George Thomson Author:James Cuthbert Hadden Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THOMSON 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 collectio... more »n 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 Museum of Johnson, a work which it was Thomson's honourable 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 rememberthe 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 Nasmyth from the one he painted from the life for the poet's family ; but my duplicate had the peculiar advantage of passing through ...« less