_
I will make no excuse, my dear Bibliopolus (God forgive me for
murdering language!
I will make no excuse, my dear Bibliopolus (God forgive me for
murdering language!
Robert Forst
MASQUE OF ALFRED.
I grant you enter the lists of life, to struggle for bread, business,
notice, and distinction, in common with hundreds. --But who are they?
Men, like yourself, and of that aggregate body your compeers,
seven-tenths of them come short of your advantages natural and
accidental; while two of those that remain, either neglect their
parts, as flowers blooming in a desert, or mis-spend their strength,
like a bull goring a bramble-bush.
But to change the theme: I am still catering for Johnson's
publication; and among others, I have brushed up the following old
favourite song a little, with a view to your worship. I have only
altered a word here and there; but if you like the humour of it, we
shall think of a stanza or two to add to it.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXLVIII.
TO PROFESSOR DUGALD STEWART.
[The iron justice to which the poet alludes, in this letter, was
exercised by Dr. Gregory, on the poem of the "Wounded Hare. "]
_Ellisland, 20th Jan, 1789. _
SIR,
The enclosed sealed packet I sent to Edinburgh, a few days after I had
the happiness of meeting you in Ayrshire, but you were gone for the
Continent. I have now added a few more of my productions, those for
which I am indebted to the Nithsdale muses. The piece inscribed to R.
G. Esq. , is a copy of verses I sent Mr. Graham, of Fintray,
accompanying a request for his assistance in a matter to me of very
great moment. To that gentleman I am already doubly indebted, for
deeds of kindness of serious import to my dearest interests, done in a
manner grateful to the delicate feelings of sensibility. This poem is
a species of composition new to me, but I do not intend it shall be my
last essay of the kind, as you will see by the "Poet's Progress. "
These fragments, if my design succeed, are but a small part of the
intended whole. I propose it shall be the work of my utmost exertions,
ripened by years; of course I do not wish it much known. The fragment
beginning "A little, upright, pert, tart, &c. ," I have not shown to
man living, till I now send it you. It forms the postulata, the
axioms, the definition of a character, which, if it appear at all,
shall be placed in a variety of lights. This particular part I send
you merely as a sample of my hand at portrait-sketching, but, lest
idle conjecture should pretend to point out the original, please to
let it be for your single, sole inspection.
Need I make any apology for this trouble, to a gentleman who has
treated me with such marked benevolence and peculiar kindness--who has
entered into my interests with so much zeal, and on whose critical
decisions I can so fully depend? A poet as I am by trade, these
decisions are to me of the last consequence. My late transient
acquaintance among some of the mere rank and file of greatness, I
resign with ease; but to the distinguished champions of genius and
learning, I shall be ever ambitious of being known. The native genius
and accurate discernment in Mr. Stewart's critical strictures; the
justness (iron justice, for he has no bowels of compassion for a poor
poetic sinner) of Dr. Gregory's remarks, and the delicacy of
Professor Dalzel's taste, I shall ever revere.
I shall be in Edinburgh some time next month.
I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your highly obliged, and very
Humble servant,
R. B.
* * * * *
CXLIX.
TO BISHOP GEDDES.
[Alexander Geddes was a controversialist and poet, and a bishop of the
broken remnant of the Catholic Church of Scotland: he is known as the
author of a very humorous ballad called "The Wee bit Wifickie," and as
the translator of one of the books of the Iliad, in opposition to
Cowper. ]
_Ellisland, 3d Feb. 1789. _
VENERABLE FATHER,
As I am conscious that wherever I am, you do me the honour to interest
yourself in my welfare, it gives me pleasure to inform you that I am
here at last, stationary in the serious business of life, and have now
not only the retired leisure, but the hearty inclination, to attend to
those great and important questions--what I am? where I am? and for
what I am destined?
In that first concern, the conduct of the man, there was ever but one
side on which I was habitually blameable, and there I have secured
myself in the way pointed out by Nature and Nature's God. I was
sensible that to so helpless a creature as a poor poet, a wife and
family were encumbrances, which a species of prudence would bid him
shun; but when the alternative was, being at eternal warfare with
myself, on account of habitual follies, to give them no worse name,
which no general example, no licentious wit, no sophistical
infidelity, would, to me, ever justify, I must have been a fool to
have hesitated, and a madman to have made another choice. Besides, I
had in "my Jean" a long and much-loved fellow-creature's happiness or
misery among my hands, and who could trifle with such a deposit?
In the affair of a livelihood, I think myself tolerably secure: I have
good hopes of my farm, but should they fail, I have an excise
commission, which on my simple petition, will, at any time, procure me
bread. There is a certain stigma affixed to the character of an Excise
officer, but I do not pretend to borrow honour from my profession; and
though the salary be comparatively small, it is luxury to anything
that the first twenty-five years of my life taught me to expect.
Thus, with a rational aim and method in life, you may easily guess, my
reverend and much-honoured friend, that my characteristical trade is
not forgotten. I am, if possible, more than over an enthusiast to the
muses. I am determined to study man and nature, and in that view
incessantly; and to try if the ripening and corrections of years can
enable me to produce something worth preserving.
You will see in your book, which I beg your pardon for detaining so
long, that I have been tuning my lyre on the banks of Nith. Some large
poetic plans that are floating in my imagination, or partly put in
execution, I shall impart to you when I have the pleasure of meeting
with you; which, if you are then in Edinburgh, I shall have about the
beginning of March.
That acquaintance, worthy Sir, with which you were pleased to honour
me, you must still allow me to challenge; for with whatever unconcern
I give up my transient connexion with the merely great, those
self-important beings whose intrinsic * * * * [con]cealed under the
accidental advantages of their * * * * I cannot lose the patronizing
notice of the learned and good, without the bitterest regret.
R. B.
* * * * *
CL.
TO MR. JAMES BURNESS.
[Fanny Burns married Adam Armour, brother to bonnie Jean, went with
him to Mauchline, and bore him sons and daughters. ]
_Ellisland, 9th Feb. 1789. _
MY DEAR SIR,
Why I did not write to you long ago, is what, even on the rack, I
could not answer. If you can in your mind form an idea of indolence,
dissipation, hurry, cares, change of country, entering on untried
scenes of life, all combined, you will save me the trouble of a
blushing apology. It could not be want of regard for a man for whom I
had a high esteem before I knew him--an esteem which has much
increased since I did know him; and this caveat entered, I shall plead
guilty to any other indictment with which you shall please to charge
me.
After I had parted from you for many months my life was one continued
scene of dissipation. Here at last I am become stationary, and have
taken a farm and--a wife.
The farm is beautifully situated on the Nith, a large river that runs
by Dumfries, and falls into the Solway frith. I have gotten a lease of
my farm as long as I pleased: but how it may turn out is just a guess,
it is yet to improve and enclose, &c. ; however, I have good hopes of
my bargain on the whole.
My wife is my Jean, with whose story you are partly acquainted. I
found I had a much-loved fellow creature's happiness or misery among
my hands, and I durst not trifle with so sacred a deposit. Indeed I
have not any reason to repent the step I have taken, as I have
attached myself to a very good wife, and have shaken myself loose of
every bad failing.
I have found my book a very profitable business, and with the profits
of it I have begun life pretty decently. Should fortune not favour me
in farming, as I have no great faith in her fickle ladyship, I have
provided myself in another resource, which however some folks may
affect to despise it, is still a comfortable shift in the day of
misfortune. In the heyday of my fame, a gentleman whose name at least
I dare say you know, as his estate lies somewhere near Dundee, Mr.
Graham, of Fintray, one of the commissioners of Excise, offered me the
commission of an Excise officer. I thought it prudent to accept the
offer; and accordingly I took my instructions, and have my commission
by me. Whether I may ever do duty, or be a penny the better for it, is
what I do not know; but I have the comfortable assurance, that come
whatever ill fate will, I can, on my simple petition to the
Excise-board, get into employ.
We have lost poor uncle Robert this winter. He has long been very
weak, and with very little alteration on him, he expired 3d Jan.
His son William has been with me this winter, and goes in May to be an
apprentice to a mason. His other son, the eldest, John, comes to me I
expect in summer. They are both remarkably stout young fellows, and
promise to do well. His only daughter, Fanny, has been with me ever
since her father's death, and I purpose keeping her in my family till
she be quite woman grown, and fit for service. She is one of the
cleverest girls, and has one of the most amiable dispositions I have
ever seen.
All friends in this country and Ayrshire are well. Remember me to all
friends in the north. My wife joins me in compliments to Mrs. B. and
family.
I am ever, my dear Cousin,
Yours, sincerely,
R. B.
* * * * *
CLI.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[The beautiful lines with which this letter concludes, I have reason
to believe were the production of the lady to whom the epistle is
addressed. ]
_Ellisland, 4th March, 1789. _
Here am I, my honoured friend, returned safe from the capital. To a
man, who has a home, however humble or remote--if that home is like
mine, the scene of domestic comfort--the bustle of Edinburgh will soon
be a business of sickening disgust.
"Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate you! "
When I must skulk into a corner, lest the rattling equipage of some
gaping blockhead should mangle me in the mire, I am tempted to
exclaim--"What merits has he had, or what demerit have I had, in some
state of pre-existence, that he is ushered into this state of being
with the sceptre of rule, and the key of riches in his puny fist, and
I am kicked into the world, the sport of folly, or the victim of
pride? " I have read somewhere of a monarch (in Spain I think it was),
who was so out of humour with the Ptolemean system of astronomy, that
he said had he been of the CREATOR'S council, he could have
saved him a great deal of labour and absurdity. I will not defend this
blasphemous speech; but often, as I have glided with humble stealth
through the pomp of Princes' street, it has suggested itself to me, as
an improvement on the present human figure, that a man in proportion
to his own conceit of his consequence in the world, could have pushed
out the longitude of his common size, as a snail pushes out his horns,
or, as we draw out a perspective. This trifling alteration, not to
mention the prodigious saving it would be in the tear and wear of the
neck and limb-sinews of many of his majesty's liege subjects, in the
way of tossing the head and tiptoe strutting, would evidently turn out
a vast advantage, in enabling us at once to adjust the ceremonials in
making a bow, or making way to a great man, and that too within a
second of the precise spherical angle of reverence, or an inch of the
particular point of respectful distance, which the important creature
itself requires; as a measuring-glance at its towering altitude, would
determine the affair like instinct.
You are right, Madam, in your idea of poor Mylne's poem, which he has
addressed to me. The piece has a good deal of merit, but it has one
great fault--it is, by far, too long. Besides, my success has
encouraged such a shoal of ill-spawned monsters to crawl into public
notice, under the title of Scottish Poets, that the very term Scottish
Poetry borders on the burlesque. When I write to Mr. Carfrae, I shall
advise him rather to try one of his deceased friend's English pieces.
I am prodigiously hurried with my own matters, else I would have
requested a perusal of all Mylne's poetic performances; and would have
offered his friends my assistance in either selecting or correcting
what would be proper for the press. What it is that occupies me so
much, and perhaps a little oppresses my present spirits, shall fill up
a paragraph in some future letter. In the mean time, allow me to close
this epistle with a few lines done by a friend of mine * * * * *. I give
you them, that as you have seen the original, you may guess whether
one or two alterations I have ventured to make in them, be any real
improvement.
"Like the fair plant that from our touch withdraws,
Shrink, mildly fearful, even from applause,
Be all a mother's fondest hope can dream,
And all you are, my charming . . . , seem.
Straight as the fox-glove, ere her bells disclose,
Mild as the maiden-blushing hawthorn blows,
Fair as the fairest of each lovely kind,
Your form shall be the image of your mind;
Your manners shall so true your soul express,
That all shall long to know the worth they guess:
Congenial hearts shall greet with kindred love,
And even sick'ning envy must approve. "
R. B.
* * * * *
CLII.
TO THE REV. PETER CARFRAE.
[Mylne was a worthy and a modest man: he died of an inflammatory fever
in the prime of life. ]
1789.
REV. SIR,
I do not recollect that I have ever felt a severer pang of shame, than
on looking at the date of your obliging letter which accompanied Mr.
Mylne's poem.
I am much to blame: the honour Mr. Mylne has done me, greatly enhanced
in its value by the endearing, though melancholy circumstance, of its
being the last production of his muse, deserved a better return.
I have, as you hint, thought of sending a copy of the poem to some
periodical publication; but, on second thoughts, I am afraid, that in
the present case, it would be an improper step. My success, perhaps as
much accidental as merited, has brought an inundation of nonsense
under the name of Scottish poetry. Subscription-bills for Scottish
poems have so dunned, and daily do dun the public, that the very name
is in danger of contempt. For these reasons, if publishing any of Mr.
Mylne's poems in a magazine, &c. , be at all prudent, in my opinion it
certainly should not be a Scottish poem. The profits of the labours of
a man of genius are, I hope, as honourable as any profits whatever;
and Mr. Mylne's relations are most justly entitled to that honest
harvest, which fate has denied himself to reap. But let the friends of
Mr. Mylne's fame (among whom I crave the honour of ranking myself)
always keep in eye his respectability as a man and as a poet, and take
no measure that, before the world knows anything about him, would risk
his name and character being classed with the fools of the times.
I have, Sir, some experience of publishing; and the way in which I
would proceed with Mr. Mylne's poem is this:--I would publish, in two
or three English and Scottish public papers, any one of his English
poems which should, by private judges, be thought the most excellent,
and mention it, at the same time, as one of the productions of a
Lothian farmer, of respectable character, lately deceased, whose poems
his friends had it in idea to publish, soon, by subscription, for the
sake of his numerous family:--not in pity to that family, but in
justice to what his friends think the poetic merits of the deceased;
and to secure, in the most effectual manner, to those tender
connexions, whose right it is, the pecuniary reward of those merits.
R. B.
* * * * *
CLIII.
TO DR. MOORE.
[Edward Nielson, whom Burns here introduces to Dr. Moore, was minister
of Kirkbean, on the Solway-side. He was a jovial man, and loved good
cheer, and merry company. ]
_Ellisland, 23d March, 1789. _
SIR,
The gentleman who will deliver you this is a Mr. Nielson, a worthy
clergyman in my neighbourhood, and a very particular acquaintance of
mine. As I have troubled him with this packet, I must turn him over to
your goodness, to recompense him for it in a way in which he much
needs your assistance, and where you can effectually serve him:--Mr.
Nielson is on his way for France, to wait on his Grace of Queensberry,
on some little business of a good deal of importance to him, and he
wishes for your instructions respecting the most eligible mode of
travelling, &c. , for him, when he has crossed the channel. I should
not have dared to take this liberty with you, but that I am told, by
those who have the honour of your personal acquaintance, that to be a
poor honest Scotchman is a letter of recommendation to you, and that
to have it in your power to serve such a character, gives you much
pleasure.
The enclosed ode is a compliment to the memory of the late Mrs.
Oswald, of Auchencruive. You, probably, knew her personally, an honour
of which I cannot boast; but I spent my early years in her
neighbourhood, and among her servants and tenants. I know that she was
detested with the most heart-felt cordiality. However, in the
particular part of her conduct which roused my poetic wrath, she was
much less blameable. In January last, on my road to Ayrshire, I had
put up at Bailie Wigham's in Sanquhar, the only tolerable inn in the
place. The frost was keen, and the grim evening and howling wind were
ushering in a night of snow and drift. My horse and I were both much
fatigued with the labours of the day, and just as my friend the Bailie
and I were bidding defiance to the storm, over a smoking bowl, in
wheels the funeral pageantry of the late great Mrs. Oswald, and poor I
am forced to brave all the horrors of the tempestuous night, and jade
my horse, my young favourite horse, whom I had just christened
Pegasus, twelve miles farther on, through the wildest moors and hills
of Ayrshire, to New Cumnock, the next inn. The powers of poesy and
prose sink under me, when I would describe what I felt. Suffice it to
say, that when a good fire at New Cumnock had so far recovered my
frozen sinews, I sat down and wrote the enclosed ode.
I was at Edinburgh lately, and settled finally with Mr. Creech; and I
must own, that, at last, he has been amicable and fair with me.
R. B.
* * * * *
CLIV.
TO MR. WILLIAM BURNS.
[William Burns was the youngest brother of the poet: he was bred a
sadler; went to Longtown, and finally to London, where he died early. ]
_Isle, March 25th, 1789. _
I have stolen from my corn-sowing this minute to write a line to
accompany your shirt and hat, for I can no more. Your sister Maria
arrived yesternight, and begs to be remembered to you. Write me every
opportunity, never mind postage. My head, too, is as addle as an egg,
this morning, with dining abroad yesterday. I received yours by the
mason. Forgive me this foolish-looking scrawl of an epistle.
I am ever,
My dear William,
Yours,
R. B.
P. S. If you are not then gone from Longtown, I'll write you a long
letter, by this day se'ennight. If you should not succeed in your
tramps, don't be dejected, or take any rash step--return to us in that
case, and we will court fortune's better humour. Remember this, I
charge you.
R. B.
* * * * *
CLV.
TO MR. HILL.
[The Monkland Book Club existed only while Robert Riddel, of the
Friars-Carse, lived, or Burns had leisure to attend: such
institutions, when well conducted, are very beneficial, when not
oppressed by divinity and verse, as they sometimes are. ]
_Ellisland, 2d April, 1789.
_
I will make no excuse, my dear Bibliopolus (God forgive me for
murdering language! ) that I have sat down to write you on this vile
paper.
It is economy, Sir; it is that cardinal virtue, prudence: so I beg you
will sit down, and either compose or borrow a panegyric. If you are
going to borrow, apply to * * * * to compose, or rather to compound,
something very clever on my remarkable frugality; that I write to one
of my most esteemed friends on this wretched paper, which was
originally intended for the venal fist of some drunken exciseman, to
take dirty notes in a miserable vault of an ale-cellar.
O Frugality! thou mother of ten thousand blessings--thou cook of fat
beef and dainty greens! --thou manufacturer of warm Shetland hose, and
comfortable surtouts! --thou old housewife darning thy decayed
stockings with thy ancient spectacles on thy aged nose! --lead me, hand
me in thy clutching palsied fist, up those heights, and through those
thickets, hitherto inaccessible, and impervious to my anxious, weary
feet:--not those Parnassian crags, bleak and barren, where the hungry
worshippers of fame are breathless, clambering, hanging between heaven
and hell; but those glittering cliffs of Potosi, where the
all-sufficient, all powerful deity, Wealth, holds his immediate court
of joys and pleasures; where the sunny exposure of plenty, and the hot
walls of profusion, produce those blissful fruits of luxury, exotics
in this world, and natives of paradise! --Thou withered sibyl, my sage
conductress, usher me into thy refulgent, adored presence! --The power,
splendid and potent as he now is, was once the puling nursling of thy
faithful care, and tender arms! Call me thy son, thy cousin, thy
kinsman, or favourite, and adjure the god by the scenes of his infant
years, no longer to repulse me as a stranger, or an alien, but to
favour me with his peculiar countenance and protection? --He daily
bestows his greatest kindness on the undeserving and the
worthless--assure him, that I bring ample documents of meritorious
demerits! Pledge yourself for me, that, for the glorious cause of
Lucre, I will do anything, be anything--but the horse-leech of private
oppression, or the vulture of public robbery!
But to descend from heroics.
I want a Shakspeare; I want likewise an English dictionary--Johnson's,
I suppose, is best. In these and all my prose commissions, the
cheapest is always best for me. There is a small debt of honour that I
owe Mr. Robert Cleghorn, in Saughton Mills, my worthy friend, and your
well-wisher. Please give him, and urge him to take it, the first time
you see him, ten shillings worth of anything you have to sell, and
place it to my account.
The library scheme that I mentioned to you, is already begun, under
the direction of Captain Riddel. There is another in emulation of it
going on at Closeburn, under the auspices of Mr. Monteith, of
Closeburn, which will be on a greater scale than ours. Capt. Riddel
gave his infant society a great many of his old books, else I had
written you on that subject; but one of these days, I shall trouble
you with a commission for "The Monkland Friendly Society"--a copy of
_The Spectator_, _Mirror_, and _Lounger_, _Man of Feeling, Man of the
World_, _Guthrie's Geographical Grammar_, with some religious pieces,
will likely be our first order.
When I grow richer, I will write to you on gilt post, to make amends
for this sheet. At present, every guinea has a five guinea errand
with,
My dear Sir,
Your faithful, poor, but honest, friend,
R. B.
* * * * *
CLVI.
TO MRS. DUNLOP
[Some lines which extend, but fail to finish the sketch contained in
this letter, will be found elsewhere in this publication. ]
_Ellisland, 4th April, 1789. _
I no sooner hit on any poetic plan or fancy, but I wish to send it to
you: and if knowing and reading these give half the pleasure to you,
that communicating them to you gives to me, I am satisfied.
I have a poetic whim in my head, which I at present dedicate, or
rather inscribe to the Right Hon. Charles James Fox; but how long that
fancy may hold, I cannot say. A few of the first lines, I have just
rough-sketched as follows:
SKETCH.
How wisdom and folly meet, mix, and unite;
How virtue and vice blend their black and their white;
How genius, the illustrious father of fiction,
Confounds rule and law, reconciles contradiction--
I sing: If these mortals, the critics, should bustle,
I care not, not I, let the critics go whistle.
But now for a patron, whose name and whose glory,
At once may illustrate and honour my story.
Thou first of our orators, first of our wits;
Yet whose parts and acquirements seem mere lucky hits;
With knowledge so vast, and with judgment so strong,
No man with the half of 'em e'er went far wrong;
With passion so potent, and fancies so bright,
No man with the half of 'em ere went quite right;
A sorry, poor misbegot son of the muses,
For using thy name offers many excuses.
On the 20th current I hope to have the honour of assuring you in
person, how sincerely I am--
R. B.
* * * * *
CLVII.
TO MR. WILLIAM BURNS,
SADLER,
CARE OF MR. WRIGHT, CARRIER, LONGTOWN.
["Never to despair" was a favourite saying with Burns: and "firm
resolve," he held, with Young, to be "the column of true majesty in
man. "]
_Isle, 15th April, 1789. _
MY DEAR WILLIAM,
I am extremely sorry at the misfortune of your legs; I beg you will
never let any worldly concern interfere with the more serious matter,
the safety of your life and limbs. I have not time in these hurried
days to write you anything other than a mere how d'ye letter. I will
only repeat my favourite quotation:--
"What proves the hero truly great
Is never, never to despair. "
My house shall be your welcome home; and as I know your prudence
(would to God you had _resolution_ equal to your _prudence_! ) if
anywhere at a distance from friends, you should need money, you know
my direction by post.
The enclosed is from Gilbert, brought by your sister Nanny. It was
unluckily forgot. Yours to Gilbert goes by post. --I heard from them
yesterday, they are all well.
Adieu.
R. B.
* * * * *
CLVIII.
TO MRS. M'MURDO,
DRUMLANRIG.
[Of this accomplished lady, Mrs. M'Murdo, of Drumlanrig, and her
daughters, something has been said in the notes on the songs: the poem
alluded to was the song of "Bonnie Jean. "]
_Ellisland, 2d May, 1789. _
MADAM,
I have finished the piece which had the happy fortune to be honoured
with your approbation; and never did little miss with more sparkling
pleasure show her applauded sampler to partial mamma, than I now send
my poem to you and Mr. M'Murdo if he is returned to Drumlanrig. You
cannot easily imagine what thin-skinned animals--what sensitive plants
poor poets are. How do we shrink into the embittered corner of
self-abasement, when neglected or condemned by those to whom we look
up! and how do we, in erect importance, add another cubit to our
stature on being noticed and applauded by those whom we honour and
respect! My late visit to Drumlanrig has, I can tell you, Madam, given
me a balloon waft up Parnassus, where on my fancied elevation I regard
my poetic self with no small degree of complacency. Surely with all
their sins, the rhyming tribe are not ungrateful creatures. --I
recollect your goodness to your humble guest--I see Mr. M'Murdo adding
to the politeness of the gentleman, the kindness of a friend, and my
heart swells as it would burst, with warm emotions and ardent wishes!
It may be it is not gratitude--it may be a mixed sensation. That
strange, shifting, doubling animal man is so generally, at best, but a
negative, often a worthless creature, that we cannot see real goodness
and native worth without feeling the bosom glow with sympathetic
approbation.
With every sentiment of grateful respect,
I have the honour to be,
Madam,
Your obliged and grateful humble servant,
R. B.
* * * * *
CLIX.
TO MR. CUNNINGHAM.
[Honest Jamie Thomson, who shot the hare because she browsed with her
companions on his father's "wheat-braird," had no idea he was pulling
down such a burst of indignation on his head as this letter with the
poem which it enclosed expresses. ]
_Ellisland, 4th May, 1789. _
MY DEAR SIR,
Your _duty-free_ favour of the 26th April I received two days ago; I
will not say I perused it with pleasure; that is the cold compliment
of ceremony; I perused it, Sir, with delicious satisfaction;--in
short, it is such a letter, that not you, nor your friend, but the
legislature, by express proviso in their postage laws, should frank.
A letter informed with the soul of friendship is such an honour to
human nature, that they should order it free ingress and egress to and
from their bags and mails, as an encouragement and mark of distinction
to supereminent virtue.
I have just put the last hand to a little poem which I think will be
something to your taste. One morning lately, as I was out pretty early
in the fields, sowing some grass seeds, I heard the burst of a shot
from a neighbouring plantation, and presently a poor little wounded
hare came crippling by me. You will guess my indignation at the
inhuman fellow who could shoot a hare at this season, when all of them
have young ones. Indeed there is something in that business of
destroying for our sport individuals in the animal creation that do
not injure us materially, which I could never reconcile to my ideas of
virtue.
Inhuman man! curse on thy barb'rous art,
And blasted be thy murder-aiming eye!
May never pity soothe thee with a sigh,
Nor ever pleasure glad thy cruel heart!
&c. &c.
Let me know how you like my poem. I am doubtful whether it would not
be an improvement to keep out the last stanza but one altogether.
Cruikshank is a glorious production of the author of man. You, he, and
the noble Colonel of the Crochallan Fencibles are to me
"Dear as the ruddy drops which warm my heart"
I have a good mind to make verses on you all, to the tune of "_Three
guid fellows ayont the glen. _"
R. B.
* * * * *
CLX.
TO MR. SAMUEL BROWN.
[Samuel Brown was brother to the poet's mother: he seems to have been
a joyous sort of person, who loved a joke, and understood double
meanings. ]
_Mossgiel, 4th May, 1789. _
DEAR UNCLE,
This, I hope, will find you and your conjugal yoke-fellow in your good
old way; I am impatient to know if the Ailsa fowling be commenced for
this season yet, as I want three or four stones of feathers, and I
hope you will bespeak them for me. It would be a vain attempt for me
to enumerate the various transactions I have been engaged in since I
saw you last, but this know,--I am engaged in a _smuggling trade_, and
God knows if ever any poor man experienced better returns, two for
one, but as freight and delivery have turned out so dear, I am
thinking of taking out a license and beginning in fair trade. I have
taken a farm on the borders of the Nith, and in imitation of the old
Patriarchs, get men-servants and maid-servants, and flocks and herds,
and beget sons and daughters.
Your obedient nephew,
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXI.
TO RICHARD BROWN.
[Burns was much attached to Brown; and one regrets that an
inconsiderate word should have estranged the haughty sailor. ]
_Mauchline, 21st May, 1789. _
MY DEAR FRIEND,
I was in the country by accident, and hearing of your safe arrival, I
could not resist the temptation of wishing you joy on your return,
wishing you would write to me before you sail again, wishing you would
always set me down as your bosom friend, wishing you long life and
prosperity, and that every good thing may attend you, wishing Mrs.
Brown and your little ones as free of the evils of this world, as is
consistent with humanity, wishing you and she were to make two at the
ensuing lying-in, with which Mrs. B. threatens very soon to favour me,
wishing I had longer time to write to you at present; and, finally,
wishing that if there is to be another state of existence, Mr. B. ,
Mrs. B. , our little ones, and both families, and you and I, in some
snug retreat, may make a jovial party to all eternity!
My direction is at Ellisland, near Dumfries
Yours,
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXII.
TO MR. JAMES HAMILTON.
[James Hamilton, grocer, in Glasgow, interested himself early in the
fortunes of the poet. ]
_Ellisland, 26th May, 1789. _
DEAR SIR,
I send you by John Glover, carrier, the account for Mr. Turnbull, as I
suppose you know his address.
I would fain offer, my dear Sir, a word of sympathy with your
misfortunes; but it is a tender string, and I know not how to touch
it. It is easy to flourish a set of high-flown sentiments on the
subjects that would give great satisfaction to--a breast quite at
ease; but as ONE observes, who was very seldom mistaken in
the theory of life, "The heart knoweth its own sorrows, and a stranger
intermeddleth not therewith. "
Among some distressful emergencies that I have experienced in life, I
ever laid this down as my foundation of comfort--_That he who has
lived the life of an honest man, has by no means lived in vain! _
With every wish for your welfare and future success,
I am, my dear Sir,
Sincerely yours,
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXIII.
TO WILLIAM CREECH, ESQ.
[The poetic address to the "venomed stang" of the toothache seems to
have come into existence about this time. ]
_Ellisland, 30th May, 1789. _
SIR,
I had intended to have troubled you with a long letter, but at present
the delightful sensations of an omnipotent toothache so engross all my
inner man, as to put it out of my power even to write nonsense.
However, as in duty bound, I approach my bookseller with an offering
in my hand--a few poetic clinches, and a song:--To expect any other
kind of offering from the Rhyming Tribe would be to know them much
less than you do. I do not pretend that there is much merit in these
_morceaux_, but I have two reasons for sending them; _primo_, they are
mostly ill-natured, so are in unison with my present feelings, while
fifty troops of infernal spirits are driving post from ear to ear
along my jaw-bones; and _secondly_, they are so short, that you cannot
leave off in the middle, and so hurt my pride in the idea that you
found any work of mine too heavy to get through.
I have a request to beg of you, and I not only beg of you, but conjure
you, by all your wishes and by all your hopes, that the muse will
spare the satiric wink in the moment of your foibles; that she will
warble the song of rapture round your hymeneal couch; and that she
will shed on your turf the honest tear of elegiac gratitude! Grant my
request as speedily as possible--send me by the very first fly or
coach for this place three copies of the last edition of my poems,
which place to my account.
Now may the good things of prose, and the good things of verse, come
among thy hands, until they be filled with the _good things of this
life_, prayeth
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXIV.
TO MR. M'AULEY.
[The poet made the acquaintance of Mr. M'Auley, of Dumbarton, in one
of his northern tours,--he was introduced by his friend Kennedy. ]
_Ellisland, 4th June, 1789. _
DEAR SIR,
Though I am not without my fears respecting my fate, at that grand,
universal inquest of right and wrong, commonly called _The Last Day_,
yet I trust there is one sin, which that arch-vagabond, Satan, who I
understand is to be king's evidence, cannot throw in my teeth, I mean
ingratitude. There is a certain pretty large quantum of kindness for
which I remain, and from inability, I fear, must still remain, your
debtor; but though unable to repay the debt, I assure you, Sir, I
shall ever warmly remember the obligation. It gives me the sincerest
pleasure to hear by my old acquaintance, Mr. Kennedy, that you are, in
immortal Allan's language, "Hale, and weel, and living;" and that your
charming family are well, and promising to be an amiable and
respectable addition to the company of performers, whom the Great
Manager of the Drama of Man is bringing into action for the succeeding
age.
With respect to my welfare, a subject in which you once warmly and
effectively interested yourself, I am here in my old way, holding my
plough, marking the growth of my corn, or the health of my dairy; and
at times sauntering by the delightful windings of the Nith, on the
margin of which I have built my humble domicile, praying for
seasonable weather, or holding an intrigue with the muses; the only
gipsies with whom I have now any intercourse. As I am entered into the
holy state of matrimony, I trust my face is turned completely
Zion-ward; and as it is a rule with all honest fellows to repeat no
grievances, I hope that the little poetic licenses of former days will
of course fall under the oblivious influence of some good-natured
statute of celestial prescription. In my family devotion, which, like
a good Presbyterian, I occasionally give to my household folks, I am
extremely fond of that psalm, "Let not the errors of my youth," &c. ,
and that other, "Lo, children are God's heritage," &c. , in which last
Mrs. Burns, who by the bye has a glorious "wood-note wild" at either
old song or psalmody, joins me with the pathos of Handel's Messiah.
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXV.
TO MR. ROBERT AINSLIE.
[The following high-minded letter may be regarded as a sermon on
domestic morality preached by one of the experienced. ]
_Ellisland, 8th June, 1789. _
MY DEAR FRIEND,
I am perfectly ashamed of myself when I look at the date of your last.
It is not that I forget the friend of my heart and the companion of my
peregrinations; but I have been condemned to drudgery beyond
sufferance, though not, thank God, beyond redemption. I have had a
collection of poems by a lady, put into my hands to prepare them for
the press; which horrid task, with sowing corn with my own hand, a
parcel of masons, wrights, plasterers, &c. , to attend to, roaming on
business through Ayrshire--all this was against me, and the very first
dreadful article was of itself too much for me.
13th. I have not had a moment to spare from incessant toil since the 8th.
Life, my dear Sir, is a serious matter. You know by experience that a man's
individual self is a good deal, but believe me, a wife and family of
children, whenever you have the honour to be a husband and a father, will
show you that your present and most anxious hours of solitude are spent on
trifles. The welfare of those who are very dear to us, whose only support,
hope and stay we are--this, to a generous mind, is another sort of more
important object of care than any concerns whatever which centre merely in
the individual. On the other hand, let no young, unmarried, rakehelly dog
among you, make a song of his pretended liberty and freedom from care. If
the relations we stand in to king, country, kindred, and friends, be
anything but the visionary fancies of dreaming metaphysicians; if religion,
virtue, magnanimity, generosity, humanity and justice, be aught but empty
sounds; then the man who may be said to live only for others, for the
beloved, honourable female, whose tender faithful embrace endears life, and
for the helpless little innocents who are to be the men and women, the
worshippers of his God, the subjects of his king, and the support, nay the
vital existence of his COUNTRY in the ensuing age;--compare such a man with
any fellow whatever, who, whether he bustle and push in business among
labourers, clerks, statesmen; or whether he roar and rant, and drink and
sing in taverns--a fellow over whose grave no one will breathe a single
heigh-ho, except from the cobweb-tie of what is called good-fellowship--who
has no view nor aim but what terminates in himself--if there be any
grovelling earth-born wretch of our species, a renegado to common sense,
who would fain believe that the noble creature man, is no better than a
sort of fungus, generated out of nothing, nobody knows how, and soon
dissipated in nothing, nobody knows where; such a stupid beast, such a
crawling reptile, might balance the foregoing unexaggerated comparison, but
no one else would have the patience.
Forgive me, my dear Sir, for this long silence. _To make you amends_,
I shall send you soon, and more encouraging still, without any
postage, one or two rhymes of my later manufacture.
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXVI.
TO MR. M'MURDO.
[John M'Murdo has been already mentioned as one of Burns's firmest
friends: his table at Drumlanrig was always spread at the poet's
coming: nor was it uncheered by the presence of the lady of the house
and her daughters. ]
_Ellisland, 19th June, 1789. _
SIR,
A poet and a beggar are, in so many points of view, alike, that one
might take them for the same individual character under different
designations; were it not that though, with a trifling poetic license,
most poets may be styled beggars, yet the converse of the proposition
does not hold, that every beggar is a poet. In one particular,
however, they remarkably agree; if you help either the one or the
other to a mug of ale, or the picking of a bone, they will very
willingly repay you with a song. This occurs to me at present, as I
have just despatched a well-lined rib of John Kirkpatrick's
Highlander; a bargain for which I am indebted to you, in the style of
our ballad printers, "Five excellent new songs. " The enclosed is
nearly my newest song, and one that has cost me some pains, though
that is but an equivocal mark of its excellence. Two or three others,
which I have by me, shall do themselves the honour to wait on your
after leisure: petitioners for admittance into favour must not harass
the condescension of their benefactor.
You see, Sir, what it is to patronize a poet. 'Tis like being a
magistrate in a petty borough; you do them the favour to preside in
their council for one year, and your name bears the prefatory stigma
of Bailie for life.
With, not the compliments, but the best wishes, the sincerest prayers
of the season for you, that you may see many and happy years with Mrs.
M'Murdo, and your family; two blessings by the bye, to which your rank
does not, by any means, entitle you; a loving wife and fine family
being almost the only good things of this life to which the farm-house
and cottage have an exclusive right,
I have the honour to be,
Sir,
Your much indebted and very humble servant,
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXVII.
I grant you enter the lists of life, to struggle for bread, business,
notice, and distinction, in common with hundreds. --But who are they?
Men, like yourself, and of that aggregate body your compeers,
seven-tenths of them come short of your advantages natural and
accidental; while two of those that remain, either neglect their
parts, as flowers blooming in a desert, or mis-spend their strength,
like a bull goring a bramble-bush.
But to change the theme: I am still catering for Johnson's
publication; and among others, I have brushed up the following old
favourite song a little, with a view to your worship. I have only
altered a word here and there; but if you like the humour of it, we
shall think of a stanza or two to add to it.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXLVIII.
TO PROFESSOR DUGALD STEWART.
[The iron justice to which the poet alludes, in this letter, was
exercised by Dr. Gregory, on the poem of the "Wounded Hare. "]
_Ellisland, 20th Jan, 1789. _
SIR,
The enclosed sealed packet I sent to Edinburgh, a few days after I had
the happiness of meeting you in Ayrshire, but you were gone for the
Continent. I have now added a few more of my productions, those for
which I am indebted to the Nithsdale muses. The piece inscribed to R.
G. Esq. , is a copy of verses I sent Mr. Graham, of Fintray,
accompanying a request for his assistance in a matter to me of very
great moment. To that gentleman I am already doubly indebted, for
deeds of kindness of serious import to my dearest interests, done in a
manner grateful to the delicate feelings of sensibility. This poem is
a species of composition new to me, but I do not intend it shall be my
last essay of the kind, as you will see by the "Poet's Progress. "
These fragments, if my design succeed, are but a small part of the
intended whole. I propose it shall be the work of my utmost exertions,
ripened by years; of course I do not wish it much known. The fragment
beginning "A little, upright, pert, tart, &c. ," I have not shown to
man living, till I now send it you. It forms the postulata, the
axioms, the definition of a character, which, if it appear at all,
shall be placed in a variety of lights. This particular part I send
you merely as a sample of my hand at portrait-sketching, but, lest
idle conjecture should pretend to point out the original, please to
let it be for your single, sole inspection.
Need I make any apology for this trouble, to a gentleman who has
treated me with such marked benevolence and peculiar kindness--who has
entered into my interests with so much zeal, and on whose critical
decisions I can so fully depend? A poet as I am by trade, these
decisions are to me of the last consequence. My late transient
acquaintance among some of the mere rank and file of greatness, I
resign with ease; but to the distinguished champions of genius and
learning, I shall be ever ambitious of being known. The native genius
and accurate discernment in Mr. Stewart's critical strictures; the
justness (iron justice, for he has no bowels of compassion for a poor
poetic sinner) of Dr. Gregory's remarks, and the delicacy of
Professor Dalzel's taste, I shall ever revere.
I shall be in Edinburgh some time next month.
I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your highly obliged, and very
Humble servant,
R. B.
* * * * *
CXLIX.
TO BISHOP GEDDES.
[Alexander Geddes was a controversialist and poet, and a bishop of the
broken remnant of the Catholic Church of Scotland: he is known as the
author of a very humorous ballad called "The Wee bit Wifickie," and as
the translator of one of the books of the Iliad, in opposition to
Cowper. ]
_Ellisland, 3d Feb. 1789. _
VENERABLE FATHER,
As I am conscious that wherever I am, you do me the honour to interest
yourself in my welfare, it gives me pleasure to inform you that I am
here at last, stationary in the serious business of life, and have now
not only the retired leisure, but the hearty inclination, to attend to
those great and important questions--what I am? where I am? and for
what I am destined?
In that first concern, the conduct of the man, there was ever but one
side on which I was habitually blameable, and there I have secured
myself in the way pointed out by Nature and Nature's God. I was
sensible that to so helpless a creature as a poor poet, a wife and
family were encumbrances, which a species of prudence would bid him
shun; but when the alternative was, being at eternal warfare with
myself, on account of habitual follies, to give them no worse name,
which no general example, no licentious wit, no sophistical
infidelity, would, to me, ever justify, I must have been a fool to
have hesitated, and a madman to have made another choice. Besides, I
had in "my Jean" a long and much-loved fellow-creature's happiness or
misery among my hands, and who could trifle with such a deposit?
In the affair of a livelihood, I think myself tolerably secure: I have
good hopes of my farm, but should they fail, I have an excise
commission, which on my simple petition, will, at any time, procure me
bread. There is a certain stigma affixed to the character of an Excise
officer, but I do not pretend to borrow honour from my profession; and
though the salary be comparatively small, it is luxury to anything
that the first twenty-five years of my life taught me to expect.
Thus, with a rational aim and method in life, you may easily guess, my
reverend and much-honoured friend, that my characteristical trade is
not forgotten. I am, if possible, more than over an enthusiast to the
muses. I am determined to study man and nature, and in that view
incessantly; and to try if the ripening and corrections of years can
enable me to produce something worth preserving.
You will see in your book, which I beg your pardon for detaining so
long, that I have been tuning my lyre on the banks of Nith. Some large
poetic plans that are floating in my imagination, or partly put in
execution, I shall impart to you when I have the pleasure of meeting
with you; which, if you are then in Edinburgh, I shall have about the
beginning of March.
That acquaintance, worthy Sir, with which you were pleased to honour
me, you must still allow me to challenge; for with whatever unconcern
I give up my transient connexion with the merely great, those
self-important beings whose intrinsic * * * * [con]cealed under the
accidental advantages of their * * * * I cannot lose the patronizing
notice of the learned and good, without the bitterest regret.
R. B.
* * * * *
CL.
TO MR. JAMES BURNESS.
[Fanny Burns married Adam Armour, brother to bonnie Jean, went with
him to Mauchline, and bore him sons and daughters. ]
_Ellisland, 9th Feb. 1789. _
MY DEAR SIR,
Why I did not write to you long ago, is what, even on the rack, I
could not answer. If you can in your mind form an idea of indolence,
dissipation, hurry, cares, change of country, entering on untried
scenes of life, all combined, you will save me the trouble of a
blushing apology. It could not be want of regard for a man for whom I
had a high esteem before I knew him--an esteem which has much
increased since I did know him; and this caveat entered, I shall plead
guilty to any other indictment with which you shall please to charge
me.
After I had parted from you for many months my life was one continued
scene of dissipation. Here at last I am become stationary, and have
taken a farm and--a wife.
The farm is beautifully situated on the Nith, a large river that runs
by Dumfries, and falls into the Solway frith. I have gotten a lease of
my farm as long as I pleased: but how it may turn out is just a guess,
it is yet to improve and enclose, &c. ; however, I have good hopes of
my bargain on the whole.
My wife is my Jean, with whose story you are partly acquainted. I
found I had a much-loved fellow creature's happiness or misery among
my hands, and I durst not trifle with so sacred a deposit. Indeed I
have not any reason to repent the step I have taken, as I have
attached myself to a very good wife, and have shaken myself loose of
every bad failing.
I have found my book a very profitable business, and with the profits
of it I have begun life pretty decently. Should fortune not favour me
in farming, as I have no great faith in her fickle ladyship, I have
provided myself in another resource, which however some folks may
affect to despise it, is still a comfortable shift in the day of
misfortune. In the heyday of my fame, a gentleman whose name at least
I dare say you know, as his estate lies somewhere near Dundee, Mr.
Graham, of Fintray, one of the commissioners of Excise, offered me the
commission of an Excise officer. I thought it prudent to accept the
offer; and accordingly I took my instructions, and have my commission
by me. Whether I may ever do duty, or be a penny the better for it, is
what I do not know; but I have the comfortable assurance, that come
whatever ill fate will, I can, on my simple petition to the
Excise-board, get into employ.
We have lost poor uncle Robert this winter. He has long been very
weak, and with very little alteration on him, he expired 3d Jan.
His son William has been with me this winter, and goes in May to be an
apprentice to a mason. His other son, the eldest, John, comes to me I
expect in summer. They are both remarkably stout young fellows, and
promise to do well. His only daughter, Fanny, has been with me ever
since her father's death, and I purpose keeping her in my family till
she be quite woman grown, and fit for service. She is one of the
cleverest girls, and has one of the most amiable dispositions I have
ever seen.
All friends in this country and Ayrshire are well. Remember me to all
friends in the north. My wife joins me in compliments to Mrs. B. and
family.
I am ever, my dear Cousin,
Yours, sincerely,
R. B.
* * * * *
CLI.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[The beautiful lines with which this letter concludes, I have reason
to believe were the production of the lady to whom the epistle is
addressed. ]
_Ellisland, 4th March, 1789. _
Here am I, my honoured friend, returned safe from the capital. To a
man, who has a home, however humble or remote--if that home is like
mine, the scene of domestic comfort--the bustle of Edinburgh will soon
be a business of sickening disgust.
"Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate you! "
When I must skulk into a corner, lest the rattling equipage of some
gaping blockhead should mangle me in the mire, I am tempted to
exclaim--"What merits has he had, or what demerit have I had, in some
state of pre-existence, that he is ushered into this state of being
with the sceptre of rule, and the key of riches in his puny fist, and
I am kicked into the world, the sport of folly, or the victim of
pride? " I have read somewhere of a monarch (in Spain I think it was),
who was so out of humour with the Ptolemean system of astronomy, that
he said had he been of the CREATOR'S council, he could have
saved him a great deal of labour and absurdity. I will not defend this
blasphemous speech; but often, as I have glided with humble stealth
through the pomp of Princes' street, it has suggested itself to me, as
an improvement on the present human figure, that a man in proportion
to his own conceit of his consequence in the world, could have pushed
out the longitude of his common size, as a snail pushes out his horns,
or, as we draw out a perspective. This trifling alteration, not to
mention the prodigious saving it would be in the tear and wear of the
neck and limb-sinews of many of his majesty's liege subjects, in the
way of tossing the head and tiptoe strutting, would evidently turn out
a vast advantage, in enabling us at once to adjust the ceremonials in
making a bow, or making way to a great man, and that too within a
second of the precise spherical angle of reverence, or an inch of the
particular point of respectful distance, which the important creature
itself requires; as a measuring-glance at its towering altitude, would
determine the affair like instinct.
You are right, Madam, in your idea of poor Mylne's poem, which he has
addressed to me. The piece has a good deal of merit, but it has one
great fault--it is, by far, too long. Besides, my success has
encouraged such a shoal of ill-spawned monsters to crawl into public
notice, under the title of Scottish Poets, that the very term Scottish
Poetry borders on the burlesque. When I write to Mr. Carfrae, I shall
advise him rather to try one of his deceased friend's English pieces.
I am prodigiously hurried with my own matters, else I would have
requested a perusal of all Mylne's poetic performances; and would have
offered his friends my assistance in either selecting or correcting
what would be proper for the press. What it is that occupies me so
much, and perhaps a little oppresses my present spirits, shall fill up
a paragraph in some future letter. In the mean time, allow me to close
this epistle with a few lines done by a friend of mine * * * * *. I give
you them, that as you have seen the original, you may guess whether
one or two alterations I have ventured to make in them, be any real
improvement.
"Like the fair plant that from our touch withdraws,
Shrink, mildly fearful, even from applause,
Be all a mother's fondest hope can dream,
And all you are, my charming . . . , seem.
Straight as the fox-glove, ere her bells disclose,
Mild as the maiden-blushing hawthorn blows,
Fair as the fairest of each lovely kind,
Your form shall be the image of your mind;
Your manners shall so true your soul express,
That all shall long to know the worth they guess:
Congenial hearts shall greet with kindred love,
And even sick'ning envy must approve. "
R. B.
* * * * *
CLII.
TO THE REV. PETER CARFRAE.
[Mylne was a worthy and a modest man: he died of an inflammatory fever
in the prime of life. ]
1789.
REV. SIR,
I do not recollect that I have ever felt a severer pang of shame, than
on looking at the date of your obliging letter which accompanied Mr.
Mylne's poem.
I am much to blame: the honour Mr. Mylne has done me, greatly enhanced
in its value by the endearing, though melancholy circumstance, of its
being the last production of his muse, deserved a better return.
I have, as you hint, thought of sending a copy of the poem to some
periodical publication; but, on second thoughts, I am afraid, that in
the present case, it would be an improper step. My success, perhaps as
much accidental as merited, has brought an inundation of nonsense
under the name of Scottish poetry. Subscription-bills for Scottish
poems have so dunned, and daily do dun the public, that the very name
is in danger of contempt. For these reasons, if publishing any of Mr.
Mylne's poems in a magazine, &c. , be at all prudent, in my opinion it
certainly should not be a Scottish poem. The profits of the labours of
a man of genius are, I hope, as honourable as any profits whatever;
and Mr. Mylne's relations are most justly entitled to that honest
harvest, which fate has denied himself to reap. But let the friends of
Mr. Mylne's fame (among whom I crave the honour of ranking myself)
always keep in eye his respectability as a man and as a poet, and take
no measure that, before the world knows anything about him, would risk
his name and character being classed with the fools of the times.
I have, Sir, some experience of publishing; and the way in which I
would proceed with Mr. Mylne's poem is this:--I would publish, in two
or three English and Scottish public papers, any one of his English
poems which should, by private judges, be thought the most excellent,
and mention it, at the same time, as one of the productions of a
Lothian farmer, of respectable character, lately deceased, whose poems
his friends had it in idea to publish, soon, by subscription, for the
sake of his numerous family:--not in pity to that family, but in
justice to what his friends think the poetic merits of the deceased;
and to secure, in the most effectual manner, to those tender
connexions, whose right it is, the pecuniary reward of those merits.
R. B.
* * * * *
CLIII.
TO DR. MOORE.
[Edward Nielson, whom Burns here introduces to Dr. Moore, was minister
of Kirkbean, on the Solway-side. He was a jovial man, and loved good
cheer, and merry company. ]
_Ellisland, 23d March, 1789. _
SIR,
The gentleman who will deliver you this is a Mr. Nielson, a worthy
clergyman in my neighbourhood, and a very particular acquaintance of
mine. As I have troubled him with this packet, I must turn him over to
your goodness, to recompense him for it in a way in which he much
needs your assistance, and where you can effectually serve him:--Mr.
Nielson is on his way for France, to wait on his Grace of Queensberry,
on some little business of a good deal of importance to him, and he
wishes for your instructions respecting the most eligible mode of
travelling, &c. , for him, when he has crossed the channel. I should
not have dared to take this liberty with you, but that I am told, by
those who have the honour of your personal acquaintance, that to be a
poor honest Scotchman is a letter of recommendation to you, and that
to have it in your power to serve such a character, gives you much
pleasure.
The enclosed ode is a compliment to the memory of the late Mrs.
Oswald, of Auchencruive. You, probably, knew her personally, an honour
of which I cannot boast; but I spent my early years in her
neighbourhood, and among her servants and tenants. I know that she was
detested with the most heart-felt cordiality. However, in the
particular part of her conduct which roused my poetic wrath, she was
much less blameable. In January last, on my road to Ayrshire, I had
put up at Bailie Wigham's in Sanquhar, the only tolerable inn in the
place. The frost was keen, and the grim evening and howling wind were
ushering in a night of snow and drift. My horse and I were both much
fatigued with the labours of the day, and just as my friend the Bailie
and I were bidding defiance to the storm, over a smoking bowl, in
wheels the funeral pageantry of the late great Mrs. Oswald, and poor I
am forced to brave all the horrors of the tempestuous night, and jade
my horse, my young favourite horse, whom I had just christened
Pegasus, twelve miles farther on, through the wildest moors and hills
of Ayrshire, to New Cumnock, the next inn. The powers of poesy and
prose sink under me, when I would describe what I felt. Suffice it to
say, that when a good fire at New Cumnock had so far recovered my
frozen sinews, I sat down and wrote the enclosed ode.
I was at Edinburgh lately, and settled finally with Mr. Creech; and I
must own, that, at last, he has been amicable and fair with me.
R. B.
* * * * *
CLIV.
TO MR. WILLIAM BURNS.
[William Burns was the youngest brother of the poet: he was bred a
sadler; went to Longtown, and finally to London, where he died early. ]
_Isle, March 25th, 1789. _
I have stolen from my corn-sowing this minute to write a line to
accompany your shirt and hat, for I can no more. Your sister Maria
arrived yesternight, and begs to be remembered to you. Write me every
opportunity, never mind postage. My head, too, is as addle as an egg,
this morning, with dining abroad yesterday. I received yours by the
mason. Forgive me this foolish-looking scrawl of an epistle.
I am ever,
My dear William,
Yours,
R. B.
P. S. If you are not then gone from Longtown, I'll write you a long
letter, by this day se'ennight. If you should not succeed in your
tramps, don't be dejected, or take any rash step--return to us in that
case, and we will court fortune's better humour. Remember this, I
charge you.
R. B.
* * * * *
CLV.
TO MR. HILL.
[The Monkland Book Club existed only while Robert Riddel, of the
Friars-Carse, lived, or Burns had leisure to attend: such
institutions, when well conducted, are very beneficial, when not
oppressed by divinity and verse, as they sometimes are. ]
_Ellisland, 2d April, 1789.
_
I will make no excuse, my dear Bibliopolus (God forgive me for
murdering language! ) that I have sat down to write you on this vile
paper.
It is economy, Sir; it is that cardinal virtue, prudence: so I beg you
will sit down, and either compose or borrow a panegyric. If you are
going to borrow, apply to * * * * to compose, or rather to compound,
something very clever on my remarkable frugality; that I write to one
of my most esteemed friends on this wretched paper, which was
originally intended for the venal fist of some drunken exciseman, to
take dirty notes in a miserable vault of an ale-cellar.
O Frugality! thou mother of ten thousand blessings--thou cook of fat
beef and dainty greens! --thou manufacturer of warm Shetland hose, and
comfortable surtouts! --thou old housewife darning thy decayed
stockings with thy ancient spectacles on thy aged nose! --lead me, hand
me in thy clutching palsied fist, up those heights, and through those
thickets, hitherto inaccessible, and impervious to my anxious, weary
feet:--not those Parnassian crags, bleak and barren, where the hungry
worshippers of fame are breathless, clambering, hanging between heaven
and hell; but those glittering cliffs of Potosi, where the
all-sufficient, all powerful deity, Wealth, holds his immediate court
of joys and pleasures; where the sunny exposure of plenty, and the hot
walls of profusion, produce those blissful fruits of luxury, exotics
in this world, and natives of paradise! --Thou withered sibyl, my sage
conductress, usher me into thy refulgent, adored presence! --The power,
splendid and potent as he now is, was once the puling nursling of thy
faithful care, and tender arms! Call me thy son, thy cousin, thy
kinsman, or favourite, and adjure the god by the scenes of his infant
years, no longer to repulse me as a stranger, or an alien, but to
favour me with his peculiar countenance and protection? --He daily
bestows his greatest kindness on the undeserving and the
worthless--assure him, that I bring ample documents of meritorious
demerits! Pledge yourself for me, that, for the glorious cause of
Lucre, I will do anything, be anything--but the horse-leech of private
oppression, or the vulture of public robbery!
But to descend from heroics.
I want a Shakspeare; I want likewise an English dictionary--Johnson's,
I suppose, is best. In these and all my prose commissions, the
cheapest is always best for me. There is a small debt of honour that I
owe Mr. Robert Cleghorn, in Saughton Mills, my worthy friend, and your
well-wisher. Please give him, and urge him to take it, the first time
you see him, ten shillings worth of anything you have to sell, and
place it to my account.
The library scheme that I mentioned to you, is already begun, under
the direction of Captain Riddel. There is another in emulation of it
going on at Closeburn, under the auspices of Mr. Monteith, of
Closeburn, which will be on a greater scale than ours. Capt. Riddel
gave his infant society a great many of his old books, else I had
written you on that subject; but one of these days, I shall trouble
you with a commission for "The Monkland Friendly Society"--a copy of
_The Spectator_, _Mirror_, and _Lounger_, _Man of Feeling, Man of the
World_, _Guthrie's Geographical Grammar_, with some religious pieces,
will likely be our first order.
When I grow richer, I will write to you on gilt post, to make amends
for this sheet. At present, every guinea has a five guinea errand
with,
My dear Sir,
Your faithful, poor, but honest, friend,
R. B.
* * * * *
CLVI.
TO MRS. DUNLOP
[Some lines which extend, but fail to finish the sketch contained in
this letter, will be found elsewhere in this publication. ]
_Ellisland, 4th April, 1789. _
I no sooner hit on any poetic plan or fancy, but I wish to send it to
you: and if knowing and reading these give half the pleasure to you,
that communicating them to you gives to me, I am satisfied.
I have a poetic whim in my head, which I at present dedicate, or
rather inscribe to the Right Hon. Charles James Fox; but how long that
fancy may hold, I cannot say. A few of the first lines, I have just
rough-sketched as follows:
SKETCH.
How wisdom and folly meet, mix, and unite;
How virtue and vice blend their black and their white;
How genius, the illustrious father of fiction,
Confounds rule and law, reconciles contradiction--
I sing: If these mortals, the critics, should bustle,
I care not, not I, let the critics go whistle.
But now for a patron, whose name and whose glory,
At once may illustrate and honour my story.
Thou first of our orators, first of our wits;
Yet whose parts and acquirements seem mere lucky hits;
With knowledge so vast, and with judgment so strong,
No man with the half of 'em e'er went far wrong;
With passion so potent, and fancies so bright,
No man with the half of 'em ere went quite right;
A sorry, poor misbegot son of the muses,
For using thy name offers many excuses.
On the 20th current I hope to have the honour of assuring you in
person, how sincerely I am--
R. B.
* * * * *
CLVII.
TO MR. WILLIAM BURNS,
SADLER,
CARE OF MR. WRIGHT, CARRIER, LONGTOWN.
["Never to despair" was a favourite saying with Burns: and "firm
resolve," he held, with Young, to be "the column of true majesty in
man. "]
_Isle, 15th April, 1789. _
MY DEAR WILLIAM,
I am extremely sorry at the misfortune of your legs; I beg you will
never let any worldly concern interfere with the more serious matter,
the safety of your life and limbs. I have not time in these hurried
days to write you anything other than a mere how d'ye letter. I will
only repeat my favourite quotation:--
"What proves the hero truly great
Is never, never to despair. "
My house shall be your welcome home; and as I know your prudence
(would to God you had _resolution_ equal to your _prudence_! ) if
anywhere at a distance from friends, you should need money, you know
my direction by post.
The enclosed is from Gilbert, brought by your sister Nanny. It was
unluckily forgot. Yours to Gilbert goes by post. --I heard from them
yesterday, they are all well.
Adieu.
R. B.
* * * * *
CLVIII.
TO MRS. M'MURDO,
DRUMLANRIG.
[Of this accomplished lady, Mrs. M'Murdo, of Drumlanrig, and her
daughters, something has been said in the notes on the songs: the poem
alluded to was the song of "Bonnie Jean. "]
_Ellisland, 2d May, 1789. _
MADAM,
I have finished the piece which had the happy fortune to be honoured
with your approbation; and never did little miss with more sparkling
pleasure show her applauded sampler to partial mamma, than I now send
my poem to you and Mr. M'Murdo if he is returned to Drumlanrig. You
cannot easily imagine what thin-skinned animals--what sensitive plants
poor poets are. How do we shrink into the embittered corner of
self-abasement, when neglected or condemned by those to whom we look
up! and how do we, in erect importance, add another cubit to our
stature on being noticed and applauded by those whom we honour and
respect! My late visit to Drumlanrig has, I can tell you, Madam, given
me a balloon waft up Parnassus, where on my fancied elevation I regard
my poetic self with no small degree of complacency. Surely with all
their sins, the rhyming tribe are not ungrateful creatures. --I
recollect your goodness to your humble guest--I see Mr. M'Murdo adding
to the politeness of the gentleman, the kindness of a friend, and my
heart swells as it would burst, with warm emotions and ardent wishes!
It may be it is not gratitude--it may be a mixed sensation. That
strange, shifting, doubling animal man is so generally, at best, but a
negative, often a worthless creature, that we cannot see real goodness
and native worth without feeling the bosom glow with sympathetic
approbation.
With every sentiment of grateful respect,
I have the honour to be,
Madam,
Your obliged and grateful humble servant,
R. B.
* * * * *
CLIX.
TO MR. CUNNINGHAM.
[Honest Jamie Thomson, who shot the hare because she browsed with her
companions on his father's "wheat-braird," had no idea he was pulling
down such a burst of indignation on his head as this letter with the
poem which it enclosed expresses. ]
_Ellisland, 4th May, 1789. _
MY DEAR SIR,
Your _duty-free_ favour of the 26th April I received two days ago; I
will not say I perused it with pleasure; that is the cold compliment
of ceremony; I perused it, Sir, with delicious satisfaction;--in
short, it is such a letter, that not you, nor your friend, but the
legislature, by express proviso in their postage laws, should frank.
A letter informed with the soul of friendship is such an honour to
human nature, that they should order it free ingress and egress to and
from their bags and mails, as an encouragement and mark of distinction
to supereminent virtue.
I have just put the last hand to a little poem which I think will be
something to your taste. One morning lately, as I was out pretty early
in the fields, sowing some grass seeds, I heard the burst of a shot
from a neighbouring plantation, and presently a poor little wounded
hare came crippling by me. You will guess my indignation at the
inhuman fellow who could shoot a hare at this season, when all of them
have young ones. Indeed there is something in that business of
destroying for our sport individuals in the animal creation that do
not injure us materially, which I could never reconcile to my ideas of
virtue.
Inhuman man! curse on thy barb'rous art,
And blasted be thy murder-aiming eye!
May never pity soothe thee with a sigh,
Nor ever pleasure glad thy cruel heart!
&c. &c.
Let me know how you like my poem. I am doubtful whether it would not
be an improvement to keep out the last stanza but one altogether.
Cruikshank is a glorious production of the author of man. You, he, and
the noble Colonel of the Crochallan Fencibles are to me
"Dear as the ruddy drops which warm my heart"
I have a good mind to make verses on you all, to the tune of "_Three
guid fellows ayont the glen. _"
R. B.
* * * * *
CLX.
TO MR. SAMUEL BROWN.
[Samuel Brown was brother to the poet's mother: he seems to have been
a joyous sort of person, who loved a joke, and understood double
meanings. ]
_Mossgiel, 4th May, 1789. _
DEAR UNCLE,
This, I hope, will find you and your conjugal yoke-fellow in your good
old way; I am impatient to know if the Ailsa fowling be commenced for
this season yet, as I want three or four stones of feathers, and I
hope you will bespeak them for me. It would be a vain attempt for me
to enumerate the various transactions I have been engaged in since I
saw you last, but this know,--I am engaged in a _smuggling trade_, and
God knows if ever any poor man experienced better returns, two for
one, but as freight and delivery have turned out so dear, I am
thinking of taking out a license and beginning in fair trade. I have
taken a farm on the borders of the Nith, and in imitation of the old
Patriarchs, get men-servants and maid-servants, and flocks and herds,
and beget sons and daughters.
Your obedient nephew,
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXI.
TO RICHARD BROWN.
[Burns was much attached to Brown; and one regrets that an
inconsiderate word should have estranged the haughty sailor. ]
_Mauchline, 21st May, 1789. _
MY DEAR FRIEND,
I was in the country by accident, and hearing of your safe arrival, I
could not resist the temptation of wishing you joy on your return,
wishing you would write to me before you sail again, wishing you would
always set me down as your bosom friend, wishing you long life and
prosperity, and that every good thing may attend you, wishing Mrs.
Brown and your little ones as free of the evils of this world, as is
consistent with humanity, wishing you and she were to make two at the
ensuing lying-in, with which Mrs. B. threatens very soon to favour me,
wishing I had longer time to write to you at present; and, finally,
wishing that if there is to be another state of existence, Mr. B. ,
Mrs. B. , our little ones, and both families, and you and I, in some
snug retreat, may make a jovial party to all eternity!
My direction is at Ellisland, near Dumfries
Yours,
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXII.
TO MR. JAMES HAMILTON.
[James Hamilton, grocer, in Glasgow, interested himself early in the
fortunes of the poet. ]
_Ellisland, 26th May, 1789. _
DEAR SIR,
I send you by John Glover, carrier, the account for Mr. Turnbull, as I
suppose you know his address.
I would fain offer, my dear Sir, a word of sympathy with your
misfortunes; but it is a tender string, and I know not how to touch
it. It is easy to flourish a set of high-flown sentiments on the
subjects that would give great satisfaction to--a breast quite at
ease; but as ONE observes, who was very seldom mistaken in
the theory of life, "The heart knoweth its own sorrows, and a stranger
intermeddleth not therewith. "
Among some distressful emergencies that I have experienced in life, I
ever laid this down as my foundation of comfort--_That he who has
lived the life of an honest man, has by no means lived in vain! _
With every wish for your welfare and future success,
I am, my dear Sir,
Sincerely yours,
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXIII.
TO WILLIAM CREECH, ESQ.
[The poetic address to the "venomed stang" of the toothache seems to
have come into existence about this time. ]
_Ellisland, 30th May, 1789. _
SIR,
I had intended to have troubled you with a long letter, but at present
the delightful sensations of an omnipotent toothache so engross all my
inner man, as to put it out of my power even to write nonsense.
However, as in duty bound, I approach my bookseller with an offering
in my hand--a few poetic clinches, and a song:--To expect any other
kind of offering from the Rhyming Tribe would be to know them much
less than you do. I do not pretend that there is much merit in these
_morceaux_, but I have two reasons for sending them; _primo_, they are
mostly ill-natured, so are in unison with my present feelings, while
fifty troops of infernal spirits are driving post from ear to ear
along my jaw-bones; and _secondly_, they are so short, that you cannot
leave off in the middle, and so hurt my pride in the idea that you
found any work of mine too heavy to get through.
I have a request to beg of you, and I not only beg of you, but conjure
you, by all your wishes and by all your hopes, that the muse will
spare the satiric wink in the moment of your foibles; that she will
warble the song of rapture round your hymeneal couch; and that she
will shed on your turf the honest tear of elegiac gratitude! Grant my
request as speedily as possible--send me by the very first fly or
coach for this place three copies of the last edition of my poems,
which place to my account.
Now may the good things of prose, and the good things of verse, come
among thy hands, until they be filled with the _good things of this
life_, prayeth
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXIV.
TO MR. M'AULEY.
[The poet made the acquaintance of Mr. M'Auley, of Dumbarton, in one
of his northern tours,--he was introduced by his friend Kennedy. ]
_Ellisland, 4th June, 1789. _
DEAR SIR,
Though I am not without my fears respecting my fate, at that grand,
universal inquest of right and wrong, commonly called _The Last Day_,
yet I trust there is one sin, which that arch-vagabond, Satan, who I
understand is to be king's evidence, cannot throw in my teeth, I mean
ingratitude. There is a certain pretty large quantum of kindness for
which I remain, and from inability, I fear, must still remain, your
debtor; but though unable to repay the debt, I assure you, Sir, I
shall ever warmly remember the obligation. It gives me the sincerest
pleasure to hear by my old acquaintance, Mr. Kennedy, that you are, in
immortal Allan's language, "Hale, and weel, and living;" and that your
charming family are well, and promising to be an amiable and
respectable addition to the company of performers, whom the Great
Manager of the Drama of Man is bringing into action for the succeeding
age.
With respect to my welfare, a subject in which you once warmly and
effectively interested yourself, I am here in my old way, holding my
plough, marking the growth of my corn, or the health of my dairy; and
at times sauntering by the delightful windings of the Nith, on the
margin of which I have built my humble domicile, praying for
seasonable weather, or holding an intrigue with the muses; the only
gipsies with whom I have now any intercourse. As I am entered into the
holy state of matrimony, I trust my face is turned completely
Zion-ward; and as it is a rule with all honest fellows to repeat no
grievances, I hope that the little poetic licenses of former days will
of course fall under the oblivious influence of some good-natured
statute of celestial prescription. In my family devotion, which, like
a good Presbyterian, I occasionally give to my household folks, I am
extremely fond of that psalm, "Let not the errors of my youth," &c. ,
and that other, "Lo, children are God's heritage," &c. , in which last
Mrs. Burns, who by the bye has a glorious "wood-note wild" at either
old song or psalmody, joins me with the pathos of Handel's Messiah.
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXV.
TO MR. ROBERT AINSLIE.
[The following high-minded letter may be regarded as a sermon on
domestic morality preached by one of the experienced. ]
_Ellisland, 8th June, 1789. _
MY DEAR FRIEND,
I am perfectly ashamed of myself when I look at the date of your last.
It is not that I forget the friend of my heart and the companion of my
peregrinations; but I have been condemned to drudgery beyond
sufferance, though not, thank God, beyond redemption. I have had a
collection of poems by a lady, put into my hands to prepare them for
the press; which horrid task, with sowing corn with my own hand, a
parcel of masons, wrights, plasterers, &c. , to attend to, roaming on
business through Ayrshire--all this was against me, and the very first
dreadful article was of itself too much for me.
13th. I have not had a moment to spare from incessant toil since the 8th.
Life, my dear Sir, is a serious matter. You know by experience that a man's
individual self is a good deal, but believe me, a wife and family of
children, whenever you have the honour to be a husband and a father, will
show you that your present and most anxious hours of solitude are spent on
trifles. The welfare of those who are very dear to us, whose only support,
hope and stay we are--this, to a generous mind, is another sort of more
important object of care than any concerns whatever which centre merely in
the individual. On the other hand, let no young, unmarried, rakehelly dog
among you, make a song of his pretended liberty and freedom from care. If
the relations we stand in to king, country, kindred, and friends, be
anything but the visionary fancies of dreaming metaphysicians; if religion,
virtue, magnanimity, generosity, humanity and justice, be aught but empty
sounds; then the man who may be said to live only for others, for the
beloved, honourable female, whose tender faithful embrace endears life, and
for the helpless little innocents who are to be the men and women, the
worshippers of his God, the subjects of his king, and the support, nay the
vital existence of his COUNTRY in the ensuing age;--compare such a man with
any fellow whatever, who, whether he bustle and push in business among
labourers, clerks, statesmen; or whether he roar and rant, and drink and
sing in taverns--a fellow over whose grave no one will breathe a single
heigh-ho, except from the cobweb-tie of what is called good-fellowship--who
has no view nor aim but what terminates in himself--if there be any
grovelling earth-born wretch of our species, a renegado to common sense,
who would fain believe that the noble creature man, is no better than a
sort of fungus, generated out of nothing, nobody knows how, and soon
dissipated in nothing, nobody knows where; such a stupid beast, such a
crawling reptile, might balance the foregoing unexaggerated comparison, but
no one else would have the patience.
Forgive me, my dear Sir, for this long silence. _To make you amends_,
I shall send you soon, and more encouraging still, without any
postage, one or two rhymes of my later manufacture.
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXVI.
TO MR. M'MURDO.
[John M'Murdo has been already mentioned as one of Burns's firmest
friends: his table at Drumlanrig was always spread at the poet's
coming: nor was it uncheered by the presence of the lady of the house
and her daughters. ]
_Ellisland, 19th June, 1789. _
SIR,
A poet and a beggar are, in so many points of view, alike, that one
might take them for the same individual character under different
designations; were it not that though, with a trifling poetic license,
most poets may be styled beggars, yet the converse of the proposition
does not hold, that every beggar is a poet. In one particular,
however, they remarkably agree; if you help either the one or the
other to a mug of ale, or the picking of a bone, they will very
willingly repay you with a song. This occurs to me at present, as I
have just despatched a well-lined rib of John Kirkpatrick's
Highlander; a bargain for which I am indebted to you, in the style of
our ballad printers, "Five excellent new songs. " The enclosed is
nearly my newest song, and one that has cost me some pains, though
that is but an equivocal mark of its excellence. Two or three others,
which I have by me, shall do themselves the honour to wait on your
after leisure: petitioners for admittance into favour must not harass
the condescension of their benefactor.
You see, Sir, what it is to patronize a poet. 'Tis like being a
magistrate in a petty borough; you do them the favour to preside in
their council for one year, and your name bears the prefatory stigma
of Bailie for life.
With, not the compliments, but the best wishes, the sincerest prayers
of the season for you, that you may see many and happy years with Mrs.
M'Murdo, and your family; two blessings by the bye, to which your rank
does not, by any means, entitle you; a loving wife and fine family
being almost the only good things of this life to which the farm-house
and cottage have an exclusive right,
I have the honour to be,
Sir,
Your much indebted and very humble servant,
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXVII.
