"When Burns dwelt at Ellisland, he was accustomed, after composing
any of his beautiful songs, to pay Kirsty a visit, that he might
hear them sung by her. He often stopped her in the course of the
singing when he found any word harsh and grating to his ear, and
substituted one more melodious and pleasing. From Kirsty's
extensive acquaintance with the old Scottish airs, she was
frequently able to suggest to the poet music more suitable to the
song she was singing than that to which he had set it."

Kirsty and Jean were not his only aids in the criticism of the musical
quality of his songs. From the time of the Edinburgh visit, at least,
he was in the habit of seizing the opportunity afforded by the
possession of a harpsichord or a good voice by the daughters of his
friends, and in several cases he rewarded his accompanist by making
her the heroine of the song. Without drawing on the evidence of
parallel phenomena in other ages and literatures, we can be sure
enough that this persistent consciousness of the airs to which his
songs were to be sung, and this critical observation of their fitness,
had much to do with the extraordinary melodiousness of so many of
them.

We have seen that Burns received an important impulse to
productiveness through his cooperation in the compiling of two
national song collections. James Johnson, the editor of the first of
these, was an all but illiterate engraver, ill-equipped for such an
undertaking; and as the work grew in scale until it reached six
volumes, Burns became virtually the editor--even writing the prefaces
to several of the volumes. George Thomson, the editor of the other, _A
Select Collection of Original Scottish Airs_, was a government clerk,