---
title: "To Mr. Thomson"
author: "Robert Burns"
recipient: "Mr. Thomson"
letter_number: 238
roman: "CCXXXVIII"
date: "8 November 1792"
source: "Project Gutenberg #18500 — The Complete Works of Robert Burns (ed. Allan Cunningham)"
editor: "Allan Cunningham"
source_url: "https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/18500/pg18500.txt"
canonical_url: "https://robert-burns.com/letters/238-to-thomson/"
---

# To Mr. Thomson

## Editor's note
The poet loved to describe the influence which the charms of Miss Lesley Baillie exercised over his imagination.

— Allan Cunningham

## Letter
If you mean, my dear Sir, that all the songs in your collection shall be poetry of the first merit, I am afraid you will find more difficulty in the undertaking than you are aware of. There is a peculiar rhythmus in many of our airs, and a necessity of adapting syllables to the emphasis, or what I would call the feature-notes of the tune, that cramp the poet, and lay him under almost insuperable difficulties. For instance, in the air, "My wife's a wanton wee thing," if a few lines smooth and pretty can be adapted to it, it is all you can expect. The following were made extempore to it; and though on further study I might give you something more profound, yet it might not suit the light-horse gallop of the air so well as this random clink:—

My wife's a winsome wee thing, &c.[203]

I have just been looking over the "Collier's bonny dochter;" and if the following rhapsody, which I composed the other day, on a charming Ayrshire girl, Miss Lesley Baillie, as she passed through this place to England, will suit your taste better than the "Collier Lassie," fall on and welcome:—

O, saw ye bonny Lesley? &c.[204]

I have hitherto deferred the sublimer, more pathetic airs, until more leisure, as they will take, and deserve, a greater effort. However, they are all put into your hands, as clay into the hands of the potter, to make one vessel to honour, and another to dishonour. Farewell, &c.

R. B.

## Footnotes
203. Song CLXXX.
204. Song CLXXXI.

---

Source: [Project Gutenberg #18500 — The Complete Works of Robert Burns (ed. Allan Cunningham)](https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/18500/pg18500.txt), edited by Allan Cunningham  
Canonical HTML: https://robert-burns.com/letters/238-to-thomson/