DEAR JAMES,
I received yours of the 22nd September in due time, and accordingly to your wish let your mother know that you were well. She called on me the other night, and wished that I would write to you directly, as she was very impatient to have a letter from you; (independent of that I should have written a fortnight ago.) You are sensible of a mother's solicitude, and will not fail giving her that gratification. Trade is remarkably low with us: Those who have their work continued are obliged to do it at pitiful low prices, and those who are thrown out of employment can scarcely get the offer of any by calling through. Lappets 900 have been offered at threepence nett. However, people's minds are not yet damped so much as you have seen in former depressions. I am obliged to you for sending the songs in your last. ‘Thou'rt fair, Morning of May !’ is a beautiful little ballad, but I would advise you to throw out the last verse, as the subject is quite complete without it; besides being in five stanzas, it will not suit any double tune. In verse 4th, line 3d, instead of ‘will retire,’ I would prefer ‘is retired.’ “The Morning Trembles O'er the Deep,” likewise pleases me very well. “O why is thy Hand so Cold, Love,” possesses some merit, but I think it inferior to the others. In my opinion, your songs surpass your other productions, and I would advise you to apply yourself to that department of our favourite amusement, in preference to any other. Another thing which I beg leave to mention, and which always makes a song appear more masterly, is, to make the 1st and the 3rd lines of the verse to rhyme. In the old ballad style, it may be dispensed with; but in songs written in the idiom of the present day, it is expected, and reckoned not so well without it ; but you are already sensible of all that. . . I am happy that the songs in my volume please you; but when you mention them as equalling Burns', I am afraid that the partiality of friendship weighs a good deal in that decision. You have never mentioned the Interlude: I sus¬pect that, in general, it is reckoned not worth much. I will now finish with some rhymes to you. (Here is given the first four verses of the “Queensferry Boatie Rows Light,” No. 102.) I don't know any air that answers the above measure; let me hear whether you know any one to it. You will no doubt know “Lord Moira's Reel.” I have been trying verses to it, and will write you all that I was able to make of it. (“Loudon's Bonnie Woods and Braes,” is here given, No. 45.) I own I am somewhat half-pleased with the above myself; but that is always the case when a piece is newly finished, and it must lie past sometime before we are capable of judging rightly how it may stand. Mention any defects you may see in it.