After
breakfast, we made a party to go and see the famous Caudron-linn, a
remarkable cascade in the Devon, about five miles above Harvieston;
and after spending one of the most pleasant days I ever had in my
life, I returned to Stirling in the evening.
breakfast, we made a party to go and see the famous Caudron-linn, a
remarkable cascade in the Devon, about five miles above Harvieston;
and after spending one of the most pleasant days I ever had in my
life, I returned to Stirling in the evening.
Robert Burns-
I say idiot piety, because I was then
but a child. Though it cost the schoolmaster some thrashings, I made
an excellent English, scholar; and by the time I was ten or eleven
years of age, I was a critic in substantives, verbs, and particles. In
my infant and boyish days, too, I owed much to an old woman who
resided in the family, remarkable for her ignorance, credulity, and
superstition. She had, I suppose, the largest collection in the
country of tales and songs concerning devils, ghosts, fairies,
brownies, witches, warlocks, spunkies, kelpies, elf-candles,
dead-lights, wraiths, apparitions, cantraips, giants, enchanted towers,
dragons, and other trumpery. This cultivated the latent seeds of
poetry; but had so strong an effect on my imagination, that to this
hour, in my nocturnal rambles, I sometimes keep a sharp look out in
suspicions places; and though nobody can be more sceptical than I am
in such matters, yet it often takes an effort of philosophy to shake
off these idle terrors. The earliest composition that I recollect
taking pleasure in, was The Vision of Mirza, and a hymn of Addison's
beginning, "How are thy servants blest, O Lord! " I particularly
remember one half-stanza which was music to my boyish ear--
"For though in dreadful whirls we hung
High on the broken wave--"
I met with these pieces in Mason's English Collection, one of my
school-books. The first two books I ever read in private, and which
gave me more pleasure than any two books I ever read since, were The
Life of Hannibal, and The History of Sir William Wallace. Hannibal
gave my young ideas such a turn, that I used to strut in raptures up
and down after the recruiting drum and bag-pipe, and wish myself tall
enough to be a soldier; while the story of Wallace poured a Scottish
prejudice into my veins, which will boil along there till the
flood-gates of life shut in eternal rest.
Polemical divinity about this time was putting the country half mad,
and I, ambitious of shining in conversation parties on Sundays,
between sermons, at funerals, &c. , used a few years afterwards to
puzzle Calvinism with so much heat and indiscretion, that I raised a
hue and cry of heresy against me, which has not ceased to this hour.
My vicinity to Ayr was of some advantage to me. My social disposition,
when not checked by some modifications of spirited pride, was like our
catechism definition of infinitude, without bounds or limits. I formed
several connexions with other younkers, who possessed superior
advantages; the youngling actors who were busy in the rehearsal of
parts, in which they were shortly to appear on the stage of life,
where, alas! I was destined to drudge behind the scenes. It is not
commonly at this green age, that our young gentry have a just sense of
the immense distance between them and their ragged playfellows. It
takes a few dashes into the world, to give the young great man that
proper, decent, unnoticing disregard for the poor, insignificant
stupid devils, the mechanics and peasantry around him, who were,
perhaps, born in the same village. My young superiors never insulted
the clouterly appearance of my plough-boy carcase, the two extremes
of which were often exposed to all the inclemencies of all the
seasons. They would give me stray volumes of books; among them, even
then, I could pick up some observations, and one, whose heart, I am
sure, not even the "Munny Begum" scenes have tainted, helped me to a
little French. Parting with these my young friends and benefactors, as
they occasionally went off for the East or West Indies, was often to
me a sore affliction; but I was soon called to more serious evils. My
father's generous master died! the farm proved a ruinous bargain; and
to clench the misfortune, we fell into the hands of a factor, who sat
for the picture I have drawn of one in my tale of "The Twa Dogs. " My
father was advanced in life when he married; I was the eldest of seven
children, and he, worn out by early hardships, was unfit for labour.
My father's spirit was soon irritated, but not easily broken. There
was a freedom in his lease in two years more, and to weather these two
years, we retrenched our expenses. We lived very poorly: I was a
dexterous ploughman for my age; and the next eldest to me was a
brother (Gilbert), who could drive the plough very well, and help me
to thrash the corn. A novel-writer might, perhaps, have viewed these
scenes with some satisfaction, but so did not I; my indignation yet
boils at the recollection of the scoundrel factor's insolent
threatening letters, which used to set us all in tears.
This kind of life--the cheerless gloom of a hermit, with the unceasing
moil of a galley-slave, brought me to my sixteenth year; a little
before which period I first committed the sin of rhyme. You know our
country custom of coupling a man and woman together as partners in
the labours of harvest. In my fifteenth autumn, my partner was a
bewitching creature, a year younger than myself. My scarcity of
English denies me the power of doing her justice in that language, but
you know the Scottish idiom: she was a "bonnie, sweet, sonsie lass. "
In short, she, altogether unwittingly to herself, initiated me in that
delicious passion, which, in spite of acid disappointment, gin-horse
prudence, and bookworm philosophy, I hold to be the first of human
joys, our dearest blessing here below! How she caught the contagion I
cannot tell; you medical people talk much of infection from breathing
the same air, the touch, &c. ; but I never expressly said I loved
her. --Indeed, I did not know myself why I liked so much to loiter
behind with her, when returning in the evening from our labours; why
the tones of her voice made my heart-strings thrill like an AEolian
harp; and particularly why my pulse beat such a furious ratan, when I
looked and fingered over her little hand to pick out the cruel
nettle-stings and thistles. Among her other love-inspiring qualities,
she sung sweetly; and it was her favourite reel to which I attempted
giving an embodied vehicle in ryhme. I was not so presumptuous as to
imagine that I could make verses like printed ones, composed by men
who had Greek and Latin; but my girl sung a song which was said to be
composed by a small country laird's son, on one of his father's maids,
with whom he was in love; and I saw no reason why I might not rhyme as
well as he; for excepting that he could smear sheep, and cast peats,
his father living in the moorlands, he had no more scholar-craft than
myself.
Thus with me began love and poetry; which at times have been my only,
and till within the last twelve months, have been my highest
enjoyment. My father struggled on till he reached the freedom in his
lease, when he entered on a larger farm, about ten miles farther in
the country. The nature of the bargain he made was such as to throw a
little ready money into his hands at the commencement of his lease,
otherwise the affair would have been impracticable. For four years we
lived comfortably here, but a difference commencing between him and
his landlord as to terms, after three years tossing and whirling in
the vortex of litigation, my father was just saved from the horrors of
a jail, by a consumption, which, after two years' promises, kindly
stepped in, and carried him away, to where the wicked cease from
troubling, and where the weary are at rest!
It is during the time that we lived on this farm that my little story
is most eventful. I was, at the beginning of this period, perhaps, the
most ungainly awkward boy in the parish--no _solitaire_ was less
acquainted with the ways of the world. What I knew of ancient story
was gathered from Salmon's and Guthrie's Geographical Grammars; and
the ideas I had formed of modern manners, of literature, and
criticism, I got from the Spectator. These, with Pope's Works, some
Plays of Shakspeare, Tull and Dickson on Agriculture, the Pantheon,
Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding, Stackhouse's History of the
Bible, Justice's British Gardener's Directory, Boyle's Lectures, Allan
Ramsay's Works, Taylor's Scripture Doctrine of Original Sin, A Select
Collection of English Songs, and Hervey's Meditations, had formed the
whole of my reading. The collection of Songs was my _vade mecum. _ I
pored over them, driving my cart, or walking to labour, song by song,
verse by verse; carefully noting the true tender, or sublime, from
affectation and fustian. I am convinced I owe to this practice much of
my critic craft, such as it is.
In my seventeenth year, to give my manners a brush, I went to a country
dancing-school. My father had an unaccountable antipathy against these
meetings, and my going was, what to this moment I repent, in opposition
to his wishes. My father, as I said before, was subject to strong
passions; from that instance of disobedience in me, he took a sort of
dislike to me, which, I believe, was one cause of the dissipation which
marked my succeeding years. I say dissipation, comparatively with the
strictness, and sobriety, and regularity of Presbyterian country life;
for though the will-o'-wisp meteors of thoughtless whim were almost the
sole lights of my path, yet early ingrained piety and virtue kept me for
several years afterwards within the line of innocence. The great
misfortune of my life was to want an aim. I had felt early some
stirrings of ambition, but they were the blind gropings of Homer's
Cyclops round the walls of his cave. I saw my father's situation
entailed on me perpetual labour. The only two openings by which I could
enter the temple of fortune were the gate of niggardly economy, or the
path of little chicaning bargain-making. The first is so contracted an
aperture I never could squeeze myself into it--the last I always
hated--there was contamination in the very entrance! Thus abandoned of
aim or view in life, with a strong appetite for sociability, as well
from native hilarity as from a pride of observation and remark; a
constitutional melancholy or hypochondriasm that made me fly solitude;
add to these incentives to social life, my reputation for bookish
knowledge, a certain wild logical talent, and a strength of thought,
something like the rudiments of good sense; and it will not seem
surprising that I was generally a welcome guest where I visited, or any
great wonder that always, where two or three met together, there was I
among them. But far beyond all other impulses of my heart, was _un
penchant a l' adorable moitie du genre humain. _ My heart was completely
tinder, and was eternally lighted up by some goddess or other; and, as
in every other warfare in this world, my fortune was various; sometimes
I was received with favour, and sometimes I was mortified with a
repulse. At the plough, scythe, or reap-hook, I feared no competitor,
and thus I set absolute want at defiance; and as I never cared farther
for my labours than while I was in actual exercise, I spent the evenings
in the way after my own heart. A country lad seldom carries on a love
adventure without an assisting confidant. I possessed a curiosity, zeal,
and intrepid dexterity that recommended me as a proper second on these
occasions; and I dare say, I felt as much pleasure in being in the
secret of half the loves of the parish of Tarbolton, as ever did
statesman in knowing the intrigues of half the courts of Europe. The
very goose feather in my hand seems to know instinctively the well-worn
path of my imagination, the favourite theme of my song; and is with
difficulty restrained from giving you a couple of paragraphs on the
love-adventures of my compeers, the humble inmates of the farm-house and
cottage; but the grave sons of science, ambition, or avarice baptize
these things by the name of follies. To the sons and daughters of labour
and poverty they are matters of the most serious nature: to them the
ardent hope, the stolen interview, the tender farewell, are the greatest
and most delicious parts of their enjoyments.
Another circumstance in my life which made some alteration in my mind
and manners, was, that I spent my nineteenth summer on a smuggling
coast, a good distance from home, at a noted school to learn
mensuration, surveying, dialling, &c. , in which I made a pretty good
progress. But I made a greater progress in the knowledge of mankind.
The contraband trade was at that time very successful, and it
sometimes happened to me to fall in with those who carried it on.
Scenes of swaggering riot and roaring dissipation were, till this
time, new to me; but I was no enemy to social life. Here, though I
learnt to fill my glass, and to mix without fear in a drunken
squabble, yet I went on with a high hand with my geometry, till the
sun entered Virgo, a month which is always a carnival in my bosom,
when a charming fillette, who lived next door to the school, overset
my trigonometry, and set me off at a tangent from the spheres of my
studies. I, however, struggled on with my sines and co-sines for a few
days more; but stepping into the garden one charming noon to take the
sun's altitude, there I met my angel,
"Like Proserpine gathering flowers,
Herself a fairer flower--"[176]
It was in vain to think of doing any more good at school. The
remaining week I stayed I did nothing but craze the faculties of my
soul about her, or steal out to meet her; and the two last nights of
my stay in the country, had sleep been a mortal sin, the image of this
modest and innocent girl had kept me guiltless.
I returned home very considerably improved. My reading was enlarged
with the very important addition of Thomson's and Shenstone's works; I
had seen human nature in a new phasis; and I engaged several of my
school-fellows to keep up a literary correspondence with me. This
improved me in composition. I had met with a collection of letters by
the wits of Queen Anne's reign, and I pored over them most devoutly. I
kept copies of any of my own letters that pleased me, and a comparison
between them and the composition of most of my correspondents
flattered my vanity. I carried this whim so far, that though I hid not
three-farthings' worth of business in the world, yet almost every post
brought me as many letters as if I had been a broad plodding son of
the day-book and ledger.
My life flowed on much in the same course till my twenty-third year.
_Vive l'amour, et vive la bagatelle_, were my sole principles of
action. The addition of two more authors to my library gave me great
pleasure; Sterne and Mackenzie--Tristram Shandy and the Man of Feeling
were my bosom favourites. Poesy was still a darling walk for my mind,
but it was only indulged in according to the humour of the hour. I had
usually half a dozen or more pieces on hand; I took up one or other,
as it suited the momentary tone of the mind, and dismissed the work as
it bordered on fatigue. My passions, when once lighted up, raged like
so many devils, till they got vent in rhyme; and then the conning over
my verses, like a spell, soothed all into quiet! None of the rhymes of
those days are in print, except "Winter, a dirge," the eldest of my
printed pieces; "The Death of poor Maillie," "John Barleycorn," and
songs first, second, and third. Song second was the ebullition of that
passion which ended the forementioned school-business.
My twenty-third year was to me an important aera. Partly through whim,
and partly that I wished to set about doing something in life, I
joined a flax-dresser in a neighboring town (Irvine) to learn his
trade. This was an unlucky affair. My * * * and to finish the whole,
as we were giving a welcome carousal to the new year, the shop took
fire and burnt to ashes, and I was left, like a true poet, not worth a
sixpence.
I was obliged to give up this scheme; the clouds of misfortune were
gathering thick round my father's head; and, what was worst of all, he
was visibly far gone in a consumption; and to crown my distresses, a
_belle fille_, whom I adored, and who had pledged her soul to meet me
in the field of matrimony, jilted me, with peculiar circumstances of
mortification. The finishing evil that brought up the rear of this
infernal file, was my constitutional melancholy being increased to
such a degree, that for three months I was in a state of mind scarcely
to be envied by the hopeless wretches who have got their
mittimus--depart from me, ye cursed!
From this adventure I learned something of a town life; but the
principal thing which gave my mind a turn, was a friendship I formed
with a young fellow, a very noble character, but a hapless son of
misfortune. He was the son of a simple mechanic; but a great man in
the neighbourhood taking him under his patronage, gave him a genteel
education, with a view of bettering his situation in life. The patron
dying just as he was ready to launch out into the world, the poor
fellow in despair went to sea; where, after a variety of good and
ill-fortune, a little before I was acquainted with him he had been set
on shore by an American privateer, on the wild coast of Connaught,
stripped of everything. I cannot quit this poor fellow's story without
adding, that he is at this time master of a large West-Indiaman
belonging to the Thames.
His mind was fraught with independence, magnanimity, and every manly
virtue. I loved and admired him to a degree of enthusiasm, and of
course strove to imitate him. In some measure I succeeded; I had pride
before, but he taught it to flow in proper channels. His knowledge of
the world was vastly superior to mine, and I was all attention to
learn. He was the only man I ever saw who was a greater fool than
myself where woman was the presiding star; but he spoke of illicit
love with the levity of a sailor, which hitherto I had regarded with
horror. Here his friendship did me a mischief, and the consequence
was, that soon after I resumed the plough, I wrote the "Poet's
Welcome. "[177] My reading only increased while in this town by two stray
volumes of Pamela, and one of Ferdinand Count Fathom, which gave me
some idea of novels. Rhyme, except some religious pieces that are in
print, I had given up; but meeting with Fergusson's Scottish Poems, I
strung anew my wildly-sounding lyre with emulating vigour. When my
father died, his all went among the hell-hounds that growl in the
kennel of justice; but we made a shift to collect a little money in
the family amongst us, with which, to keep us together, my brother and
I took a neighbouring farm. My brother wanted my hair-brained
imagination, as well as my social and amorous madness; but in good
sense, and every sober qualification, he was far my superior.
I entered on this farm with a full resolution, "come, go to, I will be
wise! " I read farming books, I calculated crops; I attended markets;
and in short, in spite of the devil, and the world, and the flesh, I
believe I should have been a wise man; but the first year, from
unfortunately buying bad seed, the second from a late harvest, we
lost half our crops. This overset all my wisdom, and I returned, "like
the dog to his vomit, and the sow that was washed, to her wallowing in
the mire. "
I now began to be known in the neighbourhood as a maker of rhymes. The
first of my poetic offspring that saw the light, was a burlesque
lamentation on a quarrel between two reverend Calvinists, both of them
_dramatis personae_ in "Holy Fair. " I had a notion myself that the
piece had some merit; but, to prevent the worst, I gave a copy of it
to a friend, who was very fond of such things, and told him that I
could not guess who was the author of it, but that I thought it pretty
clever. With a certain description of the clergy, as well as laity, it
met with a roar of applause. "Holy Willie's Prayer" next made its
appearance, and alarmed the kirk-session so much, that they held
several meetings to look over their spiritual artillery, if haply any
of it might be pointed against profane rhymers. Unluckily for me, my
wanderings led me on another side, within point-blank shot of their
heaviest metal. This is the unfortunate story that gave rise to my
printed poem, "The Lament. " This was a most melancholy affair, which I
cannot yet bear to reflect on, and had very nearly given me one or two
of the principal qualifications for a place among those who have lost
the chart, and mistaken the reckoning of rationality. I gave up my
part of the farm to my brother; in truth it was only nominally mine;
and made what little preparation was in my power for Jamaica. But,
before leaving my native country for ever, I resolved to publish my
poems. I weighed my productions as impartially as was in my power; I
thought they had merit; and it was a delicious idea that I should be
called a clever fellow, even though it should never reach my ears--a
poor negro-driver--or perhaps a victim to that inhospitable clime, and
gone to the world of spirits! I can truly say, that _pauvre inconnu_
as I then was, I had pretty nearly as high an idea of myself and of my
works as I have at this moment, when the public has decided in their
favour. It ever was my opinion that the mistakes and blunders, both in
a rational and religious point of view, of which we see thousands
daily guilty, are owing to their ignorance of themselves. --To know
myself had been all along my constant study. I weighed myself alone; I
balanced myself with others; I watched every means of information, to
see how much ground I occupied as a man and as a poet; I studied
assiduously Nature's design in my formation--where the lights and
shades in my character were intended. I was pretty confident my poems
would meet with some applause; but, at the worst, the roar of the
Atlantic would deafen the voice of censure, and the novelty of West
Indian scenes make me forget neglect. I threw off six hundred copies,
of which I had got subscriptions for about three hundred and
fifty. --My vanity was highly gratified by the reception I met with
from the public; and besides I pocketed, all expenses deducted, nearly
twenty pounds. This sum came very seasonably, as I was thinking of
indenting myself, for want of money to procure my passage. As soon as
I was master of nine guineas, the price of wafting me to the torrid
zone, I took a steerage passage in the first ship that was to sail
from the Clyde, for
"Hungry ruin had me in the wind. "
I had been for some days skulking from covert to covert, under all the
terrors of a jail; as some ill-advised people had uncoupled the
merciless pack of the law at my heels. I had taken the last farewell
of my few friends; my chest was on the road to Greenock; I had
composed the last song I should ever measure in Caledonia--"The gloomy
night is gathering fast," when a letter from Dr. Blacklock to a friend
of mine, overthrew all my schemes, by opening new prospects to my
poetic ambition. The doctor belonged to a set of critics for whose
applause I had not dared to hope. His opinion, that I would meet with
encouragement in Edinburgh for a second edition, fired me so much,
that away I posted for that city, without a single acquaintance, or a
single letter of introduction. The baneful star that had so long shed
its blasting influence in my zenith, for once made a revolution to the
nadir; and a kind Providence placed me under the patronage of one of
the noblest of men, the Earl of Glencairn. _Oublie-moi, grand Dieu, si
jamais je l'oublie! _
I need relate no farther. At Edinburgh I was in a new world; I mingled
among many classes of men, but all of them new to me, and I was all
attention to "catch" the characters and "the manners living as they
rise. " Whether I have profited, time will show.
* * * * *
My most respectful compliments to Miss Williams. Her very elegant and
friendly letter I cannot answer at present, as my presence is
requisite in Edinburgh, and I set out to-morrow.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 175: Idiot for idiotic. ]
[Footnote 176: Paradise Lost, b. iv]
[Footnote 177: "Rob the Rhymer's Welcome to his Bastard Child. "--See
Poem XXXIII. ]
* * * * *
LXXV.
TO ROBERT AINSLIE, ESQ. ,
BERRYWELL DUNSE.
[This characteristic letter was first published by Sir Harris Nichols;
others, still more characteristic, addressed to the same gentleman,
are abroad: how they escaped from private keeping is a sort of a
riddle. ]
_Edinburgh, 23d August_, 1787.
"As I gaed up to Dunse
To warp a pickle yarn,
Robin, silly body,
He gat me wi' bairn. "
From henceforth, my dear Sir, I am determined to set off with my
letters like the periodical writers, viz. prefix a kind of text,
quoted from some classic of undoubted authority, such as the author of
the immortal piece, of which my text is part. What I have to say on my
text is exhausted in a letter which I wrote you the other day, before
I had the pleasure of receiving yours from Inverkeithing; and sure
never was anything more lucky, as I have but the time to write this,
that Mr. Nicol, on the opposite side of the table, takes to correct a
proof-sheet of a thesis. They are gabbling Latin so loud that I cannot
hear what my own soul is saying in my own skull, so I must just give
you a matter-of-fact sentence or two, and end, if time permit, with a
verse de rei generatione. To-morrow I leave Edinburgh in a chaise;
Nicol thinks it more comfortable than horseback, to which I say, Amen;
so Jenny Geddes goes home to Ayrshire, to use a phrase of my mother's,
wi' her finger in her mouth.
Now for a modest verse of classical authority:
The cats like kitchen;
The dogs like broo;
The lasses like the lads weel,
And th' auld wives too.
CHORUS.
And we're a' noddin,
Nid, nid, noddin,
We're a' noddin fou at e'en.
If this does not please you, let me hear from you; if you write any
time before the 1st of September, direct to Inverness, to be left at
the post-office till called for; the next week at Aberdeen, the next
at Edinburgh.
The sheet is done, and I shall just conclude with assuring you that
I am, and ever with pride shall be,
My dear Sir, &c.
R. B.
Call your boy what you think proper, only interject Burns. What do you
say to a Scripture name? Zimri Burns Ainslie, or Architophel, &c. ,
look your Bible for these two heroes, if you do this, I will repay the
compliment.
* * * * *
LXXVI.
TO MR. ROBERT MUIR.
[No Scotsman will ever read, without emotion, the poet's words in this
letter, and in "Scots wha hae wi Wallace bled," about Bannnockburn and
its glories. ]
_Stirling, 26th August, 1787. _
MY DEAR SIR,
I intended to have written you from Edinburgh, and now write you from
Stirling to make an excuse. Here am I, on my way to Inverness, with a
truly original, but very worthy man, a Mr. Nicol, one of the masters
of the High-school, in Edinburgh. I left Auld Reekie yesterday
morning, and have passed, besides by-excursions, Linlithgow,
Borrowstouness, Falkirk, and here am I undoubtedly. This morning I
knelt at the tomb of Sir John the Graham, the gallant friend of the
immortal Wallace; and two hours ago I said a fervent prayer, for Old
Caledonia, over the hole in a blue whinstone, where Robert de Bruce
fixed his royal standard on the banks of Bannockburn; and just now,
from Stirling Castle, I have seen by the setting sun the glorious
prospect of the windings of Forth through the rich carse of Stirling,
and skirting the equally rich carse of Falkirk. The crops are very
strong, but so very late, that there is no harvest, except a ridge or
two perhaps in ten miles, all the way I have travelled from Edinburgh.
I left Andrew Bruce and family all well. I will be at least three
weeks in making my tour, as I shall return by the coast, and have many
people to call for.
My best compliments to Charles, our dear kinsman and fellow-saint; and
Messrs. W. and H. Parkers. I hope Hughoc is going on and prospering
with God and Miss M'Causlin.
If I could think on anything sprightly, I should let you hear every
other post; but a dull, matter-of-fact business, like this scrawl, the
less and seldomer one writes, the better.
Among other matters-of-fact I shall add this, that I am and ever shall
be,
My dear Sir,
Your obliged,
R. B.
* * * * *
LXXVII.
TO GAVIN HAMILTON, ESQ.
[It is supposed that the warmth of the lover came in this letter to
the aid of the imagination of the poet, in his account of Charlotte
Hamilton. ]
_Stirling, 28th August_, 1787.
MY DEAR SIR,
Here am I on my way to Inverness. I have rambled over the rich,
fertile carses of Falkirk and Sterling, and am delighted with their
appearance: richly waving crops of wheat, barley, &c. , but no harvest
at all yet, except, in one or two places, an old wife's ridge.
Yesterday morning I rode from this town up the meandering Devon's
banks, to pay my respects to some Ayrshire folks at Harvieston.
After
breakfast, we made a party to go and see the famous Caudron-linn, a
remarkable cascade in the Devon, about five miles above Harvieston;
and after spending one of the most pleasant days I ever had in my
life, I returned to Stirling in the evening. They are a family, Sir,
though I had not any prior tie; though they had not been the brother
and sisters of a certain generous friend of mine, I would never forget
them. I am told you have not seen them these several years, so you can
have very little idea of what these young folks are now. Your brother
is as tall as you are, but slender rather than otherwise; and I have
the satisfaction to inform you that he is getting the better of those
consumptive symptoms which I suppose you know were threatening him.
His make, and particularly his manner, resemble you, but he will still
have a finer face. (I put in the word _still_ to please Mrs.
Hamilton. ) Good sense, modesty, and at the same time a just idea of
that respect that man owes to man, and has a right in his turn to
exact, are striking features in his character; and, what with me is
the Alpha and the Omega, he has a heart that might adorn the breast of
a poet! Grace has a good figure, and the look of health and
cheerfulness, but nothing else remarkable in her person. I scarcely
ever saw so striking a likeness as is between her and your little
Beenie; the mouth and chin particularly. She is reserved at first; but
as we grew better acquainted, I was delighted with the native
frankness of her manner, and the sterling sense of her observation. Of
Charlotte I cannot speak in common terms of admiration: she is not
only beautiful but lovely. Her form is elegant; her features not
regular, but they have the smile of sweetness and the settled
complacency of good nature in the highest degree: and her complexion,
now that she has happily recovered her wonted health, is equal to Miss
Burnet's. After the exercise of our riding to the Falls, Charlotte was
exactly Dr. Donne's mistress:--
--------------"Her pure and eloquent blood
Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought,
That one would almost say her body thought. "
Her eyes are fascinating; at once expressive of good sense,
tenderness, and a noble mind.
I do not give you all this account, my good Sir, to flatter you. I
mean it to reproach you. Such relations the first peer in the realm
might own with pride; then why do you not keep up more correspondence
with these so amiable young folks? I had a thousand questions to
answer about you. I had to describe the little ones with the
minuteness of anatomy. They were highly delighted when I told them
that John was so good a boy, and so fine a scholar, and that Willie
was going on still very pretty; but I have it in commission to tell
her from them that beauty is a poor silly bauble without she be good.
Miss Chalmers I had left in Edinburgh, but I had the pleasure of
meeting Mrs. Chalmers, only Lady Mackenzie being rather a little
alarmingly ill of a sore throat somewhat marred our enjoyment.
I shall not be in Ayrshire for four weeks. My most respectful
compliments to Mrs. Hamilton, Miss Kennedy, and Doctor Mackenzie. I
shall probably write him from some stage or other.
I am ever, Sir,
Yours most gratefully,
R. B.
* * * * *
LXXVIII.
TO MR. WALKER,
BLAIR OF ATHOLE.
[Professor Walker was a native of Ayrshire, and an accomplished
scholar; he saw Burns often in Edinburgh; he saw him at the Earl of
Athol's on the Bruar; he visited him too at Dumfries; and after the
copyright of Currie's edition of the poet's works expired, he wrote,
with much taste and feeling his life anew, and edited his works--what
passed under his own observation he related with truth and ease. ]
_Inverness, 5th September_, 1787.
MY DEAR SIR,
I have just time to write the foregoing,[178] and to tell you that it
was (at least most part of it) the effusion of an half-hour I spent at
Bruar. I do not mean it was extempore, for I have endeavoured to brush
it up as well as Mr. Nicol's chat and the jogging of the chaise would
allow. It eases my heart a good deal, as rhyme is the coin with which
a poet pays his debts of honour or gratitude. What I owe to the noble
family of Athol, of the first kind, I shall ever proudly boast; what I
owe of the last, so help me God in my hour of need! I shall never
forget.
The "little angel-band! " I declare I prayed for them very sincerely
to-day at the Fall of Fyers. I shall never forget the fine
family-piece I saw at Blair; the amiable, the truly noble duchess,
with her smiling little seraph in her lap, at the head of the table;
the lovely "olive plants," as the Hebrew bard finely says, round the
happy mother: the beautiful Mrs. G----; the lovely sweet Miss C. , &c.
I wish I had the powers of Guido to do them justice! My Lord Duke's
kind hospitality--markedly kind indeed. Mr. Graham of Fintray's charms
of conversation--Sir W. Murray's friendship. In short, the
recollection of all that polite, agreeable company raises an honest
glow in my bosom.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 178: The Humble Petition of Bruar-water]
* * * * *
LXXIX.
TO MR. GILBERT BURNS.
[The letters of Robert to Gilbert are neither many nor important: the
latter was a calm, considerate, sensible man, with nothing poetic in
his composition: he died lately, much and widely respected. ]
_Edinburgh, 17th September, 1787. _
MY DEAR BROTHER,
I arrived here safe yesterday evening, after a tour of twenty-two
days, and travelling near six hundred miles, windings included. My
farthest stretch was about ten miles beyond Inverness. I went through
the heart of the Highlands by Crieff, Taymouth, the famous seat of
Lord Breadalbane, down the Tay, among cascades and druidical circles
of stones, to Dunkeld, a seat of the Duke of Athol; thence across the
Tay, and up one of his tributary streams to Blair of Athole, another
of the duke's seats, where I had the honour of spending nearly two
days with his grace and family; thence many miles through a wild
country, among cliffs gray with eternal snows and gloomy savage glens,
till I crossed Spey and went down the stream through Strathspey, so
famous in Scottish music; Badenoch, &c. , till I reached Grant Castle,
where I spent half a day with Sir James Grant and family; and then
crossed the country for Fort George, but called by the way at Cawdor,
the ancient seat of Macbeth; there I saw the identical bed, in which
tradition says king Duncan was murdered: lastly, from Fort George to
Inverness.
I returned by the coast, through Nairn, Forres, and so on, to Aberdeen,
thence to Stonehive, where James Burness, from Montrose, met me by
appointment. I spent two days among our relations, and found our aunts,
Jean and Isabel, still alive, and hale old women. John Cairn, though
born the same year with our father, walks as vigorously as I can: they
have had several letters from his son in New York. William Brand is
likewise a stout old fellow; but further particulars I delay till I see
you, which will be in two or three weeks. The rest of my stages are not
worth rehearsing: warm as I was from Ossian's country, where I had seen
his very grave, what cared I for fishing-towns or fertile carses? I
slept at the famous Brodie of Brodie's one night, and dined at Gordon
Castle next day, with the duke, duchess and family. I am thinking to
cause my old mare to meet me, by means of John Ronald, at Glasgow; but
you shall hear farther from me before I leave Edinburgh. My duty and
many compliments from the north to my mother; and my brotherly
compliments to the rest. I have been trying for a berth for William, but
am not likely to be successful. Farewell.
R. B.
* * * * *
LXXX.
TO MISS MARGARET CHALMERS.
(NOW MRS. HAY. )
[To Margaret Chalmers, the youngest daughter of James Chalmers, Esq. ,
of Fingland, it is said that Burns confided his affection to Charlotte
Hamilton: his letters to Miss Chalmers, like those to Mrs. Dunlop, are
distinguished for their good sense and delicacy as well as freedom. ]
_Sept. 26, 1787. _
I send Charlotte the first number of the songs; I would not wait for
the second number; I hate delays in little marks of friendship, as I
hate dissimulation in the language of the heart. I am determined to
pay Charlotte a poetic compliment, if I could hit on some glorious old
Scotch air, in number second. [179] You will see a small attempt on a
shred of paper in the book: but though Dr. Blacklock commended it very
highly, I am not just satisfied with it myself. I intend to make it a
description of some kind: the whining cant of love, except in real
passion, and by a masterly hand, is to me as insufferable as the
preaching cant of old Father Smeaton, whig-minister at Kilmaurs.
Darts, flames, cupids, loves, graces, and all that farrago, are just a
Mauchline * * * * a senseless rabble.
I got an excellent poetic epistle yesternight from the old, venerable
author of "Tullochgorum," "John of Badenyon," &c. I suppose you know
he is a clergyman. It is by far the finest poetic compliment I ever
got. I will send you a copy of it.
I go on Thursday or Friday to Dumfries, to wait on Mr. Miller about
his farms. --Do tell that to Lady Mackenzie, that she may give me
credit for a little wisdom. "I Wisdom dwell with Prudence. " What a
blessed fire-side! How happy should I be to pass a winter evening
under their venerable roof! and smoke a pipe of tobacco, or drink
water-gruel with them! What solemn, lengthened, laughter-quashing
gravity of phiz! What sage remarks on the good-for-nothing sons and
daughters of indiscretion and folly! And what frugal lessons, as we
straitened the fire-side circle, on the uses of the poker and tongs!
Miss N. is very well, and begs to be remembered in the old way to you.
I used all my eloquence, all the persuasive flourishes of the hand,
and heart-melting modulation of periods in my power, to urge her out
to Harvieston, but all in vain. My rhetoric seems quite to have lost
its effect on the lovely half of mankind. I have seen the day--but
that is a "tale of other years. "--In my conscience I believe that my
heart has been so oft on fire that it is absolutely vitrified. I look
on the sex with something like the admiration with which I regard the
starry sky in a frosty December night. I admire the beauty of the
Creator's workmanship; I am charmed with the wild but graceful
eccentricity of their motions, and--wish them good night. I mean this
with respect to a certain passion _dont j'ai eu l'honneur d'etre un
miserable esclave_: as for friendship, you and Charlotte have given me
pleasure, permanent pleasure, "which the world cannot give, nor take
away," I hope; and which will outlast the heavens and the earth.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 179: Of the Scots Musical Museum]
* * * * *
LXXXI.
TO MISS MARGARET CHALMERS.
[That fine song, "The Banks of the Devon," dedicated to the charms of
Charlotte Hamilton, was enclosed in the following letter. ]
_Without date. _
I have been at Dumfries, and at one visit more shall be decided about
a farm in that country. I am rather hopeless in it; but as my brother
is an excellent farmer, and is, besides, an exceedingly prudent, sober
man (qualities which are only a younger brother's fortune in our
family), I am determined, if my Dumfries business fail me, to return
into partnership with him, and at our leisure take another farm in the
neighbourhood.
I assure you I look for high compliments from you and Charlotte on
this very sage instance of my unfathomable, incomprehensible wisdom.
Talking of Charlotte, I must tell her that I have, to the best of my
power, paid her a poetic compliment, now completed. The air is
admirable: true old Highland. It was the tune of a Gaelic song, which
an Inverness lady sung me when I was there; and I was so charmed with
it that I begged her to write me a set of it from her singing; for it
had never been set before. I am fixed that it shall go in Johnson's
next number; so Charlotte and you need not spend your precious time in
contradicting me. I won't say the poetry is first-rate; though I am
convinced it is very well; and, what is not always the case with
compliments to ladies, it is not only sincere, but just.
R. B.
* * * * *
LXXXII.
TO JAMES HOY, ESQ.
GORDON CASTLE
[James Hoy, librarian of Gordon Castle, was, it is said, the gentleman
whom his grace of Gordon sent with a message inviting in vain that
"obstinate son of Latin prose," Nicol, to stop and enjoy himself. ]
_Edinburgh, 20th October_, 1787.
SIR,
I will defend my conduct in giving you this trouble, on the best of
Christian principles--"Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto
you, do ye even so unto them. "--I shall certainly, among my legacies,
leave my latest curse to that unlucky predicament which hurried--tore
me away from Castle Gordon. May that obstinate son of Latin prose
[Nicol] be curst to Scotch mile periods, and damned to seven league
paragraphs; while Declension and Conjugation, Gender, Number, and
Time, under the ragged banners of Dissonance and Disarrangement,
eternally rank against him in hostile array.
Allow me, Sir, to strengthen the small claim I have to your
acquaintance, by the following request. An engraver, James Johnson, in
Edinburgh, has, not from mercenary views, but from an honest, Scotch
enthusiasm, set about collecting all our native songs and setting them
to music; particularly those that have never been set before. Clarke,
the well known musician, presides over the musical arrangement, and
Drs. Beattie and Blacklock, Mr. Tytler, of Woodhouselee, and your
humble servant to the utmost of his small power, assist in collecting
the old poetry, or sometimes for a fine air make a stanza, when it has
no words. The brats, too tedious to mention, claim a parental pang
from my bardship. I suppose it will appear in Johnson's second
number--the first was published before my acquaintance with him. My
request is--"Cauld Kail in Aberdeen," is one intended for this number,
and I beg a copy of his Grace of Gordon's words to it, which you were
so kind as to repeat to me. You may be sure we won't prefix the
author's name, except you like, though I look on it as no small merit
to this work that the names of many of the authors of our old Scotch
songs, names almost forgotten, will be inserted.
I do not well know where to write to you--I rather write at you; but
if you will be so obliging, immediately on receipt of this, as to
write me a few lines, I shall perhaps pay you in kind, though not in
quality. Johnson's terms are:--each number a handsome pocket volume,
to consist at least of a hundred Scotch songs, with basses for the
harpsichord, &c. The price to subscribers 5s. ; to non-subscribers 6s.
He will have three numbers I conjecture.
My direction for two or three weeks will be at Mr. William
Cruikshank's, St. James's-square, New-town, Edinburgh.
I am,
Sir,
Your's to command,
R. B.
* * * * *
LXXXIII.
TO REV. JOHN SKINNER.
[The songs of "Tullochgorum," and "John of Badenyon," have made the
name of Skinner dear to all lovers of Scottish verse: he was a man
cheerful and pious, nor did the family talent expire with him: his son
became Bishop of Aberdeen. ]
_Edinburgh, October 25,_ 1787.
REVEREND AND VENERABLE SIR,
Accept, in plain dull prose, my most sincere thanks for the best
poetical compliment I ever received. I assure you, Sir, as a poet, you
have conjured up an airy demon of vanity in my fancy, which the best
abilities in your other capacity would be ill able to lay. I regret,
and while I live I shall regret, that when I was in the north, I had
not the pleasure of paying a younger brother's dutiful respect to the
author of the best Scotch song ever Scotland saw--"Tullochgorum's my
delight! " The world may think slightingly of the craft of song-making,
if they please, but, as Job says--"Oh! that mine adversary had written
a book! "--let them try. There is a certain something in the old Scotch
songs, a wild happiness of thought and expression, which peculiarly
marks them, not only from English songs, but also from the modern
efforts of song-wrights in our native manner and language. The only
remains of this enchantment, these spells of the imagination, rests
with you. Our true brother, Ross of Lochlee, was likewise "owre
cannie"--a "wild warlock"--but now he sings among the "sons of the
morning. "
I have often wished, and will certainly endeavour to form a kind of
common acquaintance among all the genuine sons of Caledonian song. The
world, busy in low prosaic pursuits, may overlook most of us; but
"reverence thyself. " The world is not our _peers_, so we challenge the
jury. We can lash that world, and find ourselves a very great source
of amusement and happiness independent of that world.
There is a work going on in Edinburgh, just now, which claims your
best assistance. An engraver in this town has set about collecting and
publishing all the Scotch songs, with the music, that can be found.
Songs in the English language, if by Scotchmen, are admitted, but the
music must all be Scotch. Drs. Beattie and Blacklock are lending a
hand, and the first musician in town presides over that department. I
have been absolutely crazed about it, collecting old stanzas, and
every information respecting their origin, authors, &c. &c. This last
is but a very fragment business; but at the end of his second
number--the first is already published--a small account will be given
of the authors, particularly to preserve those of latter times. Your
three songs, "Tullochgorum," "John of Badenyon," and "Ewie wi' the
crookit horn," go in this second number. I was determined, before I
got your letter, to write you, begging that you would let me know
where the editions of these pieces may be found, as you would wish
them to continue in future times: and if you would be so kind to this
undertaking as send any songs, of your own or others, that you would
think proper to publish, your name will be inserted among the other
authors,--"Nill ye, will ye. " One half of Scotland already give your
songs to other authors. Paper is done. I beg to hear from you; the
sooner the better, as I leave Edinburgh in a fortnight or three
weeks. --
I am,
With the warmest sincerity, Sir,
Your obliged humble servant,--R. B.
* * * * *
LXXXIV.
TO JAMES HOY, ESQ.
AT GORDON CASTLE, FOCHABERS.
[In singleness of heart and simplicity of manners James Hoy is said,
by one who knew him well, to have rivalled Dominie Sampson: his love
of learning and his scorn of wealth are still remembered to his
honour. ]
_Edinburgh, 6th November_, 1787.
DEAR SIR,
I would have wrote you immediately on receipt of your kind letter, but
a mixed impulse of gratitude and esteem whispered me that I ought to
send you something by way of return. When a poet owes anything,
particularly when he is indebted for good offices, the payment that
usually recurs to him--the only coin indeed in which he probably is
conversant--is rhyme. Johnson sends the books by the fly, as directed,
and begs me to enclose his most grateful thanks: my return I intended
should have been one or two poetic bagatelles which the world have not
seen, or, perhaps, for obvious reasons, cannot see. These I shall send
you before I leave Edinburgh. They may make you laugh a little, which,
on the whole, is no bad way of spending one's precious hours and still
more precious breath: at any rate, they will be, though a small, yet a
very sincere mark of my respectful esteem for a gentleman whose
further acquaintance I should look upon as a peculiar obligation.
The duke's song, independent totally of his dukeship, charms me. There
is I know not what of wild happiness of thought and expression
peculiarly beautiful in the old Scottish song style, of which his
Grace, old venerable Skinner, the author of "Tullochgorum," &c. , and
the late Ross, at Lochlee, of true Scottish poetic memory, are the
only modern instances that I recollect, since Ramsay with his
contemporaries, and poor Bob Fergusson, went to the world of deathless
existence and truly immortal song. The mob of mankind, that
many-headed beast, would laugh at so serious a speech about an old
song; but as Job says, "O that mine adversary had written a book! "
Those who think that composing a Scotch song is a trifling
business--let them try.
but a child. Though it cost the schoolmaster some thrashings, I made
an excellent English, scholar; and by the time I was ten or eleven
years of age, I was a critic in substantives, verbs, and particles. In
my infant and boyish days, too, I owed much to an old woman who
resided in the family, remarkable for her ignorance, credulity, and
superstition. She had, I suppose, the largest collection in the
country of tales and songs concerning devils, ghosts, fairies,
brownies, witches, warlocks, spunkies, kelpies, elf-candles,
dead-lights, wraiths, apparitions, cantraips, giants, enchanted towers,
dragons, and other trumpery. This cultivated the latent seeds of
poetry; but had so strong an effect on my imagination, that to this
hour, in my nocturnal rambles, I sometimes keep a sharp look out in
suspicions places; and though nobody can be more sceptical than I am
in such matters, yet it often takes an effort of philosophy to shake
off these idle terrors. The earliest composition that I recollect
taking pleasure in, was The Vision of Mirza, and a hymn of Addison's
beginning, "How are thy servants blest, O Lord! " I particularly
remember one half-stanza which was music to my boyish ear--
"For though in dreadful whirls we hung
High on the broken wave--"
I met with these pieces in Mason's English Collection, one of my
school-books. The first two books I ever read in private, and which
gave me more pleasure than any two books I ever read since, were The
Life of Hannibal, and The History of Sir William Wallace. Hannibal
gave my young ideas such a turn, that I used to strut in raptures up
and down after the recruiting drum and bag-pipe, and wish myself tall
enough to be a soldier; while the story of Wallace poured a Scottish
prejudice into my veins, which will boil along there till the
flood-gates of life shut in eternal rest.
Polemical divinity about this time was putting the country half mad,
and I, ambitious of shining in conversation parties on Sundays,
between sermons, at funerals, &c. , used a few years afterwards to
puzzle Calvinism with so much heat and indiscretion, that I raised a
hue and cry of heresy against me, which has not ceased to this hour.
My vicinity to Ayr was of some advantage to me. My social disposition,
when not checked by some modifications of spirited pride, was like our
catechism definition of infinitude, without bounds or limits. I formed
several connexions with other younkers, who possessed superior
advantages; the youngling actors who were busy in the rehearsal of
parts, in which they were shortly to appear on the stage of life,
where, alas! I was destined to drudge behind the scenes. It is not
commonly at this green age, that our young gentry have a just sense of
the immense distance between them and their ragged playfellows. It
takes a few dashes into the world, to give the young great man that
proper, decent, unnoticing disregard for the poor, insignificant
stupid devils, the mechanics and peasantry around him, who were,
perhaps, born in the same village. My young superiors never insulted
the clouterly appearance of my plough-boy carcase, the two extremes
of which were often exposed to all the inclemencies of all the
seasons. They would give me stray volumes of books; among them, even
then, I could pick up some observations, and one, whose heart, I am
sure, not even the "Munny Begum" scenes have tainted, helped me to a
little French. Parting with these my young friends and benefactors, as
they occasionally went off for the East or West Indies, was often to
me a sore affliction; but I was soon called to more serious evils. My
father's generous master died! the farm proved a ruinous bargain; and
to clench the misfortune, we fell into the hands of a factor, who sat
for the picture I have drawn of one in my tale of "The Twa Dogs. " My
father was advanced in life when he married; I was the eldest of seven
children, and he, worn out by early hardships, was unfit for labour.
My father's spirit was soon irritated, but not easily broken. There
was a freedom in his lease in two years more, and to weather these two
years, we retrenched our expenses. We lived very poorly: I was a
dexterous ploughman for my age; and the next eldest to me was a
brother (Gilbert), who could drive the plough very well, and help me
to thrash the corn. A novel-writer might, perhaps, have viewed these
scenes with some satisfaction, but so did not I; my indignation yet
boils at the recollection of the scoundrel factor's insolent
threatening letters, which used to set us all in tears.
This kind of life--the cheerless gloom of a hermit, with the unceasing
moil of a galley-slave, brought me to my sixteenth year; a little
before which period I first committed the sin of rhyme. You know our
country custom of coupling a man and woman together as partners in
the labours of harvest. In my fifteenth autumn, my partner was a
bewitching creature, a year younger than myself. My scarcity of
English denies me the power of doing her justice in that language, but
you know the Scottish idiom: she was a "bonnie, sweet, sonsie lass. "
In short, she, altogether unwittingly to herself, initiated me in that
delicious passion, which, in spite of acid disappointment, gin-horse
prudence, and bookworm philosophy, I hold to be the first of human
joys, our dearest blessing here below! How she caught the contagion I
cannot tell; you medical people talk much of infection from breathing
the same air, the touch, &c. ; but I never expressly said I loved
her. --Indeed, I did not know myself why I liked so much to loiter
behind with her, when returning in the evening from our labours; why
the tones of her voice made my heart-strings thrill like an AEolian
harp; and particularly why my pulse beat such a furious ratan, when I
looked and fingered over her little hand to pick out the cruel
nettle-stings and thistles. Among her other love-inspiring qualities,
she sung sweetly; and it was her favourite reel to which I attempted
giving an embodied vehicle in ryhme. I was not so presumptuous as to
imagine that I could make verses like printed ones, composed by men
who had Greek and Latin; but my girl sung a song which was said to be
composed by a small country laird's son, on one of his father's maids,
with whom he was in love; and I saw no reason why I might not rhyme as
well as he; for excepting that he could smear sheep, and cast peats,
his father living in the moorlands, he had no more scholar-craft than
myself.
Thus with me began love and poetry; which at times have been my only,
and till within the last twelve months, have been my highest
enjoyment. My father struggled on till he reached the freedom in his
lease, when he entered on a larger farm, about ten miles farther in
the country. The nature of the bargain he made was such as to throw a
little ready money into his hands at the commencement of his lease,
otherwise the affair would have been impracticable. For four years we
lived comfortably here, but a difference commencing between him and
his landlord as to terms, after three years tossing and whirling in
the vortex of litigation, my father was just saved from the horrors of
a jail, by a consumption, which, after two years' promises, kindly
stepped in, and carried him away, to where the wicked cease from
troubling, and where the weary are at rest!
It is during the time that we lived on this farm that my little story
is most eventful. I was, at the beginning of this period, perhaps, the
most ungainly awkward boy in the parish--no _solitaire_ was less
acquainted with the ways of the world. What I knew of ancient story
was gathered from Salmon's and Guthrie's Geographical Grammars; and
the ideas I had formed of modern manners, of literature, and
criticism, I got from the Spectator. These, with Pope's Works, some
Plays of Shakspeare, Tull and Dickson on Agriculture, the Pantheon,
Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding, Stackhouse's History of the
Bible, Justice's British Gardener's Directory, Boyle's Lectures, Allan
Ramsay's Works, Taylor's Scripture Doctrine of Original Sin, A Select
Collection of English Songs, and Hervey's Meditations, had formed the
whole of my reading. The collection of Songs was my _vade mecum. _ I
pored over them, driving my cart, or walking to labour, song by song,
verse by verse; carefully noting the true tender, or sublime, from
affectation and fustian. I am convinced I owe to this practice much of
my critic craft, such as it is.
In my seventeenth year, to give my manners a brush, I went to a country
dancing-school. My father had an unaccountable antipathy against these
meetings, and my going was, what to this moment I repent, in opposition
to his wishes. My father, as I said before, was subject to strong
passions; from that instance of disobedience in me, he took a sort of
dislike to me, which, I believe, was one cause of the dissipation which
marked my succeeding years. I say dissipation, comparatively with the
strictness, and sobriety, and regularity of Presbyterian country life;
for though the will-o'-wisp meteors of thoughtless whim were almost the
sole lights of my path, yet early ingrained piety and virtue kept me for
several years afterwards within the line of innocence. The great
misfortune of my life was to want an aim. I had felt early some
stirrings of ambition, but they were the blind gropings of Homer's
Cyclops round the walls of his cave. I saw my father's situation
entailed on me perpetual labour. The only two openings by which I could
enter the temple of fortune were the gate of niggardly economy, or the
path of little chicaning bargain-making. The first is so contracted an
aperture I never could squeeze myself into it--the last I always
hated--there was contamination in the very entrance! Thus abandoned of
aim or view in life, with a strong appetite for sociability, as well
from native hilarity as from a pride of observation and remark; a
constitutional melancholy or hypochondriasm that made me fly solitude;
add to these incentives to social life, my reputation for bookish
knowledge, a certain wild logical talent, and a strength of thought,
something like the rudiments of good sense; and it will not seem
surprising that I was generally a welcome guest where I visited, or any
great wonder that always, where two or three met together, there was I
among them. But far beyond all other impulses of my heart, was _un
penchant a l' adorable moitie du genre humain. _ My heart was completely
tinder, and was eternally lighted up by some goddess or other; and, as
in every other warfare in this world, my fortune was various; sometimes
I was received with favour, and sometimes I was mortified with a
repulse. At the plough, scythe, or reap-hook, I feared no competitor,
and thus I set absolute want at defiance; and as I never cared farther
for my labours than while I was in actual exercise, I spent the evenings
in the way after my own heart. A country lad seldom carries on a love
adventure without an assisting confidant. I possessed a curiosity, zeal,
and intrepid dexterity that recommended me as a proper second on these
occasions; and I dare say, I felt as much pleasure in being in the
secret of half the loves of the parish of Tarbolton, as ever did
statesman in knowing the intrigues of half the courts of Europe. The
very goose feather in my hand seems to know instinctively the well-worn
path of my imagination, the favourite theme of my song; and is with
difficulty restrained from giving you a couple of paragraphs on the
love-adventures of my compeers, the humble inmates of the farm-house and
cottage; but the grave sons of science, ambition, or avarice baptize
these things by the name of follies. To the sons and daughters of labour
and poverty they are matters of the most serious nature: to them the
ardent hope, the stolen interview, the tender farewell, are the greatest
and most delicious parts of their enjoyments.
Another circumstance in my life which made some alteration in my mind
and manners, was, that I spent my nineteenth summer on a smuggling
coast, a good distance from home, at a noted school to learn
mensuration, surveying, dialling, &c. , in which I made a pretty good
progress. But I made a greater progress in the knowledge of mankind.
The contraband trade was at that time very successful, and it
sometimes happened to me to fall in with those who carried it on.
Scenes of swaggering riot and roaring dissipation were, till this
time, new to me; but I was no enemy to social life. Here, though I
learnt to fill my glass, and to mix without fear in a drunken
squabble, yet I went on with a high hand with my geometry, till the
sun entered Virgo, a month which is always a carnival in my bosom,
when a charming fillette, who lived next door to the school, overset
my trigonometry, and set me off at a tangent from the spheres of my
studies. I, however, struggled on with my sines and co-sines for a few
days more; but stepping into the garden one charming noon to take the
sun's altitude, there I met my angel,
"Like Proserpine gathering flowers,
Herself a fairer flower--"[176]
It was in vain to think of doing any more good at school. The
remaining week I stayed I did nothing but craze the faculties of my
soul about her, or steal out to meet her; and the two last nights of
my stay in the country, had sleep been a mortal sin, the image of this
modest and innocent girl had kept me guiltless.
I returned home very considerably improved. My reading was enlarged
with the very important addition of Thomson's and Shenstone's works; I
had seen human nature in a new phasis; and I engaged several of my
school-fellows to keep up a literary correspondence with me. This
improved me in composition. I had met with a collection of letters by
the wits of Queen Anne's reign, and I pored over them most devoutly. I
kept copies of any of my own letters that pleased me, and a comparison
between them and the composition of most of my correspondents
flattered my vanity. I carried this whim so far, that though I hid not
three-farthings' worth of business in the world, yet almost every post
brought me as many letters as if I had been a broad plodding son of
the day-book and ledger.
My life flowed on much in the same course till my twenty-third year.
_Vive l'amour, et vive la bagatelle_, were my sole principles of
action. The addition of two more authors to my library gave me great
pleasure; Sterne and Mackenzie--Tristram Shandy and the Man of Feeling
were my bosom favourites. Poesy was still a darling walk for my mind,
but it was only indulged in according to the humour of the hour. I had
usually half a dozen or more pieces on hand; I took up one or other,
as it suited the momentary tone of the mind, and dismissed the work as
it bordered on fatigue. My passions, when once lighted up, raged like
so many devils, till they got vent in rhyme; and then the conning over
my verses, like a spell, soothed all into quiet! None of the rhymes of
those days are in print, except "Winter, a dirge," the eldest of my
printed pieces; "The Death of poor Maillie," "John Barleycorn," and
songs first, second, and third. Song second was the ebullition of that
passion which ended the forementioned school-business.
My twenty-third year was to me an important aera. Partly through whim,
and partly that I wished to set about doing something in life, I
joined a flax-dresser in a neighboring town (Irvine) to learn his
trade. This was an unlucky affair. My * * * and to finish the whole,
as we were giving a welcome carousal to the new year, the shop took
fire and burnt to ashes, and I was left, like a true poet, not worth a
sixpence.
I was obliged to give up this scheme; the clouds of misfortune were
gathering thick round my father's head; and, what was worst of all, he
was visibly far gone in a consumption; and to crown my distresses, a
_belle fille_, whom I adored, and who had pledged her soul to meet me
in the field of matrimony, jilted me, with peculiar circumstances of
mortification. The finishing evil that brought up the rear of this
infernal file, was my constitutional melancholy being increased to
such a degree, that for three months I was in a state of mind scarcely
to be envied by the hopeless wretches who have got their
mittimus--depart from me, ye cursed!
From this adventure I learned something of a town life; but the
principal thing which gave my mind a turn, was a friendship I formed
with a young fellow, a very noble character, but a hapless son of
misfortune. He was the son of a simple mechanic; but a great man in
the neighbourhood taking him under his patronage, gave him a genteel
education, with a view of bettering his situation in life. The patron
dying just as he was ready to launch out into the world, the poor
fellow in despair went to sea; where, after a variety of good and
ill-fortune, a little before I was acquainted with him he had been set
on shore by an American privateer, on the wild coast of Connaught,
stripped of everything. I cannot quit this poor fellow's story without
adding, that he is at this time master of a large West-Indiaman
belonging to the Thames.
His mind was fraught with independence, magnanimity, and every manly
virtue. I loved and admired him to a degree of enthusiasm, and of
course strove to imitate him. In some measure I succeeded; I had pride
before, but he taught it to flow in proper channels. His knowledge of
the world was vastly superior to mine, and I was all attention to
learn. He was the only man I ever saw who was a greater fool than
myself where woman was the presiding star; but he spoke of illicit
love with the levity of a sailor, which hitherto I had regarded with
horror. Here his friendship did me a mischief, and the consequence
was, that soon after I resumed the plough, I wrote the "Poet's
Welcome. "[177] My reading only increased while in this town by two stray
volumes of Pamela, and one of Ferdinand Count Fathom, which gave me
some idea of novels. Rhyme, except some religious pieces that are in
print, I had given up; but meeting with Fergusson's Scottish Poems, I
strung anew my wildly-sounding lyre with emulating vigour. When my
father died, his all went among the hell-hounds that growl in the
kennel of justice; but we made a shift to collect a little money in
the family amongst us, with which, to keep us together, my brother and
I took a neighbouring farm. My brother wanted my hair-brained
imagination, as well as my social and amorous madness; but in good
sense, and every sober qualification, he was far my superior.
I entered on this farm with a full resolution, "come, go to, I will be
wise! " I read farming books, I calculated crops; I attended markets;
and in short, in spite of the devil, and the world, and the flesh, I
believe I should have been a wise man; but the first year, from
unfortunately buying bad seed, the second from a late harvest, we
lost half our crops. This overset all my wisdom, and I returned, "like
the dog to his vomit, and the sow that was washed, to her wallowing in
the mire. "
I now began to be known in the neighbourhood as a maker of rhymes. The
first of my poetic offspring that saw the light, was a burlesque
lamentation on a quarrel between two reverend Calvinists, both of them
_dramatis personae_ in "Holy Fair. " I had a notion myself that the
piece had some merit; but, to prevent the worst, I gave a copy of it
to a friend, who was very fond of such things, and told him that I
could not guess who was the author of it, but that I thought it pretty
clever. With a certain description of the clergy, as well as laity, it
met with a roar of applause. "Holy Willie's Prayer" next made its
appearance, and alarmed the kirk-session so much, that they held
several meetings to look over their spiritual artillery, if haply any
of it might be pointed against profane rhymers. Unluckily for me, my
wanderings led me on another side, within point-blank shot of their
heaviest metal. This is the unfortunate story that gave rise to my
printed poem, "The Lament. " This was a most melancholy affair, which I
cannot yet bear to reflect on, and had very nearly given me one or two
of the principal qualifications for a place among those who have lost
the chart, and mistaken the reckoning of rationality. I gave up my
part of the farm to my brother; in truth it was only nominally mine;
and made what little preparation was in my power for Jamaica. But,
before leaving my native country for ever, I resolved to publish my
poems. I weighed my productions as impartially as was in my power; I
thought they had merit; and it was a delicious idea that I should be
called a clever fellow, even though it should never reach my ears--a
poor negro-driver--or perhaps a victim to that inhospitable clime, and
gone to the world of spirits! I can truly say, that _pauvre inconnu_
as I then was, I had pretty nearly as high an idea of myself and of my
works as I have at this moment, when the public has decided in their
favour. It ever was my opinion that the mistakes and blunders, both in
a rational and religious point of view, of which we see thousands
daily guilty, are owing to their ignorance of themselves. --To know
myself had been all along my constant study. I weighed myself alone; I
balanced myself with others; I watched every means of information, to
see how much ground I occupied as a man and as a poet; I studied
assiduously Nature's design in my formation--where the lights and
shades in my character were intended. I was pretty confident my poems
would meet with some applause; but, at the worst, the roar of the
Atlantic would deafen the voice of censure, and the novelty of West
Indian scenes make me forget neglect. I threw off six hundred copies,
of which I had got subscriptions for about three hundred and
fifty. --My vanity was highly gratified by the reception I met with
from the public; and besides I pocketed, all expenses deducted, nearly
twenty pounds. This sum came very seasonably, as I was thinking of
indenting myself, for want of money to procure my passage. As soon as
I was master of nine guineas, the price of wafting me to the torrid
zone, I took a steerage passage in the first ship that was to sail
from the Clyde, for
"Hungry ruin had me in the wind. "
I had been for some days skulking from covert to covert, under all the
terrors of a jail; as some ill-advised people had uncoupled the
merciless pack of the law at my heels. I had taken the last farewell
of my few friends; my chest was on the road to Greenock; I had
composed the last song I should ever measure in Caledonia--"The gloomy
night is gathering fast," when a letter from Dr. Blacklock to a friend
of mine, overthrew all my schemes, by opening new prospects to my
poetic ambition. The doctor belonged to a set of critics for whose
applause I had not dared to hope. His opinion, that I would meet with
encouragement in Edinburgh for a second edition, fired me so much,
that away I posted for that city, without a single acquaintance, or a
single letter of introduction. The baneful star that had so long shed
its blasting influence in my zenith, for once made a revolution to the
nadir; and a kind Providence placed me under the patronage of one of
the noblest of men, the Earl of Glencairn. _Oublie-moi, grand Dieu, si
jamais je l'oublie! _
I need relate no farther. At Edinburgh I was in a new world; I mingled
among many classes of men, but all of them new to me, and I was all
attention to "catch" the characters and "the manners living as they
rise. " Whether I have profited, time will show.
* * * * *
My most respectful compliments to Miss Williams. Her very elegant and
friendly letter I cannot answer at present, as my presence is
requisite in Edinburgh, and I set out to-morrow.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 175: Idiot for idiotic. ]
[Footnote 176: Paradise Lost, b. iv]
[Footnote 177: "Rob the Rhymer's Welcome to his Bastard Child. "--See
Poem XXXIII. ]
* * * * *
LXXV.
TO ROBERT AINSLIE, ESQ. ,
BERRYWELL DUNSE.
[This characteristic letter was first published by Sir Harris Nichols;
others, still more characteristic, addressed to the same gentleman,
are abroad: how they escaped from private keeping is a sort of a
riddle. ]
_Edinburgh, 23d August_, 1787.
"As I gaed up to Dunse
To warp a pickle yarn,
Robin, silly body,
He gat me wi' bairn. "
From henceforth, my dear Sir, I am determined to set off with my
letters like the periodical writers, viz. prefix a kind of text,
quoted from some classic of undoubted authority, such as the author of
the immortal piece, of which my text is part. What I have to say on my
text is exhausted in a letter which I wrote you the other day, before
I had the pleasure of receiving yours from Inverkeithing; and sure
never was anything more lucky, as I have but the time to write this,
that Mr. Nicol, on the opposite side of the table, takes to correct a
proof-sheet of a thesis. They are gabbling Latin so loud that I cannot
hear what my own soul is saying in my own skull, so I must just give
you a matter-of-fact sentence or two, and end, if time permit, with a
verse de rei generatione. To-morrow I leave Edinburgh in a chaise;
Nicol thinks it more comfortable than horseback, to which I say, Amen;
so Jenny Geddes goes home to Ayrshire, to use a phrase of my mother's,
wi' her finger in her mouth.
Now for a modest verse of classical authority:
The cats like kitchen;
The dogs like broo;
The lasses like the lads weel,
And th' auld wives too.
CHORUS.
And we're a' noddin,
Nid, nid, noddin,
We're a' noddin fou at e'en.
If this does not please you, let me hear from you; if you write any
time before the 1st of September, direct to Inverness, to be left at
the post-office till called for; the next week at Aberdeen, the next
at Edinburgh.
The sheet is done, and I shall just conclude with assuring you that
I am, and ever with pride shall be,
My dear Sir, &c.
R. B.
Call your boy what you think proper, only interject Burns. What do you
say to a Scripture name? Zimri Burns Ainslie, or Architophel, &c. ,
look your Bible for these two heroes, if you do this, I will repay the
compliment.
* * * * *
LXXVI.
TO MR. ROBERT MUIR.
[No Scotsman will ever read, without emotion, the poet's words in this
letter, and in "Scots wha hae wi Wallace bled," about Bannnockburn and
its glories. ]
_Stirling, 26th August, 1787. _
MY DEAR SIR,
I intended to have written you from Edinburgh, and now write you from
Stirling to make an excuse. Here am I, on my way to Inverness, with a
truly original, but very worthy man, a Mr. Nicol, one of the masters
of the High-school, in Edinburgh. I left Auld Reekie yesterday
morning, and have passed, besides by-excursions, Linlithgow,
Borrowstouness, Falkirk, and here am I undoubtedly. This morning I
knelt at the tomb of Sir John the Graham, the gallant friend of the
immortal Wallace; and two hours ago I said a fervent prayer, for Old
Caledonia, over the hole in a blue whinstone, where Robert de Bruce
fixed his royal standard on the banks of Bannockburn; and just now,
from Stirling Castle, I have seen by the setting sun the glorious
prospect of the windings of Forth through the rich carse of Stirling,
and skirting the equally rich carse of Falkirk. The crops are very
strong, but so very late, that there is no harvest, except a ridge or
two perhaps in ten miles, all the way I have travelled from Edinburgh.
I left Andrew Bruce and family all well. I will be at least three
weeks in making my tour, as I shall return by the coast, and have many
people to call for.
My best compliments to Charles, our dear kinsman and fellow-saint; and
Messrs. W. and H. Parkers. I hope Hughoc is going on and prospering
with God and Miss M'Causlin.
If I could think on anything sprightly, I should let you hear every
other post; but a dull, matter-of-fact business, like this scrawl, the
less and seldomer one writes, the better.
Among other matters-of-fact I shall add this, that I am and ever shall
be,
My dear Sir,
Your obliged,
R. B.
* * * * *
LXXVII.
TO GAVIN HAMILTON, ESQ.
[It is supposed that the warmth of the lover came in this letter to
the aid of the imagination of the poet, in his account of Charlotte
Hamilton. ]
_Stirling, 28th August_, 1787.
MY DEAR SIR,
Here am I on my way to Inverness. I have rambled over the rich,
fertile carses of Falkirk and Sterling, and am delighted with their
appearance: richly waving crops of wheat, barley, &c. , but no harvest
at all yet, except, in one or two places, an old wife's ridge.
Yesterday morning I rode from this town up the meandering Devon's
banks, to pay my respects to some Ayrshire folks at Harvieston.
After
breakfast, we made a party to go and see the famous Caudron-linn, a
remarkable cascade in the Devon, about five miles above Harvieston;
and after spending one of the most pleasant days I ever had in my
life, I returned to Stirling in the evening. They are a family, Sir,
though I had not any prior tie; though they had not been the brother
and sisters of a certain generous friend of mine, I would never forget
them. I am told you have not seen them these several years, so you can
have very little idea of what these young folks are now. Your brother
is as tall as you are, but slender rather than otherwise; and I have
the satisfaction to inform you that he is getting the better of those
consumptive symptoms which I suppose you know were threatening him.
His make, and particularly his manner, resemble you, but he will still
have a finer face. (I put in the word _still_ to please Mrs.
Hamilton. ) Good sense, modesty, and at the same time a just idea of
that respect that man owes to man, and has a right in his turn to
exact, are striking features in his character; and, what with me is
the Alpha and the Omega, he has a heart that might adorn the breast of
a poet! Grace has a good figure, and the look of health and
cheerfulness, but nothing else remarkable in her person. I scarcely
ever saw so striking a likeness as is between her and your little
Beenie; the mouth and chin particularly. She is reserved at first; but
as we grew better acquainted, I was delighted with the native
frankness of her manner, and the sterling sense of her observation. Of
Charlotte I cannot speak in common terms of admiration: she is not
only beautiful but lovely. Her form is elegant; her features not
regular, but they have the smile of sweetness and the settled
complacency of good nature in the highest degree: and her complexion,
now that she has happily recovered her wonted health, is equal to Miss
Burnet's. After the exercise of our riding to the Falls, Charlotte was
exactly Dr. Donne's mistress:--
--------------"Her pure and eloquent blood
Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought,
That one would almost say her body thought. "
Her eyes are fascinating; at once expressive of good sense,
tenderness, and a noble mind.
I do not give you all this account, my good Sir, to flatter you. I
mean it to reproach you. Such relations the first peer in the realm
might own with pride; then why do you not keep up more correspondence
with these so amiable young folks? I had a thousand questions to
answer about you. I had to describe the little ones with the
minuteness of anatomy. They were highly delighted when I told them
that John was so good a boy, and so fine a scholar, and that Willie
was going on still very pretty; but I have it in commission to tell
her from them that beauty is a poor silly bauble without she be good.
Miss Chalmers I had left in Edinburgh, but I had the pleasure of
meeting Mrs. Chalmers, only Lady Mackenzie being rather a little
alarmingly ill of a sore throat somewhat marred our enjoyment.
I shall not be in Ayrshire for four weeks. My most respectful
compliments to Mrs. Hamilton, Miss Kennedy, and Doctor Mackenzie. I
shall probably write him from some stage or other.
I am ever, Sir,
Yours most gratefully,
R. B.
* * * * *
LXXVIII.
TO MR. WALKER,
BLAIR OF ATHOLE.
[Professor Walker was a native of Ayrshire, and an accomplished
scholar; he saw Burns often in Edinburgh; he saw him at the Earl of
Athol's on the Bruar; he visited him too at Dumfries; and after the
copyright of Currie's edition of the poet's works expired, he wrote,
with much taste and feeling his life anew, and edited his works--what
passed under his own observation he related with truth and ease. ]
_Inverness, 5th September_, 1787.
MY DEAR SIR,
I have just time to write the foregoing,[178] and to tell you that it
was (at least most part of it) the effusion of an half-hour I spent at
Bruar. I do not mean it was extempore, for I have endeavoured to brush
it up as well as Mr. Nicol's chat and the jogging of the chaise would
allow. It eases my heart a good deal, as rhyme is the coin with which
a poet pays his debts of honour or gratitude. What I owe to the noble
family of Athol, of the first kind, I shall ever proudly boast; what I
owe of the last, so help me God in my hour of need! I shall never
forget.
The "little angel-band! " I declare I prayed for them very sincerely
to-day at the Fall of Fyers. I shall never forget the fine
family-piece I saw at Blair; the amiable, the truly noble duchess,
with her smiling little seraph in her lap, at the head of the table;
the lovely "olive plants," as the Hebrew bard finely says, round the
happy mother: the beautiful Mrs. G----; the lovely sweet Miss C. , &c.
I wish I had the powers of Guido to do them justice! My Lord Duke's
kind hospitality--markedly kind indeed. Mr. Graham of Fintray's charms
of conversation--Sir W. Murray's friendship. In short, the
recollection of all that polite, agreeable company raises an honest
glow in my bosom.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 178: The Humble Petition of Bruar-water]
* * * * *
LXXIX.
TO MR. GILBERT BURNS.
[The letters of Robert to Gilbert are neither many nor important: the
latter was a calm, considerate, sensible man, with nothing poetic in
his composition: he died lately, much and widely respected. ]
_Edinburgh, 17th September, 1787. _
MY DEAR BROTHER,
I arrived here safe yesterday evening, after a tour of twenty-two
days, and travelling near six hundred miles, windings included. My
farthest stretch was about ten miles beyond Inverness. I went through
the heart of the Highlands by Crieff, Taymouth, the famous seat of
Lord Breadalbane, down the Tay, among cascades and druidical circles
of stones, to Dunkeld, a seat of the Duke of Athol; thence across the
Tay, and up one of his tributary streams to Blair of Athole, another
of the duke's seats, where I had the honour of spending nearly two
days with his grace and family; thence many miles through a wild
country, among cliffs gray with eternal snows and gloomy savage glens,
till I crossed Spey and went down the stream through Strathspey, so
famous in Scottish music; Badenoch, &c. , till I reached Grant Castle,
where I spent half a day with Sir James Grant and family; and then
crossed the country for Fort George, but called by the way at Cawdor,
the ancient seat of Macbeth; there I saw the identical bed, in which
tradition says king Duncan was murdered: lastly, from Fort George to
Inverness.
I returned by the coast, through Nairn, Forres, and so on, to Aberdeen,
thence to Stonehive, where James Burness, from Montrose, met me by
appointment. I spent two days among our relations, and found our aunts,
Jean and Isabel, still alive, and hale old women. John Cairn, though
born the same year with our father, walks as vigorously as I can: they
have had several letters from his son in New York. William Brand is
likewise a stout old fellow; but further particulars I delay till I see
you, which will be in two or three weeks. The rest of my stages are not
worth rehearsing: warm as I was from Ossian's country, where I had seen
his very grave, what cared I for fishing-towns or fertile carses? I
slept at the famous Brodie of Brodie's one night, and dined at Gordon
Castle next day, with the duke, duchess and family. I am thinking to
cause my old mare to meet me, by means of John Ronald, at Glasgow; but
you shall hear farther from me before I leave Edinburgh. My duty and
many compliments from the north to my mother; and my brotherly
compliments to the rest. I have been trying for a berth for William, but
am not likely to be successful. Farewell.
R. B.
* * * * *
LXXX.
TO MISS MARGARET CHALMERS.
(NOW MRS. HAY. )
[To Margaret Chalmers, the youngest daughter of James Chalmers, Esq. ,
of Fingland, it is said that Burns confided his affection to Charlotte
Hamilton: his letters to Miss Chalmers, like those to Mrs. Dunlop, are
distinguished for their good sense and delicacy as well as freedom. ]
_Sept. 26, 1787. _
I send Charlotte the first number of the songs; I would not wait for
the second number; I hate delays in little marks of friendship, as I
hate dissimulation in the language of the heart. I am determined to
pay Charlotte a poetic compliment, if I could hit on some glorious old
Scotch air, in number second. [179] You will see a small attempt on a
shred of paper in the book: but though Dr. Blacklock commended it very
highly, I am not just satisfied with it myself. I intend to make it a
description of some kind: the whining cant of love, except in real
passion, and by a masterly hand, is to me as insufferable as the
preaching cant of old Father Smeaton, whig-minister at Kilmaurs.
Darts, flames, cupids, loves, graces, and all that farrago, are just a
Mauchline * * * * a senseless rabble.
I got an excellent poetic epistle yesternight from the old, venerable
author of "Tullochgorum," "John of Badenyon," &c. I suppose you know
he is a clergyman. It is by far the finest poetic compliment I ever
got. I will send you a copy of it.
I go on Thursday or Friday to Dumfries, to wait on Mr. Miller about
his farms. --Do tell that to Lady Mackenzie, that she may give me
credit for a little wisdom. "I Wisdom dwell with Prudence. " What a
blessed fire-side! How happy should I be to pass a winter evening
under their venerable roof! and smoke a pipe of tobacco, or drink
water-gruel with them! What solemn, lengthened, laughter-quashing
gravity of phiz! What sage remarks on the good-for-nothing sons and
daughters of indiscretion and folly! And what frugal lessons, as we
straitened the fire-side circle, on the uses of the poker and tongs!
Miss N. is very well, and begs to be remembered in the old way to you.
I used all my eloquence, all the persuasive flourishes of the hand,
and heart-melting modulation of periods in my power, to urge her out
to Harvieston, but all in vain. My rhetoric seems quite to have lost
its effect on the lovely half of mankind. I have seen the day--but
that is a "tale of other years. "--In my conscience I believe that my
heart has been so oft on fire that it is absolutely vitrified. I look
on the sex with something like the admiration with which I regard the
starry sky in a frosty December night. I admire the beauty of the
Creator's workmanship; I am charmed with the wild but graceful
eccentricity of their motions, and--wish them good night. I mean this
with respect to a certain passion _dont j'ai eu l'honneur d'etre un
miserable esclave_: as for friendship, you and Charlotte have given me
pleasure, permanent pleasure, "which the world cannot give, nor take
away," I hope; and which will outlast the heavens and the earth.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 179: Of the Scots Musical Museum]
* * * * *
LXXXI.
TO MISS MARGARET CHALMERS.
[That fine song, "The Banks of the Devon," dedicated to the charms of
Charlotte Hamilton, was enclosed in the following letter. ]
_Without date. _
I have been at Dumfries, and at one visit more shall be decided about
a farm in that country. I am rather hopeless in it; but as my brother
is an excellent farmer, and is, besides, an exceedingly prudent, sober
man (qualities which are only a younger brother's fortune in our
family), I am determined, if my Dumfries business fail me, to return
into partnership with him, and at our leisure take another farm in the
neighbourhood.
I assure you I look for high compliments from you and Charlotte on
this very sage instance of my unfathomable, incomprehensible wisdom.
Talking of Charlotte, I must tell her that I have, to the best of my
power, paid her a poetic compliment, now completed. The air is
admirable: true old Highland. It was the tune of a Gaelic song, which
an Inverness lady sung me when I was there; and I was so charmed with
it that I begged her to write me a set of it from her singing; for it
had never been set before. I am fixed that it shall go in Johnson's
next number; so Charlotte and you need not spend your precious time in
contradicting me. I won't say the poetry is first-rate; though I am
convinced it is very well; and, what is not always the case with
compliments to ladies, it is not only sincere, but just.
R. B.
* * * * *
LXXXII.
TO JAMES HOY, ESQ.
GORDON CASTLE
[James Hoy, librarian of Gordon Castle, was, it is said, the gentleman
whom his grace of Gordon sent with a message inviting in vain that
"obstinate son of Latin prose," Nicol, to stop and enjoy himself. ]
_Edinburgh, 20th October_, 1787.
SIR,
I will defend my conduct in giving you this trouble, on the best of
Christian principles--"Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto
you, do ye even so unto them. "--I shall certainly, among my legacies,
leave my latest curse to that unlucky predicament which hurried--tore
me away from Castle Gordon. May that obstinate son of Latin prose
[Nicol] be curst to Scotch mile periods, and damned to seven league
paragraphs; while Declension and Conjugation, Gender, Number, and
Time, under the ragged banners of Dissonance and Disarrangement,
eternally rank against him in hostile array.
Allow me, Sir, to strengthen the small claim I have to your
acquaintance, by the following request. An engraver, James Johnson, in
Edinburgh, has, not from mercenary views, but from an honest, Scotch
enthusiasm, set about collecting all our native songs and setting them
to music; particularly those that have never been set before. Clarke,
the well known musician, presides over the musical arrangement, and
Drs. Beattie and Blacklock, Mr. Tytler, of Woodhouselee, and your
humble servant to the utmost of his small power, assist in collecting
the old poetry, or sometimes for a fine air make a stanza, when it has
no words. The brats, too tedious to mention, claim a parental pang
from my bardship. I suppose it will appear in Johnson's second
number--the first was published before my acquaintance with him. My
request is--"Cauld Kail in Aberdeen," is one intended for this number,
and I beg a copy of his Grace of Gordon's words to it, which you were
so kind as to repeat to me. You may be sure we won't prefix the
author's name, except you like, though I look on it as no small merit
to this work that the names of many of the authors of our old Scotch
songs, names almost forgotten, will be inserted.
I do not well know where to write to you--I rather write at you; but
if you will be so obliging, immediately on receipt of this, as to
write me a few lines, I shall perhaps pay you in kind, though not in
quality. Johnson's terms are:--each number a handsome pocket volume,
to consist at least of a hundred Scotch songs, with basses for the
harpsichord, &c. The price to subscribers 5s. ; to non-subscribers 6s.
He will have three numbers I conjecture.
My direction for two or three weeks will be at Mr. William
Cruikshank's, St. James's-square, New-town, Edinburgh.
I am,
Sir,
Your's to command,
R. B.
* * * * *
LXXXIII.
TO REV. JOHN SKINNER.
[The songs of "Tullochgorum," and "John of Badenyon," have made the
name of Skinner dear to all lovers of Scottish verse: he was a man
cheerful and pious, nor did the family talent expire with him: his son
became Bishop of Aberdeen. ]
_Edinburgh, October 25,_ 1787.
REVEREND AND VENERABLE SIR,
Accept, in plain dull prose, my most sincere thanks for the best
poetical compliment I ever received. I assure you, Sir, as a poet, you
have conjured up an airy demon of vanity in my fancy, which the best
abilities in your other capacity would be ill able to lay. I regret,
and while I live I shall regret, that when I was in the north, I had
not the pleasure of paying a younger brother's dutiful respect to the
author of the best Scotch song ever Scotland saw--"Tullochgorum's my
delight! " The world may think slightingly of the craft of song-making,
if they please, but, as Job says--"Oh! that mine adversary had written
a book! "--let them try. There is a certain something in the old Scotch
songs, a wild happiness of thought and expression, which peculiarly
marks them, not only from English songs, but also from the modern
efforts of song-wrights in our native manner and language. The only
remains of this enchantment, these spells of the imagination, rests
with you. Our true brother, Ross of Lochlee, was likewise "owre
cannie"--a "wild warlock"--but now he sings among the "sons of the
morning. "
I have often wished, and will certainly endeavour to form a kind of
common acquaintance among all the genuine sons of Caledonian song. The
world, busy in low prosaic pursuits, may overlook most of us; but
"reverence thyself. " The world is not our _peers_, so we challenge the
jury. We can lash that world, and find ourselves a very great source
of amusement and happiness independent of that world.
There is a work going on in Edinburgh, just now, which claims your
best assistance. An engraver in this town has set about collecting and
publishing all the Scotch songs, with the music, that can be found.
Songs in the English language, if by Scotchmen, are admitted, but the
music must all be Scotch. Drs. Beattie and Blacklock are lending a
hand, and the first musician in town presides over that department. I
have been absolutely crazed about it, collecting old stanzas, and
every information respecting their origin, authors, &c. &c. This last
is but a very fragment business; but at the end of his second
number--the first is already published--a small account will be given
of the authors, particularly to preserve those of latter times. Your
three songs, "Tullochgorum," "John of Badenyon," and "Ewie wi' the
crookit horn," go in this second number. I was determined, before I
got your letter, to write you, begging that you would let me know
where the editions of these pieces may be found, as you would wish
them to continue in future times: and if you would be so kind to this
undertaking as send any songs, of your own or others, that you would
think proper to publish, your name will be inserted among the other
authors,--"Nill ye, will ye. " One half of Scotland already give your
songs to other authors. Paper is done. I beg to hear from you; the
sooner the better, as I leave Edinburgh in a fortnight or three
weeks. --
I am,
With the warmest sincerity, Sir,
Your obliged humble servant,--R. B.
* * * * *
LXXXIV.
TO JAMES HOY, ESQ.
AT GORDON CASTLE, FOCHABERS.
[In singleness of heart and simplicity of manners James Hoy is said,
by one who knew him well, to have rivalled Dominie Sampson: his love
of learning and his scorn of wealth are still remembered to his
honour. ]
_Edinburgh, 6th November_, 1787.
DEAR SIR,
I would have wrote you immediately on receipt of your kind letter, but
a mixed impulse of gratitude and esteem whispered me that I ought to
send you something by way of return. When a poet owes anything,
particularly when he is indebted for good offices, the payment that
usually recurs to him--the only coin indeed in which he probably is
conversant--is rhyme. Johnson sends the books by the fly, as directed,
and begs me to enclose his most grateful thanks: my return I intended
should have been one or two poetic bagatelles which the world have not
seen, or, perhaps, for obvious reasons, cannot see. These I shall send
you before I leave Edinburgh. They may make you laugh a little, which,
on the whole, is no bad way of spending one's precious hours and still
more precious breath: at any rate, they will be, though a small, yet a
very sincere mark of my respectful esteem for a gentleman whose
further acquaintance I should look upon as a peculiar obligation.
The duke's song, independent totally of his dukeship, charms me. There
is I know not what of wild happiness of thought and expression
peculiarly beautiful in the old Scottish song style, of which his
Grace, old venerable Skinner, the author of "Tullochgorum," &c. , and
the late Ross, at Lochlee, of true Scottish poetic memory, are the
only modern instances that I recollect, since Ramsay with his
contemporaries, and poor Bob Fergusson, went to the world of deathless
existence and truly immortal song. The mob of mankind, that
many-headed beast, would laugh at so serious a speech about an old
song; but as Job says, "O that mine adversary had written a book! "
Those who think that composing a Scotch song is a trifling
business--let them try.
