
 181 1, when only the first two volumes had been 
 published, we have found Thomson ne(j;"otiating for 
 the sale of the stock and copyright. He makes an 
 offer to Preston in 181 2. He feels certain that "the 
 reputation of the work must rise very high in ;i 
 short time," and he would not think oi selling- had 
 he "the command of money" — were he not in fact 
 "distressed for cash." The expense actually laid 
 out by him "in journeying to collect the melodies,^ 
 in obtaining the symphonies and accompaniments, 
 the poetry, the designs for frontispieces and for 
 engraving those designs, the music plates, titles and 
 other incidents, amounts to ^252 for each volume ; ' 
 and although he does in his conscience "think 
 each volume worth thrice the origfinal cost to anv 
 established music-seller in London," yet, as he is 
 "exceedingly in want of money," he will part with 
 copyright, stock, and plates of both volumes for 
 ^500. In other circumstances "no consideration 
 on earth would induce him to resign such a pro- 
 perty." Preston declined to purchase, and an appli- 
 cation to Messrs, Clementi also proved unsuccesslul. 
 
 ' He sets down the cost of his "journc;.- ' at }^r-,o.
 
 126 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 "on account of the difficulty of the times." Two 
 years passed and Preston was tried again. By this 
 time the cost of the third volume could be estimated, 
 and Thomson puts the amount at ^290, making a 
 total of ^794 for the three volumes.^ His price 
 now for the two volumes is reduced to ^300 ; " the 
 third volume you shall have the option of taking or 
 refusing when you see it at ^290." 
 
 No purchaser would, however, so much as look 
 at the Welsh collection, and Thomson meanwhile 
 continued to do the best that he could to push its 
 sale. That best was little indeed. In 1839 the 
 sale had "practically ceased"; and in 1847 the 
 copyright, plates, and stock (700 volumes) were 
 being offered for ^100! Even at this price a 
 buyer could not be found ; and at length the col- 
 lection was thrown in with the others at a merely 
 nominal figure. The work, in short, had practically 
 proved a failure. 
 
 The fact is that Thomson was lacking in the 
 requisite qualifications for the editing of a Welsh 
 collection. He did not know the Welsh tongue ; 
 he was imperfectly acquainted with the already 
 existing stores of W^elsh melody ; and in the col- 
 lecting of airs for his work he put himself too much 
 at the mercy of correspondents in Wales, who might 
 or might not be competent to advise him. It is 
 true that he sought some of his material on the 
 spot ; but his method of seeking it was not a safe 
 one, any more than his method of collating it when 
 it had been found. Moreover, he took altogether a 
 
 1 The symphonies and accompaniments cost him, he says, ^^236.
 
 COLLECTIONS 127 
 
 wrong view of his functions as an editor. In the 
 selection of airs for the Scottish collection he had 
 avowedly trusted a good deal to "such of my fair 
 friends as I knew to be most conversant with them." 
 His error in connection with the Welsh work was in 
 another direction. He admits that he often made 
 changes on the Welsh melodies in order that verses 
 might the more easily be fitted to them. This of 
 course detracts greatly from the value of his work 
 as a collection of genuine national airs. The ac- 
 companiments, too, were as ill-suited to the genius 
 of the melodies as were the accompaniments pro- 
 vided for the Scottish collection. The national 
 characteristics of Welsh music are not so strongly 
 marked as those of Scottish music ; but they are 
 sufficiently marked to make a special study of them 
 necessary to the success of an undertaking like 
 Thomson's. If Thomson had been a Welshman, 
 employing Welsh musicians and drawing his songs 
 from purely Welsh sources, he would probably have 
 succeeded. As it was, he spent his money and his 
 time to no end, and then retreated with the petulant 
 and grotesque assertion that "there is scarce a 
 chance that the Welsh collection will ever be 
 rivalled." 
 
 The Irish collection was published in two 
 volumes, each containing thirty airs, the tirsi 
 volume in 1814, the second in 18 16. It bore the 
 title of "A Select Collection of Original Irish Airs 
 for the voice, united to Characteristic I^nglish 
 poetry, written for this work, with symphonies and 
 accompaniments for the pianoforte, violin, and violoii-
 
 128 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 cello, composed by Beethoven." An engraving of 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds' painting of St. Cecilia formed 
 the frontispiece to the first volume.^ The price of 
 each volume was originally one guinea, reduced 
 subsequently to half that sum. 
 
 In the preface to the first volume Thomson 
 explains that he had begun to collect Irish melodies 
 many years before, but had no idea of publishing 
 them in a separate work till Burns made the 
 suggestion and offered to write songs for them."> 
 Encouraged by this promise he "proceeded with 
 alacrity to collect the melodies, and by the kindness 
 of his musical friends ... he acquired a great 
 variety of the finest old melodies both in print and 
 in manuscript ; and year after year he has been 
 adding to the number by every means in his power.' 
 He then proceeds to explain that the public would 
 Ions' ag-o have had the work in their hands but for 
 the difficulties which had arisen over the accom- 
 paniments to the airs. Haydn's declining health 
 had obliged him to give up the task, and Beethoven 
 having undertaken it, there followed "years of 
 anxious suspense and teasing disappointment, by 
 the miscarriage of letters and of MSS. owing to the 
 unprecedented dif^culty of communication between 
 Eno-land and Vienna." 
 
 Of course a great deal is said about the "per- 
 fectly original " accompaniments of the magmis 
 Apollo. If Carolan, the Irish bard, could raise 
 his head and hear his own melodies suno- with 
 
 o 
 
 ' The printing and engraving of this plate cost Thomson ^68. 
 ^ See letter to Thomson of September 1793.
 
 COLLECTIONS 
 
 129 
 
 Beethoven's accompaniments, he would idolise the 
 artist who, from his designs, " could produce such 
 exquisitely-coloured and highly-finished pictures." 
 The more critically the music of the collection is 
 examined, the more clearly will it be seen that 
 "extraordinary pains and attention" have been 
 bestowed on it. The whole has been composed 
 con aviore ; and that Beethoven feels conscious of 
 "having rendered the accompaniments worthy of 
 the attention of an enlightened public," may be 
 gathered from the fact that he has announced to 
 the editor his intention of publishing them on the 
 Continent with the verses translated. 
 
 But alas ! even Beethoven was powerless to 
 move the Irish public. They would have none 
 of the collection thus provided for them at "ex- 
 traordinary pains." In 1839 we find Thomson 
 writing to the music-sellers proposing a reduction 
 of the price, "because the demand has been next 
 to nothing." The work, "though wholly the doing 
 of Beethoven, and abounding in his exquisitely- 
 charming fancies, is just about as little known to 
 the public as if it were unpublished." Is it not, 
 he sorrowfully asks, extraordinary that such a work 
 should be lying on the shelf? 
 
 Long before this he had tried to rid himself 
 of the property. Even when the first volume had 
 been published only a few months, he was offering 
 it to Preston for ^200, although it had cost him, 
 according to his own estimate, ^294. Later on 
 he offered to sell it for ^150, and no one could 
 be found to relieve him of it. Of course the 
 
 I
 
 I30 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 main cause of the failure was the rival work of 
 Moore, although something must no doubt be set 
 down to the circumstance that Thomson had no 
 proper means of pushing the sale of the collection 
 in Ireland. Thomson came in time to see that 
 he " had perhaps no right to expect success with 
 Moore's sones agfainst me." But at first he took 
 quite an opposite view. In 1816 he replied to 
 some "minor key prophecy" of Professor Smyth 
 by saying that he had three advantages over 
 Moore : " ist, all good judges of music will prefer 
 my work ; 2nd, if Beethoven come to England \cf. 
 page 322] his compositions will come into fashion ; 
 and 3rd, those who have not purchased Irish 
 melodies and look at their bargain will perceive 
 that my two volumes contain as many melodies as 
 are found in Stevenson's five, and that mine are of 
 course little more than half the price of the latter. 
 Thus, with all thinking people I shall succeed." To 
 the same correspondent he says in another letter : 
 
 Although IMoore's songs are in many instances ad- 
 mirable, and are from their impassioned tone and ex- 
 cessive warmth of colouring likely to be more acceptable 
 than any other to the young and amorous, yet, among 
 persons of taste and feeling for genuine poetry and 
 music I flatter myself that my collection will gradually 
 gain enthusiastic admirers. I do not look for a quick 
 circulation ; it may be a number of years before I get 
 back the expense of printing and paper. But when the 
 work comes to be known, and when a relish for admir- 
 able, original music shall triumph over that for mere 
 insipid commonplace publication, then will it be in 
 general demand.
 
 COLLECTIONS 131 
 
 For Thomson that time never came. The "meagre, 
 commonplace symphonies and accompaniments of 
 Sir John Stevenson," which he so derided, were pre- 
 ferred to his ''admirable and original Beethoven"; 
 and he was left as before to pour out his plaints 
 against a blind and perverse generation. 
 
 In 1822 Thomson published an edition in royal 
 octavo, six volumes, containing a selection from 
 all the three folio collections which have now been 
 dealt with. He conceived the idea of this edition 
 two or three years before, but it took him some 
 time to make up his mind to go on with it. In 
 November 1818 he tells Mr Blackwood that thoucrh 
 he had got the printer's estimate he was really 
 tired of his labours as an editor, and if Blackwood 
 would buy the engraved plates of the illustrations 
 which Thomson had secured from David Allan he 
 would give up the idea of the octavo edition entirely. 
 The parties, however, as we have already learnt, 
 could not come to terms, and the new edition was 
 therefore published. The price, twelve shillings per 
 volume, was afterwards reduced, first to ten shillings 
 and sixpence and then to eight shillings. 
 
 The work, as Thomson wrote to Constable, " con- 
 tains the essence of my ten volumes folio, with the 
 addition of above fifty melodies or songs acquired 
 by me of late, and not in my folio work." He says 
 that his experience of what the public likes and dis- 
 likes has enabled him to improve the collection in 
 every way. He had cut out "such of the melodies 
 in each work as have not caught the public liking" ; 
 and with regard to the sonc^-s, in the Scottish and
 
 132 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 Welsh works particularly, "by omitting some that 
 are but mediocre, and changing others in the broad 
 Scottish dialect which are of a cast rather vulgar, 
 for songs of a better and more elevated character," 
 he had rendered the work more generally accept- 
 able. Young people had now lost " all the partiality 
 of their predecessors for songs in broad Scotch, con- 
 sidering the speaking of the dialect to be vulgar, 
 and accordingly it is scarcely practised except by 
 old-fashioned people and those in low life." There- 
 fore has the editor in this new edition " superseded 
 many of the old Scotch songs." The octavo edition 
 seems to have been moderately successful. It had 
 a large variety of material, it contained a series of 
 pleasing illustrations, and it was issued at a moderate 
 price. But other collections were multiplying on 
 all hands, and by-and-by the Thomson volumes 
 were entirely supplanted, 
 
 Thomson finally sold all his collections in 1849. 
 In that year and for some time before, he was in 
 frequent correspondence with various firms on the 
 subject. He was growing increasingly feeble, and 
 evidently wanted to set his house in order in view 
 of the inevitable. There is no need to go into any 
 detail about the negotiations. It is sufficient to say 
 that the collections — the Scottish (including ih^ Jolly 
 Beggars), Irish, and Welsh, as printed in folio and 
 royal octavo, with all the stock and the plates — were 
 purchased by Mr. George W'^ood, the Edinburgh 
 music-seller, for the very low sum of ^150! No 
 wonder it cost the editor "a struggle to make the 
 sacrifice of parting with these well-beloved works."
 
 COLLECTIONS 133 
 
 They had, according to his own estimate, cost him 
 over ^2000^ in soHd cash, to say nothing of the 
 time and trouble expended on them, and now he 
 sells them for a tenth of that amount. Even at that 
 price the purchaser seems to have made nothing 
 out of the collections," and the books again changed 
 hands, the buyer this time being Mr. John Blockley, 
 of London, who retains them for what they may be 
 worth. 
 
 Of Thomson's other musical publications men- 
 tion need only be made of a set of " Six Grand 
 Sonatas " for the piano by Pleyel, and another set 
 of six "upon a similar plan," by Kozeluch. Certain 
 works by Beethoven will be best noticed in dealing 
 with that composer's correspondence. 
 
 ^ One half of this sum he says he paid to musicians and poets in 
 money and in gifts. 
 
 ^ Mr. James Bertram, the successor of Mr. George Wood, says 
 there was no demand for the collections, " partly, perhaps, because 
 the accompaniments were not strictly Scotch."
 
 THOMSOiN AND BURNS 
 
 It was in September 1792 that Thomson addressed 
 his first letter to Burns. The words of the songs 
 he was choosing for his national collection had now- 
 become the subject of his anxious consideration, 
 and in looking about for these it was only natural 
 that he should begin by applying to the national 
 poet. Burns' fame had been fully established six 
 years before this, and, moreover, he had been for 
 some time contributing to the Musical M^tseuin of 
 Johnson, a work which it was Thomson's honour- 
 able ambition to excel. Nor must we lose sight of 
 the additional circumstance that Thomson had met 
 the poet, and, like others, had been carried away by 
 his eloquence. It has indeed been asserted that 
 this was not the case — that Thomson never set 
 eyes upon Burns. In a letter of his to the poet, 
 dated May 1795, there is the following sentence 
 apropos of David Allan's sketch of "The Cotter's 
 Saturday Night," which Thomson was sending to 
 Burns: "The figure intended for your portrait I 
 think strikingly like you, as far as I can remember 
 the phiz." The inference here is plain enough, 
 namely, that Thomson is speaking of some occasion 
 when he had seen or met the poet. But Mr. Scott 
 Douglas, in printing the letter (vi. 340), appends 
 this footnote : " That is to say, ' As I remember
 
 THOMSON AND BURNS 135 
 
 the phiz in Beugo's engraving from Nasmyth's 
 picture,' for he never saw Burns in the flesh." 
 This is entirely an error. In a letter to Robert 
 Chambers, of date August 1850, discussing the 
 question of a portrait for the edition of Burns 
 which Chambers was then preparing, Thomson 
 says : 
 
 I consider my oil painting of him to be the best 
 extant. It is a duplicate painted by Alexander Xasmyth 
 from the one he painted from the life for the poet's 
 family ; but my duplicate had the peculiar advantage of 
 passing through the hands of my kind and highly- 
 talented friend Sir Henry Raeburn, who, on my solicita- 
 tion, did me the great favour of revising and retouching 
 the face in my own presence, and gave niuch of that 
 lustre to the eyes which I well remember in the living 
 man, and upon which I could not help gazing during the 
 only day I ever had the pleasure of dining in his delight- 
 ful company at Mr. James Simpson's, bookseller. 
 
 If Mr. Scott Doug-las and others followino^ him had 
 been dependent on this hitherto unpublished letter 
 their error would have been excusable. But Thom- 
 son made a like statement in print. In the sixth 
 volume of Hogg's Instructor (1851, p. 409) there 
 is a long letter from his pen, to which he adds the 
 following postscript : " The charms of Burns' con- 
 versation may well make us regret that he was not, 
 like Johnson, attended by a Boswell. I speak from 
 experience, for I once had the delight to dine in a 
 small party with him." The occasicMi of the meet- 
 ing thus referred to must have been during Burns' 
 sojourns in Edinburgh in the winters of i 7S6 and
 
 136 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 1787; for we know that from the time when, on 
 the 24th of March i 788, he turned his back on the 
 capital, the poet never was in it for more than a 
 day's visit. The matter is of no great importance, 
 but it certainly seems advisable to correct the state- 
 ment that Thomson never saw the man with whose 
 name his own has been so intimately connected. 
 It is quite likely that he saw him more than once, 
 for did not Burns occasionally make one of the 
 audience at the concerts in Niddry's Wynd .-^ 
 
 I do not forg-et that there is a letter of Burns to 
 Cunningham dated March 3, 1794, in which Burns 
 says that he is sorry he did not know Thomson 
 when he was in Edinburgh. He proposes that Cun- 
 ningham and Thomson shall meet him half-way 
 durinof the summer at the Bield Inn, where "we 
 will pour out a drink offering before the Lord, and 
 enter into a Solemn League and Covenant, never to 
 be broken nor forgotten." Thomson heard of this 
 " plot " from Cunningham, and on April 1 7 he tells 
 Burns that he hopes the meeting will take place, 
 "but your bacchanalian challenge almost frightens 
 me, for I am a miserably weak drinker." The meet- 
 ing never came off, and so Thomson had not the 
 privilege of a personal acquaintance with Burns. 
 But that is a different thing from saying that he 
 never saw the poet.^ 
 
 ^ This question of Thomson's having or not having seen Burns is a 
 curiously annoying one to the biographer. As these sheets are pass- 
 ing through the press a letter reaches me from Robert Chambers' 
 daughter, Mrs. Annie Dowie, stating that " The great regret of 
 George Thomson's later life was that he and Burns never met."
 
 THOMSON AND BURNS 137 
 
 The correspondence which passed between Burns 
 and Thomson is already well known to students and 
 admirers of the poet, and here it will therefore be 
 necessary to refer only to such portions of it as more 
 closely concern the main subject of this volume. 
 Burns addressed in all fifty-six letters to Thomson, 
 from the first, written in answer to Thomson's 
 application in September 1792, down to the final 
 letter despatched from Brow on the 12th of July 
 1796, when "curst necessity" compelled him to 
 implore Thomson for five pounds. The originals 
 of Burns' letters, as well as of his songs, were 
 purchased by Lord Dalhousie in November 1852 
 at the sale of Thomson's effects. Thomson evi- 
 dently put a high value upon the manuscripts, 
 for in a letter addressed by him to Mr. Nisbet, 
 auctioneer, dated 28th November 1844, in reply to 
 inquiries made concerning the correspondence, he 
 wrote : "I have to acquaint you that I am pos- 
 sessed of all the letters and sones in MS. which 
 
 Mrs. Dowie, being confronted by Thomson's own statements to the 
 contrary, as printed in the text, willingly admits that her memory may 
 be deceiving her. But what are we to make of the following? In a 
 lecture (I have only now seen a copy of it) delivered before a meeting 
 of the Dumfries Antiquarian Society in March 1890 by Mr. J. R. Wilson 
 of Sanquhar, it is asserted that in a letter of Dr. Patrick Neill to Mr. 
 Grierson, one of the secretaries of the Dumfries Mausoleum Com- 
 mittee, this statement occurs : " I had the satisfaction of seeing old 
 George Thomson last week. He tells me he never saw Robert 
 Burns, although he corresponded so much with him, and got him to 
 write some of his finest words for the old Scotch airs.'' If Thomson 
 ever said this to Dr. Neill, I must leave his " shade'' to reconcile his 
 own statements. Neill's letter is dated February 4, 1S50, when 
 Thomson was in his dotage. But then what about the statements of 
 the same year as quoted on p. 13, ?
 
 138 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 our immortal bard wrote for my work. They are 
 all nicely laid down by the artiste paster of the 
 Register House, and elegantly bound in a folio 
 volume. Tell your friend that I hold the bard's 
 letters to be above any price, and will not sell 
 them." This was the identical folio volume pur- 
 chased by Lord Dalhousie. 
 
 The originals of the letters sent by Thomson 
 to Burns are of course not included in the volume. 
 They were obtained from the family after Burns' 
 death, and, as Mr Scott Douglas remarks, perhaps 
 not even Dr. Currie was allowed to see them 
 thereafter. Currie informs his readers that "the 
 whole of this correspondence [as published in 1800] 
 was arranged for the press by Mr. Thomson, and 
 has been printed with little addition or variation." 
 What the term "arranged for the press" precisely 
 signifies we cannot now tell ; but if Thomson did 
 make any alterations in the text of his letters, as 
 Mr. Scott Douglas insinuates, they must have been 
 very slight, and such as in no way materially to 
 affect their main contents. At the same time it 
 is but right to remark that Thomson was not too 
 particular in the matter of textual exactness, even 
 with regard to the letters of Burns. " I presume 
 Dr. Currie will think it right to substitute some 
 other word for sodomy,'' said he in reference to 
 a phrase in the poet's letter to him of September 
 16, 1792. And so Dr. Currie has "prostitution of 
 soul " ! How many more alterations Thomson may 
 have suggested it is impossible to say. Nor does 
 it matter. The Burns letters are now before the
 
 THOMSON AND BURNS 
 
 139 
 
 world exactly as Burns wrote them. For this we 
 are indebted to Mr Scott Douglas, who was for- 
 tunately able to print directly from the autographs 
 in Lord Dalhousie's possession. 
 
 During his own lifetime Thomson suffered 
 keenly from the charge that he had taken an 
 unfair advantage of Burns, in accepting so much 
 from the poet without making him any substantial 
 pecuniary return. The charge still hangs about 
 Thomson's name in a vague sort of way, for in 
 affairs of this kind the dog who has once acquired 
 a bad repute is likely to retain it. The unfortunate 
 editor, as he puts it himself, was assailed, "first 
 anonymously, and afterwards, to my great surprise. 
 by some writers who might have been expected 
 to possess sufficient judgment to see the matter 
 in its true light."' He defended himself, in the 
 words of one of his calumniators, "about once 
 every seven years " ; but it is not until the appear- 
 ance of Professor Wilson's onslaught in the Laiid 
 of Burns (1838) that his correspondence begins 
 to show the full extent of his suffering under the 
 lash. 
 
 Wilson covers some seven pages of quarto in 
 discussing^ the matter. He g-oes into it in oreat 
 detail, and with that tiresome redundancy (^f dictii>ii 
 and "blather" (to use a favourite term of his own) 
 for which he was famous. Quoting from Thom- 
 son's letter of July 1793, written on the occasion 
 of his sending the poet ^5, he prints the phrase 
 "When I find it convenient" in italics, and ex- 
 claims — " A bank-note for five pounds ! In the
 
 140 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 name of the prophet — Figs ! " This is a fair sample 
 of his "criticism." Continuing, he says: "Burns, 
 with a very proper feeHng, retained the trifle, but 
 forbade the repetition of it ; and everybody must 
 see at a glance that such a man could not have 
 done otherwise — for it would have been most de- 
 grading indeed had he shown himself ready to 
 accept a five-pound note when it might happen 
 to suit the convenience of an editor. His domicile 
 was not in Grub Street." Just so! Burns' domicile 
 was never in Grub Street, and that was precisely 
 why from the first he declined to take money from 
 Thomson. 
 
 There is in the correspondence, as I have indi- 
 cated, a great deal of matter regarding this Wilson 
 onslaught. Thomson naturally was somewhat restive 
 under Christopher's "tinkler jaw" (he uses the 
 phrase himself), and he has much to say to various 
 correspondents about the " shamefulness " of thus 
 disturbing an old man's peace of mind. " Anony- 
 mous scribblers," he remarks in one letter, " I have 
 ever disregarded ; but from a gentleman who knows 
 me and what my conduct in life has been I cannot 
 help being annoyed by taunts and censures which I 
 have not at all deserved." He begs the publishers 
 of the Land of Burns to "ask Mr. Wilson, as a 
 gentleman, in my name, what he would have done 
 if he had stood in my situation." And so on. 
 
 It is necessary, or at least advisable, to examine 
 the whole question for ourselves with some minute- 
 ness. From the very outset it was clearly Thom- 
 son's desire and intention to pay Burns. When
 
 THOMSON AND BURNS 141 
 
 he first wrote to him asking his aid on behalf of the 
 new enterprise, he said expressly : 
 
 We shall esteem your poetical assistance a particular 
 favour, besides paying any reasonable price you shall 
 please to demand for it. Profit is quite a secondary 
 consideration with us, and we are resolved to spare 
 neither pains nor expense on the publication. 
 
 This was perfectly clear. But how did Burns 
 receive the suggestion ? Writing to Thomson im- 
 mediately after the receipt of his letter, he declares 
 that the request for assistance will " positively add 
 to my enjoyments in complying with it " ; and he 
 goes on to say that he will enter into the under- 
 taking with such abilities as he possesses, " strained 
 to their utmost exertion by the impulse of en- 
 thusiasm." It is quite apparent that Burns was as 
 anxious to be of use to Thomson as Thomson was 
 to avail himself of his assistance ; and this was the 
 case even after the novelty of the work had begun 
 to wear off "You cannot imagine," says he, writ- 
 ing to Thomson on April 7, 1793 — "you cannot 
 imaorine how much this business has added to my 
 enjoyment. What with my early attachment to 
 ballads, your book and ballad-making are now as 
 completely my hobby as ever fortification was 
 my uncle Toby's." But the poet was still more 
 explicit on the matter. He says : 
 
 As to remuneration, you may think my songs cither 
 above or bcloiu price ; for they shall absolutely be the 
 one or the other. In the honest enthusiasm with which 
 I embark in your undertaking, to talk of money, wages, 
 hire, &c., would be downright sodomy of soul !
 
 142 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 This also was plain enough. He spurned, as 
 even Wilson himself confesses, the gentle and 
 guarded proffer of remuneration in money, and 
 set to work, as he had always done, in the spirit 
 of love, "assured from sweet experience that in- 
 spiration was its own reward." But we do not 
 find that Thomson was anxious to take advantage 
 of the fine independent spirit of the poet as thus 
 exemplified. In Messrs. Henley and Henderson's 
 recent edition of Burns we read (iii. 294) that — 
 "As he says nothing of Burns' admirable gener- 
 osity, it is reasonable to infer that the idea of 
 payment would have been unwelcome to his mind." 
 It is reasonable to infer nothing of the kind. The 
 insinuation is wholly gratuitous. Why should that 
 be unwelcome to Thomson's mind when he came 
 to write a second letter which was so evidently 
 not unwelcome when he wrote his first ? In a 
 communication addressed to Taifs Magazine in 
 1845 he remarks on the very passage quoted above: 
 " Delighted with this frank and ready compliance, 
 but regretting the sturdy, erroneous independence 
 of spirit that led him to decline any recompense 
 for his songs, I deemed it prudent to defer arguing 
 the point with him, hoping that in the course of 
 our correspondence I would get him persuaded to 
 view it more properly." 
 
 So far, indeed, was Thomson from failing to 
 realise his obligation that when his first volume 
 was published, containing six pieces from Burns' 
 pen, he, to quote his own words, " ventured with 
 all delicacy to send the poet a pecuniary present.
 
 THOMSON AND BURNS 143 
 
 notwithstanding what he had said on that subject." 
 On this point the original letter, which is dated 
 I St July 1793, may be quoted. Thomson writes : 
 
 I cannot express how much I am obliged to you 
 for the exquisite new songs you are sending me ; but 
 thanks, my friend, are a poor return for what you have 
 done. As I shall be benefited by the publication you 
 must suffer me to enclose a small mark of my gratitude 
 [ the sum sent was ;^5], and to repeat it afterwards when 
 I find it convenient. Do not return it, for, by Heaven ! 
 if you do, our correspondence is at an end ; and although 
 this would be no loss to you, it would mar the pub- 
 lication which, under your auspices, cannot fail to be 
 respectable and interesting. 
 
 Burns replied to this as one would, after reading 
 his first letter to Thomson, have expected him to 
 reply. This is what he says : 
 
 I assure you, my dear sir, that you truly hurt me with 
 your pecuniary parcel. It degrades me in my own eyes. 
 However, to return it w'ould savour of bombast affecta- 
 tion ; but as to any more traffic of that debtor and creditor 
 kind, I swear by that HONOR which crowns the upright 
 statue of Robert Burns' Integrity — on the least motion 
 of it I will indignantly spurn the by-past transaction, and 
 from that moment commence entire stranger to you ! 
 Burns' character for generosity of sentiment and inde- 
 pendence of mind will, I trust, long outlive any of his 
 w^ants which the cold unfeeling ore can supply ; at least 
 I shall take care that such a character he shall deserve. 
 
 Here, then, was the rock on which Thomson 
 was to be wrecked — the noble pride and independ- 
 ence of a poet who resented a pecuniary gift as
 
 144 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 sincerely as Johnson resented the present of the 
 shoes thoughtfully placed at his door at Oxford. 
 If Burns had not taken this stand, Thomson would 
 have paid him as he paid others of his helpers, and 
 nothing would have been heard of the " penurious- 
 ness " of the hapless editor. And why should Burns 
 have declined to be paid } Proud as he was, it must 
 assuredly have cost him something in the way of 
 self-denial to write the letter last quoted. He was 
 certainly not so poor as he is sometimes represented 
 to have been ; yet, as his biographers have shown, 
 at this very date, that is to say in July 1793, a few 
 pounds would have been of material service to him. 
 It will be readily admitted, as Mr. Wallace remarks 
 (Chambers' Burns, iii. 440), that Burns could never 
 have been comfortable under the burden of even 
 the smallest debt ; yet there is evidence that the 
 trifle (ten shillings) due to Jackson of the Dumfries 
 Journal for advertising the sale of his stock was 
 now, after twenty months, still unpaid. It was 
 discharged on the 12th of July, probably out of 
 the very money transmitted by Thomson. 
 
 All this, however, only brings out in sharper re- 
 lief the highly honourable sentiment which animated 
 him in his dealings with Thomson. Lockhart and 
 others have expressed their surprise at his per- 
 sistent repudiation of the pecuniary indebtedness 
 which Thomson so clearly recognised. They quote 
 Burns as admitting to Carfrae that "the profits of 
 the labours of a man of genius are, I hope, as 
 honourable as any profits whatever " ; and they re- 
 mind us that he made no objections about accepting
 
 THOMSON AND BURNS 145 
 
 hundreds of pounds from Creech on account of his 
 poems. But there was manifestly some difference 
 between accepting the profits of a work pubHshed 
 in the ordinary course of business, and taking money 
 from an enthusiastic amateur, the pecuniary success 
 of whose undertaking must have been feU by Burns 
 to be purely problematical. Even the redoubtable 
 Wilson admits the reasonableness of this view of 
 the case. "Would Robert Burns," he asks in his 
 usual rhetorical fustian, " condescend to receive 
 money for his contributions to a work in honour 
 of Scotland, undertaken by men with whom profit 
 was quite a secondary consideration ? Impossible I " 
 The poet had declined to accept payment from 
 Johnson, and afterwards found his justification in 
 the fact that the Miiseiwi was not a commercial 
 success. Thomson's sanguine temperament foresaw 
 a brighter future for his enterprise, but Burns, who 
 was not without a certain business faculty, may have 
 regarded the venture with less ardent anticipation, 
 and have good-naturedly resolved not to increase the 
 editor's probable losses by accepting any wage. 
 
 The truth is that Burns declined to write delibe- 
 rately for money. He would — in a patriotic under- 
 taking of this kind at any rate — write for love, or not 
 write at all. If his poems brought him a profit — 
 well, they were not written with that profit directly 
 in view ; the pecuniary return was, as it were, but 
 an accident, not affecting in any way the incep- 
 tion of the work. This was practically his view of 
 the matter as expressed to Thomson. It appears 
 that he expressed the same view also to others. In
 
 146 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 a brief memoir of the poet, printed in the Scots 
 Magazine for January 1797, the statement is expH- 
 citly made that he considered it beneath him to 
 be an author by profession. " A friend," says the 
 anonymous writer, "knowing his family to be in 
 great want, urged the propriety and even necessity 
 of publishing a few poems, assuring him of their 
 success, and showing the advantage that would 
 accrue to his family through it. His answer was : 
 'No ; if a friend desires me, and if I'm in the mood 
 for it, I'll write a poem, but I'll be d — d if ever I 
 write for money.'" In short, his songs were to be, 
 as he said, either inv^aluable or of no value. " I do 
 not need your guineas for them : " such, in effect, 
 were his words. 
 
 What, then, in the circumstances was to be 
 expected of Thomson further? He had gone as 
 far with Burns as it was prudent for him to go 
 in the interests of his own enterprise ; and if he 
 now kept silence on the pecuniary question it was 
 certainly not because he failed to realise that he 
 was the debtor of the poet. His correspondence 
 shows very conclusively that it was a matter of 
 conscience with him to pay all his workers, either 
 in cash, or by gifts of various kinds when cash 
 was declined, as it usually was in the case of the 
 poets. His first letters to the eminent musicians 
 whom he engaged on behalf of his collection almost 
 invariably state the terms he is prepared to give, 
 and in some cases these terms are higher than 
 need have been paid for the class of work to be 
 done. Why should it be suggested that he meant
 
 THOMSON AxXD BURNS 147 
 
 to treat Burns in a manner different from his treat- 
 ment of others ? He was assuredly not without 
 his anxieties in the matter of rewarding the poet. 
 In a letter sent to the editor of Tail's Ma(^azine 
 he remarks, apropos of the old Wilson attack : 
 
 The poet continued his pleasant writing. 1 felt 
 anxious to show him my sense of his great liberality, 
 by sending him a few presents such as I thought he 
 could not well refuse. Accordingly 1 got the ingenious 
 artist David Allan to paint for him con aviore the in- 
 teresting scene of family worship from The Cotter's 
 Saturday Night, which he thankfully received. I also 
 sent him a Scoto-Indian shawl for Mrs. Burns, and a 
 gold seal witli his coat of arms engraved on it from 
 his own curious heraldic design. These ccjst me but 
 tive and twenty guineas, and I freely confess were more 
 suited to my means than to the poet's deserts. But if 
 the prosperous critic himself [this of course refers to 
 Wilson] had stood in my situation with a small income 
 and a large family, who knows whether his own largesses 
 would have exceeded mine ? Well did my friends know 
 how gladly I would have tried a race of generosity even 
 with him, if the power had been brother to the will. 
 But Wilson knew me not, as in those evil times an ultra 
 Tory held little communion with a Whig, and he and 
 1 were and are strangers to each other. 
 
 " A small income and a large family." Ves ; thai 
 has to be borne in mind. When at last Thomson 
 had an opportunity of pecuniarily rewarding Burns, 
 in however small a way, he did what was asked 
 of him cheerfully and with alacrity. Burns — ill. 
 and trying to get along on half his salary as an 
 exciseman, threatened bv a lawvcr on account of
 
 148 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 a paltry tailor's bill of ^7, 9s. — wrote in despair 
 to his cousin, James Burness, and to Thomson. 
 He asked ^5 from Thomson, and Thomson sent 
 that sum at once. He has been blamed for not 
 sending more. But let us remember his position 
 at the time. He was only a clerk with a salary 
 of ^100 a year, as I am glad to have been able 
 to show in view of this discussion. Moreover, 
 whatever Thomson expected his collection to be- 
 come, the work was at this time all outlay and 
 all risk. The outlay was undoubtedly beyond his 
 means, and at the most only small sums could so 
 far have come in to cover his large expenditure. 
 That expenditure was growing and came to be 
 enormous, especially on the musical side, so as 
 almost, in the words of Lord Cockburn, to justify 
 Thomson's friends in " impeaching his prudence 
 with having anything to do with it." Wilson 
 affirms in the most dogmatic way that for his 
 outlay " he had been compensated by the profits 
 of the sale of the collection" ; that "these profits 
 had then been considerable and have since been 
 great"; and that for "nearly half a century" the 
 Scottish collection "must have been yielding him 
 a greater annual income than the poet would have 
 enjoyed had he been even a supervisor." This is 
 a gross exaggeration. But even if it were true, it 
 has no bearing upon the particular point at issue. 
 Thomson might have come into a fortune in 1797, 
 but what of that if he were a poor man in 1796, 
 when Burns asked his help ? "I had," he says 
 in one of his letters, " but a small income at the
 
 THOMSON AND BURNS 149 
 
 time I was corresponding with the poet, and was 
 obhged to borrow money from my warm-hearted 
 friend Cunningham to pay part of the large ex- 
 penses of bringing out my work." And again : 
 " Before the time of his [Burns'] death I had 
 published merely half a volume — or twenty-five 
 songs — of my work (six of them of his writing), 
 so that those who supposed or still suppose that 
 I had then made money by my publication are 
 quite mistaken." It should not have been necessary 
 for Thomson to say even this much in his own 
 defence. Yet it is well to have his own statement 
 on the point. Mr. Scott Douglas says (vi. 214) 
 that " whatever was his financial condition about 
 the period of Burns' death, when poverty was made 
 a plea to shelter him from charges of penurious- 
 ness in his dealings with the poet and his family, 
 he certainly soon thereafter attained a prosperous 
 worldly position." Thomson, as we have seen, 
 undoubtedly did in the end reach an easy position 
 in life, but it was assuredly not "soon thereafter." 
 As late as 1S12 we have found him making resolute 
 efforts to sell the stock and copyrights of certain 
 of his collections at an immense sacrifice because, 
 as he expresses it in one letter, he is "distressed 
 for want of cash " ; and there is plenty of evidence 
 to show that the "distress" was not temporary, but 
 extended over a very considerable part of the time 
 when he was foolishly (as his friends believed) 
 wasting his money in making collections for people 
 who did not want them. 
 
 Reniemberino- all this, we cannot fail to see that
 
 150 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 the situation was not one in which Thomson was 
 entitled — the word is used advisedly — to be osten- 
 tatious in his donations, or to pose as the wealthy- 
 patron of this neglected poet. So far, indeed, was 
 he from being in a "prosperous worldly position" 
 that he had actually to borrow the five pounds which 
 he sent to Burns in 1796. Allan Cunningham made 
 the statement in his life of the poet, and Thomson 
 himself repeats it in a letter of June 30, 1843, 
 addressed to Messrs. Blackie, the Glasgow pub- 
 lishers, who were then preparing an edition of 
 Burns, The letter is mainly a rebutment of the 
 Wilson charge. In the course of it, speaking par- 
 ticularly of the ^5 matter, he says : 
 
 Perhaps the professor thinks I was to blame in not 
 sending more than the sum asked. If this has provoked 
 his ire I would merely say that I was not then burdened 
 with money, and had to borrow of a friend the ;^5 I 
 sent. And on consulting two of the poet's most intimate 
 friends whether I should enlarge the sum, they both 
 were of opinion that if I sent more than the poet asked 
 there would be a greater risk of offending than of pleas- 
 ing him in the excited and nervous state in which the 
 altered character of his handwriting showed him to be. 
 What the professor may have chosen to say of me I 
 know not,^ but this I say, that if my conduct in regard to 
 Burns, from beginning to end, be investigated fairly 
 and candidly, with the utmost strictness, I have not the 
 slightest fear of the result. 
 
 ^ Thomson did not himself see Wilson's essay until the summer 
 of 1845, when, "calling on my friend Colonel Burns," he found a copy 
 of the Land of Burns on his table.
 
 THOMSON AND BUKNS 151 
 
 These last words from Thomson's own pen can- 
 not well be bettered by the biographer, and wiih 
 them we may be content to take our leave of the 
 matter. Elsewhere he declares that he loved Burns 
 as a brother, and "would have shared his last 
 shilling with him." In that declaration I believe 
 him to have been thoroughly sincere.
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT 
 THE SONGS 
 
 SIR WALTER SCOTT 
 
 " Song-writing is not Walter Scott's forte ; for 
 once that he succeeds he far more frequently fails." 
 Such was Thomson's declaration to one of his cor- 
 respondents in 1 8 14. Four years later he tells the 
 same correspondent that Scott has "not a jot of 
 the true relish and feeling for elegant music, nor 
 Hogg, nor any other poet on this side of the 
 Tweed." Of course without that relish Scott was 
 deficient in a very necessary qualification as a 
 writer for Thomson's collections ! Unfortunately 
 it took the editor some time to find this out, just as 
 it took him some time to find out that Beethoven as 
 a harmoniser of Scottish melodies was a failure. 
 And yet, even as early as 18 11, he had come to 
 think it necessary to instruct Scott in the art of 
 song- writing. " I need not observe to you," says 
 he, "that each stanza of a national song should be 
 constructed in the same form with the first stanza, 
 and that there should not be the least deviation in 
 regard to the measure or to the situation of the 
 single or double rhymes." Some men would have 
 felt mightily indignant at such attempts to teach
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 153 
 
 them their own trade ; but Scott, with his wonted 
 large-heartedness, and diffident, no doubt, in regard 
 to points partly musical, accepted Thomson's in- 
 struction, and from beginning to end of the corre- 
 spondence showed no signs of impatience. 
 
 The earliest of the extant letters from Scott to 
 Thomson is dated November 1805, but Thomson 
 had been corresponding with him before this, and, 
 of course, the two could see each other at any time, 
 beino" both resident in Edinburofh, There is evi- 
 dence that the idea of asking help from Scott came 
 from Joanna Baillie. Writing to Thomson on Feb- 
 ruary 18, 1805, she says : " I have been very much 
 delighted lately in reading Walter Scott's Lav of 
 the Last Minstrel. I hope you have some assist- 
 ance from him, if he condescends to write songs. 
 He has the true spirit of a poet in him, and long 
 may he flourish." Thomson wrote to Scott soon 
 after he received this. His first letter is dated 
 30th March, when he sends a couple of \\ elsh airs, 
 to be furnished with w^ords. In this letter he begs 
 that Scott will give him leave to mention '' one ex- 
 pression in your ' Dying Bard ' which may, perhaps, 
 be thought objectionable." The expression, it ap- 
 pears, was "glories of shade," which, to Thomson's 
 mind, conveyed incongruous ideas, but which Scott, 
 nevertheless, retained. Thomson had a positive 
 passion for the normal, any divergence froni which 
 thoroughly upset him. But greater men had 
 suffered so before him. Was it not Bentley him- 
 self who could not away with Milton's "No light, 
 but rather darkness visible " .'^
 
 154 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 The following letter, the first of Scott's, is in 
 answer to one of Thomson's not now in existence. 
 The song, as we gather from the next letter, was 
 to celebrate Nelson's recent victory and death at 
 Trafalgar. The letter is dated November 1805 : 
 
 I will be happy to see you in the course of the fore- 
 noon, though I have great diffidence in undertaking the 
 task you propose. Should I be successful, I will ex- 
 change the musical property of the song against a copy 
 of Ducange's Glossary now in Laing's shop, I retaining 
 the literary property, that is the exclusive right of print- 
 ing the words when unconnected with music. The book 
 may be worth about ten or twelve guineas. 
 
 The next letter, dated March 1806, requires no 
 comment further than what is afforded by Thom- 
 son's letter which follows it : 
 
 I am greatly to blame for not having before informed 
 you of what I have myself been long sensible, my total 
 incapacity to compose anything on the subject of Lord 
 Nelson's glorious victory and death that could be in the 
 least serviceable to your elegant collection. I assure you 
 I have not relinquished a task so pleasing to myself with- 
 out repeated attempts to execute it, but what would not 
 even please the author was still less likely to stand any 
 competition with its companions in your selected speci- 
 mens of poetry and music. I have given Mr. Laing 
 directions to transfer the Ducange to another account, 
 but in relinquishing the prize of my intended labours I 
 am much more mortified by my own failure in not pro- 
 ducing anything that could be creditable to myself or 
 agreeable to you. 
 
 Thomson is not dismayed by this letter. He writes
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 155 
 
 on the 1 2th of June to express his regret that 
 Scott has not been able to satisfy himself " in sing- 
 ing of our great naval hero," but he will still pay for 
 the Ducange if the poet will write " two charming 
 songs on any subject." Assured of his compliance, 
 he sends him a couple of Welsh airs, one " The 
 monks of Bangor," the other "The Sheriffs fancy," 
 for which Rogers had been tried the year before. 
 There is another very favourite Welsh air called 
 " Black Sir Harry" (a great captain some centuries 
 ago), for which, if Scott "would be pleased to indite 
 a dozen or sixteen lines only," he would present 
 him with "two beautiful drawings, the one of the 
 Abbey of Dunfermline, the other of Doune Castle, 
 which I am certain you will like." The reply to 
 this is a letter of July 23, 1806. The "enclosed 
 squib " I have been unable to trace. Was it from 
 Scott's own pen ? Thomson in acknowledging it 
 says : "I had seen your squib before, and am glad 
 to possess a copy." Of course "your squib" might 
 mean "the squib you send," but that hardly seems 
 likely. Mr. Andrew Lang suggests to me that 
 Scott probably refers to the Miseries of Human 
 Life (Lockhart, iii. 2) : 
 
 I have not been inattentive to your request, thoii<;h 
 much pressed with business, both literary and t)tficial. 
 I enclose you the beginning of a war song imitated 
 from the Morlachian. It is a fragment, but could easily 
 be completed if you think it will suit the character of the 
 tune called " The Sheriff's fancy." The verses are un- 
 commonly dashing. The massacre of the monks of 
 Bangor suggests a subject, which is always a i^rcat ad-
 
 156 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 vantage. I therefore prefer it to " Black Sir Harry," ^ 
 and will endeavour to send you some verses suited to it 
 before I leave town. In case you have not seen the 
 enclosed squib I beg your acceptance of a copy. It has 
 made much noise in London. 
 
 The fragment of the war-song enclosed in the letter 
 ran as follows : 
 
 What yonder glimmers so white on the mountain, 
 
 Glimmers so white where yon sycamores grow? 
 Is it wild swans around Vaga's fair fountain, 
 
 Or is it a wreath of the wintry snow? 
 Had it been snow glimmers white on the mountain, 
 
 By this it had melted before the bright day ; 
 Had it been swans around Vaga's fair fountain, 
 
 They had stretched their broad pinions and sped them away. 
 It is not then swans round the fountain of Vaga, 
 
 It is not a wreath of the wintry snow ; 
 It is the gay tints of the fierce Asan Aga, 
 
 Glimmering so white where those sycamores grow. 
 
 This is surely poor stuff; one feels that only a 
 quod erat demonst^^andtim is needed to make it 
 a very fair parody of Euclid's ad absurdum method 
 of proof Thomson professed to think it "very 
 fine," promising "great things," though how he 
 could have imaofined that such wire-drawn rhetoric 
 could make a good song passes understanding. 
 Fortunately he discovered that it would not suit 
 the measure of the tune for which it had been 
 intended, and so, untaught by experience, he asks 
 Scott to try another theme, " What," he says, 
 
 ^ " In July 181 1 sent him [Scott] the Welsh air called ' Black Sir 
 Harry,' with a request that he would write a song for it of the same 
 measure with Campbell's song, ' O cherub content,' which I wrote 
 under the air by way of example.'' — Stivimary of a letter to Scott.
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 157 
 
 " would you think of an ode to rural happiness 
 in compliment to the fair recluses, Lady Butler 
 and Lady Ponsonby, whose cottage forms one of 
 the charms of Llangollen Vale ? I conceive that 
 you could write a charming song on this subject." 
 Thomson, no doubt, had seen the "fair recluses" 
 in the course of his Welsh ramble, as De Ouincey 
 saw them later on {Co7i/essio7ts, 1856, p. 121). 
 The ladies lived for some fifty years in seclusion ; 
 portraits of them and their cottage are often met 
 with. What Scott said to the suggestion of a song 
 on this theme we do not know. 
 
 There is evidently a letter of Thomson's missing 
 between the date of this (July 24, 1806) and the 
 following letter of Scott's, dated in October. The 
 two songs now sent were " When the heathen 
 trumpets clang" (for "The monks of Bangor's 
 march") and "On Ettrick Forest's mountains dun,"' 
 written, as Thomson notes, "after a week's shoot- 
 ing and fishing in which the poet had been en- 
 gaged with some friends." Both songs are, in some 
 editions of Scott's works, erroneously dated several 
 years later : 
 
 Be so good as to receive fair copies of the two songs. 
 You will see I have attended to your criticisms in mi^st 
 instances, and I have added another stanza to " The 
 monks of Bangor." I have also altered, and 1 think 
 improved, "The Sheriff's fancy," and beg you will be so 
 kind as to destroy the foul copy which you have. I 
 think I have made as much of both as I can do at 
 present, but I would like to see them in the proof copy 
 in case any minute alterations may yet occur ti^ me, antl
 
 158 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 also to ensure their being correctly printed. I hope they 
 will answer your wishes. . . . 
 
 My critical friends think "The monks" improve by 
 wanting the double rhymes. I will take care to give no 
 copies. 
 
 After this the correspondence drops until 1809, 
 when it is resumed by a letter of November 14 
 from Thomson. This time he sends Scott a couple 
 of Irish airs, and not feeling himself entitled to ask 
 songs for them " without endeavouring to make you 
 a recompense," he begs leave to offer "a suit of 
 damask table linen, which, on account of its superior 
 excellence, both in the design and the fabric, has 
 this day obtained to the manufacturer one of the 
 highest premiums given by the Board of Trustees." 
 The damask accompanies the letter. Two days 
 afterwards Scott writes from Castle Street : 
 
 1 will readily try the melodies, although the guerdon 
 is far beyond the value of anything 1 can hope to pro- 
 duce. ]\Irs. Scott having once set eyes upon it, I am 
 :ifraid 1 have no choice left but to do the best I can. As 
 that best may be indifferent I make vou welcome, with 
 the Ballantynes' consent, which I daresay you can obtain, 
 to use in your publication a hunting song ["Waken I 
 lords and ladies gay"]^ and some verses called "The 
 \'iolet," which I gave them for a little miscellany which 
 J. Ballantyne is now printing. 
 
 Nearly eighteen months passed before Scott did 
 anvthino- further in return for his " euerdon." 
 Thomson had sent him the airs, with the remark 
 
 ^ This was set by Thomson to the air " The Sheriffs fancy," in 
 the 3rd vol. of the Welsh collection.
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 159 
 
 that he would "wilHngly wait the muse's leisure," 
 for he would not withdraw her attention from more 
 pressing and important subjects. But the muse's 
 leisure did not accord with the editor's convenience, 
 and Thomson had twice to remind Scott of the 
 promise before meeting with any practical result. 
 The following letter, dated April 30, 181 1, accom- 
 panies the verses on "The British light dragoon," 
 which Scott (see also his next letter) at first desired 
 to be anonymous : 
 
 The preceding page contains a few tawdry stanzas to 
 one of the airs you recommended, which I indited yester- 
 day at Bank House on my journey here. The words 
 begin ''There was an ancient fair," and an old news- 
 paper which I found in the inn suggested the application 
 of the tune to the late splendid exploits of our horse 
 near Campo Mayor, for which the burthen is very well 
 adapted. As I intend to send you two songs besides, I 
 think it will be unnecessary to pretix my name to this 
 little rough effusion, which can have no effect unless 
 when sung, and which I have studiously kept thin of 
 poetry in hopes of giving it a martial and popular cast. 
 Let me know if you like the lines, and if you think them 
 quite adapted for so elegant a publication as yours. I 
 will send you "The bed in the barn " to-morrow, or next 
 day at furthest. 
 
 Sir Alexander Boswell was shortly afterwards 
 (August 17, 181 1 ) applied to successfully for words 
 to " The bed in the barn," so that Scott's song- 
 was evidently regarded as unsuitable for the tune. 
 Scott, as will be seen from a subsequent letter, 
 confesses to not having "a particle o( poetical 
 humour" in his composition, and doubtless Thomson
 
 i6o GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 found that in this case he had failed to meet the sup- 
 posed requirements of the air. 
 
 The following letter, dated May 1811, is not 
 altogether explained by extant letters of Thomson. 
 Of course there would be meetings between editor 
 and contributor which would sometimes obviate the 
 necessity of written communications on one side or 
 the other. As to " Chirke Castle," for which Mrs. 
 Hunter provided words, Thomson had written to 
 Scott on the 15th of April : " I should be very glad 
 if you would write a song for the Welsh air, ' The 
 minstrelsy of Chirke Castle,' which is but poorly 
 provided with verses." 
 
 I return the song. The lines cannot be better cut 
 down than you have done it yourself, but in the pattern 
 sent there were eight syllables, not six. Observe — 
 
 12345678 
 Her quiz • zing glass and dia - mond ring. 
 
 Right by all the rules of Cocker. I only mention this in 
 vindication of my own accuracy, for I counted both the 
 lines and notes. It does not make the least difference in 
 the sense. As to giving a copy, I never had one except 
 that which I sent to you, so that I should be sure to 
 observe your caution. I sent you "The bed in the 
 barn " the other day, thinking it was in the greatest 
 hurry. I like the melody of " Chirke Castle " and the 
 stanza very well, but the name Chirke is enough to put 
 the whole world's teeth on edge. I don't mean to 
 observe any secret about " The light dragoon," only 
 it's not just the sort of thing that one solemnly puts 
 their [jzV] name to. I will send the " minstrelsy " [of 
 Chirke Castle] to-morrow or next day. Why was it not 
 the minstrelsy of Kilgarvon or Conway ?
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS i6i 
 
 Meanwhile, on the 23rd of May, Thomson had 
 again tried Scott with more melodies. One was 
 "the Highland air called by Gow • Lord Balgonie's 
 favourite ' " ; another was a Scottish air which was 
 to have a song "on the subject of the massacre of 
 Glencoe, to the measure of ' Hohenlinden.' " The 
 first, it will be seen, he was willing to try ; the 
 second he accomplished very successfully in his 
 "Oh tell me, harper," published in the sixth volume 
 of Thomson's collection. Scott now writes from 
 Ashestiel : 
 
 I am not sorry " Lord Langley " 1 does not answer, 
 for I am certain I can make a pretty tale of it by 
 taking it out of its strait jacket. I believe you will 
 find few if any lines in it whicii exceed seven syllables, 
 which was all I looked to or really understand anything 
 about. It is impossible for me to attempt this tune 
 again, not having any idea of what words would suit it, 
 and being, moreover, incompetent to anything requiring 
 liveliness and jollity. I have not a particle of poetical 
 humour in my composition. A military or romantic 
 song I may get at, but there I stop. I will therefore far 
 rather try the Highland air, and as I shall be in town on 
 Monday, when I can have the advantage of hearing you 
 sing it, I will be in less danger of repeating my errors. I 
 am very sorry for your disappointment, and willing to do 
 my best to repair it, but you are sensible you have only 
 my eyes to trust to ; ears an fait dc ))insiquc I have none. 
 
 Thomson frequently suggests that Scott should hear 
 him sing over the airs for which he wished to have 
 
 1 This must refer to "The bed in the barn," which requires lines 
 of seven syllables. 
 
 L
 
 1 62 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 words, and no doubt there were many meetings at 
 Castle Street for that purpose. 
 
 Scott's next letter simply assures Thomson that 
 only " very particular and pressing business of my 
 own, as well as the necessity of attending the 
 circuit," have prevented him from getting the re- 
 quired songs ready, but he goes to Ashestiel on 
 Monday, and hopes then to be at leisure to fulfil 
 all his engagements. In July (1811) he writes to 
 Thomson from Edinburgh : 
 
 After repeated trials, I can make nothing of " Chirke 
 Castle " that would be in the least satisfactory. The 
 recurrence of the eternal double rhymes and the short 
 structure of the verse renders it unfit (at least in my 
 hands) for anything very pretty, and I am really more 
 jealous of these Httle things than of long poems. I am 
 much better pleased with " Glencoe," which I have 
 finished in the rough. The death of the two great men 
 who made part of the social company at Mr. Wauchope's 
 the last time we met has broken two strings of my heart. 
 I will send you " Glencoe " the instant I have got this 
 damned Spaniard, whose national sloth is infectious, 
 out of my hands. He is now almost finished.^ 
 
 Early in November Scott sends " Glencoe," re- 
 marking that if Thomson likes it generally he 
 can probably improve it in correction. It may be 
 
 ' This refers to TJie Visio7i of Don Kodoick, published in July. The 
 death of the " two great men "' was mentioned by Scott in the original 
 preface to the poem as an event which had "cruelly interrupted his 
 task." One was his friend the Lord President of the Court of 
 Session (Blair), the other his early patron, Henry Dundas, Viscount 
 Melville.
 
 CORRESPOXDEXCE ABOUT THE SONGS 163 
 
 as well to quote what Thomson says about the 
 song. He writes on November 24 : 
 
 I have read "Glencoe," with which I am perfectly 
 delighted. It is a most admirable composition, and will 
 do you immortal honour. 1 Ccinnot express the satisfac- 
 tion I shall have in uniting it to music, and giving it to 
 the world. Will you pardon me if I ask vou to recon- 
 sider the second line oi the second stanza — 
 
 The mist-wreath has the mountain crest. 
 
 Is not this rather obscure ? The last line of the same 
 stanza, too, might be improved : " Faithless butcherv " is 
 not a happy expression. Probably these lines were in 
 your view, as you speak of making some corrections, 
 though I do not think you have left much to do in that 
 way, for in every stanza I hnd great vigour, a high 
 strain of poetry, and the happiest choice of words. 
 Nothing could be more sublime than the burst of indig- 
 nation with which the harper concludes. 
 
 It would be good for the music if you could throw 
 the emphasis upon the second syllable of the third line 
 of the first stanza, as you have done to the same syllable 
 in each third line of the other stanzas. Instead of 
 ''down," if you were to write *' adown," and then take a 
 word of one syllable for ** bosom," the line would suit 
 the melody perfectly. I know not whether there was 
 a wood in Glencoe ; if there was, the line migiit be : 
 "Adown the dark wood of Glencoe." I am happy to 
 find that you have almost finished the Irish song. When 
 entirely convenient for you to linish it, I siiall be 
 extremely glad to receive it. 
 
 Some of these suggestions, it will be found, were 
 adopted ; others were not. The next letter ol 
 Scott encloses " The return to Ulster," which
 
 164 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 Thomson printed as the first song in his Irish 
 collection : 
 
 I send you Vao. prima ciira of the Irish song, reserving 
 corrections till I know how you like it and how it suits 
 the music. I am apt to write eleven instead of twelve 
 syllables in this measure, which does well enough for 
 metrical rhythm, but not for musical. The foot can 
 easily be supplied where omitted. I am very glad you 
 like "Glencoe." I have retained no copy of either, nor 
 indeed did I even write any foul copy, so that I cannot 
 be teased with requests for copies, which it is often 
 unpleasant to grant and churlish to refuse. 
 
 Thomson writes at once to say that he likes the 
 Irish song extremely. " Every line breathes the 
 delightful enthusiasm of joys that are past in the 
 happiest manner." But he is still unsatisfied with 
 " Glencoe," Scott having paid no heed to one of his 
 former objections. Though there is great propriety 
 and beauty in the question, " Say, harp'st thou to 
 the mists that fiy .'^ " yet, " with the utmost deference 
 to the poet," he doubts "the correctness of the line 
 in the second stanza which personifies the mist, and 
 puts it exactly on the same footing with the stag 
 and the eagle." The line " would be thought 
 obscure by most readers." Taken with its con- 
 text, there is no obscurity whatever in the line, 
 and Scott rightly retained it in spite of Thomson's 
 objections. 
 
 In December (still 181 1) Scott writes enclosing 
 some revised songs, remarking that he will "call 
 one morning to hear the melodies," and adding 
 that " the difficulty with me in song-writing is not
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 165 
 
 to find verses but to get something that is new." 
 After this there is a break in the correspondence 
 until Thomson writes in March 18 13 to beg that 
 Scott will " take up your rapid and delightful pen, 
 and hit off some sixteen or twenty lines," which, 
 it seems, he had verbally promised to supply if 
 Thomson would "wait till after Christmas." The 
 following letter, dated February 18 14, probably 
 refers to the lines in question : 
 
 I beg pardon for not returning the proof, which had 
 really escaped my remembrance. I beg you will erase 
 the verse you dislike ; indeed I think tlie only improve- 
 ment possible would be to erase the whole, being sad 
 trash, and a little out of date into the bargain. 
 
 When Scott WTites next, in December 18 14, it is 
 about the Burns commemoration, reofardine which 
 something has been said in the Life : 
 
 I will attend the commemoration with pleasure if I 
 am not screwed to the chair by a rheumatic complaint 
 which has annoyed me all this winter. I cannot possibly 
 think of taking the chair, having been long a stranger to 
 everything like the conducting public festivity, and feel- 
 ing besides that it would have to some the appearance of 
 conceit, and of coupling myself more nearly with tiie 
 bard than I have the modesty to attempt. I think the 
 person who should be called to the chair is decidedly 
 Auchinleck. His talents for the situation are most un- 
 common, his connection with Burns evident,^ and as a 
 man of fashion and consequence his name will form a 
 guarantee for the respectability of tiie meeting, whereas 
 
 ' One of Sir Alexander's achievements was the erection of the 
 Burns nionuinent on the banks of the Doon.
 
 1 66 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 I am so completely retired from everything approaching 
 to general society that I do not know above four or five 
 of my friends who are likely to attend. Even at a meet- 
 ing of the Speculative Society which I attended on Satur- 
 day I found myself in the midst of strangers. 
 
 I am sorry the benefit ^ turned out so ill, but must 
 relieve Siddons of the blame. He offered Wednesday, 
 but the night happened to be unsuitable to several ladies 
 who proposed to take boxes, to accommodate whom it 
 was changed to Tuesday, and the change, with the time 
 necessary for numerous explanations, &c. &c. &c., run 
 us too short for advertising. I am glad to hear there is 
 some chance of a monument in Edinburgh. A hand- 
 some obelisque in Charlotte's or St Andrew's Square 
 would have a very happy effect. 
 
 By the way, the failure of Burns' play is a sufficient 
 warning to me how little personal influence I can reckon 
 upon in Edinburgh Society, for I have scarce a friend 
 alive whom I did not assail on the occasion. Taking it 
 for granted it will be agreeable for you, I will send your 
 advertisement to Mr. Boswell, and beg him to let you 
 know what he will do for us. . . . 
 
 P.vS". — Since writing the above I have seen Mr. 
 Boswell, and I find there is every prospect of his 
 being in the country at the time proposed. If not, 
 he will attend like myself as an individual, but cannot 
 accept of office. 
 
 There is no further letter from Scott until 1818, 
 but in September 18 16 Thomson writes to him 
 asking words for a Tyrolese melody, and for the 
 air " known by the respectable appellation of ' The 
 
 ^ The "benefit" was given on the 13th for the subscription 
 for raising a national monument to the memory of " Mr. Robert 
 Burns." A sum of ^39, 14s. was reahsed.
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 167 
 
 Highland Watch,'" with which Hogg had already 
 experimented. He goes on : 
 
 In the hope of your kindly consenting to this request, 
 I have got a picture painted purposely for you, such as 
 I think not unworthy of your acceptance, and which I 
 take the liberty to send along with this, trusting that it 
 will be agreeable to you, for I cannot allow myself to 
 intrude upon your precious time without offering an 
 apology more substantial than mere words. 
 
 Scott's next letter, dated 9th March 181 8, has a 
 passing reference to the serious illness with which 
 he was first visited in 181 7. The "long-delayed 
 verses" were his "Sunset" and his "Farewell to 
 the Muse," the latter printed by Thomson with an 
 intimation that it was "written during illness": 
 
 I send you the long-delayed verses to the measure 
 you pointed out. They have been, in truth, written for 
 months, but I hoped always to fmd some subject whicli 
 should smell less of the apoplexy, to use Gil Bias' meta- 
 phor. I had a sincere belief they were the last lines I 
 should ever write, and I am still of the same opinion 
 as to any poem of length. ... I keep "The Maid of 
 Isla" that I may hear it played over, and I will send 
 you some words to it if 1 then like it. It has some local 
 associations, which always makes tiie task light to me. 
 
 As a matter of fact Scott sent "The Maid of 
 Isla " either with this letter or immediately after 
 it. Thomson writes two days later : 
 
 No words of mine can express the gratitude and 
 delight with which I received the three songs you have 
 most obligingly written for me. They prove that your
 
 1 68 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 fancy is still in the vigour of youth, and earnestly do I 
 hope and pray that it may long, very long, continue so, 
 for your own sake, that of your family, and that of the 
 public. Each of the pieces is of a character quite dis- 
 tinct from the other, and each is most lively in its kind. 
 "The Maid of Isla," as a song, may be considered the 
 best of the three, and, indeed, is in every feature a perfect 
 beauty. 
 
 These were the last contributions that Thomson 
 was to receive from Scott. He tried him again 
 in 1821 for a " Jacobitish ballad" to the old Low- 
 land air, "The deuks dang ower my daddie,"^ 
 sending at the same time "a suit of our Scottish 
 damask as a small vindication on my part." But 
 the following letter, dated November 182 1, was the 
 only result. Scott had found another and a more 
 profitable field than poetry. 
 
 I have hung my harp on the willows for ever and 
 a day, and though I feel the most unfeigned reluctance 
 to decline any request of yours, yet I should do you 
 injustice by undertaking what I cannot do either well 
 or easily. Permit me therefore to return your compli- 
 ment. ... I am sure I make you most heartily welcome, 
 so far as I am concerned, to all or any of the verses of 
 which I have been guilty. 
 
 This is the last extant communication of Scott to 
 Thomson. The latter at once proceeded, through 
 James Ballantyne, to ask Constable and Cadell 
 
 1 Thomson afterwards set Scott's " Norah's Vow" to this air. " I 
 cannot deny myself the pleasure of uniting 'Norah's Vow' to that 
 very pretty air, for I have sung them together till I am in raptures 
 with them."' — G. T. to Scott, November 1821.
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 169 
 
 for permission to use five songs from Sir Walter's 
 miscellaneous poems, and the permission was readily 
 granted. When he next writes to Scott it is in 
 July 1822, and in the third person : 
 
 Mr. Thomson's most respectful compliments to Sir 
 Walter Scott, and begs his acceptance of the three first 
 volumes of Mr. Thomson's new collection of Scottish 
 melodies and songs. He is enriching it by as many 
 of Sir Walter's lyrics as he can find suitable airs for, 
 agreeably to Sir Walter's kind permission, having also 
 obtained the concurrence of Constable & Co. There 
 is nothing that gives Mr. Thomson greater pleasure than 
 marrying music to immortal verse, 
 
 Scott wrote altogether eleven songs specially for 
 Thomson's various publications ; of course a number 
 of others were used " by permission." In December 
 1820, when Thomson was likely to suffer from 
 infringements of his copyrights, he sent for Scott's 
 signature a form of assignment for these. In answer 
 to that, Scott wrote : 
 
 I have copied out and enclose the assignment, with 
 the variation that I and my assigns retain the power of 
 publishing these songs in complete collections of my 
 own poetical works, as they have hitherto been inserted 
 on such conditions and could not be left out of future 
 editions without rendering them less perfect. This will 
 not, I apprehend, in the least interfere with the profitable 
 exercise of your right, but may rather aid it as your 
 musical collection is always referred to. . . . 
 
 I hereby certify that eleven of the songs published by 
 Mr. George Thomson of Edinburgh, vizt. four in the fifth 
 volume of his Scottish collection, pages 209, 215, 217, 228, 
 two in the first volume of his Welsh songs, p. 6 and 2=,,
 
 lyo GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 and two in vol. iii., Nos. 62 and 73, and three in the first 
 collection of his Irish songs, p. i, 11, each bearing my 
 name, were written by me for these works, and are 
 hereby declared to be the sole and exclusive property 
 of the said George Thomson for all time coming. Re- 
 serving only to myself and assigns the right of publishing 
 them in complete collected editions of my poems, but 
 on no account in any other form. In testimony whereof 
 I have written and subscribed these presents at Edin- 
 burgh this nineteenth day of December One thousand 
 Eight hundred and twenty. — Walter Scott. 
 
 The only other letter of Thomson to Scott is 
 that of July 1828, already referred to (see page 81), 
 asking an inscription for the Flaxman statue of 
 Burns. The following letter of Scott bears no 
 date, but is numbered by Thomson with those 
 of the year 18 14. Gilbert Burns had applied to 
 Thomson to use his influence in procuring a 
 situation for his son, and Thomson had sought 
 to enlist the aid of Scott : 
 
 I enclose Air. Burns' interesting letter, which of 
 itself forms an apology for not recommending his son 
 to a situation requiring a bold active pushing disposi- 
 tion. The directors look a good deal to their proposed 
 manager for activity in getting orders as well as in 
 collecting their dues, and I do not think the situation 
 like to have suited a young man of a modest and retiring 
 character. The profits depend on a percentage, and 
 are not on the whole such (at least at present) as would 
 render it advisable to forsake a certainty, though mode- 
 rate. I would otherwise have been happy to have served 
 a friend of yours, or above all a nephew of R. Burns, 
 with any influence I might have in the matter.
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 171 
 
 JAMES HOGG 
 
 In the spring of 1815 the Ettrick Shepherd had 
 entered on his tenancy of the farm of Altrive Lake, 
 with a country girl for housekeeper. Two years 
 before, he had suddenly become famous by his 
 Queens Wake ; but glory in his case did not lead 
 to guineas, and as even genius must dine and dress, 
 he turned his thoughts once more from Edinbureh 
 to his native Ettrick. It is at this sta^je of the 
 poet's history that our correspondence opens. Of 
 course Thomson and Hogg would be bosom 
 cronies during the time that Hogg was unsuccess- 
 fully playing the part of man of letters in the 
 capital. 
 
 There is no copy of Thomson's first letter to 
 the tenant of Altrive Lake, but the letter to be 
 quoted presently was no doubt in answer to it. 
 The Shepherd, it will be observed, did not think 
 very highly of his own capabilities as a song-writer, 
 in which capacity nevertheless, and in no other, 
 he seems destined to survive. The song "on the 
 next page" is the first form of "Could this ill 
 warld," the theme of which, according to the poet's 
 daughter and biographer, Mrs, Garden, was the 
 future Mrs. Hogg. The verses have no particu- 
 lar merit; yet Thomson found them "better and 
 better" the oftener he read them, and declared 
 that they would do the writer "everlasting credit." 
 Alas! of how many now - forgotten productions
 
 172 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 did the sanguine editor say the same! Hogg 
 writes : 
 
 There is nothing that is in my power to accompHsh 
 but I will not [sic] cheerfully contribute to your mis- 
 cellany, for besides the esteem which I bear you as a 
 friend and a gentleman, I think your unwearied exertions 
 in rescuing our national airs and songs from oblivion 
 entitle you to the support of every Scottish bard. I 
 am sorry that song-writing is not so much my /orU as 
 one would think it should be, but that which lies within 
 my sphere I can accomplish with the utmost facility, 
 and such are perfectly at your service. But that is not 
 all which I wish to do. I have now collected about 
 twenty ancient border airs which have never yet been 
 published, and which but for me would have been lost 
 to all intents and purposes. Some of these are perfectly 
 beautiful, and may well have a place beside " Cowden 
 Knowes " and " Gala Water." I should like to write 
 words to some of these, and by all means I wish the 
 airs were in your hands or [in the hands of] some 
 gentleman who would make something of them, for 
 if I should die before I see you, these precious relics 
 would infallibly be lost. The song you desire is on 
 the next page. If it were possible to sing " Delvin side," 
 which I somewhat suspect, it would answer it. Adieu, 
 my dear Thomson. Compliments to all friends. I 
 spent a most pleasant day with Scott at Abbotsford 
 on Monday last, and I am to meet him again at Bow 
 Hill, where we are engaged to dine with his Grace on 
 Monday next. 
 
 Thomson received this letter "amidst the bustle 
 of the [musical] festival, while enraptured by the 
 concord of sweet sounds, such as never were before 
 heard on this side the Tweed." It seemed, as he 
 tells Hogg on the 9th of November following, "a
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 173 
 
 foretaste of heaven " ; and in order that the poet 
 may learn what it was Hke, he is sendinjr him a 
 copy of the Cotirant with "a very well written 
 account by our friend Ballantyne, assisted by the 
 minstrel of Kelso, the hindmost fling of whose left 
 heel amused you so much." Having thus dis- 
 burdened himself, Thomson proceeds in "far more 
 humble and simple strains." In other words, he 
 tells Hogg what he must do for him in the way 
 of song-writing. First he wants words for "The 
 Highland Watch," an air "well worthy of the 
 poet's favour." Then there is "the air which 
 you have frequently heard from our friend Robert 
 Miller to Jacobite words, which, though laugh- 
 able enough at the first hearing, will not bear 
 examination, nor suit my collection." This, it 
 may be remarked in passing, was Thomson's 
 opinion of — 
 
 Leeze me on the kilted clans, 
 Bonny laddie. Highland laddie. 
 
 He would, however, have Hogg retain the " Bonny 
 laddie, Highland laddie" refrain, and Hogg did as 
 he was told. " The Haughs o' Cromdale " must 
 also be furnished with new verses. The old 
 story was founded on error, and besides, "if we 
 are to sing of battles, Waterloo is worth ten 
 thousand Cromdales." And lastly there is the 
 air of "Widow, are you waking?" the words of 
 which are of such a character that " any man 
 attempting to sing them in the presence of ladies 
 would probably be turned out of the room."
 
 174 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 This was a pretty large order, but Hogg was 
 always equal to at least an attempt at satisfying 
 his correspondent. What precisely he did in 
 answer to the letter does not immediately appear, 
 for the correspondence is now broken until Thom- 
 son resumes it in November 1817. The opening 
 part of his letter refers to the difficulty which the 
 Shepherd was to encounter with the Highland 
 Society of London — a difficulty mentioned in sub- 
 sequent letters by Hogg himself. The matter is 
 connected with the Jacobite Relics, which, as he 
 explains in the preface, Hogg had collected at the 
 suggestion of the Highland Society, made through 
 Colonel Stuart of Garth. Stuart, as it would 
 seem, had, apparently without the Society's official 
 sanction, promised ^100 for the collection. 
 
 "The very day," says Thomson, "of my re- 
 ceiving yours, which I thought quite to the purpose, 
 I despatched it to Colonel Stuart with a few lines 
 expressing my hope that he and the other members 
 of the Highland Society will think such services 
 as yours cheaply purchased by the sum you de- 
 mand." In this letter Thomson, evidently for- 
 getting that he had done so two years before, 
 encloses the air "The Highland Watch," with a 
 request for new words. Hence the following from 
 Hogg. The idea of "dashing" a song "down on 
 the slate " while the messenger waits is distinctly 
 good, and shows that Hogg did not boast without 
 good reason of his "utmost facility." The produc- 
 tion thus hurriedly called into being was "Old 
 Scotia! wake thy mountain strain," which Thom-
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 175 
 
 son published in the fifth volume of his royal 
 octavo edition. Hogg, writing on November 29, 
 181 7, says : 
 
 The devil's in it if I did not send you a song for 
 that tune nearly two years aj^o, for I see I have the 
 music by me in your hand. I think it was a good song 
 too, but if you have it not, " like the bubble on the 
 fountain, it is gone and for ever." A carrier from Selkirk 
 put your letter into my hand this day, and as I very 
 seldom have an opportunity of communicating with the 
 post this season I have dashed a song down on the slate 
 while he is engaged at his dinner, which I will copy on 
 the other page and send to you. It being so completely 
 off-hand I have not the least guess whether it is good 
 or bad, but if it does not please I can easily make vou 
 another. You may take any of the choruses or all if 
 you choose and amalgamate them into one. I have 
 laughed immoderately at one part of yours. ^ You should 
 take very good care, my dear George, how vou mention 
 such anonymous things in a magazine, and to whom [s!c] 
 you could not possibly have been more unfortunate in 
 your remarks.- I have a great deal that I wish to say to 
 you, but I have neither time nor space. God bless you. 
 
 Thomson must have found the song sent to 
 him "nearly two years ago," for Hogg's next 
 letter is merely a postscript to an altered version 
 
 1 There is no clue to the meaning of this in the copy of Thomson's 
 letter, in which there is certainly nothing to laugh at. immoderately 
 or otherwise. Possibly it was a postscript, which, not being " burli- 
 ness," our business-like editor did not think it worth while to ropy. 
 
 '^ Can this refer to the famous Chaldee Manuscript which appeared 
 in the October Blackwood'^. Hogg said afterwards ; " I am not certain 
 ]3ut that I confessed the matter to Mr. George Thomson in the cour>e 
 of our correspondence before I was aware of its importance.'' -See 
 next letter.
 
 176 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 of "Old Scotia" in Thomson's handwriting. The 
 poet says : 
 
 I send you a corrected copy of the song which came 
 to my hand this day from Yarrow. Send me a card 
 saying if it will do. I think it devilish clever and spirited 
 now when I see it again. It seems that I have uttered 
 with my lips words that are inadvised, of which I knew 
 not the import till I came here, but as only other two 
 in the world know or even suspect, I beg for the sake 
 of my future happiness that it may go with you to 
 the place of all living. The continuation would make 
 you burst your sides. I will give any man a copy who 
 will swear secrecy for £100. I return to Yarrow this 
 week, and have little chance to see you. Any word 
 further from Col. Stuart ? 
 
 The next letter is also from Hocto-. It is dated 
 17th March 181 8, and accompanies his version of 
 "Highland Laddie" ("Where got ye that siller 
 moon " ?), regarding which he says : " I wrote a few 
 English verses first to-day, which were quite an 
 anomaly, the ' burden ' being so decidedly Scotch. 
 I like the above better, which I send." Thomson 
 replies on the following day (Hogg was in Edin- 
 burgh at this time). He says : 
 
 Your " Highland Laddie," my dear sir, is an admir- 
 able fellow, and I shall have great pleasure in introducing 
 him to the pubHc. In the second stanza you have men- 
 tioned " Bony " and Blucher very happily, but would 
 it not seem rather awkward to leave out the greatest 
 warrior of the three ? You must surely hitch the Duke 
 into the beginning of the third stanza, just after Blucher : 
 I do not mean for any laboured eulogy, but merely in 
 the same easy, en passant way with the other two. . . .
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 
 
 177 
 
 Now, my good friend, I cannot content myself with 
 barely thanking you for these excellent songs of your-> 
 which are to grace my fifth volume. I observed the 
 other day that you have but the small edition of John- 
 son's Dictionary without the illustrations or examples, 
 which last appear to me a sort of necessary of life to 
 a literary man, and especially to a poet. Do me the 
 pleasure, then, to accept of the quarto edition herewith 
 sent, as a mark of my gratitude and esteem. 
 
 Thomson then goes on to show how "the Duke ' 
 may be introduced, and to suggest other alterations 
 on the song. Hogg, at any rate, did not object 
 to Thomson's tinkering — nay, he apparently re- 
 joiced in being able to command the services of 
 so experienced a mender. Witness the following 
 letter, of March 25, 1818 : 
 
 I shall keep the valuable work you have been so kind 
 as to send me this morning as a memorial of friendship, 
 but I want your name on the title-page. I confess h( )W- 
 ever that I felt a little distressed at receiving it, for I 
 have always valued your friendship and kind attentions 
 so much that nothing gave me greater pleasure than 
 any little chance that occurred of obliging you, not <)nly 
 as my own particular friend, but as the bard's friciicl 
 and the friend of merit in general, and one on who>c 
 experience and good taste I have so perfect a reliance 
 that I find it alwavs out of my power to oppo>e any 
 amendment hinted at, 1 am very jealous of any appear- 
 ance of interest in my friendships. Therefore in future 
 let it always be understood that the more you recjuire 
 of me in my line the m')re you scold me when 1 do not 
 do it to your mind, and the fewer acknowledgments the 
 better. As this song ["Highland Laddie "] is in fact a 
 ballad and no great length, I have added two stanzas 
 
 .M
 
 1 78 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 to-day in order to make it run somewhat smoother, but 
 I will be happy to correspond with you on it any day 
 before Tuesday next, when I leave town for a little. I 
 have not been able to find a better word than " fleering," 
 but I think, should jjw/r " burden" be adopted, "jeering" 
 should be first, for the sake of the first line of the answer. 
 As the Highlander, however, treats the other with a 
 good deal of contempt throughout, I have been trying 
 the song, and I think " Waefu' body, Lawland body," 
 would have rather a good and comic effect in singing 
 it. Pray try it and tell me. I have no copy of the song 
 nor of the other either. I send you always the off-hand 
 copies, and trust to your suggestions for the correcting 
 of them. Grieve ^ assured me you would alter the 
 broken Highland Scotch. I thought so too, but what 
 I had written I had written. 
 
 Again there is a break of three years in the 
 correspondence. When it is resumed, Thomson 
 writes — on the 30th of November 1821 — asking 
 Hogg's permission to use his " Lament of Flora 
 Macdonald," which had appeared in the second 
 series of the Jacobite Relics. This produced the 
 following reply, dated December 14 : 
 
 I received your letter with the music and Margaret's 
 [Mrs. Hogg's] line tablecloth, for which she is much 
 beholden to your kind remembrance. For my part 
 1 am always grieved when you send me any costly 
 presents, because you are a friend whom 1 would always 
 like to oblige, but you will not let me. 1 would have 
 answered your letter off-hand, but I meant to have sent 
 a rough draft of some of the songs you want. I have 
 
 1 No doubt Mr. John Grieve, of Cacra Bank, Ettrick, who was 
 a hatter in Edinburgh. It was Grieve who suggested the writing 
 of The QueetCs Wake.
 
 CORRESPOXDEXCE ABOUT THE SONGS 179 
 
 been trying one, but it does not please me, not being 
 nearly so good as " Donald Macdonald " to the same 
 tune, *'Woo'd and married and a'." Besides, I am not 
 sure of the propriety of making a Highland gathering 
 song to a Lowland air. I shall do my best for all the 
 songs that you want, and as many more as you want. 
 You are as welcome to all that is mine of " Flora Mac- 
 donald's Farewell " as I can make you. Only I must 
 apprise you that young Mr Gow picked the tune as 
 w^eli as a set of old words perfectly hateful as well a^ 
 shockingly indelicate. I liked the air and wrote the 
 present words for it, keeping the sentiments of the old 
 song in view, and gave him the verses to publish, wiiich 
 he did in a sheet of his (nvn and for his own behoof, 
 so that Mr. Xiel Gow may claim, if he pleases, the whole 
 as his own. You know how little 1 value a string of 
 rhymes, and from the time I gave the manuscript out 
 of my pocket he and I have never once mentioned the 
 song more. I know you would not like to ask his 
 liberty to publish it, and since you are fallen in conceit 
 with it, my own opinion is that you should just publish 
 it, adding the note at the bottom that occurs concerning 
 it in the Relics, and that you have my liberty for 
 publishing it, and then, if Xiel should turn cross about 
 it, he can only scold me a little, and he knows I do ntU 
 mind such things much. All the other songs of mine 
 either printed or unprinted, engraved or stereotyped, 
 are at your service. 1 have written a new tritie that 
 1 like to hear sung exceedingly to the tune of " TIk- 
 Bjladrie o't," to which 1 have subjoined a second part 
 to suit my chorus. I wish you would publish it, for 
 I tiunk it will take. I don't like the hr>t few lines, Init 
 1 had no other readv.^ Do not send me the fiddle, 
 
 • The " new trifle " was " When the kyc comes hame," which 
 Tliomson wedded to a totally different air from that now associated 
 with the soni;. The "first few lines" which Ho.^^g did not like,
 
 i8o GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 my dear Thomson. Believe me, I have an excellent 
 Cremona, eighty years old, and valued at Xioo. Don't 
 send a German violin here to be utterly put out of 
 countenance.^ The secretary of the Highland Society 
 refuses to pay me my ;^5o. Colonel Stuart with all 
 his goodness and kind intentions has misled me. I 
 conceived I had as good a claim for that money as any 
 I ever won in my life. The proffer was positive, but 
 it seems it has been unauthorised. I think if the 
 Society ultimately refuses [to endorse] - him it is a 
 great disgrace. 
 
 The first result of this letter was a communi- 
 cation to " Mr. Neill Gow, Princes Street, Edin- 
 burgh." This particular "Neill" was not, of 
 course, "the man who played the fiddle weel,'' 
 as the old rhyme has it. He was a grandson of 
 the famous Niel — a son of Nathaniel Gow, to 
 whom Thomson had just written for permission to 
 use his "Caller Herrin'." The junior Niel was 
 a very promising musician, but was cut off in 1823, 
 at the early age of twenty-eight. 
 
 On the 22nd of December (1S2 1), then, Thomson 
 writes to Niel asking if he will allow him to use 
 
 and for which he afterwards substituted the present opening lines,, 
 were as follows : 
 
 Come rove with me, come lo\ e with me, 
 
 And laugh at noble men, 
 I'll tell ye of a secret rare 
 
 That courtiers dinna ken. 
 
 1 Mrs. Garden does not think that Thomson sent the fiddle. The 
 only one she knew her father to possess was the above-mentioned 
 " Cremona.'' 
 
 - The letter is wafered here. Other additions within brackets in 
 subsequent letters are conjectural for the same reason.
 
 CORRESPOXDEXCE ABOUT THE SOXGS i8i 
 
 "Flora Macdonald." He has printed the words, 
 but it has just occurred to him that "as you have 
 printed the song singly, you might perhaps take 
 offence at my publishing it ; if so, I shall, however 
 reluctantly, cancel all the five hundred copies, not- 
 withstanding my having printed the song from the 
 Relics by the author's authority." Gow evidently 
 did not care to give his permission without some- 
 thing of value in return ; for we find Thomson 
 writing to him on Christmas day to offer by way 
 of exchange either a new version of " Charlie is my 
 darling," or a version of "The bonnie house of 
 Airlie," "much preferable to the ordinary ditty on 
 that subject," ^ with authority to publish either 
 singly. Gow consented to the publication of the 
 air — on what terms we do not learn, but apparently, 
 from a reference in the next letter, he held out for 
 his rights. On the 14th of February (1S22) Hogg 
 sends the foUowincr lonof letter : 
 
 I have been absent in the West country for five weeks, 
 but have now returned to my duty, and have sent you 
 
 ' Thomson first published his version of this ballad "from a MS. 
 transinitted to the editor in 1822.'' David \'edder was tried for 
 another version. Writing to him in June 1S31, Thomson says : 
 "The last time I wrote you I submitted 'The bonnie house of Airlie' 
 to you for a new song, long before that house made such a curious 
 display of their political valour, so that your silence could have no 
 reference to the House. But I presume you had such a good opinion 
 of the song already in the work as to be disinclined from writin.i; 
 another. Another poetical friend, after trying his hand upon it, gave 
 it up ; I therefore became cjuite reconciled \o the song as it stood, 
 and have republished it without any cautioner." The version in 
 Thomson's new edition was bv Mrs. Cjrant.
 
 1 82 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 two songs ^ not nearly so good as I could have wished, 
 but I am plagued and disgusted with the measures you 
 bind me to, which are neither hexameter, iambic, nor 
 any measure that ever was heard of. Why in the world 
 should you measure a modern song by the rude strains 
 of a former age which no poetical ear can ever read, 
 however they may suit for singing ? I declare after I 
 have them written I cannot read them over. In "Woo'd 
 and married an a','' the lines in every verse vary from 
 six to nine syllables. Surely it is an easy matter to 
 adapt the air to words of a regular rhythm. Little as I 
 know of music I always do this, and find them answer 
 much better, as in " Donald Macdonald." The other 
 (" My wife's a winsome wee thing ") is worse ; for though 
 regular it is regularly wrong. Every line should have 
 been eight syllables, and every verse has caused me to 
 deprecate your taste. I cannot suffer my name to stand 
 with verses of so [vexatious] irregularity and bad rhythm. 
 If you therefore adopt the songs, please publish them 
 simply as Jacobite songs, leaving the world to find out 
 whether they are old or new. This has a far better 
 effect than saying ^^A Jacobite song by sucJi and such an 
 author." The very idea that perhaps they may be of a 
 former day and written by some sennachie of the clan 
 gives them double interest. I shall set about the others 
 my first leisure day, but I am involved over head and 
 ears in literary promises. I think Niel Gow has behaved 
 in a very selfish, shabby way, and I cannot forgive him. 
 If you would give me as good and as regular tunes as 
 Flora, surely I can write as good songs. Colonel Stuart 
 does me great injustice. I have made a collection which 
 no man on earth could have made but myself, for Scott 
 could not have collected the music. Besides, the High- 
 land Society were not displeased with my work. I have 
 obligations to the contrary, and I am sure there never 
 
 ^ "What ails my heart?" and "The moon was a-waning."
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 183 
 
 was a fairer bargain made between two men on earth 
 than mine for ;^ioo, which you know. I have a great 
 mind to force him to implement his bargain, which 1 
 find he has made without authority. There is no reason 
 why I should be gulled and cheated by everybody in 
 this manner, after all the pains I have taken. 
 
 Thomson has set down no more than a summary 
 of his next letter to Hogg, dated 5th March 1822. 
 That summary may, however, be quoted : 
 
 Letter sent, acknowledging receipt of three songs of 
 his writing, namely a Jacobite ballad called "The three 
 men of Moriston " ; another for the air called "The 
 Wish," beginning "Heave O, upon the tide"; and a 
 third called " The gathering of the Stewarts." Approving 
 much of the Hrst, but proposing to shorten it to seven 
 stanzas, and some slight alterations. Remarking that 
 the second, though possessing considerable merit, re- 
 sembled Dibdin's "Tom Tough" too much, but would 
 do if he could not let me have anything more original.^ 
 Disapproving entirely of " The Stewarts' gathering " in- 
 tended for " My wife's a winsome wee thing." 
 
 Two months later, Lockhart was being asked to 
 supply words for the last-named air, so that if any 
 efforts were made by the Shepherd to patch up his 
 song, they did not please Thomson's taste. 
 
 In the meantime we have the following brief 
 note from Hogg, enclosing the song " Pull away, 
 jolly boys " : 
 
 I wrote the above song to the air you want ele\en 
 years ago. I therefore send you a copy with some 
 
 1 Words by Mrs. Grant were set to this air, so that Hogg's verses 
 were rejected.
 
 184 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 amendments, but if it do not please you I will send you 
 another. I wrote one for " Rattling, roaring Willie " ^ last 
 week, but I have mislaid it, and cannot get it to-day if I 
 should die. 
 
 On the i6th of March (1S22) Thomson has : 
 
 Wrote Mr. Hogg with his song of " The three men 
 of Moriston " altered by me in order to suit the air of 
 ^' Fy, let us a' to the wedding," begging him to consider 
 the alterations and to return the song, revised by him, in 
 its new shape. Approving of his song " Pull away " as 
 hnely suited for the intended air, but mentioning my 
 dislike of "The Camerons' welcome hame." 
 
 Hogg's next letter is written on the back of the 
 altered version, in Thomson's handwriting, of " The 
 three men of Moriston." It is as follows : 
 
 At the first sight I was going to give up the ballad in 
 utter despair, but have once more run slightly over it, 
 leaving you the choice of the new or the old lines as you 
 think meet. That you should disapprove of " Camerons' 
 welcome" I am a little astonished, but not disappointed, 
 as I am very anxious to publish it myself to the same air, 
 and shall let you see it in a month.- I have not a copy, 
 and do not recollect a line of it, but from the impressions 
 I have I fear it is not in my wav to write anything much 
 better. Be sure to return me my copy or another of the 
 same. . . . By-the-bye the name Jervis u)ill not do in 
 "The boat song." It is an anachronism as palpable as 
 if he had sailed with Mark Antony and Cleopatra. 
 
 ^ Mrs. Grant wrote words for this air "in summer 1803, when it 
 was understood that a negotiation for bringing Mr. Pitt again into 
 office had failed." 
 
 - The song, " O strike your harp, my Mar\",'"' was written to the 
 Highland air called " Camerons' welcome hame."'
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 185 
 
 On the 1st of May (1822), and again on the 
 1 8th, Thomson writes asking words for the air of 
 ''We're a' noddin'." "None of the words which 
 have appeared with that air, either here or in 
 London, are at all tolerable, and I would feel quite 
 proud to be enabled by you to give it some genuine 
 hilarity and spirit. If you will be the muse for a 
 joyous and elegant song to the music, the various 
 other ditties which the popularity of the melody 
 has of late elicited will be a' nodding, and soon put 
 to bed for ever." Hogg's reply to this letter is 
 missing, but he must have declined to write for 
 "We're a' noddin','' or his version was regarded 
 as unsatisfactory, for on the 27th of May we find 
 that Lockhart is being tried for words to the air. 
 How many versifiers were applied to on its behalf 
 I am not prepared to say ; in the end the successful 
 man was Allan Cunningham. 
 
 Hogg's next note is a brief one, dated August 
 15, 1829: 
 
 I have sold the copyright of " Cam' ye by Atholc " 
 to Mr. Purdie, so that I have not the power of f^rantinj^ 
 what you should have been so welcome to. f3ut if the 
 hurry of the moors were over I promise to compose 
 you both a better song and a better tune to it than 
 " Prince Charlie." 
 
 The "hurry of the moors" (the 12th of August 
 was always a great day with Hogg) had been over 
 for some time, and still Thomson was without his 
 promised song. And so the editor sends him the air 
 of " My love she's but a lassie yet " to be matched
 
 1 86 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 with words. He remarks: "The more Hght and 
 playful your song is the more appropriate will it be 
 to the music, and I should wish it of that delicate 
 and graceful character which would render it accept- 
 able to female hearers and singers." Thus was 
 produced one of Hogg's best-known songs. In 
 sending it, along with an alternative version, on 
 October 23, 1829, Hogg writes: 
 
 You have fairly puzzled me, for the truth is that I 
 find to make a graceful song to a triple rhyme is utterly 
 impracticable. A double rhyme at the end of every line 
 is bad enough, but still when the emphasis falls on the 
 penultima it is possible to manage it ; when it falls on 
 the one before that, it is not possible. I received your 
 letter with the carrier to-night, and for fear of forgetting 
 a kind old friend I have written you down two songs for 
 the air that you may take your choice of them. Neither 
 are at all good, but I cannot help it, for I can make 
 them no better. There is one of them, were it not that 
 an admired young friend of mine might sing it some- 
 times who has let her enthusiasm in music supersede 
 that in love, might as well be called " George Thomson's 
 
 Annie." It is a shabby useless ^ of a tune. I 
 
 could have made you one ten times better, for which I 
 appeal to Air. Hogarth. When you write to me, what- 
 ever size the letter be you need not be at the pains to 
 pay for it ; only double direct always to me at Mr. 
 Watson's, Candlemaker Row, and it will come free and 
 quicker, for we have two carriers a week from thence 
 and only one from Selkirk on Fridays. I will be in 
 Edinburgh all the All-Hallow fair week, Airs. Hogg 
 and I, when I hope to see you. 
 
 ^ It is impossible to suggest with any certainty the wafer-covered 
 words here.
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 187 
 
 This is the last letter from Hogg in the cor- 
 respondence. "The poet very kind," Thomson 
 has inscribed it. And kind he had certainly 
 been from first to last. 
 
 BYRON 
 
 Thomson's correspondence with Byron opened 
 at a stage of the poet's career when his circum- 
 stances were hardly likely to allow him much 
 time or inclination for the diversion of song- 
 writing. Negotiating with creditors and lawyers 
 about the repair of his " irreparable affairs, " he 
 was, as he declared, sick both of himself and of 
 poetry ; longing to say farewell to England and 
 fiy to the seclusion of " one of the fairest islands 
 of the East." That Thomson did not succeed 
 in drawing anything from the "noble author" 
 need not therefore surprise us. 
 
 His first letter to the poet is dated July 10, 
 1 81 2, a few months after the publication of CJiildc 
 Harold, and is addressed to the care of Murray, 
 then of Fleet Street. Thomson has certain melo- 
 dies in his portfolio which are still unprovided with 
 words, and if he can only prevail on his Lordship 
 to " match them with congenial verses " he will be 
 "the happiest of men." He approaches the poet 
 with "the utmost diffidence,"' and can otter no 
 better apology for his daring "than by declaring 
 the truth, that it proceeds from my admiration ot
 
 1 88 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 the lyrics in Childe Harold's Pilgrimaged He 
 goes on : 
 
 I am filled with apprehension that your Lordship 
 may think me too bold in making my request. Indeed, 
 my courage has repeatedly failed when I sat down with 
 the intention of writing to you, but the solicitude I feel 
 to obtain songs every way worthy of the music has 
 at last overcome my scruples, and I venture to throw 
 myself on your Lordship's liberality and goodness. I 
 might perhaps have been able to procure a friendly 
 recommendation to your Lordship, but I really thought, 
 if you should not be inclined to write for the Muse's 
 sake you would not care to write at all ; and much as I 
 should regret it, I would rather that you rejected my suit 
 than that you were obliged to reject that of a friend. 
 
 Along with the letter Thomson sends a copy of 
 his collection, first " as a tribute to your Lordship 
 for the exquisite pleasure I have had in perusing 
 Childe Harold,'' and second in order to show the 
 poet that his name would "not be discredited" by 
 appearing in the work, 
 
 Byron answered this lackey-like letter through 
 Murray, by whom Thomson was informed that the 
 poet agreed to do something for his collection. On 
 the 22nd of September Thomson accordingly sent 
 Byron five Irish airs for which he desired verses, re- 
 marking that he would afterwards place a couple of 
 Welsh melodies in his view, " if I am favoured with 
 your permission." He adds, in his pedagogic way. 
 pretty much as if he were instructing a tyro in verse : 
 
 I know not whether your Lordship happens to read 
 music, but although you do not, it is in the present case
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 189 
 
 of very little or no consequence, because I have men- 
 tioned what appears to me the general character of each 
 air. Still, I am sensible that the precise character of 
 some airs is not easily defined, and therefore in writing 
 verses for national melodies much latitude is allowed to 
 the poet in choosing the subject or the character of his 
 song. He is fettered only in the measure, which must 
 precisely correspond with the examples. ... I anticipate 
 great pleasure from singing, or rather from my young 
 female friends singing your Lordship's verses. 
 
 Thomson's anticipated pleasure was not to be 
 realised. The first suggestion of a disappoint- 
 ment came to him from Murray. On the 28th of 
 January 18 13 he writes to the pubHsher, now of 
 Albemarle Street : ^ 
 
 I received your very obliging letter of the 23rd inst. 
 When I saw " Byron " upon the outside I tore open the 
 frank with all the eagerness and impatience of a lover ; 
 but what was my disappointment to find instead of the 
 songs, that his Lordship now entertains some doubt 
 whether he should write for the airs I sent, because 
 Mr. Moore wrote verses for the same airs. I flatter 
 myself that, on a very little consideration, his Lordship 
 will not think that this should form any barrier to my 
 wishes. Mr. Moore has furnished verses to Power for 
 the very same airs for which the verses of Burns were 
 previously written and printed in my work. With this 
 I find no fault. Different songs can be perfectly well 
 applied to the same air, and each give delight to the 
 hearers. My work was announced to the public to be 
 in preparation several years before Power thought of his 
 Irish airs. He has no doubt taken the start of me with 
 
 1 "You are removing- to Albemarle Street, I find, and I rejoice that 
 we shall be nearer neighbours." — Letter of Byron to Murray, October 
 23, 1812.
 
 190 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 respect to those airs while I was engaged in bringing out 
 my Scottish and Welsh airs. Yet I am not in the least 
 dismayed ; for though I\Ir. Moore's poetical contributions 
 to Power's Irish airs are highly beautiful, yet the songs 
 written for my works are by poets not less eminent ; 
 while in the musical department my work will be found 
 infinitely superior to anything of the kind existing. 
 
 The same objection to writing words to airs for 
 which Moore had previously furnished verses was 
 made later on by Professor Smyth of Cambridge. 
 Thomson, however, urges upon Murray to apply 
 again to Byron on his behalf ; and in case the poet 
 still hesitates with regard to the airs already in his 
 possession, he sends five melodies which have not 
 appeared in Power's work. The next letter ex- 
 plains itself It is addressed to Murray, and is 
 dated September 2. 18 13. Thomson writes: 
 
 On receipt of your very obliging letter in April, I ven- 
 tured to address Lord Byron again, but having waited 
 thus long not honoured with any reply, I fear that it will 
 be in vain for me any longer to cherish the hope of his 
 writing the songs for me, and that I must now apply else- 
 where. If you are of opinion that I have a chance to get 
 any of them, such is my anxiety that I would still wait ; 
 but if you say that I am not likely to be gratified, I must 
 just reconcile myself to the disappointment. TJie Giaour 
 is an exquisite poem. I am glad to see that our Reviewer 
 has given it the high praise it deserves.^ I find beautiful 
 verses in the Hours of Idleness. From that work and from 
 Childe Harold I have selected three songs which I should 
 be happv to set to music. I mean " Lochnagarr," par- 
 
 ^ The Giaour was pul)lished in the preceding May. The Edlfi- 
 burgh Review had just printed a notice of the poem.
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 191 
 
 ticularly the first three stanzas (for as a soj7g I think it 
 were best to close with the hne " They dwell in the 
 tempests of dark Lochnagarr ")i ; " Oh, had my fate been 
 joined with thine" ; and "The kiss, dear maid, thy lip 
 has left." May I presume to request the favour of your 
 asking whether his Lordship will have the goodness to 
 permit me to unite these songs with characteristic music, 
 which I am sure will delight every hearer. Though it 
 seems to be a general practice among music publishers 
 to take songs from the works of poets without asking 
 leave, yet I have never done so. 
 
 Thomson had not long to wait for an answer to 
 the part of this letter which most concerned him. 
 This time it is the poet himself who writes : 
 
 Sepietnber 10, 1813. 
 
 My dear Sir, — Mr. Murray informs me that you have 
 again addressed him on the subject of some songs which 
 I ought long ago to have contributed. The fact is 1 
 have repeatedly tried since you favoured me with your 
 first letter, and your valuable musical present which 
 accompanied it, without being able to satisfy myself. 
 Judge, then, if I should be able to gratify you or others. 
 A bad song would only disgrace beautiful music. I know 
 that 1 could rhyme for you, but not produce anything 
 worthy of your publication. It is not a species of writing 
 which I undervalue. On the contrary. Burns in your 
 country, and my friend Moore in this, have shown that 
 even their splendid talents may acquire additional repu- 
 tation from this exercise of their powers. You will not 
 wonder that I decline writing after men whom it were 
 difficult to imitate and impossible to equal. I wish you 
 
 ^ Thomson, in printing the song, gives only the first, second, and 
 last verses. He " has not room for the intermediate stanzas of the 
 noble author."
 
 192 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 every success, and I have only declined complying with 
 your request because I would not impede your popu- 
 larity. Believe me, your well-wisher and very obedient 
 servant, Byrox. 
 
 P.S. — You will not suspect me of caprice nor want of 
 inclination. It is true, you may say, I have already made 
 attempts apparently as hazardous ; but believe me I had 
 again and again endeavoured to fulfil my promise with- 
 out success. Nothing but my most decided conviction 
 that both you and I would regret it could have prevented 
 me from long ago contributing to your volume. 
 
 Byron, in short, could not write songs at will — "as 
 you smoke tobacco." No doubt he had honestly 
 tried to fulfil his promise to Thomson, but having 
 missed the first spring — to use his own simile — he 
 could only, like the tiger, go grumbling back to his 
 jungle. But Thomson was not easily repulsed ; and 
 in spite of this refusal, we find him going back to 
 Byron again. On the 24th of August 181 5 he wrote 
 to him as " the most renowned living poet whom 
 England can boast of" : 
 
 I would not, perhaps, have mustered courage enough 
 to take the liberty of addressing your Lordship again on 
 the subject of song, but for the recent proofs you have 
 given to the world how pre-eminently you succeed in 
 that species of poetry, the Hebrew songs being diamonds 
 of the first water, of which I have not words to express 
 my admiration. 1 Let me earnestly beseech your Lord- 
 
 ^ The Hebrew Melodies were written in the previous year, and 
 published with the music arranged by Braham & Nathan. In a 
 letter of May 30, 181 5, addressed to Professor Smyth, Thomson says : 
 " My daughter has played and sung all the Hebrew melodies to me 
 more than once. I think very little of the music. With the excep- 
 tion of one or two melodies they do not appear to me at all worthy of
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 193 
 
 ship to think of a few stanzas for the three Welsh 
 melodies which I venture to enclose, with the accom- 
 paniments of Beethoven. If sung and played to you by 
 Lady Byron, or any of your lady friends, I am sure you 
 must be highly pleased with the music. 
 
 Whether Byron was "highly pleased" or not we 
 have no means of knowing. Thomson had pounced 
 upon him at another unfortunate period, and the 
 correspondence now came to an end on both sides. 
 Some months before this — in April 181 5 — Murray 
 wrote to Hogg, who was also pestering Byron, that 
 he must '* make large allowances " for such a man. 
 " Newly married, consider the entire alteration which 
 it has occasioned in his habits and occupations, and 
 the flood of distracting engagements and duties of 
 all kinds which have attended it." In November 
 Byron had to sell his library, and there were nine 
 executions in his house within the year. How could 
 Thomson expect "such a man" to give any atten- 
 tion to his little requests ? 
 
 MOORE 
 
 In Thomson's letter-books a draft communication 
 to Moore appears among the letters of August 1803. 
 but Thomson has marked this "not sent." As a 
 
 Byron's verses. To some of the melodies, indeed, it is scarcely prac- 
 ticable to sing the words with any effect whatever. The latter do not 
 seem to have the least affinity with the former, and their union con- 
 founds measure, rhythm, sense, and everything belonging to a good 
 song. In short, Jew and Christian could not possibly agree worse. 
 'Jephtha's Daughter,' however, is charming, and to my taste worth 
 all the rest."' 
 
 N
 
 194 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 matter of fact, he did not write to the poet until 
 May 1805, when he applied to him for words to a 
 trio of Welsh airs. He begins in his usual apolo- 
 getic style, and with the inevitable compliment : 
 
 I am going to take a liberty for which I do not know 
 how to apologise, except by declaring the truth, that it is 
 in consequence of the very great delight I have received 
 from the perusal of your lyric compositions, which are 
 so exquisitely beautiful as to be far beyond any pane- 
 gyric I could bestow on them. Your musical talents, 
 too, strengthen my inducement to the application I am 
 about to make, and it is my firm persuasion that there is 
 scarcely a person in the kingdom to whom I could with 
 so much propriety urge my request. ... I am truly 
 happy to see that we are very soon to be gratified with 
 a new volume of your lyrics, I look for them with 
 impatience. 
 
 To this letter Moore replies on the i6th of July as 
 follows, writing from Donington Park : 
 
 I feel very much flattered by the application with 
 which you have honoured me, and the idea of being 
 associated in any way with Haydn is too tempting to my 
 vanity to be easily resisted. At present, however, I am 
 so strictly pledged not to divert one moment from the 
 poems I am engaged on, that I fear if you require the 
 songs immediately I can hardly bestow on them all the 
 attention I should wish. But if your publication is not 
 very urgent I know of nothing that would give me 
 more [genuine] ^ pleasure than to contribute the humble 
 efforts of which I am capable to a work so elegant and 
 interesting as that which you are employed on. Pray, 
 
 ^ Word torn away here by the seal.
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 195 
 
 let me know the longest time you can afford me, and I 
 shall then be able to answer you more satisfactorily on 
 the subject. 
 
 I have tried the airs you were so good as to send, 
 and like the two lirst extremely ; the last, to my taste, 
 is not near so pretty, but perhaps it will improve on 
 repetition. 
 
 The cordiality with which you praise the young trifles 
 I have published is of c(3urse very grateful to me, far as 
 I am from agreeing with you in the opinion you so 
 flatteringly express of them. 
 
 Thomson no doubt replied to this letter, but there 
 is nothing further in his correspondence until June 
 1806. He then writes to the poet reminding him 
 of his letter of the previous summer, and express- 
 ing the hope that now his " elegant and delightful 
 volume is before the public," he will fulfil his pro- 
 mise. Some little time before this he had sent 
 Moore a copy of his Scottish collection. The poet 
 had just published his Epistles, Odes, and Poems, 
 and in his next letter, as will be seen, he shows 
 some anxiety to learn what the Edhibiirj^h Review 
 has said of them. Jeffrey, as everybody knows, 
 wrote a hostile notice of the book, condemning its 
 immoral tendency — a notice which eventually led to 
 that "meeting" between author and critic, when 
 the officers of Bow Street, acting on the intorma- 
 tion of one of Moore's friends, interfered before a 
 shot had been fired, and found that there was no 
 bullet in Jeffrey's pistol. Byron satiricalK' referred 
 to the bloodless duel in the Englis/i Jhirds and 
 Scotch Reviewers, and then Moore sent a challenge 
 to kiui ! Certain references in the next and follow-
 
 196 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 ing letters are thus explained. On the i6th of July 
 (1806) Moore writes from St. James's : 
 
 I feel quite ashamed at my not having, long before 
 this, acknowledged the kindness of your very elegant 
 present. I was already well acquainted with the work, 
 but did not possess it among my collection. 
 
 I have been so unfortunate as to lose the airs which 
 you sent me to Donington Park, and I need not tell you 
 how very imperfectly one could expect to write words 
 upon the mere skeleton of metre which you have given 
 me, without knowing and feeling the spirit of the music 
 to which they are to be wedded. It would be like those 
 distant, diplomatic courtships to which poor princes and 
 princesses are doomed. Have the goodness to let me 
 see copies of the airs again, and I shall endeavour to put 
 the best of my humble powers in requisition for them. 
 
 You may send them under cover to Mr. Stokes (with- 
 out directing them to me), and let that be again in another 
 envelope directed to William Fawkener, Esq., Whitehall. 
 And now 1 shall beg of you to do me a favour through 
 the same channel. The Edinbiirgh Review will be pub- 
 lished by the time you receive this, and if you will imme- 
 diately forward me a copy of it under the covers I have 
 mentioned, you will do me a kindness which I shall feel 
 very grateful for. I am obliged to leave London for 
 Ireland about the latter end of next week, and wish to 
 see what your Tribunal says of me before I go. 
 
 I have not time to read what I have written, but hope 
 you will be able to make it out. 
 
 Thomson sent him fresh copies of the airs, with 
 which, as will be seen, he was not greatly charmed. 
 The "particularly flippant and uninteresting" air 
 was " The Lamb's Fold," a vivace melody, which 
 had been set by Haydn for two voices. When he
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 197 
 
 next writes to Thomson, JMoore has " received 
 the Review^ In his " Particulars of my hostile 
 meeting with Mr. Jeffrey in the year 1806 " he says 
 that the " tribunal " did not reach him in London, 
 " for I have a clear recollection of havino- for the 
 first time read the formidable article in my bed one 
 morning at the inn in Worthing where I had taken 
 up my sleeping quarters during my short visit to 
 the Donegals." There is a delightful ingenuous- 
 ness in his manner of intimating a probable visit to 
 Edinburgh, and still more in his guileless reference 
 to Jeffrey, whom he contemplated killing, as *' one 
 of the persons mentioned in the Revieiu." Unluckily 
 for Thomson and the Edinburgh police, Moore had 
 to reach London from Worthing before sending his 
 challenge to the insignificant " person," and mean- 
 while the "identical Jeffrey himself" came to the 
 metropolis. The following letter is dated from 
 27 Bury Street, St. James's, in August : 
 
 I received the airs which you sent me, and shall have 
 much pleasure in writing words to them, though I con- 
 fess I could have wished you had selected some [more 
 attractive] ^ melodies for me. The last air of the three 
 appears to me particularly flippant and uninteresting. I 
 must say, however, that as yet I have played them but 
 once, so that perhaps I may like them better when I iiave 
 become more intimate with them. I have received the 
 Review, and cannot tell at present whether I am indebted 
 to you for sending it, as it was forwarded to me to the 
 country, and 1 have not asked my bookseller whether it 
 was a copy enclosed by you, or the one which he sends 
 
 ^ Part of letter torn away by the seal.
 
 198 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 me regularly. If I am in your debt, however, I have 
 some hopes of being able to repay you in person, as I 
 think it is likely I shall soon visit Edinburgh. I was 
 agreeably disappointed by the article on my volume of 
 Poems. There is all the malignity which I expected, 
 but not half the sting ; and I hope I shall always be lucky 
 enough to have such dull prosing antagonists. Will it 
 be too much trouble for you to answer me a question 
 by return of post ? Does Mr. Jeffrey (one of the persons 
 mentioned in the Review) reside in Edinburgh ; and is 
 he there at present ? You see I make you pay very dear 
 for the nonsense which I intend to write to your music, 
 but I trust you will excuse the liberty which I take. 
 
 It must be admitted that Thomson's patience was 
 sorely tried by the procrastination of his poets. 
 Like Byron, they all seemed to "pall in resolution." 
 Moore was certainly no exception. Thomson 
 waited exactly two years from the date of the above 
 letter, and still he was without the promised verses. 
 Of course there was now very good reason why 
 Moore should not care to give his assistance to the 
 Edinburgh editor. He had (in 1807) begun his 
 Irish Melodies in conjunction with Sir John Steven- 
 son ; and for each of his songs in this collection he 
 was being paid, and continued to be paid, a hundred 
 guineas.-^ Thomson obviously could not compete 
 with such terms, and so he had to give up Moore, 
 as he had later on to give up Byron. On the 
 14th August 1808 he writes again, the press being 
 actually kept waiting for "the songs that you under- 
 took to favour me with." The press might have 
 
 1 The publication went on till 1834, when Moore had drawn from 
 it ;{^i2,8io, or at the rate of ^^500 a year.
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 199 
 
 waited till the Greek Kalends ; and Thomson at last 
 understood that he must look elsewhere. The very 
 next letter in his letter-book is to Mrs, Hunter, 
 entreating her " compassion" on the destitute airs. 
 " He never fulfilled his repeated promise " — such is 
 Thomson's eloquent comment on a little slip which 
 he has tied up with the Moore letters. 
 
 The first volume of the Welsh collection was 
 published in 1809; and in the meantime Thomson, 
 as already indicated, had been anticipated by Moore 
 in the matter of an Irish collection. In a letter to 
 Mrs. Opie, undated, but belonging to the autumn of 
 1809, Thomson says: 
 
 I participate in your admiration of Moore's songs, in 
 which there is much feeling, taste, elegance, and poetic 
 spirit ; and he has a happy talent for blending Anac- 
 reontic and amatory sentiments in his songs which, 
 when chastely coloured,^ give a peculiar charm to this 
 species of composition. When I saw Mr. i\Ioore enter 
 the field I was disposed to retire and leave him in quiet 
 possession of it ; but having collected my materials long 
 before he made his appearance, and got some of the 
 Irish airs admirably harmonised by Haydn, &c., five 
 years ago, I must either go on or lose all the expense 1 
 have already incurred. In my accompaniments I shall 
 be decidedly superior, and I will make every effort in my 
 power to obtain songs worthy of the music. I think 
 highly of your powers ; you can, I have no doubt, pro- 
 duce songs that Moore himself would be proud to own. 
 
 Thomson, as indeed we have already learned, 
 prided himself greatly on this alleged superiority of 
 
 ^ "The colouring, if you please, not too warm"': this is Thomson's 
 instruction to Moore when fust asking verses from him.
 
 200 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 his Irish collection to that of Moore. In a letter 
 written on February 14 to William Smyth he says 
 that "though Mr. Moore's songs (where they are 
 not too voluptuous) are in general highly beautiful, 
 yet in the musical department my work will be 
 found incomparably superior. Hear any of the 
 melodies with the meagre commonplace symphonies 
 and accompaniments of Sir John Stevenson, and 
 then with those of the admirable and original 
 Beethoven, and you will find that it is by no means 
 the same tale twice told, but one infinitely more 
 interesting and elegant to every person having any 
 portion of taste for music." 
 
 All the same, it was matter of much regret to 
 Thomson that he had been unable to secure the 
 services of Moore for himself. " The Irish," he said 
 in 1809, "are famed for their pleasantry and humour, 
 but it is no easy matter to find an original poet 
 among them. We hear of none except Moore." 
 Thomson certainly made no discoveries in that 
 direction. 
 
 THOMAS CAMPBELL 
 
 Campbell, according to Thomson, was " glorious " 
 at song-writing ; therefore the disappointment was 
 all the gfreater at not o-ettinor original sonofs from 
 his pen. The correspondence is in this case prac- 
 tically all on one side ; for while in Thomson's 
 letter-books there are copies of six letters to the 
 poet, there are but two letters from the latter 
 extant. The loss, of course, is not likely to be
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 201 
 
 great, for as Lockhart acutely said, Campbell's 
 genius " seldom animates the page that was meant 
 for a private eye." 
 
 Thomson first writes on the -^ist of August 
 1803, when he asks "from your muse of fire" 
 verses for three or four of his Welsh airs. The 
 application produced a promise, but nothing more. 
 Campbell in fact had the same excuse that Murray 
 made for Byron : he had taken a wife. He tells 
 his correspondent all about it in the following letter 
 of September 29, 1803 : 
 
 I am obliged to use the same apology for this late 
 answer to your agreeable letter of last month as the 
 worldly man made for not becoming a disciple — " I 
 have married a wife ! " &c. The Aiirelian insect has 
 not more ado to poke his little antenna; and forepaws 
 out of the shell, in order to gain his new state of exist- 
 ence, than a poor bachelor has to get out of his celihacy, 
 and flutter about in his wedding suit. The one bursts 
 into light and liberty, but the other ! — It is too soon, 
 however, to moralise before the honeymoon is over. 
 
 By this time, as perhaps Richardson would inform 
 you, I expected to have sojourned among you with my 
 new-made namesake, but some affairs are yet to settle, 
 and I cannot conveniently quit London for a few weeks. 
 I wished to have expressed in person what the living 
 and sincere tongue can more properly express than a 
 feather and a drop of ink can do, the cordial interest 
 I feel in your respectable publication and the pride and 
 pleasure it would afford me to contribute to its success. 
 But to write one verse, when the very mood docs not 
 happen to fall upon me, is, I assure you upon my lionour, 
 more than I can tax my muse withal. I know well that 
 in saying so I run the risk — even with you, who possess 
 the uncatholic quality of candour in a high degree — of
 
 202 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 appearing to speak with affectation. But it is not so. 
 I have twice or thrice in my hfe (perhaps a strait-laced 
 critic would say more than twice or thrice, judging by 
 many a bad line in my pieces) tried to write as a duty. 
 I can only say of the verses I then wrote that they were 
 not good — and in poetry there is no bearing the purga- 
 torial state of mediocrity. ... I have vowed never to 
 write except when I can't help it. One power, however, 
 is still left when we abjure writing as a duty, viz. that 
 of guiding our imaginations, as far as they will be piloted, 
 to the particular object we wish to adopt. 1 do not 
 despair of feeling, at some happy moment, an enthusiasm 
 in the Welsh air — which is indeed a fine strain — that 
 may enable me to give you something worthy of your 
 collection ; but I cannot promise, with any confidence 
 in my own accidental propensity to rhyme, any song 
 that is yet unwritten ; for if I sat on piwpose to write a 
 song, I am sure it would be vapid. . . . 
 
 Thomson waited for nearly two years, and then, 
 on the 1 6th of August 1805, ^e wrote to the poet, 
 now living at Sydenham Common, as follows : 
 
 I received a letter from you about two years ago, 
 in which you was so good as to say that you would try 
 at some future time to supply me with two or three 
 songs for my collection of Welsh airs. As 1 do not 
 know any living poet whose talents exceed yours (and 
 in saying this, sure I do not flatter you) 1 cannot express 
 the satisfaction I should feel if you would do me the 
 favour to grace my work by writing songs for two airs 
 only, and in slightly retouching your song '' O Cherub 
 content," to be joined to another of the airs. Your 
 talents and time, I know, constitute your fortune, and 
 therefore I would not accept of the productions which 
 I am now soliciting without endeavouring to compensate
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 
 
 203 
 
 you for them. . . . Your admirable song, "The Exile 
 of Erin," I think might be united to one of the Welsh 
 airs in my possession. Will you permit me to unite 
 it to the air if I find the match perfectly suitable ? I 
 am very glad to learn that your situation and prospects 
 are comfortable, and that your literary labours are 
 sweetened by domestic happiness. 
 
 Campbell, as may be seen from a letter to Scott 
 printed in Beattie's Life of the poet (ii. 55), had 
 some months before this conceived the idea of "a 
 collection of genuine Irish music and translations 
 from the Irish, adapted as words." The plan was 
 now communicated to Thomson (by way of answer 
 to the above letter, I presume), by whom it was 
 favourably entertained, and through whom the 
 songs were expected to find a sure introduction 
 to popularity. In this enterprise, however, as 
 Beattie tells us, the poet was again discouraged : 
 the ground was already in the way of being occupied 
 by Moore. Campbell therefore resolved to confine 
 himself to a few popular ballads in continuation of 
 those which had previously appeared with his name. 
 But in this plan he was also defeated. In a letter 
 to his friend Mr. John Richardson, the matter is 
 thus referred to : 
 
 I troubled Grahame [of The Sabbatli'\ with a com- 
 mission — to apologise to Thomson for declining his prci- 
 posal of sending him a few songs, both from my present 
 indifferent health, and from a view of publishing some 
 songs myself. 1 am now a little better, but 1 have laid 
 aside for the present my view of publisiiing any songs, 
 and must trouble you also with a conuuis>i()n to Mr. 
 Thomson, saying that I shall be happy to attempt some
 
 204 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 pieces that may suit his music, but that I cannot leave 
 my present avocations ^ without material damage to my 
 pecuniary profits. I am sorry to be obliged to bargain 
 with one so much my friend, but my exertions are 
 limited by inditierent health ; my expenses are heavy ; 
 and numerous as my responsibilities are, my time would 
 be lost in attempting to do anything unless I got such 
 terms as Scott has got from Whyte.- If he can extend 
 the commission to five or six songs, I can set seriously 
 about the task ; if he cannot, it would be a material 
 damage to break my present avocations. You will say 
 this, perhaps, in a more gainly way than I can write it. 
 
 Of course it was impossible for Thomson to pay 
 Campbell the same terms as Scott was being paid, 
 and the correspondence now suffers a break of 
 something like seventeen years. When he next 
 writes — or at any rate when his extant letters show 
 him writing— it is in April 1822, when he regrets 
 very much, "in common with all your old friends in 
 this quarter, that you have so long ceased to appear 
 on the field with the Byrons, Scotts, and Moores. 
 It would," he adds, "be quite refreshing and de- 
 lightful to all poetical readers to see you resume 
 your station among them." Thomson's letter on 
 this occasion is mainly about Campbell's well-known 
 poem, "The Battle of the Baltic." He says: 
 
 Conversing with our good friend James Ballantyne 
 last night, on the subject of song, and expressing my 
 
 ^ These were the Anftals, Biographical Sketches, revision of his 
 Poems, engagements with the Star, and Specimens of Scottish 
 Poetry. — Beatfie's Note. 
 
 ^ An Edinburgh music-seller, who published in 1806 A Collection 
 of Scotch Airs, in 2 vols., edited by Haydn.
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 205 
 
 regret that I had not yet obtained a song worthy of a 
 very fine air, page 181, vol. iv. of my printed collection, 
 he surprised me greatly by telling me that he recollected 
 your "Battle of the Baltic" being originally cast in the 
 precise measure of that air ; and he repeated the first 
 stanza of it, which runs thus : 
 
 Of Nelson and the North 
 Sing the day, sing the day, 
 Of Nelson and the North 
 
 Sing the day. 
 When our haughty foe to vex. 
 He engaged the Danish decks, 
 And with twenty floating wrecks 
 
 Crowned the fray.^ 
 
 Mr. Ballantyne thinks that were he refreshing his 
 memory by a careful perusal of the poem as printed in 
 your works, he could nearly recollect the original form 
 of the song, which was glorious and so admirably suited 
 to the melody that both seemed to have emanated from 
 the same creative power. Now, my good sir, you would 
 confer an inexpressible obligation on me if you will have 
 the kindness to write out the verses yourself and send 
 them to me to be united with the melody, which is 
 harmonised in the most masterly style by Haydn. I 
 have got two or three songs for the music, but none of 
 them satisfy me. Of yours I would be as proud as a 
 courtier can be of a Star and Garter. Let me earnestly 
 beseech you to gratify me. 
 
 It was scarcely likely that Campbell would allow 
 Thomson to revive a version of "The Battle of 
 the Baltic " which had long" been buried as in- 
 ferior. Thomson's literary judgment, as we have 
 
 * Ballantyne's memory was at fault — at least this differs from ihe 
 original draft which Campbell sent to Scott in 1S05.— See L\af/:\\ 
 ii. 42.
 
 2o6 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 seen, was often at fault, but it need not be imputed 
 to him that he failed to recognise how incomparably 
 finer the amended version of the poem was. The 
 earlier form seemed to suit the air better, and on 
 that point he was probably a sound critic. We 
 cannot tell exactly what Campbell said to Thom- 
 son on the matter of his proposed return to the 
 original version of the poem, but that he was 
 decided on the point is clear from a remark in 
 Thomson's next letter. "Of course," says Thom- 
 son, "I do not meddle with 'The Battle of the 
 Baltic,' as I had proposed, since it is not agree- 
 able to you." 
 
 Thomson was, in truth, somewhat unfortunate 
 in the matter of Campbell's songs. "The Spectre 
 Boat " had taken his fancy when it appeared in 
 the New Mo7itkly, and without consulting with 
 the poet in the first instance, he marked it out 
 for his own. Writing to Campbell in October 
 1822, he says : 
 
 I was exceedingly struck by your " Light rued false 
 Ferdinand." It is one of the most lovely things I have 
 ever read, and such a fine theme for music, that I put it 
 into the view of Mr. Graham, an amateur of great genius, 
 and a profound musician. He has set it, I think, with 
 much felicity, and if you will get one of your intelligent 
 musical friends to sing and play it to you, with the feeling 
 and expression of which it is susceptible, I am sure you 
 must be gratified by it. If so, and if you will have the 
 goodness to permit me, I would be proud to insert it in 
 my concluding volume now in the press. I have stopped 
 at the press till you shall do me the favour of dropping 
 a single line to me — Yes or no.
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 207 
 
 This request produced the following letter, written, 
 it may be added, shortly after Campbell had suffered 
 the agony of putting his eldest son under restraint. 
 Beattie does not give it correctly. 
 
 London, 
 
 No. 10 Upper .Seymour .Stref:t West, 
 
 Noi'etuber 12, 1822. 
 
 My deak Sir, — I beg leave to acknowledf^e the receipt 
 of your elegant and tasteful volumes — to thank you for 
 sending them, and to express my satisfaction at seeing 
 my lyrics so well set in your work. It is at the same 
 time, however, a disagreeable drawback on my pleasure 
 to be obliged to acknowledge to you that I am not master 
 of the copyright of the ballad entitled " The Spectre 
 Boat," or of any other wiiich has hitherto appeared in 
 the Neiv MuntJily. The copyright of these, that is the 
 exclusive privilege to set them to music, has been a con- 
 siderable time since disposed of to a publisher who has 
 given them to composers to be set. I assure you I am 
 very sorry that the appearance of ** The Spectre Boat " 
 in your collection is prevented by this circumstance. I 
 have seen my friend Richardson since his arrival in 
 town, and he seems much the better for his pilgrimage 
 among his hospitable friends of the North. Mrs. Richard- 
 son, I lament to say, is still very unwell. 
 
 I remain, my dear Sir, with the greatest respect and 
 regard, your very obliged friend, 
 
 T. C.AMri^KLL. 
 
 The only other letter addressed t<^ Campbell 
 was that in which he applied for an inscription for 
 Flaxman's statue of Burns, after he had been dis- 
 appointed in his hope of securing one from Scott. 
 In 1845, after the poet's death, his friend Mr.
 
 2o8 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 Richardson sent a communication to Thomson 
 which produced the following : 
 
 I could not help being proud of what you tell me our 
 lamented friend Tom Campbell was pleased to say of me 
 as to my connection with Burns, in a letter which you 
 received from him while he was at Munich in 1801, and 
 which had lately come under your notice again when 
 searching for all his letters in your keeping for the use 
 of Dr. Beattie, now writing his biography. The very 
 favourable report of me which you mention, by a man 
 so eminent and known to have been so honest in his 
 opinions as Campbell was, is truly a balm to my mind, 
 wounded as it has lately so wantonly been by the 
 rambling pen of Professor Wilson. 
 
 Campbell ought to have been a very good judge 
 of Thomson's character. He became acquainted 
 with him during his residence in Edinburgh, and 
 no doubt the vexing Burns question was often dis- 
 cussed by the two men when they met. 
 
 JOHN GIBSON LOCKHART 
 
 The correspondence with Scott's biographer is 
 in so imperfect a state that it seems hardly worth 
 touching it. While there are five letters written by 
 Thomson to Lockhart, all in 1822, there are only 
 two letters from Lockhart to Thomson, and both 
 are dated June 1824. One or two little points of 
 interest may, however, be gathered from the frag- 
 ments. Thomson's first letter is dated March 25, 
 1822. He writes :
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 209 
 
 I lately happened to hear Mr. HilH sing a song of 
 your writing, which I so much admired that I would be 
 happy to insert it in a new edition of my national songs 
 now in the press, if you will have the goodness to permit 
 me, and to send me a correct copy. From the ease, 
 elegance, and spirit of the song, I am persuaded it would 
 be a matter of no difficulty for you to indite other good 
 songs ; and as I have two or three fine old melodies that 
 are very poorly matched with verse, I would be much 
 gratified if you will be pleased to pen a few verses for 
 each of them more worthy of the music. 
 
 Lockhart lost no time in replying to this, and next 
 day Thomson writes to thank him for his courtesy 
 in granting permission to use the coveted song, 
 which, as we gather from this note, was that known 
 as "The broad swords of old Scotland."'" As to 
 writing for the melodies Thomson proposed to send 
 him, Lockhart, it appears, could not undertake the 
 task "from his ignorance of music," and Thomson 
 says he will not urge it. But he did urge it. On 
 the 27th of May he writes : 
 
 Our friend Mr. Ballantyne says he is quite certain that 
 you can indite very good songs, and with " The broad 
 swords" before me I cannot entertain the least doul^it of 
 
 ^ Perhaps Peter Hill, Creech's old clerk and one of lUnns' cor- 
 respondents. 
 
 - This song was written by Lockhart to be sung at the mess of the 
 Midlothian Yeomanry, of which he was a member. Of the songs 
 produced for these occasions a collection was printed for private 
 circulation in 1S25, under the title of So/i^s 0/ /Ar J-'t/i/r/wox/i '/'n>,>/>. 
 In this collection "The broad swords" bears date July 1S21. 
 Thomson, with a curiously perverted sense of the fitness of things, ^et 
 the song to the tune of " The roast beef of old England.' It is to be 
 feared that he lacked the saving quality of humour. 
 
 O
 
 2IO GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 it. I would fain persuade you, therefore, to do me the 
 favour to try your hand upon one or two for melodies 
 that are not provided with verses worth singing. In the 
 hope that you may be induced to write for them, I take 
 the liberty to enclose an example of the measure of verse 
 required for "We're a' noddin'" and "My wife's a win- 
 some wee thing." I presume that by means of the 
 examples, and of my remarks concerning each of the 
 melodies, you will be enabled to write for them without 
 reference to the musical notation ; but if after going over 
 the enclosed you should wish to hear the music, I will 
 call and sing it to you any morning that might suit your 
 convenience. 
 
 In this way, as with Scott, did Thomson pro- 
 pose to get over Lockhart's ignorance of music. 
 Whether he carried out his own suggestion does not 
 appear. When he next writes, on June 19, about 
 words for the troublesome melody of " Aikendrum," 
 he sends a copy of the air " that Mrs. Lockhart may 
 play it to you." Thomson, of course, found that 
 Lockhart's Pegasus needed urging like the steeds of 
 his other poets. On the 26th of August he writes 
 to tell the future editor of the Quarterly that the 
 press has been stopped some weeks for his pro- 
 mised songs for the melodies of " Aikendrum " and 
 "We're a' noddin'." He continues : 
 
 Perhaps you might contrive to give a brief sketch of 
 the splendid things we have lately witnessed ^ in a lyric 
 and convivial shape. That wouldt be interesting both to 
 the present and future generations. This were greatly 
 
 1 This refers, no doubt, to the visit of George IV. to Edinburgh 
 during August.
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 211 
 
 to be wished, and we have no tunes better calculated for 
 table-songs than those before mentioned \_i.c. "Nid 
 noddin'" and " Aikendrum"]. 
 
 Even this did not produce the promised verses, 
 and Thomson finds it necessary to write once more 
 — on the 3rd of March 1824. He really would not 
 have troubled Lockhart again, but "the pleasure I 
 have had in a recent perusal of some of your 
 ' Spanish ballads ' has revived my anxious wish to 
 have your verses and your name placed among 
 those of the tuneful bards who have given lasting 
 celebrity to our native melodies." 
 
 At last, in June 1824, there is some response to 
 the editor's many and urgent appeals. Lockhart 
 then writes : 
 
 1 send the two enclosed copies of verses, simply that 
 you may see I have tried. I am quite sensible that they 
 are bad, and in particular that the "Bessy Bell" is 
 abominable, but I can do no better, on this occasion 
 at least. If you should, for want of better, print any 
 of these, I trust you will be careful not to mention my 
 name as connected with it to anybody ivhatcvcr. I have a 
 feeling on this head which I cannot write about. But I 
 hope you will get better elsewhere. 
 
 Lockhart was not really a song-writer, and he had 
 the crood sense to recoofnise the fact. As Mr. 
 Lang remarks, his very nature forbade him to be a 
 lyrist. He never took his poetic work seriously ; 
 he rhymed for his pleasure only, and as he said him- 
 self, neither wished nor prayed for " fame poetic." 
 Thomson, however, although in theory he believed
 
 212 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 that the poet is born, in practice often did a good 
 deal by his importunity towards the making of his 
 singers. As usual he had to suggest alterations to 
 Lockhart, hence the following note, written in the 
 same month. Of course, it must always be re- 
 membered, when considering Thomson's sugges- 
 tions and criticisms, that they very often sprung 
 from a practical difficulty in fitting the words to the 
 music. It is incredible that he should have thought 
 " raging plague," with its irritating assonance, pre- 
 ferable on literary grounds to " pestilence," and the 
 probable explanation of his suggestion is that the 
 music required an accented or at least a prolonged 
 syllable which the third syllable of "pestilence " did 
 not provide. 
 
 Excuse my sending back, to save trouble, your own 
 sheet. 
 
 I think it would spoil it entirely to alter the arrange- 
 ment so far as leaving out the verse you object to (most 
 justly) without giving a substitute. Perhaps this might 
 do. It is at least simple : 
 
 They brought him all their best of cheer — 
 
 Nor malvoisie nor sherries, 
 But water that was cold and clear 
 
 And wilding mountain-berries. 
 
 The alteration of "raging plague" for "pestilence" does 
 not please me. 
 
 The illegible word is " Plague-spot," and it is partly 
 on account of that word that I prefer " pestilence " in 
 the other place. 
 
 This closes the Lockhart correspondence proper. 
 But the name of Scott's biographer comes up after-
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 213 
 
 wards in connection with his Life of Burns, by 
 which, as Thomson puts it, he "again brought into 
 pubHc view the genius, the virtues, and misfortunes 
 of that highly gifted being." The Life was pub- 
 lished early in 1828, and on the 19th of July 
 Thomson yields to "an irresistible impulse" to 
 state to his and the poet's old friend, Mr. John 
 Syme of Ryedale, " what has occurred to me on 
 reading this new Life."' As this letter to Syme is 
 inscribed "Another not much different to J. G. 
 Lockhart, Esq., London," some quotations from it 
 will be in place here. Thomson writes : 
 
 The volume appears to me to be ably written ; and 
 though it cannot be said to contain much new matter, 
 it presents to us a well-arranged detail of the poefs 
 eventful life, a fair estimate of his manly character and 
 extraordinary genius, illustrated by many judicious obser- 
 vations ; and what is to me — and I am sure will be to 
 you and to all the warm admirers of the unfortunate 
 bard — still more gratifying, i\Ir. Lockhart has repelled, 
 by authentic and respectable testimonies, the exagge- 
 rated charges of dissipation and of gross impropriety of 
 conduct which were said to have stained the latter years 
 of the poet. 
 
 Thomson then goes on to remark upon the want 
 of sympathy with tlie poet on the part of critics and 
 reviewers. The Edinhurgii Review in particular 
 displeased him. 
 
 The critic seemed as if he had sat clown to his un- 
 gracious task with a strong prejudice against the poet's 
 private character, and with a sort of aristocratical feel- 
 ing, as if tile pride of tlie scholar could not brook the
 
 214 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 elevated rank attained by the ploughman. He tells us that 
 "the leading vice in Burns' character, and the cardinal 
 deformity indeed of all his productions, was his con- 
 tempt or affectation of contempt for prudence, decency, 
 and regularity." He that could thus characterise the 
 poetry of Burns had surely read it most superficially. 
 If he had gone through it with attention, it seems im- 
 possible that he could have spoken of it in such terms. 
 ... If the critic meant his remark as applicable to the 
 letters of Burns, and not to the poetry, he should have 
 said so. Even the letters would not bear him out in his 
 sweeping characterisation, for many of the poet's letters 
 are undeniably excellent. ... I think that Mr. Lockhart 
 has done much towards correcting the false impression 
 produced respecting Burns' character both by the Edin- 
 burgh and Qtmrtej'ly Reviews. 
 
 Still, there were certain points about Lockhart's 
 Life which, naturally enough, did not altogether 
 satisfy Thomson. It was " unnecessary and not in 
 good taste" for him to recur "so circumstantially 
 to the frailties of Mrs. Burns with the poet in their 
 antenuptial situation." Mrs. Burns had lived "an 
 exemplary life of conjugal and parental affection " ; 
 her " uniform observance of moral, religious, and 
 friendly duties" had "gained her the affection and 
 esteem of all with whom she has been connected," 
 and it was positively cruel of the biographer to 
 " open up wounds which have been closed above 
 thirty years, so likely to give pain to the lonely 
 widow." 
 
 And then, of course, there was Lockhart's 
 unlucky reference to Thomson's pecuniary rela- 
 tions with the poet. This matter has already been 
 disposed of, but the following quotation from the
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 215 
 
 present letter to Syme (and to Lockhart) may be 
 given by way of a final word : 
 
 There is an important fact which I daresay never 
 occurred to the biographer, and it is this : that the poet's 
 death unhappily took place before I had derived any 
 benefit worth mentioning from his great Hberality and 
 kindness with regard to the songs — in fact before I had 
 published above half a volume, or a tenth part of the 
 work which I have since brought out. The work at large, 
 though it had for some time an excellent sale, has, upon 
 the whole, but scantily compensated me for my many 
 outlays in various ways, both at home and abroad. 
 
 Lockhart must have replied to these criticisms 
 of Thomson's. What a pity his reply is not in 
 existence ! 
 
 SIR ALEXANDER BOSWELL 
 
 Thomson had great belief in Boswell's powers as 
 a song-writer. All along he experienced consider- 
 able difficulty in getting his lively airs matched. 
 His versifiers, as he often complains, were ready 
 enough to furnish him with "songs of the plaintive 
 or tender kind," but he was " sadly j^erplexed to 
 procure sprightly or cheerful ones." Sir Alexander 
 was the man to whom, in these circumstances, he 
 usually turned. Boswell has "a talent given to 
 very few." There is "no son of the muses in either 
 island able to match the lively airs with the teh'city 
 that runs through your humorous songs." There is 
 "no single poet besides yourself who has genuine 
 humour. . . . Coleman 1 thousjfht might be sue-
 
 2i6 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 cessful in songs of humour, and I offered him the 
 most liberal terms ^ to write a few, but his time is 
 so much occupied in writing for the stage that he 
 declined undertaking any songs." On the other 
 hand, Boswell himself was " not aware of having 
 that command of this species of talent which you 
 ascribe to me." But what of that? "I believe," 
 he remarks in one letter, " I believe people in 
 general don't care what the words are if they have 
 words at all : anything will do to sing." This was 
 assuredly not a very comforting theory for the editor 
 who was giving his leisure hours to "procuring 
 songs from the first poets of the day." Perhaps 
 it explains why Boswell did not " quite like the 
 name of the author to be stuck at the top in such 
 tremendous letters." 
 
 Thomson's first extant letter to Boswell is dated 
 August 23, 1803, i^ which year Boswell had pub- 
 lished (anonymously) his first collection of verse. 
 But the correspondence had begun two years be- 
 forethis. On the i 7th of November 1801, Boswell 
 writes from Auchinleck : 
 
 I have had the " East Nook o' Fife " copied, and some 
 homely verses for the "• Soger Laddie " ready to send 
 you since before Ayr Races, but they were neglected and 
 forgot. I have been so little in the house of late, the 
 weather having been so favourable for hunting, &c., that 
 I have not forwarded your songs as you perhaps wished. 
 
 ^ Coleman was applied to in 1809, Thomson "being convinced 
 that there is not a poet living who could match melodies of a lively 
 and animated kind" with greater felicity. For six songs Thomson 
 offered him twenty-five guineas.
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 217 
 
 Perhaps you may think from the one sent that it is as 
 well that there are no more such in existence. You well 
 know that there is no forcing composition of any kind, 
 and when anything assumes the appearance of a task, the 
 few ideas that a man may be master of are very apt 
 to move off. I can make nothing, I fear, of "Johnnie 
 comin', quo' she." There are but three ideas in the 
 first nine lines — saw ye him comin' — a blue bonnet 
 on his head — his doggie rinnin'. I should gladly send 
 you something, but when I attempt to think of it, the 
 reiterated "Quo' she" drives all before it. If I do hit on 
 anything it certainly will not be humorous.^ As this is 
 a very bad day and 1 must be imprisoned, before closing 
 this I shall attempt something for "The brisk young lad," 
 as you wish to have it soon. [The writer had left off 
 here, and later in the day continued :] I have sent vou 
 six stanzas for " The brisk young lad," which yt)u mav 
 perceive are the performance of an ancient maiden. I 
 have also sent you some words which 1 made some 
 time ago for the " Braes of Auchtertyre/' which, when 
 played slozv and a very little altered, is in my opinion 
 very pretty. 
 
 On the outside of this letter Thomson has in- 
 scribed the titles of the four song's — '' East Nook," 
 "Soldier Laddie," "Brisk young lad," and "Braes 
 o' Ochtertyre " — adding the remark: "The tirst of 
 the four worth more than the other three." The 
 version of the " East Neuk " which he subsequently 
 published is undoubtedly better than that of the 
 MS. : whether the improvements were his own 
 or Boswell's does not appear. Boswell's "Soldier 
 Laddie " was ultimately supplanted by a song of 
 William Smvth's for the same air ; and as for '' The 
 
 Joanna Baillie subsequently wrote a song for this air.
 
 2i8 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 brisk young lad," Thomson wedded that tune to 
 " The gaberlunzie man," attributed to James V. 
 
 On the 1 6th of February 1802 Boswell writes 
 enclosing a song, " Far in the glen, whence yonder 
 light." 
 
 I send some stanzas for " Scornfu' Nancy," though 
 I have taken the liberty to change her character not 
 a little from the repulsive. There's rather too much of 
 it, but as the stanzas, like a true lover's ideas, have very 
 little connection with each other, you may take out or 
 put in at pleasure without in the slightest degree marring 
 the existing continuity. It is not easy to express how 
 inimical I am to the measure. Never did I attempt a 
 line that shackled me so much as the short Hne ending 
 with a double rhyme. Our language is very poor in 
 this particular, and those we have are in general light 
 or ludicrous, hi writing these stanzas I was obliged to 
 throw away many a good image and thought (that is 
 perhaps saying too much), but at least many much better 
 than I have adopted, because I had no double rhyme 
 for them. 
 
 Thomson marks this song " But so so," but he 
 prints it nevertheless — in the third volume of his 
 Scottish collection. Boswell now attempted a song 
 to the tune of "The Auld Gudenian," the result 
 being " I'll hae my coat o' gude snuff-brown," also 
 published in the third volume. The dialogue, he 
 explains, is "between a muirland laird and his 
 steward (housekeeper), as such are called among 
 the country people " ; and he adds that perhaps the 
 words may be of too coarse a texture for Thomson's 
 collection ; if so, some others may be thought of. 
 " Rather homely, though not without humour," is
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 219 
 
 Thomson's verdict. Boswell's next effort was a 
 song for the Welsh air, "Men of Harlech." He 
 succeeded so little as to write a verse which could 
 not by any possibility be fitted to the tune ! We 
 may take his excuse in his own words. " I find 
 the Welsh airs so very irregular," says he to Thom- 
 son, "that I do not think it possible to viakc zuords 
 for them — at least there is no stanza that I know 
 which will suit them." After giving his version 
 of the " Men of Harlech," he continues : 
 
 If you will take the trouble to try nonsense lines for 
 the other airs you have sent, you will find how stranj^e 
 the lines must be. "Sir Watkin " will do, and the Irish 
 air for two voices. " Sheelan O'Gary " I don't admire; 
 and "A rock and a wee pickle tow" has very capital 
 words already, which I have heard an aunt of mine 
 sing very often. 
 
 Upon this last Thomson remarks that the song is 
 "doubtless an extremely good one of its kind, and 
 I would not on any account omit it. But I should 
 be very glad to have one of your spinning to such 
 a pleasant tune — one that would be intelligible in 
 the South, where they can make little or nothing 
 of the auld wife's story." ^ As to the irregularity 
 of the measures, of which I)Oswell complains, 
 Thomson answers that the Welsh airs ''arc doubt- 
 less irregular, but not more so than several Scotch 
 airs to which excellent words have been written." 
 
 Thomson's request now is tor a set ot new- 
 words for the air of " Rise up and bar the door. ' 
 
 1 Tlie "auld wife's story" was subscc|uently taken in lianil by 
 Mrs. Grant.
 
 220 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 Boswell sends his attempt in December 1803, with 
 the remark that when he has the pleasure of seeing 
 the editor he will sing it in his own way. " I have 
 some prospect of being in Edinburgh in spring 
 or before, when I shall avail myself of the oppor- 
 tunity of hearing you in some of the accompani- 
 ments and symphonies which, according to my 
 unlettered taste, you perform most agreeably." 
 The "effort of fancy," as Boswell called his song, 
 did not meet with Thomson's approval. Boswell 
 had versified a blood-curdling story of clan revenge, 
 and his song in consequence was "too horrible for 
 singing," Thomson accordingly prints the old 
 words for the air, with Burns' " Does haughty 
 Gaul " as an alternative. The next air sent to 
 Boswell is that of "We'll make a bed in the barn," 
 which Thomson thinks would be "a famous vehicle 
 for a drinking-song, the description of a harvest 
 home, or kirn, or any rural merry-making that may 
 have come under your observation." He feels sure 
 that, furnished as it is with Haydn's symphonies 
 and accompaniments, Boswell will be " perfectly 
 charmed " with it. But Boswell is not charmed. 
 He does not think much of the air; "it is vulgar, 
 although the author of The C7'eation mi^ht draw 
 harmony from any source." The nationality of 
 the air is uncertain, and so, "as few people sing 
 more than one stanza," Boswell sends "an Eno-lish, 
 an Irish, and a Scotch stanza, which your vivacious 
 friends may take ad libitum^ He must add that 
 "the measure is most execrably cramp and creates 
 a troublesome change of accent." If it were not so
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 221 
 
 he would " send some other words of a more (£eneral 
 nature, not so peculiarly fitted for topers." The sohl; 
 is that beginning, "The parson boasts of mild ale," 
 which Thomson prints, without the Scotch stanza, 
 in the first volume of his Irish collection. 
 
 The airs now sent to Boswell were those of 
 " Paddy OT^afferty " (for which he wrote one of his 
 best known songs) and " The humours of Limerick." 
 The latter, says Thomson, "commands universal 
 admiration," and Boswell must "confer immortality 
 upon it by a song worthy of its beauty." The only 
 words Thomson has ever heard sung to it are "the 
 doggerel ones which Johnstone ^ sings so charmingly 
 in Looncy M'Tiuolter!' To this Boswell replies : 
 
 "The Humours of Limerick" is a most beautitul 
 air. I have long admired it. I send you lines written 
 for it by Goldsmith, which I learnt from my father were 
 intended for the lady in She stoops to conquer, but the 
 actress not being able to sing, they were omitted : 
 
 " Ah ! me ! how shall I marry me ! 
 Lovers are plenty but fail to relieve me. 
 The fond youth who could carry me 
 Offers to love but means to deceive me. 
 Yet I will rally and combat my ruiner ; 
 Not a look, not a sigh shall my passion discover. 
 She who trusts all to the false one pursuing her 
 Makes but a penitent, loses her lover." 
 
 I observethe air has been altered for Looncy M^T-.coItcr. 
 It is not that exactly I was taught, and which I shall 
 luun over when I see you in Edinbiu-gii. 
 
 ' Henry Johnstone, an old Edinburgh favourite, and a luckless 
 native of the city. In 1823 he opened tlie old I'antheon under the 
 name of the Caledonian Tlieatre. Thomson calls him "the inimitable. '
 
 222 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 Bos well's verses for this air begin, "Farewell! 
 mirth and hilarity," which he directs " must be 
 sung with a little of the brogue." In their first 
 form it is hardly necessary to say that they failed 
 to please Thomson. What precisely were his 
 objections it is impossible to tell, the letter being 
 missing. This is the more to be regretted as 
 Boswell writes in some heat in reply to his criti- 
 cisms. He says (Nov. 21, 181 1): 
 
 You imposed upon me a very arduous task when you 
 asked me to write words to " The humours of Limerick," 
 or '' Ballamagairy," and I hold Goldsmith better authority 
 both for the name and air than the author of The Wags 
 of Windsor-. Goldsmith found it very difficult in its 
 simplicity, but now cut and broken for the unmeaning 
 doggerel of Looney M' Twolter, the task has become more 
 that of a stonecutter than a poet. You are well aware 
 that the English language does not furnish many words 
 to serve as trisyllabic rhymes, even by combination, 
 without descending to low humour, and it is rarely pos- 
 sible to get three, which the air requires, I confess my 
 total sterility, and nothing but persevering industry at 
 dumb crambo or some such exercise could fit a Grub 
 Street genius for Looney M'Twolter. Observe, too, that 
 the last line of the second part has the moderate 
 number of three rhymes in itself. It is therefore an un- 
 pleasant struggle, where words, not ideas, must be sought 
 after. I have added a stanza, and have made a slight 
 alteration or two, and so bid it adieu, making you per- 
 fectly welcome to alter it in any way you can ; but at the 
 last I have little hopes of its meeting with either praise 
 or indulgence, for few are aware of the obstacles to be 
 overcome. ... I am glad you like '' Paddy O'Rafferty," 
 which has the same cursed trisyllabic metre, but by 
 homely phrases that is got more easily over.
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 223 
 
 Boswell had certainly not got easily over "The 
 humours of Limerick." The next song, about 
 which there are several letters from both sides, was 
 "The pulse of an Irishman," another of Boswell's 
 best known efforts, written in 1 8 1 2 for the air of 
 "St. Patrick's Day." Profiting by past experience, 
 he sends first the opening verse to see " if the stile 
 will do." The "stile" was all right, but of course 
 there were minor faults. " You must not be too 
 fastidious," says Boswell, "or I must succumb. As 
 'St. Patrick's Day' is a peculiar Irish air, the 
 words, I think, should be so too. I don't choose to 
 throw in the bf^ogue, but a mixture of grave imagery 
 with the homely, marks the wild fancy of the Irish 
 more than anything else, except their most wonder- 
 ful, naturally flowing humour, which a Scotchman 
 must struggle for in vain. I send you another 
 stanza, and I think the two quite enough. It is a 
 good fault for a song to be short, and it is better 
 that your company should regret the brevity than 
 yawn over a tedious ditty." 
 
 Boswell was sadly troubled with the Irish airs. 
 In 181 2 Thomson sent him the tune called by him 
 " A trip to the Dargle," with a request for words. 
 The outcome was the song " Let brain-spinning 
 swains," printed in the first volume of the Irish 
 collection. Regarding this lyric Boswell writes on 
 September 9 : 
 
 This tune, which is " Paddy Whack," or sonic such 
 air, and to which "Thurot's Defeat" was sunj^ lialf a 
 century ago, has puzzled me as niucii as any I ever 
 tried, except "The humours of Ballamagairy " — the one
 
 224 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 from its awkward measure for the English language, this 
 from the occupation it had of my mind from early im- 
 pression. Many faults the words must have, but really 
 it is not easy to avoid faults in such compositions. If 
 too homely, I am sure your female friends will afford 
 you abundance of sweet measures, and I sincerely assure 
 you that I shall not take it in the slightest degree amiss 
 your throwing mine aside. I have on the spur of the 
 moment . . . written what perhaps on cool reflection I 
 would burn, but I leave that ofhce to you after con- 
 sideration. 
 
 Thomson did not think it necessary to apply 
 to his female friends in the matter. If Boswell 
 would only substitute "potatoes" for "taties," the 
 song would do. That alteration, curiously enough, 
 had occurred to Boswell himself, "as ' taties ' was 
 too vulgar, without aiding the character, and unless 
 something characteristic is peculiarly marked, it is 
 always in bad taste to be vulgar." It was, indeed, 
 a great thing to "aid the character"! The song 
 "Morning a cruel turmoiler is" — so the author ex- 
 plained — was "thrown among the loiuer Irish, and 
 therefore if it is characteristic, that must compen- 
 sate for its vulgarity." The dictum may be of 
 some value in explaining the coarse humour which 
 marks some of Boswell's graphic efforts. There 
 is a further indication of his taste in the follow- 
 ing letter of December 24, 18 16, the last which I 
 will quote : 
 
 I have, I believe, now contributed above a score of 
 songs to your work, the greater part of which, if they 
 have not peculiar merit, have the merit of peculiarity. I 
 have throughout endeavoured to enter into the character
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 
 
 225 
 
 of the airs, and in some I have succeeded, in others 
 failed. In that I also have doubly failed, for it is not 
 peculiar. On the whole I think you have been fortunate 
 in your song-writers, though, as might he expected in so 
 voluminous a work, there are many very tame perform- 
 ances which, excepting that they were set to favourite 
 airs, no one would read twice. Many, however, even of 
 these, have the merit that they may be r.ead and sung 
 without offence to decency, which their more vivid 
 originals might not. 
 
 While you have exerted yourself to set forth Scottish 
 melodies in full dress and with becoming language, I 
 have in vain endeavoured to get a collection of the more 
 exceptionable but more original effusions. I once had a 
 printed copy of the old words of a number of old songs, 
 but it was stolen from me when at College. Are you 
 acquainted [with] or in possession of any collection 
 of these ? While you are bringing the airs into good 
 company, the antiquary would gladly trace from what 
 company you have freed them. 
 
 Boswell had the "gentlemanly" tastes of his period 
 in the matter of song, but in the indulgence of these 
 it was not likely that Thomson should care greatly 
 to assist him. 
 
 For Thomson's works he wrote in all eighteen 
 songs. Twenty-four songs were indeed printed, but 
 six of these were already in existence and were used 
 " by special permission." Among the latter were 
 some of the best, including "Jenny's Bawbee." 
 Thomson coolly tried to induce Boswell to convey 
 to him "exclusive property" in all the twenty-lour, 
 naming: them, and sending: a formal document for him 
 to sign. Boswell, however, drew up a " conveyance " 
 of his own, omitting the songs on pp. 165, 173, 174. 
 
 p
 
 226 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 182, and 197 of the fourth volume of the Scottish 
 collection, and the song on p. 136 of the second 
 volume of the Irish, and this he returned signed, 
 without comment. It is hardly necessary to add 
 that he contributed all his sonofs without fee or 
 reward. He accepted one picture from Thomson, 
 and returned another with his " best compliments." 
 What "difficult" mortals these versifiers of Thom- 
 son's were, to be sure ! 
 
 JOANNA BAILLIE 
 
 I f Thomson had been content to take her own esti- 
 mate of her powers as a song-writer, Joanna Baillie 
 would certainly not have enriched his various collec- 
 tions to the extent that she did. She protests again 
 and again that she cannot write songs, and pleads 
 in every other ;etter that Thomson will reduce the 
 number of J is requests. She tells him that she has 
 "little time for writing pieces of this kind" — that 
 she has neither pleasure in the task nor inclination 
 for it. "It is," she says in 1810, "a work I don't 
 at all find myself at home in. being, whatever kind 
 of a poet you may be pleased to reckon me, a very 
 unready and indifferent rhymester. I never wrote a 
 song in my life from inclination, therefore I certainly 
 am not naturally a song-writer." In 1813 she re- 
 peats that she has frequently told her correspondent 
 that she has "no pleasure in writing songs ' ; and 
 so she goes on to the end of the correspondence.
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 227 
 
 The " immortal Joanna," as Scott calls her/ was 
 really too modest. She proved by more than one 
 effort that she could write very good songs ; and if 
 anything at all from her pen is destined to live, it 
 is surely such things as "Up! quit thy bower," 
 " Woo'd an' married an' a'," " It fell on a mornine 
 when we were thrang," " Saw ye Johnnie comin' ? " 
 and other lyrical productions. It was Thomson's 
 belief that her songs would remain united with 
 the music to which he had wedded them "to the 
 latest posterity " (a favourite phrase of his), and 
 " endear her name to the sons and daughters of 
 taste throughout the kingdom." But indeed this 
 was his fond hope in regard to the productions of 
 all his songsters. 
 
 When Thomson opened his correspondence with 
 Miss Baillie in 1804 he was engaged with his Welsh 
 airs, and still had a dozen or more of these to match. 
 On the 30th of January he sends seven melodies, 
 and " would fain hope that in the intervals of your 
 more important labours you may find it an amuse- 
 ment to comply with my request." In short he will 
 be "greatly mortified and disappointed" if she should 
 decline writing these songs, as he is " most anxiously 
 desirous of having a few from your most adniiral^le 
 pen." At the same time he begs that she will ask 
 her friend Mrs. Hunter to assist in the work. I ler 
 volume (Mrs. Hunter's poems were jmblished in 
 1802) "contains some charming songs," and the 
 
 ' She objects in one letter to Thomson's " adchiij^ tlie title of either 
 Miss or Mistress to my name, which has a (brmahty in it that I 
 dislike."
 
 228 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 editor has been seriously thinking of "soliciting 
 verses from her for a few of the other airs not yet 
 provided for." Miss Baillie replies from Hampstead 
 on February i8 : 
 
 I received your polite letter about a week ago, along 
 with that from my friend Miss Millar. I am always ready 
 to agree to whatever she wishes, but independently of 
 this, to the friend of Burns and my own countryman 
 [Miss Baillie was a native of Lanarkshire] it is impossible 
 to refuse, in such a work as you are engaged in, any 
 little assistance that I am able to give. I have lost no 
 time in writing j\Irs. Hunter, and have the pleasure to 
 inform you that she cheerfully grants your request. I 
 sent her the music with your paper of directions, de- 
 siring her to take her choice of the airs in the first place, 
 and she has already this morning sent me her contribu- 
 tion to the work. This consists of three songs, with 
 which I flatter myself you will be perfectly satisfied. If 
 your people of taste in Edinburgh are disposed to find 
 fault with them, I must really be permitted to say they 
 are very difficult, or rather, in good plain Scotch, they 
 are very inisleart. ... In regard to my own part of the 
 task, I shall do it as well as I can, but as I have really 
 neither the elegance nor the skill in musical numbers 
 ^bat are required for this kind of writing, and should 
 lever in my life have written a single song if I had not 
 iometimes wanted one for my own particular purposes, 
 you must not be surprised if those I send you should not 
 prove exactly what you would wish. If they should not, 
 I beg you will make no ceremony in setting them aside. 
 I shall take the first opportunity of sending you my 
 packet when it is completed. 
 
 The packet was despatched to Edinburgh on the 
 2ist of March (1804), Miss Baillie again remark- 
 ing that she would not take it at all amiss should
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 
 
 229 
 
 her songs be set aside in favour of something better 
 that might fall into Thomson's hands. The editor 
 did not find it necessary to set anything aside ; but, 
 as usual, he found a great deal to say in the way 
 of criticism and suggested alterations. In fact the 
 correspondence is at first so largely taken up with 
 these details in regard to the songs that it is not 
 possible to make use of it by quotation in the ordi- 
 nary way. Miss Baillie was not quite so pliable as 
 some other writers who subjected themselves to the 
 tinkering of the finical editor. Indeed, she replies 
 to his strictures with admirable spirit. Thomson 
 objects to a stanza of one song as being distinctly 
 inferior ; Miss Baillie " must e'en in the sturdy 
 spirit of an author" beg leave to think that it is 
 " rather the best of them all." In her " Maid of 
 Llanwellyn " she had spoken of lakes in Wales, 
 and Thomson was in his critical chair at once. 
 But the lady would not listen to him. She could 
 wish that for the maid's sake there were lakes in 
 Wales ; but " as lakes will not rise out of the 
 earth for our convenience, and I am unwilling to 
 alter the line, we must just hope that a good pro- 
 portion of our readers will be as ignorant or 
 thoughtless as I was when I wrote it, and that 
 those who are not so will have the good nature 
 to suppose that this lover of hers, though in love 
 with a Welsh woman, might be himself a Cumber- 
 land man, and that will set everything right." 
 Here is the natural antagonism between the artist 
 and the schoolmaster greedy for " facts," the artist 
 not greatly concerned whether there are ri\-ers in
 
 230 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 both Macedon and Monmouth. Thomson was always 
 a schoolmaster's son. 
 
 Her " Inspired Bard" is thought by Thomson 
 to be too " provokingly short " ; but it seems to 
 the writer to be "a whole as it stands," and she 
 will not add to it. She makes a husband say : 
 ** Last year of earth's treasures I gave thee my 
 part," and Thomson wants the line changed because 
 " it is not very clear what he gave." But the line 
 " if you please had better remain as it is." It is 
 " as much as to say, ' I endow thee with all my 
 worldly goods,' which will, I should think, in this 
 country at least, where similar words are used in 
 the marriage ceremony, be perfectly understood." 
 
 Miss Baillie showed, in truth, scant patience 
 with the troublesome fastidiousness, not to say the 
 pedestrian imagination, of her correspondent. The 
 latter could not understand — - 
 
 " The rarest things to Hght of day 
 Look shortly forth and shrink away," 
 
 and he asks to have the lines made plainer. But 
 the only reply he receives is that " a degree of 
 obscurity is allowed in poetry," and " I will, with 
 your permission, shelter myself under this privi- 
 lege." Miss Baillie has written " Meek as a nun 
 in her mantle of grey," and Thomson wants to 
 substitute "vestments" for "mantle." But vest- 
 ments is " too artificial a word," and she will not 
 have it on any account. Another line, " And 
 welcome moth and drowsy fly," was too much for 
 Thomson — at any rate the moth was — but the
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 231 
 
 poetess stuck to it notwithstanding. In a letter of 
 17th January 1809 she says: 
 
 I should be very glad to make the alteration you 
 wish, but the moth along with the drowsy fiy seems to 
 me so characteristic of twilight that I am unwilling to 
 leave it out ; and besides, the substitute you propose of 
 " every drowsy fly " is too much a loose undetermined 
 expression that savours of commonplace. At least it 
 strikes me so, and therefore, if you please, we will let 
 the line stand as it was originally written. I am realty 
 sorry not to alter the line to vour taste, as I am sure, 
 from your writing expressly about ihis line, there must 
 be something in the word "moth" really disagreeable 
 to your ear. If this be so, I have no objection to your 
 altering the line as you propose, but then you must have 
 the goodness in a note at the bottom of the page where 
 it is printed to mention that vou have so altered it, and 
 to give the line there as I originally wrote it. In this 
 way your readers, or rather your singers, will choose for 
 themselves, and if your line should become more popular 
 than mine I shall not at all be offended. 
 
 There is quite a discussion about a phrase in 
 a song on the black cock — a " beautiful species 
 of game found among the Welsh mountains," as 
 Thomson had thoughtfully informed the lady when 
 sending her the air so named. Thomson found 
 the song " truly fanciful and poetical," but he did 
 not think the meaning of "Thy crimson moon" 
 would be sufficiently understood. On that point 
 Miss Baillie has this to say : 
 
 1 meant the phrase to express the kind of arched spot 
 of deep red that is over each of the eyes of tins bird ; 
 but as I never reallv saw the bird but once a long time
 
 232 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 ago, and take my account of him from a book, it may 
 probably not be sufficiently descriptive. If you are not 
 acquainted with the heath cock yourself you had better 
 refer the matter — if you think it is worth while to be 
 at so much trouble — to some of your friends who are 
 acquainted with him. If the present expression is not 
 approved of, you may change it into " Thy crimson- 
 moon'd and azure eye," or " Thy crimson-arched azure 
 eye " ; but I like the present, viz, '' Thy crimson moon 
 and azure eye," best. 
 
 And so the correspondence goes on — always new 
 calls for amendment, usually in regard to some 
 nicety of expression on which Thomson's criticism 
 was either unnecessary or inept. It is impossible 
 not to see that the lively authoress has much the 
 best of it, and one cannot be sorry that for once 
 Thomson was withstood to his face. 
 
 But it is time to leave these little details, 
 although they are certainly not without their value 
 in helping us further to form an estimate of 
 Thomson's critical powers. Miss Baillie, by her 
 own confession, " hated writing a letter most per- 
 fectly," but on Thomson's behalf she seems to have 
 got over her antipathy pretty easily. There are in 
 all thirty-five of her letters among his papers. On 
 the 6th of January 1810 she writes about her new 
 play, The Family Legend, which was about to be 
 produced in Edinburgh, Thomson having in the 
 previous letter remarked to her that he had often 
 wondered at her dramas "being so much confined 
 to the closet." She says : 
 
 You are very kind to express your satisfaction at 
 learning I have a play coning out at Edinburgh. I
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 233 
 
 trust you will have the goodness, with my other friends 
 there, to give it your good countenance, and speak as 
 favourably of it as your conscience will possibly allow 
 you. 
 
 The play was brought out under the auspices of 
 Scott, who wrote a prologue for it, the author of 
 The Ma7t of Feeling furnishing an epilogue. It 
 proved an immense success. "You have only to 
 imagine," wrote Scott to the authoress, "all that 
 you could wish to give success to a play, and your 
 conceptions will still fall short of the complete and 
 decided triumph of TJie Fa))iily Legend. h> very- 
 thing that pretended to distinction, whether from 
 rank or literature, was in the boxes, and in the pit 
 such an aggregate mass of humanity as I have 
 seldom if ever w^itnessed in the same place." The 
 tragedy ran for fourteen consecutive nights at this 
 time, and it was repeated on several subsequent 
 occasions. 
 
 On the 8th of May 18 10 Miss Haillie writes 
 on behalf of James Grahame, the author of T/ie 
 Sabbath, and one of Thomson's contributors, who 
 had taken orders in the Church of I'Lngland after 
 failinof at the Scottish Bar : 
 
 & 
 
 There is a very great favour I must ask of you. Mr. 
 James Grahame, author of Tlic SabbatJi, with whom you 
 are probably acquainted, and who is now a cleri^yman 
 of the English Church, is at present a candidate for the 
 Lectureship \_sic\ of St. George's Chapel in Edinburgh, 
 and the nomination belongs to the vestrv, consist- 
 ing of [here follows a list of twelve names, including 
 Lord Elibank and Mr. Erskine of Mar]. If amongst
 
 234 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 these names you should have the goodness to exert 
 your interest to procure us some votes for Mr. Grahame, 
 I should think myself exceedingly indebted to you. 1 
 have never heard Mr. Grahame preach ; but he did 
 preach to a polite congregation in London, some time 
 ago, and a lady who heard him, and is, I should think, 
 qualified to judge, told me his manner of preaching and 
 his sermon were both very good, and seemed to make a 
 very favourable impression on his audience. This favour 
 of course I can only beg as far as your other connections 
 or engagements may permit you to act. 
 
 Less than eighteen months after this the author 
 of The Sabbath was in his grave, and Scott was 
 writinor to Miss Baillle : " Poor Grahame, penile 
 and amiable and enthusiastic, deserves all you can 
 say of him ; his was really a hallowed harp, as he 
 was himself an Israelite without g^uile." Grahame 
 did not get the Edinburgh appointment, though he 
 preached as a candidate. Mrs. Grant of Laggan, 
 in one of her letters, tells of hearing him on the 
 occasion, and pleasantly describes both himself and 
 his sermon. 
 
 In 1811 Thomson wrote to Miss Baillie asking 
 for a song in praise of music that might be placed 
 first in his next volume. He suesfested a kind of 
 " Ode to St Cecilia," but this quite frightened the 
 poetess. In sending some lines as a sort of reply 
 to his request, she says: "I have not at all obliged 
 you, and feel very sincerely that it is not in my 
 power, having never written anything the least like 
 an ode in my life, and being perfectly convinced 
 that if I did it would be a very bad one." Miss 
 Baillie's elTort (" Sweet power of song! ") neverthe-
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 235 
 
 less delighted the heart of Thomson; it was "an 
 admirable song," nay, it was "a jewel." He had 
 just one fault to find with it : the word "hight" was 
 certainly known to every reader of Spenser, but 
 Johnson declared it obsolete, and the editor would 
 doubt the propriety of using it in a song. 
 
 In sending, in December 181 1, the song "The 
 gowan glitters on the sward," Miss Baillie makes 
 an apology for her spelling of Scotch words. She 
 remarks that she has written "such Scotch as is 
 still spoken in the country," and continues : " I hope 
 you will not think it very bad ; and as I don't very 
 well know how to spell the Scotch words, I shall be 
 obliged to you if you will have the goodness to 
 correct the spelling. * Know,' which I mean for a 
 hillock or knoll, I have spelt like the verb, which I 
 daresay is wrong. ' Luckey,' which I mean for 
 grandmother, is probably wrong too ; and so on." It 
 is curious that Miss Baillie, who had the command 
 of a varied Scotch vocabulary, should thus have to 
 confess her weakness in Scotch orthography. 
 
 This year, that is to say in 181 1, she published 
 a third volume of her Plays on the Passions, and 
 copies were sent to her Edinburgh friends through 
 Mr. Ballantyne. Thomson, of course, received 
 one, and equally of course waxed enthusiastic over 
 the contents. Writing on the 26th of December, 
 he says : 
 
 I know not how to thank you for the exquisite treat I 
 have received from your new vohune, which I have read 
 over twice with inexpressible pleasure and admiration. 
 We have had no dramas since the days of Shakespeare so
 
 236 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 richly poetical, so marked by bold delineation of char- 
 acter, and so imprest with fine strokes of nature and 
 feeling, as your tragical series. I am fully as much 
 charmed with the plays in the present volume as with 
 any of the former ones. I shall not presume to offer 
 any minute criticism upon them, for I feel that I could 
 do very little else but expatiate on their numerous 
 beauties. There is no pleasure to which I look forward 
 with more eager expectation than the representation of 
 them on the stage. Mrs. Henry Siddons will perform 
 the part of " Orra " [in the tragedy on " Fear "] admirably 
 well, and the heroine of the superlatively beautiful little 
 serious drama. Our manager knows his own interest too 
 well to neglect bringing out plays that will fill his house. 
 They could not be seen and heard more advantageously 
 than in Edinburgh, as we have now got the neatest, most 
 compact, and best constructed theatre in the kingdom, 
 where the witchery of the eye and the softest tones of 
 the voice can reach every part of the house, by which 
 means we shall probably see just, easy and natural acting 
 take refuge amongst us when it is banished from London.^ 
 It is to be regretted that your very judicious observations 
 on colossal theatres did not appear before the foundation 
 of Drury Lane was laid, as the proprietors might have 
 been induced to pause and perhaps to build two theatres 
 of moderate dimensions in different parts of the town, 
 instead of one that I fear will be fit for little else but 
 splendid pantomime. . . . 
 
 Without meaning anything like compliment, I cannot 
 help thinking you peculiarly happy in lyric composition, 
 and every one must be of that opinion who reads the 
 excellent songs with which you have enriched your little 
 drama. 
 
 ^ Compare Scott's letter to Joanna Baillie, October 27, 1809 : " I 
 went through the theatre, which is the most complete little thing I 
 ever saw, elegantly fitted up, and large enough for every purpose."
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 237 
 
 Proceeding with the letters in their order of date, 
 we come now to a communication of Thomson's 
 which led to the composition of the well-known " O 
 swiftly glides the bonny boat." Writing on October 
 14, 18 1 5, he says : 
 
 If you find it agreeable to hold converse with the muse 
 for a leisure hour, I would be extremely gratified and 
 obliged by your inditing a ballad of two or three stanzas 
 for the beautiful Scottish air enclosed, to which Beethoven 
 has composed delightful accompaniments. The words 
 commonly sung are exceedingly poor, lit only for the 
 nursery, and such as I should be ashamed to insert in 
 one of my volumes. I shall transcribe the first stanza as 
 your guide to the measure. [Here follow sixteen lines 
 of Ewen's "O weel may the boatie row."] I well know 
 what a charming fisherman's ballad yon will produce if 
 you turn the subject in your mind, and I can assure you 
 that the music is deserving of the gift which I solicit. 
 When Mrs. Campbell ^ sings it and plays it to you, I am 
 certain that you will be charmed with it. 
 
 The boat-song did not reach Thomson until nearly 
 two years after this, and not expecting to receive it, 
 he had "got the old ditty patched and mended." 
 But the new song is "worth an hundred of its pre- 
 decessor, and delights all to whom we sing it." Of 
 
 ^ Mrs. Hunter's daughter, who was married to (General Sir James 
 Campbell. Sir James died in 1819, and Lady Campbell married 
 again, retaining her first husband's name. " You would see, perhaps, 
 by the papers some time ago that Lady Campbell, Mrs. Hunter's 
 daughter, is married again. She has ventured upon another soldier, 
 who is a lieutenant-colonel in the Guards, Colonel Charliwood, but he 
 has a good character for being a worthy, good-tempered man, so I 
 hope she will be happy with him." — Joanna Baillie to T/toinso/i, 
 September 13, 1821.
 
 238 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 course this compliment was but the preHminary to 
 asking another favour. The song wanted now is 
 " for a melody called ' Todlin' hame,' which has ever 
 been a particular favourite of mine, but the words to 
 which, though not without merit, are of a cast too 
 broad and vulgar for the present generation." The 
 song is " never sung, and is quite on the shelf," but 
 the melody must not be allowed to share its fate. 
 The result of this application was the song, " Poverty 
 parts good company," which Miss Baillie sent off 
 to Edinburgh six days after Thomson wrote. In 
 the accompanying note she says : 
 
 I had indeed considered myself as having done with 
 song-writing, and must be allowed so to consider myself, 
 but the air you have sent me being an old favourite of 
 mine, and the old words so very bad, I could not resist 
 your request. I hope the verses I enclose will somewhat 
 answer your purpose, and if Mrs. Hogarth will have the 
 goodness to favour them with her sweet voice, they will 
 stand their best chance of being well received in your 
 musical circle. ... I have had more trouble with the 
 first lines than all the other lines put together, and I hope 
 I have made them what you intended. 
 
 In the next letter we get some idea of what 
 was the extent of Thomson's acquaintance with the 
 Doric, which he so often condemned. On the 17th 
 of September he writes to Miss Baillie : 
 
 Fair fa' you, my good madam ! and mony braw thanks 
 to you for one o' the bonniest sangs that ever was [stc] 
 written by man or womankind. You have really done 
 honour to ''Todlin' hame" by ''Poverty parts good 
 company." Your thoughts on that subject will evermore
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 239 
 
 delight good company, and I foretell will sometimes 
 prolong the hour of parting and of todlin' hame. I shall 
 sing nae ither sang for a towmond [twelvemonth] to 
 come. . . . Oh ! for the power of producing such songs, 
 for then would I deed twa or three ither bonnie Scotch 
 tunes which have not yet bee i attired as they deserve. I 
 shall indeed be as proud as a peacock of " Poverty parts 
 good company" appearing in my book. You are deeply 
 read in the fine old Doric of our language. The " bruse " 
 and the "infare" ^ are finely introduced, though they will 
 send many of our fine la'^Ues, and gentlemen too, to the 
 glossary. 
 
 Thomson himself would have done well to go to the 
 glossary. " I should think ' cruisie ' a diminutive of 
 your own making, 'cruise' being an English word," 
 says he. Imagine a Scotsman of Thomson's day 
 never having heard of the "cruisie"! Of course, 
 Miss Baillie had a ready answer for such a lamen- 
 table piece of ignorance : 
 
 As to '* cruisie," it is, I assure you, no diminutive of 
 my own making, but tlie ordinary name in our part of 
 the West of Scotland for a small iron lamp, with a 
 pointed handle to it, which they stuck into the wall when 
 they wanted to fix it there ; and such lamps lighted up 
 the barn for a wedding or harvest kirn before the modern 
 refinement of tallow candles, stuck on the wall with their 
 own grease or a lump of clay, came into use. 1 am, 
 therefore, not willing to part with the ''cruisie." The 
 last Scotch wedding I was at I saw the bride snuff the 
 candles (so stuck to the wall) with her ain dainty lingers. 
 
 ' " Infare" is defined by Jamieson as "an entertainment given to 
 friends upon newly enterinj,'^ a house." In some versions of Miss 
 Baiilie's song the line in which the word occurs is stupidly jninted : 
 " At bridal and in fair I've braced me wi' pride."
 
 240 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 In spite of his repeated promises, and Miss 
 Baillie's as often repeated protests, Thomson in 
 January 1822 appHed for another song, this time for 
 the tune of " Woo'd an' married an' a'." Luckily 
 for him, there were circumstances which led Miss 
 Baillie to favour him once more. Writing on 
 February 27, she says : 
 
 I guess this may be about the thirteenth time you 
 have promised to me that the song you asked me to 
 write should be the last. You must now in good and 
 honest faith fulfil that promise, for I am heartily tired of 
 song-writing, which I never at any time did like. I 
 should have stood out sturdily against this last request 
 but for these reasons : first that I was unwilling that 
 your engraving should not have something written to 
 correspond with it ; and secondly, that I wish you to 
 help me a little in a subscription which I am carrying 
 on for the benefit of a friend. I am going to edit a 
 volume of collected poems, and I wish you to set down 
 your name for one single copy, and to forward the sub- 
 scription among your friends as much as you can, without 
 doing anything irksome or unpleasant to yourself. Call 
 on my friend Mrs. [Dr. Andrew] Thomson in George 
 Street, and she will tell you all about it, and give you a 
 subscription paper. Now remember that you are 7iot to 
 put down your name for more than one copy, for that 
 would hurt me exceedingly. I hope to make it a very 
 good collection, chiefly composed of MS. poems, some 
 of them by the first writers of this country. There will 
 be a few of my own in it, but no songs of mine, one 
 (perhaps) excepted, which has never been printed at all. 
 I have, with Lady Campbell's permission, picked out 
 some very pretty things from the MSS. which Mrs. 
 Hunter left behind her, and those I know you will like 
 to see. . . .
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 241 
 
 Will you have the goodness to give my love to Mrs. 
 Thomson of George Street, and tell her that Sir Walter 
 Scott will inform her what bank in Edinburgh all the 
 money gathered there for the subscription is to be paid 
 into. ... It must be a branch of the Royal Bank of 
 Scotland, and I have begged of Sir Walter to fix it for me. 
 
 The work here referred to was the volume of Poetic 
 Miscellanies, published in 1823, It contained poems 
 by Scott, Mrs. Hemans, Catherine Fanshawe, and 
 others, and brought a very satisfactory pecuniary 
 result. 
 
 Notwithstanding" Miss Baillie's urgent request 
 that this should be considered her last song, Thomson 
 had the temerity to ask her for still another. He 
 made his apology when acknowledging the receipt 
 of " Woo'd an' married an' a'," which he declares 
 " will be one of our most popular songs, for a more 
 natural and pleasing group never was painted." 
 He says : 
 
 I cannot, my dear madam, adequately express the 
 sense I have of your uniform kindness, nor my contrition 
 for having so repeatedly put it to the proof. The temp- 
 tation was greater than I could resist ; every song you 
 wrote was more and more delectable, and increase of 
 appetite grew by what it fed on. And having got myself 
 persuaded that an exercise in which you so much excelled 
 could not be unpleasant to you, I became a petitioner 
 year after year, overleaping the resolution which 1 had 
 previously formed not to trespass further on your good 
 nature. 
 
 He goes on to say that he is now fully determined 
 to abide by his resolution, and will only suggest that 
 
 Q
 
 242 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 she should write just one more sono- by way of 
 farewell. If she will consent to do this, he proposes 
 to send her Flaxman's illustrations of the Ilirid — 
 " an exquisite work for your drawing-room table, 
 and capable of gratifying every person of elegant 
 taste." The songf is to be for his fav<iurite air of 
 " Hooly and fairly." 
 
 Alas ! poor Thomson, he had found another 
 Burns in this matter of rewards. Already Ik- had 
 received two warnings that Miss Haillie suffered 
 from a pertinacity of pride about such things. In 
 December 1809, he sent her a present of "a scarf 
 manufactured here, one of a small number that were 
 considered such a remarkable resemblance of the 
 Indian, both in figure and fabric, as to have obtained 
 from our Board of Trustees a premium to the 
 manufacturer." He hoped that she retained some 
 national partialities, and that she "may be pleased 
 with the shawl, though it very poorly testifies the 
 gratitude I feel for your kindness." Mrs. Hunter 
 was presented with a similar gift at the same time. 
 Miss Baillie wrote : 
 
 Many thanks to you for your very handsome gift. 
 There is only one thin^ that diminishes my pleasure in 
 receiving it, that is, that I don't think I deserve it. I saw- 
 Mrs. Hunter, who may wear her shawl with less com- 
 punction, last night ; she wore it about her shoulders, 
 and a lady who was near her with an Indian shawl did 
 not look so handsomely equipped. 
 
 A shawl was a little thing : when it came to further 
 gifts, Miss Baillie would have none of them. In
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 243 
 
 November 1812, when Thomson was "again a 
 petitioner for a few more songs," he entreated her 
 "to accept of the book herewith sent — the new 
 edition of Beaumont and Fletcher in fourteen 
 volumes." Will it be believed ? Miss Baillie not 
 only declined the books, she would not even give 
 them house-room until Thomson should say what 
 might be done with them, but sent them in hot 
 haste to his brother! On February i, 18 13, she 
 wrote, evidently in a temper : 
 
 I have always said to you that a copy of your work 
 when published was a sufficient reward for any little 
 assistance I might give to the work, and when I accepted 
 the drawing and the shawl, it was with some struggle 
 against my own feelings that I did so ; and I had flattered 
 myself that I had so expressed myself on this subject 
 that nothing of this kind would on your part have been 
 repeated. I am sorry you have not done me the honour 
 to suppose that I did really speak it in sincerity ; and I 
 must be allowed to say you ought to have spared me 
 this pain. 
 
 Why there should have been any " pain " about 
 accepting such a gift is not quite clear to the ordi- 
 nary male mind. One must really sympathise with 
 Thomson in these frequent rebuffs arising from his 
 clearly earnest desire to do the correct thing by his 
 writers. As he tells Miss Baillie, he had no idea of 
 her being insincere ; he merely thought that he 
 might induce her "to accept of a small present" 
 when he was asking a favour which he "considered 
 to be of p^reat value." The curious thinof is that he 
 should have put himself again in the same awkward
 
 244 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 position in 1822. Miss Baillie, it need hardly be 
 said, was then as determined as ever : 
 
 I cannot possibly accept of your intended present 
 of Flaxman's illustrations of the Iliad, nor of any other 
 present, your own publication always excepted. It gives 
 me great pain that you should propose any other recom- 
 pense ; let me entreat you to do so no more. As you so 
 solemnly protest that this is the last song you will ask 
 from me, I wish that we should part friends, and have 
 already written words to " Hooly and fairly," which is a 
 tune I used formerly to sing along with the guitar ; but 
 I will not send it till you have promised me faithfully 
 that neither Flaxman's Iliad nor anything whatever shall 
 be sent to me. When you have done this to my satis- 
 faction you shall have the song. 
 
 After this Thomson could only keep his Iliad and 
 "look for the return of the post from Hampstead 
 with a lover's impatience." He had not long to 
 wait. "I send you your song," says Miss Baillie, 
 "which I am better pleased with myself than with 
 most of those that have gone before it, but that is no 
 proof of its being good. However, if you sing it 
 yourself with some of that glee which you give to 
 * Muirland Willie,' nobody will find fault with it." 
 Thomson has pencilled various alterations on the 
 manuscript copy of this song (" Oh what had I ado 
 for to marry ? "), the explanation of which we find 
 in his next letter. After expressing his "humble 
 opinion " that " Hooly and fairly " is inferior to 
 " Woo'd an' married an' a'," he proceeds to say that 
 there are some words in the song which he really 
 does not understand — words that are not to be found 
 in Jamieson. There is " babs," for example — " Wi*
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 245 
 
 babs o' red roses and breast-knots o'erlaid." Thomson 
 knows the word "babery," signifying finery, but 
 ''babs" is "not to be seen in any glossary or dic- 
 tionary." As a matter of fact "babs" is in the indis- 
 pensable Jamieson, where it is defined as "a nosegay 
 or bunch of flowers." Miss Baillie, agfain, had written, 
 " She bardies the ellers and mocks at Mess John." 
 Thomson would have her give up "bardies" as being 
 unintelligible to ninety-nine out of every hundred 
 readers. And so on. It is more evident than ever 
 that our editor's knowledQ^e of Scotch was limited ! 
 
 Thomson's next request was for a new version of 
 " Fie ! let us a' to the wedding ! " Miss Baillie sent 
 what she called the "auld sang new busket " in 
 January 1827, and at the same time wrote : 
 
 When I read your obliging and very flattering letter I 
 at first felt somewhat angry that you should wish to 
 disturb our old popular ballad of " Fie ! let us a' to the 
 wedding," and thought that nothing put in its place would 
 have any chance of pleasing my northern countrymen, 
 but some time afterwards it came suddenly into my head 
 that it might be managed without giving them offence, 
 and I set about it forthwith. 1 have let the rough copy 
 lie by me these ten days, and now send you the fair one 
 with a very few corrections, and if it should be lucky 
 enough to please you, you are welcome to it. The char- 
 acter of the old song is preserved, for I would not think 
 of altering that ; yet I question whether the admirers of 
 the old rigmarole with all its pithy nicknames will give 
 me any thanks for what I have done — or you either for 
 what you have set me upon doing. 
 
 There is now a long break in the correspond- 
 ence, and when Miss Baillie writes next, on the
 
 246 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 2 1 St of December 1836, it is in reply to some ac- 
 count which Thomson had sent her of a visit to 
 the Western Isles : 
 
 It gave me much pleasure to learn that you had been 
 amongst the Western Isles, and had enjoyed your excur- 
 sion. For that you did enjoy it to the bent is well seen 
 by your sublime and poetical description of Staffa and its 
 wonderful Cave. In truth you write with the fancy and 
 vigour of a young poet, and this encourages me to think 
 that if the mind is young the body must be in good health. 
 Long may you be in this state ! And how very kind you 
 have been in sending me the sketches to give me a more 
 perfect idea of the scenes ! Some five or six and twenty 
 years ago I received a similar description of the Cave in 
 a letter from Sir Walter Scott, who visited it before the 
 time of steamboats, when the navigation was made 
 difficult and dangerous. He did not indeed send me a 
 real pencil-sketch of its wonders, but he sent me some 
 pebbles picked up by himself on the shores of lona, 
 which are among my precious things to this day. Many 
 thanks for your friendly remembrance of me. I must 
 thank you, too, for the cheering things you say on the 
 subject of my late-published Dramas.^ I am truly glad 
 that you think I shall lose no credit by them ; for it was 
 altogether rather perilous to venture before the public 
 again so late in the day, and after such a lapse of time. 
 This, which may be called my last offering, has been 
 received with great friendship and indulgence, and I 
 retire contented and gratified. I don't know whether you 
 are amongst those who dislike and condemn the charac- 
 ter of my jealous man, Romeiro. If you are, pray for 
 my sake look at the last number of Frasers MagazinCy 
 and see w^hat I have there said in defence of it. 
 
 Miss Baillie published 3 vols, ol Miscellaneous Plays in 1836.
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 247 
 
 In xMiss Baillie's next letter, dated January 11, 
 1H38, there is a reference of some interest. With 
 regard to the suggestion about Lord Dudley it is 
 impossible to say anything definite. Lockhart's 
 statement is that the munificent offer of ^30,000 
 was conveyed to Scott "through a distinguished 
 channel, the source of which was never revealed to 
 him, nor to me until some years after his death, and 
 even then under conditions of secrecy." 
 
 We have, like yourself, been very much occupied 
 with the sixth volume of Sir Walter Scott's Life ; par- 
 ticularly the very interesting Diary has touched us 
 pleasingly and painfully. I cannot answer your question 
 as to who was the muniHcent friend who offered the 
 -^30,000 on the failure of his affairs, but it has been 
 supposed to be the late Lord Dudley, and it probably 
 was him. 
 
 Shortly after the date of this letter Miss Baillie 
 published a volume of miscellaneous verse. This 
 included what Thomson calls "charmingly success- 
 ful" alterations of the songs " Willie was a wanton 
 wag" and "Fee him, father!" and he now asks 
 leave to "place these two mended and much im- 
 proved songs among the other beautiful songs of 
 yours already in my musical works." He also wants 
 to have her " most charmino: " sonor -'Wi' lano-- 
 le<jfred Tarn the bruse I tried." Miss Baillie makes 
 him heartily welcome to all three, adding that she 
 had written " Fee him " for Miss Head of Ash held, 
 Devonshire, " who has a delightful voice and taste 
 in music. I gave her the MS. copy many years 
 ago, and it has been sung I believe by no one else."
 
 248 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 As for " Lang-legged Tarn," she would not like to 
 have him joined to any other music than the old air 
 of" My Nanny, O" : 
 
 It is one of those Scotch airs that may be made either 
 plaintive or joyous as you choose to sing or play them. 
 My song was intended for it in the last characte'-, and 
 Burns or Percy having written words for it suited to the 
 former is a matter of no importance in itself, though I 
 readily agree that there would be a confusion and awk- 
 wardness in its appearing in its joyous mood in your last 
 volume when it has been melancholy or sentimental in 
 the first. We shall, therefore, if you please, think no 
 more about it. 
 
 Miss Baillie's last letter is dated March 30, 1842. 
 She was now eighty years old, and although Jeffrey 
 had found her at this time in " marvellous health 
 and spirits," it was not likely that she would give 
 herself trouble about further songs for Thomson. 
 Nevertheless, Thomson tried her — of course without 
 result. She says : 
 
 I am pleased that you should still suppose I have 
 spirit enough to deal with your " auld wife " and her 
 " wee pickle tow," but I don't feel that I have. The air 
 is an excellent one, but who could give the proper altera- 
 tions of the words better than Sir Adam^ himself ? Let 
 kzm take it in hand ; and if he will not, let the same 
 skilful pen that modified "Johnnie Cope" so well of 
 late,^ be employed on the '* wee pickle tow," and it will 
 do admirably well. 
 
 ' Sir Adam Ferguson, Scott's intimate friend and companion. 
 - Thomson himself, who took the hint. His version of " Johnnie 
 Cope" is inscribed to Sir Adam Ferguson.
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 249 
 
 Thomson had just pubHshed the last volume of his 
 Scottish collection, and Miss Baillie remarks at some 
 length upon the advantage to the work of having 
 come out when John Wilson "has delighted the 
 public so much by singing with his fine voice and 
 good taste our old Scotch airs, so much neglected of 
 late years." The applause of crowded audiences in 
 London "will no doubt make them more popular in 
 Edinburgh, and our country will no longer be foolish 
 enough (I mean our Scotch ladies) to despise what 
 belongs to itself. I am very much flattered to hear 
 that Mr. Wilson approves of my modified versions 
 of the old songs. They are at least more fitted 
 for his polite and more refined hearers than they 
 were." 
 
 Thus ends a long and interesting correspond- 
 ence. The letters of Joanna Baillie are indeed, 
 taking them as a whole, the best in the Thomson 
 collection. 
 
 AMELIA OPIE^ 
 
 While Mrs. Opie had better qualifications for the 
 task of sonof-writino- than some of Thomson's other 
 versifiers, her connection with him was not quite so 
 
 ^ Amelia Opie, it will perhaps be well to remind the reader, was 
 the wife of John Opie, the historical painter (1761-1^07). Opie 
 married her in 179S, having divorced his first wife two years before. He 
 it was who, as she expresses it, encouraged her to become "a candi- 
 date for the pleasures, the pangs, the rewards, and the penalties of 
 authorship."
 
 250 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 fortunate as that of most of his workers. Samuel 
 Parr said of her that she " combines in herself 
 qualifications which are seldom combined in the 
 same female. She is well-looking- ; she writes well, 
 talks well, sings well, dances well, and is altogether 
 not only a very amiable but a very fascinating 
 woman." These were excellent qualities. Unfor- 
 tunately, as a writer Mrs. Opie's virtues were not 
 so apparent. Miss Mitford justly complained of 
 her slipshod tales and bad English, and although 
 Sydney Smith could commend her for her tender- 
 ness he could find no excuse for her carelessness. 
 In this case, therefore, it will be easy to forgive the 
 fastidiousness of our editor. 
 
 Thomson wrote first to Mrs. Opie on the 30th 
 of September 1803, with an introduction from Dr. 
 Reeve (" Reeve is a good soul and deserves to be 
 happy "), when he assures her that she is " eminently 
 qualified to succeed in the little task " he is about 
 to propose. He encloses six Welsh airs and asks 
 words for them. The lady went to work on the 
 son^s at once and was able to send them off to 
 Edinburgh on the loth of November. She had 
 already sent a letter to Thomson by the hands of 
 Mr. Henry Southey, "brother to Mr. Southey the 
 poet — a young man who will be very fortunate 
 indeed if he finds as many friends at Edinburgh as 
 he leaves at Norwich." In his next note Thomson 
 remarks that "Mr. Southey appears to be a very 
 intelligent and agreeable young man, likely to find 
 friends everywhere," and adds that he will have 
 much pleasure in showing him every attention in his
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 251 
 
 power. With five of the songs he is quite charmed. 
 They are 
 
 Just what I expected from you — full of feeling and 
 taste ; the thoughts seem perfectly natural and the 
 language easy and elegant. I have sung them repeatedly 
 with the music, and am delighted with their fitness for 
 each other. The localities are happily introduced and 
 have a good effect. 
 
 The sixth song, "Go, youth beloved," Thomson 
 bluntly, and without reason assigned, says he does 
 not like ; and in her next letter Mrs. Opie endeavours 
 to interest him in it by telling him that "a conver- 
 sation which took place between H. Southey and a 
 friend of his on the eve of his departure gave rise 
 to it, and suggested the principal idea." The song, 
 Thomson notwithstanding, was a very good song, 
 and is indeed one of the most popular of Mrs. 
 Opie's lyrics. It was quoted approvingly by Sydney 
 Smith in one of his lectures on Moral Philosophy 
 at the Royal Institution (1804-5). ^^^s- Opie, who 
 was present, was, we are told, surprised at the 
 unexpected compliment, all the more perhaps that 
 Thomson had spoken so slightingly of the song. 
 
 A further request for verses, made in March 
 1805, produced in June a couple of songs, accom- 
 panied by the following note : 
 
 After having for the last two months wished you and 
 myself at Jericho, and after taking up the songs and your 
 letter and laying them down again in a hopeless rage 
 twenty times at least, this wet day of June (the loth, I 
 believe), having more leisure and less stupidity than
 
 252 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 usual, I have, after writing and tearing two whole songs, 
 manufactured the foregoing, which though not good is 
 the best that my [word torn away] brains are capable of 
 producing on the present occasion. 
 
 Next summer Thomson was in Wales, hunting 
 for the national airs of the country, and wound up 
 his holiday with a visit to London. In November he 
 writes to Mrs. Opie expressing his regret at having 
 missed her, and declaiming against the decree which 
 shut up most of the celebrated picture collections 
 against summer wanderers. " Mr. Opie obligingly 
 gave me a line to M. des Enfans, but I could not 
 get a peep at his treasures, so I must choose a better 
 season for my next visit to the great world." 
 
 But Thomson did not write merely to say this. 
 He desired to have more songs, and by way of in- 
 troducing the subject he asks Mrs. Opie to accept 
 of a muslin gown — -"a specimen of Scottish manu- 
 facture for which a public premium has been awarded 
 to the maker in a competition with others. I fiatter 
 myself," he adds, "that you will think it pretty." 
 And she did think it pretty. It was in fact "the 
 most beautiful muslin of the kind I ever saw ; 
 nothing can exceed or even equal the beauty of the 
 work." Three months after it had been in her 
 hands she was writing to Thomson : "I keep my 
 gown for spring parties, but I fear I shall dirty it, 
 before I wear it, with showing it." In this connection 
 it is interesting to recall the circumstance that Mrs. 
 Opie afterwards became a Quaker, and how she 
 confessed to Gurney "the agony of mind" she 
 endured at the thought of adopting the Quaker garb.
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 253 
 
 On the whole, however, she seems to have managed 
 tolerably well to combine her love of pretty clothes 
 with the austerities of the Friends' religion. Harriet 
 Martineau indeed declared that there was a "spice 
 of dandyism in the demure peculiarity of her dress." 
 But to resume. In her letter of November 28, 1806, 
 Mrs. Opie says : 
 
 The song of " In May I'll be here " is one of my most 
 effective songs. I have sung it at masquerades, modish 
 parties, and everywhere ; and " When will the collection 
 to which it belongs be out ? " is a question I am 
 frequently asked. What times these are ! ^ And what 
 will become of us ? Every one I see looks gloomy and 
 talks of the disasters on the Continent ; and the month 
 of November is gloomy enough without anything from 
 within or without to deepen its shades. 
 
 In the meantime Mrs. Opie had suffered a severe 
 bereavement by the death of her husband, which 
 occurred on the 9th of April 1807. ^'^ ^'^^ 4th of 
 September 1807 she writes to Thomson from her 
 father's at Norwich, whither she had returned, to 
 participate in what Harriet Martineau (Autobiog- 
 raphy, i. 299) called the " nonsense and vanity " of 
 society in the old Cathedral city : 
 
 I well know that I have lately been to you an object 
 of much interest and pity, and that you must have recol- 
 lected with some emotion the kind wishes for my domestic 
 happiness with which your last letter to me concluded. 
 They occurred to me only too forcibly, and I siiall never 
 cease to recollect the sad and strange coincidence of the 
 
 ^ The long wars of the French Revolution were going on merrily.
 
 254 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 song which preceded them/ when the blow, designed, I 
 fear, to destroy my happiness entirely, was hanging over 
 my unconscious head. But I must not write thus. I 
 am now able to employ myself ; at least I can correct, 
 though I can't readily compose, and am preparing a 
 volume of poems which I have by me for the press.^ . . . 
 I have taken the liberty to enclose to you some of the 
 proposals for printing the Lectures, and as I am desirous 
 of doing all possible honour where honour was so much 
 due, and derive from it some consolation, I wish to have 
 as large a subscription as possible, and I know you will 
 have the kindness to do all you can for me.^ ... I have 
 been much pleased with Mrs. Grant's Letters, and can 
 never forgive her for having written that exquisite song, 
 " Roy's wife." ^ 
 
 Thomson having got the first volume of his 
 Welsh songs out of hand, turned his attention to 
 the Irish collection ; and in the summer of 1809 he 
 writes to Mrs. Opie with a request that she would 
 "match about a dozen of the pathetic class of airs 
 with songs of two or three stanzas each." For 
 these, he adds, " I would willingly give you twenty- 
 
 1 This evidently refers to some lines Thomson had quoted as a 
 specimen of the measure for one of the airs for which he wished to 
 have words — 
 
 Farewell I farewell ! Eliza dear, 
 
 The maid that I adore, 
 A boding voice is in my ear — 
 
 We meet to part no inore. 
 
 2 The Warrior^ s Return and other Poe/ns was published in 1808. 
 
 ^ Opie's Lectures on Patntifig, with a memoir, were published by 
 his wile in 1809. The preparation of these Lectures is supposed to 
 have hastened his death. Thomson subscribed for three copies. 
 
 * A curious but a pardonable error. "Roy's Wife" was written, 
 not by Mrs. Grant of the Letters, but by Mrs. Grant of Carron.
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 255 
 
 five guineas, or a piece of plate of that value such as 
 you might chuse, with the privilege of publishing 
 the songs in your own work, without music, as soon 
 as my work is printed." Mrs. Opie agreed to write 
 the songs and accept the guineas. Thomson's next 
 letter to her is that from which a quotation has 
 already been made in dealing with the Moore corre- 
 spondence (see page 199). He had, as we have 
 seen, flattered her with the opinion that she might 
 produce songs that Moore himself would be proud 
 to own ; but compliments fell from Thomson as 
 thickly as jests from Sancho Panza, and in this case 
 he found that he had been somewhat too sano^uine. 
 Mrs. Opie sent him all the songs he had asked, but 
 we hear nothing regarding them until April 18 13, 
 when he writes to her in the following outspoken 
 fashion : 
 
 I have for some time past been employing all my 
 leisure in re-examining the poetry of my Irish work with 
 more particular attention than I gave to it when it first 
 came into my hands. And I am truly concerned to say 
 that, after considering all the songs which you was so 
 good as to write for that work, I find very few of them 
 that would either do credit to your name or to my 
 publication. In frankly telling you this, I should be 
 sincerely sorry if it gives you any uneasiness. I never 
 wcnild have said a word on the subject if I could have 
 avoided it, but as the work is going to press in a week or 
 two, and as you must soon see it, I thought you have a 
 right to know why so few of your songs will make their 
 appearance. 
 
 Thomson then proceeds to say that there are three 
 of the songs which might be made passable with
 
 256 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 some alterations, which he goes on to suggest in 
 some detail. I may just remark in passing that in 
 the whole of Thomson's correspondence I find only 
 one other instance of his having told a writer that 
 his work was absolutely bad. This was a certain 
 Mr. Toms, of Edinburgh, whose songs were on one 
 occasion returned to him because " they would not 
 do credit to your name, and I must not give them 
 to the public." It is, however, but fair to Mr. Toms 
 to add that he succeeded in pleasing Thomson with 
 several songs, as the collections bear witness. 
 
 To return, however, to Mrs. Opie. On the 4th 
 of May 18 1 3 she writes as follows from No. 15 King 
 Street, Portman Square, having left Norwich on the 
 very day that Thomson was addressing her from 
 Edinburgh : 
 
 Your letter has distressed me more than I can express, 
 and I earnestly wish that you could procure new words 
 by some one else, as I am far from well, and not free 
 enough in mind to give even a thought to these songs or 
 any songs. A task so painful, so thankless, and so vexa- 
 tious I never will undertake again, and bitterly regret 
 having undertaken in a moment when I wanted money. 
 And it was and is my intention to return you before 
 I leave town the sum I retained,^ not from temper or 
 pique, but from the honest pride of a gentlewoman, who 
 feels that she has really not earned the money according 
 to her ideas of rectitude, and therefore cannot, will not, 
 keep it. What you like of the songs you are perfectly 
 welcome to, and I only wish for your sake they were 
 better. But, alas ! all this is easily settled. The only 
 
 ^ Mrs. Opie, as subsequently appears, had retained seventeen 
 pounds.
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 
 
 257 
 
 difficulty is that, having involved you in this trouble, I 
 feel bound in honour and honesty to make the songs you 
 keep as good as I now can ; and to this, I really assure 
 you, I feel unequal. All my leisure, and it is little, is 
 bespoken for the work I have now in the press [ Tales of 
 Real Life, 3 vols., 1813], and I have no recollection of the 
 words you allude to, nor the music. ... I write with 
 effort, being very unwell, having lived a round of London 
 dissipation since I came, and am now only settled in mv 
 own lodgings. Perhaps I may be better to-morrow, and 
 then 1 will try to recollect the songs and do what I can. 
 ... In your judgment of some of the songs, you differ 
 from some of my friends, and one or two of the rejected 
 ones have found favour with the world. ^ 
 
 The poetess does not discuss the editor's " improve- 
 ments " at all ; and when next she writes, in January 
 18 1 5, it is to send Thomson "a draft for the seven- 
 teen pounds I owe you." " I am quite ashamed," 
 she adds, "of having so long omitted to send you 
 this money, but I have so many demands on my 
 purse in various w^ays, that I find it not always in 
 my power to raise seventeen pounds." A desire to 
 see Thomson's country is then mentioned : " All I 
 see of Scotch persons and Scotch writings, and 
 hear of Scotch country, makes me long to visit 
 Scotland, but it is a delight I now despair of, as I 
 fear my father would not like my going so far from 
 him. London is, comparatively, a short distance." 
 Mrs. Opie managed to realise her wish in the fol- 
 
 1 The three songs which Thomson agreed to retain, with his 
 suggested improvements, were : (i) "See ! where heaven adorning" : 
 (2) "The last time Dermont bade farewell" ; and (3) "This precious 
 lock of auburn hair."
 
 258 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 lowing year. Thomson again missed seeing her, 
 and could only write to express the hope that she 
 would come again. Mrs. Opie did not return to 
 Scotland until 1834, when she visited the Highlands. 
 She was in her seventies by this time, but the years 
 had touched her lightly, and this visit gave her as 
 keen enjoyment as the first, seventeen years before. 
 Her last letter to Thomson is dated from Nor- 
 wich on the 2ist of March 181 5. He had asked 
 her to make a slight change in a ballad which she 
 had written for one of his Welsh airs. She says : 
 
 I shall be glad to alter one of the last verses of the 
 ballad. I dislike borrowing from myself — or rather I 
 am vexed to see that I am so pro7ie to repeat myself. It 
 may seem incredible to you, but it is a/«r/that I had not 
 only forgotten I ever wrote the song in question, but that 
 I might have read it without knowing it for my own. 
 Surely I wrote it nine or ten years ago, because in 1808 
 I wrote a ballad published that year, and founded on a 
 fact, which ends thus — 
 
 " She's mine ! she's mine " he wildly cried, 
 And in that throb of joy expired. 
 
 Now surely I must have written the song for you previ- 
 ously, as, though much sorrow might banish from my 
 recollection a tale ysivxiiQW previous to 1808, it is not likely 
 I should repeat myself so palpably after 1808, when my 
 recent ballad must have been fresh in my memory. 
 
 It is not, perhaps, really surprising that so prolific a 
 writer as Mrs. Opie should have forgotten two such 
 ordinary lines as those she quotes.
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 259 
 
 DAVID MACBETH MOIR^ ("DELTA") 
 
 Thomson and Moir were corresponding with 
 each other in 1830, but while ''Delta's" letters 
 exist from that date, there is no copy of any com- 
 munication from Thomson until 1839. Moir writes 
 first, from Musselburgh, on the 29th of March 1830: 
 
 I last night received your letter, enclosing the music 
 of " Killiecrankie " and " Pinkie House," and should be 
 most happy if it lies in my power to wed these melodies 
 to fitting words. I will try it, but as a song-writer I 
 confess my inexperience, and am quite aware that it 
 requires a very peculiar talent to succeed. Most of the 
 things set to music are verses and not songs ; and Burns 
 and Moore are still ahnost exclusively the only two whose 
 compositions inform us by their spirit and texture that 
 they were made for singing. 1 completely agree with 
 you as to the absurdity of oin- modern fashionable fair 
 ones pretending to give a preference to Italian airs over 
 the rich divine old melodies of our native country. 1 
 scout the tiling wherever I meet it, and have always been 
 in the habit of doing so. Whenever I at all succeed to 
 my mind in the pleasant task you have allotted me 1 will 
 enclose the verses to vou. Should there be any others 
 that you are at a loss to dispose of and yet would like 
 adapted to other words, you may let me trv them, and 
 should they not be to your mind, incineration is an easy 
 process. 
 
 Meantime Thomson had come to think that 
 "Delta's" verses, "They say that other eyes are 
 bright," might do for " Pinkie House" ; and accord- 
 
 ' Born i7yS in Musscllnngh, wlierc, as a tloctor, ilie whole of his 
 life was spent. Most of his writings in prosC and verse appeared in 
 lUackicooiVs Mai^a::ifie.
 
 26o GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 ingly we find Moir writing- on the 19th of May to 
 say that he has "altered the objectionable line you 
 pointed out, and rewritten the whole to make it 
 more like a veritable song." Other alterations were 
 suggested by the editor, Moir good - naturedly 
 acquiescing, until the matter was finally disposed of 
 in a fourth letter/ 
 
 When it came to making changes on songs not 
 from his own pen, the author of Mansie Waugh was 
 not so docile. It appears that the stupidly fastidious 
 Thomson had some scruples about printing the well- 
 known "Gin a body meet a body" in its generally 
 accepted form. The grounds of his objection will 
 be gathered from the following extract from one of 
 Moir's letters : 
 
 About the alteration of a song so universally popular 
 as " Gin a body," I know not what to say. Every line is 
 hallowed in the public heart, whether ladies will sing 
 about kissing or no. That such is the case, however, I 
 am fully aware ; and if the couplet could be at all altered 
 it would be advisable. But as all the rest of the song is 
 unexceptionable, meddling would be a sort of profana- 
 tion. After two or three trials I can make out nothing 
 tolerable but the following : 
 
 Gin a body meet a body 
 
 Comin' thro' the rye. 
 Should a body on a body 
 
 Gloom in passing by ? 
 Or— 
 
 Gloom in jinking by. 
 
 ^ " I got a song for ' Pinkie House' from ' Delta' (who lives close 
 by Pinkie), in which the localities of the scene are so happily touched 
 that I adopted it in preference to two or three others intended for that 
 melody, yours among the rest." — G. T. to David Vedder, Ju7ie 18, 1831.
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 261 
 
 Against this not very brilliant "improvement" 
 Thomson has pencilled the lines — 
 
 Gin a body like a body 
 Should she pass him by? 
 
 Here is surely the very acme of Mrs. Grundyism. 
 The ladies of Thomson's day must have been 
 squeamish indeed if they really objected to sing the 
 lines Thomson thus wished to replace. 
 
 The rest of Moir's letters, six in number, all deal 
 with a new version of " God save the Queen," which 
 Thomson had foolishly asked him to attempt. Moir 
 showed his usual good sense in the matter, but was 
 evidently overruled by his correspondent. He says : 
 
 From old associations it is difticult to give new verses 
 to a great national air, and moreover here the measure is 
 horribly namby-pamby. I have sent you three new 
 stanzas which, with the one voii intend retaining [tlie 
 tirst], will I fancy be enough. Should you wish others, 
 or these altered, you have onlv to let me know. 
 
 The new version of " The Queen's Anthem " thus 
 called into being has of course been totally forgot- 
 ten, like numerous other efforts of the same kind. 
 Thomson, nevertheless, was "delighted with your 
 stanzas, which are quite beautiful and appropriate." 
 
 There is a stanza for singing in time oi war, if we 
 should again be involved in that calamity. Hut 1 should 
 be much better pleased if you would pen a suitable 
 stanza in its room, and make the whole antiiem your 
 own, excepting the first stanza, which I think we must 
 retain. To the war stanza I would pretix a note like 
 this ; "The following stanza refers to a >tate of war, 
 which, let us hope, may not occur in our daw" Or shall
 
 262 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 we, instead of the last three words, say " during her 
 Majesty's reign " ? 
 
 Our Lord our God arise, 
 Scatter her enemies, 
 
 And make them fall. 
 Confound their politics 
 Frustrate their knavish tricks, &c. 
 
 I forget the last couplet, but all the four lines are bad and 
 unworthy of forming a tail to your verses. And I am 
 sure if you try you will produce a far better war stanza. 
 . . . We will show her Majesty how far Beethoven, 
 " Delta," and their bellows-blower have outdone all Eng- 
 land in loyal minstrelsy ! Shall I say "By D. M. Moir" 
 or " By Delta "V 
 
 Many attempts have been made to improve upon 
 the "politics" and "knavish tricks" rhyme, from 
 the Gentle7nans Magazine of 1745 down to the 
 Diamond Jubilee version of Dean Hole. Moir 
 was not quite decided about the matter. He con- 
 fesses that he has "not much penchant either for 
 the war stanzas or the peace stanzas," and thinks 
 "that the former, as such, may be freely sunk." 
 One remark he would make which has forcibly 
 struck him, and it is this, " that if we retain a stanza 
 of the old absurd anthem, and that to be the first 
 sung, it will never be known by one in a hundred 
 as Beethoven's or indeed anything else save the 
 ancient use and w^ont." If not too late, therefore, he 
 
 ^ " Poetice I am better known as ' Delta' than D. M. Moir, — but as 
 some literary swindlers in the London periodicals have more than 
 once assumed my nom-de-guerre^ it is surer work to note it as I 
 now subscribe myself, ever yours most truly, D. M. Moir (Delta)." — 
 Letter to Thomsoft,July 19, 1839.
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 263 
 
 " would sink it altogether, and retain not a rag of 
 the old habiliments." 
 
 But Thomson was determined to have the war 
 and peace stanzas, and so, " to render the lyric more 
 complete," Moir yielded to him on this point also. 
 A " Birthday " stanza was another of his suggestions, 
 but Moir demurred to that — "the adjurations for 
 such a theme being incorporated in the first as well 
 as in parts of the other stanzas." Thus ended 
 one more futile attempt to supplant what Mr, 
 W. S. Gilbert calls "our illiterate national anthem." 
 Thomson published Moir's verses as a finale to the 
 sixth volume of his Scottish collection. Whether 
 her Majesty took any notice of the " bellows- 
 blower's loyal minstrelsy " (Thomson said he was 
 sending her a copy of the volume) we have no 
 means of telling. 
 
 DAVID VEDDER^ 
 
 " Say what you will and think as you may, our 
 names will as surely go down to posterity associated, 
 as will yours and Robert Burns'. This is my only 
 comfort under every apparent slight which I meet 
 in the course of my pilgrimage." Thus wrote David 
 Vedder to Thomson in 1833. And who now 
 remembers David Vedder ? Certainly the Orkney 
 
 ' David \'edder was a native of Orkney. 1 le l)CL;an life as a sailor, 
 and was subsequently employed in the revenue service. He piiblislicd 
 several poetical works, wrote, anionj,' other thinj^s, a memoir of Scott, 
 and contributed extensively to periodical literature. He died in Edin- 
 burgh in February 1H54, in his sixty-fourth year.
 
 264 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 poet did make a persistent bid for immortality. He 
 tells Hoggin 1832 that "with an education little 
 better than your own, and with hard labour for my 
 portion until my twenty-fifth year, it has been my 
 ambition all my life to do something to distinguish 
 myself in literature, and though I may never soar, 
 no man shall say but I have made an effort." No 
 man who reads the poet's letters to Thomson will 
 ever be likely to gainsay the effort ; the letters are 
 full of efforts — poetical efforts, that is — with, alas ! 
 but very little of achievement. Indeed the letters 
 are much better, as a rule, than the verse which 
 accompanies them. 
 
 In Vedder's collected poems, published in 1842, 
 there are six songs which, as we are informed in a 
 note, " have been set to music, with symphonies 
 and accompaniments, and published in Mr. George 
 Thomson's Scotch melodies." The correspondence 
 between Thomson and the poet is mainly concerned 
 with these songs, for the editor's habitual fault- 
 findinor involved somethino- like four letters to each 
 production. 
 
 The first song^ about which we hear is a version 
 of "Cam' ye by Athole?" Thomson seems to 
 have asked for this when he learned from Hogg 
 (see the letter of August 15, 1829) that the Shep- 
 herd's well-known lyric would not be available. 
 Vedder coolly opens with Hogg's first verse, but 
 afterwards substitutes for that the stanza beginning, 
 " Cam' ye by Athole, Donald MacGillavray," not 
 so much, perhaps, " from having the fear of Mr. 
 Hogg before mine eyes, as to have the song com-
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 265 
 
 plete of my own writing," The rhymes in Hogg's 
 stanza and chorus are, moreover, in his opinion, 
 "miserably deficient." In fact, "there are no rhymes 
 at all in it. Who would think of rhyming ' Gary ' 
 to ' Charlie ' ? And the first and third lines of his 
 chorus are mere repetitions." 
 
 Vedder's song originally contained the following 
 lines, which agreed with Thomson as little as they 
 would have agreed with the tune : 
 
 Down to the dust with the proud Hanoverian, 
 Sabre the Whigs and the Hessian cravens ; 
 
 Renegade Lowland loon, prim Presbyterian, 
 
 Give their bones to the gibbet, their flesh to the ravens. 
 
 This presently gave place to lines " as soft as new 
 potatoes at the Assembly's dinner, and which an 
 Anti-Burgher lady might sing on a Saturday even- 
 ing- even if the rulin^r elder had been to tea with 
 her. The dear, demure, bright-eyed Whigs shall 
 not have their nerves hurt." And so the song was 
 finished to Thomson's satisfaction. "It is," said 
 he, " a fine spirited effusion, and in days o' lang 
 syne would have set the Jacobites red wud [mad], 
 though they were pretty well 'on' without it." 
 Nevertheless, it has not displaced Hogg's "miser- 
 able" rhymes and "mere repetitions." 
 
 In sending the song, "Robin is my joy, my dear, " 
 Vedder indulges in some sharp criticism of the old 
 version, incjuiring "how in the name of Apollo " the 
 fine air came to be " married to such doggerel. " 
 The original version of the song ("simple, natural, 
 and tender" is how Thomson describes it) differs in
 
 266 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 many little details from that printed in Vedder's 
 volume of 1842. The last stanza has been entirely 
 deleted, it is hardly necessary to say, at the sugges- 
 tion of Thomson, who will not take " The glamour 
 o' my Robin's mou' " (not a felicitous expression 
 certainly), because " our young ladies would not 
 sing it." Nor will he have the following : 
 
 Then patiently I'll bide my time, 
 Anticipating joys sublime. 
 When Rab and I attain our prime. 
 He wha for aye will loe me. 
 
 " We must accommodate our verses to the tastes 
 of readers," says Thomson, " or we print in vain." 
 Therefore, in deference to "our young ladies," the 
 above must be sacrificed. It is "with reluctance" 
 that he troubles his correspondent with so many 
 suggested alterations, but he has " been obliged to 
 go through this process with three-fourths of the 
 many songs that have been written for my national 
 melodies." 
 
 After this, it probably did not greatly surprise 
 Vedder when Thomson proposed to him that he 
 should make a substitute " for a rather free stanza 
 in a most beautiful song of Burns." The " free 
 stanza" was the last of " Blooming Nelly" (" On a 
 bank of flowers, in a summer day "), which the in- 
 terested reader may look up for himself. Let us 
 see what Vedder has to say in reference to it. It 
 will be noticed that he makes no objection to the 
 proposed meddling with the poet. 
 
 With regard to the last stanza of " On a bank of 
 flowers," I find it impossible to improve the last four lines
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 267 
 
 of the stanza and retain the first four. So therefore the 
 whole eight Hnes must be lopped off the song and a new- 
 stanza written besides. It is the more necessary, as it 
 looks rather daft-like for a lassie to run like a wild hare 
 into the wood for protection when she ought rather to 
 have run to the nearest cottage. There is also a pithy 
 Scottish adage which bears me out, namely, " P'leyrs wad 
 hae followers." Ramsay has the same idea in " Fye I 
 gae rub her o'er wi' strae." His heroine rins awa' and 
 *' hides hersel' in some dark nooks." But what of that ? 
 Her laugh will lead you to the place " where lies the 
 happiness you want." Now, I maintain that both the 
 one and the other contain double meanings, and con- 
 sequently [are] unlit for the drawing-room. Here is my 
 notion of how the song should end : 
 
 With trembling limbs and flutt'ring breast, 
 
 The beauteous maid awoke ; 
 And morning ne'er on mountain crest, 
 
 With half the splendour broke. 
 But love sat throned in Willie's eye. 
 
 And honour breathed in every sigh ; 
 She, void of guile, vouchsafed a smile 
 
 Which empires could not buy. 
 
 Or— 
 
 The maid meanwliile vouchsafed a smile 
 Which kingdoms could not buv. 
 
 I fondly hope this new stanza will enable the ladies to 
 warble one of the linest lyrics in existence. 
 
 Thomson did not give the ladies a chance, although 
 it seems to have taken him some time to make uj) 
 his mind about the questionable character of his 
 proceeding. Writing to Vedder, he says : 
 
 Your proposed concluding stanza lor " Nelly " is very 
 clever, but you take away too much of the charming
 
 268 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 original. We dare not touch the simile of the partridge ; 
 'twould be deemed sacrilegious. There is a good reason 
 for some changes on the last four lines of the song, but 
 not for meddling with the first four [of the last stanza]. 
 On my pillow the other morning I thought of turning 
 the stanza as follows : 
 
 As flies the partridge from the brake, 
 
 On fear-inspired wings, 
 So Nelly, starting half-awake, 
 
 Away affrighted springs. 
 But Willie soon stood by her side, 
 
 f'or Cupid is a speedy guide ; 
 He vow'd, he pray'd, he found the maid 
 
 Content to be his bride. 
 
 But whether I ought to venture upon this alteration, 
 slight as it is, I really am not sure. 
 
 The final decision is recorded on the outside of 
 Vedder's letter : " On mature consideration I decide 
 that we must not, dare not, alter the original. G. T." 
 How far Vedder influenced this conclusion may 
 be guessed from the following, written in reply to 
 the above : 
 
 .■ . . Now for " Nelly." Will you pardon me if I speak 
 my mind ? I know you will. Then be it known to 
 you, on the faith and honour of a versifier, your amend- 
 ment will never do. Boreas with his blasts, Neptune 
 with his waves, Venus with her smiles, Diana with her 
 staghounds, Minerva with her wisdom, and (above all) 
 Cupid with his darts have all been laid in the Red Sea by 
 that great conjuror Taste and the concurrence of man- 
 kind generally ; and who may invoke them or allude 
 to them with impunity? — None. Moreover, when we 
 select an individual to guide us anywhere, we do not so
 
 CORRESPONDENXE ABOUT THE SONGS 269 
 
 much care for a " speedy" guide as a safe one. Now all 
 the namby-pambyists, from Elkanah Settle ^ downwards, 
 have agreed that there is not a more dangerous personage 
 in existence than this same Cupid. Then, though he 
 may be speedy he is not safe ; ergo should not be trusted. 
 Now then there is nothing under heaven more tame than 
 " Content to be his bride." So all things considered, 'tis 
 better to let it remain on the borders of double entendre 
 than substitute anything tame. Were I to receive ;^iooo 
 for writing a stanza that would please me better, I would 
 give it up in despair. It completely pleased myself, and 
 on my solemn oath that is very seldom the case. . . . 
 Perhaps you may reconsider the matter. I would not 
 be so scrupulous with the partridge simile. Besides, 'tis 
 in tens of thousands of books, and cannot be lost. 
 
 This is the last that we hear about '* Nelly." But 
 it is not the last that we hear about Vedder's laying- 
 hands on Burns. In 1838 he writes to Thomson: 
 "I hope I have altered 'Lovely Polly Stewart' in 
 such a way as would have pleased Burns himself 
 had he been at my elbow. I deem that I have 
 used exactly such expressions as he would have 
 done had he for a moment thought his words too 
 warm. But he was the child of passion, and did 
 not well know how to chasten down his luxurious 
 imagination." One can only admire the daring im- 
 pudence of these manglers and meddlers. Thomson 
 himself did some incredible things in the way c^f 
 altering Burns to suit his own whimsical notions. 
 He tells this same Vedder that the "O" at the 
 end of the lines in "Green grow the rashes. () " is 
 
 ' A minor playwrij^^ht, remembered only for the ridicule heaped on 
 liim by Dryden and Pope.
 
 270 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 "entirely unnecessary, and to me disagreeable," and 
 therefore in singing the song he always cuts off the 
 "O"! The effect must have been as tame as his 
 proposed ending of " Nelly," but Thomson actually 
 prints the song in that way ! 
 
 The letters which follow for a considerable time 
 are mostly taken up with a song for the old air of 
 "Aikendrum," for which Allan Cunningham later 
 on furnished words (" A wooer came to our toun"). 
 Vedder ultimately wrote for this melody the lyric 
 beginning " The gloaming star is gleaming," which 
 Thomson calls " a song of sweets, nicely culled and 
 happily displayed." At first the poet " found it ex- 
 ceedingly difficult to hit on anything like originality," 
 so much having been said and sung about " Aiken- 
 drum," and he simply put the old character into the 
 new guise of a warlock. The result did not satisfy 
 Thomson, and he frankly said so. "I confess I 
 should like you to pen something of a higher grade 
 and greater polish for the music of ' Aikendrum,' " 
 says he. Thereupon Vedder flies into a tantrum, 
 remarking that "if the song does not 's>\i\\. yoit there 
 are many who will be glad of it." Thomson was 
 at his old objections to the Doric again : 
 
 There are some • broad-cast words of the Scottish 
 country kitchen which, though found in some of our 
 old songs, should never appear in new ones. Such to me 
 are "chaumer," ** coggie," *'loof" ; and you may rely on 
 it that the colloquial phraseology of low persons is quite 
 unsuitable to the lyrics of the present day. The four 
 last lines would not be amiss if they were rid of the 
 " coggie." ... I spell the word "And" not "An','' be-
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 271 
 
 cause I do not like to see English words disfigured for 
 the purpose of Scottifying them. 
 
 In another letter he harps on the same string. 
 Two songs of Vedder's he has not used, because 
 they are written in broad Scotch, which "our fair 
 countrywomen never hear except from their menials. 
 It is every day losing ground, even among our- 
 selves." Young people are "positively taught to 
 consider it vulgar, and, being thus discouraged from 
 speaking in the broad native dialect, feel no inclina- 
 tion to sing it. Poets therefore who now write 
 songs would do well to write pure English if they 
 expect to be sung." Reading between the lines, we 
 may here note that Thomson recognised the bad 
 taste of his age in its depreciation of the native 
 dialect, but felt that it was not for him, indeed, that 
 it would be useless for any one, to attempt to correct 
 it. The day of the " kailyarders " was not yet. 
 
 There is no further letter until August 1833, 
 when Vedder writes to express his regret that 
 Thomson on various visits to Dundee, where the 
 l)oet was then stationed, had never called to see 
 him. His great desire was to have "some ccMiver- 
 sation with you on a theme which, I will be bold 
 to say, wc know as much about, nay viore, than 
 any other two human beings, viz. Scottish song." 
 Vedder had clearly no need to pray for a " guid 
 conceit " of himself 
 
 A song for the air of " Sae merry as we hae 
 been" was written in 1837. It passed through 
 the fire of Thomson's criticism, emerijing alter the
 
 272 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 process much as it now stands. Thomson told his 
 correspondent that he had "a great hankering kind- 
 ness " for the first verse of the old version, both 
 " on account of its pleasing simplicity and some 
 auld lang syne recollections of hearing it sweetly 
 and repeatedly sung by those who have long ceased 
 to charm the ear and eye." Indeed, he would never 
 have thought of disturbing the opening stanza " if 
 the ' fors ' and 'dids' had not made part of it," and 
 he is for keeping "as near to the original as is con- 
 sistent with good taste." 
 
 For the air of " Todlin' hame " Vedder wrote 
 the song of " My ain fireside," which, as he boasts 
 to Thomson, is drawn from his own experience. In 
 his letter acknowledging the receipt of " this little 
 gem," we have the first indication that payment 
 was made to the poet by Thomson, a sum of two 
 pounds being enclosed as " a small token of gratitude 
 for the favour." A subsequent letter shows, how- 
 ever, that this was the second time Vedder had 
 received the same amount. 
 
 There is nothino^ of further interest in the corre- 
 spondence, unless it be some references to a poetical 
 " Epistle " addressed to Thomson by Vedder. The 
 sailor poet clearly had a genuine regard for Thomson 
 and a sincere wish to be of use to him. Twice 
 before this he had offered to "write up" the editor 
 and his collections in the Edinburgh Literary 
 Gazette, and other journals with which he was con- 
 nected. Nothing seems to have come of that sug- 
 gestion, perhaps for a very good reason : Vedder 
 was not himself to pen the tribute ; Thomson was to
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 273 
 
 be the author ; Vedder was to " stand godfather for 
 every word of it, copy it in my own hand, and 
 return you the MS. to be burnt." Such was the 
 manner in which he proposed to "sound a trumpet 
 before you and give you greetings in the market- 
 place." The "Epistle" was, however, a fair and 
 square production. This panegyric, which appears 
 with a long note ^ in the collected works, was first 
 printed in the London and Edinburgh Magazine, 
 then edited, as Vedder tells us, by "a Scotsman, a 
 scholar, and a man of genius." It is of no merit, 
 but perhaps in a Life of Thomson it should find a 
 place. Here it is : 
 
 EPISTLE TO GEORGE THOMSON, ESQ. 
 
 THE FAR-FAMED CORRESPONDENT OF ROBERT BURNS 
 
 Ten thousand thanks, dear friend of mine, 
 For " Johnie Cope," that braw propine ; 
 I'll drink your health in "blude-red wine," 
 
 Just after dinner, 
 Wi' a' the honours, nine times nine, 
 
 As I'm a sinner. 
 
 Good men an' true, their country's boast. 
 Whose names are known from coast to coast, 
 Shall join me in the grateful toast, 
 
 And loud applaud you, 
 While I sit a delighted host, 
 
 To hear them laud you. 
 
 ^ The "note" is practically a paraphrase of Thomson's account 
 of himself and his work which he furnished to R. Chambers for TIic 
 Land of Burns. " Possessing a clear head and a vigorous intellect," 
 says the writer, "the venerable gentleman to whom the above verses 
 
 S
 
 274 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 By faith an' filial fondness led on, 
 I love the very ground ye tread on, 
 An' pray for benisons your head on, 
 
 Here an' hereafter ; — 
 Auld Scotland mourns wi' sable weed on, 
 
 Sin' ye hae left her.i 
 
 For, ah ! ye roamed her wide domains. 
 Her broomy haughs an' flowery plains, 
 Her dreary dells an' mountain chains. 
 
 Fatigue defying. 
 An' married her immortal strains 
 
 To verse undying. 
 
 Far from the busy, noisy throng. 
 Ye sought, the Border dales among. 
 The HiERARCH of Scottish song, 
 
 So famed in story, 
 An' while time's river rolls along, 
 
 Ye'll share his glory. 
 
 With kindred souls that would not palter. 
 With faith that could not flinch nor falter, 
 Ye took an oath at Friendship's altar, 
 
 Within Truth's portal, 
 An' now, like Shakespeare an' Sir Walter, 
 
 Ye're both immortal. 
 
 May hope and peace, and love and joy, 
 Like stars, illume your evening sky ; 
 May countless blessings from on high 
 
 Your steps attend, 
 With heaving breast and moistened eye 
 
 So prays your friend. 
 
 are addressed has recently composed an excellent narrative-ballad on 
 the flight of that mirror of recreant knights, Sir John Cope, at the 
 patriarchal age of 82 ! His zeal and assiduity in the cause of Scottish 
 music and song seem to increase with increasing years." 
 
 ^ This was written while Thomson was temporarily resident in 
 London.
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 275 
 
 Now for the correspondence on this glowing 
 eulogium. Vedder, writing to Thomson in May 
 1 84 1, says : 
 
 I have had the " Epistle " printed, with a copious 
 notice of your musical life — what you have done and 
 what you are doing for the music of auld Scotland. I 
 have likewise couched a lance at some of your detractors, 
 and have quoted Robert Chambers' eloquent and pungent 
 defence of your character from his Land of Bums. None 
 shall touch you with impunity while I hve and possess 
 the exercise of my mental faculties, and when vou and I 
 and Chambers shall be mingled with the clods of the 
 valley, some generous spirit will assuredly arise who 
 will send a Congreve rocket in the midst of the circle 
 of dullards who would be mean enough to kick tlie 
 dead lion. 
 
 Vedder's images, it may be observed, are sufficiently 
 audacious and varied. Thomson was not without a 
 fair share of self-esteem, but this and the " Epistle" 
 were too much for him. He writes : 
 
 You may believe that I feel most trulv grateful to you 
 for such a marked proof of your friendship and good 
 opinion as I Imd in the " Epistle," ai^.d in the note by 
 which it is accompanied. But I assure you, my worthy 
 correspondent, that \ou have exalti d me tar above my 
 poor deserts. 'Tis perfectly true that I roamed and 
 pored and wn-ote much more tlian any one out of my 
 own family knows in search of ail tliat is vihiable and 
 really deserving of preservation in our national meloches 
 and songs, as well as in the acquisition of new songs tor 
 the many unprcnided or miserablv ill-provided melodies 
 which I found. This I liave done with enthusiasm, and 
 I flatter myself it will be acknowledged by all real judges
 
 276 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 of music and poetry who closely examine the collection 
 I have made. Thus far I do honestly think I have 
 deserved well of the lovers of the delightful sister arts, 
 and feel myself not unworthy of your kind praise. 
 Farther, however, your partiality of kind friendship 
 should not carry you. You must not place me on a 
 pedestal I am unworthy to occupy, as you have done in 
 the sixth verse of your panegyric. If it is not printed 
 off, I most earnestly beseech you to have it expunged. 
 Burns may be placed as near the summit of Parnassus 
 as you please. He is worthy of Shakespeare's and 
 Milton's society, and Sir Walter may perhaps be admitted 
 to make up the immortal quartet. But, my dear sir, you 
 must not indeed associate my humble name with that of 
 Sir Walter, by which your judgment would be impeached 
 and laughed at. For God's sake, then, get the sixth verse 
 cancelled, whatever you do. 
 
 Before Vedder received this protest and appeal 
 the "Epistle" had been "printed oiT and dispersed 
 to the four winds," so that it only remained for 
 him to defend himself as best he could. He wrote 
 his "Epistle" from the worthiest of motives; it 
 was " a kind of safety-valve for an outburst of pent- 
 up affection." It was sent in manuscript to Robert 
 Chambers, who "declared it good," and Chambers 
 "is one upon whose judgment I would rely more 
 than upon that of any other living man."-' As for 
 the coupling of Thomson's name with the name 
 of Burns, that was inevitable : Burns will be known 
 to "the latest posterity," and just as surely will 
 
 ^ Vedder's youngest daughter was engaged in the family of 
 Robert Chambers "as preceptress of his daughters." His eldest 
 daughter, he says in 1841, "teaches the pianoforte, but I am sorry 
 to say her scholars are somewhat like angels' visits."
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 277 
 
 the name of George Thomson go along with his. 
 "You would have been highly respectable, and 
 would have deserved well of your country had you 
 never corresponded with Burns. But it is the 
 association of your names that will make you7's 
 fresh and green a thousand years hence." And 
 so Thomson's scruples were removed : at any rate 
 we may presume that they were, for there is no 
 further mention of the matter in the correspond- 
 ence, and Thomson was still living when the objec- 
 tionable sixth verse was printed in the panegyrist's 
 collected poems. 
 
 Vedder had evidently all along the greatest 
 pleasure in his work for Thomson. " As for the 
 songs," he says in one letter, " I have had more 
 delight in composing them than in perhaps any 
 of my literary undertakings ; " and when it comes 
 to the last of his commissions he "feels excessively 
 sorry to be compelled to bid farewell to the pains 
 and pleasures of writing for you." 
 
 WILLIAM TEXNANT 
 
 There are several letters from the author of 
 Ayistci' Fa27', but only two addressed to him by 
 lliomson. The first o^ Thomson's letters was 
 written in July 18 16, when Tennant was teaching 
 at Dunino, near Anstruther. Tennant had apjilied 
 for the office of House Governor at Heriot's Hospital, 
 and Thomson had licen using his intluence in pro-
 
 278 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 moting his interests. The application was unsuc- 
 cessful, and Thomson, in returning the candidate's 
 letters and certificates, thought to soften the disap- 
 pointment by asking him to try his hand on some 
 songs for his collection. " I conceive," says he, 
 " that if you were to set about it you must succeed, 
 and I should feel peculiar pleasure to \jic] usher in 
 your name among the lyric poets in my concluding 
 volume, now in preparation. ... I am sure you 
 can be eccentric, novel, and natural, and these are 
 qualities which are sure to please." 
 
 Tennant evidently took his disappointment 
 philosophically, for we find Thomson writing to 
 him on the 13th of August {1816) : 
 
 I am happy to learn that you are not only a poet 
 but a philosopher, characters that are very rarely united, 
 and I conceive that in your cottage on the muir, blessed 
 with habits of temperance and study, and with the 
 inspiring visits of the muse, you enjoy such a measure 
 of happiness as seldom falls to the lot of the peer in 
 his palace. Your poetical renown, I am certain, must 
 spread itself every day in proportion as the world gets 
 acquainted with Anster Fair, which deserves much 
 warmer praise and a higher rank than it has obtained 
 even from the Edinburgh Review. I have again read 
 it with inexpressible delight and additional surprise ; 
 for you have scattered the richest flowers of poesy and 
 the finest strokes of humour with an unsparing hand, 
 feeling, no doubt, that you have a mine of diamonds 
 which you are in no fear of exhausting. 
 
 Tennant, it appears from this letter, "consented 
 to invoke the muse for a few lyrics," but there 
 is no further correspondence on either side, until
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 279 
 
 we come to the first of Tennant's letters in 
 1834. From a letter of Sir Alexander Boswell to 
 Thomson, dated London, March 26, 181 7, we learn 
 something of an early disappointment of Tennants 
 not mentioned by his biographers : 
 
 I have this day the unpleasant duty of infornunj^ Mr. 
 Tennant that he has failed in his application for the 
 Professorship. I made application to Lord Melville, 
 but strong interest had been at work, and althouj^h there 
 has been [sic] very strong exertions for rival cancHdates, 
 both have concurred in soliciting that, let the decision 
 end as it may, they trust that the choice may not fall 
 on Mr. Tennant. This of course you will not communi- 
 cate to him, but his personal defects^ had been urged, 
 I found, from some quarter, and never having seen iiim, 
 I could not speak concerning them. I confess 1 think 
 thC' step was bold. To get the school of Lasswade I 
 thought an object, yet he has not had it six months 
 when he aims at a Professorship of Oriental languages. 
 Lord Melville told me that though he could not promote 
 his views at present from the recommendations he had 
 received, he should be happy to be of use to him on 
 another occasion. 
 
 Tennant had been preferred to Lasswade in 
 18 16 by the good offices of Thomson; and in 
 1819 he was appointed teacher of classical and 
 Oriental languages in Dollar Institution. Here 
 he remained until 1835, when, through the in- 
 fluence of Lord Jeffrey, he succeeded the Kew 
 Dr. Scott, as Professor of Ori ntal languages at St. 
 
 1 Roswell must mean pliy>ical defects. TcnnaiU was inner able 
 to walk without the help ot crutches.
 
 2 8o GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 Mary's College, St. Andrews. As David Vedder 
 had it — 
 
 They placed him in a grave Professor's chair 
 Who sang in jocund strains the joys of Anster Fair. 
 
 The two letters to Thomson which follow are 
 in connection with Tennant's candidature for this 
 post. The first is dated 5th October 1834 : 
 
 I have to-day transmitted to Mr. M'Laren of the 
 Scotsman testimonials necessary to be handed to the 
 Lord Advocate. In case he (Mr. M'Laren) should be 
 from home, and they by mistake should be allowed to 
 lie on his table, I think it right to apprise you also, my 
 dear sir, of this circumstance, that, if you find time, you 
 may call at Mr. McLaren's, George Street, and learn 
 whether he is at home to receive them. A copy of the 
 pamphlet on the Psalms should be also lying on Mr. 
 M'Laren's table, to be handed in also with these testi- 
 monials. ... If you find time you may read the certifi- 
 cates. I regret not having Dr. Jamieson's. I wrote to 
 him on the subject, but he is somewhere in the country, 
 and I know not if my letter has reached him. 
 
 The second letter is dated 8th December 1834. 
 Thomson has written on it in pencil : " The warrant 
 is ready to be stamped ; fees ^9, 3s. 6d." 
 
 I have just received a letter from St. Andrews inti- 
 mating that I am appointed Oriental Professor in St. 
 Andrews, but that owing to the cessation of business 
 in the public offices consequent on the change of 
 Ministers, the patent, though made out and signed, has 
 not been transmitted. 1 am directed to employ some 
 solicitor in London in obtaining it from the Home 
 Department Office on paying the usual fees, &c. Now,
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 281 
 
 though I have met Mr. Richardson, a respectable soHcitor 
 there, and know something of Scot, Air. James Nairn's 
 brother-in-law, yet I am not sure of their addresses, nor 
 indeed know if it may lie in their way to perform such 
 a service. I have therefore bethought myself of address- 
 ing you on the subject, with a wish that you, knowing, 
 as you certainly must do, some respectable solicitor 
 in London, may write to him desiring him to call 
 at the Home Office for patent lying written out and 
 sealed, to pay the necessary fees, and to forward it 
 to me, when I shall make a remittance to him of the 
 charges. . . . 
 
 I must thank you, my dear sir, for the warm interest 
 and earnest exertions on your part for procuring me 
 this respectable appointment. From lirst to last, in- 
 deed, your kindly endeavours to effect my promotion, 
 from my lirst going to Lasswade to this last advance, 
 have been so conspicuous, and I may add so successful, 
 that I should indeed sin against the kindest Benevolence 
 were I to overlook or forget your ever-to-be-valued 
 attentions. 
 
 After this we have nothing further from Tennant 
 until the following letter of May 1 i, 1847. Thom- 
 son himself, it should be premised, had written a 
 " Sequel to bonnie Maggie Lauder, no longer now 
 a widow." Mao'o^ie Lauder was, of course, the 
 heroine of Anstc}- Fair. 
 
 After such a long cessation of correspondence, 1 am 
 liappy once more to see your well-known handwriting. 
 It is nearly the same as when I corresponded with you 
 thirty-three years ago, only a little more open and ex- 
 panded. 1 am glad to hear that you experience, though 
 nearly a nonagenarian, such good, firm health, .md that 
 you Ihid pleasure in returning to your old pursuits and 
 delights. Although 1 have been long separated from
 
 2 82 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 you, yet I have been wont frequently to recall you to 
 my recollections as one to whom I have been under 
 deep obligations ; nor have I ceased by frequent in- 
 quiries at friends to ascertain your well-being and your 
 diversified whereabouts. 
 
 As to the query you are pleased to direct to me re- 
 garding four verses of the old song of " Maggie Lauder," 
 it is certain that by many vocalists and male auditors 
 they have been understood to contain a double entendre. 
 1 do not believe, how^ever, that this double way of in- 
 terpreting is perceived by all hearers ; you yourself are 
 an example ; and by fair dames and ladies I cannot 
 persuade myself that it is observed at all. Indeed, when 
 twenty-six years ago I amused myself with this merry 
 theme — and which I took up in sport merely, to amuse 
 and give some quaint celebrity to our town [Anstruther] 
 — I wished within myself that this loose and undesirable 
 way of interpreting the old song should grow into desue- 
 tude ; or if that should not take place, that this same 
 old song itself should be thrown into shade, neglected, 
 annihilated, or forgotten. This you may perhaps say 
 was most Gothic, cruel, and barbarous. There is no- 
 thing, so far as I am aware, in Anster Fair which is 
 adapted to this sinister interpretation. So that if this 
 same song of Semple's cannot be separated from its 
 exceptionable way of being "ta'en up," I have frequently 
 longed and still long that some new song could be, by 
 some worthy, composed, suitable to our modest and 
 respectable view of the characters described. Yester- 
 day I tried my hand. But you know song-writing is not 
 my forte. Nevertheless I send it you for your perusal. 
 With your own verses I am pleased ; only it would not 
 do — it would be a sad anachronism — to introduce my 
 name as having an existence anterior to the subject 
 and personage I myself describe, and from which my 
 muse, being Momus' daughter, derives her small cele- 
 brity as a mirth-maker. You will notice that I have
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 283 
 
 incorporated into my verses several of your lines, which 
 I hope you will pardon, approve, and ratify. 
 
 Tennant gives his "new song" on a separate 
 sheet as follows : 
 
 MAGGIE LAUDER. 
 
 Written for the Tunc, by W. T., 1847. 
 
 I. 
 
 O Rob the Ranter's gane to Fife ! 
 
 He'd dreme'd a drcmc but lately, 
 That bade him, gin he'd hae a wife, 
 
 Gang there, for there his fate lay. 
 Wi' birr he bang'd his bag-pipe up ; 
 
 He busk'd him nice and neatly ; 
 And o'er the sea, in pinnace, he 
 
 Comes sailin' slow and state y. 
 
 2. 
 He keek'd into Kirkaldy town, 
 
 Nae dame was there him fittin'; 
 He stieer'd at Dysart's smeeky town. 
 
 Not there his weird was written ; 
 At Largo and at Pittenweem, 
 
 Still was his soul unsmitten ; 
 But when he cam' to Anster town, 
 
 Lo ! there was Beauty sittin" ! 
 
 3- 
 
 In our East-Green, she sat the Queen, 
 
 And I5onny Meg they ca'd tier ; 
 Rob saw wi' glee, the witchin' e'e. 
 
 He kent his Maggie Lauder ; 
 He garr'd his bag-pipe sound a skirl. 
 
 Folk ne'er wi' mirth were niaoder ; 
 The Town scarce thol'd the dmsom dirl 
 
 He charm'd his M.iggie Lauder.
 
 284 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 4- 
 So she caught him and he caught her, 
 
 The tane bewitch'd the tither ; 
 'Twas Music, \vi' her gowden clasp, 
 
 Knit baith their hearts together ; 
 They're King and Queen of our East-Green, 
 
 Fair Meg and Rob the Ranter ; 
 Now, syn the marriage-knot is ty'd, 
 
 Each well may be a vaunter. 
 
 5- 
 But Anster town, wi' feast and fun, 
 
 Rung o'er their Maggie Lauder ; 
 Nae kingdom, on a king's birthday, 
 
 E'er cantier was or gladder ; 
 They danced, they sang, man, bairn, and dame. 
 
 Up to the skies did vaunt her; 
 But aye wi' hers they join'd the name 
 
 Of famous Rob the Ranter. 
 
 OTHER CORRESPONDENTS 
 
 It must not be supposed that the foregoing 
 absolutely exhausts the Thomson correspondence. 
 With one exception, it exhausts the correspondence 
 in so far as both sides are represented by extant 
 letters ; but Thomson's letter - books are crowded 
 with communications to versifiers of whom we have 
 as yet heard nothing — to some versifiers, indeed, 
 whose names are totally unknown to the present 
 day. There was South ey, for example. A copy 
 of a letter addressed to him at " Greeta Hall, Nr. 
 Keswick," appears among the correspondence of 
 1803. Thomson must, however, have seen some 
 reason for not sending the communication at that
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 285 
 
 time, for there js again a copy of a first letter in 
 August 18 1 2. By that date "most of the great 
 poets of the time " — so our editor declared — had 
 contributed to enrich the Thomson collections, and 
 Thomson had "long regretted that it does not yet 
 boast of your name." When he reads "any of your 
 poems and sees what a muse of fire attends your 
 invocation," he "cannot help being anxiously de- 
 sirous " that the poet should honour the concluding 
 volume with two or three songs. For these, should 
 the poet consent to write them, he will " be very 
 glad to pay whatever you are pleased to demand." 
 He knew Mr. Southey's brother when he was in 
 Edinburgh, and he feels sure that he will support 
 the request he now makes. 
 
 There are no letters of Southey in existence to 
 tell what he did or attempted to do in the matter. 
 But Thomson himself has removed all doubt in 
 a letter of May 16, 1824, to Professor Smyth. 
 Southey, says he, "after trying to write a song or 
 two for me gave it up in despair, declaring that he 
 could positively write a poem as long as Thalaba 
 with more ease than a song ! I have reason to 
 believe that he was earnest in his endeavours to 
 write the songs." That Southey could not write 
 songs evidently surprised Thomson as much as it 
 surprised Hogg to find that the Laureate was a 
 water-drinker. 
 
 Samuel Rogers was applied to in 1803, when 
 Thomson was working on his Welsh ccjllection. 
 There is no need by this time to say in what manner
 
 286 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 he was addressed. "The admirable specimens 
 which you have given at the end of your precious 
 Httle volume," says Thomson, " satisfy me that there 
 is not a poet living to whom I could more properly 
 apply, and I should really feel inexpressible satisfac- 
 tion if you would invoke the muse for three, four, or 
 half-a-dozen songs. You cannot be indifferent to 
 the idea of your verses being sung for ever by your 
 lovely countrywomen to their favourite melodies." 
 Whether he was indifferent or not we have no 
 means of knowing. There are no letters of Rogers 
 extant, but he consented to write, and in November 
 1805 Thomson acknowledges the receipt of his 
 "Sleeping Beauty" ("Sleep on and dream of 
 heaven a while"), with which he is "much delighted 
 since she received your finishing touches." He 
 wants another song from "your truly elegant pen," 
 and encloses our old friend, the air called "The 
 Sheriffs Fancy," which however did not take the 
 poet's fancy. Later on, in November 181 2, Thom- 
 son again asked for a song, this time to the tune of 
 "The Fox's Sleep," but as that air was furnished 
 with words by the never-failing Professor Smyth, 
 we may take it that Rogers declined to make an 
 attempt. 
 
 There is a copy of one letter to " Monk " Lewis, 
 dated February 1804, t)ut only the complimentary 
 introduction need be quoted. "Few," says Thomson, 
 advising Lewis about a couple of airs for which 
 words are wynted, " few can touch those tender 
 chords which are here required with such a delicate
 
 CORRESPONDENXE ABOUT THE SONGS 287 
 
 and masterly hand as yourself. Witness ' Nannie,' 
 'The Felon,' and 'The Gaoler,' set by Miss Abrams. 
 These, the latter particularly, have delii^hted me 
 beyond expression, and indeed have tempted me to 
 renew my application to you." Lewis wrote several 
 songs for the collections, but there are no letters of 
 his extant. 
 
 With Allan Cunningham a long correspondence 
 was conducted which, however, is of no general 
 interest. Indeed, the only ])oint worth noting in 
 connection with his name is the dissatisfaction which 
 Thomson constantly expresses with "his manner of 
 dealing with Burns' songs in his edition of the poet's 
 works." He has "placed the poet's pure gold in 
 contact with rusty old brass, degrading the most 
 lovely songs that ever were written by placing on 
 the same pages with them the poor doggerel rh\-mes 
 of a rude age long since excluded from decent 
 society, and wholly unworthy of being rescued from 
 oblivion." It is "most injudicious and a great sin 
 against good taste." Nor was this the sole cause of 
 complaint against Cunningham. 
 
 I cannot help feeling mucii greater regret at his having 
 published, as Burns', a song which I am thoroughly 
 persuaded he was utterly incajxible ot inditing, and which 
 is cjuite beneath his talents. It is introchiced in running- 
 ham's tifth volume of the poet's works (p. 312), where it 
 is thrust in altogether out of place among the excjuisite 
 scjngs which the poet wrote for my work, and whicli all 
 other editors have publisiied in an unbroken series, ,is ni 
 Dr. Currie's edition. It is just sucii a song as I\t)bespierre 
 or some one of the monsters of his bloody connnittce
 
 288 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 would have written, and as unlike the kindly benevolent 
 disposition of Burns as vice is to virtue. 'Tis a disgust- 
 ing effusion that I never saw nor heard of till I met 
 with it in the volume above mentioned. . . . Burns a 
 preacher of assassination ! Away with the foul libel so 
 alien to the kindness of his nature and generous heart. 
 
 This burst of indignation is all on account of the 
 lines beginning, "Why should we idly waste our 
 prime." Thomson breaks out vehemently in another 
 letter to Robert Chambers on the same subject. 
 "The name of Burns would be disgraced by the 
 effusion. If any man had sent it to me with the 
 strongest assurances of its authenticity, I would have 
 rejected the information, and put the verses in the 
 fire." Thomson here proved a far more discerning 
 critic than he usually showed himself to be. 
 
 To Mrs. Hunter a large number of letters 
 are addressed by Thomson, all full of petty details 
 about her songs, in which he found " so much 
 ease and grace and beauty." Here is one short 
 extract : 
 
 It is not the first time that your muse and Haydn's 
 have met, as we see from the beautiful canzonets. Would 
 he had been directed by you about the words to The 
 Creation ! It is lamentable to see such divine music 
 joined with such miserable broken English. He [Haydn] 
 wrote me lately that in three years, by the performance 
 of The Creation and Seasons at Vienna, 40,000 florins had 
 been raised for the poor families of musicians. 
 
 The words of The Creation are poor enough in all 
 conscience ; but it was only a trick of Thomson's to
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 289 
 
 flatter Mrs. Hunter with the notion that she was 
 capable of furnishing an oratorio Hbretto. As it 
 was, her name would "descend with that of Haydn 
 to the latest posterity." And perhaps it will, if we 
 think only of " My mother bids me bind my hair." 
 Mrs. Hunter, it may be added, was on terms of 
 close intimacy with Haydn, who was often her 
 guest while in London. 
 
 Professor William Smyth of Cambridge has 
 frequently been incidentally referred to in preceding 
 pages. There are something like seventy letters 
 addressed by him to Thomson, with hardly a single 
 quotable sentence among them. Smyth is a long- 
 winded letter-writer, and has really nothing to say but 
 about his own songs. Of these he certainly furnished 
 a remarkable number for the v^arious Thomson col- 
 lections. Thomson describes him as having been 
 " another Burns " to him, and declares that without 
 his " powerful and most friendly aid " he could never 
 have finished his collections to his own satisfaction. 
 Smyth contributed all his songs gratuitously, but 
 Thomson frequently sent him presents of books. 
 In 1 818 he sent Waver ley, Guy Manner ing, and 
 The Antiqiiary, and promised "all the tales to 
 come by the same author." Hie "tales" duly fol- 
 lowed, but there are no remarks upon any of 
 them worth quoting. 
 
 Hie following letter of April 19, 1845, is from 
 Captain Charles Gray, an enthusiast in Scottish
 
 2 90 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 song, like Thomson himself. The letter sufficiently 
 
 explains itself: 
 
 II Archibald Place, Edinburgh, 
 April 19, 1845. 
 
 My DEAR Sir, — It would have given me pleasure to 
 have complied with your request on demand, but I have 
 no other jolly song which would exactly suit the measure. 
 There is one in my volume, to the air of " Willie brewed 
 a peck o' maut," consisting of four stanzas which, if I 
 could cut down to two or three and invent a new chorus 
 for it, perhaps it might pass. But, in my opinion, it is far 
 inferior to my " Blithe, blithe," &c. This is the best song 
 that I ever wrote, or am likely to write, and I regret 
 exceedingly that you struck out one of the very best 
 stanzas in it. The time I sung it in the company of 
 Colonel W. W. Burns, he said, with more than his usual 
 animation, " Well, Captain Gray, your song is worthy of 
 taking its place beside my father's 'Barley bree,'" the 
 very highest compliment which could be paid to me. It 
 is worth your while to consider, then, whether you should 
 give a correct version of my song in your work. Further, 
 I have made one or two emendations in it latterly, which 
 I think will warrant this ; but that you may be enabled 
 to judge of them, I shall send an amended copy along 
 with this. The alteration in the chorus I take to be a 
 great improvement, as well as the fourth line in the last 
 stanza. If you still think it will not do as a whole, I may 
 try to cobble up my other song, but it will never bear a 
 comparison with the " Social Cup." As soon as I can 
 lay my hand upon a printed copy of the song in praise 
 of "Vernon," I shall send it to be conveyed to your 
 young friend. — I am, my dear Sir, yours very truly, 
 
 Charles Gray. 
 
 P.S. — I send, as Byron hath it, my "last new poem." 
 When it made its appearance, some of my friends called 
 it my " Second Epistle General to Peter." The sequel,
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE SONGS 291 
 
 however, is the most melancholy thing that ever came 
 under my own observation. On Tuesday, 15th inst., I 
 followed Mrs. M'Leod — no insincere mourner, I trust — 
 to her last abode, aged 26, and not four months married. 
 Alas ! and woe is me. C. G. 
 
 I send some other scraps, having gone beyond a 
 penny stamp. 
 
 Richard Llwyd, "the bard of Snowdon," was 
 another of Thomson's helpers to whom several 
 letters are addressed. In 1805 Thomson sends 
 him a present of a portrait of Burns, "as you are 
 thought to be like the poet." Hector MacNeill 
 (who roused the Tartar in Thomson by disparaging 
 the songs of Burns), William S. Roscoe of Liver- 
 pool, John Richardson, the friend of Thomas 
 Campbell, Dr. Latham of Cork, Patrick Fraser 
 Tytler, Sir William Forbes, Thomas Pringle, 
 Chancey Hare Townsend, — these and others were 
 among the correspondents of Thomson, of whom it 
 is unnecessary to say anything here.
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE 
 MUSIC 
 
 IGNAZ JOSEPH PLEYEL 
 
 Pleyel was Thomson's first Apollo, to use his own 
 term. He had studied under Haydn, who con- 
 sidered him his dearest and most efficient pupil ; 
 and the two met in what outsiders believed would 
 be a professional competition in London in 1791. 
 There was, however, no question of rivalry between 
 the composers themselves. Writing from the 
 metropolis, Haydn says : " Since his arrival [Dec. 
 23, 1 791] Pleyel has been so modest to me that 
 my old affection has revived; we are often together, 
 and it does him honour to find that he knows the 
 worth of his old father \i.e. of Haydn himself]. 
 We shall each take our share of success and cro 
 home satisfied." Pleyel had certainly every reason 
 to be satisfied with his visit, which was both a 
 pecuniary and an artistic success. Unluckily when 
 he returned to the Continent (he was organist at 
 Strassburg) he found himself denounced as an 
 enemy to the Republic, and was forced to fly. 
 
 How and when Thomson first communicated 
 with him, it is impossible to say, but it must 
 have been about this time that he wrote. There
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE MUSIC 293 
 
 is nothing extant of the correspondence except a 
 couple of short notes dated 29th January and i8th 
 February 1793, showing that the sum of ^131, 5s. 
 had been paid to Pleyel by Thomson for six sonatas 
 and for symphonies and accompaniments to thirty- 
 two Scottish songs. Thomson received the six 
 sonatas and pubHshed them in due course. A 
 " spurious work, a wretched imitation " of these, was 
 afterwards pubhshed by Dale, a London music-seller, 
 and Thomson frequently cautions his correspondents 
 and the public against the "gross imposition." 
 
 Thomson appears to have had some difficulty 
 with Pleyel, the exact nature of which cannot now 
 be determined. When he comes to open negotia- 
 tions with Kozeluch, he is very particular about 
 having a stamped agreement from that composer ; 
 and in asking an intermediary to arrange about 
 this, he says in a letter dated P'ebruary 6, 1 797 : 
 
 The reason of my wishing particularly that a formal 
 written agreement should be entered into immediately 
 after the terms are settled, is that I have been juggled, 
 disappointed, and grossly deceived by an eminent 
 musical composer with whom I entered into an agree- 
 ment some years ago, which he has only fulfilled in 
 part, after putting me to a world of trouble and expense. 
 As he is resident in France, 1 have no means at present 
 of procuring any redress or satisfaction from him. 
 These musicians are generally very incorrect in business 
 and eccentric in their conduct, so that it is the more 
 necessary to be on one's guard in a transaction of this 
 kind. 
 
 Of course I am only presuming that the reference 
 here is to Pleyel ; but the presumption amounts
 
 294 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 almost to a certainty. The phrase "fulfilled in 
 part " cannot be made to apply to any other com- 
 poser "resident in France" with whom Thomson 
 is known to have had dealings. And yet it is 
 curious to find Thomson writing in 1801 to Koze- 
 luch asking that composer to "help out" a rather 
 meagre accompaniment of Pleyel's, " because I 
 cannot get at Pleyel himself, since no communica- 
 tion is allowed between this country and France." 
 Nevertheless it was possible enough for Thomson 
 to act the part of the dissembler in a matter of 
 this kind; and his "getting" at Pleyel might have 
 been for a very different purpose from that which 
 he pretended to Kozeluch. 
 
 In any case Pleyel ceased to write for Thomson. 
 The latter would no doubt have applied at once to 
 Haydn, but for the idea that Haydn occupied much 
 too lofty a position to be concerned with work of 
 this kind. The appearance of William Napier's 
 collection undeceived him in that particular ; but 
 meantime he had pledged himself to certain com- 
 missions in favour of Kozeluch. 
 
 KOZELUCH 
 
 And who was Kozeluch ? Born in Bohemia in 
 1753, Leopold Kozeluch became known in England 
 as a composer in 1785 by "the neat and accurate 
 execution" of Mdlle. Paradies, the blind performer 
 on the harpsichord. In i 792 he succeeded Mozart — 
 to whom he behaved in a most discreditable manner —
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE MUSIC 295 
 
 as court composer to Leopold II., and that post he 
 retained until his death in 181 1. His music, once 
 well known, is now entirely forgotten. 
 
 The correspondence with Kozeluch is in some 
 respects rather diverting. It was conducted mainly- 
 through Mr. Straton, a friend of Thomson's who 
 was at this time Secretary of the Legation at Vienna, 
 although the editor frequently ventured upon a letter 
 in French, sent direct to the composer. Kozeluch 
 usually answered through Straton, but there are one 
 or two notes from him to Thomson, all very brief 
 and all in French. The correspondence opens with 
 a letter from Thomson, dated February 6, 1797. 
 In this letter he desires to enixacre Kozeluch to 
 compose six or twelve sonatas for the piano, as 
 well as symphonies and accompaniments for some 
 sixty or seventy Scottish airs which he proposes 
 to send. The sonatas are to have an obbligato 
 accompaniment for the violin and an accompani- 
 ment ad libitjim for the 'cello, and Scottish airs 
 are to be introduced in every case in one or other 
 of the movements. The cjuestion of terms is 
 discussed in an accompanying letter to Straton. 
 Thomson sa)s : 
 
 I do not know tlic j4cneral price which M. Kozeluch 
 is accustomed lo receive iox his sonatas. 1 liave been 
 told from five to seven (guineas eacli. If he made a 
 greater demand, however, I woukl even comply with it 
 tt) such an extent as you may learn is connnonly given 
 for his compositions of the kincL kor the ^ympho- 
 nies and accompaniments to be added to the Scottish 
 songs, his trouble will be so small that his price should
 
 296 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 not exceed half a guinea, or fifteen shillings at most, 
 for each of the songs. Still I leave you discretionary 
 power. 
 
 From the draft agreement which I find among 
 Thomson's papers, I learn that Kozeluch's terms 
 were four hundred ducats for the twelve sonatas 
 and a hundred ducats for seventy songs, which, in 
 the case of the sonatas, comes out at a good deal 
 more than Thomson anticipated. Thomson does 
 not fail to tell the composer this. Yet, as he " wishes 
 to have the work done in a style of as great ex- 
 cellence as possible — in short, that it should be a 
 ckef-d'ceiivre" he resolves not to ask him to lower 
 his terms. 
 
 As a matter of fact, Thomson purchased only 
 six sonatas from Kozeluch. In 1801, when the 
 composer informed him that he had other three 
 almost ready, he wrote to say that "the six already 
 published have had a very limited circulation " ; and 
 althouo"h at this date he seems to have been willingf 
 to abide by the terms of his draft agreement, which 
 covenanted for twelve sonatas, I do not find that he 
 ever paid for more than six. 
 
 The agreement to which I have referred is a 
 portentous document, occupying nearly four pages 
 of foolscap. Terms and dates are set down in 
 great detail, and each party is to bind himself 
 to pay an indemnity of one hundred ducats to the 
 other party who shall fail to carry out the agree- 
 ment. Kozeluch would have nothing to do with 
 such a formal document, and here the difficulties
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE MUSIC 297 
 
 begin. On the ist of June 1797 Mr. Straton writes 
 to Thomson : 
 
 I have had seveial conversations with M. Kozekich, in 
 the course of which I am sorry to say that I perceived 
 an extreme reluctance on his part to enter into any legal 
 agreement whatsoever. This he manifested by starting a 
 variety of objections to a contract in any form, save that 
 of a promissory letter to you, which were — or at least 
 appeared to me to be — equally ill-founded and devoid of 
 candour. To bring the matter to an issue, there there- 
 fore remained no other method of proceeding than to 
 draw up and send to AI. Kozeluch a sketch of what I 
 thought consistent with your wishes, and calculated to 
 meet his. The annexed paper is that whicii I sent to 
 him, with a request that he would have it copied and 
 executed in a proper manner. But, instead of complying 
 with this request, he sent back the paper to me this 
 morning in its present state, with a verbal message pur- 
 porting that he had nothing more to add. 
 
 There is no trace of this document amoni;' the 
 Thomson papers, which is a pity in view of certain 
 "extraordinary marginal annotations" referred to 
 by Straton. The latter had indeed no little trouble 
 with Kozeluch o\'er this and other matters connected 
 with his commission. On the 2Qth of July {1797) 
 he writes to say that he had read Thomson's draft 
 agreement to the composer, who had promised to 
 return it properly signed, but he had not ke})t 
 his word, in spite of repeated reminders. "Those 
 musical (reniuses are stransje ones indeed," is IMr. 
 Straton's despairing exclamation. i\I. Kozeluch was 
 to give him still more trouble. 
 
 On the 1 6th of August he informs 'I'homson that
 
 298 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 Kozeluch declares his inability to go on with the 
 Scotch airs, " owing" to the very faulty manner in 
 which the music has been copied." The luckless 
 secretary had attempted to argue the question of the 
 improbability of mistakes, when the composer fairly 
 floored him by "entering into a discussion of so 
 scientific a nature as far to outstrip my musical 
 knowledge." Thomson, however, set to work upon 
 fresh copies of the airs. On the i8th of September 
 he writes to Straton that it has cost him a fortnight's 
 labour to make new copies of the sixty- four songs 
 he now sends. " I have," he adds, "bestowed such 
 particular care and attention on every one of this 
 number as to be certain they are perfectly what 
 they ought to be. If Mr. Kozeluch should still 
 find any little defects in some of the modulations 
 he must impute such to the peculiar nature of the 
 compositions and make as much of them as he 
 can.' 
 
 Here was, in fact, the explanation of Kozeluch's 
 fancied slips of the copyist : he was entirely ignorant 
 of the peculiar characteristics of Scottish national 
 music, and set down to error what he could not 
 account for by the ordinary rules of art. Mr. 
 Straton was acute enough to see this. Writing to 
 Thomson on the 28th of October, after delivering 
 the fresh copies to Kozeluch, he says : 
 
 I am apt to imagine that the copy of those which you 
 first sent was perfectly accurate, for Kozeluch called on 
 me yesterday to mention that on perusing the airs lately 
 put into his hands, he had found most of them unc 
 musique barbare, which set at defiance all the rules of art
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE MUSIC 299 
 
 that he professed, and that therefore he did not think it 
 worth while to add symphonies, &c., to them. In reply 
 to this, I read to him your letter of the i8th September 
 again, and being entirely of Arbuthnot's opinion in regard 
 to M. Kozeluch's intellect, instead of standing up for our 
 national music thus wantonly attacked, I left it burthened 
 with the epithet of " barbarous," and, courtier-like, told 
 M. Kozeluch that you relied on his knowledge and genius 
 for the civilisation of the part of it which you had trans- 
 mitted hither. I added that you would naturally be 
 desirous of seeing a specimen of it in its new garb ; and 
 M. Kozeluch having, by an extrordinary exertion of his 
 mental faculties, fathomed the meaning of my observ.ition, 
 sent me this morning the enclosed paper. ^ 
 
 A large number of letters now follow from Thom- 
 son, either to Kozeluch himself or to Mr, Straton, 
 but few of these letters contain anything of interest. 
 In February 179S Thomson pays the composer one 
 hundred ducats for his arrangements of sixty-four 
 airs, Kozeluch declining to part with the MSS. 
 until he has received the money. On the 27th ot 
 May Thomson asks his price for " twelve pieces for 
 the pianoforte for beginners, composed by yi)u in a 
 new manner"; but on subsequent consideration he 
 declines to purchase these compositions, and arranges 
 with his friend Mr. Preston, the London music-seller, 
 to buy them for 150 ducats. In October he tcll> 
 Kozeluch that he cannot afford to give him more; 
 than one hundred ducats for sixty-four airs, and it 
 he does not choose to accept these terms, there is 
 an end of the matter. On tlie 15th of Xovember 
 
 ' The " enclosed paper'' is mn exiant.
 
 300 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 he writes to acknowledge the receipt of the afore- 
 mentioned six sonatas : 
 
 They are most admirably composed. The fancy, the 
 spirit, the taste which you have displayed throughout the 
 whole, and particularly in working upon the Scottish 
 subjects, entitle you to the highest praise. I never heard 
 any music more brilHant in the allegros, or more charm- 
 ingly expressive in the cantabile parts. 
 
 As for the accompaniments to the songs, they are 
 "perfectly delightful." Thomson likes them more 
 and more every time he hears them. And yet, as 
 it appears, he had actually presumed to alter some 
 of these accompaniments! In 1799 he tells Koze- 
 luch that " I have taken the liberty in a very few 
 instances to simplify your pianoforte accompaniment 
 a little." But the fastidious editor either got tired 
 of doing this, or, as is more likely, Kozeluch objected 
 to the procedure ; and next year, that is to say in 
 1800, we have the first of quite a little sheaf of 
 letters about the simplifying business. At first 
 Kozeluch yielded to the constant requests for the 
 retouching of his MSS., but as time went on he 
 became less agreeable. Writing to Straton on 
 January 10, 1801, in reference to the matter, 
 Thomson says : 
 
 I have demonstrated the necessity of it \i.e. of revision 
 and simplification] in the strongest terms ; but if a little 
 of your eloquence be also necessary, 1 am persuaded it 
 will not be wanting. Perhaps Fries' [the Vienna bankers] 
 arguments may be more prevailing than either yours or 
 mine ; if so, they must, no doubt, be employed, though 
 I really think they have said enough already. Kozeluch
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE MUSIC 301 
 
 should consider it his duty to do at last what I represented 
 to be an essential requisite at the first. Had he attended 
 to my original representation in regard to the songs, 1 
 would not only have saved a very considerable expense, 
 but what I have felt much more, the loss of much precious 
 time and indescribable trouble. 
 
 The fault was really Thomson's own in i,''oing for 
 help to one who so little understood the character- 
 istics and requirements of Scottish national melody. 
 But this by the way. Mr. Straton is again the 
 medium of our learning how Kozeluch took the 
 above. On the 3rd of February (1801) he sends to 
 Thomson what the latter calls "a rude epistle" of 
 Kozeluch's (unfortunately it is not now in existence), 
 accompanied by some comments of his own. He 
 says : 
 
 I fancy it will not be requisite to trouble you with a 
 repetition of the arguments which the nature of the 
 subject could not but suggest to me, in opposition to his 
 penning so extraordinary an epistle. Sufiice it to say 
 that they, however pointed in themselves and forcibly 
 directed, were not tantamount to force a passage through 
 the fated armour which encompasses our friend's intellect. 
 To my representations I received answers of gigantic 
 absurdity, and had the mortification to perceive tiiat the 
 more I endeavoured to iighi the battle on the principles 
 and within the sphere of common sense, the greater did 
 he extend the line of tangent at which he had ciuitted it. 
 In short, c est unc manvaisc ti'te. 
 
 Thomson replied to Kozeluch in a strongly worded 
 letter of 21st February. Me was "never more 
 surprised nor more hurt than by reading the very 
 extraordinary letter " which the comjioser had sent
 
 302 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 him. His sole reason for asking that the accom- 
 paniments be made less difficult was "that the 
 people in this country will not look at any other but 
 a simple and easy accompaniment to their national 
 songs " ; and he imagined that what Kozeluch could 
 do with so much ease to himself, he would have an 
 actual pleasure in doing, "especially as I offered to 
 pay for it." This appeal — for Thomson ended with 
 an appeal — was made to deaf ears. Kozeluch 
 emphatically declined to retouch further any of his 
 accompaniments. To quote Mr. Straton : 
 
 He strenuously maintained that they were perfect, 
 and that those who advised you to require of him to alter 
 them were evil counsellors, who wished to spoil your 
 work, and to detract from his reputation. I argued the 
 point with him for some time, then opened a battery on 
 his vanity, but to no purpose. The thickness of his skull 
 baffled the efforts of reason to make an impression on 
 his brain, nor would his tympanum resound to its 
 proper place the appeal which I made to his a})iour 
 propre. 
 
 Thus ends the Kozeluch correspondence, so far as 
 it is worth quoting from. The composer continued 
 to do some work for Thomson — he was engaged on 
 the Welsh and Irish as well as the Scottish airs — 
 down to about 1809, but by that time Beethoven 
 was beginning to take all that Thomson had to 
 pfive.
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE MUSIC 303 
 
 HAYDN 
 
 Haydn was Thomson's first love, although not 
 his first Apollo. Thomson confessed in his later 
 years that he owed to him "innumerable happy hours 
 of my long life." A composer like Haydn, he says in 
 181 1, " never before existed and probably never will 
 be surpassed." In 1846 he tells Moscheles that 
 such is his debt of gratitude to the master that he 
 would erect a statue to him at his own expense were 
 he a man of fortune ; as it is he must content him- 
 self with subscribing- five o-uineas to the fund bein<j[- 
 raised for that purpose. He is " the inimitable 
 Haydn," the "unsurpassed and unrivalled genius of 
 the realms of music," the "delectable," the "father 
 of us all" ; and so on. On the other hand, Haydn 
 was proud of the work that he did for Thonison. 
 " I boast of this work," he said, "and by it I flatter 
 myself my name will live in Scotland many years 
 after my death." In a letter of July 18 16 to 
 Professor Smyth, Thomson records "a curious cir- 
 cumstance" which was communicated to him by 
 Radicati, " the husband of the fine singer Mdme. 
 Bertinetti, who lived at Vienna when Haydn was 
 employed on my Scottish melodies. Haydn, he 
 said, was so proud of the symphonies and accom- 
 paniments which he composed for my melodies as 
 to have the little original score of each framed and 
 hunir all over the walls of his bedroom." No wonder 
 Thomson loved " the dear old man " !
 
 304 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 The story of Haydn's connection with Thomson 
 is not a long one. It is told in outline by the editor 
 himself in a letter to a correspondent. He says : 
 
 My first application to Haydn was upon the 30th 
 October 1799, when I sent him part of the Scottish 
 melodies, which in the following summer he returned 
 united to his admirable symphonies and accompani- 
 ments. And from that time we continued in correspond- 
 ence till the year 1804, when I received the last of his 
 many precious compositions. I wrote him in 1805 with 
 more national airs. My letter, perhaps, was miscarried, 
 for I received no answer, and therefore in June 1806 I 
 despatched a duplicate of it which was returned to me 
 by my banker in London in consequence of information 
 from his correspondent at Vienna that Haydn could not 
 compose any more owing to illness. In 1808, having 
 heard that he was restored to health, I wrote him once 
 more with part of my Irish melodies, in the hope of his 
 composing ritornelles and accompaniments to them, but 
 I received no answer ; and therefore sometime after I 
 sent those melodies to Beethoven, worthy in all respects 
 to be the successor of Haydn. 
 
 Haydn, as we already know, had been employed in 
 connection with the collection of William Napier, 
 so that the work which he was now to undertake 
 for Thomson was not new to him. Later on, too 
 (in 1802-3), he harmonised and wrote accompani- 
 ments for a number of Scottish airs, for which he 
 received five hundred florins from Whyte of Edin- 
 burgh. Thus, if he did not succeed, it was not 
 because he was without experience and practice. 
 
 Thomson, then, addressed his first letter to 
 Haydn in 1799. There is no copy of it, but there
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE MUSIC 305 
 
 is a copy of a letter to Mr. Straton of the Kozeluch 
 correspondence, who was to deliver the letter to the 
 composer and negotiate with him on Thomson's be- 
 half. Straton was to " say whatever you conceive is 
 likely to produce compliance, " and if necessary was 
 to offer a few more ducats for each air. But Haydn 
 " must not speak of what he gets." Thomson does 
 not expect that Haydn will do the accompaniments 
 better than Kozeluch ; " that is scarcely possible " (!) ; 
 but in the symphonies he will be " great and ori- 
 ginal." Thomson had offered two ducats for each 
 air; Mr. Straton writes to say that Haydn "seemed 
 desirous of having rather more than two ducats, but 
 did not precisely insist upon this point." Straton 
 adds, as a result of the interview, that "upon the 
 whole he appears to be a rational animal, whereas 
 all that can be said of the other (I mean Kozeluch) 
 is that he is a biped without feathers.' On the 19th 
 of June iSoo Straton sends thirty-two airs which 
 Haydn has just finished. They would have been 
 done sooner, but " poor Haydn laboured under so 
 severe an illness during the course of this spring 
 that we were not altogether devoid of alarm in 
 regard to his recovery." 
 
 Thomson now sent sixteen more airs; and Straton 
 writes (April 30, iSoi) that Haydn at first refused 
 to touch them because the price paid was too low, 
 lUit in the course of conversation Straton learnt that 
 Havdn was writing to Thomson to ask him to pro- 
 cure a dozen India handkerchiefs, and it struck him 
 that " your making him a present of them might 
 mollify the veteran into compliance respecting the 
 
 u
 
 3o6 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 sixteen airs." Straton therefore took upon himself 
 to promise in Thomson's name that the handker- 
 chiefs would be sent as a gift, and "this had the 
 desired effect to such a degree that Haydn imme- 
 diately put the sixteen airs in his pocket, and is to 
 compose the accompaniments as soon as possible on 
 the same terms as the former." 
 
 The handkerchiefs duly arrived — "nice and 
 large" — and Haydn sent his thanks inappropriate 
 terms. At the same time (in January 1802) he 
 wrote : " I send you with this the favourite air ' The 
 blue bells of Scotland,' and I should like that this 
 little air should be engraved all alone and dedicated 
 in my name as a little complimentary gift to the 
 renowned Mrs. Jordan, whom, without having the 
 honour of knowing, I esteem extremely for her great 
 virtue and reputation." Mrs. Jordan is said to have 
 composed the air of " The blue bells of Scotland," 
 which in any case she popularised by her singing. 
 She was in Edinburgh in 1786 — "being," as the 
 theatre bill had it, " her first appearance in this 
 kingdom." 
 
 After this there came a little hitch to which 
 Thomson makes no reference. In 1802 Haydn 
 had been asked by Whyte to do some work for his 
 collection. He consented, and Thomson naturally 
 felt hurt. He made his complaint through Mr. 
 Straton's successor at the Embassy, Mr. Charles 
 Stuart. In August 1803 Stuart writes to say that 
 he had broached the matter to Haydn " in as 
 delicate terms as possible for fear he might take 
 offence." Haydn admitted that he had done the
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE MUSIC 307 
 
 accompaniments for Whytc, but said the airs were 
 quite different from those he had done for Thomson. 
 After "a long conversation, he informed me." says 
 Mr. Stuart, "that being now 74 years of age and 
 extremely infirm he found himself w^holly incapable 
 of farther application to study ; that he must there- 
 tore beg leave to decline all offers whether on your 
 part or from any other person whatsoever. He even 
 declared that notwithstanding the repeated requests 
 of Prince Esterhazy, he felt himself utterly incapable 
 of finishing several pieces of music he had under- 
 taken, and being possessed of a competency he 
 desired nothing so much as to pass the short time 
 he has yet to live in repose and quiet." Prom this 
 letter we learn that Thomson had unluckily sent a 
 present of a handkerchief for P>au Playdn, who had 
 been dead for three years ! Haydn subsequently 
 informs Thomson that he has handed the gift to "a 
 married lady who has much merit with regard t(j 
 music." 
 
 In spite of the little misunderstanding just re- 
 ferred to, Havdn was brought round once more, and 
 on the 20th of December i S03 we find Thomson 
 sending twenty-four airs, " which will most certainly 
 be the last." 1 laydn's work delights him so much 
 that he "really cannot bear the idea ot seeking an 
 inferior composer to finish a work already so nc^arly 
 finished by you." He would pay four ducats tor 
 each air rather than have the mortification of a 
 refusal. After this there is really nothing of interest 
 to note in the correspondence ; unless it be a very 
 "previous" letter of cond(3lence which Thomson
 
 3o8 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 sent to Vienna. A false rumour had reached him 
 that Haydn was dead. The following extract from 
 a note which Haydn dictated to be sent to the 
 person who received Thomson's letter will explain 
 the matter : 
 
 Kindly say to Mr. Thomson that Haydn is very 
 sensible of the distress that the news of his alleged death 
 has caused him, and that this sign of affection has added, 
 if that is possible, to the esteem and friendship he will 
 always entertain for Mr. Thomson. You will notice that 
 he has put his name and the date on the sheet of music 
 to give better proof that he is still on this nether world. 
 He begs you at the same time to be kind enough to have 
 Mr. Thomson's letter of condolence copied and to send 
 him the copy. 
 
 The handkerchief to the dead Frau Haydn was an 
 awkward enough affair, in all conscience, but it was 
 nothing to this. Perhaps, however, Haydn may 
 have been like Lord Brougham, who spread a false 
 report of his own death in order to see what would 
 be said about him. 
 
 Haydn furnished in all some two hundred and 
 thirty-two airs with symphonies and accompani- 
 ments for Thomson. In the packet of letters from 
 Haydn, tied up by Thomson himself, he has placed 
 a slip of paper giving the various payments he had 
 made to the composer. According to this statement 
 Haydn had ^291, i8s, for his work from first to 
 last — not by any means an insignificant amount to 
 make out of a side branch of his art.
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE MUSIC 309 
 
 BEETHOVEN 
 
 " I live only in my music . . . letter-writing 
 was never my fortes Such was Beethoven's 
 own admission, and those who read his letters to 
 Thomson will certainly find in them no cause for 
 disputing- the assertion. For the majority of non- 
 musical people — and for not a few hard- worked 
 musicians as well — the main interest of the corre- 
 spondence now to be dealt with will probably lie in 
 the composer's hard-headed insistence upon a fitting 
 remuneration for his work. To him, as Thackeray 
 put it to Baron Tauchnitz when the latter craved 
 excuses for his bad English, a letter enclosing 
 £ s. D. was always "in pretty style" ; and there is 
 nothing to show that he shared with Haydn that 
 artist-like antipathy to pecuniary concerns which led 
 the composer of The Ci'eation to deplore his having 
 to work for pay. These letters furnish, indeed, a 
 striking commentary on the story told of Beethoven 
 that, while lying ill before his death, he tried to read 
 Scott, and could not enjoy the author because he 
 " wrote for money." As a matter of fact both Scott 
 and Beethoven "wrote for money," with this differ- 
 ence only, that Scott — at the (nitset at any rate — 
 wrote for the luxuries, while Beethoven wrote for 
 the necessities of life. And herein is an important 
 distincti<Mi. For it would be unjust to lU.-ethoven 
 not to remember, while reading this correspond- 
 ence, the peculiarly difficult circumstances in which
 
 3IO GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 he was placed at the time, and in fact throughout 
 his whole life. 
 
 The son of wretchedly poor parents, he was 
 himself in a chronic state of poverty. His deafness, 
 which had begun to give him serious trouble three 
 years before Thomson first sought his aid, prevented 
 him from taking pupils, and if it had not, his temper 
 and eccentricities would as surely have prevented 
 pupils from taking him. He could not make money 
 as a public performer, nor could he accept engage- 
 ments as a conductor. Thus, almost the only source 
 of revenue left to him was his compositions ('* My 
 whole income," he wrote in 1815, "is derived from 
 my works") ; and composition, which even now pays 
 only when concessions are made to the public taste, 
 in Beethoven's day seldom paid at all. It is true 
 that a trio of rich nobles had settled on the composer 
 an annual allowance of ^400, but this was not until 
 1809 ; and moreover the excessive issue of bank 
 notes had so depreciated the value of money that 
 the nominal ^^400 did not really amount to more 
 than ^210. Nor must we forget — what is indeed 
 referred to more than once in the letters — that the 
 war with Napoleon, in straitening the finances of the 
 country, had laid upon artists, in common with all 
 their compatriots, pecuniary burdens unusually heavy 
 and distressing. This fully explains the readiness 
 of Beethoven to accept Thomson's proposals — a 
 readiness which, judging from what we otherwise 
 know of the composer's character, and even from 
 what we may read between the lines of his letters, 
 was in other circumstances little to be expected. As
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE MUSIC 311 
 
 it was, Thomson's payments must have been of 
 very material assistance to Beethoven, small as he in 
 some cases considered them. At the lowest estimate 
 he can hardly have received less than £600 for his 
 share in the various publications, while it is not by 
 any means certain that he did not make something; 
 out of the same works when issued in Germany. 
 No doubt he gave full artistic value for tlie pay- 
 ments made to him ; and however much it may 
 be regretted that the Scottish songs, as George 
 Hogarth affirmed, no more than covered their cost, 
 it is impossible to believe that Beethoven was 
 overpaid. 
 
 The first of the Beethoven letters is dated from 
 Vienna, October 5, 1803. At this time the com- 
 poser was in his thirty-third year, but he had as 
 yet done nothing very remarkable, with the excep- 
 tion of his first symphony, produced in the year 
 1800, and his first great choral work, T/ic Mount of 
 Olives, performed in this same 1803. So recently 
 as 1794 he had been taking lessons from Haydn, 
 whom he was now to sup{)lant with Thomson, and 
 his individuality had hardly had time to assert itself. 
 But he was undoubtedly the "coming man,'' and 
 Thomson had too keen an eye for coming men to 
 miss the chance of securing his services for the 
 Edinburgh collection. Thomson had written to 
 him on the 5th of July, suggesting the composition 
 of some sonatas based upon Scottish airs, of the 
 same kind as those already suj)plied to him by 
 Pleyel and Kozeluch. Beethoven, as will be seen 
 from the following letter, agreed t*-) prepare the
 
 312 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 sonatas ; but, as the peculiarly national character 
 of the compositions would practically limit their sale 
 to the United Kingdom, he was obliged to put a 
 price upon them to which Thomson could not 
 accede, and the matter eventually fell through, after 
 several attempts to arrange it. 
 
 Vienna, z^th October 1803. 
 
 Dear Sir, — I received with much pleasure your letter 
 of the 5th July. I concur readily with your proposals, 
 and beg to inform you that I am prepared to compose 
 for you six sonatas of the kind you desire, introducing 
 the Scotch airs in a manner which the Scottish nation 
 will find in the highest degree favourable and in keeping 
 with the genius of its songs. As to the remuneration, I 
 think that 300 ducats ^ for the six sonatas will not be too 
 much, seeing that in Germany I get that sum for the same 
 number of sonatas, though in that case without accom- 
 paniment. At the same time, I must tell you that you 
 will do well to come to an early decision, for so many 
 engagements are being proposed to me that before very 
 long I shall perhaps not be in a position to comply 
 immediately with your request. . . . Having a genuine 
 liking for Scotch airs, I shall take peculiar pleasure in 
 the composition of these sonatas, and I venture to go the 
 length of saying that, if the remuneration meets your 
 views, you will be abundantly satisfied. — Yours, &c., 
 
 Louis van Beethoven. 
 
 Thomson having replied that the remuneration did 
 not meet his views — that in fact he could offer only 
 half the sum asked for — the correspondence with 
 
 ^ It will be convenient to estimate the value of the ducat as equal 
 to los. of our money. In these letters a halving of the number of 
 ducats will thus give the amount in pounds sterling.
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE MUSIC 313 
 
 Beethoven seems to have dropped for a time. It 
 was resumed in 1806, when certain alternative pro- 
 posals were made to the composer. Writing from 
 Vienna on the ist of November, in reply to 
 a letter of Thomson's dated July 1, Beethoven 
 says : 
 
 I hasten to send you my remarks and decisions on 
 the proposals you were ^ood enough to make to me. In 
 doing so, I shall use all the frankness and explicitness I 
 myself like in business matters, for this alone prevents 
 complaints on either side. This, tlien, is what I have 
 to say : 
 
 (i). I am by no means disinclined to fall in with your 
 proposals as a whole. 
 
 (2). I shall do my best to make the compositions 
 easy and pleasing, so far as that is possible and in keeping 
 with that elevation and originality of style which you 
 yourself acknowledge are the cHstinguishing marks of 
 my works, and in whicli I shall never come short. 
 
 (3). I cannot undertake to write for the thite, that 
 instrument being too limited and imperfect. 
 
 (4). In order to give more variety to the composi- 
 tions you are to publish, and to secure for myself a freer 
 field in those compositions (wiiich to make rusj' is a task 
 that will always be cramping to me), I will only promise 
 you three trios for violin, alto, and 'cello, and tiuee 
 quintets for two violins, two altos, and 'cello. Instead 
 of the other three trios and three (.[uintets, I will gi\e you 
 three ejuartets, and, iinally, two sonatas for the piano- 
 forte, with accompaniment for two violins, and one 
 quintet. I would beg you, in short, as regards the second 
 volume of compositions you wish, to rely entirelv on my 
 taste and loyalty, and I assure y(Mi that you will be cjuite 
 satisiied. However, if this modilication is not agreeable 
 t() you, I have no wish to obstinately insist on it.
 
 314 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 Beethoven then goes on to say that he desires 
 the second volume of compositions to be pubHshed 
 six months after the first, and asks for a "clearer 
 statement " in regard to Thomson's injunction that 
 no copy printed on the Continent should be intro- 
 duced into Great Britain. This was a very necessary 
 caution ; for, as Beethoven remarks, if Thomson 
 agreed to the publication of these works in Ger- 
 many and France, it is not easy to see how the 
 composer was to prevent copies from being brought 
 to England. Later on, Thomson rather injudici- 
 ously hinted a suspicion that Beethoven might not 
 observe his compact not to publish in Germany 
 until six months after English publication, "You 
 are wrong," says Beethoven, writing on July 20, 
 181 1, "you are wrong in giving expression to any 
 distrust ; I am capable of respecting my word of 
 honour, and I assure you that I shall not entrust 
 one of my compositions to a single soul until the 
 expiration of the time agreed upon." Beethoven 
 remarkably resembled Carlyle in the broad features 
 of his temperament, and particularly in the rugged 
 vigour of his utterances, which makes the mild- 
 ness of this protest against aspersions on his honour 
 the more surprising. Continuing the letter of 
 1806 from which the above quotation is made, 
 Beethoven arrives at the all-important question 
 of terms : 
 
 Lastly, as regards the remuneration, I understand that 
 you offer me ;^ioo in British monev, or 200 ducats of 
 Vienna (in cash, and not in notes of the Bank of Vienna,
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE MUSIC 
 
 315 
 
 which, in the present crisis,^ are too depreciated in vahie 
 for that sum, paid in these notes, to be in the least pro- 
 portionate to the work that I shall devote to you, and the 
 remuneration that I receive for all my other composi- 
 tions). In fact, the remuneration of 200 ducats in cash 
 will not pay me too well for all that the satisfaction of 
 your wishes entails. 
 
 After this there are exphcit instructions as to 
 when and how the cash should be transmitted by 
 Thomson, and a request for a " definitive a^^reement " 
 in the event of the latter falHn<^' in with the terms 
 and other suggestions of the letter. A postscript may 
 be quoted in full : 
 
 I am still willing to meet your wishes as ret^ards har- 
 monising some little Scotch airs, and I await on that 
 matter a more explicit proposal, knowing, as 1 do, that 
 Mr. Haydn has had ^'i of British money for eacli air. 
 You will notify me at the same time about the date 
 on which each volume will be publislied by you, so 
 that I may arrange accordingly with the publishers 
 who will issue the same compositions in Germany and 
 France. 
 
 Here we have the first indication of Thomson's 
 having proposed to Beethoven that he should 
 undertake the arrangement of Scottish airs for his 
 collection. Up to this time Haj'dn had l)ecn doing 
 most of the work ; but he, as we ha\'e seen, was 
 chafing under what he considered Tliomsons nig- 
 gardliness in regard to pay, and was conscious 
 besides that his powers were filling. It was clear 
 
 ' This, like similar references in sul)sc(iucnt letters, alludes, of 
 course, to the hostilities with the French.
 
 3i6 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 that somebody must perforce soon take his place, and 
 Beethoven's star being manifestly in the ascendant, 
 Thomson very naturally courted the new luminary, 
 under whose light all others were beginning to pale. 
 But, as we shall see, Thomson had always consider- 
 able difficulty in persuading Beethoven to shine 
 exactly in accordance with his conditions. The 
 above letter, as will have been noted, was written 
 in 1806, and it is not until 1809 that we again hear 
 of the matter. On the 23rd of November of that 
 year Beethoven writes : 
 
 I will compose the ritornelli [i.e. the introductory 
 and concluding symphonies] for the 43 little airs, but I 
 ask ;^io sterling or 20 ducats of Vienna in cash, more 
 than you have offered ; thus, instead of ;^5o sterhng or 
 100 ducats of Vienna in cash, I ask ^^60 sterling or 120 
 ducats of Vienna in cash. This work is furthermore one 
 that gives little pleasure to the artist ; nevertheless, I 
 shall always be ready to do it for you, knowing that it 
 has some utility in a business point of view. As to the 
 quintets and the three sonatas, I find the remuneration 
 too little for me. I ask the sum of ;^i2o sterhng or 240 
 ducats of Vienna in cash. You offered me .^60 sterling, 
 and it is impossible for me to give you satisfaction for 
 such a remuneration (we are living here in a time when 
 terribly high prices are asked for everything ; we are 
 paying about three times what we used to pay) ; but if 
 you agree to the sum I ask, I will serve you with pleasure. 
 ... Be assured, sir, that you are dealing with a true 
 artist, who loves to be honourably paid, but who has a 
 still greater love for the glory of art, and who is never 
 satisfied with himself, but is ever trying to take steps 
 forward, and to make great and continual progress in 
 his art. As to the songs, I have already begun them,
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE MUSIC 317 
 
 and I will give them in about a week to Fries [the Vienna 
 Banking-House]. . , . 
 
 P.S. — Once again, I beg you to send me the words of 
 the songs, as they are very necessary if one is to give the 
 proper expression. 
 
 Beethoven was evidently net at first aware that 
 Thomson was procuring new words as well as new 
 accompaniments for his airs. More than once he 
 insists on the necessity of having the words before 
 him if his work is to turn out successililly. In a 
 letter of 20th July 181 1 he remarks that without 
 the words "one is not in a position to satisfy 
 connoisseurs, or to compose an accompaniment 
 worthy of a good poem " ; and on the 29th of 
 February 181 2 he is so emphatic on the point that 
 he threatens to cease work entirely unless his wishes 
 in the matter are complied with. " I cannot com- 
 prehend," he says to Thomson, "why you, a con- 
 noisseur, are not able to understand that I should 
 produce utterly ditterent compositions if I had the 
 words at hand ; and the songs cannot possibly turn 
 out perfect productions unless you send me the 
 words ; and you will comj)el me in the end to decline 
 your further commissions." It was in answer to 
 this protest th.it Thomst)n informed him that the 
 words were as yet hidden in the brain of the poet ; 
 and it is ]»erhaj)s a little strange that I)eethoven 
 never once remarks on the matter a^aln. h'rom his 
 whole attitude it is clear that there was no lack of 
 conscientiousness about his work for 'I homson. It 
 might, indeed, be work that gave "little pleasure to 
 the artist," but at least it would be done in an
 
 3i8 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 artistic manner if it was to be done at all. It is, of 
 course, doubtful whether he could have fully caught 
 the spirit, felt as it were the aroma, of the songs in 
 a Scottish form. He could not read English, much 
 less Scots, and it is a commonplace that under the 
 hand of even the best of translators poetry loses its 
 fine individual flavour. But it is derogatory to the 
 artistic temperament to suppose that if the words 
 had been merely read to him and then translated 
 he would not have got some suggestion from both 
 sound and sense. 
 
 On the loth of July 1810 Beethoven is able to 
 send Thomson the Scottish airs, which, he observes, 
 " I have composed con amorey with the wish to give 
 a mark of my esteem to the Scotch and English 
 nation by doing homage to their national songs." 
 After some technical details of no general interest 
 he continues : 
 
 I should be very glad to have the words of these Scotch 
 airs, to use them in Germany when you have published 
 them in Scotland ; you might even send them to me 
 now ; I would have them translated and await the news 
 of the pubhcation in Scotland. Please send me the 
 words placed under the simple melody. As to the 3 
 quartets and 3 sonatas, I accept your proposals, and 
 hope that they will be to your entire satisfaction. You 
 could pay me the ;^i20 sterling or the 240 ducats in 
 cash in two instalments, half when I deliver the 3 quar- 
 tets and the other half when I deliver the 3 sonatas, or 
 vice versa. As regards the airs with English words I will 
 do them at a very low figure, to prove how ready I am 
 to serve you : that is why I only ask £20 sterling or 40 
 ducats in cash for these airs. I could not compose them 
 at a lower figure without loss, for they give me here more
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE MUSIC 
 
 319 
 
 for a dozen airs with German words, which give me no 
 difficulty in respect of the language, whereas I have to get 
 the English word? translated, and to pay special heed to 
 the pronunciation, and all that is a constant harassment. 
 
 A letter of July 20, 181 1, is of considerable 
 length, and, as usual, a great part of it is devoted 
 to the eternal question of terms. Reference is more 
 than once made to "the state of our finances" as 
 affected by "the unhappy crisis in which we are 
 living." At this time there was indeed a temporary 
 lull in the hostilities, but Beethoven's position does 
 not seem to have been in any way impro\'ed, for we 
 find him more exactinor than ever in the matter of 
 payment. The Finance Patent, it should be remem- 
 bered, appeared in Austria in 181 1, by which the 
 value of money was depreciated by a fifth. 
 
 For the future it will be very agreeable to nie to 
 work for you, but having regard to the unliappy crisis 
 in which we are living, and the great h)sses I have 
 already suffered through my reliance on your country- 
 men, it is an essential condition that you will be good 
 enough to instruct the firm of Fries tS: Co. to receive 
 my compositions on your behalf in return for payment 
 in full. Without that, I cannot imdertake your com- 
 missions. . . , With regard to the offer of loo ducats 
 in gold for the 3 sonatas, I say that I will accept 
 them to please you, and 1 am also ready to ctJiupose 
 ^ quintets for you for 100 ducats in gold ; but a> iu 
 the 12 songs with English words, the price fixed i^ 
 60 ducats in gold. For the cantata on the Battle in 
 the Baltic Sea I ask 50 ducats [in a subsecjuent letter 
 (February 29, 181 2) the price is raised to ()0 ducats j ; 
 but on condition that the libretto is not an invective 
 against the Danes ; if the contrary is the fact, 1 cannot
 
 320 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 take it in hand. ... I shall not fail to show you ere 
 long my arrangements of my symphonies, and I will 
 undertake with pleasure the composition of an oratorio, 
 provided that the words are of a noble and distinguished 
 cast, and that the remuneration of 600 ducats in gold 
 is agreeable to you. 
 
 It is a matter of great regret that this excellent 
 suggestion of a setting of Campbell's " Battle of 
 the Baltic " was destined to bear no fruit. That 
 poem, apart altogether from its intrinsic merits as 
 poetry, has all the qualities that go to the making 
 of a first-rate libretto ; and as Beethoven's par- 
 ticular scruples in regard to its offencelessness 
 towards the Danes are not violated, there is no 
 reason in the nature of things why he should not 
 have produced a masterpiece of choral ballad. Sir 
 George Grove, in remarking on Beethoven's sketch- 
 books, draws an instructive parallel between the 
 methods of great masters in different arts. In the 
 first draft of Campbell's poem, the opening lines 
 ran thus — 
 
 Of Nelson and the North sing the day, 
 When their haughty powers to vex, 
 He engaged the Danish decks. 
 And with twenty floating wrecks 
 Crowned the fray. 
 
 Certainly no outline sketch of Beethoven's can 
 have contained less promise of perfection in the 
 finished work than this. 
 
 Thomson's enthusiasm must (for this once at 
 least) have got the better of his judgment when 
 he proposed an oratorio to Beethoven. The can- 
 tata, on a patriotic theme of great contemporary
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE MUSIC 321 
 
 interest, might perhaps have succeeded, but oratorio 
 at any rate was quite out of line with his principal 
 labours, the collection of national melody ; and if 
 the composer's price had been much less, Thom- 
 son must inevitably have been out of pocket by 
 the commission. Whether anything but inabilitv 
 to agree upon the terms disap[)oinied us of both 
 cantata and oratorio it is imjjossible now to say. 
 In regard to the latter, Thomson never went so 
 far as to negotiate for a text, and so far as oratorio 
 is concerned, Beethoven stands represented by the 
 single work known as The Mount of Olives, already 
 mentioned. It is worth noting once more how- 
 very exacting the composer was in the matter of 
 words for musical setting. Here tliey are to le 
 " of a noble and distinguished cast, " and the stipula- 
 tion is emphasised in a subsec|U(ni letter, when, 
 in again stating his readiness to undertake an 
 oratorio, he says, "it is necessary that the libretto 
 should be particularly well done." 
 
 Beethoven had a fixc^d idea that rhomson was 
 not dealing so generously by him as he had formerly 
 dealt by Haydn. In a letter dated 29th h'ebruary 
 18 1 2, he begins by pleading tor an additional ducat 
 for each air, and then goes on : 
 
 Mavdn iiinisclf a^su^cs iiic lliat lie ha^ received tour 
 ducats for each air, notwithstanding that he wrote lor 
 harpsichord and violin alone, without either synijthonies 
 or a part foi- the 'cello. .As to M. K'ozehieh, who .:^ives 
 you a son.L^ with aeconipaniuient toi' two chieats, I ofter 
 niv warm coUL^ratulations to you and \.\\v l-'ni^hsli .uui 
 Scotch audiences when they hear it ! I consider myself, 
 
 X
 
 322 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 I confess, a cut above M. Kozeluch (miserabilis !) at 
 this sort of thing, and I do trust that you have some 
 discrimination which will enable you to do me justice. 
 
 After this characteristic but, for him, restrained 
 expression of his opinion of a contemporary, Bee- 
 thoven goes on to ask for explicit instructions in 
 regard to the arrangement of airs he still has in 
 hand, and concludes : 
 
 We want gold badly here, for our Empire is at the 
 present moment a source of paper money only ; and 
 I in particular need it, for I may possibly leave this 
 country and go to England,^ and then to Edinburgh in 
 Scotland, where I should be delighted to make your 
 personal acquaintance. 
 
 This letter did not reach Thomson until early in 
 December of the same year. The political disturb- 
 ances on the Continent rendered transport parti- 
 cularly hazardous and uncertain, and letters and 
 packages from Vienna actually reached England 
 by way of Malta. Meanwhile Thomson had written 
 to Beethoven on August 5 and October 30, and 
 it is necessary to glance at these letters, together 
 with a third written in reply on December 21, in 
 order fully to appreciate the next letter from the 
 composer. 
 
 On August 5, then, Thomson wrote acknow- 
 ledging the receipt of fifty-three Scotch, "Gallic," 
 
 ^ On two subsequent occasions Beethoven hints at this visit, and 
 twice Thomson asks when he may expect to see him ; but the visit 
 was never paid. The composer told Wegeler that if it had not been 
 for his bad hearing he would have travelled through half the globe.
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE MUSIC 323 
 
 and Irish airs, with symphonies and accompaniments. 
 He had heard them performed with the warmest 
 admiration, and he anticipated a great success for 
 them. He indicates specifically those which will 
 be most popular, "because they are the simplest 
 and the easiest to play on the piano : at the same 
 time there is not one but is marked with the stamp 
 of genius, learning, and taste." Certain of the 
 accompaniments, however, will fail to please, be- 
 cause the taste of the public is not sufficiently 
 refined to appreciate their excellence. Will Bee- 
 thoven oblige him by altering them here and there ? 
 He is willing to grant extra pay. " Your great 
 predecessor Haydn invited me to point out frankly 
 everything which was likely not to please the 
 national taste,'" and he very readily altered all those 
 to which I took exception." He proceeds to sug- 
 gest, with becoming deference, reasons why in the 
 case of nine specified airs these alterations are 
 necessary. In one case, he says, "there is not in 
 this country one pianoforte player in a hundred 
 who could make both hands go properly together 
 in the first ritornello ; I mean, play four notes with 
 one hand and three with the other at the same 
 time." In another case, the accompaniment is too 
 brilliant, and the runs are totally unsuited to a 
 tender and plaintive air. He apologises for his 
 candid criticism. "If I consulted only my own 
 feelings, 1 should not ask you to alter a single 
 note ; but for a work like mine to succeed, it is 
 
 ' The italics are in every case in tlie originals.
 
 324 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 necessary to make some sacrifices to the taste of 
 those for whom it is intended," He sends eighteen 
 more airs for treatment, and, by way of final 
 assuagement, assures Beethoven that no other 
 composer's work will be admitted to his collection. 
 
 On October 30 he acknowledges the receipt of 
 nine more airs, and cannot find words to express 
 his delight with them. " But, my dear sir," he 
 continues, "there are some which are much too 
 difficult for our public. There is not one young 
 lady in a hundred who will so much as look at an 
 accompaniment if it is ever so little difficult. ' He 
 insists that a simplicity which is manifest at once 
 to the eye is of the utmost consequence if the work 
 is to succeed: "otherwise all my care, all my 
 trouble, the money I have spent, the years I have 
 waited for you, will end for me in nothing but loss 
 and disappointment. Don't think that what is easy 
 to you is easy to us also ; for in music you are in 
 very truth a giant, and we are but pygmies." 
 
 Five weeks after this, Thomson received Bee- 
 thoven's letter of the previous February, and on 
 December 21 he despatched his reply. His feel- 
 ings are evidently wounded. He assures Beethoven 
 "on his honour" that Haydn asked but two ducats 
 apiece for the airs he arranged, though, as a matter 
 of grace, Thomson had given him a little extra for 
 the last of them. He positively declines to raise 
 his terms ; says that he cannot supply words to 
 the airs, because "most of them are still in the 
 brain of the poet " ; and expresses his pleasure in 
 the prospect of seeing and hearing his "great
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE MUSIC 325 
 
 Apollo." Perhaps Beethoven will instil into the 
 British public "a real taste for what is excellent. 
 The taste of the English is utterly corrupted by 
 the wretched little compositions of inferior artists, 
 and the most contemptible music has, as a rule, the 
 greatest success ! " 
 
 These letters of Thomson will enable us to 
 understand the abruptness and the hauteur of Bee- 
 thoven's letter of February 19, 18 1 3. He begins : 
 
 Mr. George Thomson at Edinhurgli. I have re- 
 ceived your three letters of 5th August, 3otli October, 
 and 2ist December last. I observe with mucli pleasure 
 that the sixty-two airs I composed for you have at last 
 reached you, and that you are satislied with them, with 
 the exception of the nine which von mark, and of which 
 you wish me to alter the ritornclli and the accompani- 
 ments. I regret tliat I am imable to oblige you. 1 am 
 not accustomed to tinker my compositions. 1 have 
 never done so, being convinced of the trutli that every 
 partial moditication alters the whole character of the 
 composition. I am grieved that vmi are out ot pocket 
 through this, but you cannot lay the blame on me, for 
 it was your business to make me more fullv accpiainted 
 with the taste of your country and the nieagre abilities 
 of your perf(M"mers. 
 
 P)Ut the composer is not inexorable. Though he 
 will not patch, he will create anew. 
 
 Now, primed with your instructions, I have composed 
 them all over again, and, as I hope, in a way that will 
 fulhl y(jur expectations. Believe me, it wa> with great 
 repugnance that ! prevailed on myself to stri-tch my 
 invention on the rack, which I should never have agreed 
 to do if I had not reflected that, as vou do not mean to
 
 326 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 admit any compositions but mine into your collection, 
 my refusal might leave a gap in it, and [render nugatory]^ 
 in consequence the great trouble and expense you have 
 put yourself to to obtain a complete work. 
 
 The rest of this letter consists mainly of explana- 
 tions of various marks in the MSS., and other 
 details of no general interest. The following pas- 
 sage, however, shows that Beethoven was not 
 wholly subdued to financial considerations, and that 
 he was impatient of ambiguities : 
 
 The two last airs in your letter of December 21 
 pleased me very much, and for that reason I have worked 
 at them con aniore, especially the second of the two. You 
 wrote it in A flat, but as that key seemed hardly right, 
 and so little fitted to the instruction amoroso that on the 
 contrary it would change it to barbarico, I have treated 
 it in the proper key. If in future there should be 
 andantinos in the airs you may happen to send me, I 
 should be glad if you indicated whether the andantino is 
 meant to be slower or quicker than andante^ for that 
 term, like so many others in music, is of so uncertain a 
 signification that andantino often approximates to allegro^ 
 and is often, on the other hand, played almost like adagio. 
 
 Thomson was constantly harassed by his uncer- 
 tainty as to whether his letters and packages reached 
 their destination safely. Many of his letters, indeed, 
 were sent in duplicate by different routes. It 
 appears from a letter dated December 9, 18 13, and 
 addressed to a Mr. J. Thomson of Edinburgh, that 
 the aid of smugglers was frequently enlisted for the 
 
 ^ The MS. is defective here.
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE MUSIC 327 
 
 carriage of packets to and from France, and that 
 the smugglers of Folkestone had on one occasion 
 declined to take charge of a packet of music owing 
 to its size. It is not, then, surprising to find 
 Thomson writing on March 27, 1813, a letter which 
 is in all essentials a duplicate of his letter of 
 December 21 in the previous year, Beethoven's 
 reply to which we have just seen. This reply 
 reached Thomson in September, and was acknow- 
 ledged in a long letter sometime during the same 
 month. He tells Beethoven that he has repaid to 
 the Messrs. Fries the 90 ducats the composer has 
 drawn from them, but that the music has not made 
 its appearance, and he begs Beethoven to make 
 another copy and send it to him. fie goes on : 
 
 You will excuse me if I express my surprise at your 
 having rewritten nine of your ritornelles and accompani- 
 ments, and at your havin<4 made me pay 27 chicats for 
 them, when there were only three that needed rewriting, 
 I never ima^fined that you would have any objection to 
 making the very slight alterations I desired in the other 
 six airs. There does not exist a man t(~> wlioni 1 would 
 more willingly j^ive UKMiey than M. Beethoven ; hut, in 
 truth, the nuisic and the poetry of this work, and the 
 plates, will cost me more money than 1 shall i\ir he 
 likely to derive from it. 
 
 This is one more link in the chain of evidence which 
 proves that Thomson no longt;r expected it he 
 ever had expected — his labours to result in an\ thing 
 but a sjuccs d'estinic. He j)roceeds to state that he 
 encloses the words fjr six h^ntdish son^s, commis-
 
 328 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 sioned so long ago as July 1810. The subjects are 
 as follows : 
 
 The battle of Hohenlinden — grand and sublime, be- 
 ginning : *' On Linden when the sun was low." 
 
 On May morning — description of the delights, the 
 gaiety, and the beauty of May, beginning : " Now the 
 bright morning star." 
 
 The adieux of a lover to his charming mistress — full 
 of paihos, beginning : " Once more, enchanting girl, 
 adieu." 
 
 The happy Italian shepherdess, singing the pleasures 
 and the beauties of the valley of her birth, beginning : 
 " Dear is my little native vale." 
 
 Song of Norman, a young warrior obliged to tear 
 himself from the arms of his well-beloved Mary at the 
 moment of his nuptials — very pathetic, beginning : "The 
 heath this night must be my bed." 
 
 The sixth song expresses the despair of a lover. 
 
 These titles and descriptions are sufficient index of 
 the kind of ditty which Thomson found so pleasing 
 to the " young female friends " of his generation. 
 
 It may as well be said here that music for these 
 six songs was never written. On November 12, 
 1 8 14, Thomson substitutes two fresh songs, written 
 by William Smyth, for two in his first list, and on 
 January 2 in the next year he withdraw^s one of 
 these two in favour of another, written expressly 
 "by one of your most zealous admirers" (William 
 Smyth again), "and I know nothing finer in the 
 whole range of English poetry." I have not seen 
 these verses, but Thomson's critical appreciations 
 are so remarkable that there is no great sense of 
 loss, even after reading the French prose trans-
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE MUSIC 329 
 
 lation which he encloses to whet I3eetho\en's in- 
 vention. It was not till February 7, 1S15, that 
 Beethoven replied to his proposal, and then far 
 from satisfactorily : 
 
 With respect to the six canzonettas wliich 1 am to 
 compose, I confess that the honorarium you offer is 
 totally inadequate. Circumstances here are much aUered, 
 and taxes have been so uiuch raised — after the En^Hsh 
 fashion — that my share for 1S14 was near /.'60 ; besides, 
 a ^ood orij^inal air, and what vou also wish, an overture, ^ 
 are perhaps the most diflicult undertaking's in nui>ical 
 composition. I therefore be<^ to state that my fee for six 
 sonj^s or a.irs must be X35, <"" 70 imperial ducats. . . . 
 You may depend that I shall do yt)U justice. No artist of 
 talent and merit will consider my demands extrava_<4ant. 
 
 On March 20, Thomson burst out in notes of 
 exclamation over this extortionate demand. " Two 
 years af^o," he cries, "you asked for 25 ducats tor 
 six ori_o;inal airs ; now you demand nearly three 
 times that sum!" Declarini:^ that he cannot aff)rd 
 so much, he continues : 
 
 For the six airs, in reijard to the poetrv for which I 
 have t^iven myself an intinitv of trouble, 1 will ^i\e you 
 35 ducats ; and that, solelv to i^ratifv mv own taste, for 
 it is extremely imcertain whether the sale of these airs 
 when printed will ever recoup my outlay, what with the 
 expenses of eni'ravin^, printin<4, paper, tS:c. it you will 
 not accept 35 ducats, 1 must ask vou to have the goodness 
 to put all the verses 1 have sent you on the liri'.'- 
 
 ' For this, sfc infra, P-'i^'C '},},z. 
 
 -' In tins same hntei- ciccurs almost tlu- only ••luiinan" toui li to he 
 foimci in all Thomson's lettcr> to the romiioscr. r.(ctho\en I'.aii ap- 
 paientl}- addressed his last letter to "(".eniL;e Thomson, /v,',v.>/.-.w-/.V'.' 
 " Don't call me ' music-seller."' retorts 'I'homson ; " 1 am an ainatiiir: 
 I sell nothinL; l)iit my national airs, antl tho-e ■•.choirSiu't.
 
 330 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 The correspondence discloses no answer from 
 Beethoven, and the only other reference to these 
 unlucky " six airs " occurs in Thomson's last letter 
 to the composer, which we shall light upon by and 
 by. The rest of the letter of September 1813 is 
 worth quoting : 
 
 I am extremely desirous of seeing some more of your 
 charming quatuors and sonatas. I lately spent some 
 days in the country with a little select coterie of amateur 
 friends, where among other things we performed your 
 first Rasoumoffsky quatuor, and the quintuor in C. We 
 repeated them every day with increased pleasure, and 
 every day we drank with enthusiasm to the health of the 
 composer. What an immortal theme, that adagio ! [He 
 quotes two bars.] To hear it would solace me even when 
 dying ! But, alas ! my friend, we have not in Scotland a 
 dozen persons (professionals included) who could take 
 a part in these quatuors, and not one who could plav 
 correctly the violino primo of any of the three ! What 
 would my happiness have been if Providence had fixed 
 me in Vienna, where I might have heard your quatuors, 
 sonatas, and symphonies well played every day of the 
 week ! It is much to be wished that you would compose 
 some music in that grand and original style which belongs 
 to you alone, but easier to perform, so that it would be 
 more within the capacity of amateurs. Such works would 
 be a real treasure to musicians. Simple and expressive 
 music will always have a great charm for all listeners, 
 and difficult music will probably be neglected. 
 
 On April 23, 18 14, Thomson acknowledges the 
 receipt of thirty Irish airs, which had been des- 
 patched by way of Paris more than a year before. 
 He tells Beethoven that the first volume of Irish 
 airs has just been printed, and that a copy is on its
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE MUSIC 331 
 
 way to Vienna. Then he returns to the subject 
 of pubHcation on the Continent, which Beethoven 
 believed he had settled once for all four years 
 before. Thomson is even insistent in his mode 
 of expression : 
 
 I trust to your honour not to permit any of my airs 
 save those contained in this volume to appear on the 
 Continent. As soon as I publisli another volume, which 
 will be next year, I will send it you ; but until you receive 
 the volume printed by me, you will keep the manuscript 
 in your hands as a sacred trust, and you will not j^ive it 
 to anybody under any pretext whatever; for, if vou put 
 it in the power of any other person to print the work 
 before myself, you will deprive me of the property which 
 I have bought of you, and which has cost me so dear. 
 
 There appears to have been no ground for niis- 
 trusting the composer, and remembering his explicit 
 declaration of July 20, 181 1, it is somewhat remark- 
 able that Thomson should still have been harping 
 on that string. He concludes this letter as tollows : 
 
 Have you published any sonatas or quatuors during 
 the past year ? Do you intend to arrange the Mount of 
 Olives for voices and pianoforte, with English words ? 
 It is with the greatest pleasure that I congratulate you on 
 the re-establishment of the peace of Europe. I send a 
 sonnet addressed to you by an amateur of this city. 
 
 It would have been interesting to know a little more 
 about this sonnet, which Bectho\-en acknowledges 
 on September 15 in the following terms: "A 
 thousand thanks to the author of the sonnet, who 
 has honoured me in such a beautiful manner, and 
 has written so flatteringly of my merits."
 
 332 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 On October 15 Thomson offers the composer 
 further commissions : 
 
 In the Hst of prices which you sent me, I notice that 
 you ask 12 ducats for an overture. I should Hke to have 
 one, for the pianoforte, rather in the character of our 
 national music, and as gay and scherzando as you please ; 
 and if you approve, but not otherwise, I should be pleased 
 by your introducing the enclosed Scotch air, or any other 
 Scotch air which you may like better, somewhere in the 
 overture. And if you enriched the overture by adding 
 accompaniments for violin, flute, viola, and 'cello — ad 
 libitum, or rather obligati — I should be very pleased to 
 pay you 18 ducats instead of 12. ... As to the length 
 of the overture, I have only to say that I hope it will not 
 be shorter than the overtures of Mozart, Don Giovanni 
 or Zauberfiote. 
 
 When you send me the overture, tell me if you will 
 compose six or a dozen little hymns, or spiritual songs, for 
 voices, in a simple and natural style, for four ducats each : 
 in which case I will send you the verses for you to set the 
 music to. But unless you assure me that you will compose 
 these pieces, I will not trouble myself, nor you, by sending 
 the verses. The piece of Michael Haydn ^ enclosed will 
 give you an idea of the sort of thing I want. . . . 
 
 I am very pleased to know that you have been so 
 much occupied : pity you did not tell me on what works. 
 I have just received the London edition of your Mou?it of 
 Olives, a work truly sublime. 
 
 It will be convenient to trace here the future 
 fortunes of these last proposals. Of the "little 
 hymns, or spiritual songs," no more is heard. 
 There is not a word to show how Beethoven re- 
 
 ^ This was, as Thomson notes, a piece entitled " While conscious 
 sinners," from Latrobe's first volume.
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE MUSIC ;^23 
 
 ceived the notion, whether he seriously considered 
 it, or why Thomson was so wanting in his usual 
 pertinacity as never again t(j refer to the subject. 
 It is otherwise in regard to the overture. lU-x- 
 thoven asked for this "^25, or 50 imperial ducats.' 
 Thomson replies (with lifted hands, we may con- 
 jecture), "You once asked 12 ducats for an over- 
 ture : and you now want four times that sum ! 
 Unhappily I am in no position to give such an 
 honorarium. I abandon the overture ! " 
 
 To go back a few months, on October 1S14, 
 Beethoven, for the first and last time in his corre- 
 spondence with Thomson, offers a proposal on his 
 own initiative. He writes : 
 
 To attest our lon^L^-standing accjuaintaucL-, 1 olier vou 
 one of my works, on tlie Triumph ot XWllin^ton at the 
 Battle of Vittoria, divided into two parts, first, ;hc Batik, 
 second. Symphony of Triumpli. The work, coinpn^ecl 
 for full orcliestra, was received willi general ;',pplause 
 in Vienna, and the common request is that it mav be 
 performed on the occasion of the \i>il of tlie aUied 
 sovereigns. The score is arranged t(ir the p'ian;>fo:te in 
 myself. . . . The composition, which is deiiicated 'o the- 
 Prince Regent of England, will not fail to m:.ke a fortune. 
 
 Now see how Thomson received the otter: he 
 seems to relish the changt; ot parts ; he will not 
 throw away the opportunit)- ot a tit-tor-tat. On 
 November 12 he writes: 
 
 I have received your letter of October la>t, in wlucii 
 yon tell me you have composed a work on the Tiiumpli 
 of Wellington, and ask me how nuich I will i^ive you tor 
 that work. [Beethoven did not ex[ihcitlv do so : tins is 
 ;i skittle set up to be knocked down.] You say nothing; oi
 
 334 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 voices, whence I conclude that the work is written entirely 
 for instruments. You say nothing of its length, and I 
 am obliged to make a random guess at it. Allow me 
 to say that you ought to have explained yourself more 
 clearly ; and you certainly ought to have fixed your own 
 price, as the vendor should do in all cases. 
 
 You are not aware, perhaps, that the score would not 
 be of the least use to me. In Great Britain we have so 
 few persons who play the violin well, that the sale of a 
 symphony for full orchestra would not meet the expense 
 of engraving it. This is so true, that I assure you I 
 should not publish a symphony for full orchestra even 
 though you had made me a present of the score. The 
 only form in which I could publish the Battle, &c., would 
 be as a grand sonata for the pianoforte, with accom- 
 paniments for violin, &c. It is for you, then, to say how 
 much you will ask for this work as a sonata, or concerto, 
 for the pianoforte. But an important consideration is, 
 that if the score came into the possession of some music- 
 seller, he might arrange it and publish it for the piano 
 for his own advantage. This is a great difficulty, unless 
 the score were handed to the purchaser of the sonata. 
 
 Beethoven said never a word more about the 
 Trhmiph of Wellington ; ^ is it surprising that he 
 did not make Thomson another offer ^ 
 
 We have seen that from the first Thomson had 
 stipulated for easy ritornellos and accompaniments, 
 and that Beethoven had frankly confessed how the 
 condition fettered him. As time went by, the editor 
 found more and more occasion to complain that the 
 condition was not being fulfilled. On November 
 12, 1 8 14, he writes : 
 
 The work was performed in London with great success.
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE MUSIC 
 
 335 
 
 I return one of the three airs you have forwarded, in 
 the hope that you will have the goodness to rewrite it 
 in a more simple and cantabile style, because our ladies 
 here would refuse to touch so chromatic an accompani- 
 ment. In truth, they would not be able to sin<4 the air 
 and at the same time play such a part for the left hand. 
 
 On January i, i8r6, in acknowledging the re- 
 ceipt of more work, he expresses himself better 
 pleased ; but next year he complains that some of 
 Beethoven's accompaniments are "too elaborate, 
 too fantastic " ; in December he says, "I have got 
 your magnificent trio in 1^ minor : I have never 
 seen anything so charming and so wonderful ; but 
 it is terribly difficult." On June 22, 18 18, he 
 writes : 
 
 Alas 1 my good sir, in this country every one linds 
 your works much too ditiicult ; and only a very few 
 masters of the first rank can play them. Mv songs with 
 your ritornelles and accompaniments do not sell ! 1 
 lately wrote to my correspondent, one of the chief 
 music-sellers in London, to tell hin.i how much that fact 
 has surprised and disappointed me, and here is his 
 reply : " Beethoven, though a great and sublime artist, 
 is not titidcrstuod, and his arrangement i)f your songs i^ 
 )>mch too difficult for the public. After all yt)ur adverti>e- 
 ments in the papers, not one of the volumes with lii> 
 accompaniments has found a purchaser." So vou sfc- 
 that my zeal for your composition has brought mc 
 nothing but loss. But, despite a blind public, 1 will 
 say that several of your last ritornelles and accompani- 
 ments strike me as quite easy and thoroughly channiiig ; 
 and 1 believe that the time is ct)miiig when tlie Engll^h 
 will be able to understand and to feel the great beauties 
 of your works. . . . But tell me, my dear sir, is it not
 
 336 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 possible for you to display the enchantments of your art 
 in a simpler form ? Could not your genius condescend 
 to the composing of music equally superb, but less diffi- 
 cult of execution, so that amateurs could share in so 
 delicious a feast ? Is it not true that in all the arts the 
 highest beauty is in general found united with the most 
 perfect simplicity ? And is it not such works that obtain 
 the most permanent and universal admiration ? 
 
 It must be confessed that Thomson plays the philo- 
 sopher very prettily, but nearly a twelvemonth was 
 to elapse before Beethoven's bottlecl-up impatience 
 found a vent. In the meantime the indefatieabie 
 collector had engaged him in a new project, which 
 by-and-by he sincerely repented having meddled 
 with. On January i, 1816, he wrote to Beethoven 
 asking for some specimens of the national airs of 
 certain foreiofn countries which he names — Ger- 
 many, Poland, Russia, the Tyrol, Venice, and Spain. 
 He offered four ducats for each such air to which 
 the composer would supply the inevitable " ritor- 
 nelles and accompaniments." Beethoven seems to 
 have found this commission to his liking, for on 
 July 8 W'C f^nd Thomson acknowledging the receipt 
 of nineteen foreign national airs, with which he 
 professes himself much pleased. But a note of 
 weariness is creeping into his letters ; he despairs 
 of a foolish and perverse generation. He says : 
 
 I heartily wish that I could induce our public to feel 
 their great beauty, but alas I that can only be a work of 
 time. If you were in England for one or two seasons, 
 employed in giving public performances of your superb 
 pieces, people would no doubt soon lose their taste for
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE MUSIC 337 
 
 the poor, trashy, contemptible music to which at present 
 they are devoted, and would come to love what is truly 
 original and hne. 
 
 His next letter tells of still deeper dejection and 
 chagrin. On October 20 he writes : 
 
 It is with much disappointment that I am compelled 
 to tell you that, after having put myself to endless 
 trouble in the endeavour to get English verses written 
 for the 19 airs of different nations which you have sent 
 me, I have had to abandon my design in regard to these 
 songs, because the measure and the singular style of 
 them suits neither the /or?n nor the genius of English 
 poetry. The efforts of our poets to lit English verses to 
 them have been all in vain. 
 
 What else could have been expected ? Beetho- 
 ven had more than once told Thomson that he 
 could not supply truly appropriate ;iccompani- 
 ments unless he were furnished with the words as 
 well as the melodies, and 1 homson's corres{)ond- 
 ence with verse- writers oug^ht by this time to 
 have taught him that it is at least as ditTicult - 
 his common sense might have taught him it is 
 more difficult — to invent Vvords to fit music. He 
 proceeds : 
 
 The question now is, what am 1 to do with these airs 
 and your beautiful accompaiuments ^ As I lind it im- 
 possible to make songs of them, it has stiuck me that 
 you could arrange them as pot-pourri overtures \ourt-r- 
 tiires inclcs] for the pianoforte, and tiiat I might publish 
 them in that form with success. I should be gl.id then 
 if you would be good enough to arrangt' the K) airs in 
 six overtures, in whatever manner seems to you be^t, 
 
 V
 
 338 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 interweaving them with ideas and passages of your own 
 according to the suggestions of your inimitable genius. 
 In fact, the more of yourself you put into these 
 overtures, the more charmed with them I shall be. In 
 the list of prices you sent me last winter you ask 12 
 ducats for a new and original overture. Now I hope 
 that you will not ask more than half that price for 
 arranging these national airs as overtures. Even at that 
 price, they will be very expensive, for I have already 
 paid you 76 ducats for the 19 airs. I trust then that you 
 will consider 36 ducats a sufficiently liberal honorarium 
 for arranging them. . . . Allow me to suggest that 
 each overture should begin with an Introduction and 
 end with a Finale from your pen. The valse is very 
 popular in our country, and you will perhaps be able to 
 write some of the finales in that style. . . . When you 
 consider how embarrassed I am in regard to these 19 
 airs, and the loss I suffer on their account, I am sure 
 that you will very readily take a little trouble to render 
 them serviceable to me. 
 
 The impression left on the reader by this letter 
 is not very agreeable, Beethoven had simply ful- 
 filled his commission, and ought not to have been 
 saddled with any part of the consequences of his 
 employer's rashness. The light way in which 
 Thomson speaks of stringing together six airs into 
 an overture, of adding original " ideas and pas- 
 sages," and of composing introductions and finales, 
 "putting himself into it," would be amusing were 
 he dealing with any other than a supreme artist. 
 And it is impossible to acquit him of some dis- 
 ingenuousness, for a month later, before he had 
 received Beethoven's reply, he writes to William 
 Smyth asking him to fit verses to twelve of these
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE MUSIC 339 
 
 very airs, which, he says, will make interesting 
 songs. On June 2, 1817, he asks Smyth how he is 
 getting on with the work, and six months later speaks 
 of his determination to publish the airs as songs. 
 
 On December 20, 18 16, he writes again to Bee- 
 thoven, having meanwhile received no answer from 
 him. He tells the composer that in the letter of 
 October 20 he had, among other things, asked 
 him " to write an overture a la Scezzese in a lively, 
 playful, and scherzo style." Now, it will have 
 been seen that the October letter, as quoted above, 
 contains no such request. The only explanation of 
 the discrepancy I can suggest is as follows : The 
 last words of the October letter, pour vie Us rcndre 
 utiles, finish a very full page of Thomson's letter- 
 book. Three-fourths of the other side of the leaf 
 is blank, the remaining fourth being occupied by 
 the befjinniniJ: of a letter to Sir Alexander Boswell. 
 Now in every other case Thomson's signature is 
 copied as part of the letter, l-rom the absence of 
 the signature here, the abrupt termination of the 
 letter at the foot of a page, and the blank left on 
 the succeeding page, it seems probable that by 
 some accident the copying of the letter was inter- 
 rupted ^ and the intention of completing it never 
 carried out. The purport of the missing portion 
 may easily be gathered from what follows in the 
 December letter : 
 
 I find that instead of placini^ this overture at the 
 be<^innin<^ of the little opera entitled The Jolly /u-xx^rrs, it 
 
 ' It is hardly necessary to say that all the letters are copied by 
 land.
 
 340 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 will be more suitable generally, and more advantageous 
 to me, to put it at the beginning of a volume of Scotch 
 airs to which you and Haydn have written accompani- 
 ments, forming a variety of tender, impassioned, gay, and 
 jovial airs. 
 
 It is clear from this that Thomson had seriously 
 thought of prefixing a Beethoven overture to a 
 setting of The Jolly Beggars. Is it altogether 
 beyond the bounds of possibility that, dissatisfied 
 as he was with Graham's music, he may for one 
 mad moment have thought of entrusting to Beetho- 
 ven the composition of the whole cantata ? 
 
 Thomson writes again, on January 24, 1817, 
 pressing for a reply to his last two letters. When 
 the reply came I do not know, for, unluckily, Beetho- 
 ven's letter is wanting ; but in it he had evidently 
 asked 124 ducats for the seven overtures desired 
 by Thomson — the six "pot-pourris," and xh^ Jolly 
 Beggars overture just alluded to. On June 25 
 Thomson replies : 
 
 1 must tell you frankly that it is utterly impossible 
 for me to pay you such a price, and that I really don't 
 know how to make you a proposal, you are so variable 
 in the prices of your work : for in 1815 you sent me a 
 list of your prices, in which you state that the price for 
 an overture is 12 ducats, neither more nor less. It is not 
 our fashion here to join national airs to prose [Beetho- 
 ven had apparently suggested that as he could not make 
 verses fit, prose might answer the purpose !] ; and, seeing 
 no other way of making profitable use of the foreign 
 airs you sent me, I had indulged the hope that you would 
 be glad to render them of use to me as pianoforte over- 
 tures for the sum proposed. But, since you will not
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE MUSIC 341 
 
 accept this proposal, I venture to make another, which 
 you may find more to your hking. It is as follows. You 
 will select twelve airs of different nations — those that 
 appear to you the best adapted for variations ; and if 
 you compose variations (not more than eight) to each 
 air, for the pianoforte, in a pleasing style and not too 
 difficult, I will pay you 72 ducats. It will be a very 
 simple matter to write variations on twelve themes already 
 composed. 
 
 If you are inclined to write music to English words, 
 there is an ode on the power of music over the passions, 
 ninety-four lines long, a poem quite sublime, which I 
 shall be glad to send you, with a literal translation in 
 German. It is really worthy of your great and brilliant 
 genius, and, if you set it for voices and full orchestra, I 
 am convinced that it will be as much admired as TIu 
 Creation. 
 
 I need not tell you with what enthusiasm I admire 
 your works. I am enraptured with them, and there is 
 nothing in the world I desire so much as to make a 
 pilgrimage to Vienna to see you, and to hear your Masses, 
 Sonatas, Symphonies, and Quatuors performed by the 
 great musicians of your C(juntry ; for, alas I tlie greater 
 part are too difficult for Edinburgh. In X'ienna 1 should 
 fancy myself in heaven ! What a pity that from Edin- 
 burgh to Vienna is so long a road ! 
 
 Heaven is a long' way off, e\'en from Ediriburg'h ! 
 lieethoven's reply to this letter was written on 
 February 21, 1818. He addresses Ihonison as 
 " my dear friend," and begins with a reference 
 to some criticism of his accompaniments which 
 Hiomson has made : 
 
 Some songs are not successful without a good deal 
 of trouble [on the composer's part], though one would 
 not think so when playing or reading them. In songs
 
 342 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 like No. 2, for instance [in the batch he is sending], the 
 proper harmonies are quickly found ; but to succeed in 
 preserving the simplicity, the character, the genius of the 
 song is not always so easy. As you will readily believe, 
 an infinite number of harmonies is possible, but only 
 one suits the genius and the character of the melody ; 
 and you may always give a dozen ducats more, and yet 
 not really pay for the work. If you honour me with 
 other songs, I shall be better pleased if you send me a 
 large number, which it would be better worth my while 
 to devote myself to. . . . 
 
 It was impossible to reply to your letter of June 25. 
 I was too busy, and still on the sick list, and it is difficult 
 to serve you in this matter. Be assured that I always 
 deal with you as with a friend, but I am powerless against 
 circumstances. I make you another proposal : 1 am ready 
 to compose for you twelve overtures for a fee of 140 
 ducats ; I am ready to compose for you twelve themes 
 with variations for 100 ducats ; but if you wish me to 
 compose both the overtures and the themes with varia- 
 tions, I can accept 224 ducats for the whole. With such 
 little things one does not stand to gain anything, unless 
 there is a sufficient number to bring in a respectable 
 sum. You see I speak quite frankly, as one friend to 
 another. I assure you that I very often put my repu- 
 tation in my pocket solely that I may serve you on the 
 easiest possible terms. 
 
 You mentioned an ode with English words on the 
 power of music over the passions, with a literal trans- 
 lation in German. I will attempt it with the greatest 
 pleasure, and will try to set it to music at an early date. 
 Be good enough to send me the poem. ... I still have 
 by me some English poems, some of which are very fine, 
 and I should love to set them to music. 
 
 After a suggestion that Thomson should, in ar- 
 ranging his volumes, pay more attention to the
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE MUSIC 343 
 
 avoidance of monotony by a judicious mixture of 
 grave and gay, he subscribes himself, " with esteem 
 and true friendship, your Beethoven." 
 
 Thomson, in his reply of June 22, makes 
 mention of another letter from Beethoven, dated 
 March 2, which unhappily is missing. He says 
 that if he were rich, or saw any real chance of 
 getting his money back, he would willingly grant 
 the composer his own terms ; then he goes on to 
 say that the songs do not sell. He abandons the 
 overtures, but agrees to pay 100 ducats for twelve 
 themes with variations. He is glad that Beethoven 
 will attempt the English ode, and is sure that if 
 the composer would bring it to England himself, 
 and have it performed under his own direction, it 
 would not only procure him a great deal of money, 
 but enhance his reputation. Then he delivers his 
 exhortation to easiness, already quoted. 
 
 When the themes with variations came to hand, 
 Thomson as usual has to complain that some of 
 them are much too difficult. " Our Scotch ladies 
 can't surely be so strong as yours," he writes on 
 January 8, 181 9. In April, while sending more 
 airs to be accompanied, he writes : 
 
 I am sorry to tell you that one of the best pianists 
 here, a friend of mine, has toiled hard to play the Tyidlese 
 themes, and has abandoned them in despair, havin.L^ 
 found them too elaborate, chromatic, and terribly ditlieuh. 
 . . . Bnt I suppose it is useless to ask vou to make the 
 variations more sin)ple, I fear that to take that troubk' 
 woukl not snit you, and so it will be u->eless tor me to 
 publish the work ; a <^reat pity !
 
 344 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 The great man had endured this sort of thing 
 very patiently, and it would not have been in- 
 consistent with his character if he had at last 
 exploded in wrath. On May 25, 18 19, however, 
 he writes as follows : 
 
 My dear Friend, — You are always writing " easy,"" 
 "very easy"; I do my best to satisfy you, but — but — 
 the fee will have to be more "difficult," or I might say 
 ponderous !!!!!! ^ . . . The fee for a theme with varia- 
 tions which I fixed in my last letter to you—not less than 
 10 ducats — is, I solemnly assure you, only so low out of 
 mere favour to you ; for I have no need of troubling 
 myself with such trifling things; still, there is always some 
 loss of time with such trifles, and honour does not allow 
 me to tell any one what I make out of them. I wish 
 you may always have a real taste for true music ; if 
 you cry "easy," I shall retort with "difficult" for your 
 " easy " ! ! ! — Your friend, Beethoven. 
 
 This is the last letter from Beethoven we have. 
 In it the true man speaks out as perhaps never 
 before in this correspondence. There is the dignity 
 of the complete artist disguising itself in a humorous 
 condescension, for friendship's sake, to the limita- 
 tions of a smaller man. We cannot tell precisely 
 what led to the cessation of the correspondence. 
 In November 1819 Thomson passes more strictures 
 on the variations. In June 1820 he writes that 
 no one asks for the variations he has published, 
 
 ^ The French must be quoted here ; translation is impossible ; 
 " Vous ecrivez toujours "facile" "tres facile"; Je m'accomode [s/c] 
 tout mon possible, mais — mais — mais — I'honoraire pourroit pourtant 
 etre plus difficile, ou plutot pesante I 1 I ! I I "
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE MUSIC 345 
 
 and all his outlay (he puts the total at ^94) is quite 
 thrown away! He offers to make them over to 
 any Vienna music-seller Beethoven pleases, in ex- 
 change for settings of those luckless six English 
 songs he had sent so many years ago. After that, 
 not a word on either side ; and seven years later, 
 Beethoven passed into the great silence. 
 
 It need only be remarked in closing that all 
 Beethoven's Scotch and Irish songs are given in 
 Breitkopf & Hartel's complete edition of his works 
 (Series xxiv., Nos. 257-260). In the winter of 
 1860-61 there appeared in Germany a selecti(Mi of 
 the Scotch songs from Beethoxen's I\1SS., edited 
 by Franz L^spagne. " The songs printed in Thom- 
 son's collection," says the editor in his preface, 
 "are, both as to text and music, not only incorrectly 
 printed, but wilfully altered and abridged." These 
 groundless charges, as Mr. Thayer, the biographer 
 of Beethoven, remarks, "were made honestly, but 
 with a most plentiful lack of knowledge." They 
 need not be discussed here. It is sufficient to say 
 that they were completely refuted in the X'ienna 
 DcutscJic JMusikzeitnni;^ of November 23 and De- 
 cember 28, 1 86 1. The national themes with \aria- 
 tions were purchased from Thomson for /'50 in 
 1830, by Messrs. Paine ts: Ho])kins, of London, 
 after having been offered to several other music- 
 sellers.
 
 346 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 WEBER 
 
 Although he tells him that he " had the pleasure 
 of hearing many pleasing particulars of you from 
 Mr. Kalkbrenner when lately in Edinburgh," it is 
 quite evident from his first letter to the composer 
 that other causes led Thomson to employ Weber 
 on behalf of his collections. Writing on the i8th 
 of January 1825, he says : 
 
 Although I have not the honour of being known to 
 you, I flatter myself you will pardon me for the liberty 
 I take in thus addressing you. It is but lately that we 
 have had an opportunity in Edinburgh of becoming 
 acquainted with your genius. The manager of our 
 theatre has at last given us Der Freischiitz^ a work which 
 ought to place the name of Weber upon everlasting and 
 glorious record. No words of mine can express the 
 dehght which it has afforded to the lovers of music here. 
 You have soared into the highest and wildest regions of 
 imagination with the happiest success, and I feel for you 
 the utmost admiration, respect, and gratitude. 
 
 From this fine specimen of what Swift calls "the 
 food of fools," Thomson goes on to tell Weber that, 
 admiring his genius no less than that of " your illus- 
 trious countrymen, Haydn and others," whom he 
 has already employed, he must "entreat that you 
 will have the goodness to contribute your talents 
 
 ^ Weber's romantic opera was produced on December 29, 1824, 
 under the direction of Mr. Hawes "of the King's Chapel." It had a 
 run of some twenty-one nights.
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE MUSIC 347 
 
 also to enrich my work." Ten melodies are en- 
 closed for treatment, four ducats being offered for 
 each — "the highest sum which Haydn and other 
 distinguished German composers demanded and 
 received." Thomson's detractors must here re- 
 mark it as strange that he did not try Weber with 
 less than the " highest sum." But that by the way. 
 " If," he adds, " you favour me with a few lines 
 when you send the music, will you be so good as 
 to tell me what you would demand for three entirely 
 new overtures for the pianoforte, with accompani- 
 ments for the violin, flute, viola, and violoncello.'*" 
 
 No reply to this letter is extant, although among 
 Thomson's papers there is an acknowledgment of 
 the forty ducats paid to Weber for the ten airs 
 throutrh the Baroness Eude. The following-, dated 
 from Dresden, September 18, 1825, is the only 
 letter of the composer in my hands. A second 
 letter from Thomson is evidently missing. Weber 
 writes (in English of his own invention) : 
 
 I have the honour to send you hcrewitli the two 
 ritornelles [a retouching, no douht] agreeably I hope 
 to your wishes. If I have not been capable to satisfy 
 you entirely, it depends upon my unfitness to compose 
 in conformity with commands. I prav to let me know in 
 what time the Scottish airs will appear, and to send me 
 one copy of tiiem. I thank you iicarty for your good 
 wishes respecting my health, which I Unci much belter 
 after the use of tiie batiis of Ems. 
 
 Thomson answers tliis letter on the 6th ot Decem- 
 ber following, by sending four more airs, with a 
 draft for sixteen ducats. Weber, alas ! ne\er earned
 
 34^ GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 tlio money. 1 ho circuinsiancos arc explained by 
 the following letter ot" June o, 1820, written by an 
 I^dinbiiroh firm to the b'rankfort bankini^-house 
 through which the composer was to be paid. The 
 letter was presumably drafted bv Thomson : 
 
 SU\S, — Mr, Thonison, of this citv. having in noceniber 
 List written to ^[^. Carl Mari.i von Wobor to request 
 him to compose a little music tor him, <is he luui done 
 formerly, we, .iccording to Mr. Thomson's wish, i:;ave 
 him an order upon you to pay to Mr. von Weber sixteen 
 ducats upon his receipt. Tiie composer, who at that 
 time was busv in preparing tor his journev to England, 
 did not t\nd leisure to do what Mr. Thomson wanted, 
 and since his arrival in London was so constantly occu- 
 pied in bringing" out his opera ot Olh-rcn and at con- 
 certs as to have been unable to think ot the nuisic tor 
 Mr. Thomson. Untortunately tor the nuisical world, 
 that celebrated composer is no more ; he died on Sundav 
 last, deeply regretted bv everv adnurer ot genius. As it 
 may happen that his triends in going over his papers 
 mav fmd our order upon vou above mentioned, and in 
 ignorance of the circumstances before stated may pos- 
 sibly applv to vou for pavment of the monev, we write 
 this to //r: ■;•;.■.' vour paving it, if it should be demanded. 
 
 Weber's work for Thomson was thus limited to the 
 ten airs sent to him in January 1825. These were 
 subsequently issued with German words by Probst 
 of Leipzig under the title of Zcv;;/ SL/iofiisc'if 
 \ati<'>ijl Gtsdngt. Sir Julius Benedict, in his 
 biography o( Weber, has rather an interesting note 
 on the little collectioii. though he, too, must have 
 his slip about " ^Iv. George Thompson, an eminent 
 publisher." Thomson's idea (the idea of employing
 
 CORRESPONDEN'CE AbO^T THE :.r;'-y. -^.-^ 
 
 continental musicianhh say-^ Benedi^.t, v/^s r.ot ;i 
 happy on':. Had he ''told the ^reat compo-.er-: thai 
 he wished to have the harmonies (v^rnetimes irj-'-or- 
 rect and awkward; reviewed h-v/i altered, v.itho:,! 
 chang-ing the .simplicity and ori;i'ina]itv of their 
 vcft^WTiftTiX. the result wojld have V:er. c-.::e dif- 
 ferent. But leavin;^ them f.i! scov: :^ ^^dd ^ir.d 
 modify as they liked, the conseq .e.nce was that the- 
 very essence of the originals v. as ofte.". '-.ha.rged. 
 and that it is diff.cult to reco;£'r.ise then:. There 
 are harmonic f^rr.s— accompaniments for the :.-.str.- 
 ments added — which. tho-;ih skiif^iiv managed — a~ 
 how could they he otherAi-e' aiter ':r:;rei% v.h;it 
 oug^ht to have been preserved. They have r.e-.e.' 
 becomie. and never v.:.l l>ecome. pop-ia.'. I h:~ :- 
 as candid a- :: i^ tr^e. 7 hat Werner'- h;o;:rapher 
 should rehe'/e one of the neces-:f.' ■.{ sav:n;{ it i~ a 
 great matter. 
 
 H :; M M K :, 
 
 Johann Xepom-k H^m — e. v.;^^ ,r.e '.i -■. '.r: 
 of pianoforte virtuosi o: hi- p'rricd. the :v. :her~ 
 bein^ Mcscheies and Ka.-:hre:::.er. J:;eri: //. .:■,..- 
 him "a man of ;jTea: ta:ent a -evere :[-^:'.:-: li* 
 had been a T:.u;^:i of Mozan --ro w;^s f',r - ,mc ::m' 
 Beetho'.er. s rival :r. ic/e .m.aiters. r.rj:'. :r. _' m.'.rr:e- - 
 sist-rr of me s:n;^er Kc-eckeh to v-n^ m Bee:: ". • ' 
 a'so wa- m-ch attacned. L^::*:r!y r- - r. .■ • 
 p!avin2^ in ^jJlV.c anc devoted nims-rJ >.rr.,~: ■ - 
 lo composition and teachin;;:. 
 
 Thcm.svn o:^ned his c rre-r-^/rd'::.
 
 350 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 in 1826. He then writes, on the 3rd of April, 
 sending him five airs to be furnished with sym- 
 phonies and accompaniments, and telling him, in 
 the usual courtly fashion, that his desire to have 
 his collection " enriched by some specimens of 
 your talents" arises from "the enjoyment which I 
 have lately had in your graceful and most beautiful 
 compositions and the great respect I have for your 
 genius." Adverting to the ever-pressing question 
 of terms, he says : " The highest sum which Haydn 
 and Beethoven demanded and received was four 
 ducats for each melody ; and I flatter myself you 
 will not be offended if I offer the same to you." A 
 draft for twenty ducats accordingly accompanies the 
 commission. The following further quotation from 
 this letter is of some little interest : 
 
 The other night I heard the charming boy Aspull ^ 
 play your most admirable septette in D minor with the 
 accompaniments, with which we were quite electrified. 
 It is a glorious composition. We take great pleasure in 
 playing your trios in my own family ; they are delightful. 
 One is so difficult, however, as to be rather beyond our 
 powers. I remember you well in Edinburgh, when you 
 was about Aspull's age, along with my good friend Mr. 
 Salomon, and of spending many pleasant hours in your 
 company. I wish wuth all my heart you would return 
 once more. This is now an elegant city, with many 
 lovers of music who would be happy to see and hear you 
 play your delicious compositions. 
 
 Hummel started work on his commission at once, 
 and was ready to send all the five airs to Thomson 
 
 1 George Aspull, born in 1814, at a very early age manifested an 
 extraordinary capacity as a pianist.
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE MUSIC 351 
 
 on the ist of June (1826). He writes in En^c^dish, 
 excusing himself for its being " bad and incorrect '" 
 by the fact that "it is about 35 years ago since I 
 was in Scotland and England." It may be well to 
 have a specimen of this Weimar English — and, I 
 may add, of Weimar orthography : 
 
 You will certainly remark that I have served mvself 
 of the art only as an ornament of nature ; that the apH- 
 cation of the instruments is ad locujii, without coverin*^ 
 the principal partie, the voice ; and so I hope it will 
 answer to your purpose. I have onh- to remark you in 
 this occasion that the price of four ducats is very low for 
 the present circumstances, the compositic^ns of distin- 
 guished authors being payd much higlier now than bL*ft)re 
 in our country ; and so much more as you desired the 
 airs to be accompanied also by a flute, which did not 
 Mr. Haydn. . . . For those reasons I hope you will do 
 me justice and raise the honorar something more, when 
 you'll favour me in future with more airs. 
 
 The "honorar" was certainly liberal enough— for 
 Hummel. However, in 1829 Thomson sent him 
 twelve airs, and so far met his wish as to pay him 
 sixty ducats for the work — that is to say, about ten 
 shillings more than he had paid for the first lot. 
 This was really generous remuneration, considering 
 Hummel's standing as a composer, and what I l.iydn 
 and Beethoven had been content to take ; and it is 
 a point in Thomson's favour that he made no debate 
 about it. In forwarding the packet on October 15 
 (1829) Hummel writes, still in Weimar I^nglish : 
 
 I notice to you that in the month of March, next year 
 I schall come to England and if convenable offers are
 
 352 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 made to me by the musical amateurs of Edinburgh, I 
 schall be very glad to see again Scotland, which pleased 
 me very much when I was there at the age of eleven 
 years. 
 
 Of course Thomson "will be happy to see" the 
 latest acquisition to his staff, but "the amateurs 
 here are far from being so numerous or so enthu- 
 siastic as in your wonderful country," and " they 
 never make proposals to any professor." These 
 were not the palmy days of the concert agent and 
 the "star" travelling pianist, otherwise there would 
 assuredly have been "proposals." 
 
 Some of Hummel's accompaniments unfortu- 
 nately proved like some of the accompaniments 
 of his predecessors — -they were too difficult. " Our 
 people," says Thomson, " will not look at a pianoforte 
 accompaniment if it is learned or recherchd, or if it 
 is not perfectly easy for the fingers, and therefore 
 it would not be advisable for me to offer any such 
 to the public." If Hummel will not condescend to 
 consider "the fingers of the pianoforte accompa- 
 nist," then Thomson "must be contented wuth the 
 more simple accompaniments of other masters." In 
 the meantime he returns such of the airs (four) as 
 he thinks are too difficult, asking Hummel to sim- 
 plify them, and enclosing £2 for the extra trouble 
 thus given. Hummel did his best to meet the 
 views of his employer, but Thomson would have 
 "nothing that requires too much attention to the 
 fingering," and one of the "simplified" accompani- 
 ments had actually to go back a second time, with 
 an extra pound-note for the expected retouching.
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE MUSIC 353 
 
 Hummel continued to work for Thomson for 
 some time after this, but there is no further corre- 
 spondence on either side worth noting. 
 
 SIR HENRY R. BISHOP 
 
 Up to the year 1818 the correspondence with 
 Bishop had been all about the music for 7 he 
 Jolly Beggars. That section of it being dcrdt with 
 in a separate part of this volume, we may look 
 here at the few letters which fcjllowed. On the 
 15th of August 18 18, Bishop writes to Thomson, 
 introducing to his attention "a very particular 
 friend of mine, Mr. John Loder of Bath."^ Mr. 
 Loder's talents as a performer on the violin, he 
 continues, "are no doubt already known to you; 
 and the fame he has gained by his performances 
 at the Philharmonic Concerts has perhaps also 
 reached you. You will find him, too, in every 
 other respect worthy of whatever kindness you mav 
 do me the favour to show him during his stay in 
 Edinburgh." The following further extract from 
 this letter is of some interest : 
 
 Bcetlioven has been invited by the Pliilliarinonic 
 Society to visit tiiis country, but tiie terms ottered were 
 not deemed by him sufHcient. I know not what they 
 were, for I was not present when the proposition was 
 made. I hope, however, to carry tiie point. I fully 
 intend at our next meetinj4 to propo>e ot \sic\ eni^aj^inj^ 
 him to come on such terms as will be handsc^me and 
 satisfactory to him. 
 
 ' This wuh the author of the well-known I'ioUti Sihoni. 
 
 7.
 
 354 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 The offer made to Beethoven was a sum of three 
 hundred guineas in consideration of his coming 
 to London and superintending the production of 
 two symphonies to be composed by him for the 
 Philharmonic Society. He demanded four hundred 
 guineas, and accordingly the arrangement was not 
 carried into effect. No mention is made of the 
 matter having been reconsidered in 1818 in George 
 Hogarth's History of the Philharmonic Society ; 
 and not having had access to the minutes, I am 
 unable to say whether Bishop made the proposal 
 he here promises to make. 
 
 Thomson first asked Bishop to undertake the 
 arrangement of some songs for him in May 1841. 
 The arranofements of three Scottish airs are com- 
 pleted within a month and six guineas paid for the 
 work. In July he makes an arrangement of "God 
 save the Queen," keeping it "as simple as possible," 
 which indeed " is the only mode of arranging our 
 National Anthem without making it too elaborate." 
 Bishop's arrangement, with Moir's (" Delta's ") 
 verses, appeared as a finale to the Scottish collec- 
 tion, Thomson explaining that though his country 
 can lay no claim to the air, " yet its beauty, with 
 the pure harmony of Bishop and the eloquence 
 of the Scotch verses " will, he hopes, render it 
 acceptable. The "pure harmony" had been ori- 
 ginally " the rich harmony," which did not quite 
 please Bishop when he came upon it in the proof. 
 And there was something else to complain of, as 
 the following letter of September 18 (1841) will 
 show :
 
 CORRESPONDENCE ABOUT THE MUSIC 355 
 
 I could wish that less were said in the title-pa(^e of 
 the "God save the Queen" about the "rich harmony of 
 Bishop," as what I have done does not deserve to be 
 rated so highly. The harmonies are perhaps pure, 
 simple, and appropriate to the air, but are by no means 
 "rich." And pray oblige me by omitting the " Esquire." 
 For though courtesy may honour me with that title on 
 the back of a letter, I do not think it should be printed 
 to any work of mine. It has never yet pleased a mon- 
 arch of our kingdom to make a poor musician either a 
 Knight or Esquire ; although painters, sculptors, archi- 
 tects, &c. &c. &c. have had abundance of those honour- 
 able distinctions. And I am not anxious, indeed am 
 averse, to see my name " in print " with any other title 
 beyond what may really belong to me. I hope, at the 
 same time, that the alteration may not cause you any 
 material inconvenience. 
 
 One year later — as it mig'ht have been with 
 Johnson and the definition of " pension "—Bishop 
 would probably have written differently about 
 "those honourable distinctions," for he was then 
 Sir Henry. As it was, Thomson had to delete the 
 " Esquire," and let the composer stand as plain 
 H. R. Bishop.
 
 THE MUSIC OF "THE JOLLY 
 BEGGARS" 
 
 The story of Thomson's connection with " The 
 Jolly Beggars" might have been told in dealing 
 with the correspondence about the music for his 
 collections, but I have thought it better to give it 
 a section to itself. Burns, it will be remembered, 
 wrote this "puissant and splendid production," as 
 Matthew Arnold calls it, in Ayrshire during the 
 spring-time of his genius. He laid it aside, with 
 probably no intention of giving it to the world, and 
 was reminded of its existence by Thomson in 1793. 
 Burns then sent a copy of the cantata to Thomson, 
 who ever afterwards regarded it as among the other 
 poetic favours which the poet had specially bestowed 
 upon him. 
 
 The piece was first printed in an imperfect state 
 towards the end of last century by Stewart & 
 Meikle of Glasgow, and in i S02 was published in 
 complete form. Thomson had his eye on it from the 
 beginning, but the passages which, as Scott gently 
 put it, "slightly trespassed on decorum," most 
 effectually prevented his doing anything with it as 
 it stood. At last, in November 18 16, he announces 
 to Sir Alexander Boswell that he has brought the 
 production within the bounds of decency. He says : 
 
 I have frequently formed a wish that Burns' cantata 
 of The Jolly Beggars were rendered fit for the public eye, 
 
 vS6
 
 THE MUSIC OF "THE JOLLY BEGGARS" 357 
 
 and regretted that a piece so exquisitely humorous and 
 full of character should to the ladies be as a sealed book. 
 After revolving it long in my mind I resolved to try 
 whether I could not free it of the exceptionable passages 
 without injury to the spirit and the connection of the 
 poem. I flatter myself 1 have succeeded, and that I shall 
 deserve the thanks of the sex for introducing a composi- 
 tion of such extraordinary genius to their acquaintance. 
 ... I would be very glad to submit the poem to you in 
 its state of purification, if you would not reckon it trouble- 
 some to look it over and give me your (^pinion of it 
 as it now stands, having the utmost confidence in your 
 excellent judgment. 
 
 There is nothing extant to show what Hoswell 
 thought of the "purification" ; all things considered, 
 it is hardly likely that he would approve of Thom- 
 son's tampering with the piece. But whether he 
 approved or not would have mattered little to 
 Thomson at this stage, for he had already got the 
 cantata " set to masterly music " by George Farquhar 
 Graham.^ So, at any rate, he informed Boswell. 
 But the music turned out to be too masterly. The 
 followine letter of 18 14, from his brother r3avid, 
 shows that Thomson had practically decided to give 
 up Graham while his setting of the cantata was 
 yet unfinished : 
 
 I always thought Graham had a fnie taste ior the rich 
 and varied harmony of the German school of instrunitntal 
 
 ' Thomson had asked Graliain to start on the imiMc two years 
 before this— in August 1814. " It strikes both Mr. Hogarth .md me 
 that if you would invoke the muse to her liighe^t etTorts in hvely and 
 spirited composition you could set the cantata very liappily. Mr. 
 Hogarth indeed flatters me with the liope that you will think it a 
 pleasure to do it and that you will set about it con ainore."
 
 358 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 music, but I confess I never thought he had a good idea 
 of a vocal style, or of characteristic melody. He allows 
 his desire of displaying learning to run away with that 
 uninterrupted flow which melody should always have, 
 and which the accompaniments should only support and 
 enrich. The difficult roulades 3^ou speak of appear to me 
 as inconsistent with the style of Jolly Beggars, as the airs 
 and graces of Correggio, and the deep blue skies and 
 flying draperies of Titian would be in one of Ostade's or 
 Teniers' humorous scenes. I should think the best way 
 of treating Burns' poem w'ould be to have the airs as 
 simple and characteristic as possible ; and instead of in- 
 tricate recitatives, to adopt the semi-aria style sometimes 
 made use of in the grotesque scenes of the buffa Italian 
 opera. Bishop appears to me better in choruses than in 
 songs, and I am almost sure he would ask a much greater 
 sum than you mention. The person who does it should 
 be a Scotchman, and all things considered I should think 
 William Clarke ^ more fit for the task than any one I 
 know; he has a very fine natural taste, and has written 
 several very pretty, simple melodies in a national style ; 
 he also knows musical composition well, and is a piano- 
 forte player. It is as you say, however, a delicate matter 
 to take it from Graham, but if it is to be done, it would be 
 better now than after he has spent more time on it. 
 
 David Thomson showed his good sense in suggest- 
 ing here that Graham should be at once released 
 from a commission which was so likely to turn 
 out unsatisfactorily. But the suggestion was not 
 adopted ; the cantata was completed, and the score 
 placed in Thomson's hands. There is a letter ad- 
 dressed by Thomson in November 1816 to John 
 
 ^ Son of Stephen Clarke, who continued his father's work on 
 Johnson's Musical Museum.
 
 THE MUSIC OF "THE JOLLY BEGGARS" 359 
 
 Mather, one of the leading musicians of the capital, 
 asking him to examine Graham's music profes- 
 sionally and point out wherein he found it too diffi- 
 cult. This matter of difficulty is the crux of the 
 whole business with Thomson. There is, he tells 
 Mather, "prodigious merit" in the music, and if 
 Graham would "alter and simplify it in some parts " 
 he feels sure it would " become popular and raise his 
 name where it is not yet known." The generality 
 of professors "will not look at very difficult music, 
 but condemn it untried ; and it has often vexed me 
 to see Mr. Graham in his various compositions so 
 wholly unmindful of this." What Mather's report 
 was like we do not know, but the final result of the 
 whole matter is before us, in the following letter of 
 January 1817 from Thomson to Graham : 
 
 I have heard Mather go over your opera again and 
 again, and although his dexterity of hand enables him 
 to play through the piece and to bring out its brilliant 
 beauties, as Mrs. Stark [see page 47] did, very mucli to 
 my delight, yet, highly as I admire a great part of it, I 
 now plainly perceive that the performance of it recjuircs 
 more talent than is to be found among the generality (it 
 those for whom my volumes are intended. My daughter 
 Anne, though not a great player, is on a footing with at 
 least nine-tenths of the Scottish ladies in ready reading 
 and execution ; yet I found, after carefullv attending to 
 her repeated performance of the music, that she is so 
 frequently obliged to stop and to bungle it, that 1 am 
 altogether convinced of its unfitness for niaking a }->art of 
 my volume, and therefore with mucii reluctance, after 
 well considering it, 1 have resolved to give up the idea of 
 publishing it.
 
 360 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 George Hogarth, it appears, was quite opposed 
 to Thomson's opinion of Graham's music, and this 
 evidently caused him some uneasiness, more par- 
 ticularly as Hogarth approved of the manner in 
 which he had pruned the cantata. But though he 
 had failed with Graham, Thomson did not give up 
 the idea of having the cantata set to music. Even 
 to Graham himself he announces that " after puri- 
 fying this poetical child of my adoption from the 
 gross original sin that he inherited at his birth, I am 
 resolved to produce him in some shape among the 
 rest of my family." And thus it is that we have 
 the setting of The Jolly Beggars by Sir Henry R. 
 Bishop. 
 
 Thomson applied to Bishop on the 27th of 
 January, two days after he communicated his deci- 
 sion to Graham. The request to set the cantata 
 proceeds, he says, "from my admiration of your 
 talents," and he reminds the composer that he " had 
 once the pleasure of passing an afternoon with you 
 at Mr. Ballantyne's." The great question is the 
 question of terms. " I shall tell you frankly that I 
 can get it done by an eminent composer ^ abroad for 
 less than twenty guineas ' (fancy a continental com- 
 poser setting The Jolly Beggars !), " but I have such 
 a high opinion of your genius and taste, and am so 
 anxious to open a correspondence with you, that I 
 would be very happy to give you that sum." To 
 this Bishop replied in a manner that must have 
 
 ^ Cf. the correspondence with Beethoven, pp. 339, 340. But Bee- 
 thoven was certainly not the man to set TJie Jolly Beggars for twenty 
 guineas.
 
 THE MUSIC OF "THE JOLLY BEGGARS" 361 
 
 somewhat surprised the condescending editor. He 
 says : 
 
 I feel honoured hy your distinction of nie, and gladly 
 emhrace the opportunity your offer affords of being 
 phiced by the side of such names as Haydn and Bee- 
 thoven. But in regard to the terms you propose I must 
 ccjnfess I have a different feeUng. There are seven pieces 
 of music to be composed, for which you propose twenty 
 guineas ! Such a remuneration with me is quite out of 
 tlie question. But if you think proper, tlie ditference of 
 our opinions in respect to pecuniaiy reward siiall make 
 no bar in the present case to my undertaking tlie work. 
 I win therefore, for the honour of the company I shall 
 be in, and to commence an acquaintance with von, of 
 which I shall ever feel proud, compose the ode you wish ; 
 and for remuneration (as a pecuniary one is not Hkely to 
 be agreed on), if you think lit, I shall feel mvself perfectly 
 contented by your acknowledgment in a sniiif-b(x\, or 
 anything else, of whatever value vou may please. 
 
 The snuff-box and other things followed in due 
 course. Meantime Thomson could only thank the 
 composer for "the most kind and liberal manner" 
 in which he had agreed to execute; the commission. 
 Bishop at once went to work on the music, and 
 Thomson had the score in May. " I assure \t)u," 
 says the composer, " I have bestowed as much 
 attention and labour on the work as I ever did on 
 any work of the kind in the whole course ot my 
 musical career. I have done so equally from my 
 respect for you, my admiration of the imuK^rtal 
 Burns, and the ambition I feel for a name in Scot- 
 land." He then proceeds to discuss at considerable 
 leno'th various details in regard to his settiuLr ot the
 
 362 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 cantata. The compass of the songs, he thinks, will 
 be found suitable for almost any class of voice ; and 
 he has " preferred writing the part intended for the 
 tenor voice in the bass clef," although he " knows 
 of no substantial reason why the tenor part in vocal 
 music should ever be written but in its proper clef, 
 and it is some degree of disgrace to the musical 
 knowledge of this country " that it is seldom so 
 written. In the introduction he has "made an 
 attempt to paint (musically) the situation of the 
 parties concerned at the time of the commencement 
 of the poem — the season of the year, the time of 
 the evening (which I have expressed by the eight 
 notes which begin the introduction, signifying a bell 
 striking eight o'clock), &c." In the accompani- 
 ments to the songs he has "constantly retained the 
 melody, so as to render them fit for the pianoforte, 
 even without the voice." Throughout the entire 
 work "simplicity has been the principal study," and 
 " if any part of the pianoforte accompaniment should 
 seem to you more difficult for execution than that 
 in Haydn's work [accompaniments], I do not think 
 you need fear its being too much so for general 
 performance, as I am convinced that music, as an 
 art, at least, is so considerably advanced during the 
 last seven years there is no part of the accompani- 
 ments of this work that is not perfectly within the 
 ability of any tolerable amateur of the present day." 
 In concluding, he hopes that Thomson will do him 
 the justice, before deciding on the music, to " procure 
 a private performance of the work, with every part, 
 and in the completest way possible."
 
 THE MUSIC OF ''THE JOLLY BEGGARS" 363 
 
 The performance was immediately arranged, and 
 on the 29th of May Thomson writes that the cantata 
 was gone through "the other night by our best 
 vocal professors, with the accompaniments, greatly 
 to the delight of all of us."^ The music is "ad- 
 mirably well adapted to the poetry"; both "the 
 melodies and the choruses appear to me excellent." 
 The three national airs are " very happily set, and 
 the original music is full of that hilarity and joyous 
 spirit for which the poem is so remarkable." The 
 finale is "peculiarly rich and brilliant," and, in short, 
 "the composition altogether is a masterly proof of 
 your talents, and likely to sustain your well-earned 
 reputation," All this being so, " I am now to beg 
 your acceptance of the present herewith sent- a 
 gold snuff-box, with Scottish jas[)er and agate ; a 
 suit of Scottish damask, consisting of a table-cloth 
 and a dozen napkins of different patterns ; and tno 
 pictures." 
 
 Of course, it was not to be expected that the 
 cantata would pass the bar without some criticism 
 and suggestion ; and, having thus mollified the com- 
 poser by gift and compliment, Thomson pnjceeds 
 to point out wherein he "humbly conceives" the 
 composition to be faulty. We need not tollow him 
 in his various suggestions, further, perhaps, than to 
 note his objection to Ijishop's vaunted imitations in 
 the introduction. These, he remarks, would quite 
 fail to be caught up by the majority ol listeners, antl 
 
 ' TJic Jolly JuXt^uKs was produced, for the "first time on any 
 stage," at Edinburgh, March 19, 1S23.
 
 364 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 therefore they are out of place. Indeed, says he in 
 effect, the composer himself has unconsciously ad- 
 mitted this much by labelling his music with a note 
 of the particular imitations he desires to produce. 
 Thomson obviously had not the artistic insight to 
 enable him to appreciate Bishop's intention — an 
 intention which, nevertheless, was capable of being 
 appreciated emotionally, if not intellectually. On 
 this point, however, it may be well to hear Bishop 
 himself Writing on the 29th of August, in reply 
 to Thomson's criticisms, he says : 
 
 Your arguments for an alteration of the Introduction 
 I can only answer by confessing that I do not quite 
 agree with them ; for it appears to me that characteristic 
 music, where it only attempts an imitation of such par- 
 ticulars in nature as are imitated in all overtures and 
 symphonies (without the audience being informed of it) 
 is not less likely to please because the intention of the 
 composer is unknown to the hearers, so that melody is 
 not entirely disregarded in the composition. Witness, 
 for an instance, the finale to one of Haydn's symphonies 
 in which that immortal master gives an imitation of a 
 dancing bear, &c., which intention was only known to 
 a few of Haydn's friends, and yet the music always 
 delighted every hearer. You will, of course, do me the 
 justice to beheve that I am far from wishing to place 
 the trifle of mine in question by the side of the meanest 
 work of Haydn's for the sake of comparison, but it was 
 the only answer I had to your arguments for an alteration 
 of the Introduction. As to your wishes that it should 
 be altered, my answer is a most ready compliance ; and 
 you will therefore find it in a shape more adapted, I 
 think, to the purpose you have mentioned, namely a gay 
 introduction to the subject of the poem.
 
 THE MUSIC OF "THE JOLLY BEGGARS" 365 
 
 As for Thomson's presents, they have been "ad- 
 mired by every one who has seen them, with a 
 degree of enthusiasm." At "the dinner we some- 
 time since gave to the celebrated Talma, having 
 the fortune to be placed next to him, I had an 
 opportunity of displaying the beautiful agate snuff- 
 box, which he declared was the handsomest box ne 
 had ever beheld — that it was superbe, mapiifiqiic. 
 Indeed I do not know which to admire most, the 
 box, the pictures, or the damask. I shall always 
 treasure them as a most gratifying memento of 
 The Jolly Beggars, and ever remember the truly 
 handsome manner in which they were sent." Thom- 
 son says afterwards that The Jolly Begs^ars, " with 
 the expense of engraving," cost him sixty pounds ; 
 and all but ten pounds of that sum he sets down as 
 the cost of the gifts to Bishop. 
 
 The only other letter dealing with the cantata is 
 one from Thomson to Bishop, when he sends him 
 the proofs. It had been Thomson's original inten- 
 tion to " interpose the recitatives between the songs 
 and choruses," but he now gave up that idea. 
 
 In the first place, they [/.('. the recitatives] would 
 have an awkward appearance standing nakedly witliout 
 music ; and in the next ["(lace I must tell you that at 
 some performances of tiie music I tried tiie eltect oi 
 reading the recitatives, hut found it tiat and unprotitablc 
 The speakint^ seemed an interruption to the music, and I 
 am satisfied from these trials that 'tis best t<> let the music 
 go on uninterruptedly from beginning to end. it we had a 
 very good reciter it miglit have a good eftect to recite tiie 
 whole cantata before the performance oi the music ; but 
 it does not seem advisable to read and sing allernatelv.
 
 266 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 From this letter it appears that Thomson had not 
 altogether purified the cantata from its "original 
 sin." The chorus of the fiddler's song had escaped 
 his notice until a friend directed his attention to it ; 
 now he recognises that the last couplet of that 
 chorus is "barefaced indecency": the ladies "would 
 not sing it," and therefore he is forced to invent a 
 substitute at the last moment. Here is what Thom- 
 son asks his fine ladies to sing : 
 
 At kirns and weddings we'se be there, 
 And O sae nicely's we will fare, 
 We'll bouse about till Daddy Care 
 Sing whistle o'er the lave o't. 
 
 Not very likely that there would be any objec- 
 tion to this ! Thomson, in truth, need not have 
 troubled himself in the matter. The sex who were 
 his particular care would probably have passed the 
 fiddler's chorus as unheeded as he had passed it 
 himself — -until the "friend" appeared with the sug- 
 gestion of evil. Thackeray never suspected that 
 the Arabimi Nights was an improper book until he 
 read it in a family edition. 
 
 The Jolly Beggars with Bishop's music was in- 
 cluded in the fifth volume of the Scottish collection, 
 published in 1818. On the ground that it was "a 
 complete work by itself, and should not be in- 
 corporated with any other," Thomson afterwards 
 (in 1826) removed it from the volume, and made 
 strenuous efforts to sell the copyright. These 
 efforts were unsuccessful, and the cantata was sold 
 at last with the other works.
 
 BURNS FAMILY LETTERS 
 
 The following letters addressed to Thomson by 
 Mrs. Burns, by two of the poet's sons, and by his 
 brother Gilbert, may, for convenience, be printed 
 together in one chapter, and in their order of date. 
 There is very little to say regarding them by way 
 of preliminary unless it be to remark upon the 
 excellent if somewhat frigid style of Mrs. Burns' 
 communications. Mr. Stevenson has pictured Jean 
 Armour as an ignorant, "empty-headed girl"; but 
 if these letters were written by herself — and there is 
 no reason for supposing that they were not — the 
 poet made no such fatal mistake in choosing her for 
 his wife as Mr. Stevenson would have us believe. 
 Another thinor that should be noted about these 
 letters is their uniformly warm and friendly tone. 
 It is evident that whatever Professor Wilson and 
 others might think and say about Thomson's pecu- 
 niary relations with Burns, the members of the 
 family who are here represented took a generous 
 and common-sense view of the whole circumstances 
 of the case. 
 
 The first letter is from Gilbert Burns, the only 
 brother of the poet who survived him. At this date 
 he occupied the farm of Dinning in Nithsdale; but 
 before the year was out he had removed to East 
 
 Lothian to manage the farm of Morham West 
 
 367 1
 
 368 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 Mains (now Morham Muir) for Captain Dunlop, 
 son and heir of Mrs. Dunlop of Dunlop. In 1804 
 Lady Blantyre appointed him factor of her East 
 Lothian estates, and in this capacity he occupied, 
 rent free, the house called Grant's Braes, about a 
 mile west from Haddington, from which several of 
 the following letters are written. 
 
 Dinning, \i,th March 1800. 
 
 Sir, — I received your very acceptable present of your 
 songs, which calls for my warmest thanks. If ever I 
 come to Edinburgh I will certainly avail myself of your 
 invitation to call upon a person whose handsome conduct 
 to my brother's family has secured my esteem and con- 
 firmed to me the opinion that musical taste and talents 
 have a close connection with the harmony of the moral 
 feelings. I am unwilling indeed to believe that the 
 motives of every one's heart are dark as Erebus, to 
 whom Dame Nature has denied a good ear and musical 
 capacity, as her ladyship has been pleased to endow 
 myself but very scantily in these particulars ; but " happy 
 is the man who possesses it, happy his cot, and happy 
 the sharer of it." To the sharer of yours I beg vou will 
 present my most cordial congratulations. My sister-in- 
 law begs me to present her best thanks to you for her 
 copy, and to assure you that hovvever little she may have 
 expressed it, she has a very proper sense of the kind 
 attention you have so frequently shown her. — I am, 
 dear Sir, your most obedient Servant, with the highest 
 esteem, Gilbert Burns. 
 
 The next letter is from the poet's son, James 
 Glencairn, who, like his brother William Nicol, was 
 in the East India Service. The latter went out as 
 a midshipman, at the age of fifteen. He got a
 
 BURNS FAMILY LETTERS 369 
 
 cadetship in 181 1, served for more than thirty years 
 in the 7th Madras Infantry, and retired lieutenant- 
 colonel in 1843. James Glencairn, who got his 
 cadetship in the same year as his brother, rose to 
 be major, and ultimately, in 1855, brevet lieutenant- 
 colonel. Both brothers latterly lived together in 
 retirement at Cheltenham, James dying in 1865, and 
 William in 1872. 
 
 Dumfries, x'-^th May iSii. 
 
 SiK, — I hope you will excuse the liberty I have taken 
 of writing to you just now, but the reason is tiiis. Wiien 
 in Edinburgh you was so kind as to promise me a copy 
 of the songs you gave my brother whenever I came that 
 way. Sir James Shaw has given me a cadetship in the 
 East India Service, with orders to be in London directly, 
 so that it will not be in my power to go by sea for fear 
 of being too late for the ship. If you would give the 
 books to the bearer, who has an opportunity of sencHng 
 them to Dumfries, from where they may be forwarded 
 to me with the rest of my things, it will much oblige, 
 your obedient Servant, James Burns. 
 
 The next letter needs some explanation. Ciilbert 
 Burns had come to see, mainly from the evidence 
 of Messrs. Gray and Findlater, that Dr. Currie 
 had done some injustice to his brother's memory by 
 the revelation of his " infirmities." The fourteen 
 years' copyright of Currie's edition had expired, 
 and the work was now being reprinted by irre- 
 sponsible parties. Messrs. Cadell t!^ Davies were 
 anxious t<j keep their own impressions well in the 
 front, and the idea occurred to them of having a 
 new edition, with notes and emendations by the 
 poet's brother. Wordsworth got to hear of the 
 
 2 A
 
 370 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 negotiations then in progress, and issued a pamphlet 
 in the form of a letter to James Gray, the Academy 
 master of Burns' children at Dumfries. In this 
 letter "the whole question of the biographer's duty 
 to his subject, especially in regard to the extent to 
 which it was proper to go in laying bare faults 
 and failings," was warmly discussed. The evil 
 done by Currie, Wordsworth avowed, should be 
 corrected. 
 
 And so Gilbert Burns' edition was prepared. It 
 was published in 1820, and proved a failure. At 
 the instigation of Gray, the editor asked .^500 
 for his services. For this sum Messrs. Cadell & 
 Davies naturally desired and expected a mass of 
 fresh matter, which would give their edition the 
 first place in the market. But there was no fresh 
 matter. The editor "furnished only a very few 
 meagre notes, did not admit any pieces excluded 
 by Currie, and distinguished his edition from the 
 old one chiefiy by inserting two letters on the 
 poet's character from Gray and Findlater, and a dis- 
 sertation from his own pen on the effect of the 
 Scottish national religion upon the Scottish national 
 character." Luckily for themselves the publishers 
 had stipulated that only ^250 should be paid if 
 no reprint were called for, and as Gilbert Burns 
 frankly remarked that he " scarce could muster 
 impudence " to ask the .;^500, he was no doubt 
 quite satisfied with what he received. For further 
 details see Wallace's edition of Chambers's Burns, 
 iv. 296, 525. T/ie Champion was the paper for 
 which Keats wrote occasional theatrical criticisms.
 
 BURNS FAMILY LETTERS 
 
 371 
 
 Grant's Braes, I'^th June 1816. 
 
 Deak Sik, — I received your obliging letter of the 
 22nd, and had received The Chanipiou before, which I 
 conjectured I was indebted to your kindness for. [Here 
 follow some remarks on the price of butter, and the 
 advantage or otherwise of sending it to Edinburgh. 1 I 
 am very much pleased with Mr. Wordswcjrth's letter to 
 Mr. Gray, and find no fault witii what he says -of the 
 Edinburgh reviewer, except that it may be construed to 
 have been produced from his own smarting under the 
 lash so cruelly and wantonly inflicted. I think he is 
 happy in comparing the reviewer with the vanity and 
 cruelty of Robespierre, for certainly there never was in 
 the annals of literature such another instance of assum- 
 ing confidence and cruel tyranny. I do not doubt that 
 what Mr. Wordswcjrth proposes in regard to the publica- 
 tion of my brother's works might have a good effect, but 
 it would require so much arrangement and so much 
 writing on my part as I think 1 cannot go through with. 
 When I come to town I will show you the outline of a 
 plan I sent long ago to the booksellers. I then desired 
 them to get my brother's papers from Liverpool and 
 send them to me, but I have never heard from them 
 since. Ann)ng the papers left with Dr. Currie was a 
 narrative of tlie circumstances of mv brother's early life 
 I had written at the request of Mrs. Dunlop. I do not 
 recollect distinctly what it is like; perhaps it might be 
 brushed up a little, and a short addition made to it of 
 the leading circumstances of his life from the time of 
 his first coming to Edinburgh till his death, to serve lor 
 the preliminary narrative Mr. \V. proposes. 1 am tjuite 
 decided that almost none of the letters to my brother in 
 the volume of general correspondence ought to be re- 
 published. 1 am sorry to infonu you that Janet's health 
 is no better, and 1 see that Dr. Welsli considers it a 
 verv i:)ad case. Me seems to have no doubt that it is a
 
 372 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 mycenteric wasting. She has lost flesh so much that I 
 think you would scarcely know her, and though she has 
 more strength than one would expect, being still able to 
 walk out a little, and take a ride behind me twice a day, 
 when I can get her attended to, still she is losing ground 
 in that respect too. This does not fit me any better for 
 any writing exertion, but I must not complain. — I remain, 
 dear Sir, yours sincerely, Gilbert Burns. 
 
 The next two letters are from Mrs. Burns, and 
 require no comment : 
 
 Dumfries, 2nd October 1816. 
 
 My dear Sir, — I had a letter last week from Mr. 
 George Watson, containing a request from a meeting of 
 gentlemen that I would send my late husband's portrait 
 as a model to Mr. Nasmyth to form a bust by. I am 
 sorry I have not the power to comply with this request 
 at present. The portrait is in London, in the care of 
 Mr. Turnerelli, as a model for the sculpture to be placed 
 in the mausoleum here. I expect it will be returned 
 to me in a short time, when I shall send it according 
 to the directions given. My brother Gilbert recom- 
 mends me to send it to your care ; this I very readily 
 agree to, as I can place every confidence in your friend- 
 ship, and will be more satisfied of its safety than when 
 in the hands of strangers. I will hope, when I do send 
 it, that you will return it to me as soon as possible. — With 
 respectful compliments to your family, 1 am, dear Sir, 
 yours very obediently, Jean Burns. 
 
 My dear Sir, — I have to acknowledge your very 
 kindly letter of 24th Oct. I thank you for your kind- 
 wishes regarding my health, which, I am happy to say, 
 is much better. I hope soon to be quite re-established 
 in it again. Your account of my sons is very highly 
 gratifying to me. I have great satisfaction in every
 
 BURNS FAMILY LETTERS 
 
 373 
 
 account I hear of them. I trust they will gain the 
 esteem of their friends by their own good conduct ; it 
 is that alone that can ensure it. I can hardly imagine, 
 however, that any one could have an opportunity of 
 seeing both my sons often, considering the immense 
 distance by which they are separated from each other. 
 
 I have not lately heard from William. Von will, I 
 am sure, be glad to know that James has had the good 
 fortune to get an appointment in the Commissariat 
 Department, and from the emolument of his new situa- 
 tion proposes to settle an annuity on me. I am glad 
 to hear that the portrait is in so good hands ; I shall 
 take the first safe opportunity I meet with to send for it 
 at the time you mention. 
 
 James has very often expressed a wish for a copv of 
 his father's portrait. I thought of ordering one of the 
 engravings you mention, but on consideration I think it 
 would not be superior to the one in the lirst volume 
 of your songs. Will you have the goodness to give 
 me your opinion on what would be the best, and say 
 what would be the expense of both a painting and en- 
 graving ? 
 
 I have another request to make. Will you send me 
 by the safest conveyance, which I suppose is the mail, a 
 copy (^f the songs, including the four volumes ? From 
 the great attention I have experienced at all times from 
 Dr. Maxwell, both as a friend and in the way of his pro- 
 fession,^ I wish, as a mark of my gratitude, to present 
 him with these songs for his daughters' use. FLive the 
 goodness, when you send them, to put in with them a 
 note of the expense, which I shall transmit to you by a 
 friend who intends going to Edinburgh in a few weeks, 
 and who, I expect, will take charge of the picture. I in- 
 
 ' Maxwell was the doctor who aiteiulcd Burns in his last illness. 
 He shared in the French Revolution, and narrowly escaped the 
 guillotine.
 
 374 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 tend to write to my brother in a few days. Offer my kind 
 and respectful compliments to all the members of your 
 family. Accept of my best wishes for your every pro- 
 sperity. — Believe me, ever yours with esteem, 
 
 Jean Burns. 
 Dumfries, \(^th Novr. 1817. 
 
 Mr. Geo. Thomson. 
 
 Regarding the following letter it is only neces- 
 sary to remark that Roscoe had vehemently pro- 
 tested against the imputation of faults to his friend 
 Dr. Currie. The vindications of Mr. Gray and 
 Mr. Findlater, it may be added, were inserted by 
 Alexander Peterkin in his edition of Burns' works, 
 published in 181 5. 
 
 Grant's Braes, ^th Dec. 1817. 
 
 I received yours of the twenty-second November 
 accompanying the MS. and Mr. Roscoe's letter. Accept 
 my best thanks for the attention you have bestowed on 
 that subject and for the corrections and emendations 
 you propose, some of which I shall avail myself of. I 
 enclose a letter to Mr. Roscoe open that you may read 
 it. You will see by it I do not intend to take the course 
 respecting Dr. Currie's friends. You say you would 
 not feel hurt at such a course were you in ]^Ir. W. 
 Currie's place, but you see by Roscoe's letter that they 
 are very much disobliged by what I have said already. 
 I have always considered that an elaborate vindication 
 of my brother written by me, though I were much more 
 capable of writing than I am, would be of very little 
 avail, and that my purpose will be much better ac- 
 complished by simply affording a vehicle for the facts 
 evidenced by Messrs. Gray and Findlater, I intend 
 publishing the part of Mr. Gray's letter, beginning at 
 page fifteen, as it would be quite indecent in me to be
 
 BURNS FAMILY LETTERS 
 
 375 
 
 the vehicle of publishing severe strictures on Dr. Currie 
 or his work. As I intend being in town when you read 
 this, I hope I shall have the pleasure of talking with you 
 on the subject. — I remain, dear Sir, your most obedient 
 humble Servant, Gilbert Burxs. 
 
 J3UMFRIES, \bth July iSi8. 
 
 My dear Sir, — I deferred answering your first letter 
 until I should receive the books it promised. 1 have 
 now to thank you for them in my own and my son's 
 name ; it is a valuable addition to the other volumes. 
 I have had no opportunity of judging the nuisic, yet I 
 have no doubt that is arranged with your usual good 
 taste to suit the words. The songs are almost all new 
 to me. I observe some of them are written by Mr. 
 Hogg, to whom 1 beg you will present my best compli 
 ments. 
 
 1 have incurred another very great obligation to you, 
 your attention to the safety as well as to the improve- 
 ment of Mr. Burns' portrait. It is very elegantly framed, 
 and is a great, indeed the greatest ornament of my little 
 parlour. A letter from Gilbert lately mentions your 
 having refused to charge me with the expence of this 
 costly frame. This is more than I wish or deserve. 1 
 am sorry to observe your ailments ; yours are of a par- 
 ticularly distressing kind ; warm baths seem the order of 
 the day for rheiunatism with us. My health is nuicli 
 improved, but I rmi still very unable to undergo any 
 exerticjn. I fear 1 should not be able to climb up stairs 
 if I were in Edinburgh. 1 have given up all prospect 
 of travelling so far from home this season. 
 
 Thank you for your kind intpiiries after my sons. 
 From and of lames I hear very often ; he has been very 
 fortunate in being appointed to the Commissariat De- 
 partment. The honour d(3ne me by the Marchioness 
 of Hastings was on his account ; what she said c^f James 
 was most gratifying. From William, who is on the
 
 376 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 Madras establishment, I have not heard for a long time, 
 indeed I feel very uneasy about him. Robert — should 
 have been first — is very well and doing well in London. 
 I have lengthened out this letter too much, more, I fear, 
 than you will easily decypher. My best regards are 
 with you, Mrs. T., and your family. — I am, dear Sir, yours 
 oblidged and sincerely, Jean Burns. 
 
 The " rough verses to the Lord Breadalbin," men- 
 tioned in the next letter, refer to the poem beginning 
 " Long life, my lord, an' health be yours." They 
 had appeared for the first time in the Edinburgh 
 Magazine for the preceding February. A copy in 
 the poet's handwriting is now in the Scottish 
 National Portrait Gallery. With regard to the 
 two poems the Burns authorship of which is 
 questioned by Gilbert, that on Pastoral Poetry is 
 certainly open to some doubt. Parts of it have 
 been ascribed to Fergusson, to Hamilton of Gilbert- 
 field, and even to "honest Allan" himself But 
 the general opinion is that, w^hile Burns may have 
 obtained some suggestions from his predecessors, 
 the piece is practically his own. The ballad on 
 the Battle of Sheriffmuir was of course only 
 touched up by Burns; the original was by the 
 Rev. John Barclay, the Berean minister. 
 
 Grant's Braes, \bili July 1818. 
 
 Dear Sir, — I was extremely sorry to learn by yours 
 of the nth that you had been so ill as to be confined to 
 bed, but hope this will find you in better health. I re- 
 turn the Magazine with my best thanks. I was much 
 pleased with " Lucy's Flitting," which I had never met
 
 BURNS FAMILY LETTERS 377 
 
 with till I saw it there.^ I am not quite determined re- 
 specting the publishing the rough verses to the Lord 
 Breadalbin. I meditate an application to Mr. Lumsden 
 for the manuscript of the "jolly Beggars," through the 
 means of my son William, who I expect will soon be 
 settled in Glasgow or its neighbourhood.- 1 received a 
 letter yesterday from Mrs. Burns dated so far back as 
 the loth (having been missent from tlie Edinburgh post- 
 office), and am sorry to learn that she has not sufficiently 
 recovered to venture on a jcmrney hither, which she had 
 intended and promised me. Walking half a mile or any 
 equal fatigue or any unusual agitation of mind exposes 
 her to considerable suffering of pain at the heart. She 
 says, " I received the picture ciuite safe, and feel infinitely 
 obliged to Mr. Thomson for his unexpected kindness. 
 It looks greatly better and much improved by travelling. 
 I was glad to see it again. Mr. T. mentions in his letter 
 an intention to send me an additional volimie of songs ; 
 the expectation of this has prevented my writing to him, 
 which I shall do, as soon as I receive it ; if you have any 
 communicaticjn with him you may mention this." You 
 will probably smile at the honest woman's apology for 
 not writing you, which perhaps I ought to have covered 
 with some periphrasis, but thought you would be 
 amused and pleased with the naked innocence of it. 
 
 It strikes me that Dr. Currie has published two 
 poems in the end of the qtli volume as my bri)ther's, 
 which are not his, but which the Dr., having foimd 
 among his MSS. and in his handwriting, has concluded 
 to be his. The one a poem on ''Pastoral Poetry," and 
 tile other the ballad following it, on the bJattle of Sheriff- 
 muir. Tins is surely an old ballad. I beg you will look 
 into them and give me your opinion, and if at all doubt- 
 
 ' " Lucy's Flittinj^," William Laidlaw's exiiuisite Ixillad, was con- 
 tributed to Ito^^^'^'s l-'orcsi Minstrel. 
 
 ' Messrs. Lumsden of (jiasgow pulilishcd Tiie Jolly lh\^iia?s in 
 facsimile in 1823.
 
 378 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 ful I will not give them a place in any edition published 
 under my sanction. 
 
 I beg you will present my most respectful compli- 
 ments to Mrs. Thomson, and hoping to hear that you 
 have got quite rid of your rheumatism, I remain, ever 
 dear Sir, yours sincerely, Gilbert Burns. 
 
 A letter of June 1819 from Gilbert Burns is 
 devoted mainly to the matter of the heroines of 
 certain of Burns' songs. There is another letter on 
 the same subject, accompanied by a long document 
 giving opposite the title of each song, according to 
 a request of Thomson, "the maiden and married 
 names of heroines, and of what place or places." 
 This part of the correspondence I do not think it 
 necessary to print. Nothing is said about the 
 heroines that is not already known, and a good 
 deal is set down that has since been shown to be 
 inaccurate. The following quotation from Gilbert's 
 June letter may, however, be given : 
 
 I only wrote Cadell & Davies yesterday after receiv- 
 ing another letter from them pressing for my answer. I 
 felt so sore on the subject that I had little inclination to 
 write, and besides have been very much occupied of 
 late. I wrote with rather more tartness than I intended ; 
 for when I began, I found it difficult to repress a feeling 
 of injurious treatment. I offered to expunge the para- 
 graph relating to Dr. Currie altogether if that will satisfy 
 his friends, but expressed my fixed determination that if I 
 came forward as editor at all, the appendix I had sent 
 them for the first volume should be brought forward also. 
 
 On the 19th of September Gilbert writes to say 
 that he has been at Dumfries on a visit to Mrs.
 
 BURNS FAMILY LETTERS 379 
 
 Burns. An "artist from London" was "fitting up 
 the marble in the mausoleum " ; and Gilbert remarks 
 that he is better pleased both with the mausoleum 
 and the marble than he expected to be. He would 
 like to see a plan of the monument to be erected at 
 Alloway ; he understands the contractors have been 
 advertised for. " I have," he adds in closing, re- 
 ferring to a bursary for his son, " I have secured the 
 support of Bailie Dunlop to my bursary petition by 
 means of his brother, who is my neighbour, and has 
 lately taken a new farm from Lord Blantyrc." 
 
 The next two letters v.ill have some value for 
 those who take a special interest in the portraits 
 of Burns. The poet, I suspect, had more of these 
 profile portraits than there is any record of They 
 were not costly, and it is known that he gave away 
 several. 
 
 Grant's Braes, 2nd July 1S21. 
 
 My dear Sir, — I received yours of the 27th June. 
 Nasmyth's picture is certainly a pretty l^oocI likeness (^t 
 the poet, and 1 believe was the sole miide of the artist in 
 preparin<4 the marble fissure for the Dumfries mausoleum, 
 and which, without doubt, has sotne likeness. Hut I 
 hope Mr. Flaxman will be able to produce a better. I 
 used to think Heu<^o's eni^ravin^ from Xasnivth's picture- 
 showed more character and expression than the picture 
 itself, but it was the first likeness of niv brother 1 had 
 seen, not having seen the picture till lon<4 after, and 
 perhaps the impression then made on mv mind niav have 
 made me partial to the enj4ravin<4. I had a copv of the 
 Edinburgh edition with tiie en^iavin^ in it lately, but 
 cannot at present lind it, and 1 do not know anv person 
 who has that edition, but 1 hope nune will yet cast up, 
 and if it does I will send it to you if vou have not then
 
 380 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 got another. I should suppose Robert AinsHe may have 
 it, and perhaps a proof impression. I have a small black 
 profile done by a Mr. Houghton, which I got from Mr. 
 Alexander Cunningham, but I got it broken bringing it 
 home in my pocket in the coach. The features are dis- 
 tinctly and, I think, pretty exactly delineated, and if you 
 think it can be of any use I will send it. Are you to 
 make any excursion to the country this summer ? Will 
 you come and stay a few days with me ? I will procure 
 you a quiet pony which will carry you safely on a more 
 deliberate visit to Yester, where you will see the Goblin 
 cave. I beg you will present Mrs. B.'s and my best com- 
 pliments to Mrs. Thomson and the young ladies, and 
 believe me to be ever, my dear Sir, yours sincerely, 
 
 Gilbert Burns. 
 
 Grant's Braes, 2^th September 1821. 
 
 My dear Sir, — I take the opportunity of John being 
 here to send you the black profile by his return. I have 
 not yet recovered my copy with Beugo's engraving, nor 
 can I find one in this neighbourhood ; but as there must 
 be many here, I hope yet to find one or recover my own^ 
 and will write you what occurs to me on further and 
 closer examination. From your conversation with Mr. 
 Beugo, however, I think my predilection for his engraving 
 must have arisen from having seen it first, and being 
 struck with its resemblance long before I saw Nasmyth's 
 picture. Great caution is necessary to prevent being 
 misled by Beugo's idea of silencing the under lip, as, 
 though the poet brought his lips together when not 
 speaking, yet the lips showed a separation outward, as 
 you will likewise observe in the black profile. To make 
 the poet mhn-niou' d will not do, and I think the lips of 
 all faces of spirit show a separation outward. Upon the 
 whole, the works of artists who are accustomed to an 
 accurate professional examination of features, and who
 
 BURNS FAMILY LETTERS 381 
 
 were on the alert to produce a good likeness, must be 
 more to be depended upon than the recollection of any 
 person whatever. I am to write to Mrs. Burns in a day 
 or two, and will request her to send Xasmyth"s picture to 
 you, as she will be readier to trust it to your care than to 
 a person unknown. Mr. Kerr, one of the magistrates 
 of Dumfries, has a black profile by another artist, which 
 he thinks very like (and he was very familiar with the 
 living face). I will try to prevail with him to send his 
 profile along with Mrs. Burns' picture, and when you get 
 all the likenesses together, write me, and I will come to 
 Edinburgh and examine them with you, and will then be 
 able to determine with more precision which has the 
 greatest resemblance. — J. remain, my dear Sir, yours 
 faithfully, Gilbert Brnxs. 
 
 Dumfries, Zth October 1S21. 
 
 My DE.AK Sir, — By some delav I did not receive vour 
 letter of the 27th September till the 2nd of this. 1 fear 
 you must blame me for allowing so many days to pass 
 without noticing your request. I send off the picture, 
 once more trusting it to your responsibility. I must 
 own I feel an unwillingness to part with it, but when 
 I consider the respect and honour which the nation 
 seems inclined to pay to the memory t)f its original, I 
 give up my own selfish feeling. I had a letter from my 
 brother Gilbert about the same time as yours, in wliich 
 he requests me to endeavour to procure a protile in 
 the possession of Provost Kerr. With some diificulty, 
 through the medium of a friend who had to promise 
 his responsibility for its safety, I have at length suc- 
 ceeded. The reason of Mr. Kerr's unwillingness to part 
 with the protile is that he considered it very much 
 injured when last in Edinburgh for a similar purpose. 
 I must therefore recommend it to the particular care 
 of the gentlemen you mention, and trust that it will
 
 382 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 be returned with the least possible delay. You have 
 my best thanks for your polite invitation to your city. 
 I have no chance of accepting this year. Another may 
 bring it round ; in the meantime offer my kindest wishes 
 to Mrs. Thomson and all your family. The last accounts 
 from my sons in India were very agreeable ; they are 
 both rising in their profession, and by every account 
 conducting themselves with the greatest propriety. The 
 box that encloses the picture is the same in which it 
 came last from Edinburgh. Should you think it neces- 
 sary, you can send it to London in a stronger one, and 
 have it made large enough to admit the profile, which is 
 in a small box. By this means it will be safer. — I am, 
 my dear Sir, yours very faithfully, Jean Burns. 
 
 From the next letter it would appear that 
 Thomson had taken it upon himself to advise 
 Lockhart as to the manner in which he should 
 treat the life of Burns ! 
 
 Grant's Braes, ii:)th Ja?mary 1826. 
 
 I\lY DEAR Sir, — I received your obliging letter en- 
 closing one to Mr. Lockhart, which I approve of most 
 fully. I am afraid, however, he will already have fixed 
 on his mode of treating the subject or probably have 
 most of it written out. 
 
 I cannot conceive what could induce him to enter 
 on a subject which has so long been before the public, 
 and which had been so successfully treated by Dr. 
 Currie, but as he writes with vigour, I shall be curious 
 to see how he manages the matter. If he attempt to 
 give any familiar view of the poet's character in the 
 Boswellian style, his work will present false views of 
 the character of the man, and will probably contain 
 some contemptible and injurious gossip. 
 
 The last letter I had from Mrs, Burns was toward 
 the end of November. She had not then had any late
 
 BURNS FAMILY LETTERS 383 
 
 intelligence from her sons in India, but I am willing to 
 believe that neither of them are engaged in the Burmese 
 war, though Mrs. Burns does not seem to be informed 
 on the subject. 
 
 It is an anxious situation for any one to have connec- 
 tions in, for though the Burmese do not appear to wait 
 on much lighting, the alternate heat and damp of the 
 climate must occasion a great destruction of human 
 life, especially among those who are natives of a more 
 temperate climate. Your kind congratulations on the 
 subject of our young men deserves our best thanks. 
 Thomas's appointment to what 1 consider a situation 
 of great importance and respectability indeed calls for 
 our most devout thankfulness to the great disposer of 
 events ; and Gilbert's appointment, though at present 
 not a lucrative one, is an opening by which he may be 
 introduced to something better, for 1 have the fullest 
 confidence that he will make iiimsclf useful to his em- 
 ployers. I hope the passing years are pressing lightly 
 on Mrs. Thomson, and that no abridgement of enjoying 
 life has been felt by either of vou. Some time ago my 
 stomach lost its tone, and I thought 1 was about to 
 decline very rapidly. Lately, however, 1 have recovered 
 more strength and vigour than I ever expected to enjoy 
 again. 
 
 All now unite in expressions of kindest regard for 
 you and every member of your family, and wishing you 
 all many happy years, 1 remain, ever my dear Sir, yours 
 with sincere esteem, Gili5i:kt Birns. 
 
 The following from Colonel Burns explains 
 itself: 
 
 ChI'.i;i KXUAM, \2t]: April 1847. 
 
 My DKAH Sli^, — 1 have been favoured with yf)ur letter 
 of the 2nd instant, and cannot sutticicntly express my 
 thanks for the splendid present you have made me of
 
 384 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 the original model of Flaxman's statue of my father. 
 It shall be highly cherished and transmitted to some of 
 the lineal descendants of the poet. When in Edinburgh 
 last, I learnt that some of your friends proposed present- 
 ing you with a piece of plate ; I had much pleasure in 
 enrolling myself in their number : it would have added 
 much to the gratification, however, to have been present 
 at its presentation. My brother joins in kind compli- 
 ments to yourself and family with yours very truly, 
 
 W. N. Burns.
 
 APPENDED NOTE TO THE LIFE 
 
 As stated in the Preface, some scraps of information 
 have been obtained while these sheets were passing 
 through the press. 
 
 First, I have discovered that George Thomson 
 was made a "Burgess Guild Brother" of Banff in 
 1770. He was then only thirteen years old; but 
 it appears that such juvenile burgesses were by 
 no means rare in those days. The Town Clerk 
 of Banff assures me that entries are found in the 
 Treasurer's books of small sums for " confections " 
 and " raisens " with which to entertain them! It 
 does not appear from the accounts that young 
 Thomson got anything in the way of sweets. 
 Thomson was also a burgess of Brechin (1803) 
 and Dundee (18 14). I have seen both tickets, 
 but it is curious that in neither case is the name 
 entered in the Burgess Roll. 
 
 Second, with regard to Thomson's violins (see 
 
 pp. 14, 15) I have ascertained that a Nicolas 
 
 Amati, dated 1675, "ow in the possession ot John 
 
 Paterson, Esq., Royal Bank House, Maryhill, has 
 
 a good claim to be regarded as having belonged 
 
 to the correspondent of Burns. This violin, it 
 
 seems, was purchased at a sale of Thomson's music 
 
 and musical instruments in 1839, just before he left 
 
 38s T ,,-:;-
 
 386 GEORGE THOMSON 
 
 for London. Mr. Paterson holds a letter from the 
 original purchaser, who describes Thomson as " the 
 first amateur performer in Edinburgh." He (the 
 purchaser) adds that "the fiddle must be a first-rate 
 one, as Thomson was a first-rate player, and she 
 \^szc~\ is the best fiddle he had in his possession, eight 
 or ten others being sold at the same time belonging 
 to him." Mr. Robert Cox, of Gorgie, M.P., also 
 claims to be in possession of one of Thomson's 
 violins. See the correspondence columns of the 
 Scots7na7i, January 27 and 29, 1892. 
 
 Lastly, with reference to Thomson's Church 
 connection, his grand-daughter, Miss Georgina 
 Hogarth, says in a recent letter: "I believe he 
 was an Episcopalian during the latter part of his 
 life, but he belonged to the Scottish Church origi- 
 nally, as I know my mother [see p. 1 2] was married 
 according to that ritual in her father's house, and 
 we were all baptized in the Scottish Church."
 
 INDEX 
 
 Aci.oMrANiMii.N rs, continental, 32, 
 
 119 
 Allan, David, artist, 29, 147 
 Arbulhnot, Rubert, 37 
 AspuU, (leorgc, 350 
 
 JJaii.i.ik, Joanna, 49 ; correspondence 
 with, 226-249 ; lier Famt/y Legend, 
 232 ; Plays on the Pa'isions, 235 ; 
 Poetic Miscellanies, 240 ; Th<5ni- 
 scm's presents to, 242-244 ; Mis- 
 cellaneous Plays, 246 
 
 JSallantyne, James, 62, 72, 92 
 
 Mrs. John, 91, 92 
 
 I5antY, Thomson's connection with, 
 
 2,385 
 Battle of the Baltic, 204 ; Beethoven 
 
 and, 319, 320 
 Beaumarchais' Mariage de Figaro, 
 
 53 
 Beethoven: his accompaniments, 120, 
 
 128; correspondence with, 309- 
 
 345 ; proposed visit to England, 
 
 322, cf. 353 ; Triumph of Welling- 
 
 ton, 333 : Scotch and Irish songs, 
 
 345 
 
 Bishop, Sir Henry R., corresj)ond- 
 (;nce with, 353-3O6 
 
 Board of Trustees, The, S, 9 
 
 l?oswell. Sir Alexander, 29, 72, 165 ; 
 correspondence with, 215-226, 279 
 
 Burns, Robert, 13, 25; memorial at 
 Dumhies, 41)^48 ; Edinburs^h statue 
 of, 73 S4 ; Thomson enlists his aid, 
 134 ; the question of Thomson's 
 meeting with, 1 35 ; Nasmyth"s por- 
 trait of, 135 ; correspondence with 
 Thomson, 137 ; Thomson's pecu- 
 
 niary treatment of, 139-151, 215; 
 
 Lockhart's Life of, 213 ; Edin- 
 
 burgh Review on, 213 ; Allan Cun- 
 
 ingham and, 2S7 ; folly Beggars, 
 
 356 seq. 
 Burns, Colonel, S3, 3S3 
 Burns, Gilbert, Scott's letter to, 170; 
 
 letters from, 368 scq. ; edition of 
 
 Burns, 369 seq. 
 Burns, James Glencairn, 369 
 Burns, Mrs., 214, 367; letters from, 
 
 372 seq. 
 I)yron, Lord, correspondence with, 
 
 187 -193 ; Thomson on his Ilebrcvo 
 
 Melodies, 192 
 
 Caledonian Pocket Companion, I'hc, 
 24 
 
 Campbell, Alexander, 22 
 
 Campbell, Thomas, 82 ; correspond- 
 ence with, 200-208 ; plans an 
 Irish collection, 203 ; Battle of the 
 Baltic, 204 ; opinion of Thomson, 
 208 
 
 Chaldec Manuscript, Ihc, 175 
 
 Chalmers, Dr., 58 
 
 Chambers, Robert, i, 16, 43, 90, 99, 
 276 
 
 Clarke, Stejjhen, 22 ; William, son 
 _ of, 35S 
 
 Clcmenti, music- ]niblishcr, 50. 51 
 
 Cockburn, Lord, 18, 42, 77, 97, 98, 
 148 
 
 Collections, The Thomson, 117-ij^ ; 
 royal octavo edition, 131 ; sale of, 
 132 
 
 Corri, Domenica, 20 ; Erances, 62 ; 
 Natale, 22, 61-03
 
 388 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Corri Rooms, The, 63 
 Cunningham, Alexander, up, 136 
 Cunningham, Allan, 66, 68, 70, 287 
 Currie, Dr., 138, 374 
 
 Dickens, Charles, 12, 89, 105 
 Douglas, Scott, 134, 138, 149 
 Dudley, Lord, and Scott (?), 247 
 Duncan Gray, picture by Wilkie, 65 
 
 Edinburgh musical festival, 51, 172 
 Edinburgh musicians, 22 
 Erskine, Hon. Andrew, 29, 30 
 
 Ferguson, Sir Adam, 70 
 
 Forbes, Sir Charles, 74 ; Sir William, 
 
 17 
 
 Foreign musicians in Edinburgh, 22 
 
 Gluck's Iphighiie, 57 
 
 Goldsmith, She stoops to conquer, 221 
 
 Gows, The, Edinburgh musicians, 22 
 
 Gow, Niel, jr., 179-182 
 
 Graham, George Farquhar, 121, 357 
 
 seq. 
 Grahame, James { The Sabbath), 203, 
 
 233 
 Grant, Mrs. , of Laggan, 34-39 
 Grant, J. P., 34, 36 
 Gray, Captain Charles, 289 
 
 Haydn, correspondence with, 303- 
 
 308 
 Hogarth, George, 12, 51, 357, 360 
 Hogg, James, correspondence with. 
 
 171-187 ; difficulty with Highland 
 
 Society of London, 174, 180, 182 ; 
 
 Thomson's presents to, 177, 179 
 Hummel, J. N., correspondence with. 
 
 349-353 
 Hunter, Mrs. John, 227, 22S, 242. 
 288 
 
 Irish collection. The, 127, 199 
 
 Jeffrey, Lord, 195, 197, 198 
 Johnson, James, editor of Museutn. 
 27 
 
 Johnstone, Henry, actor, 221 
 
 Jolty Berro-ars, music of, 356-366 ; 
 
 Beethoven and, 339, 360 
 Jordan, Mrs., 306 
 
 KozEi.ucH, Leopold, 25 ; corres- 
 pondence with, 294-302 ; Beetho- 
 ven's opinion of, 321 
 
 Lewis, Matthew ("Monk"), 286 
 
 Lockhart, John Gibson, correspond- 
 ence with, 208-215 
 
 Loder, John, violinist, 353 
 
 Llwyd, Richard ("Bard of Snowdon"), 
 291 
 
 Mather, John, musician, 359 
 
 >Laule, Hon. W., 73 
 
 Miller, Katherine, wife of George 
 Thomson, 11 
 
 Moir, D. M. ("Delta"), correspond- 
 ence with, 259-263 ; alteration of 
 "Gin a body," 260 
 
 Moore, Thomas, correspondence with, 
 193-199; Irish Melodies, 130, 189, 
 198 ; encounter with Jeffrey, 195 if^. 
 
 Miisetini, Johnson's 27, 145 
 
 Napier, William, editor, 24, 26 
 Xiddry's Wynd, 18, 19 
 
 Opie, Amelia, correspondence with, 
 199, 249-258 ; death of her hus- 
 band, 254 ; his Lectures on Paint- 
 ing, 254 ; her Tales of Real Life, 
 257 ; visit to Scotland, 257 
 
 Orpheus Caledoniiis, The, 23 
 
 Oswald, James, editor, 24 
 
 Pantheon, The, in Edinburgh, 63-65 
 Pleyel, Ignaz J,, correspondence with, 
 
 292-294 
 Previous collections of Scottish song, 
 
 23-28 
 Purdie, R., music-seller, 69, 185 
 
 Rennie, George, 79 
 Rogers, Samuel, 285
 
 INDEX 
 
 389 
 
 St. Ckcii.ia concerts, 17-20 
 Schetky, ChristofT, musician, 22 
 Scott, Sir Walter, 22, 24, 72, 81, 82 ; 
 correspondence with, 152-170; 
 Joanna Baillie suggests him as a 
 song-writer, 153; fails to sing of 
 Nelson"s victory, 154; asquibby(?), 
 '55; fragment of war-song, 155, 
 156; presents to, 15S, 168; con- 
 fesses to a lack of poetical humour, 
 159, 161 ; Vision of Don Rode 1 id:, 
 162 ; gives up poetry, i*'>S ; formal 
 assignment of songs, 169 
 Scottish Collection, The. 117-122 
 Scottish Song, collections of, 23-28 
 Scottish Minstrel, 77u\ 69-71 
 St-It'itton of' Scots Sou:^s (Urbani), 26 
 Smith, Robert Archilialcl, 69, 85 
 Smyth, Professor W., poetaster, S). 
 
 289 
 Southey, Henry, 250, 2S5 
 Robert, 2S4 
 
 Tmi, William, 21, 95, 116 
 Tenducci, (l. F.. voc.ili^t, 20, 21 
 Tennant, William {.-h/st, r /air), 277 
 
 -''</■ 
 Thomson, David, brother of (leorgc, 
 
 5. 14, 39, 49-5'> 357 
 Thomson, Oeorge: birlh and paren- 
 tage, 1 ; education, 6 ; enters Hoard 
 of Trustees, 7 ; ]iarticulars of hi> 
 salary, 9 ; marriage, 10 ; family, 1 1 : 
 his hobby, 13-16; his violins, 14, 
 15, 3S5 ; his account of St. (,'ecilin 
 concerts, 16, 17 ; interest in Scottish 
 song, 20, 21 ; first idea of collecting, 
 22 ; iii> ojiinion cf previous collec- 
 li(in^, 25 28 ; l)egins collecting, 2S; 
 his helpers, 29: loses them, 30: 
 his aim described. 30 32 ; its risk>. 
 32, ]]: edit> .Mrs. ( irant's poems. 
 ^4 ; corrects misrepresentation, 36. 
 37 : col re>iion(k'nce with .Mrs. 
 (■rant, 38, 39; lii> ojiinion ol 
 rscotl".s /.iiy, 38, 39 ; lii> letter- 
 book.s, 39 ; his Welsh airs, 39 ; 
 admiration of Welsli harpers, 40 ; 
 
 his pamphlet on a legal case, 40- 
 42 ; his opinion of dancing, 43. 
 4t; in pecuniary straits. 45, 46; 
 negotiates sale of his collections, 
 45, 46 ; his suggestions on Hums 
 memorial at Dumfries, 46-48 ; loses 
 his brother David, 49 ; is director 
 of I-",dinburgh musical festival, 51 ; 
 his continental trip. 52-61 ; at 
 Havre, 52; Rouen, 52, 53; I'aris, 
 53 59 ; his opinion of Parisian 
 manners, 54, 55 ; of French re- 
 ligion, 55 : of Parisian picture 
 galleries, 56 ; of Pere la ('liaise, 
 57 ; of the Opera, 57 ; of Gluck's 
 IpJii;^L'nir, 57 ; drops into jioetry, 
 59 ; at Hrussels, 59 ; Antwerp, 59 ; 
 discourses on Rubens, 59, 60; on 
 the Haarlem organ, 60; at Rotter- 
 dam, 60 ; his continental letters, 
 61 ; financial relations with Corri, 
 61-63 • correspondence on sale of 
 crorrirooms, 63-65 ; his relations 
 witn Wilkie, 65-68; abhors the 
 Scottish Minstrel, 69-71 : arranges 
 for Hums celebration, 72, 73 ; 
 corre>])ondence on P'.dinburgh 
 statue of Hums, 73-80; applies to 
 .Scott for inscription. Si ; to Camji- 
 bell, S2 ; gives terra-cotta replica 
 to Col. Hums. 83 ; disturbed by 
 J'iH-iii MeloJi, <, 84-86 ; retires from 
 Hoard, S7 ; his testimoni.Tl, .S8 ; 
 goes to London, SS ; li.se> his wife. 
 88; buys grave at Kendal dreen, 
 So : (li>iikes London, 90 ; his 
 letters lo R. Chamliers, 90. 91 ; 
 goe- to Hrighton, 91 : urges Mrs. ). 
 Hallaiityne to \\rite l;cr reminis- 
 cences. 02 ; protests against demo- 
 liiion of Trinity College Church, 
 Fdinburgh, 03. ()\ ; di-likes 
 Hrighion, 94 ; his oi)inion of the 
 Iri>h. 95 ; return- 1m IvHnbmgh, 
 95 : decline.-, a jiublic dinner, 95, 
 90: receives a private testimonial, 
 ()(> 99; otters to .-ell pictures to 
 Chambers, 99, 100; particu.ars of
 
 390 
 
 INDEX 
 
 his pictures, loi ; second visit to 
 London, loi ; buys house at Leith, 
 I02 ; his letter about Caledonian 
 Railway shares, 103 ; dies, 104 ; 
 inscriptions on tombstone, 105 ; his 
 character, 106-112; qualifications 
 for life task, 112-115 ; his original 
 powers, 115, 116; conclusion, 116. 
 
 Thomson, Georgina (Mrs. G. 
 Hogarth), daughter of George, 12 
 
 John, editor, 84, 85 
 
 Keith, half-brother of George, 5 
 
 Paton, brother (?) of George, 6 
 
 Robert, father of George, i, 
 
 2, 4 
 
 ■ William, brother of George 5, 53 
 
 William, editor, 23 
 
 Thomson-Sinclair, William, grandson 
 of George, 12 
 
 Mrs, 14, 99, 100 
 
 Urban I, Pietro, musician and editor, 
 22-26 
 
 Vedder, David, correspondence with, 
 263-277 ; tinkering of Burns' 
 Blooming Nelly, 266 ; of Lovely 
 Polly Stewart, 269 ; his poetical 
 Epistle to Thomson, 2'j2-2'j'j 
 
 Vocal Melodies of Scotland, The, 84 
 
 Weber, Carl Maria von, correspond- 
 ence with, 346-349 ; Freischiitz 
 produced in Edinburgh, 346 ; 
 Benedict on his Scotch Songs, 348 
 
 Welsh collection, 40, 122-127; harp 
 accompaniments for, 123 
 
 Wilkie, Sir David, 65-68 
 
 Wilson, John, Scottish vocalist, 249 
 
 Wilson, Professor ('"Christopher 
 North "), 139 scq.
 
 INDEX TO SONGS AND AIRS 
 
 MENTIONED IN THE CORRESPONDENCE 
 
 AlKENDRUM, 2IO, 270 
 
 Airlie, The bonnie house of, 181 
 
 Battle of the Baltic (Campbell), 204 
 
 Bed in the barn, The, 159, 160, 161, 
 220 
 
 Bessy Bell (Lockhart), 211 
 
 Black Sir Harry, 155, 156 
 
 Blithe, blithe (Gray), 290 
 
 Blue bells of Scotland, 306 
 
 Bonnie laddie, Highland laddie, 173, 
 176, 177 
 
 Braes o' Ochlertyre (Boswell), 217 
 
 Broad swords of old Scotland (Lock- 
 hart), 209 
 
 Brisk young lad. The (Boswell), 217 
 
 British light dragoon. The (Scott), 
 159, 160 
 
 Cam' ye by Athole (Hogg), 185 ; 
 
 Vedder, 264 
 Charlie is my darling, 181 
 Chirke Castle, Minstrelsy of, 160, 162 
 Could this ill warld (Hogg), 171 
 
 Deuk.s, The, dang o'er my daddie, 
 
 1 68 
 Dying Bard (Scott), 153 
 
 P>AST Neuk of Fife (Boswell), 216 
 Exile of Erin, The (Camjibell), 203 
 
 Earewem., mirth and hilarity (Bos- 
 well), 222 
 P'arcwcll to the Muse (Scott), 167 
 Ear in the glen (Boswell), 218 
 
 Fee him, father, 247 
 
 Fie ! let us a' to the wedding, 184, 
 
 245 
 Flora Macdonald's Lament (Hogg), 
 
 178, 181 
 
 Gathekin(^, of the Stewarts, The 
 
 (Hogg), 1S3 
 Gin a body, 260 
 Glencoe (Scott), 162, 163, 164 
 Gloaming star, 'Hie, is gleaming 
 
 (Vedder), 270 
 (}od save the <^uecn (Moir), 261-263 ; 
 
 cf- 354 
 Gowan, The, glitters on the sward 
 
 (Baillie), 235 
 Go, youth beloved (Opie), 251 
 
 Haughs o' Cromdaie, 173 
 Heave O, upon the tide (Hogg), 1S3 
 Highland Watch, The, 166, 173, 174 
 Hooly and fairly, 242, 244 
 Humours of Limerick, The, 221 
 
 I'll lia'e my coat o' guid snuff- 
 brown (Boswell), 218 
 In May I'll be here (Opie), 253 
 Inspired bard (Baillie), 230 
 
 Johnnie Cope (Thomson), 24S, 274 
 
 Lamb's fold, 'J'he, 196, 197 
 
 Let brain-spinning swains (Boswell), 
 
 223 
 Lochnagar (Byron), 190 
 Lord Balgonie's favourite, 16 1
 
 392 
 
 INDEX TO SONGS AND AIRS 
 
 Maggie Lauder (Tennant), 281-284 
 Maid of Isla (Scott), 167, 168 
 Maid of Llanwellyn (Baillie), 229 
 Men of Harlech, 219 
 Monks of Bangor, The, 155, 157, 158 
 Moon, The, was a-waning (Hogg), 
 
 182 
 Morning a cruel turmoiler is (Boswell) 
 
 224 
 My ain fireside (Vedder), 272 
 My love she's but a lassie yet, 185 
 My wife's a winsome wee thing, 182, 
 
 183, 210 
 
 Norah's Vow (Scott), 168 
 
 O CHKRUB content (Campbell), 202 
 Old Scotia, wake thy mountain strain 
 
 (Hogg), 174 
 On Ettrick Forest's mountains dun 
 
 (Scott), 157 
 O strike your harp, my Mary (Hogg) 
 
 184 
 O swiftly glides the bonny boat 
 
 (Baillie), 237 
 O tell me, harper (Scott), i6i 
 O weel may the boatie row, 237 
 O what had I ado for to marry 
 
 (Baillie), 244 
 
 Paddy O'Rafferty (Boswell), 221 
 Poverty parts good company (Baillie), 
 
 238 
 PuUaway, jolly boys (Hogg), 183, 184 
 Pulse of an Irishman, The (Boswell), 
 
 223 
 
 Rattling, roaring Willie, 1S4 
 Return to Ulster, The (Scott), 163, 
 164 
 
 Rise up and bar the door, 219 
 Rol)in is my joy (Vedder), 265 
 Rock and a weefpickle tow, A, 219, 
 248 
 
 Sae merry as we ha'e been (Vedder), 
 
 271 
 Saw ye Johnnie comin'? 217 
 Scornfu' Nancy, 218 
 vSheriff's fancy, The, 155, 157, 158 
 Sleeping Beauty (Rogers), 286 
 Soldier Laddie (Boswell), 216 
 Spectre Boat, The (Campbell), 206 
 Sunset (Scott), 167 
 Sweet power of song (Baillie), 234 
 
 The kiss, dear maid (Byron), 191 
 The parson boasts of mild ale (Bos- 
 well), 221 
 They say that other eyes (Moir), 259 
 Three men of Moriston, The (Hogg), 
 
 183, 184 
 Todlin' hame, 238, 272 
 
 Violet, The (Scott), 158 
 
 Waken ! lords and ladies gay (Scott), 
 
 158 
 We're a' noddin', 185, 210 
 What ails my heart ? (Hogg), 1S2 
 When the heathen trumpets clang 
 
 (Scott), 157 
 When the kye comes hame (Hogg), 
 
 179 
 Where got ye that siller moon ? 
 
 (Hogg), 176 
 Widow, are you waking? 173 
 Wi' lang-legged Tam, 247 
 Woo'd an' married an' a', 179, 182, 
 
 240, 241 
 
 Printed by Ballantvne, Hansom 6-^ Co. 
 Edinburgh c^ London
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 43l'^ university of CALIFORNIA 
 
 Santa Barbara 
 
 TSi^rwj, 
 
 THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW. 
 
 CIRC. AFTER NOV Q 1970 
 
 Series 9482
 
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