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BURNS'S LETTERS.
THE LETTERS OF ROBERT BURNS,
SELECTED AND ARRANGED,
WITH AN INTRODUCTION,
BY J. LOGIE ROBERTSON, M.A.
_"You shall write whatever comes first,--what you see, what you read,
what you hear, what you admire, what you dislike; trifles, bagatelles,
nonsense, or, to fill up a corner, e'en put down a laugh at full
length"_--Burns.
_"My life reminded me of a ruined temple: what strength, what proportion
in some parts! what unsightly gaps, what prostrate ruin in
others!"_--Burns.
GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE
To Ellison or Alison Begbie (?)
To Ellison Begbie
To Ellison Begbie
To Ellison Begbie
To Ellison Begbie
To his Father
To Sir John Whitefoord, Bart., of Ballochmyle
To Mr. John Murdoch, schoolmaster, Staples Inn Buildings, London
To his Cousin, Mr. James Burness, writer, Montrose
To Mr. James Burness, writer, Montrose
To Mr. James Burness, writer, Montrose
To Thomas Orr, Park, Kirkoswald
To Miss Margaret Kennedy
To Miss----, Ayrshire
To Mr. John Richmond, law clerk, Edinburgh
To Mr. James Smith, shopkeeper, Mauchline
To Mr. Robert Muir, wine merchant, Kilmarnock
To Mr. John Ballantine, banker, Ayr
To Mr. M'Whinnie, writer, Ayr
To John Arnot, Esquire, of Dalquatswood
To Mr. David Brice, shoemaker, Glasgow
To Mr. John Richmond, Edinburgh
To Mr. John Richmond
To Mr. John Kennedy
To his Cousin, Mr. James Burness, writer, Montrose
To Mrs. Stewart, of Stair
To Mr. Robert Aikin, writer, Ayr
To Dr. Mackenzie, Mauchline; inclosing him verses on dining with Lord
Daer
To Mrs. Dunlop, of Dunlop
To Miss Alexander
In the Name of the Nine. _Amen_
To James Dalrymple, Esquire, Orangefield
To Sir. John Whitefoord
To Mr. Gavin Hamilton, Mauchline
To Mr. John Ballantine, banker, at one time Provost of Ayr
To Mr. Robert Muir
To Mr. William Chambers, writer, Ayr
To the Earl of Eglinton
To Mr. John Ballantine
To Mrs. Dunlop
To Dr. Moore
To the Rev. G. Lawrie, Newmilns, near Kilmarnock
To the Earl of Buchan
To Mr. James Candlish, student in physic, Glasgow College
To Mr. Peter Stuart, Editor of "The Star," London
To Mrs. Dunlop
To Mrs. Dunlop
To Dr. Moore
To Mrs. Dunlop
To Mr. William Nicol, classical master, High School, Edinburgh
To Mr. William Nicol
To Mr. Robert Ainslie
To Mr. James Smith, Linlithgow, formerly of Mauchline
To Mr. John Richmond
To Mr. Robert Ainslie
To Dr. Moore
To Mr. Archibald Lawrie
To Mr. Robert Muir, Kilmarnock
To Mr. Gavin Hamilton
To Mr. Walker, Blair of Athole
To his Brother, Mr. Gilbert Burns, Mossgiel
To Mr. Patrick Miller, Dalswinton
To Rev. John Skinner
To Miss Margaret Chalmers, Harvieston
To Mrs. Dunlop of Dunlop House, Stewarton
To Mr. James Hoy, Gordon Castle
To the Earl of Glencairn
To Miss Chalmers
To Miss Chalmers
To Miss Chalmers
To Mr. Richard Brown, Irvine
To Mrs. Dunlop
To Mrs. Dunlop
To the Rev. John Skinner
To Mrs. Rose, of Kilravock
To Richard Brown, Greenock
To Mr. William Cruikshank
To Mr. Robert Ainslie
To Mr. Richard Brown
To Mr. Robert Muir
To Mrs. Dunlop
To Mr. William Nicol (perhaps)
To Miss Chalmers
THE CLARINDA LETTERS
GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE (RESUMED)--
To Mr. Gavin Hamilton
To Mr. William Dunbar, W.S., Edinburgh
To Mrs. Dunlop
To Mr. James Smith, Avon Printfield, Linlithgow
To Professor Dugald Stewart
To Mrs. Dunlop
To Mr. Samuel Brown, Kirkoswald
To Mr. James Johnson, engraver, Edinburgh
To Mr. Robert Ainslie
To Mrs. Dunlop
To Mrs. Dunlop, at Mr. Dunlop's, Haddington
To Mr. Robert Ainslie
To Mr. Robert Ainslie
To Mrs. Dunlop
To Mr. Peter Hill, bookseller, Edinburgh
To Mrs. Dunlop
To Mrs. Dunlop
To Mr. Beugo, engraver, Edinburgh
To Mr. Robert Graham, of Fintry
To his Wife, at Mauchline.
To Miss Chalmers, Edinburgh
To Mr. Morison, wright, Mauchline
To Mrs. Dunlop, of Dunlop
To Mr. Peter Hill
To the Editor of the "Star"
To Mrs. Dunlop, at Moreham Mains
To Dr. Blacklock
To Mrs. Dunlop
To Mr. John Tennant
To Mrs. Dunlop
To Dr. Moore, London
To Mr. Robert Ainslie
To Professor Dugald Stewart
To Mr. Robert Cleghorn, Saughton Mills
To Bishop Geddes, Edinburgh
To Mr. James Burness
To Mrs. Dunlop
To, Mrs. M'Lehose (formerly Clarinda)
To Dr. Moore
To his Brother, Mr. William Burns
To Mr. Hill, bookseller, Edinburgh
To Mrs. M'Murdo, Drumlanrig
To Mr. Cunningham
To Mr. Richard Brown
To Mr. Robert Ainslie
To Mrs. Dunlop
To Miss Helen Maria Williams
To Mr. Robert Graham, of Fintry.
To David Sillar, merchant, Irvine.
To Mr. John Logan, of Knock Shinriock
To Mr. Peter Stuart, editor, London
To his Brother, William Burns, saddler, Newcastle-on-Tyne
To Mrs. Dunlop
To Captain Riddel, Friars Carse
To Mr. Robert Ainslie, W.S.
To Mr. Richard Brown, Port-Glasgow
To Mr. R. Graham, of Fintry
To Mrs. Dunlop
To Lady Winifred M. Constable
To Mr. Charles K. Sharpe, of Hoddam
To his Brother, Gilbert Burns, Mossgiel
To Mr. William Dunbar, W.S.
To Mrs. Dunlop
To Mr. Peter Hill, bookseller, Edinburgh
To Mr. W. Nicol
To Mr. Cunningham, writer, Edinburgh
To Mr. Hill, bookseller, Edinburgh
To Mrs. Dunlop
To Dr. John Moore, London
To Mr. Murdoch, teacher of French, London
To Mr. Cunningham
To Mr. Crauford Tait, W.S., Edinburgh
To Mrs. Dunlop
To Mr. William Dunbar, W.S.
To Mr. Peter Hill
To Dr. Moore
To Mrs. Dunlop
To the Rev. Arch. Alison
To the Rev. G. Haird
To Mr. Cunningharn, writer, Edinburgh
To Mrs. Dunlop
To Mr. Cunningham
To Mr. Thomas Sloan
To Mr. Ainslie
To Miss Davies
To Mrs. Dunlop
To Mr. William Smellie, printer
To Mr. William Nicol
To Mr. Francis Grose, F.S.A
To Mrs. Dunlop
To Mr. Cunningham
To Mrs. Dunlop
To Mrs. Dunlop
To Mrs. Dunlop
To Mr. R. Graham, Fintry
To Mrs. Dunlop
To Mr. Robert Graham, of Fintry
To Mr. Alex. Cunningham, W.S., Edinbiugh
To Mr. Cunningham
To Miss Benson, York, afterwards Mrs. Basil Montagu
To Mr. John Francis Erskine, of Mar
To Miss M'Murdo, Drumlanrig
To John M'Murdo, Esq., Drumlanrig
To Mrs. Riddel
To Mrs. Riddel
To Mrs. Riddel
To Mrs. Riddel
To Mr. Cunningham
To Mrs. Dunlop
To Mr. James Johnson
To Mr. Peter Hill, Jun., of Dalswinton
To Mrs. Riddel
To Mrs. Dunlop
To Mrs. Dunlop, in London
To the Hon. The Provost, etc., of Damfries
To Mrs. Dunlop
To Mr James Johnson
To Mr. Cunningham
To Mr. Gilbert Burns
To Mrs. Burns
To Mrs. Dunlop
To Mr. James Burness, writer, Montrose
To his Father-in-law, James Armour, mason, Mauchline
THE THOMSON LETTERS
BURNS'S LETTERS.
It is not perhaps generally known that the prose of Burns exceeds in
quantity his verse. The world remembers him as a poet, and forgets or
overlooks his letters. His place among the poets has never been
denied--it is in the first rank; nor is he lowest, though little
remembered, among letter-writers. His letters gave Jeffrey a higher
opinion of him as a man than did his poetry, though on both alike the
critic saw the seal and impress of genius. Dugald Stewart thought his
letters objects of wonder scarcely less than his poetry. And Robertson,
comparing his prose with his verse, thought the former the more
extraordinary of the two. In the popular view of his genius there is,
however, no denying the fact that his poetry has eclipsed his prose.
His prose consists mostly of letters, but it also includes a noble
fragment of autobiography; three journals of observations made at
Mossgiel, Edinburgh, and Ellisland respectively; two itineraries, the
one of his border tour, the other of his tour in the Highlands; and
historical notes to two collections of Scottish songs. A full
enumeration of his prose productions would take account also of his
masonic minutes, his inscriptions, a rather curious business paper drawn
up by the poet-exciseman in prosecution of a smuggler, and of course his
various prefaces, notably the dedication of his poems to the members of
the Caledonian Hunt.
His letters, however, far exceed the sum of his other-prose writings.
Close upon five hundred and forty have already been published. These are
not all the letters he ever wrote. Where, for example, is the literary
correspondence in which he engaged so enthusiastically with his
Kirkoswald schoolfellows? "Though I had not three farthings' worth of
business in the world, yet every post brought me as many letters as if I
had been a broad-plodding son of daybook and ledger." Where are the
letters which brought to the ploughman at Lochlie such a constant and
copious stream of replies? The circumstances of his position will
explain why they perished: he was then "a youth and all unknown to
fame." It is even doubtful if the five hundred and forty published
letters include all the letters of Burns that now exist. Scarcely a year
passes but some epistolary scrap in the well-known handwriting is
unearthed and ceremoniously added to the previous sum total, And yet,
notwithstanding losses past or within recall, it is probable that we
have long had the whole of Burns's most characteristic letters. It was
inevitable that these should be preserved and published. His fame was so
rooted in the popular regard in his lifetime, that a characteristic
letter from his hand was sure to be received as something singularly
precious. It must not be forgotten, however, that Burns's personality
was so intense as to colour the smallest fragment of his correspondence,
and it is on this account desirable that every note he penned that yet
remains unpublished should be produced. It might give no new feature to
our conception of his character; but it would help the shading--which,
in the portraiture of any person, must chiefly be furnished by the minor
and more commonplace actions of his everyday life.
The correspondence of Burns, as we have it, commences, presumably, near
the close of his twenty-second year, and extends to all but exactly the
middle of his thirty-eighth. The dates are a day somewhere at the end of
1780, and Monday, 18th July 1796. Between these limits lies the printed
correspondence of sixteen years. The sum total of this correspondence
allows about thirty-four letters to each year, but the actual
distribution is very unequal, ranging from the minimum, in 1782, of one,
a masonic letter addressed to Sir John Whitefoord of Ballochmyle, to the
maximum number of ninety-two, in 1788, the great year of the Clarinda
episode. It is in 1786, the year of the publication of his first volume
at Kilmarnock, the year of his literary birth, that his correspondence
first becomes heavy. It rises at a leap from two letters in the
preceding year to as many as forty-four. The phenomenal increase is
partly explained by the success of his poems. He became a man that was
worth the knowing, whose correspondence was worth preserving. The six
years of his published correspondence previous to the discovery of his
genius in 1786 are represented by only fourteen letters in all. But in
those years his letters, though both numerous and prized above the
common, were not considered as likely to be of future interest, and were
therefore suffered to live or die as chance might determine. They mostly
perished, the recipients thinking it hardly worth their while to be sae
nice wi' Robin as to preserve them.
After the recognition of his power in 1786, the record of his preserved
letters shews, for the ten years of his literary life, several
fluctuations which admit of easy explanation. Commencing with 1787, the
numbers are:--78, 92, 54, 33, 44, 31, 66, 30, 27, 24. The first of these
years was totally severed from rural occupations, or business of any
kind, if we except the publication of the first Edinburgh edition of his
poems. It was a complete holiday year to him. He was either resident in
Edinburgh, studying men and manners, or touring about the country,
visiting those places which history, song, or scenery had made famous.
Wherever he was, his fame brought him the acquaintance of a great many
new people. His leisure and the novelty of his situation afforded him
both opportunity and subject for an extensive correspondence. For a
large part of the next year, 1788, he was similarly circumstanced, and
the number of his letters was exceptionally increased by his
entanglement with Mrs. M'Lehose. To her alone, in less than three months
of this year, he wrote at least thirty-six letters,--considerably over
one-third of the entire epistolary produce of the year. In 1789 we find
the number of his letters fall to fifty-four. This was, perhaps, the
happiest year of his life. He was now comfortably established as a
farmer in a home of his own, busied with healthy rural work, and finding
in the happy fireside clime which he was making for wife and weans "the
true pathos and sublime" of human duty. He has still, however, time and
inclination to write on the average one letter a week. For each of the
next three years the average number is thirty-six. In 1793 the number
suddenly goes up to sixty-six: the increase is due to the heartiness
with which he took up the scheme of George Thomson to popularise and
perpetuate the best old Scottish airs by fitting them with words worthy
of their merits. He wrote, in this year, twenty-six letters in support
of the scheme.
There is a sad falling off in Burns's ordinary correspondence in the
last three years of his life. The amount of it scarcely touches twenty
letters per year. Even the correspondence with Thomson, though on a
subject so dear to the heart of Burns, rousing at once both his
patriotism and his poetry, sinks to about ten letters per year, and is
irregular at that. Burns was losing hope and health, and caring less and
less for the world's favour and the world's friendships. He had lost
largely in self-respect as well as in the respect of friends. The loss
gave him little heart to write.
Burns's correspondents, as far as we know them, numbered over a hundred
and fifty persons. The number is large and significant. Neither Gray,
nor Cowper, nor Byron commanded so wide a circle. They had not the
far-reaching sympathies of Burns. They were all more or less fastidious
in their choice of correspondents. Burns, on the contrary, was as
catholic, or as careless, in his friendships as his own _Cæsar_--who
"Wad spend an hour caressin'
Ev'n wi' a tinkler gipsy's messan."
He moved freely up and down the whole social scale, blind to the
imaginary distinctions of blood and title and the extrinsic differences
of wealth, seeing true superiority in an honest manly heart, and bearing
himself wherever he found it as an equal and a brother. His
correspondents were of every social grade--peers and peasants; of every
intellectual attainment--philosophers like Dugald Stewart, and simple
swains like Thomas Orr; and of almost every variety of calling, from
professional men of recognised eminence to obscure shopkeepers, cottars,
and tradesmen. They include servant-girls, gentlewomen, and ladies of
titled rank; country schoolmasters and college professors; men of law of
all degrees, from poor John Richmond, a plain law-clerk with a lodging
in the Lawnmarket, to the Honourable Henry Erskine, Dean of the Faculty;
farmers, small and large; lairds, large and small; shoemakers and
shopkeepers; ministers, bankers, and doctors; printers, booksellers,
editors; knights, earls--nay, a duke; factors and wine-merchants; army
officers, and officers of Excise. His female correspondents were women
of superior intelligence and accomplishments. They can lay claim to a
large proportion of his letters. Mrs. McLehose takes forty-eight; Mrs.
Dunlop, forty-two; Maria Riddell, eighteen; Peggy Chalmers, eleven.
These four ladies received among them rather more than one-fourth of the
whole of his published correspondence. No four of his male
correspondents can be accredited with so many, even though George
Thomson for his individual share claims fifty-six.
It is rather remarkable that so few of the letters are addressed to his
own relatives. His cousin, James Burness of Montrose, and his own
younger brother William receive, indeed, ten and eight respectively; but
to his other brother Gilbert, with whom he was on the most affectionate
and confidential terms, there fall but three; to his wife only two; one
to his father; and none to either his sisters or his mother. A maternal
uncle, Samuel Brown, is favoured with one--if, indeed, the old man was
not scandalised with it--and there are two to James Armour, mason in
Mauchline, his somewhat stony-hearted father-in-law.
Burns's letters exhibit quite as much variety of mood--seldom, of
course, so picturesquely conveyed--as his poems. He is, in promiscuous
alternation, refined, gross, sentimental, serious, humorous, indignant,
repentant, dignified, vulgar, tender, manly, sceptical, reverential,
rakish, pathetic, sympathetic, satirical, playful, pitiably self-abased,
mysteriously self-exalted. His letters are confessions and revelations.
They are as sincerely and spontaneously autobiographical of his inner
life as the sacred lyrics of David the Hebrew. They were indited with as
much free fearless abandonment. The advice he gave to young Andrew to
keep something to himsel', not to be told even to a bosom crony, was a
maxim of worldly prudence which he himself did not practice. He did not
"reck his own rede." And, though that habit of unguarded expression
brought upon him the wrath and revenge of the Philistines, and kept him
in material poverty all his days, yet, prompted as it always was by
sincerity, and nearly always by absolute truth, it has made the manhood
of to-day richer, stronger, and nobler. The world to-day has all the
more the courage of its opinions that Burns exercised as a right the
freedom of sincere and enlightened speech--and suffered for his bravery.
The subjects of his letters are numerous, and, to a pretty large extent,
of much the same sort as the subjects of his poems. Often, indeed, you
have the anticipation of an image or a sentiment which his poetry has
made familiar. You have a glimpse of green buds which afterwards unfold
into fragrance and colour. This is an interesting connection, of which
one or two examples may be given. So early as 1781 he wrote to Alison
Begbie--"Once you are convinced I am sincere, I am perfectly certain you
have too much goodness and humanity to allow an honest man to languish
in suspense only because he loves you too well." Alison Begbie becomes
Mary Morison, and the sentiment, so elegantly turned in prose for her,
is thus melodiously transmuted for the lady-loves of all
languishing lovers--
"O Mary, canst thou wreck his peace
Wha for thy sake would gladly dee,
Or canst thou break that heart of his
Wha's only faut is loving thee?
If love for love thou wiltna gie,
At least be pity on me shown:
A thocht ungentle canna be
The thocht o' Mary Morison!"
Again, in the first month of 1783 he writes to Murdoch, the
schoolmaster--"I am quite indolent about those great concerns that set
the bustling busy sons of care agog; and if I have wherewith to answer
for the present hour, I am very easy with regard to anything further.
Even the last worst shift of the unfortunate and wretched does not
greatly terrify me." Just one year later this sentiment was sent current
in the well-known stanza concluding--
"But, Davie lad, ne'er fash your head
Though we hae little gear;
We're fit to win our daily bread
As lang's we're hale an' fier;
Mair speer na, nor fear na;
Auld age ne'er mind a fig,
The last o't, the warst o't,
Is only for to beg!"
Again, in the letter last referred to occurs the passage--"I am a strict
economist, not indeed for the sake of the money, but one of the
principal parts in my composition is a kind of pride, and I scorn to
fear the face of any man living. Above everything I abhor as hell the
idea of sneaking into a corner to avoid a dun." This is metrically
rendered, in May 1786, in the following lines:--
"To catch dame Fortune's golden smile,
Assiduous wait upon her,
And gather gear by every wile
That's justified by honour:--
Not for to hide it in a hedge,
Nor for a train attendant,
But for the glorious privilege
Of being independent."
It would be easy to multiply examples: he is jostled in his letters by
market-men before he is "hog-shouthered and jundied" by them in his
verse; and the legends of Alloway Kirk are narrated in a letter to Grose
before the immortal tale of Tam o'Shanter is woven for _The Antiquities
of Scotland_.
There is nothing morbid or narrow in Burns's letters. They are frank and
healthy. You can spend a day over them, and feel at the end of it as if
you had been wandering at large through the freedom of nature. They seem
to have been written in the open air. The first condition necessary to
an appreciative understanding of them is to concern yourself with the
sentiment. And, indeed, the strength and sincerity of the sentiment
by-and-by draw you away to oblivion of the style, however much it may at
first strike you as redundant and affected. They are not the letters of
a literary man. They have nothing suggestive of the studious chamber and
the midnight lamp. There is often a narrowness of idea in the merely
literary man which limits his auditory to men of his peculiar pattern.
To this narrowness Burns, with all his faults of style, was a stranger.
His letters are the utterances of a man who refused to be imprisoned in
any single department of human thought. He was no specialist, pinned to
one standpoint, and making the width of the world commensurate with the
narrowness of his own horizon. He moved about, he looked abroad; he had
no pet subject, no restricted field of study; nature and human nature in
their multitudinous phases and many retreats were his range, and he
expressed his views as freely and vigorously as he took them.
The general tone of the letters is high. The subject is not seldom of
supreme interest. Questions are discussed which are rarely discussed in
ordinary correspondence. The writer rises above creeds and formularies
and arbitrarily established rule. He speculates on a theology beyond the
bounds of Calvinism, on a philosophy of the soul above the dialectics of
the schoolmen, on a morality at variance with conventional law. He
interrogates the intuitions of the mind and the intimations of nature in
order that, if possible, he may learn something of the soul's origin,
destiny, and supremest duty. But let us hear himself:--
_(a)_ "I have ever looked on mankind in the lump to be nothing better
than a foolish, head-strong, credulous, unthinking mob; and their
universal belief has ever had extremely little weight with me.... I
am drawn by conviction like a Man, not by a halter like an Ass."
_(b)_ "_'On Earth Discord! A gloomy Heaven above opening its jealous
gates to the nineteen-thousandth part of the tithe of mankind! And
below an inexorable Hell expanding its leviathan jaws for the vast
residue of mortals!'_ O doctrine comfortable and healing to the weary
wounded soul of man! Ye sons and daughters of affliction, to whom day
brings no pleasure and night yields no rest, be comforted! 'Tis one
to but nineteen hundred thousand that your situation will mend in
this world, and 'tis nineteen hundred thousand to one, by the dogmas
of theology, that you will be damned eternally in the world to come."
_(c)_ "A pillar that bears us up amid the wreck of misfortune and
misery is to be found in those feelings and sentiments which, however
the sceptic may deny or the enthusiast disfigure them, are yet, I am
convinced, original and component parts of the human soul; those
_senses of the mind_, if I may be allowed the expression, which link
us to the awful obscure realities of an all-powerful and equally
beneficent God and a world-to-come beyond death and the grave."
_(d)_ "Can it be possible that when I resign this frail, feverish
being I shall still find myself in conscious existence?... Shall I
yet be warm in life, seeing and seen, enjoying and enjoyed? Ye
venerable Sages and holy Flamens, is there probability in your
conjectures, truth in your stories, of another world beyond death, or
are they all alike baseless visions and fabricated fables? If there
is another life, it must only be for the just, the benevolent, the
amiable, and the humane; what a flattering idea then is a world to
come! Would to God I as firmly believed it as I ardently wish it!...
Jesus Christ, thou amiablest of characters! I trust thou art no
impostor.... I trust that in Thee shall all the families of the earth
be blessed."
_(e)_ "From the seeming nature of the human mind, as well as from the
evident imperfections in the administration of affairs, in both the
natural and moral worlds, there must be a retributive scene of
existence beyond the grave."
_(f)_ "I never hear the loud solitary whistle of the curlew in a
summer's noon, or the wild mixing cadence of a troop of grey plover
in an autumn morning, without feeling an elevation of soul like the
enthusiasm of Devotion or Poetry. Tell me, my dear friend, to what
can this be owing? Are we a piece of machinery, that, like the Æolian
harp, passive, takes the impression of the passing accident? Or do
these workings argue something within us above the trodden clod?"
_(g)_ "Gracious Heaven! why this disparity between our wishes and our
powers? Why is the most generous wish to make others blest, impotent
and ineffectual?... Out upon the world! say I, that its affairs are
administered so ill."
_(h)_ "At first glance, several of your propositions startled me as
paradoxical. That the martial clangour of a trumpet had something in
it vastly more grand, heroic, and sublime than the twingle-twangle of
a jew's-harp; that the delicate flexure of a rose-twig, when the
half-blown flower is heavy with the tears of the dawn, was infinitely
more beautiful and elegant than the upright stub of a burdock; and
that, from something innate and independent of all associations of
ideas--these I had set down as irrefragable orthodox
truths."[a]
_(i)_ "O, I could curse circumstances, and the coarse tie of human
laws which keeps fast what common-sense would loose, and which bars
that happiness it cannot give--happiness which otherwise love and
honour would warrant!"
_(j)_ "If there is no man on earth to whom your heart and affections
are justly due, it may savour of imprudence, but never of
criminality, to bestow that heart and those affections where you
please. The God of love meant and made those delicious attachments to
be bestowed on somebody."
The inequalities of fortune, the pleasures of friendship, the miseries
of poverty, the glories of independence, the privileges of wealth allied
to generosity, the sin of ingratitude, and similar topics, are
continually recurring to prove the elevation at which his spirit usually
soared and surveyed mankind. It has been charged against him[b] that
these subjects were not the food of his daily contemplation, but were
lugged into his letters for the sake of effect, and that their clumsy
introduction was frequently apologised for by the complaint that the
writer had nothing else to write about. The frequent apologies here
spoken of will be hard to find, and the critic's only reason for
advancing the charge, for which he would fain find support in the
fancied apologies of Burns, is that many of the letters "relate neither
to facts nor feelings peculiarly connected with the author or his
correspondent." This only means that a very large proportion of Burns's
letters are not like the letters of ordinary men, and therefore do not
satisfy the critic's idea or definition of a letter. They treat of
themes that are not specially _à propos_ of passing events, and
therefore they are forced and affected. Few are likely to be imposed
upon by such shallow reasoning. Another critic[c] avers that "while
Burns says nothing of difficulties at all, he yet leaves an admirable
letter, out of nothing, in your hands!" We may pit the one critic
against the other, and so leave them, while we peruse the letters, and
form an opinion for ourselves.
While both the verse and the prose of Burns are revelations, his letters
reveal more than his poems the failings and frailties of the man. His
poems, taken altogether, shew him at his best, as we wish to--and as we
mainly do--remember him; a man to be loved, admired, even envied, and by
no means pitied, for his soul, though often vexed with the irritations
incidental to an obscure and toiling lot, has a strength and buoyancy
which readily raise it to divine altitudes, where it might well be
content to see and smile at the petty class distinctions and the paltry
social tyranny from which those irritations chiefly spring. His letters,
on the other hand, present him to us less frequently on those commanding
altitudes. He is oftener careful and concerned about many things,
groping occasionally in the world's ways for the world's gifts, and
handicapped in the struggle for them by a contemptuous and half-hearted
adoption of the world's methods of winning them.
The same personality that stands forth in the poems is everywhere
present in all essential features in the letters. We have in the latter
the same view of life, present and future; the same fierce contentment
with honest poverty; the same aggressive independency of manhood; the
same patriotism, susceptibility to female loveliness, love of sociality,
undaunted likes and dislikes. The humour is the same, though often too
elaborately expressed.[d] In one important respect, however, his letters
fail to reflect that image of him which his poetry presents. It is
remarkable that his descriptions of rural nature, and one might add of
rustic life, so full and plentiful in his verse, are so few and slight
in his letters. He seems to have reserved these descriptions for
his verse.
The best, because the most genuine, biography of Burns is furnished by
his own writings. His letters will, if carefully studied, disprove many
of the positions taken up so confidently by would-be interpreters of his
history. It is not the purpose of this discursive paper to take up the
details of the Clarinda episode; but philandering is scarcely the word
by which to describe the mutual relations of the lovers. As for Mrs.
M'Lehose, the severest thing that can with justice be said against her
is that, if she maintained her virtue, she endangered her reputation.
One remarkable position taken up by a recent writer[e] on the subject of
Burns's amours is, that he never really loved any woman, and least of
all Jean Armour. The letters would rather warrant the converse of his
statement. They go to prove that while Burns's affections were more than
oriental in their strength and liberality, they were especially centred
upon Jean. He felt "a miserable blank in his heart with want of her;" "a
rooted attachment for her;" "had no reason on her part to rue his
marriage with her;" and "never saw where he could have made it better."
If Burns was never really in love, it is more than probable that the
whole world has been mistaking some other passion for it. It is this
same writer who in one breath speaks of Burns philandering with
Clarinda, and yet declaring his attachment to her in the best songs he
ever wrote. Another error which the letters should correct is the belief
expressed in some quarters that Burns was no longer capable of producing
poetry after his fatal residence in Edinburgh. It was, as a matter of
fact, subsequent to his residence in Edinburgh that he wrote the poems
for which he is now, and for which he will be longest, famous--namely,
his songs. The writer already referred to compares the composition of
these songs to the carving of cherry-stones. They were, he says in
effect, the amusement of a man who could do nothing better in
literature! The world has agreed that they are the best things Burns has
done; and rates him for their sake in the highest rank of its poets. The
truth is that Burns came to Ellisland with numerous schemes of future
poetical work, vigorous hopes of carrying some of them, and an
inspiration and faculty of utterance unimpaired. It was in Dumfriesshire
that he composed the most tenderly and melodiously seraphic of his
lyrics--"To Mary in Heaven" and "Highland Mary;" the most powerful and
popular of his narrative poems--"Tam O' Shanter;" the first of all
patriotic odes--"Bruce's Address to his Army"; and the noblest manifesto
of the rights and hopes of manhood--"A Man's a Man for a' that."
With one word on his style as a prose-writer this short paper must
close. The most diverse opinions have been uttered on the subject. The
critics trip up each other with charming independency. To Jeffrey they
seemed to be "all composed as exercises and for display." Carlyle
declared that they were written "for the most part with singular force
and even gracefulness," and that when Burns wrote "to trusted friends on
real interests, his style became simple, vigorous, expressive, sometimes
even beautiful." Dr. Waddell prefers him to Cowper and Byron as a
letter-writer. Scott, while allowing passages of great eloquence, found
in the letters "strong marks of affectation, with a tincture of
pedantry." Taine thinks "Burns brought ridicule on himself by imitating
the men of the academy and the court." Lockhart thought, with Walker,
that "he accommodated his style to the tastes" of his correspondents.
And so on.
It is worth while to learn from Burns himself what he thought of his
talent for prose-composition. And in the first place it is to be noted
that he practised prose-composition before he took to poetry. At sixteen
he was carrying on an extensive literary correspondence, which was
virtually a competition in essay-writing. He kept copies of the letters
he liked best, and was flattered to find that he was superior to his
correspondents. He studied the essayists of Queen Anne's time, and
formed his style upon theirs, and that of their most distinguished
followers. Steele, Addison, Swift, Sterne, and Mackenzie were his
models. He liked their rounded sentences, and caught their conventional
phrases. He found delight in imitating them. He volunteered his services
with the pen on behalf of his fellow-swains. He became the "Complete
Letter-Writer" of his parish, and was proud of his function and his
faculty. He was aware of his "abilities at a billet-doux." To the very
last he had a high opinion of himself as a writer of letters. He speaks
of one letter being in his "very best manner;" and of waiting for an
hour of inspiration to write another that should be as good. He retained
copies of about thirty of his longer letters, and had them bound for
preservation.
The most serious, almost the only charge brought against the prose style
of Burns is the charge of affectation more or less occasional. All the
earlier critics make it or imply it, and with such an apparent show of
proof that it has generally been believed. Later critics, while unable
to deny the feature of his style which so looks like affectation, have
explained it to such good effect as to make it appear a beauty; they
have asked us to regard it as the happy result of a sympathetic mind
adapting itself to the object of its address. This looks very like
blaming Burns's correspondents for the badness of his style. There is
some truth in the explanation, putting it even so extremely. But when
this allowance is made, there still remains a wide and well-marked
difference between his use of English prose and his mastery of Scottish
verse. The latter is complete--it is the mastery of an originator of
style. The former, on the other hand, is the attainment of a clever
pupil when the sentiment is commonplace; when it is deep and vehement,
it is often, in the language of Carlyle, "the effort of a man to express
something which he has no organ fit for expressing." Common people, to
whom niceties of style are unknown, and who read primarily or
exclusively for the sake of the matter, perceive nothing of this
affectation, and think scarcely less highly of Burns's letters than they
do of his poetry.
J. LOGIE ROBERTSON.
7 LOCKHARTON TERRACE,
SLATEFORD, EDINBURGH.
[Footnote a: This is really the exposure of an absurdity.]
[Footnote b: By Jeffrey.]
[Footnote c: Dr. Hately Waddell.]
[Footnote d: See, for example, the _Cheese_ Letter to Peter Hill, or the
_Snail's-horns_ Letter to Mrs. Dunlop.]
[Footnote e: Mr. R. L. Stevenson.]
GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE.
LETTERS
I.--To ELLISON OR ALISON BEGBIE (?) [1]
What you may think of this letter when you see the name that subscribes
it I cannot know; and perhaps I ought to make a long preface of
apologies for the freedom I am going to take; but as my heart means no
offence, but, on the contrary, is rather too warmly interested in your
favour,--for that reason I hope you will forgive me when I tell you that
I most sincerely and affectionately love you. I am a stranger in these
matters, A---, as I assure you that you are the first woman to whom I
ever made such a declaration; so I declare I am at a loss how
to proceed.
I have more than once come into your company with a resolution to say
what I have just now told you; but my resolution always failed me, and
even now my heart trembles for the consequence of what I have said. I
hope, my dear A----, you will not despise me because I am ignorant of
the flattering arts of courtship: I hope my inexperience of the work
will plead for me. I can only say I sincerely love you, and there is
nothing on earth I so ardently wish for, or that could possibly give me
so much happiness, as one day to see you mine.
I think you cannot doubt my sincerity, as I am sure that whenever I see
you my very looks betray me: and when once you are convinced I am
sincere, I am perfectly certain you have too much goodness and humanity
to allow an honest man to languish in suspense only because he loves you
too well. And I am certain that in such a state of anxiety as I myself
at present feel, an absolute denial would be a much preferable state.
[Footnote 1: The original MS. of the foregoing letter is the property
of John Adam, Esquire, Greenock, and the letter was first published
in 1878. If it is a genuine love-letter, and not a mere exercise in
love-letter writing, it was probably the first of the short series to
Alison Begbie, who is supposed to have been the daughter of a small
farmer, and who has been identified with the Mary Morison of the
well-known lyric. The sentiment of the last paragraph of the letter
agrees with the sentiment of the last stanza of the song.]
* * * * *
II.-To ELLISON BEGBIE.
[LOCHLIE, 1780.]
MY DEAR E.,--I do not remember, in the course of your acquaintance and
mine, ever to have heard your opinion on the ordinary way of falling in
love, amongst people in our station in life; I do not mean the persons
who proceed in the way of bargain, but those whose affection is really
placed on the person.
Though I be, as you know very well, but a very awkward lover myself,
yet, as I have some opportunities of observing the conduct of others who
are much better skilled in the affair of courtship than I am, I often
think it is owing to lucky chance, more than to good management, that
there are not more unhappy marriages than usually are.
It is natural for a young fellow to like the acquaintance of the
females, and customary for him to keep them company when occasion
serves; some one of them is more agreeable to him than the rest; there
is something, he knows not what, pleases him, he knows not how, in her
company. This I take to be what is called love with the greater part of
us; and I must own, my dear E., it is a hard game such a one as you have
to play when you meet with such a lover. You cannot refuse but he is
sincere, and yet though you use him ever so favourably, perhaps in a few
months, or at farthest in a year or two, the same unaccountable fancy
may make him as distractedly fond of another, whilst you are quite
forgot. I am aware that perhaps the next time I have the pleasure of
seeing you, you may bid me take my own lesson home, and tell me that the
passion I have professed for you is perhaps one of those transient
flashes I have been describing; but I hope, my dear E., you will do me
the justice to believe me, when I assure you that the love I have for
you is founded on the sacred principles of virtue and honour, and by
consequence so long as you continue possessed of those amiable qualities
which first inspired my passion for you, so long must I continue to love
you. Believe me, my dear, it is love like this alone which can render
the marriage state happy. People may talk of flames and raptures as long
as they please, and a warm fancy, with a flow of youthful spirits, may
make them feel something like what they describe; but sure I am the
nobler faculties of the mind with kindred feelings of the heart can only
be the foundation of friendship, and it has always been my opinion that
the married life was only friendship in a more exalted degree.
If you will be so good as to grant my wishes, and it should please
Providence to spare us to the latest periods of life, I can look forward
and see that, even then, though bent down with wrinkled age--even then,
when all other worldly circumstances will be indifferent to me, I will
regard my E. with the tenderest affection, and for this plain reason,
because she is still possessed of those noble qualities, improved to a
much higher degree, which first inspired my affection for her.
O! happy state, when souls each other draw,
Where love is liberty, and nature law.
I know, were I to speak in such a style to many a girl, who thinks
herself possessed of no small share of sense, she would think it
ridiculous--but the language of the heart is, my dear E., the only
courtship I shall ever use to you.
When I look over what I have written, I am sensible it is vastly
different from the ordinary style of courtship--but I shall make no
apology--I know your good nature will excuse what your good sense may
see amiss.
* * * * *
III.--TO ELLISON BEGBIE.
[LOCHLIE, 1780.]
I verily believe, my dear E., that the pure genuine feelings of love are
as rare in the world as the pure genuine principles of virtue and piety.
This, I hope, will account for the uncommon style of all my letters to
you. By uncommon, I mean their being written in such a serious manner,
which, to tell you the truth, has made me often afraid lest you should
take me for some zealous bigot, who conversed with his mistress as he
would converse with his minister. I don't know how it is, my dear; for
though, except your company, there is nothing on earth gives me so much
pleasure as writing to you, yet it never gives me those giddy raptures
so much talked of among lovers. I have often thought, that if a
well-grounded affection be not really a part of virtue, 'tis something
extremely akin to it. Whenever the thought of my E. warms my heart,
every feeling of humanity, every principle of generosity, kindles in my
breast. It extinguishes every dirty spark of malice and envy, which are
but too apt to infest me. I grasp every creature in the arms of
universal benevolence, and equally participate in the pleasures of the
happy, and sympathise with the miseries of the unfortunate. I assure
you, my dear, I often look up to the Divine disposer of events with an
eye of gratitude for the blessing which I hope He intends to bestow on
me, in bestowing you. I sincerely wish that He may bless my endeavours
to make your life as comfortable and happy as possible, both in
sweetening the rougher parts of my natural temper, and bettering the
unkindly circumstances of my fortune. This, my dear, is a passion, at
least in my view, worthy of a man, and, I will add, worthy of a
Christian. The sordid earth-worm may profess love to a woman's person,
whilst, in reality, his affection is centred in her pocket; and the
slavish drudge may go a-wooing as he goes to the horse-market, to choose
one who is stout and firm, and as we say of an old horse, one who will
be a good drudge and draw kindly. I disdain their dirty, puny ideas. I
would be heartily out of humour with myself, if I thought I were capable
of having so poor a notion of the sex, which were designed to crown the
pleasures of society. Poor devils! I don't envy them their happiness who
have such notions. For my part, I propose quite other pleasures with my
dear partner.
* * * * *
IV.--TO ELLISON BEGBIE.
[LOCHLIE, 178l.]
MY DEAR E.,--I have often thought it a peculiarly unlucky circumstance
in love, that though, in every other situation in life, telling the
truth is not only the safest, but actually by far the easiest way of
proceeding, a lover is never under greater difficulty in acting, or more
puzzled for expression, than when his passion is sincere, and his
intentions are honourable. I do not think that it is very difficult for
a person of ordinary capacity to talk of love and fondness which are not
felt, and to make vows of constancy and fidelity which are never
intended to be performed, if he be villain enough to practice such
detestable conduct; but to a man whose heart glows with the principles
of integrity and truth, and who sincerely loves a woman of amiable
person, uncommon refinement of sentiment, and purity of manners--to such
a one, in such circumstances, I can assure you, my dear, from my own
feelings at this present moment, courtship is a task indeed. There is
such a number of foreboding fears and distrustful anxieties crowd into
my mind when I am in your company, or when I sit down to write to you,
that what to speak or what to write, I am altogether at a loss.
There is one rule which I have hitherto practised, and which I shall
invariably keep with you, and that is, honestly to tell you the plain
truth. There is something so mean and unmanly in the arts of
dissimulation and falsehood, that I am surprised they can be used by any
one in so noble, so generous a passion as virtuous love. No, my dear E.,
I shall never endeavour to gain your favour by such detestable
practices. If you will be so good and so generous as to admit me for
your partner, your companion, your bosom friend through life, there is
nothing on this side of eternity shall give me greater transport; but I
shall never think of purchasing your hand by any arts unworthy of a man,
and, I will add, of a Christian. There is one thing, my dear, which I
earnestly request of you, and it is this: that you would soon either put
an end to my hopes by a peremptory refusal, or cure me of my fears by a
generous consent.
It would oblige me much if you would send me a line or two when
convenient. I shall only add, further, that if behaviour, regulated
(though perhaps but very imperfectly) by the rules of honour and virtue,
if a heart devoted to love and esteem you, and an earnest endeavour to
promote your happiness; if these are qualities you would wish in a
friend, in a husband, I hope you shall ever find them in your real
friend and sincere lover.
* * * * *
V.-To ELLISON BEGBOE.
[LOCHLIE, 1781.]
I ought, in good manners, to have acknowledged the receipt of your
letter before this time, but my heart was so shocked with the contents
of it, that I can scarcely yet collect my thoughts so as to write you on
the subject. I will not attempt to describe what I felt on receiving
your letter. I read it over and over, again and again, and though it was
in the politest language of refusal, still it was peremptory; "you were
sorry you could not make me a return, but you wish me" what, without
you, I never can obtain, "you wish me all kind of happiness." It would
be weak and unmanly to say that without you I never can be happy; but
sure I am, that sharing life with you would have given it a relish,
that, wanting you, I can never taste.