* * * * *

CLXXIX.

TO PROVOST MAXWELL,

OF LOCHMABEN.

[Of Lochmaben, the "Marjory of the mony Lochs" of the election

ballads, Maxwell was at this time provost, a post more of honour than

of labour.]

_Ellisland, 20th December, 1789._

DEAR PROVOST,

As my friend Mr. Graham goes for your good town to-morrow, I cannot

resist the temptation to send you a few lines, and as I have nothing

to say I have chosen this sheet of foolscap, and begun as you see at

the top of the first page, because I have ever observed, that when

once people have fairly set out they know not where to stop. Now that

my first sentence is concluded, I have nothing to do but to pray

heaven to help me on to another. Shall I write you on Politics or

Religion, two master subjects for your sayers of nothing. Of the first

I dare say by this time you are nearly surfeited: and for the last,

whatever they may talk of it, who make it a kind of company concern, I

never could endure it beyond a soliloquy. I might write you on

farming, on building, or marketing, but my poor distracted mind is so

torn, so jaded, so racked and bediveled with the task of the

superlative damned to make _one guinea do the business of three_, that

I detest, abhor, and swoon at the very word business, though no less

than four letters of my very short sirname are in it.

Well, to make the matter short, I shall betake myself to a subject

ever fruitful of themes; a subject the turtle-feast of the sons of

Satan, and the delicious secret sugar-plum of the babes of grace--a

subject sparkling with all the jewels that wit can find in the mines

of genius: and pregnant with all the stores of learning from Moses and

Confucius to Franklin and Priestley--in short, may it please your

Lordship, I intend to write * * *

[_Here the Poet inserted a song which can only be sung at times when

the punch-bowl has done its duty and wild wit is set free._]

If at any time you expect a field-day in your town, a day when Dukes,

Earls, and Knights pay their court to weavers, tailors, and cobblers,

I should like to know of it two or three days beforehand. It is not

that I care three skips of a cur dog for the politics, but I should

like to see such an exhibition of human nature. If you meet with that

worthy old veteran in religion and good-fellowship, Mr. Jeffrey, or

any of his amiable family, I beg you will give them my best

compliments.

R. B.

* * * * *

CLXXX.

TO SIR JOHN SINCLAIR.

[Of the Monkland Book-Club alluded to in this letter, the clergyman

had omitted all mention in his account of the Parish of Dunscore,

published in Sir John Sinclair's work: some of the books which the

poet introduced were stigmatized as vain and frivolous.]

1790.

SIR,

The following circumstance has, I believe, been committed in the

statistical account, transmitted to you of the parish of Dunscore, in

Nithsdale. I beg leave to send it to you because it is new, and may be

useful. How far it is deserving of a place in your patriotic

publication, you are the best judge.

To store the minds of the lower classes with useful knowledge, is

certainly of very great importance, both to them as individuals and to

society at large. Giving them a turn for reading and reflection, is

giving them a source of innocent and laudable amusement: and besides,

raises them to a more dignified degree in the scale of rationality.

Impressed with this idea, a gentleman in this parish, Robert Riddel,

Esq., of Glenriddel, set on foot a species of circulating library, on

a plan so simple as to be practicable in any corner of the country;

and so useful, as to deserve the notice of every country gentleman,

who thinks the improvement of that part of his own species, whom

chance has thrown into the humble walks of the peasant and the

artisan, a matter worthy of his attention.

Mr. Riddel got a number of his own tenants, and farming neighbors, to

form themselves into a society for the purpose of having a library

among themselves. They entered into a legal engagement to abide by it

for three years; with a saving clause or two in case of a removal to a

distance, or death. Each member, at his entry, paid five shillings;

and at each of their meetings, which were held every fourth Saturday,

sixpence more. With their entry-money, and the credit which they took

on the faith of their future funds, they laid in a tolerable stock of

books at the commencement. What authors they were to purchase, was

always decided by the majority. At every meeting, all the books, under

certain fines and forfeitures, by way of penalty, were to be produced;

and the members had their choice of the volumes in rotation. He whose

name stood for that night first on the list, had his choice of what

volume he pleased in the whole collection; the second had his choice

after the first; the third after the second, and so on to the last. At

next meeting, he who had been first on the list at the preceding

meeting, was last at this; he who had been second was first; and so on

through the whole three years. At the expiration of the engagement the

books were sold by auction, but only among the members themselves;

each man had his share of the common stock, in money or in books, as

he chose to be a purchaser or not.

At the breaking up of this little society, which was formed under Mr.

Riddel's patronage, what with benefactions of books from him, and what

with their own purchases, they had collected together upwards of one

hundred and fifty volumes. It will easily be guessed, that a good deal

of trash would be bought. Among the books, however, of this little

library, were, _Blair's Sermons_, _Robertson's History of Scotland_,

_Hume's History of the Stewarts_, _The Spectator_, _Idler_,

_Adventurer_, _Mirror_, _Lounger_, _Observer_, _Man of Feeling_, _Man

of the World_, _Chrysal_, _Don Quixote_, _Joseph Andrews_, &c. A

peasant who can read, and enjoy such books, is certainly a much

superior being to his neighbour, who perhaps stalks besides his team,

very little removed, except in shape, from the brutes he drives.

Wishing your patriotic exertions their so much merited success,

I am, Sir,

Your humble servant,

A PEASANT.

* * * * *

CLXXXI.

TO CHARLES SHARPE, ESQ.,

OF HODDAM.

[The family of Hoddam is of old standing in Nithsdale. It has mingled

blood with some of the noblest Scottish names; nor is it unknown

either in history or literature--the fierce knight of Closeburn, who

in the scuffle between Bruce and Comyne drew his sword and made

"sicker," and my friend Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, are not the least

distinguished of its members.]

[1790.]

It is true, Sir, you are a gentleman of rank and fortune, and I am a

poor devil: you are a feather in the cap of society, and I am a very

hobnail in its shoes; yet I have the honour to belong to the same

family with you, and on that score I now address you. You will perhaps

suspect that I am going to claim affinity with the ancient and

honourable house of Kirkpatrick. No, no, Sir: I cannot indeed be

properly said to belong to any house, or even any province or kingdom;

as my mother, who, for many years was spouse to a marching regiment,

gave me into this bad world, aboard the packet-boat, somewhere between

Donaghadee and Portpatrick. By our common family, I mean, Sir, the

family of the muses. I am a fiddler and a poet; and you, I am told,

play an exquisite violin, and have a standard taste in the Belles

Lettres. The other day, a brother catgut gave me a charming Scots air

of your composition. If I was pleased with the tune, I was in raptures

with the title you have given it; and taking up the idea I have spun

it into the three stanzas enclosed. Will you allow me, Sir, to present

you them, as the dearest offering that a misbegotten son of poverty

and rhyme has to give? I have a longing to take you by the hand and

unburthen my heart by saying, "Sir, I honour you as a man who supports

the dignity of human nature, amid an age when frivolity and avarice

have, between them, debased us below the brutes that perish!" But,

alas, Sir! to me you are unapproachable. It is true, the muses

baptized me in Castalian streams, but the thoughtless gipsies forgot

to give me a name. As the sex have served many a good fellow, the Nine

have given me a great deal of pleasure, but, bewitching jades! they

have beggared me. Would they but spare me a little of their

cast-linen! Were it only in my power to say that I have a shirt on my

back! but the idle wenches, like Solomon's lilies, "they toil not,

neither do they spin;" so I must e'en continue to tie my remnant of a

cravat, like the hangman's rope, round my naked throat, and coax my

galligaskins to keep together their many-coloured fragments. As to the

affair of shoes, I have given that up. My pilgrimages in my

ballad-trade, from town to town, and on your stony-hearted turnpikes

too, are what not even the hide of Job's Behemoth could bear. The coat

on my back is no more: I shall not speak evil of the dead. It would be

equally unhandsome and ungrateful to find fault with my old surtout,

which so kindly supplies and conceals the want of that coat. My hat

indeed is a great favourite; and though I got it literally for an old

song, I would not exchange it for the best beaver in Britain. I was,

during several years, a kind of factotum servant to a country

clergyman, where I pickt up a good many scraps of learning,

particularly in some branches of the mathematics. Whenever I feel

inclined to rest myself on my way, I take my seat under a hedge,

laying my poetic wallet on the one side, and my fiddle-case on the

other, and placing my hat between my legs, I can, by means of its

brim, or rather brims, go through the whole doctrine of the conic

sections.

However, Sir, don't let me mislead you, as if I would interest your

pity. Fortune has so much forsaken me, that she has taught me to live

without her; and amid all my rags and poverty, I am as independent,

and much more happy, than a monarch of the world. According to the

hackneyed metaphor, I value the several actors in the great drama of

life, simply as they act their parts. I can look on a worthless fellow

of a duke with unqualified contempt, and can regard an honest

scavenger with sincere respect. As you, Sir, go through your role with

such distinguished merit, permit me to make one in the chorus of

universal applause, and assure you that with the highest respect,

I have the honour to be, &c.,

JOHNNY FAA.

* * * * *

CLXXXII.

TO MR. GILBERT BURNS.

[In the few fierce words of this letter the poet bids adieu to all

hopes of wealth from Ellisland.]

_Ellisland, 11th January, 1790._

DEAR BROTHER,

I mean to take advantage of the frank, though I have not, in my

present frame of mind, much appetite for exertion in writing. My

nerves are in a cursed state. I feel that horrid hypochondria

pervading every atom of both body and soul. This farm has undone my

enjoyment of myself. It is a ruinous affair on all hands But let it

go to bell! I'll fight it out and be off with it.

We have gotten a set of very decent players here just now. I have seen

them an evening or two. David Campbell, in Ayr, wrote to me by the

manager of the company, a Mr. Sutherland, who is a man of apparent

worth. On New-year-day evening I gave him the following prologue,

which he spouted to his audience with applause.

No song nor dance I bring from yon great city,

That queens it o'er our taste--the more's the pity:

Tho', by the bye, abroad why will you roam?

Good sense and taste are natives here at home.

I can no more.--If once I was clear of this cursed farm, I should

respire more at ease.

R. B.

* * * * *

CLXXXIII.

TO MR. SUTHERLAND,

PLAYER.

ENCLOSING A PROLOGUE.

[When the farm failed, the poet sought pleasure in the playhouse: he

tried to retire from his own harassing reflections, into a world

created by other minds.]

_Monday Morning._

I was much disappointed, my dear Sir, in wanting your most agreeable

company yesterday. However, I heartily pray for good weather next

Sunday; and whatever aerial Being has the guidance of the elements,

may take any other half-dozen of Sundays he pleases, and clothe them

with

"Vapours and clouds, and storms,

Until he terrify himself

At combustion of his own raising."

I shall see you on Wednesday forenoon. In the greatest hurry,

R. B.

* * * * *

CLXXXIV.

TO WILLIAM DUNBAR, W.S.

[This letter was first published by the Ettrick Shepherd, in his

edition of Burns: it is remarkable for this sentence, "I am resolved

never to breed up a son of mine to any of the learned professions: I

know the value of independence, and since I cannot give my sons an

independent fortune, I shall give them an independent line of life."

We may look round us and inquire which line of life the poet could

possibly mean.]

_Ellisland, 14th January, 1790._

Since we are here creatures of a day, since "a few summer days, and a

few winter nights, and the life of man is at an end," why, my dear

much-esteem Sir, should you and I let negligent indolence, for I know

it is nothing worse, step in between us and bar the enjoyment of a

mutual correspondence? We are not shapen out of the common, heavy,

methodical clod, the elemental stuff of the plodding selfish race, the

sons of Arithmetic and Prudence; our feelings and hearts are not

benumbed and poisoned by the cursed influence of riches, which,

whatever blessing they may be in other respects, are no friends to the

nobler qualities of the heart: in the name of random sensibility,

then, let never the moon change on our silence any more. I have had a

tract of had health most part of this winter, else you had heard from

me long ere now. Thank Heaven, I am now got so much better as to be

able to partake a little in the enjoyments of life.

Our friend Cunningham will, perhaps, have told you of my going into

the Excise. The truth is, I found it a very convenient business to

have L50 per annum, nor have I yet felt any of those mortifying

circumstances in it that I was led to fear.

_Feb. 2._

I have not, for sheer hurry of business, been able to spare five

minutes to finish my letter. Besides my farm business, I ride on my

Excise matters at least two hundred miles every week. I have not by

any means given up the muses. You will see in the 3d vol. of Johnson's

Scots songs that I have contributed my mite there.

But, my dear Sir, little ones that look up to you for paternal

protection are an important charge. I have already two fine, healthy,

stout little fellows, and I wish to throw some light upon them. I have

a thousand reveries and schemes about them, and their future destiny.

Not that I am a Utopian projector in these things. I am resolved never

to breed up a son of mine to any of the learned professions. I know

the value of independence; and since I cannot give my sons an

independent fortune, I shall give them an independent line of life.

What a chaos of hurry, chance, and changes is this world, when one

sits soberly down to reflect on it! To a father, who himself knows the

world, the thought that he shall have sons to usher into it must fill

him with dread; but if he have daughters, the prospect in a thoughtful

moment is apt to shock him.

I hope Mrs. Fordyce and the two young ladies are well. Do let me

forget that they are nieces of yours, and let me say that I never saw

a more interesting, sweeter pair of sisters in my life. I am the fool

of my feelings and attachments. I often take up a volume of my Spenser

to realize you to my imagination, and think over the social scenes we

have had together. God grant that there may be another world more

congenial to honest fellows beyond this. A world where these rubs and

plagues of absence, distance, misfortunes, ill-health, &c., shall no

more damp hilarity and divide friendship. This I know is your throng

season, but half a page will much oblige,

My dear Sir,

Yours sincerely,

R. B.

* * * * *

CLXXXV.

TO MRS. DUNLOP.

[Falconer, the poet, whom Burns mentions here, perished in the Aurora,

in which he acted as purser: he was a satirist of no mean power, and

wrote that useful work, the Marine Dictionary: but his fame depends

upon "The Shipwreck," one of the most original and mournful poems in

the language.]

_Ellisland, 25th January, 1790._

It has been owing to unremitting hurry of business that I have not

written to you, Madam, long ere now. My health is greatly better, and

I now begin once more to share in satisfaction and enjoyment with the

rest of my fellow-creatures.

Many thanks, my much-esteemed friend, for your kind letters; but why

will you make me run the risk of being contemptible and mercenary in

my own eyes? When I pique myself on my independent spirit, I hope it

is neither poetic license, nor poetic rant; and I am so flattered with

the honour you have done me, in making me your compeer in friendship

and friendly correspondence, that I cannot without pain, and a degree

of mortification, be reminded of the real inequality between our

situations.

Most sincerely do I rejoice with you, dear Madam, in the good news of

Anthony. Not only your anxiety about his fate, but my own esteem for

such a noble, warm-hearted, manly young fellow, in the little I had of

his acquaintance, has interested me deeply in his fortunes.

Falconer, the unfortunate author of the "Shipwreck," which you so much

admire, is no more. After witnessing the dreadful catastrophe he so

feelingly describes in his poem, and after weathering many hard gales

of fortune, he went to the bottom with the Aurora frigate!

I forget what part of Scotland had the honour of giving him birth; but

he was the son of obscurity and misfortune. He was one of those daring

adventurous spirits, which Scotland, beyond any other country, is

remarkable for producing. Little does the fond mother think, as she

hangs delighted over the sweet little leech at her bosom, where the

poor fellow may hereafter wander, and what may be his fate. I remember

a stanza in an old Scottish ballad, which, notwithstanding its rude

simplicity, speaks feelingly to the heart:

"Little did my mother think,

That day she cradled me,

What land I was to travel in,

Or what death I should die!"[195]

Old Scottish song are, you know, a favourite study and pursuit of

mine, and now I am on that subject, allow me to give you two stanzas

of another old simple ballad, which I am sure will please you. The

catastrophe of the piece is a poor ruined female, lamenting her fate.

She concludes with this pathetic wish:--

"O that my father had ne'er on me smil'd;

O that my mother had ne'er to me sung!

O that my cradle had never been rock'd;

But that I had died when I was young!

"O that the grave it were my bed;

My blankets were my winding sheet;

The clocks and the worms my bedfellows a';

And O sae sound as I should sleep!"

I do not remember in all my reading, to have met with anything more

truly the language of misery, than the exclamation in the last line.

Misery is like love; to speak its language truly, the author must have

felt it.

I am every day expecting the doctor to give your little godson[196]

the small-pox. They are _rife_ in the country, and I tremble for his

fate. By the way, I cannot help congratulating you on his looks and

spirit. Every person who sees him, acknowledges him to be the finest,

handsomest child he has ever seen. I am myself delighted with the

manly swell of his little chest, and a certain miniature dignity in

the carriage of his head, and the glance of his fine black eye, which

promise the undaunted gallantry of an independent mind.

I thought to have sent you some rhymes, but time forbids. I promise

you poetry until you are tired of it, next time I have the honour of

assuring you how truly I am, &c.

R. B.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 195: The ballad is in the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border,

ed. 1833, vol. iii. p. 304.]

[Footnote 196: The bard's second son, Francis.]

* * * * *

CLXXXVI.

TO MR. PETER HILL,

BOOKSELLER, EDINBURGH.

[The Mademoiselle Burns whom the poet inquires about, was one of the

"ladies of the Canongate," who desired to introduce free trade in her

profession into a close borough: this was refused by the magistrates

of Edinburgh, though advocated with much eloquence and humour in a

letter by her namesake--it is coloured too strongly with her calling

to be published.]

_Ellisland, 2d Feb., 1790._

No! I will not say one word about apologies or excuses for not

writing.--I am a poor, rascally gauger, condemned to gallop at least

200 miles every week to inspect dirty ponds and yeasty barrels, and

where can I find time to write to, or importance to interest anybody?

The upbraidings of my conscience, nay the upbraidings of my wife, have

persecuted me on your account these two or three months past.--I wish

to God I was a great man, that my correspondence might throw light

upon you, to let the world see what you really are: and then I would

make your fortune without putting my hand in my pocket for you, which,

like all other great men, I suppose I would avoid as much as possible.

What are you doing, and how are you doing? Have you lately seen any of

my few friends? What is become of the BOROUGH REFORM, or how

is the fate of my poor namesake, Mademoiselle Burns, decided? O man!

but for thee and thy selfish appetites, and dishonest artifices, that

beauteous form, and that once innocent and still ingenuous mind, might

have shone conspicuous and lovely in the faithful wife, and the

affectionate mother; and shall the unfortunate sacrifice to thy

pleasures have no claim on thy humanity!

I saw lately in a Review, some extracts from a new poem, called the

Village Curate; send it me. I want likewise a cheap copy of The World.

Mr. Armstrong, the young poet, who does me the honour to mention me so

kindly in his works, please give him my best thanks for the copy of

his book--I shall write him, my first leisure hour. I like his poetry

much, but I think his style in prose quite astonishing.

Your book came safe, and I am going to trouble you with further

commissions. I call it troubling you,--because I want only,

BOOKS; the cheapest way, the best; so you may have to hunt

for them in the evening auctions. I want Smollette's works, for the

sake of his incomparable humour. I have already Roderick Random, and

Humphrey Clinker.--Peregrine Pickle, Launcelot Greaves, and Ferdinand

Count Fathom, I still want; but as I said, the veriest ordinary copies

will serve me. I am nice only in the appearance of my poets. I forget

the price of Cowper's Poems, but, I believe, I must have them. I saw

the other day, proposals for a publication, entitled "Banks's new and

complete Christian's Family Bible," printed for C. Cooke,

Paternoster-row, London.--He promises at least, to give in the work, I

think it is three hundred and odd engravings, to which he has put the

names of the first artists in London.--You will know the character of

the performance, as some numbers of it are published; and if it is

really what it pretends to be, set me down as a subscriber, and send

me the published numbers.

Let me hear from you, your first leisure minute, and trust me you

shall in future have no reason to complain of my silence. The dazzling

perplexity of novelty will dissipate and leave me to pursue my course

in the quiet path of methodical routine.

R. B.

* * * * *

CLXXXVII.

TO MR. W. NICOL.

[The poet has recorded this unlooked-for death of the Dominie's mare

in some hasty verses, which are not much superior to the subject.]

_Ellisland, Feb. 9th, 1790._

MY DEAR SIR,