the whole man a piece of broken machinery, to moulder with the clods
of the valley, be it so: at least there is an end of pain, care, woes,
and wants: if that part of us called mind does survive the apparent
destruction of the man--away with old-wife prejudices and tales! Every
age and every nation has had a different set of stories; and as the
many are always weak, of consequence, they have often, perhaps always,
been deceived; a man conscious of having acted an honest part among
his fellow-creatures--even granting that he may have been the sport at
times of passions and instincts--he goes to a great unknown Being, who
could have no other end in giving him existence but to make him happy,
who gave him those passions and instincts, and well knows their force.
These, my worthy friend, are my ideas; and I know they are not far
different from yours. It becomes a man of sense to think for himself,
particularly in a case where all men are equally interested, and
where, indeed, all men are equally in the dark.
Adieu, my dear Sir; God send us a cheerful meeting!
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 183: Blair's Grave.]
* * * * *
CVIII.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[One of the daughters of Mrs. Dunlop painted a sketch of Coila from
Burns's poem of the Vision: it is still in existence, and is said to
have merit.]
_Mossgiel, 17th March, 1788._
MADAM,
The last paragraph in yours of the 30th February affected me most, so
I shall begin my answer where you ended your letter. That I am often a
sinner with any little wit I have, I do confess: but I have taxed my
recollection to no purpose, to find out when it was employed against
you. I hate an ungenerous sarcasm a great deal worse than I do the
devil; at least as Milton described him; and though I may be rascally
enough to be sometimes guilty of it myself, I cannot endure it in
others. You, my honoured friend, who cannot appear in any light but
you are sure of being respectable--you can afford to pass by an
occasion to display your wit, because you may depend for fame on your
sense; or, if you choose to be silent, you know you can rely on the
gratitude of many, and the esteem of all; but, God help us, who are
wits or witlings by profession, if we stand for fame there, we sink
unsupported!
I am highly flattered by the news you tell me of Coila. I may say to
the fair painter who does me so much honour, as Dr. Beattie says to
Ross the poet of his muse Scota, from which, by the bye, I took the
idea of Coila ('tis a poem of Beattie's in the Scottish dialect, which
perhaps you have never seen:)--
Ye shak your heads, but o' my fegs,
Ye've sat auld Scota on her legs:
Lang had she lien wi' beffs and flegs,
Bumbaz'd and dizzie,
Her fiddle wanted strings and pegs.
Wae's me, poor hizzie."
R. B.
* * * * *
CIX.
TO MISS CHALMERS.
[The uncouth cares of which the poet complains in this letter were the
construction of a common farmhouse, with barn, byre, and stable to
suit.]
_Edinburgh, March 14, 1788._
I know, my ever dear friend, that you will be pleased with the news
when I tell you, I have at last taken a lease of a farm. Yesternight I
completed a bargain with Mr. Miller, of Dalswinton for the farm of
Ellisland, on the banks of the Nith, between five and six miles above
Dumfries. I begin at Whit-Sunday to build a house, drive lime, &c.;
and heaven be my help! for it will take a strong effort to bring my
mind into the routine of business. I have discharged all the army of
my former pursuits, fancies, and pleasures; a motley host! and have
literally and strictly retained only the ideas of a few friends, which
I have incorporated into a lifeguard. I trust in Dr. Johnson's
observation, "Where much is attempted, something is done." Firmness,
both in sufferance and exertion, is a character I would wish to be
thought to possess: and have always despised the whining yelp of
complaint, and the cowardly, feeble resolve.
Poor Miss K. is ailing a good deal this winter, and begged me to
remember her to you the first time I wrote to you. Surely woman,
amiable woman, is often made in vain. Too delicately formed for the
rougher pursuits of ambition; too noble for the dirt of avarice, and
even too gentle for the rage of pleasure; formed indeed for, and
highly susceptible of enjoyment and rapture; but that enjoyment, alas!
almost wholly at the mercy of the caprice, malevolence, stupidity, or
wickedness of an animal at all times comparatively unfeeling, and
often brutal.
R. B.
* * * * *
CX.
TO RICHARD BROWN.
[The excitement referred to in this letter arose from the dilatory and
reluctant movements of Creech, who was so slow in settling his
accounts that the poet suspected his solvency.]
_Glasgow, 26th March, 1788._
I am monstrously to blame, my dear Sir, in not writing to you, and
sending you the Directory. I have been getting my tack extended, as I
have taken a farm; and I have been racking shop accounts with Mr.
Creech, both of which, together with watching, fatigue, and a load of
care almost too heavy for my shoulders, have in some degree actually
fevered me. I really forgot the Directory yesterday, which vexed me;
but I was convulsed with rage a great part of the day. I have to thank
you for the ingenious, friendly, and elegant epistle from your friend
Mr. Crawford. I shall certainly write to him, but not now. This is
merely a card to you, as I am posting to Dumfries-shire, where many
perplexing arrangements await me. I am vexed about the Directory; but,
my dear Sir, forgive me: these eight days I have been positively
crazed. My compliments to Mrs. B. I shall write to you at Grenada.--I
am ever, my dearest friend,
Yours,--R. B.
* * * * *
CXI.
TO MR. ROBERT CLEGHORN.
[Cleghorn was a farmer, a social man, and much of a musician. The poet
wrote the Chevalier's Lament to please the jacobitical taste of his
friend; and the musician gave him advice in farming which he neglected
to follow:--"Farmer Attention," says Cleghorn, "is a good farmer
everywhere."]
_Mauchline, 31st March, 1788._
Yesterday, my dear Sir, as I was riding through a track of melancholy,
joyless muirs, between Galloway and Ayrshire, it being Sunday, I
turned my thoughts to psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs; and your
favourite air, "Captain O'Kean," coming at length into my head, I
tried these words to it. You will see that the first part of the tune
must be repeated.
I am tolerably pleased with these verses, but as I have only a sketch
of the tune, I leave it with you to try if they suit the measure of
the music.
I am so harassed with care and anxiety, about this farming project of
mine, that my muse has degenerated into the veriest prose-wench that
ever picked cinders, or followed a tinker. When I am fairly got into
the routine of business, I shall trouble you with a longer epistle;
perhaps with some queries respecting farming; at present, the world
sits such a load on my mind, that it has effaced almost every trace of
the poet in me.
My very best compliments and good wishes to Mrs. Cleghorn.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXII.
TO MR. WILLIAM DUNBAR,
EDINBURGH.
[This letter was printed for the first time by Robert Chambers, in his
"People's Edition" of Burns.]
_Mauchline, 7th April, 1788._
I have not delayed so long to write you, my much respected friend,
because I thought no farther of my promise. I have long since give up
that kind of formal correspondence, where one sits down irksomely to
write a letter, because we think we are in duty bound so to do.
I have been roving over the country, as the farm I have taken is forty
miles from this place, hiring servants and preparing matters; but most
of all I am earnestly busy to bring about a revolution in my own mind.
As, till within these eighteen months, I never was the wealthy master
of 10 guineas, my knowledge of business is to learn; add to this my
late scenes of idleness and dissipation have enervated my mind to an
alarming degree. Skill in the sober science of life is my most serious
and hourly study. I have dropt all conversation and all reading (prose
reading) but what tends in some way or other to my serious aim. Except
one worthy young fellow, I have not one single correspondent in
Edinburgh. You have indeed kindly made me an offer of that kind. The
world of wits, and _gens comme il faut_ which I lately left, and with
whom I never again will intimately mix--from that port, Sir, I expect
your Gazette: what _Les beaux esprit_ are saying, what they are doing,
and what they are singing. Any sober intelligence from my sequestered
walks of life; any droll original; any passing reward, important
forsooth, because it is mine; any little poetic effort, however
embryoth; these, my dear Sir, are all you have to expect from me. When
I talk of poetic efforts, I must have it always understood, that I
appeal from your wit and taste to your friendship and good nature. The
first would be my favourite tribunal, where I defied censure; but the
last, where I declined justice.
I have scarcely made a single distich since I saw you. When I meet
with an old Scots air that has any facetious idea in its name, I have
a peculiar pleasure in following out that idea for a verse or two.
I trust that this will find you in better health than I did last time
I called for you. A few lines from you, directed to me at Mauchline,
were it but to let me know how you are, will set my mind a good deal
[at rest.] Now, never shun the idea of writing me because perhaps you
may be out of humour or spirits. I could give you a hundred good
consequences attending a dull letter; one, for example, and the
remaining ninety-nine some other time--it will always serve to keep in
countenance, my much respected Sir, your obliged friend and humble
servant,
R. B.
* * * * *
CXIII.
TO MISS CHALMERS.
[The sacrifice referred to by the poet, was his resolution to unite
his fortune with Jean Armour.]
_Mauchline, 7th April, 1788._
I am indebted to you and Miss Nimmo for letting me know Miss Kennedy.
Strange! how apt we are to indulge prejudices in our judgments of one
another! Even I, who pique myself on my skill in marking
characters--because I am too proud of my character as a man, to be
dazzled in my judgment for glaring wealth; and too proud of my
situation as a poor man to be biased against squalid poverty--I was
unacquainted with Miss K.'s very uncommon worth.
I am going on a good deal progressive in _mon grand but_, the sober
science of life. I have lately made some sacrifices, for which, were I
_viva voce_ with you to paint the situation and recount the
circumstances, you should applaud me.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXIV.
TO MISS CHALMERS.
[The hint alluded to, was a whisper of the insolvency of Creech; but
the bailie was firm as the Bass.]
_No date._
Now for that wayward, unfortunate thing, myself. I have broke measures
with Creech, and last week I wrote him a frosty, keen letter. He
replied in terms of chastisement, and promised me upon his honour that
I should have the account on Monday; but this is Tuesday, and yet I
have not heard a word from him. God have mercy on me! a poor d--mned,
incautious, duped, unfortunate fool! The sport, the miserable victim
of rebellious pride, hypochondriac imagination, agonizing sensibility,
and bedlam passions?
"I wish that I were dead, but I'm no like to die!" I had lately "a
hair-breadth 'scape in th' imminent deadly breach" of love too. Thank my
stars, I got off heart-whole, "waur fleyd than hurt."--Interruption.
I have this moment got a hint: I fear I am something like--undone--but
I hope for the best. Come, stubborn pride and unshrinking resolution;
accompany me through this, to me, miserable world! You must not desert
me! Your friendship I think I can count on, though I should date my
letters from a marching regiment. Early in life, and all my life I
reckoned on a recruiting drum as my forlorn hope. Seriously though,
life at present presents me with but a melancholy path: but--my limb
will soon be sound, and I shall struggle on.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXV.
TO MISS CHALMERS.
[Although Burns gladly grasped at a situation in the Excise, he wrote
many apologies to his friends, for the acceptance of a place, which,
though humble enough, was the only one that offered.]
_Edinburgh, Sunday._
To-morrow, my dear madam, I leave Edinburgh. I have altered all my
plans of future life. A farm that I could live in, I could not find;
and, indeed, after the necessary support my brother and the rest of
the family required, I could not venture on farming in that style
suitable to my feelings. You will condemn me for the next step I have
taken. I have entered into the Excise. I stay in the west about three
weeks, and then return to Edinburgh, for six weeks' instructions:
afterwards, for I get employ instantly, I go _ou il plait a
Dieu_,--_et mon Roi._ I have chosen this, my dear friend, after mature
deliberation. The question is not at what door of fortune's palace
shall we enter in; but what doors does she open to us? I was not
likely to get anything to do. I wanted _un but_, which is a dangerous,
an unhappy situation. I got this without any hanging on, or mortifying
solicitation; it is immediate bread, and though poor in comparison of
the last eighteen months of my existence, 'tis luxury in comparison
of all my preceding life: besides, the commissioners are some of them
my acquaintances, and all of them my firm friends.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXVI.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[The Tasso, with the perusal of which Mrs. Dunlop indulged the poet,
was not the line version of Fairfax, but the translation of Hoole--a
far inferior performance.]
_Mauchline, 28th April, 1788._
MADAM,
Your powers of reprehension must be great indeed, as I assure you they
made my heart ache with penitential pangs, even though I was really
not guilty. As I commence farmer at Whit-Sunday, you will easily guess
I must be pretty busy; but that is not all. As I got the offer of the
Excise business without solicitation, and as it costs me only six
months' attendance for instructions, to entitle me to a
commission--which commission lies by me, and at any future period, on
my simple petition, ca be resumed--I thought five-and-thirty pounds
a-year was no bad _dernier ressort_ for a poor poet, if fortune in her
jade tricks should kick him down from the little eminence to which she
has lately helped him up.
For this reason, I am at present attending these instructions, to have
them completed before Whit-sunday. Still, Madam, I prepared with the
sincerest pleasure to meet you at the Mount, and came to my brother's
on Saturday night, to set out on Sunday; but for some nights preceding
I had slept in an apartment, where the force of the winds and rains
was only mitigated by being sifted through numberless apertures in the
windows, walls, &c. In consequence I was on Sunday, Monday, and part
of Tuesday, unable to stir out of bed, with all the miserable effects
of a violent cold.
You see, Madam, the truth of the French maxim, _le vrai n'est pas
toujours le vraisemblable_; your last was so full of expostulation,
and was something so like the language of an offended friend, that I
began to tremble for a correspondence, which I had with grateful
pleasure set down as one of the greatest enjoyments of my future life.
Your books have delighted me: Virgil, Dryden, and Tasso were all
equally strangers to me; but of this more at large in my next.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXVII.
TO MR. JAMES SMITH,
AVON PRINTFIELD, LINLITHGOW.
[James Smith, as this letter intimates, had moved from Mauchline to
try to mend his fortunes at Avon Printfield, near Linlithgow.]
_Mauchline, April 28, 1788._
Beware of your Strasburgh, my good Sir! Look on this as the opening of
a correspondence, like the opening of a twenty-four gun battery!
There is no understanding a man properly, without knowing something of
his previous ideas (that is to say, if the man has any ideas; for I
know many who, in the animal-muster, pass for men, that are the scanty
masters of only one idea on any given subject, and by far the greatest
part of your acquaintances and mine can barely boast of ideas,
1.25--1.5--1.75 or some such fractional matter;) so to let you a
little into the secrets of my pericranium, there is, you must know, a
certain clean-limbed, handsome, bewitching young hussy of your
acquaintance, to whom I have lately and privately given a matrimonial
title to my corpus.
"Bode a robe and wear it,
Bode a pock and bear it,"
says the wise old Scots adage! I hate to presage ill-luck; and as my
girl has been doubly kinder to me than even the best of women usually
are to their partners of our sex, in similar circumstances, I reckon
on twelve times a brace of children against I celebrate my twelfth
wedding-day: these twenty-four will give me twenty-four gossipings,
twenty-four christenings (I mean one equal to two), and I hope, by the
blessing of the God of my fathers, to make them twenty-four dutiful
children to their parents, twenty-four useful members of society, and
twenty-four approved services of their God! * * *
"Light's heartsome," quo' the wife when she was stealing sheep. You
see what a lamp I have hung up to lighten your paths, when you are
idle enough to explore the combinations and relations of my ideas.
'Tis now as plain as a pike-staff, why a twenty-four gun battery was a
metaphor I could readily employ.
Now for business.--I intend to present Mrs. Burns with a printed
shawl, an article of which I dare say you have variety: 'tis my first
present to her since I have irrevocably called her mine, and I have a
kind of whimsical wish to get her the first said present from an old
and much-valued friend of hers and mine, a trusty Trojan, on whose
friendship I count myself possessed of as a life-rent lease.
Look on this letter as a "beginning of sorrows;" I will write you till
your eyes ache reading nonsense.
Mrs. Burns ('tis only her private designation) begs her best
compliments to you.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXVIII.
TO PROFESSOR DUGALD STEWART.
[Dugald Stewart loved the poet, admired his works, and enriched the
biography of Currie with some genuine reminiscences of his earlier
days.]
_Mauchline, 3d May, 1788._
SIR,
I enclose you one or two more of my bagatelles. If the fervent wishes
of honest gratitude have any influence with that great unknown being
who frames the chain of causes and events, prosperity and happiness
will attend your visits to the continent, and return you safe to your
native shore.
Wherever I am, allow me, Sir, to claim it as my privilege to acquaint
you with my progress in my trade of rhymes; as I am sure I could say
it with truth, that next to my little fame, and the having it in my
power to make life more comfortable to those whom nature has made dear
to me, I shall ever regard your countenance, your patronage, your
friendly good offices, as the most valued consequence of my late
success in life.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXIX.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[A poem, something after the fashion of the Georgics, was long present
to the mind of Burns: had fortune been more friendly he might have, in
due time, produced it.]
_Mauchline, 4th May, 1788._
MADAM,
Dryden's Virgil has delighted me. I do not know whether the critics
will agree with me, but the Georgics are to me by far the best of
Virgil. It is indeed a species of writing entirely new to me; and has
filled my head with a thousand fancies of emulation: but, alas! when I
read the Georgics, and then survey my own powers, 'tis like the idea
of a Shetland pony, drawn up by the side of a thorough-bred hunter to
start for the plate. I own I am disappointed in the AEneid. Faultless
correctness may please, and does highly please, the lettered critic:
but to that awful character I have not the most distant pretensions. I
do not know whether I do not hazard my pretensions to be a critic of
any kind, when I say that I think Virgil, in many instances, a servile
copier of Homer. If I had the Odyssey by me, I could parallel many
passages where Virgil has evidently copied, but by no means improved,
Homer. Nor can I think there is anything of this owing to the
translators; for, from everything I have seen of Dryden, I think him
in genius and fluency of language, Pope's master. I have not perused
Tasso enough to form an opinion: in some future letter, you shall have
my ideas of him; though I am conscious my criticisms must be very
inaccurate and imperfect, as there I have ever felt and lamented my
want of learning most.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXX.
TO MR. ROBERT AINSLIE.
[I have heard the gentleman say, to whom this brief letter is
addressed, how much he was pleased with the intimation, that the poet
had reunited himself with Jean Armour, for he know his heart was with
her.]
_Mauchline, May 26, 1788._
MY DEAR FRIEND,
I am two kind letters in your debt, but I have been from home, and
horribly busy, buying and preparing for my farming business, over and
above the plague of my Excise instructions, which this week will
finish.
As I flatter my wishes that I foresee many future years'
correspondence between us, 'tis foolish to talk of excusing dull
epistles; a dull letter may be a very kind one. I have the pleasure to
tell you that I have been extremely fortunate in all my buyings, and
bargainings hitherto; Mrs. Burns not excepted; which title I now avow
to the world. I am truly pleased with this last affair: it has indeed
added to my anxieties for futurity, but it has given a stability to my
mind, and resolutions unknown before; and the poor girl has the most
sacred enthusiasm of attachment to me, and has not a wish but to
gratify my every idea of her deportment. I am interrupted.--Farewell!
my dear Sir.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXXI.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[This letter, on the hiring season, is well worth the consideration of
all masters, and all servants. In England, servants are engaged by the
month; in Scotland by the half-year, and therefore less at the mercy
of the changeable and capricious.]
27_th May, 1788._
MADAM,
I have been torturing my philosophy to no purpose, to account for that
kind partiality of yours, which has followed me, in my return to the
shade of life, with assiduous benevolence. Often did I regret, in the
fleeting hours of my late will-o'-wisp appearance, that "here I had no
continuing city;" and but for the consolation of a few solid guineas,
could almost lament the time that a momentary acquaintance with wealth
and splendour put me so much out of conceit with the sworn companions
of my road through life--insignificance and poverty.
There are few circumstances relating to the unequal distribution of
the good things of this life that give me more vexation (I mean in
what I see around me) than the importance the opulent bestow on their
trifling family affairs, compared with the very same things on the
contracted scale of a cottage. Last afternoon I had the honour to
spend an hour or two at a good woman's fireside, where the planks that
composed the floor were decorated with a splendid carpet, and the gay
table sparkled with silver and china. 'Tis now about term-day, and
there has been a revolution among those creatures, who though in
appearance partakers, and equally noble partakers, of the same nature
with Madame, are from time to time--their nerves, their sinews, their
health, strength, wisdom, experience, genius, time, nay a good part of
their very thoughts--sold for months and years, not only to the
necessities, the conveniences, but, the caprices of the important few.
We talked of the insignificant creatures, nay notwithstanding their
general stupidity and rascality, did some of the poor devils the
honour to commend them. But light be the turf upon his breast who
taught "Reverence thyself!" We looked down on the unpolished wretches,
their impertinent wives and clouterly brats, as the lordly bull does
on the little dirty ant-hill, whose puny inhabitants he crushes in the
carelessness of his ramble, or tosses in the air in the wantonness of
his pride.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXXII.
TO MRS. DUNLOP,
AT MR DUNLOP'S, HADDINGTON.
[In this, the poet's first letter from Ellisland, he lays down his
whole system of in-door and out-door economy: while his wife took care
of the household, he was to manage the farm, and "pen a stanza" during
his hours of leisure.]
_Ellisland, 13th June, 1788._
"Where'er I roam, whatever realms I see,
My heart, untravell'd, fondly turns to thee;
Still to my _friend_ it turns with ceaseless pain,
and drags at each remove a lengthening chain."
GOLDSMITH.