DEAR SIR,
I have to thank you for the printed copy of your verses recited at the celebration of our immortal Bard’s birthday; they honour the occasion for which they were composed. Smith tells me you have likewise seen the account of our meeting.
I feel a delicacy in sending you my MS. pieces, as some of them have been scrawled down in haste, and others are
disfigured with interpolations; however, I think you will be able to form a pretty fair estimate of those I have past me by the volume which accompanies this. I have drawn a pencil across such parts in it as I would propose omitting in a second edition. The Interlude in its published state, I am quite ashamed of, and have almost entirely new-modelled it. I am confident of its being altered to considerable advantage. In the Poem department I have only about as many originals as would supply the room of those I mean to omit. To the songs I could add sixty or seventy, and the whole would comprise about 240 12mo. pages.
There are some little faults and incorrections throughout the whole of my volume, which could be amended on its second publication, and it is from an earnest wish to have one more respectable that makes me think of reprinting it. Now, my dear sir, do not understand me as viewing the publication of Scottish Poetry (at the present day) as a light matter. I, hope I have duly weighed the subject, and am well aware of what I am about. As to publishing by subscription, none can feel what a weight of obligation and trouble it lays one under, save those who have tried it. Tell me with the same frankness whether you will take it in hand or not. Keep the enclosed volume (the only one I have) for a month, and then give me your mind freely on the business. Please be so kind as clear postage for this packet, and I'll take an early opportunity of cancelling it with you. Drop me a line, merely for, satisfaction, on receipt of it; and whether you approve of my design or not, believe me to be your sincere well-wisher,
R. TANNAHILL.
P.S.—I am likewise ill-pleased with the arrangement of the Poems as they stand at present.
Mr. Thomas Stewart,
Bookseller, Greenock.
With a small parcel.
The original is in possession of Gilbert Burns, Esq., Knockmarroon Lodge, Chapelizod, County Dublin, a nephew of the Scots National Bard. —Ed.