dancing-school. My father had an unaccountable antipathy against these
meetings, and my going was, what to this moment I repent, in opposition
to his wishes. My father, as I said before, was subject to strong
passions; from that instance of disobedience in me, he took a sort of
dislike to me, which, I believe, was one cause of the dissipation which
marked my succeeding years. I say dissipation, comparatively with the
strictness, and sobriety, and regularity of presbyterian country life;
for though the will-o'-wisp meteors of thoughtless whim were almost the
sole lights of my path, yet early ingrained piety and virtue kept me for
several years afterwards within the line of innocence. The great
misfortune of my life was to want an aim. I had felt early some
stirrings of ambition, but they were the blind gropings of Homer's
Cyclops round the walls of his cave. I saw my father's situation
entailed on me perpetual labour. The only two openings by which I could
enter the temple of fortune were the gate of niggardly economy, or the
path of little chicaning bargain-making. The first is so contracted an
aperture I never could squeeze myself into it--the last I always
hated--there was contamination in the very entrance! Thus abandoned of
aim or view in life, with a strong appetite for sociability, as well
from native hilarity as from a pride of observation and remark; a
constitutional melancholy or hypochondriasm that made me fly solitude;
add to these incentives to social life, my reputation for bookish
knowledge, a certain wild logical talent, and a strength of thought
something like the rudiments of good sense; and it will not seem
surprising that I was generally a welcome guest where I visited, or any
great wonder that always, where two or three met together, there was I
among them. But far beyond all other impulses of my heart, was _un
penchant à l'adorable moitié du genre humain_. My heart was completely
tinder, and was eternally lighted up by some goddess or other; and, as
in every other warfare in this world, my fortune was various; sometimes
I was received with favour, and sometimes I was mortified with a
repulse. At the plough, scythe, or reap-hook, I feared no competitor,
and thus I set absolute want at defiance; and as I never cared further
for my labours than while I was in actual exercise, I spent the evenings
in the way after my own heart. A country lad seldom carries on a love
adventure without an assisting confidant. I possessed a curiosity, zeal,
and intrepid dexterity that recommended me as a proper second on these
occasions; and I dare say I felt as much pleasure in being in the secret
of half the loves of the parish of Tarbolton, as ever did statesman in
knowing the intrigues of half the courts of Europe. The very
goose-feather in my hand seems to know instinctively the well-worn path
of my imagination, the favourite theme of my song, and is with
difficulty restrained from giving you a couple of paragraphs on the
love-adventures of my compeers, the humble inmates of the farm-house and
cottage; but the grave sons of science, ambition, or avarice, baptise
these things by the name of follies. To the sons and daughters of labour
and poverty they are matters of the most serious nature: to them the
ardent hope, the stolen interview, the tender farewell, are the greatest
and most delicious parts of their enjoyments.
Another circumstance in my life which made some alteration in my mind
and manners, was, that I spent my nineteenth summer on a smuggling
coast, a good distance from home, at a noted school, to learn
mensuration, surveying, dialling, etc., in which I made a pretty good
progress. But I made a greater progress in the knowledge of mankind. The
contraband trade was at that time very successful, and it sometimes
happened to me to fall in with those who carried it on. Scenes of
swaggering riot and roaring dissipation were, till this time, new to me:
but I was no enemy to social life. Here, though I learned to fill my
glass, and to mix without fear in a drunken squabble, yet I went on with
a high hand with my geometry, till the sun entered Virgo, a month which
is always a carnival in my bosom, when a charming fillette, who lived
next door to the school, overset my trigonometry, and set me off at a
tangent from the spheres of my studies. I, however, struggled on with my
sines and cosines for a few days more; but stepping into the garden one
charming noon, to take the sun's altitude, there I met my angel,
Like Proserpine gathering flowers,
Herself a fairer flower.
It was in vain to think of doing any more good at school.
The remaining week I staid I did nothing but craze the faculties of my
soul about her, or steal out to meet her; and the two last nights of my
stay in the country, had sleep been a mortal sin, the image of this
modest and innocent girl had kept me guiltless.
I returned home very considerably improved. My reading was enlarged with
the very important edition of Thomson's and Shenstone's Works; I had
seen human nature in a new phasis; and I engaged several of my
schoolfellows to keep up a literary correspondence with me. This
improved me in composition. I had met with a collection of letters by
the wits of Queen Anne's reign, and I pored over them most devoutly. I
kept copies of any of my own letters that pleased me, and a comparison
between them and the composition of most of my correspondents flattered
my vanity. I carried this whim so far, that though I had not
three-farthings' worth of business in the world, yet almost every post
brought me as many letters as if I had been a broad plodding son of
day-book and ledger.
My life flowed on much in the same course till my twenty-third year.
_Vive l'amour, et vive la bagatelle_, were my sole principles of action.
The addition of two more authors to my library gave me great pleasure;
Sterne and Mackenzie--_Tristram Shandy_ and the _Man of Feeling_ were my
bosom favourites. Poesy was still a darling walk for my mind, but it was
only indulged in according to the humour of the hour. I had usually
half-a-dozen or more pieces on hand: I took up one or other, as it
suited the momentary tone of the mind, and dismissed the work as it
bordered on fatigue. My passions, when once lighted up, raged like so
many devils, till they got vent in rhyme; and then the conning over my
verses, like a spell, soothed all into quiet! None of the rhymes of
those days are in print, except "Winter, a Dirge," the eldest of my
printed pieces; "The Death of Poor Maillie," "John Barleycorn," and
songs first, second, and third. Song second was the ebullition of that
passion which ended the forementioned school business.
My twenty-third year was to me an important era. Partly through whim,
and partly that I wished to set about doing something in life, I joined
a flax-dresser in a neighbouring town (Irvine), to learn his trade. This
was an unlucky affair. My partner was a scoundrel of the first water;
and to finish the whole, as we were giving a welcome carousal to the New
Year, the shop took fire and burnt to ashes, and I was left, like a true
poet, not worth a sixpence.
I was obliged to give up this scheme; the clouds of misfortune were
gathering thick round my father's head; and, what was worst of all, he
was visibly far gone in a consumption; and, to crown my distresses, a
_belle fille_, whom I adored, and who had pledged her soul to meet me in
the field of matrimony, jilted me, with peculiar circumstances of
mortification. The finishing evil that brought up the rear of this
infernal file, was my constitutional melancholy being increased to such
a degree that for three months I was in a state of mind scarcely to be
envied by the hopeless wretches who have got their mittimus--"Depart
from me, ye cursed."
From this adventure I learned something of a town life; but the
principal thing which gave my mind a turn was a friendship I formed with
a young fellow, a very noble character, but a hapless son of
misfortune.[40] He was the son of a simple mechanic; but a great man in
the neighbourhood taking him under his patronage, gave him a genteel
education, with a view of bettering his situation in life. The patron
dying just as he was ready to launch out into the world, the poor
fellow, in despair, went to sea; where, after a variety of good and ill
fortune, a little before I was acquainted with him he had been sent on
shore by an American privateer, on the wild coast of Connaught, stripped
of everything. I cannot quit this poor fellow's story without adding,
that he is at this time master of a large West-India-man belonging to
the Thames.
His mind was fraught with independence, magnanimity, and every manly
virtue. I loved and admired him to a degree of enthusiasm, and of course
strove to imitate him.
In some measure I succeeded; I had pride before, but he taught it to
flow in proper channels. His knowledge of the world was vastly superior
to mine, and I was all attention to learn. He was the only man I ever
saw who was a greater fool than myself where woman was the presiding
star; but he spoke of illicit love with the levity of a sailor, which
hitherto I had regarded with horror. Here his friendship did me a
mischief, and the consequence was, that soon after I resumed the plough,
I wrote the "Poet's Welcome." My reading only increased while in this
town by two stray volumes of _Pamela_, and one of _Ferdinand Count
Fathom_, which gave me some idea of novels. Rhyme, except some religious
pieces that are in print, I had given up; but meeting with Fergusson's
Scottish Poems, I strung anew my wildly-sounding lyre with emulating
vigour. When my father died, his all went among the hell-hounds that
prowl in the kennel of justice; but we made a shift to collect a little
money in the family amongst us, with which, to keep us together, my
brother and I took a neighbouring farm. My brother wanted my
hair-brained imagination, as well as my social and amorous madness; but
in good sense, and every sober qualification, he was far my superior.
I entered on this farm with a full resolution, "Come, go to, I will be
wise!" I read farming books; I calculated crops; I attended markets;
and, in short, in spite of the devil, and the world, and the flesh, I
believe I should have been a wise man; but the first year, from
unfortunately buying bad seed, the second from a late harvest, we lost
half our crops. This overset all my wisdom, and I returned "like the dog
to his vomit, and the sow that was washed, to her wallowing in
the mire."
I now began to be known in the neighbourhood as a maker of rhymes. The
first of my poetic offspring that saw the light was a burlesque
lamentation on a quarrel between two reverend Calvinists, both of them
_dramatis personæ_ in my "Holy Fair". I had a notion myself that the
piece had some merit; but, to prevent the worst, I gave a copy of it to
a friend, who was very fond of such things, and told him that I could
not guess who was the author of it, but that I thought it pretty clever.
With a certain description of the clergy, as well as laity, it met with
a roar of applause. "Holy Willie's Prayer" next made its appearance, and
alarmed the kirk-session so much, that they held several meetings to
look over their spiritual artillery, if haply any of it might be pointed
against profane rhymers. Unluckily for me, my wanderings led me on
another side, within point-blank shot of their heaviest metal. This is
the unfortunate story that gave rise to my printed poem, "The Lament."
This was a most melancholy affair, which I cannot yet bear to reflect
on, and had very nearly given me one or two of the principal
qualifications for a place among those who have lost the chart, and
mistaken the reckoning of rationality. I gave up my part of the farm to
my brother; in truth it was only nominally mine; and made what little
preparation was in my power for Jamaica. But before leaving my native
country for ever, I resolved to publish my poems. I weighed my
productions as impartially as was in my power; I thought they had merit;
and it was a delicious idea that I should be called a clever fellow,
even though it should never reach my ears--a poor negro-driver--or
perhaps a victim to that inhospitable clime, and gone to the world of
spirits! I can truly say, that, _pauvre inconnu_ as I then was, I had
pretty nearly as high an idea of myself and of my works as I have at
this moment, when the public has decided in their favour. It ever was my
opinion that the mistakes and blunders, both in a rational and religious
point of view, of which we see thousands daily guilty, are owing to
their ignorance of themselves. To know myself, had been all along my
constant study. I weighed myself alone; I balanced myself with others; I
watched every means of information, to see how much ground I occupied as
a man, and as a poet; I studied assiduously Nature's design in my
formation--where the lights and shades in my character were intended. I
was pretty confident my poems would meet with some applause; but at the
worst, the roar of the Atlantic would deafen the voice of censure, and
the novelty of West Indian scenes make me forget neglect. I threw off
six hundred copies, of which I had got subscriptions for about three
hundred and fifty. My vanity was highly gratified by the reception I met
with from the public; and besides, I pocketed, all expenses deducted,
nearly twenty pounds. This sum came very seasonably, as I was thinking
of indenting myself, for want of money to procure my passage. As soon as
I was master of nine guineas, the price of wafting me to the torrid
zone, I took a steerage passage in the first ship that was to sail from
the Clyde, for
Hungry ruin had me in the wind.
I had been for some days skulking from covert to covert, under all the
terrors of a jail; as some ill-advised people had uncoupled the
merciless pack of the law at my heels. I had taken the last farewell of
my few friends; my chest was on the road to Greenock; I had composed the
last song I should ever measure in Caledonia--"The gloomy night is
gathering fast," when a letter from Dr. Blacklock to a friend of mine
overthrew all my schemes, by opening new prospects to my poetic
ambition. The doctor belonged to a set of critics, for whose applause I
had not dared to hope. His opinion, that I would meet with encouragement
in Edinburgh for a second edition, fired me so much, that away I posted
for that city, without a single acquaintance or a single letter of
introduction. The baneful star that had so long shed its blasting
influence in my zenith, for once made a revolution to the nadir; and a
kind Providence placed me under the patronage of one of the noblest of
men, the Earl of Glencairn. _Oubliez moi, grand Dieu, si jamais je
l'oublie_!
I need relate no farther. At Edinburgh I was in a new world; I mingled
among many classes of men, but all of them new to me, and I was all
attention to "catch" the characters, and "the manners living as
they rise."
You can now, Sir, form a pretty near guess of what sort of a wight he is
whom for some time you have honoured with your correspondence. That whim
and fancy, keen sensibility and riotous passions, may still make him
zigzag in his future path of life is very probable; but come what will,
I shall answer for him the most determinate integrity and honour. And
though his evil star should again blaze in his meridian with tenfold
more direful influence, he may reluctantly tax friendship with pity, but
with no more.
My most respectful compliments to Miss Williams.[41] The very elegant
and friendly letter she honoured me with a few days ago I cannot answer
at present, as my presence is required at Edinburgh for a week or so,
and I set off to-morrow.
I enclose you _Holy Willie_ for the sake of giving you a little further
information of the affair than Mr. Creech[42] could do. An elegy I
composed the other day on Sir James H. Blair, if time allow, I will
transcribe. The merit is just mediocre.
If you will oblige me so highly, and do me so much honour as now and
then to drop me a line, please direct to me at Mauchline. With the most
grateful respect, I have the honour to be, Sir, your very humble
servant, ROBERT BURNS.[43]
[Footnote 40: Richard Brown.]
[Footnote 41: A young poetical lady, though not a poetess.]
[Footnote 42: His Edinburgh publisher; a bookseller, afterwards Lord
Provost of the city.]
[Footnote 43: The foregoing biographical letter brings us down to
Burns's 29th year.]
* * * *
LVIL.--To MR. ARCHIBALD LAWRIE.[44]
EDINBURGH, 14_th August_ 1787.
MY DEAR SIR,--Here am I. That is all I can tell you of that
unaccountable being, myself. What I am doing no mortal can tell; what I
am thinking, I myself cannot tell; what I am usually saying is not worth
telling. The clock is just striking--one, two, three, four...twelve,
forenoon; and here I sit in the attic storey, the garret, with a friend
on the right hand of my standish, a friend whose kindness I shall
largely experience at the close of this line--there, thank you!--a
friend, my dear Lawrie, whose kindness often makes me blush--a friend
who has more of the milk of human kindness than all the human race put
together, and what is highly to his honour, peculiarly a friend to the
friendless as often as they come his way; in short, Sir, he is wthout
the least alloy a universal philanthropist, and his much-beloved name is
a bottle of good old Port!
In a week, if whim and weather serve, I set out for the north, a tour to
the Highlands.
I ate some Newhaven broth--in other words, boiled mussels--with Mr.
Farquharson's family t'other day. Now I see you prick up your ears. They
are all well, and mademoiselle is particularly well. She begs her
respects to you all--along with which please present those of your
humble servant. I can no more. I have so high a veneration, or rather
idolatrization, for the clerical character, that even a little _futurum
esse_ priestling, with his _penna pennæ_, throws an awe over my mind in
his presence, and shortens my sentences into single ideas.
Farewell, and believe me to be ever, my dear Sir, yours,
ROBERT BURNS.
[Footnote 44: Son, and successor, to the minister of Loudon.]
* * * *
LVIII.--To MR. ROBERT MUIR, KILMARNOCK.
STIRLING, 26_th August_ 1787.
MY DEAR SIR,--I intended to have written you from Edinburgh, and now
write you from Stirling to make an excuse. Here am I, on my way to
Inverness, with a truly original, but very worthy man, a Mr. Nicol, one
of the masters of the High-school in Edinburgh. I left Auld Reekie
yesterday morning, and have passed, besides by-excursions, Linlithgow,
Borrowstounness, Falkirk, and here am I undoubtedly. This morning I
knelt at the tomb of Sir John the Graham, the gallant friend of the
immortal Wallace; and two hours ago I said a fervent prayer for old
Caledonia over the hole in a blue whinstone, where Robert de Bruce fixed
his royal standard on the banks of Bannockburn and just now, from
Stirling Castle, I have seen by the setting sun the glorious prospect of
the windings of Forth through the rich carse of Stirling, and skirting
the equally rich carse of Falkirk. The crops are very strong, but so
very late that there is no harvest except a ridge or two perhaps in ten
miles, all the way I have travelled from Edinburgh.
I left Andrew Bruce[45] and family all well. I will be at least three
weeks in making my tour, as I shall return by the coast, and have many
people to call for.
My best compliments to Charles, our dear kinsman and fellow-saint; and
Messrs. W. and H. Parkers. I hope Hughoc[46] is going on and prospering
with God and Miss M'Causlin.
If I could think on anything sprightly, I should let you hear every
other post; but a dull, matter-of-fact business like this scrawl, the
less and seldomer one writes the better.
Among other matters-of-fact I shall add this, that I am and ever shall
be, my dear Sir, your obliged,
ROBERT BURNS.
[Footnote 45: A shopkeeper on the North Bridge, Edinburgh.]
[Footnote 46: The wee Hughoc mentioned in "Poor Maillie."]
* * * *
LIX.--TO MR. GAVIN HAMILTON.
STIRLING, _28th August_ 1787.
MY DEAR SIR,--Here am I on my way to Inverness. I have rambled over the
rich, fertile carses of Falkirk and Stirling, and am delighted with
their appearance: richly waving crops of wheat, barley, etc., but no
harvest at all yet, except, in one or two places, an old-wife's ridge.
Yesterday morning I rode from this town up the meandering Devon's banks,
to pay my respects to some Ayrshire folks at Harvieston. After
breakfast, we made a party to go and see the famous Caudron-linn, a
remarkable cascade in the Devon, about five miles above Harvieston; and
after spending one of the most pleasant days I ever had in my life, I
returned to Stirling in the evening. They are a family, Sir, though I
had not had any prior tie, though they had not been the brother and
sisters of a certain generous friend of mine, I would never forget them.
I am told you have not seen them these several years, so you can have
very little idea of what these young folks are now. Your brother[47] is
as tall as you are, but slender rather than otherwise; and I have the
satisfaction to inform you that he is getting the better of those
consumptive symptoms which I suppose you know were threatening him. His
make, and particularly his manner, resemble you, but he will have a
still finer face. (I put in the word still, to please Mrs. Hamilton.)
Good sense, modesty, and at the same time a just idea of that respect
that man owes to man, and has a right in his turn to exact, are striking
features in his character; and, what with me is the Alpha and the Omega,
he has a heart that might adorn the breast of a poet! Grace has a good
figure, and the look of health and cheerfulness, but nothing else
remarkable in her person. I scarcely ever saw so striking a likeness as
is between her and your little Beenie; the mouth and chin particularly.
She is reserved at first; but as we grew better acquainted, I was
delighted with the native frankness of her manner, and the sterling
sense of her observation. Of Charlotte I cannot speak in common terms of
admiration: she is not only beautiful but lovely. Her form is elegant;
her features not regular, but they have the smile of sweetness, and the
settled complacency of good nature in the highest degree; and her
complexion, now that she has happily recovered her wonted health, is
equal to Miss Burnet's. After the exercises of our riding to the Falls,
Charlotte was exactly Dr. Donne's mistress:--
Her pure and eloquent blood
Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought,
That one would almost say her body thought.
Her eyes are fascinating; at once expressive of good sense, tenderness,
and a noble mind.
I do not give you all this account, my good Sir, to flatter you. I mean
it to reproach you. Such relations the first peer in the realm might own
with pride; then why do you not keep up more correspondence with these
so amiable young folks? I had a thousand questions to answer about you.
I had to describe the little ones with the minuteness of anatomy. They
were highly delighted when I told them that John[48] was so good a boy,
and so fine a scholar, and that Willie was going on still very pretty;
but I have it in commission to tell her from them, that beauty is a poor
silly bauble without she be good. Miss Chalmers I had left in Edinburgh,
but I had the pleasure of meeting with Mrs. Chalmers, only Lady
Mackenzie being rather a little alarmingly ill of a sore throat somewhat
marred our enjoyment.
I shall not be in Ayrshire for four weeks. My most respectful
compliments to Mrs. Hamilton, Miss Kennedy, and Doctor Mackenzie. I
shall probably write him from some stage or other.--I am ever; Sir,
yours most gratefully,
ROBT. BURNS.
[Footnote 47: Step-brother, more correctly.]
[Footnote 48: This is the "Wee Curlie Johnnie" mentioned in Burns's
_Dedication to Gavin Hamilton, Esq._]
* * * *
LX.--To MR. WALKER, BLAIR OF ATHOLE.[49]
INVERNESS, _5th September_ 1787.
MY DEAR SIR,--I have just time to write the foregoing,[50] and to tell
you that it was (at least most part of it) the effusion of an half-hour
I spent at Bruar. I do not mean it was extempore, for I have endeavoured
to brush it up as well as Mr. Nicol's chat, and the jogging of the
chaise, would allow. It eases my heart a good deal, as rhyme is the coin
with which a poet pays his debts of honour or gratitude. What I owe to
the noble family of Athole, of the first kind, I shall ever proudly
boast; what I owe of the last, so help me God in my hour of need! I
shall never forget.
The "little angel-band!" I declare I prayed for them very sincerely
today at the Fall of Fyers. I shall never forget the fine family-piece I
saw at Blair; the amiable, the truly noble duchess, with her smiling
little seraph in her lap, at the head of the table; the lovely "olive
plants," as the Hebrew bard finely says, round the happy mother; the
beautiful Mrs. G---; the lovely, sweet Miss C., etc. I wish I had the
powers of Guido to do them justice! My Lord Duke's kind
hospitality--markedly kind indeed; Mr. Graham of Fintry's charms of
conversation; Sir W. Murray's friendship. In short, the recollection of
all that polite, agreeable company raises an honest glow in my bosom.
R. B.
[Footnote 49: Mr. Walker was tutor to the children of the Duke of
Athole. He afterwards became Professor of Humanity in the University
of Glasgow.]
[Footnote 50: The Humble Petition of Bruar Water.]
* * * *
LXI.--To His BROTHER, MR. GILBERT BURNS, MOSSGIEL.
EDINBERG, 17_th September_ 1787.