I will not say one word about
apologies
or excuses for not
writing.
writing.
Robert Burns-
Poets are not very famous
for their prudence; but as I can do nothing for a cause which is now
nearly no more, I do not wish to hurt myself.
I have the honour to be,
My lady,
Your ladyship's obliged and obedient
Humble servant,
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXXIX.
TO PROVOST MAXWELL,
OF LOCHMABEN.
[Of Lochmaben, the "Marjory of the mony Lochs" of the election
ballads, Maxwell was at this time provost, a post more of honour than
of labour. ]
_Ellisland, 20th December, 1789. _
DEAR PROVOST,
As my friend Mr. Graham goes for your good town to-morrow, I cannot
resist the temptation to send you a few lines, and as I have nothing
to say I have chosen this sheet of foolscap, and begun as you see at
the top of the first page, because I have ever observed, that when
once people have fairly set out they know not where to stop. Now that
my first sentence is concluded, I have nothing to do but to pray
heaven to help me on to another. Shall I write you on Politics or
Religion, two master subjects for your sayers of nothing. Of the first
I dare say by this time you are nearly surfeited: and for the last,
whatever they may talk of it, who make it a kind of company concern, I
never could endure it beyond a soliloquy. I might write you on
farming, on building, or marketing, but my poor distracted mind is so
torn, so jaded, so racked and bediveled with the task of the
superlative damned to make _one guinea do the business of three_, that
I detest, abhor, and swoon at the very word business, though no less
than four letters of my very short sirname are in it.
Well, to make the matter short, I shall betake myself to a subject
ever fruitful of themes; a subject the turtle-feast of the sons of
Satan, and the delicious secret sugar-plum of the babes of grace--a
subject sparkling with all the jewels that wit can find in the mines
of genius: and pregnant with all the stores of learning from Moses and
Confucius to Franklin and Priestley--in short, may it please your
Lordship, I intend to write * * *
[_Here the Poet inserted a song which can only be sung at times when
the punch-bowl has done its duty and wild wit is set free. _]
If at any time you expect a field-day in your town, a day when Dukes,
Earls, and Knights pay their court to weavers, tailors, and cobblers,
I should like to know of it two or three days beforehand. It is not
that I care three skips of a cur dog for the politics, but I should
like to see such an exhibition of human nature. If you meet with that
worthy old veteran in religion and good-fellowship, Mr. Jeffrey, or
any of his amiable family, I beg you will give them my best
compliments.
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXXX.
TO SIR JOHN SINCLAIR.
[Of the Monkland Book-Club alluded to in this letter, the clergyman
had omitted all mention in his account of the Parish of Dunscore,
published in Sir John Sinclair's work: some of the books which the
poet introduced were stigmatized as vain and frivolous. ]
1790.
SIR,
The following circumstance has, I believe, been committed in the
statistical account, transmitted to you of the parish of Dunscore, in
Nithsdale. I beg leave to send it to you because it is new, and may be
useful. How far it is deserving of a place in your patriotic
publication, you are the best judge.
To store the minds of the lower classes with useful knowledge, is
certainly of very great importance, both to them as individuals and to
society at large. Giving them a turn for reading and reflection, is
giving them a source of innocent and laudable amusement: and besides,
raises them to a more dignified degree in the scale of rationality.
Impressed with this idea, a gentleman in this parish, Robert Riddel,
Esq. , of Glenriddel, set on foot a species of circulating library, on
a plan so simple as to be practicable in any corner of the country;
and so useful, as to deserve the notice of every country gentleman,
who thinks the improvement of that part of his own species, whom
chance has thrown into the humble walks of the peasant and the
artisan, a matter worthy of his attention.
Mr. Riddel got a number of his own tenants, and farming neighbors, to
form themselves into a society for the purpose of having a library
among themselves. They entered into a legal engagement to abide by it
for three years; with a saving clause or two in case of a removal to a
distance, or death. Each member, at his entry, paid five shillings;
and at each of their meetings, which were held every fourth Saturday,
sixpence more. With their entry-money, and the credit which they took
on the faith of their future funds, they laid in a tolerable stock of
books at the commencement. What authors they were to purchase, was
always decided by the majority. At every meeting, all the books, under
certain fines and forfeitures, by way of penalty, were to be produced;
and the members had their choice of the volumes in rotation. He whose
name stood for that night first on the list, had his choice of what
volume he pleased in the whole collection; the second had his choice
after the first; the third after the second, and so on to the last. At
next meeting, he who had been first on the list at the preceding
meeting, was last at this; he who had been second was first; and so on
through the whole three years. At the expiration of the engagement the
books were sold by auction, but only among the members themselves;
each man had his share of the common stock, in money or in books, as
he chose to be a purchaser or not.
At the breaking up of this little society, which was formed under Mr.
Riddel's patronage, what with benefactions of books from him, and what
with their own purchases, they had collected together upwards of one
hundred and fifty volumes. It will easily be guessed, that a good deal
of trash would be bought. Among the books, however, of this little
library, were, _Blair's Sermons_, _Robertson's History of Scotland_,
_Hume's History of the Stewarts_, _The Spectator_, _Idler_,
_Adventurer_, _Mirror_, _Lounger_, _Observer_, _Man of Feeling_, _Man
of the World_, _Chrysal_, _Don Quixote_, _Joseph Andrews_, &c. A
peasant who can read, and enjoy such books, is certainly a much
superior being to his neighbour, who perhaps stalks besides his team,
very little removed, except in shape, from the brutes he drives.
Wishing your patriotic exertions their so much merited success,
I am, Sir,
Your humble servant,
A PEASANT.
* * * * *
CLXXXI.
TO CHARLES SHARPE, ESQ. ,
OF HODDAM.
[The family of Hoddam is of old standing in Nithsdale. It has mingled
blood with some of the noblest Scottish names; nor is it unknown
either in history or literature--the fierce knight of Closeburn, who
in the scuffle between Bruce and Comyne drew his sword and made
"sicker," and my friend Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, are not the least
distinguished of its members. ]
[1790. ]
It is true, Sir, you are a gentleman of rank and fortune, and I am a
poor devil: you are a feather in the cap of society, and I am a very
hobnail in its shoes; yet I have the honour to belong to the same
family with you, and on that score I now address you. You will perhaps
suspect that I am going to claim affinity with the ancient and
honourable house of Kirkpatrick. No, no, Sir: I cannot indeed be
properly said to belong to any house, or even any province or kingdom;
as my mother, who, for many years was spouse to a marching regiment,
gave me into this bad world, aboard the packet-boat, somewhere between
Donaghadee and Portpatrick. By our common family, I mean, Sir, the
family of the muses. I am a fiddler and a poet; and you, I am told,
play an exquisite violin, and have a standard taste in the Belles
Lettres. The other day, a brother catgut gave me a charming Scots air
of your composition. If I was pleased with the tune, I was in raptures
with the title you have given it; and taking up the idea I have spun
it into the three stanzas enclosed. Will you allow me, Sir, to present
you them, as the dearest offering that a misbegotten son of poverty
and rhyme has to give? I have a longing to take you by the hand and
unburthen my heart by saying, "Sir, I honour you as a man who supports
the dignity of human nature, amid an age when frivolity and avarice
have, between them, debased us below the brutes that perish! " But,
alas, Sir! to me you are unapproachable. It is true, the muses
baptized me in Castalian streams, but the thoughtless gipsies forgot
to give me a name. As the sex have served many a good fellow, the Nine
have given me a great deal of pleasure, but, bewitching jades! they
have beggared me. Would they but spare me a little of their
cast-linen! Were it only in my power to say that I have a shirt on my
back! but the idle wenches, like Solomon's lilies, "they toil not,
neither do they spin;" so I must e'en continue to tie my remnant of a
cravat, like the hangman's rope, round my naked throat, and coax my
galligaskins to keep together their many-coloured fragments. As to the
affair of shoes, I have given that up. My pilgrimages in my
ballad-trade, from town to town, and on your stony-hearted turnpikes
too, are what not even the hide of Job's Behemoth could bear. The coat
on my back is no more: I shall not speak evil of the dead. It would be
equally unhandsome and ungrateful to find fault with my old surtout,
which so kindly supplies and conceals the want of that coat. My hat
indeed is a great favourite; and though I got it literally for an old
song, I would not exchange it for the best beaver in Britain. I was,
during several years, a kind of factotum servant to a country
clergyman, where I pickt up a good many scraps of learning,
particularly in some branches of the mathematics. Whenever I feel
inclined to rest myself on my way, I take my seat under a hedge,
laying my poetic wallet on the one side, and my fiddle-case on the
other, and placing my hat between my legs, I can, by means of its
brim, or rather brims, go through the whole doctrine of the conic
sections.
However, Sir, don't let me mislead you, as if I would interest your
pity. Fortune has so much forsaken me, that she has taught me to live
without her; and amid all my rags and poverty, I am as independent,
and much more happy, than a monarch of the world. According to the
hackneyed metaphor, I value the several actors in the great drama of
life, simply as they act their parts. I can look on a worthless fellow
of a duke with unqualified contempt, and can regard an honest
scavenger with sincere respect. As you, Sir, go through your role with
such distinguished merit, permit me to make one in the chorus of
universal applause, and assure you that with the highest respect,
I have the honour to be, &c. ,
JOHNNY FAA.
* * * * *
CLXXXII.
TO MR. GILBERT BURNS.
[In the few fierce words of this letter the poet bids adieu to all
hopes of wealth from Ellisland. ]
_Ellisland, 11th January, 1790. _
DEAR BROTHER,
I mean to take advantage of the frank, though I have not, in my
present frame of mind, much appetite for exertion in writing. My
nerves are in a cursed state. I feel that horrid hypochondria
pervading every atom of both body and soul. This farm has undone my
enjoyment of myself. It is a ruinous affair on all hands But let it
go to bell! I'll fight it out and be off with it.
We have gotten a set of very decent players here just now. I have seen
them an evening or two. David Campbell, in Ayr, wrote to me by the
manager of the company, a Mr. Sutherland, who is a man of apparent
worth. On New-year-day evening I gave him the following prologue,
which he spouted to his audience with applause.
No song nor dance I bring from yon great city,
That queens it o'er our taste--the more's the pity:
Tho', by the bye, abroad why will you roam?
Good sense and taste are natives here at home.
I can no more. --If once I was clear of this cursed farm, I should
respire more at ease.
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXXXIII.
TO MR. SUTHERLAND,
PLAYER.
ENCLOSING A PROLOGUE.
[When the farm failed, the poet sought pleasure in the playhouse: he
tried to retire from his own harassing reflections, into a world
created by other minds. ]
_Monday Morning. _
I was much disappointed, my dear Sir, in wanting your most agreeable
company yesterday. However, I heartily pray for good weather next
Sunday; and whatever aerial Being has the guidance of the elements,
may take any other half-dozen of Sundays he pleases, and clothe them
with
"Vapours and clouds, and storms,
Until he terrify himself
At combustion of his own raising. "
I shall see you on Wednesday forenoon. In the greatest hurry,
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXXXIV.
TO WILLIAM DUNBAR, W. S.
[This letter was first published by the Ettrick Shepherd, in his
edition of Burns: it is remarkable for this sentence, "I am resolved
never to breed up a son of mine to any of the learned professions: I
know the value of independence, and since I cannot give my sons an
independent fortune, I shall give them an independent line of life. "
We may look round us and inquire which line of life the poet could
possibly mean. ]
_Ellisland, 14th January, 1790. _
Since we are here creatures of a day, since "a few summer days, and a
few winter nights, and the life of man is at an end," why, my dear
much-esteem Sir, should you and I let negligent indolence, for I know
it is nothing worse, step in between us and bar the enjoyment of a
mutual correspondence? We are not shapen out of the common, heavy,
methodical clod, the elemental stuff of the plodding selfish race, the
sons of Arithmetic and Prudence; our feelings and hearts are not
benumbed and poisoned by the cursed influence of riches, which,
whatever blessing they may be in other respects, are no friends to the
nobler qualities of the heart: in the name of random sensibility,
then, let never the moon change on our silence any more. I have had a
tract of had health most part of this winter, else you had heard from
me long ere now. Thank Heaven, I am now got so much better as to be
able to partake a little in the enjoyments of life.
Our friend Cunningham will, perhaps, have told you of my going into
the Excise. The truth is, I found it a very convenient business to
have ? 50 per annum, nor have I yet felt any of those mortifying
circumstances in it that I was led to fear.
_Feb. 2. _
I have not, for sheer hurry of business, been able to spare five
minutes to finish my letter. Besides my farm business, I ride on my
Excise matters at least two hundred miles every week. I have not by
any means given up the muses. You will see in the 3d vol. of Johnson's
Scots songs that I have contributed my mite there.
But, my dear Sir, little ones that look up to you for paternal
protection are an important charge. I have already two fine, healthy,
stout little fellows, and I wish to throw some light upon them. I have
a thousand reveries and schemes about them, and their future destiny.
Not that I am a Utopian projector in these things. I am resolved never
to breed up a son of mine to any of the learned professions. I know
the value of independence; and since I cannot give my sons an
independent fortune, I shall give them an independent line of life.
What a chaos of hurry, chance, and changes is this world, when one
sits soberly down to reflect on it! To a father, who himself knows the
world, the thought that he shall have sons to usher into it must fill
him with dread; but if he have daughters, the prospect in a thoughtful
moment is apt to shock him.
I hope Mrs. Fordyce and the two young ladies are well. Do let me
forget that they are nieces of yours, and let me say that I never saw
a more interesting, sweeter pair of sisters in my life. I am the fool
of my feelings and attachments. I often take up a volume of my Spenser
to realize you to my imagination, and think over the social scenes we
have had together. God grant that there may be another world more
congenial to honest fellows beyond this. A world where these rubs and
plagues of absence, distance, misfortunes, ill-health, &c. , shall no
more damp hilarity and divide friendship. This I know is your throng
season, but half a page will much oblige,
My dear Sir,
Yours sincerely,
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXXXV.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[Falconer, the poet, whom Burns mentions here, perished in the Aurora,
in which he acted as purser: he was a satirist of no mean power, and
wrote that useful work, the Marine Dictionary: but his fame depends
upon "The Shipwreck," one of the most original and mournful poems in
the language. ]
_Ellisland, 25th January, 1790. _
It has been owing to unremitting hurry of business that I have not
written to you, Madam, long ere now. My health is greatly better, and
I now begin once more to share in satisfaction and enjoyment with the
rest of my fellow-creatures.
Many thanks, my much-esteemed friend, for your kind letters; but why
will you make me run the risk of being contemptible and mercenary in
my own eyes? When I pique myself on my independent spirit, I hope it
is neither poetic license, nor poetic rant; and I am so flattered with
the honour you have done me, in making me your compeer in friendship
and friendly correspondence, that I cannot without pain, and a degree
of mortification, be reminded of the real inequality between our
situations.
Most sincerely do I rejoice with you, dear Madam, in the good news of
Anthony. Not only your anxiety about his fate, but my own esteem for
such a noble, warm-hearted, manly young fellow, in the little I had of
his acquaintance, has interested me deeply in his fortunes.
Falconer, the unfortunate author of the "Shipwreck," which you so much
admire, is no more. After witnessing the dreadful catastrophe he so
feelingly describes in his poem, and after weathering many hard gales
of fortune, he went to the bottom with the Aurora frigate!
I forget what part of Scotland had the honour of giving him birth; but
he was the son of obscurity and misfortune. He was one of those daring
adventurous spirits, which Scotland, beyond any other country, is
remarkable for producing. Little does the fond mother think, as she
hangs delighted over the sweet little leech at her bosom, where the
poor fellow may hereafter wander, and what may be his fate. I remember
a stanza in an old Scottish ballad, which, notwithstanding its rude
simplicity, speaks feelingly to the heart:
"Little did my mother think,
That day she cradled me,
What land I was to travel in,
Or what death I should die! "[195]
Old Scottish song are, you know, a favourite study and pursuit of
mine, and now I am on that subject, allow me to give you two stanzas
of another old simple ballad, which I am sure will please you. The
catastrophe of the piece is a poor ruined female, lamenting her fate.
She concludes with this pathetic wish:--
"O that my father had ne'er on me smil'd;
O that my mother had ne'er to me sung!
O that my cradle had never been rock'd;
But that I had died when I was young!
"O that the grave it were my bed;
My blankets were my winding sheet;
The clocks and the worms my bedfellows a';
And O sae sound as I should sleep! "
I do not remember in all my reading, to have met with anything more
truly the language of misery, than the exclamation in the last line.
Misery is like love; to speak its language truly, the author must have
felt it.
I am every day expecting the doctor to give your little godson[196]
the small-pox. They are _rife_ in the country, and I tremble for his
fate. By the way, I cannot help congratulating you on his looks and
spirit. Every person who sees him, acknowledges him to be the finest,
handsomest child he has ever seen. I am myself delighted with the
manly swell of his little chest, and a certain miniature dignity in
the carriage of his head, and the glance of his fine black eye, which
promise the undaunted gallantry of an independent mind.
I thought to have sent you some rhymes, but time forbids. I promise
you poetry until you are tired of it, next time I have the honour of
assuring you how truly I am, &c.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 195: The ballad is in the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border,
ed. 1833, vol. iii. p. 304. ]
[Footnote 196: The bard's second son, Francis. ]
* * * * *
CLXXXVI.
TO MR. PETER HILL,
BOOKSELLER, EDINBURGH.
[The Mademoiselle Burns whom the poet inquires about, was one of the
"ladies of the Canongate," who desired to introduce free trade in her
profession into a close borough: this was refused by the magistrates
of Edinburgh, though advocated with much eloquence and humour in a
letter by her namesake--it is coloured too strongly with her calling
to be published. ]
_Ellisland, 2d Feb. , 1790. _
No!
I will not say one word about apologies or excuses for not
writing. --I am a poor, rascally gauger, condemned to gallop at least
200 miles every week to inspect dirty ponds and yeasty barrels, and
where can I find time to write to, or importance to interest anybody?
The upbraidings of my conscience, nay the upbraidings of my wife, have
persecuted me on your account these two or three months past. --I wish
to God I was a great man, that my correspondence might throw light
upon you, to let the world see what you really are: and then I would
make your fortune without putting my hand in my pocket for you, which,
like all other great men, I suppose I would avoid as much as possible.
What are you doing, and how are you doing? Have you lately seen any of
my few friends? What is become of the BOROUGH REFORM, or how
is the fate of my poor namesake, Mademoiselle Burns, decided? O man!
but for thee and thy selfish appetites, and dishonest artifices, that
beauteous form, and that once innocent and still ingenuous mind, might
have shone conspicuous and lovely in the faithful wife, and the
affectionate mother; and shall the unfortunate sacrifice to thy
pleasures have no claim on thy humanity!
I saw lately in a Review, some extracts from a new poem, called the
Village Curate; send it me. I want likewise a cheap copy of The World.
Mr. Armstrong, the young poet, who does me the honour to mention me so
kindly in his works, please give him my best thanks for the copy of
his book--I shall write him, my first leisure hour. I like his poetry
much, but I think his style in prose quite astonishing.
Your book came safe, and I am going to trouble you with further
commissions. I call it troubling you,--because I want only,
BOOKS; the cheapest way, the best; so you may have to hunt
for them in the evening auctions. I want Smollette's works, for the
sake of his incomparable humour. I have already Roderick Random, and
Humphrey Clinker. --Peregrine Pickle, Launcelot Greaves, and Ferdinand
Count Fathom, I still want; but as I said, the veriest ordinary copies
will serve me. I am nice only in the appearance of my poets. I forget
the price of Cowper's Poems, but, I believe, I must have them. I saw
the other day, proposals for a publication, entitled "Banks's new and
complete Christian's Family Bible," printed for C. Cooke,
Paternoster-row, London. --He promises at least, to give in the work, I
think it is three hundred and odd engravings, to which he has put the
names of the first artists in London. --You will know the character of
the performance, as some numbers of it are published; and if it is
really what it pretends to be, set me down as a subscriber, and send
me the published numbers.
Let me hear from you, your first leisure minute, and trust me you
shall in future have no reason to complain of my silence. The dazzling
perplexity of novelty will dissipate and leave me to pursue my course
in the quiet path of methodical routine.
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXXXVII.
TO MR. W. NICOL.
[The poet has recorded this unlooked-for death of the Dominie's mare
in some hasty verses, which are not much superior to the subject. ]
_Ellisland, Feb. 9th, 1790. _
MY DEAR SIR,
That d--mned mare of yours is dead. I would freely have given her
price to have saved her; she has vexed me beyond description. Indebted
as I was to your goodness beyond what I can ever repay, I eagerly
grasped at your offer to have the mare with me. That I might at least
show my readiness in wishing to be grateful, I took every care of her
in my power. She was never crossed for riding above half a score of
times by me or in my keeping. I drew her in the plough, one of three,
for one poor week. I refused fifty-five shillings for her, which was
the highest bode I could squeeze for her. I fed her up and had her in
fine order for Dumfries fair; when four or five days before the fair,
she was seized with an unaccountable disorder in the sinews, or
somewhere in the bones of the neck; with a weakness or total want of
power in her fillets, and in short the whole vertebrae of her spine
seemed to be diseased and unhinged, and in eight-and-forty hours, in
spite of the two best farriers in the country, she died and be d--mned
to her! The farriers said that she had been quite strained in the
fillets beyond cure before you had bought her; and that the poor
devil, though she might keep a little flesh, had been jaded and quite
worn out with fatigue and oppression. While she was with me, she was
under my own eye, and I assure you, my much valued friend, everything
was done for her that could be done; and the accident has vexed me to
the heart. In fact I could not pluck up spirits to write to you, on
account of the unfortunate business.
There is little new in this country. Our theatrical company, of which
you must have heard, leave us this week. --Their merit and character
are indeed very great, both on the stage and in private life; not a
worthless creature among them; and their encouragement has been
accordingly. Their usual run is from eighteen to twenty-five pounds a
night: seldom less than the one, and the house will hold no more than
the other. There have been repeated instances of sending away six, and
eight, and ten pounds a night for want of room. A new theatre is to be
built by subscription; the first stone is to be laid on Friday first
to come. Three hundred guineas have been raised by thirty subscribers,
and thirty more might have been got if wanted. The manager, Mr.
Sutherland, was introduced to me by a friend from Ayr; and a worthier
or cleverer fellow I have rarely met with. Some of our clergy have
slipt in by stealth now and then; but they have got up a farce of
their own. You must have heard how the Rev. Mr. Lawson of Kirkmahoe,
seconded by the Rev. Mr. Kirkpatrick of Dunscore, and the rest of that
faction, have accused in formal process, the unfortunate and Rev. Mr.
Heron, of Kirkgunzeon, that in ordaining Mr. Nielson to the cure of
souls in Kirkbean, he, the said Heron, feloniously and treasonably
bound the said Nielson to the confession of faith, _so far as it was
agreeable to reason and the word of God_!
Mrs. B. begs to be remembered most gratefully to you. Little Bobby and
Frank are charmingly well and healthy. I am jaded to death with
fatigue. For these two or three months, on an average, I have not
ridden less than two hundred miles per week. I have done little in the
poetic way. I have given Mr. Sutherland two Prologues; one of which
was delivered last week. I have likewise strung four or five barbarous
stanzas, to the tune of Chevy Chase, by way of Elegy on your poor
unfortunate mare, beginning (the name she got here was Peg Nicholson)
"Peg Nicholson was a good bay mare,
As ever trod on airn;
But now she's floating down the Nith,
And past the mouth o' Cairn. "
My best compliments to Mrs. Nicol, and little Neddy, and all the
family; I hope Ned is a good scholar, and will come out to gather nuts
and apples with me next harvest.
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXXXVIII.
TO MR. CUNNINGHAM.
[Burns looks back with something of regret to the days of rich dinners
and flowing wine-cups which he experienced in Edinburgh. Alexander
Cunningham and his unhappy loves are recorded in that fine song, "Had
I a cave on some wild distant shore. "]
_Ellisland, 13th February, 1790. _
I beg your pardon, my dear and much valued friend, for writing to you
on this very unfashionable, unsightly sheet--
"My poverty but not my will consents. "
But to make amends, since of modish post I have none, except one poor
widowed half-sheet of gilt, which lies in my drawer among my plebeian
fool's-cap pages, like the widow of a man of fashion, whom that
unpolite scoundrel, Necessity, has driven from Burgundy and Pineapple,
to a dish of Bohea, with the scandal-bearing help-mate of a
village-priest; or a glass of whisky-toddy, with a ruby-nosed
yoke-fellow of a foot-padding exciseman--I make a vow to enclose this
sheet-full of epistolary fragments in that my only scrap of gilt
paper.
I am indeed your unworthy debtor for three friendly letters. I ought
to have written to you long ere now, but it is a literal fact, I have
scarcely a spare moment. It is not that I _will not_ write to you;
Miss Burnet is not more dear to her guardian angel, nor his grace the
Duke of Queensbury to the powers of darkness, than my friend
Cunningham to me. It is not that I _cannot_ write to you; should you
doubt it, take the following fragment, which was intended for you some
time ago, and be convinced that I can _antithesize_ sentiment, and
_circumvolute_ periods, as well as any coiner of phrase in the regions
of philology.
_December, 1789. _
MY DEAR CUNNINGHAM,
Where are you? And what are you doing? Can you be that son of levity,
who takes up a friendship as he takes up a fashion; or are you, like
some other of the worthiest fellows in the world, the victim of
indolence, laden with fetters of ever-increasing weight?
What strange beings we are! Since we have a portion of conscious
existence, equally capable of enjoying pleasure, happiness, and
rapture, or of suffering pain, wretchedness, and misery, it is surely
worthy of an inquiry, whether there be not such a thing as a science
of life; whether method, economy, and fertility of expedients be not
applicable to enjoyment, and whether there be not a want of dexterity
in pleasure, which renders our little scantling of happiness still
less; and a profuseness, an intoxication in bliss, which leads to
satiety, disgust, and self-abhorrence. There is not a doubt but that
health, talents, character, decent competency, respectable friends,
are real substantial blessings; and yet do we not daily see those who
enjoy many or all of these good things contrive notwithstanding to be
as unhappy as others to whose lot few of them have fallen? I believe
one great source of this mistake or misconduct is owing to a certain
stimulus, with us called ambition, which goads us up the hill of life,
not as we ascend other eminences, for the laudable curiosity of
viewing an extended landscape, but rather for the dishonest pride of
looking down on others of our fellow-creatures, seemingly diminutive
in humbler stations, &c &c.
_Sunday, 14th February, 1790. _
God help me! I am now obliged to
"Join night to day, and Sunday to the week. "[197]
If there be any truth in the orthodox faith of these churches, I am
d--mned past redemption, and what is worse, d--mned to all eternity. I
am deeply read in Boston's Four-fold State, Marshal on Sanctification,
Guthrie's Trial of a Saving Interest, &c. ; but "there is no balm in
Gilead, there is no physician there," for me; so I shall e'en turn
Arminian, and trust to "sincere though imperfect obedience. "
_Tuesday, 16th. _
Luckily for me, I was prevented from the discussion of the knotty
point at which I had just made a full stop. All my fears and care are
of this world: if there is another, an honest man has nothing to fear
from it. I hate a man that wishes to be a Deist: but I fear, every
fair, unprejudiced inquirer must in some degree be a sceptic. It is
not that there are any very staggering arguments against the
immortality of man; but like electricity, phlogiston, &c. , the subject
is so involved in darkness, that we want data to go upon. One thing
frightens me much: that we are to live for ever, seems _too good news
to be true. _ That we are to enter into a new scene of existence,
where, exempt from want and pain, we shall enjoy ourselves and our
friends without satiety or separation--how much should I be indebted
to any one who could fully assure me that this was certain!
My time is once more expired. I will write to Mr. Cleghorn soon. God
bless him and all his concerns! And may all the powers that preside
over conviviality and friendship, be present with all their kindest
influence, when the bearer of this, Mr. Syme, and you meet! I wish I
could also make one.
Finally, brethren, farewell! Whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever
things are gentle, whatsoever things are charitable, whatsoever things
are kind, think on these things, and think on
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 197: Young. _Satire on Women. _]
* * * * *
CLXXXIX.
TO MR. PETER HILL.
[That Burns turned at this time his thoughts on the drama, this order
to his bookseller for dramatic works, as well as his attendances at
the Dumfries theatre, afford proof. ]
_Ellisland, 2d March, 1790. _
At a late meeting of the Monkland Friendly Society, it was resolved to
augment their library by the following books, which you are to send us
as soon as possible:--The Mirror, The Lounger, Man of Feeling, Man of
the World, (these, for my own sake, I wish to have by the first
carrier), Knox's History of the Reformation; Rae's History of the
Rebellion in 1715; any good history of the rebellion in 1745; A
Display of the Secession Act and Testimony, by Mr. Gibb; Hervey's
Meditations; Beveridge's Thoughts; and another copy of Watson's Body
of Divinity.
I wrote to Mr. A. Masterton three or four months ago, to pay some
money he owed me into your hands, and lately I wrote to you to the
same purpose, but I have heard from neither one or other of you.
In addition to the books I commissioned in my last, I want very much
An Index to the Excise Laws, or an Abridgment of all the Statutes now
in force relative to the Excise, by Jellinger Symons; I want three
copies of this book: if it is now to be had, cheap or dear, get it for
me. An honest country neighbour of mine wants too a Family Bible, the
larger the better; but second-handed, for he does not choose to give
above ten shillings for the book. I want likewise for myself, as you
can pick them up, second-handed or cheap, copies of Otway's Dramatic
Works, Ben Jonson's, Dryden's, Congreve's, Wycherley's, Vanbrugh's,
Cibber's, or any dramatic works of the more modern, Macklin, Garrick,
Foote, Colman, or Sheridan. A good copy too of Moliere, in French, I
much want. Any other good dramatic authors in that language I want
also; but comic authors, chiefly, though I should wish to have Racine,
Corneille, and Voltaire too. I am in no hurry for all, or any of
these, but if you accidentally meet with them very cheap, get them for
me.
And now to quit the dry walk of business, how do you do, my dear
friend? and how is Mrs. Hill? I trust, if now and then not so
_elegantly_ handsome, at least as amiable, and sings as divinely as
ever. My good wife too has a charming "wood-note wild;" now could we
four ----.
I am out of all patience with this vile world, for one thing. Mankind
are by nature benevolent creatures, except in a few scoundrelly
instances. I do not think that avarice of the good things we chance to
have, is born with us; but we are placed here amid so much nakedness,
and hunger, and poverty, and want, that we are under a cursed
necessity of studying selfishness, in order that we may
EXIST! Still there are, in every age, a few souls, that all
the wants and woes of life cannot debase to selfishness, or even to
the necessary alloy of caution and prudence. If ever I am in danger of
vanity, it is when I contemplate myself on this side of my disposition
and character. God knows I am no saint; I have a whole host of follies
and sin, to answer for; but if I could, and I believe I do it as far
as I can, I would wipe away all tears from all eyes.
Adieu!
R. B.
* * * * *
CXC.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[It is not a little singular that Burns says, in this letter, he had
just met with the Mirror and Lounger for the first time: it will be
remembered that a few years before a generous article was dedicated by
Mackenzie, the editor, to the Poems of Burns, and to this the poet
often alludes in his correspondence. ]
_Ellisland, 10th April, 1790. _
I have just now, my ever honoured friend, enjoyed a very high luxury,
in reading a paper of the Lounger. You know my national prejudices. I
had often read and admired the Spectator, Adventurer, Rambler, and
World; but still with a certain regret, that they were so thoroughly
and entirely English. Alas! have I often said to myself, what are all
the boasted advantages which my country reaps from the union, that can
counterbalance the annihilation of her independence, and even her very
name! I often repeat that couplet of my favourite poet, Goldsmith--
"------ States of native liberty possest,
Tho' very poor, may yet be very blest. "
Nothing can reconcile me to the common terms, "English ambassador,
English court," &c. And I am out of all patience to see that equivocal
character, Hastings, impeached by "the Commons of England. " Tell me, my
friend, is this weak prejudice? I believe in my conscience such ideas as
"my country; her independence; her honour; the illustrious names that
mark the history of my native land;" &c. --I believe these, among your
_men of the world_, men who in fact guide for the most part and govern
our world, are looked on as so many modifications of wrongheadedness.
They know the use of bawling out such terms, to rouse or lead THE
RABBLE; but for their own private use, with almost all the _able
statesmen_ that ever existed, or now exist, when they talk of right and
wrong, they only mean proper and improper; and their measure of conduct
is, not what they OUGHT, but what they DARE. For the truth of this I
shall not ransack the history of nations, but appeal to one of the
ablest judges of men that ever lived--the celebrated Earl of
Chesterfield. In fact, a man who could thoroughly control his vices
whenever they interfered with his interests, and who could completely
put on the appearance of every virtue as often as it suited his
purposes, is, on the Stanhopean plan, the _perfect man_; a man to lead
nations. But are great abilities, complete without a flaw, and polished
without a blemish, the standard of human excellence? This is certainly
the staunch opinion of _men of the world_; but I call on honour, virtue,
and worth, to give the stygian doctrine a loud negative! However, this
must be allowed, that, if you abstract from man the idea of an existence
beyond the grave, _then_ the true measure of human conduct is, _proper_
and _improper_: virtue and vice, as dispositions of the heart, are, in
that case, of scarcely the same import and value to the world at large,
as harmony and discord in the modifications of sound; and a delicate
sense of honour, like a nice ear for music, though it may sometimes give
the possessor an ecstasy unknown to the coarser organs of the herd, yet,
considering the harsh gratings, and inharmonic jars, in this ill-tuned
state of being, it is odds but the individual would be as happy, and
certainly would be as much respected by the true judges of society as it
would then stand, without either a good ear or a good heart.
You must know I have just met with the Mirror and Lounger for the
first time, and I am quite in raptures with them; I should be glad to
have your opinion of some of the papers. The one I have just read,
Lounger, No. 61, has cost me more honest tears than anything I have
read of a long time. Mackenzie has been called the Addison of the
Scots, and in my opinion, Addison would not be hurt at the comparison.
If he has not Addison's exquisite humour, he as certainly outdoes him
in the tender and the pathetic. His Man of Feeling (but I am not
counsel learned in the laws of criticism) I estimate as the first
performance in its kind I ever saw. From what book, moral or even
pious, will the susceptible young mind receive impressions more
congenial to humanity and kindness, generosity and benevolence; in
short, more of all that ennobles the soul to herself, or endears her
to others--than from the simple affecting tale of poor Harley?
Still, with all my admiration of Mackenzie's writings, I do not know
if they are the fittest reading for a young man who is about to set
out, as the phrase is, to make his way into life. Do not you think,
Madam, that among the few favoured of heaven in the structure of their
minds (for such there certainly are) there may be a purity, a
tenderness, a dignity, an elegance of soul, which are of no use, nay,
in some degree, absolutely disqualifying for the truly important
business of making a man's way into life? If I am not much mistaken,
my gallant young friend, A * * * * * *, is very much under these
disqualifications; and for the young females of a family I could
mention, well may they excite parental solicitude, for I, a common
acquaintance, or as my vanity will have it, an humble friend, have
often trembled for a turn of mind which may render them eminently
happy--or peculiarly miserable!
I have been manufacturing some verses lately; but when I have got the
most hurried season of excise business over, I hope to have more
leisure to transcribe anything that may show how much I have the
honour to be, Madam,
Yours, &c.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXCI.
TO COLLECTOR MITCHELL.
[Collector Mitchell was a kind and considerate gentle man: to his
grandson, Mr. John Campbell, surgeon, in Aberdeen, I owe this
characteristic letter. ]
_Ellisland, 1790. _
SIR,
I shall not fail to wait on Captain Riddel to-night--I wish and pray
that the goddess of justice herself would appear to-morrow among our
hon. gentlemen, merely to give them a word in their ear that mercy to
the thief is injustice to the honest man. For my part I have galloped
over my ten parishes these four days, until this moment that I am just
alighted, or rather, that my poor jackass-skeleton of a horse has let
me down; for the miserable devil has been on his knees half a score of
times within the last twenty miles, telling me in his own way,
'Behold, am not I thy faithful jade of a horse, on which thou hast
ridden these many years! '
In short, Sir, I have broke my horse's wind, and almost broke my own
neck, besides some injuries in a part that shall be nameless, owing to
a hard-hearted stone for a saddle. I find that every offender has so
many great men to espouse his cause, that I shall not be surprised if
I am committed to the strong hold of the law to-morrow for insolence
to the dear friends of the gentlemen of the country.
I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your obliged and obedient humble
R.
for their prudence; but as I can do nothing for a cause which is now
nearly no more, I do not wish to hurt myself.
I have the honour to be,
My lady,
Your ladyship's obliged and obedient
Humble servant,
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXXIX.
TO PROVOST MAXWELL,
OF LOCHMABEN.
[Of Lochmaben, the "Marjory of the mony Lochs" of the election
ballads, Maxwell was at this time provost, a post more of honour than
of labour. ]
_Ellisland, 20th December, 1789. _
DEAR PROVOST,
As my friend Mr. Graham goes for your good town to-morrow, I cannot
resist the temptation to send you a few lines, and as I have nothing
to say I have chosen this sheet of foolscap, and begun as you see at
the top of the first page, because I have ever observed, that when
once people have fairly set out they know not where to stop. Now that
my first sentence is concluded, I have nothing to do but to pray
heaven to help me on to another. Shall I write you on Politics or
Religion, two master subjects for your sayers of nothing. Of the first
I dare say by this time you are nearly surfeited: and for the last,
whatever they may talk of it, who make it a kind of company concern, I
never could endure it beyond a soliloquy. I might write you on
farming, on building, or marketing, but my poor distracted mind is so
torn, so jaded, so racked and bediveled with the task of the
superlative damned to make _one guinea do the business of three_, that
I detest, abhor, and swoon at the very word business, though no less
than four letters of my very short sirname are in it.
Well, to make the matter short, I shall betake myself to a subject
ever fruitful of themes; a subject the turtle-feast of the sons of
Satan, and the delicious secret sugar-plum of the babes of grace--a
subject sparkling with all the jewels that wit can find in the mines
of genius: and pregnant with all the stores of learning from Moses and
Confucius to Franklin and Priestley--in short, may it please your
Lordship, I intend to write * * *
[_Here the Poet inserted a song which can only be sung at times when
the punch-bowl has done its duty and wild wit is set free. _]
If at any time you expect a field-day in your town, a day when Dukes,
Earls, and Knights pay their court to weavers, tailors, and cobblers,
I should like to know of it two or three days beforehand. It is not
that I care three skips of a cur dog for the politics, but I should
like to see such an exhibition of human nature. If you meet with that
worthy old veteran in religion and good-fellowship, Mr. Jeffrey, or
any of his amiable family, I beg you will give them my best
compliments.
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXXX.
TO SIR JOHN SINCLAIR.
[Of the Monkland Book-Club alluded to in this letter, the clergyman
had omitted all mention in his account of the Parish of Dunscore,
published in Sir John Sinclair's work: some of the books which the
poet introduced were stigmatized as vain and frivolous. ]
1790.
SIR,
The following circumstance has, I believe, been committed in the
statistical account, transmitted to you of the parish of Dunscore, in
Nithsdale. I beg leave to send it to you because it is new, and may be
useful. How far it is deserving of a place in your patriotic
publication, you are the best judge.
To store the minds of the lower classes with useful knowledge, is
certainly of very great importance, both to them as individuals and to
society at large. Giving them a turn for reading and reflection, is
giving them a source of innocent and laudable amusement: and besides,
raises them to a more dignified degree in the scale of rationality.
Impressed with this idea, a gentleman in this parish, Robert Riddel,
Esq. , of Glenriddel, set on foot a species of circulating library, on
a plan so simple as to be practicable in any corner of the country;
and so useful, as to deserve the notice of every country gentleman,
who thinks the improvement of that part of his own species, whom
chance has thrown into the humble walks of the peasant and the
artisan, a matter worthy of his attention.
Mr. Riddel got a number of his own tenants, and farming neighbors, to
form themselves into a society for the purpose of having a library
among themselves. They entered into a legal engagement to abide by it
for three years; with a saving clause or two in case of a removal to a
distance, or death. Each member, at his entry, paid five shillings;
and at each of their meetings, which were held every fourth Saturday,
sixpence more. With their entry-money, and the credit which they took
on the faith of their future funds, they laid in a tolerable stock of
books at the commencement. What authors they were to purchase, was
always decided by the majority. At every meeting, all the books, under
certain fines and forfeitures, by way of penalty, were to be produced;
and the members had their choice of the volumes in rotation. He whose
name stood for that night first on the list, had his choice of what
volume he pleased in the whole collection; the second had his choice
after the first; the third after the second, and so on to the last. At
next meeting, he who had been first on the list at the preceding
meeting, was last at this; he who had been second was first; and so on
through the whole three years. At the expiration of the engagement the
books were sold by auction, but only among the members themselves;
each man had his share of the common stock, in money or in books, as
he chose to be a purchaser or not.
At the breaking up of this little society, which was formed under Mr.
Riddel's patronage, what with benefactions of books from him, and what
with their own purchases, they had collected together upwards of one
hundred and fifty volumes. It will easily be guessed, that a good deal
of trash would be bought. Among the books, however, of this little
library, were, _Blair's Sermons_, _Robertson's History of Scotland_,
_Hume's History of the Stewarts_, _The Spectator_, _Idler_,
_Adventurer_, _Mirror_, _Lounger_, _Observer_, _Man of Feeling_, _Man
of the World_, _Chrysal_, _Don Quixote_, _Joseph Andrews_, &c. A
peasant who can read, and enjoy such books, is certainly a much
superior being to his neighbour, who perhaps stalks besides his team,
very little removed, except in shape, from the brutes he drives.
Wishing your patriotic exertions their so much merited success,
I am, Sir,
Your humble servant,
A PEASANT.
* * * * *
CLXXXI.
TO CHARLES SHARPE, ESQ. ,
OF HODDAM.
[The family of Hoddam is of old standing in Nithsdale. It has mingled
blood with some of the noblest Scottish names; nor is it unknown
either in history or literature--the fierce knight of Closeburn, who
in the scuffle between Bruce and Comyne drew his sword and made
"sicker," and my friend Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, are not the least
distinguished of its members. ]
[1790. ]
It is true, Sir, you are a gentleman of rank and fortune, and I am a
poor devil: you are a feather in the cap of society, and I am a very
hobnail in its shoes; yet I have the honour to belong to the same
family with you, and on that score I now address you. You will perhaps
suspect that I am going to claim affinity with the ancient and
honourable house of Kirkpatrick. No, no, Sir: I cannot indeed be
properly said to belong to any house, or even any province or kingdom;
as my mother, who, for many years was spouse to a marching regiment,
gave me into this bad world, aboard the packet-boat, somewhere between
Donaghadee and Portpatrick. By our common family, I mean, Sir, the
family of the muses. I am a fiddler and a poet; and you, I am told,
play an exquisite violin, and have a standard taste in the Belles
Lettres. The other day, a brother catgut gave me a charming Scots air
of your composition. If I was pleased with the tune, I was in raptures
with the title you have given it; and taking up the idea I have spun
it into the three stanzas enclosed. Will you allow me, Sir, to present
you them, as the dearest offering that a misbegotten son of poverty
and rhyme has to give? I have a longing to take you by the hand and
unburthen my heart by saying, "Sir, I honour you as a man who supports
the dignity of human nature, amid an age when frivolity and avarice
have, between them, debased us below the brutes that perish! " But,
alas, Sir! to me you are unapproachable. It is true, the muses
baptized me in Castalian streams, but the thoughtless gipsies forgot
to give me a name. As the sex have served many a good fellow, the Nine
have given me a great deal of pleasure, but, bewitching jades! they
have beggared me. Would they but spare me a little of their
cast-linen! Were it only in my power to say that I have a shirt on my
back! but the idle wenches, like Solomon's lilies, "they toil not,
neither do they spin;" so I must e'en continue to tie my remnant of a
cravat, like the hangman's rope, round my naked throat, and coax my
galligaskins to keep together their many-coloured fragments. As to the
affair of shoes, I have given that up. My pilgrimages in my
ballad-trade, from town to town, and on your stony-hearted turnpikes
too, are what not even the hide of Job's Behemoth could bear. The coat
on my back is no more: I shall not speak evil of the dead. It would be
equally unhandsome and ungrateful to find fault with my old surtout,
which so kindly supplies and conceals the want of that coat. My hat
indeed is a great favourite; and though I got it literally for an old
song, I would not exchange it for the best beaver in Britain. I was,
during several years, a kind of factotum servant to a country
clergyman, where I pickt up a good many scraps of learning,
particularly in some branches of the mathematics. Whenever I feel
inclined to rest myself on my way, I take my seat under a hedge,
laying my poetic wallet on the one side, and my fiddle-case on the
other, and placing my hat between my legs, I can, by means of its
brim, or rather brims, go through the whole doctrine of the conic
sections.
However, Sir, don't let me mislead you, as if I would interest your
pity. Fortune has so much forsaken me, that she has taught me to live
without her; and amid all my rags and poverty, I am as independent,
and much more happy, than a monarch of the world. According to the
hackneyed metaphor, I value the several actors in the great drama of
life, simply as they act their parts. I can look on a worthless fellow
of a duke with unqualified contempt, and can regard an honest
scavenger with sincere respect. As you, Sir, go through your role with
such distinguished merit, permit me to make one in the chorus of
universal applause, and assure you that with the highest respect,
I have the honour to be, &c. ,
JOHNNY FAA.
* * * * *
CLXXXII.
TO MR. GILBERT BURNS.
[In the few fierce words of this letter the poet bids adieu to all
hopes of wealth from Ellisland. ]
_Ellisland, 11th January, 1790. _
DEAR BROTHER,
I mean to take advantage of the frank, though I have not, in my
present frame of mind, much appetite for exertion in writing. My
nerves are in a cursed state. I feel that horrid hypochondria
pervading every atom of both body and soul. This farm has undone my
enjoyment of myself. It is a ruinous affair on all hands But let it
go to bell! I'll fight it out and be off with it.
We have gotten a set of very decent players here just now. I have seen
them an evening or two. David Campbell, in Ayr, wrote to me by the
manager of the company, a Mr. Sutherland, who is a man of apparent
worth. On New-year-day evening I gave him the following prologue,
which he spouted to his audience with applause.
No song nor dance I bring from yon great city,
That queens it o'er our taste--the more's the pity:
Tho', by the bye, abroad why will you roam?
Good sense and taste are natives here at home.
I can no more. --If once I was clear of this cursed farm, I should
respire more at ease.
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXXXIII.
TO MR. SUTHERLAND,
PLAYER.
ENCLOSING A PROLOGUE.
[When the farm failed, the poet sought pleasure in the playhouse: he
tried to retire from his own harassing reflections, into a world
created by other minds. ]
_Monday Morning. _
I was much disappointed, my dear Sir, in wanting your most agreeable
company yesterday. However, I heartily pray for good weather next
Sunday; and whatever aerial Being has the guidance of the elements,
may take any other half-dozen of Sundays he pleases, and clothe them
with
"Vapours and clouds, and storms,
Until he terrify himself
At combustion of his own raising. "
I shall see you on Wednesday forenoon. In the greatest hurry,
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXXXIV.
TO WILLIAM DUNBAR, W. S.
[This letter was first published by the Ettrick Shepherd, in his
edition of Burns: it is remarkable for this sentence, "I am resolved
never to breed up a son of mine to any of the learned professions: I
know the value of independence, and since I cannot give my sons an
independent fortune, I shall give them an independent line of life. "
We may look round us and inquire which line of life the poet could
possibly mean. ]
_Ellisland, 14th January, 1790. _
Since we are here creatures of a day, since "a few summer days, and a
few winter nights, and the life of man is at an end," why, my dear
much-esteem Sir, should you and I let negligent indolence, for I know
it is nothing worse, step in between us and bar the enjoyment of a
mutual correspondence? We are not shapen out of the common, heavy,
methodical clod, the elemental stuff of the plodding selfish race, the
sons of Arithmetic and Prudence; our feelings and hearts are not
benumbed and poisoned by the cursed influence of riches, which,
whatever blessing they may be in other respects, are no friends to the
nobler qualities of the heart: in the name of random sensibility,
then, let never the moon change on our silence any more. I have had a
tract of had health most part of this winter, else you had heard from
me long ere now. Thank Heaven, I am now got so much better as to be
able to partake a little in the enjoyments of life.
Our friend Cunningham will, perhaps, have told you of my going into
the Excise. The truth is, I found it a very convenient business to
have ? 50 per annum, nor have I yet felt any of those mortifying
circumstances in it that I was led to fear.
_Feb. 2. _
I have not, for sheer hurry of business, been able to spare five
minutes to finish my letter. Besides my farm business, I ride on my
Excise matters at least two hundred miles every week. I have not by
any means given up the muses. You will see in the 3d vol. of Johnson's
Scots songs that I have contributed my mite there.
But, my dear Sir, little ones that look up to you for paternal
protection are an important charge. I have already two fine, healthy,
stout little fellows, and I wish to throw some light upon them. I have
a thousand reveries and schemes about them, and their future destiny.
Not that I am a Utopian projector in these things. I am resolved never
to breed up a son of mine to any of the learned professions. I know
the value of independence; and since I cannot give my sons an
independent fortune, I shall give them an independent line of life.
What a chaos of hurry, chance, and changes is this world, when one
sits soberly down to reflect on it! To a father, who himself knows the
world, the thought that he shall have sons to usher into it must fill
him with dread; but if he have daughters, the prospect in a thoughtful
moment is apt to shock him.
I hope Mrs. Fordyce and the two young ladies are well. Do let me
forget that they are nieces of yours, and let me say that I never saw
a more interesting, sweeter pair of sisters in my life. I am the fool
of my feelings and attachments. I often take up a volume of my Spenser
to realize you to my imagination, and think over the social scenes we
have had together. God grant that there may be another world more
congenial to honest fellows beyond this. A world where these rubs and
plagues of absence, distance, misfortunes, ill-health, &c. , shall no
more damp hilarity and divide friendship. This I know is your throng
season, but half a page will much oblige,
My dear Sir,
Yours sincerely,
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXXXV.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[Falconer, the poet, whom Burns mentions here, perished in the Aurora,
in which he acted as purser: he was a satirist of no mean power, and
wrote that useful work, the Marine Dictionary: but his fame depends
upon "The Shipwreck," one of the most original and mournful poems in
the language. ]
_Ellisland, 25th January, 1790. _
It has been owing to unremitting hurry of business that I have not
written to you, Madam, long ere now. My health is greatly better, and
I now begin once more to share in satisfaction and enjoyment with the
rest of my fellow-creatures.
Many thanks, my much-esteemed friend, for your kind letters; but why
will you make me run the risk of being contemptible and mercenary in
my own eyes? When I pique myself on my independent spirit, I hope it
is neither poetic license, nor poetic rant; and I am so flattered with
the honour you have done me, in making me your compeer in friendship
and friendly correspondence, that I cannot without pain, and a degree
of mortification, be reminded of the real inequality between our
situations.
Most sincerely do I rejoice with you, dear Madam, in the good news of
Anthony. Not only your anxiety about his fate, but my own esteem for
such a noble, warm-hearted, manly young fellow, in the little I had of
his acquaintance, has interested me deeply in his fortunes.
Falconer, the unfortunate author of the "Shipwreck," which you so much
admire, is no more. After witnessing the dreadful catastrophe he so
feelingly describes in his poem, and after weathering many hard gales
of fortune, he went to the bottom with the Aurora frigate!
I forget what part of Scotland had the honour of giving him birth; but
he was the son of obscurity and misfortune. He was one of those daring
adventurous spirits, which Scotland, beyond any other country, is
remarkable for producing. Little does the fond mother think, as she
hangs delighted over the sweet little leech at her bosom, where the
poor fellow may hereafter wander, and what may be his fate. I remember
a stanza in an old Scottish ballad, which, notwithstanding its rude
simplicity, speaks feelingly to the heart:
"Little did my mother think,
That day she cradled me,
What land I was to travel in,
Or what death I should die! "[195]
Old Scottish song are, you know, a favourite study and pursuit of
mine, and now I am on that subject, allow me to give you two stanzas
of another old simple ballad, which I am sure will please you. The
catastrophe of the piece is a poor ruined female, lamenting her fate.
She concludes with this pathetic wish:--
"O that my father had ne'er on me smil'd;
O that my mother had ne'er to me sung!
O that my cradle had never been rock'd;
But that I had died when I was young!
"O that the grave it were my bed;
My blankets were my winding sheet;
The clocks and the worms my bedfellows a';
And O sae sound as I should sleep! "
I do not remember in all my reading, to have met with anything more
truly the language of misery, than the exclamation in the last line.
Misery is like love; to speak its language truly, the author must have
felt it.
I am every day expecting the doctor to give your little godson[196]
the small-pox. They are _rife_ in the country, and I tremble for his
fate. By the way, I cannot help congratulating you on his looks and
spirit. Every person who sees him, acknowledges him to be the finest,
handsomest child he has ever seen. I am myself delighted with the
manly swell of his little chest, and a certain miniature dignity in
the carriage of his head, and the glance of his fine black eye, which
promise the undaunted gallantry of an independent mind.
I thought to have sent you some rhymes, but time forbids. I promise
you poetry until you are tired of it, next time I have the honour of
assuring you how truly I am, &c.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 195: The ballad is in the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border,
ed. 1833, vol. iii. p. 304. ]
[Footnote 196: The bard's second son, Francis. ]
* * * * *
CLXXXVI.
TO MR. PETER HILL,
BOOKSELLER, EDINBURGH.
[The Mademoiselle Burns whom the poet inquires about, was one of the
"ladies of the Canongate," who desired to introduce free trade in her
profession into a close borough: this was refused by the magistrates
of Edinburgh, though advocated with much eloquence and humour in a
letter by her namesake--it is coloured too strongly with her calling
to be published. ]
_Ellisland, 2d Feb. , 1790. _
No!
I will not say one word about apologies or excuses for not
writing. --I am a poor, rascally gauger, condemned to gallop at least
200 miles every week to inspect dirty ponds and yeasty barrels, and
where can I find time to write to, or importance to interest anybody?
The upbraidings of my conscience, nay the upbraidings of my wife, have
persecuted me on your account these two or three months past. --I wish
to God I was a great man, that my correspondence might throw light
upon you, to let the world see what you really are: and then I would
make your fortune without putting my hand in my pocket for you, which,
like all other great men, I suppose I would avoid as much as possible.
What are you doing, and how are you doing? Have you lately seen any of
my few friends? What is become of the BOROUGH REFORM, or how
is the fate of my poor namesake, Mademoiselle Burns, decided? O man!
but for thee and thy selfish appetites, and dishonest artifices, that
beauteous form, and that once innocent and still ingenuous mind, might
have shone conspicuous and lovely in the faithful wife, and the
affectionate mother; and shall the unfortunate sacrifice to thy
pleasures have no claim on thy humanity!
I saw lately in a Review, some extracts from a new poem, called the
Village Curate; send it me. I want likewise a cheap copy of The World.
Mr. Armstrong, the young poet, who does me the honour to mention me so
kindly in his works, please give him my best thanks for the copy of
his book--I shall write him, my first leisure hour. I like his poetry
much, but I think his style in prose quite astonishing.
Your book came safe, and I am going to trouble you with further
commissions. I call it troubling you,--because I want only,
BOOKS; the cheapest way, the best; so you may have to hunt
for them in the evening auctions. I want Smollette's works, for the
sake of his incomparable humour. I have already Roderick Random, and
Humphrey Clinker. --Peregrine Pickle, Launcelot Greaves, and Ferdinand
Count Fathom, I still want; but as I said, the veriest ordinary copies
will serve me. I am nice only in the appearance of my poets. I forget
the price of Cowper's Poems, but, I believe, I must have them. I saw
the other day, proposals for a publication, entitled "Banks's new and
complete Christian's Family Bible," printed for C. Cooke,
Paternoster-row, London. --He promises at least, to give in the work, I
think it is three hundred and odd engravings, to which he has put the
names of the first artists in London. --You will know the character of
the performance, as some numbers of it are published; and if it is
really what it pretends to be, set me down as a subscriber, and send
me the published numbers.
Let me hear from you, your first leisure minute, and trust me you
shall in future have no reason to complain of my silence. The dazzling
perplexity of novelty will dissipate and leave me to pursue my course
in the quiet path of methodical routine.
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXXXVII.
TO MR. W. NICOL.
[The poet has recorded this unlooked-for death of the Dominie's mare
in some hasty verses, which are not much superior to the subject. ]
_Ellisland, Feb. 9th, 1790. _
MY DEAR SIR,
That d--mned mare of yours is dead. I would freely have given her
price to have saved her; she has vexed me beyond description. Indebted
as I was to your goodness beyond what I can ever repay, I eagerly
grasped at your offer to have the mare with me. That I might at least
show my readiness in wishing to be grateful, I took every care of her
in my power. She was never crossed for riding above half a score of
times by me or in my keeping. I drew her in the plough, one of three,
for one poor week. I refused fifty-five shillings for her, which was
the highest bode I could squeeze for her. I fed her up and had her in
fine order for Dumfries fair; when four or five days before the fair,
she was seized with an unaccountable disorder in the sinews, or
somewhere in the bones of the neck; with a weakness or total want of
power in her fillets, and in short the whole vertebrae of her spine
seemed to be diseased and unhinged, and in eight-and-forty hours, in
spite of the two best farriers in the country, she died and be d--mned
to her! The farriers said that she had been quite strained in the
fillets beyond cure before you had bought her; and that the poor
devil, though she might keep a little flesh, had been jaded and quite
worn out with fatigue and oppression. While she was with me, she was
under my own eye, and I assure you, my much valued friend, everything
was done for her that could be done; and the accident has vexed me to
the heart. In fact I could not pluck up spirits to write to you, on
account of the unfortunate business.
There is little new in this country. Our theatrical company, of which
you must have heard, leave us this week. --Their merit and character
are indeed very great, both on the stage and in private life; not a
worthless creature among them; and their encouragement has been
accordingly. Their usual run is from eighteen to twenty-five pounds a
night: seldom less than the one, and the house will hold no more than
the other. There have been repeated instances of sending away six, and
eight, and ten pounds a night for want of room. A new theatre is to be
built by subscription; the first stone is to be laid on Friday first
to come. Three hundred guineas have been raised by thirty subscribers,
and thirty more might have been got if wanted. The manager, Mr.
Sutherland, was introduced to me by a friend from Ayr; and a worthier
or cleverer fellow I have rarely met with. Some of our clergy have
slipt in by stealth now and then; but they have got up a farce of
their own. You must have heard how the Rev. Mr. Lawson of Kirkmahoe,
seconded by the Rev. Mr. Kirkpatrick of Dunscore, and the rest of that
faction, have accused in formal process, the unfortunate and Rev. Mr.
Heron, of Kirkgunzeon, that in ordaining Mr. Nielson to the cure of
souls in Kirkbean, he, the said Heron, feloniously and treasonably
bound the said Nielson to the confession of faith, _so far as it was
agreeable to reason and the word of God_!
Mrs. B. begs to be remembered most gratefully to you. Little Bobby and
Frank are charmingly well and healthy. I am jaded to death with
fatigue. For these two or three months, on an average, I have not
ridden less than two hundred miles per week. I have done little in the
poetic way. I have given Mr. Sutherland two Prologues; one of which
was delivered last week. I have likewise strung four or five barbarous
stanzas, to the tune of Chevy Chase, by way of Elegy on your poor
unfortunate mare, beginning (the name she got here was Peg Nicholson)
"Peg Nicholson was a good bay mare,
As ever trod on airn;
But now she's floating down the Nith,
And past the mouth o' Cairn. "
My best compliments to Mrs. Nicol, and little Neddy, and all the
family; I hope Ned is a good scholar, and will come out to gather nuts
and apples with me next harvest.
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXXXVIII.
TO MR. CUNNINGHAM.
[Burns looks back with something of regret to the days of rich dinners
and flowing wine-cups which he experienced in Edinburgh. Alexander
Cunningham and his unhappy loves are recorded in that fine song, "Had
I a cave on some wild distant shore. "]
_Ellisland, 13th February, 1790. _
I beg your pardon, my dear and much valued friend, for writing to you
on this very unfashionable, unsightly sheet--
"My poverty but not my will consents. "
But to make amends, since of modish post I have none, except one poor
widowed half-sheet of gilt, which lies in my drawer among my plebeian
fool's-cap pages, like the widow of a man of fashion, whom that
unpolite scoundrel, Necessity, has driven from Burgundy and Pineapple,
to a dish of Bohea, with the scandal-bearing help-mate of a
village-priest; or a glass of whisky-toddy, with a ruby-nosed
yoke-fellow of a foot-padding exciseman--I make a vow to enclose this
sheet-full of epistolary fragments in that my only scrap of gilt
paper.
I am indeed your unworthy debtor for three friendly letters. I ought
to have written to you long ere now, but it is a literal fact, I have
scarcely a spare moment. It is not that I _will not_ write to you;
Miss Burnet is not more dear to her guardian angel, nor his grace the
Duke of Queensbury to the powers of darkness, than my friend
Cunningham to me. It is not that I _cannot_ write to you; should you
doubt it, take the following fragment, which was intended for you some
time ago, and be convinced that I can _antithesize_ sentiment, and
_circumvolute_ periods, as well as any coiner of phrase in the regions
of philology.
_December, 1789. _
MY DEAR CUNNINGHAM,
Where are you? And what are you doing? Can you be that son of levity,
who takes up a friendship as he takes up a fashion; or are you, like
some other of the worthiest fellows in the world, the victim of
indolence, laden with fetters of ever-increasing weight?
What strange beings we are! Since we have a portion of conscious
existence, equally capable of enjoying pleasure, happiness, and
rapture, or of suffering pain, wretchedness, and misery, it is surely
worthy of an inquiry, whether there be not such a thing as a science
of life; whether method, economy, and fertility of expedients be not
applicable to enjoyment, and whether there be not a want of dexterity
in pleasure, which renders our little scantling of happiness still
less; and a profuseness, an intoxication in bliss, which leads to
satiety, disgust, and self-abhorrence. There is not a doubt but that
health, talents, character, decent competency, respectable friends,
are real substantial blessings; and yet do we not daily see those who
enjoy many or all of these good things contrive notwithstanding to be
as unhappy as others to whose lot few of them have fallen? I believe
one great source of this mistake or misconduct is owing to a certain
stimulus, with us called ambition, which goads us up the hill of life,
not as we ascend other eminences, for the laudable curiosity of
viewing an extended landscape, but rather for the dishonest pride of
looking down on others of our fellow-creatures, seemingly diminutive
in humbler stations, &c &c.
_Sunday, 14th February, 1790. _
God help me! I am now obliged to
"Join night to day, and Sunday to the week. "[197]
If there be any truth in the orthodox faith of these churches, I am
d--mned past redemption, and what is worse, d--mned to all eternity. I
am deeply read in Boston's Four-fold State, Marshal on Sanctification,
Guthrie's Trial of a Saving Interest, &c. ; but "there is no balm in
Gilead, there is no physician there," for me; so I shall e'en turn
Arminian, and trust to "sincere though imperfect obedience. "
_Tuesday, 16th. _
Luckily for me, I was prevented from the discussion of the knotty
point at which I had just made a full stop. All my fears and care are
of this world: if there is another, an honest man has nothing to fear
from it. I hate a man that wishes to be a Deist: but I fear, every
fair, unprejudiced inquirer must in some degree be a sceptic. It is
not that there are any very staggering arguments against the
immortality of man; but like electricity, phlogiston, &c. , the subject
is so involved in darkness, that we want data to go upon. One thing
frightens me much: that we are to live for ever, seems _too good news
to be true. _ That we are to enter into a new scene of existence,
where, exempt from want and pain, we shall enjoy ourselves and our
friends without satiety or separation--how much should I be indebted
to any one who could fully assure me that this was certain!
My time is once more expired. I will write to Mr. Cleghorn soon. God
bless him and all his concerns! And may all the powers that preside
over conviviality and friendship, be present with all their kindest
influence, when the bearer of this, Mr. Syme, and you meet! I wish I
could also make one.
Finally, brethren, farewell! Whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever
things are gentle, whatsoever things are charitable, whatsoever things
are kind, think on these things, and think on
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 197: Young. _Satire on Women. _]
* * * * *
CLXXXIX.
TO MR. PETER HILL.
[That Burns turned at this time his thoughts on the drama, this order
to his bookseller for dramatic works, as well as his attendances at
the Dumfries theatre, afford proof. ]
_Ellisland, 2d March, 1790. _
At a late meeting of the Monkland Friendly Society, it was resolved to
augment their library by the following books, which you are to send us
as soon as possible:--The Mirror, The Lounger, Man of Feeling, Man of
the World, (these, for my own sake, I wish to have by the first
carrier), Knox's History of the Reformation; Rae's History of the
Rebellion in 1715; any good history of the rebellion in 1745; A
Display of the Secession Act and Testimony, by Mr. Gibb; Hervey's
Meditations; Beveridge's Thoughts; and another copy of Watson's Body
of Divinity.
I wrote to Mr. A. Masterton three or four months ago, to pay some
money he owed me into your hands, and lately I wrote to you to the
same purpose, but I have heard from neither one or other of you.
In addition to the books I commissioned in my last, I want very much
An Index to the Excise Laws, or an Abridgment of all the Statutes now
in force relative to the Excise, by Jellinger Symons; I want three
copies of this book: if it is now to be had, cheap or dear, get it for
me. An honest country neighbour of mine wants too a Family Bible, the
larger the better; but second-handed, for he does not choose to give
above ten shillings for the book. I want likewise for myself, as you
can pick them up, second-handed or cheap, copies of Otway's Dramatic
Works, Ben Jonson's, Dryden's, Congreve's, Wycherley's, Vanbrugh's,
Cibber's, or any dramatic works of the more modern, Macklin, Garrick,
Foote, Colman, or Sheridan. A good copy too of Moliere, in French, I
much want. Any other good dramatic authors in that language I want
also; but comic authors, chiefly, though I should wish to have Racine,
Corneille, and Voltaire too. I am in no hurry for all, or any of
these, but if you accidentally meet with them very cheap, get them for
me.
And now to quit the dry walk of business, how do you do, my dear
friend? and how is Mrs. Hill? I trust, if now and then not so
_elegantly_ handsome, at least as amiable, and sings as divinely as
ever. My good wife too has a charming "wood-note wild;" now could we
four ----.
I am out of all patience with this vile world, for one thing. Mankind
are by nature benevolent creatures, except in a few scoundrelly
instances. I do not think that avarice of the good things we chance to
have, is born with us; but we are placed here amid so much nakedness,
and hunger, and poverty, and want, that we are under a cursed
necessity of studying selfishness, in order that we may
EXIST! Still there are, in every age, a few souls, that all
the wants and woes of life cannot debase to selfishness, or even to
the necessary alloy of caution and prudence. If ever I am in danger of
vanity, it is when I contemplate myself on this side of my disposition
and character. God knows I am no saint; I have a whole host of follies
and sin, to answer for; but if I could, and I believe I do it as far
as I can, I would wipe away all tears from all eyes.
Adieu!
R. B.
* * * * *
CXC.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[It is not a little singular that Burns says, in this letter, he had
just met with the Mirror and Lounger for the first time: it will be
remembered that a few years before a generous article was dedicated by
Mackenzie, the editor, to the Poems of Burns, and to this the poet
often alludes in his correspondence. ]
_Ellisland, 10th April, 1790. _
I have just now, my ever honoured friend, enjoyed a very high luxury,
in reading a paper of the Lounger. You know my national prejudices. I
had often read and admired the Spectator, Adventurer, Rambler, and
World; but still with a certain regret, that they were so thoroughly
and entirely English. Alas! have I often said to myself, what are all
the boasted advantages which my country reaps from the union, that can
counterbalance the annihilation of her independence, and even her very
name! I often repeat that couplet of my favourite poet, Goldsmith--
"------ States of native liberty possest,
Tho' very poor, may yet be very blest. "
Nothing can reconcile me to the common terms, "English ambassador,
English court," &c. And I am out of all patience to see that equivocal
character, Hastings, impeached by "the Commons of England. " Tell me, my
friend, is this weak prejudice? I believe in my conscience such ideas as
"my country; her independence; her honour; the illustrious names that
mark the history of my native land;" &c. --I believe these, among your
_men of the world_, men who in fact guide for the most part and govern
our world, are looked on as so many modifications of wrongheadedness.
They know the use of bawling out such terms, to rouse or lead THE
RABBLE; but for their own private use, with almost all the _able
statesmen_ that ever existed, or now exist, when they talk of right and
wrong, they only mean proper and improper; and their measure of conduct
is, not what they OUGHT, but what they DARE. For the truth of this I
shall not ransack the history of nations, but appeal to one of the
ablest judges of men that ever lived--the celebrated Earl of
Chesterfield. In fact, a man who could thoroughly control his vices
whenever they interfered with his interests, and who could completely
put on the appearance of every virtue as often as it suited his
purposes, is, on the Stanhopean plan, the _perfect man_; a man to lead
nations. But are great abilities, complete without a flaw, and polished
without a blemish, the standard of human excellence? This is certainly
the staunch opinion of _men of the world_; but I call on honour, virtue,
and worth, to give the stygian doctrine a loud negative! However, this
must be allowed, that, if you abstract from man the idea of an existence
beyond the grave, _then_ the true measure of human conduct is, _proper_
and _improper_: virtue and vice, as dispositions of the heart, are, in
that case, of scarcely the same import and value to the world at large,
as harmony and discord in the modifications of sound; and a delicate
sense of honour, like a nice ear for music, though it may sometimes give
the possessor an ecstasy unknown to the coarser organs of the herd, yet,
considering the harsh gratings, and inharmonic jars, in this ill-tuned
state of being, it is odds but the individual would be as happy, and
certainly would be as much respected by the true judges of society as it
would then stand, without either a good ear or a good heart.
You must know I have just met with the Mirror and Lounger for the
first time, and I am quite in raptures with them; I should be glad to
have your opinion of some of the papers. The one I have just read,
Lounger, No. 61, has cost me more honest tears than anything I have
read of a long time. Mackenzie has been called the Addison of the
Scots, and in my opinion, Addison would not be hurt at the comparison.
If he has not Addison's exquisite humour, he as certainly outdoes him
in the tender and the pathetic. His Man of Feeling (but I am not
counsel learned in the laws of criticism) I estimate as the first
performance in its kind I ever saw. From what book, moral or even
pious, will the susceptible young mind receive impressions more
congenial to humanity and kindness, generosity and benevolence; in
short, more of all that ennobles the soul to herself, or endears her
to others--than from the simple affecting tale of poor Harley?
Still, with all my admiration of Mackenzie's writings, I do not know
if they are the fittest reading for a young man who is about to set
out, as the phrase is, to make his way into life. Do not you think,
Madam, that among the few favoured of heaven in the structure of their
minds (for such there certainly are) there may be a purity, a
tenderness, a dignity, an elegance of soul, which are of no use, nay,
in some degree, absolutely disqualifying for the truly important
business of making a man's way into life? If I am not much mistaken,
my gallant young friend, A * * * * * *, is very much under these
disqualifications; and for the young females of a family I could
mention, well may they excite parental solicitude, for I, a common
acquaintance, or as my vanity will have it, an humble friend, have
often trembled for a turn of mind which may render them eminently
happy--or peculiarly miserable!
I have been manufacturing some verses lately; but when I have got the
most hurried season of excise business over, I hope to have more
leisure to transcribe anything that may show how much I have the
honour to be, Madam,
Yours, &c.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXCI.
TO COLLECTOR MITCHELL.
[Collector Mitchell was a kind and considerate gentle man: to his
grandson, Mr. John Campbell, surgeon, in Aberdeen, I owe this
characteristic letter. ]
_Ellisland, 1790. _
SIR,
I shall not fail to wait on Captain Riddel to-night--I wish and pray
that the goddess of justice herself would appear to-morrow among our
hon. gentlemen, merely to give them a word in their ear that mercy to
the thief is injustice to the honest man. For my part I have galloped
over my ten parishes these four days, until this moment that I am just
alighted, or rather, that my poor jackass-skeleton of a horse has let
me down; for the miserable devil has been on his knees half a score of
times within the last twenty miles, telling me in his own way,
'Behold, am not I thy faithful jade of a horse, on which thou hast
ridden these many years! '
In short, Sir, I have broke my horse's wind, and almost broke my own
neck, besides some injuries in a part that shall be nameless, owing to
a hard-hearted stone for a saddle. I find that every offender has so
many great men to espouse his cause, that I shall not be surprised if
I am committed to the strong hold of the law to-morrow for insolence
to the dear friends of the gentlemen of the country.
I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your obliged and obedient humble
R.
