comparatively happy up to your comparative worth among the sons of
men; which wish would, I am sure, make you one of the most blest of
the human race.
I do not know if passing a "Writer to the signet," be a trial of
scientific merit, or a mere business of friends and interest. However
it be, let me quote you my two favourite passages, which, though I
have repeated them ten thousand times, still they rouse my manhood and
steel my resolution like inspiration.
------------------"On reason build resolve,
That column of true majesty in man."
YOUNG. NIGHT THOUGHTS.
"Hear, Alfred, hero of the state,
Thy genius heaven's high will declare;
The triumph of the truly great,
Is never, never to despair!
Is never to despair!"
THOMSON. 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._