Letter from Robert Burns to Alexander Cunningham, 11 March 1791

Burns acknowledges Cunninghams' recent letters being "highly delighted" with one of the enclosures. Cunningham appears to have suggested that Burns write something on an "archery-subject" to which he responds that if he "composed from the wish, rather than from the impulse" his few attempts in the past have been unsuccessful, one even resulting in a "gnashing of teeth".

He recalls this occasion when at the request of his friend Alexander Wood he writes an elegy (poem 186) on the death of Lord President Dundas (Lord Arniston). When delivered to the Dundas family, his son (the Solicitor-General) failed to acknowledge it. Although Burns knew the piece was indifferent, the slight he felt rankled with him for years thereafter.

In this second page Burns discloses that he has a friend who makes copies of his poems for him to send to others, and here he commits to having two poems copied at Cunninghams request. He also "has a mind " to send him a song which "this evening I have sketched out". But he warns that it will add a "groat" (four pence) to the postage cost.

Burns also admits to having forgotten Cunningham's method of franking letters to him. The Strathspey reel for the song, Burns notes, is either called "Ballendalloch's Reel" or "Camdelmore".

The song which Burns copies to Cunningham are the first version of a song which later, having been polished up, was included in Johnson's Scots Musical Museum under the title "the Banks o Doon". The first version included with this letter (poem no 328A) is slightly shorter in rhyme but a verse longer in content.

Taking the Banks of the river Doon as his backdrop, Burns relates the sweetness of the birdsong with that of his earlier love, now departed.

In the later stanzas Burns continues to regail the "bonie bird" for reminding him of his false love and, reflecting back to the banks of the river Doon again, brings in the hedgerow flowers of woodbine and rose as players in his tragedy.

The final poignancy of the poem comes when he, having joyfully plucked a rose bloom from the bush, has it stolen by his false lover leaving him only with the thorn of despair.

Burns continues his letter by asking Cunningham to feed back any "strictures" he may have on the piece. He dwells on the conflicting views an author may have on a newly created work but pulls himself back from droning on "into stupid Prose" and becoming like the parish priest "one vast constellation of dullness".

He then chooses to fill the page "in my own way" and includes a version of an old Jacobite song which he has prepared for Johnson's Musical Museum.

The poem here is composed of four, four line verses which Burns has developed from an old Jacobite song "Jamie". This relates to King James VIII of Scotland and III of England as seen by the French where he was exiled and known as "the Old Pretender".

The song centers round the depressing but defiant allegiance of an old man who has seen seven sons die in the cause, which has broken their mother's heart.

On this last page Burns asks Cunningham, if he likes the song, to include it in his repertoire when he next applies "the charms of your delightful voice" - "to the friends whom you indulge in that pleasure". He then notes how the time approaches midnight by quoting line 69 from Tam o' Shanter.

Finally he bids Cunningham good night by quoting the last verse of a poem titled "Out over the Forth" which Burns is in the throes of composing, "I have just now on the tapis?"