friend. They are not the blasting depredations of a canker-toothed,
caterpillar critic; nor are they the fair statement of cold
impartiality, balancing with unfeeling exactitude the _pro_ and _con_ of
an author's merits; they are the judicious observations of animated
friendship, selecting the beauties of the piece. I am just arrived from
Nithsdale, and will be here a fortnight. I was on horseback this morning
by three o'clock; for between my wife and my farm is just forty-six
miles. As I jogged on in the dark, I was taken with a poetic fit,
as follows:
"Mrs. Ferguson of Craigdarroch's lamentation for the death of her son;
an uncommonly promising youth of eighteen or nineteen years of age:--
Fate gave the word--the arrow sped,
And pierced my darling's heart,"(_etc_.)
You will not send me your poetic rambles, but, you see, I am no niggard
of mine. I am sure your impromptus give me double pleasure; what falls
from your pen can neither be unentertaining in itself, nor
indifferent to me.
The one fault you found is just: but I cannot please myself in an
emendation.
What a life of solicitude is the life of a parent! You interested me
much in your young couple.
I would not take my folio paper for this epistle, and now I repent it. I
am so jaded with my dirty long journey, that I was afraid to drawl into
the essence of dulness with anything larger than a quarto, and so I must
leave out another rhyme of this morning's manufacture.
I will pay the sapientipotent George most cheerfully, to hear from you
ere I leave Ayrshire. R. B.
* * * *
CVII--To MR. PETER HILL.
Mauchline, 1_st October_ 1788.
I have been here in this country about three days, and all that time my
chief reading has been the "Address to Lochlomond" you were so obliging
as to send to me. Were I impanneled one of the author's jury, to
determine his criminality respecting the sin of poesy, my verdict should
be "Guilty! A poet of nature's making!" It is an excellent method for
improvement, and what I believe every poet does, to place some favourite
classic author in his walks of study and composition before him as a
model. Though your author had not mentioned the name, I could have, at
half a glance, guessed his model to be Thomson. Will my brother-poet
forgive me if I venture to hint that his imitation of that immortal bard
is, in two or three places, rather more servile than such a genius as
his required:--_e.g._
To soothe the maddening passions all to peace.
ADDRESS.
To soothe the throbbing passions into peace.
THOMSON.
I think the "Address" is in simplicity, harmony, and elegance of
versification, fully equal to the "Seasons." Like Thomson, too, he has
looked into nature for himself: you meet with no copied description. One
particular criticism I made at first reading; in no one instance has he
said too much. He never flags in his progress, but, like a true poet of
nature's making, kindles in his course. His beginning is simple and
modest, as if distrustful of the strength of his passion; only, I do not
altogether like--
Truth,
The soul of every song that's nobly great.
Fiction is the soul of many a song that is nobly great. Perhaps I am
wrong: this may be but a prose criticism. Is not the phrase, in line 7,
page 6, "Great lake," too much vulgarised by every-day language for so
sublime a poem?
Great mass of waters, theme for nobler song,
is perhaps no emendation. His enumeration of a comparison with other
lakes is at once harmonious and poetic. Every reader's ideas must
sweep the
Winding margin of a hundred miles.
The perspective that follows mountains blue--the imprisoned billows
beating in vain--the wooded isles--the digression on the
yew-tree--"Benlomond's lofty, cloud-envelop'd head," etc., are
beautiful. A thunder-storm is a subject which has been often tried, yet
our poet, in his grand picture, has interjected a circumstance, so far
as I know, entirely original in
the gloom
Deep seam'd with frequent streaks of moving fire.
In his preface to the Storm, "the glens how dark between," is noble
highland landscape! The "rain ploughing the red mould," too, is
beautifully fancied. "Benlomond's lofty, pathless top," is a good
expression; and the surrounding view from it is truly great: the
silver mist,
Beneath the beaming sun,
is well described; and here he has contrived to enliven his poem with a
little of that passion which bids fair, I think, to usurp the modern
muses altogether. I know not how far this episode is a beauty on the
whole, but the swain's wish to carry "some faint idea of the vision
bright," to entertain her "partial listening ear," is a pretty thought.
But, in my opinion, the most beautiful passages in the whole poem are
the fowls crowding, in wintry frosts, to Lochlomond's "hospitable
flood;" their wheeling round; their lighting, mixing, diving, etc.; and
the glorious description of the sportsman. This last is equal to
anything in the "Seasons." The idea of "the floating tribes distant
seen, far glistering to the moon," provoking his eye as he is obliged to
leave them, is a noble ray of poetic genius.
The "howling winds," the "hideous roar" of "the white cascades," are all
in the same style.
I forget that while I am thus holding forth, with the heedless warmth of
an enthusiast, I am perhaps tiring you with nonsense. I must, however,
mention that the last verse of the sixteenth page is one of the most
elegant compliments I have ever seen. I must likewise notice that
beautiful paragraph beginning "The gleaming lake," etc. I dare not go
into the particular beauties of the last two paragraphs, but they are
admirably fine, and truly Ossianic. I must beg your pardon for this
lengthened scrawl. I had no idea of it when I began--I should like to
know who the author is; but, whoever he be, please present him with my
grateful thanks for the entertainment he has afforded me.[90]
A friend of mine desired me to commission for him two books, _Letters on
the Religion essential to Man_, a book you sent me before; and _The
World Unmasked, or the Philosopher the greatest Cheat_. Send me them by
the first opportunity. The Bible you sent me is truly elegant; I only
wish it had been in two volumes. R. B.
[Footnote 90: The poem, entitled "An Address to Lochlomond," is said
to have been written by one of the masters of the High School of
Edinburgh.]
* * * * *
CVIIL--To THE EDITOR OF THE "STAR".
_November_ 8_th_, 1788.
Sir,--Notwithstanding the opprobrious epithets with which some of our
philosophers and gloomy sectarians have branded our nature--the
principle of universal selfishness, the proneness to all evil, they have
given us--still, the detestation in which inhumanity to the distressed,
or insolence to the fallen, are held by all mankind, shows that they are
not natives of the human heart. Even the unhappy partner of our kind who
is undone, the bitter consequence of his follies or his crimes--who
but sympathises with the miseries of this ruined profligate brother? We
forget the injuries, and feel for the man.
I went, last Wednesday, to my parish church, most cordially to join in
grateful acknowledgment to the AUTHOR OF ALL GOOD for the consequent
blessings of the glorious Revolution. To that auspicious event we owe no
less than our liberties, civil and religious; to it we are likewise
indebted for the present Royal Family, the ruling features of whose
administration have ever been mildness to the subject, and tenderness of
his rights.
Bred and educated in revolution principles, the principles of reason and
common sense, it could not be any silly political prejudice which made
my heart revolt at the harsh, abusive manner in which the reverend
gentleman mentioned the House of Stuart, and which, I am afraid, was too
much the language of the day. We may rejoice sufficiently in our
deliverance from past evils, without cruelly raking up the ashes of
those whose misfortune it was, perhaps as much as their crime, to be the
authors of those evils; and we may bless GOD for all His goodness to us
as a nation, without, at the same time, cursing a few ruined, powerless
exiles, who only harboured ideas, and made attempts, that most of us
would have done, had we been in their situation.
"The bloody and tyrannical House of Stuart" may be said with propriety
and justice, when compared with the present Royal Family, and the
sentiments of our days; but is there no allowance to be made for the
manners of the times? Were the royal contemporaries of the Stuarts more
attentive to their subjects' rights? Might not the epithets of "bloody
and tyrannical" be, with at least equal justice, applied to the House of
Tudor, of York, or any other of their predecessors?
The simple state of the case, Sir, seems to be this:--At that period,
the science of government, the knowledge of the true relation between
king and subject, was, like other sciences and other knowledge, just in
its infancy, emerging from dark ages of ignorance and barbarity.
The Stuarts only contended for prerogatives which they knew their
predecessors enjoyed, and which they saw their contemporaries enjoying;
but these prerogatives were inimical to the happiness of a nation and
the rights of subjects.
In this contest between prince and people, the consequence of that light
of science which had lately dawned over Europe, the monarch of France,
for example, was victorious over the struggling liberties of his people:
with us, luckily, the monarch failed, and his unwarrantable pretensions
fell a sacrifice to our rights and happiness. Whether it was owing to
the wisdom of leading individuals, or to the justling of parties, I
cannot pretend to determine; but, likewise, happily for us, the kingly
power was shifted into another branch of the family, who, as they owed
the throne solely to the call of a free people, could claim nothing
inconsistent with the covenanted terms which placed them there.
The Stuarts have been condemned and laughed at, for the folly and
impracticability of their attempts in 1715, and 1745. That they failed,
I bless GOD; but cannot join in the ridicule against them. Who does not
know that the abilities or defects of leaders and commanders are often
hidden, until put to the touchstone of exigency; and that there is a
caprice of fortune, an omnipotence in particular accidents and
conjunctures of circumstances, which exalt us as heroes, or brand us as
madmen, just as they are for or against us?
Man, Mr. Publisher, is a strange, weak, inconsistent being: who would
believe, Sir, that in this our Augustan age of liberality and
refinement, while we seem so justly sensible and jealous of our rights
and liberties, and animated with such indignation against the very
memory of those who would have subverted them--that a certain people
under our national protection should complain, not against our monarch
and a few favourite advisers, but against our WHOLE LEGISLATIVE BODY,
for similar oppression, and almost in the very same terms, as our
forefathers did of the House of Stuart! I will not, I cannot, enter into
the merits of the cause; but I dare say the American Congress, in 1776,
will be allowed to be as able and enlightened as the English Convention
was in 1688; and that their posterity will celebrate the centenary of
their deliverance from us, as duly and sincerely, as we do ours from the
oppressive measures of the wrong-headed House of Stuart.
To conclude, Sir; let every man who has a tear for the many miseries
incident to humanity, feel for a family illustrious as any in Europe,
and unfortunate beyond historic precedent; and let every Briton (and
particularly every Scotsman) who ever looked with reverential pity on
the dotage of a parent, cast a veil over the fatal mistake of the Kings
of his forefathers.
R. B.
* * * * *
CIX.--TO MRS. DUNLOP, AT MOREHAM MAINS.
MAUCHLINE, 13_th November_ 1788.
Madam,--I had the very great pleasure of dining at Dunlop yesterday. Men
are said to flatter women because they are weak, if it is so, poets must
be weaker still; for Misses R. and K. and Miss G. M'K., with their
flattering attentions, and artful compliments, absolutely turned my
head. I own they did not lard me over as many a poet does his patron,
but they so intoxicated me with their sly insinuations and delicate
innuendos of compliment, that if it had not been for a lucky
recollection, how much additional weight and lustre your good opinion
and friendship must give me in that circle, I had certainly looked upon
myself as a person of no small consequence. I dare not say one word how
much I was charmed with the Major's friendly welcome, elegant manner,
and acute remark, lest I should be thought to balance my orientalisms of
applause over-against the finest heifer in Ayrshire, which he made me a
present of to help and adorn my farm-stock. As it was on hallow-day, I
am determined annually as that day returns, to decorate her horns with
an ode of gratitude to the family of Dunlop.
So soon as I know of your arrival at Dunlop, I will take the first
conveniency to dedicate a day, or perhaps two, to you and friendship,
under the guarantee of the Major's hospitality. There will soon be three
score and ten miles of permanent distance between us; and now that your
friendship and friendly correspondence is entwisted with the
heart-strings of my enjoyment of life, I must indulge myself in a happy
day of "the feast of reason and the flow of soul."
R. B.
* * * * *
CX.--TO DR. BLACKLOCK.
MAUCHLINE, _November_ 15_th_, 1788.
Reverend and dear Sir,--As I hear nothing of your motions, but that you
are, or were, out of town, I do not know where this may find you, or
whether it will find you at all. I wrote you a long letter, dated from
the land of matrimony, in June; but either it had not found you, or,
what I dread more, it found you or Mrs. Blacklock in too precarious a
state of health and spirits to take notice of an idle packet.
I have done many little things for Johnson since I had the pleasure of
seeing you; and I have finished one piece, in the way of Pope's "Moral
Epistles;" but, from your silence, I have everything to fear, so I have
only sent you two melancholy things, which I tremble to fear may too
well suit the tone of your present feelings.
In a fortnight I move, bag and baggage, to Nithsdale; till then, my
direction is at this place; after that period, it will be at Ellisland,
near Dumfries. It would extremely oblige me, were it but half a line, to
let me know how you are, and where you are. Can I be indifferent to the
fate of a man to whom I owe so much--a man whom I not only esteem,
but venerate?
My warmest good wishes and most respectful compliments to Mrs.
Blacklock, and Miss Johnson, if she is with you.
I cannot conclude without telling you that I am more and more pleased
with the step I took respecting "my Jean." Two things, from my happy
experience, I set down as apophthegms in life,--a wife's head is
immaterial, compared with her heart; and "Virtue's (for wisdom, what
poet pretends to it?) ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths
are peace." Adieu!
R. B.[91]
[Footnote 91: Here follow "The mother's lament for the loss of her
son," and the song beginning "The lazy mist hangs from the brow of
the hill."]
* * * * *
CXI.--TO MRS. DUNLOP.
ELLISLAND, 17_th December_ 1788.
My dear honoured friend,--Yours, dated Edinburgh, which I have just
read, makes me very unhappy. "Almost blind and wholly deaf" are
melancholy news of human nature; but when told of a much-loved and
honoured friend, they carry misery in the sound. Goodness on your part,
and gratitude on mine, began a tie which has gradually entwisted itself
among the dearest chords of my bosom, and I tremble at the omens of your
late and present ailing habit and shattered health. You miscalculate
matters widely, when you forbid my waiting on you, lest it should hurt
my worldly concerns. My small scale of farming is exceedingly more
simple and easy than what you have lately seen at Moreham Mains. But, be
that as it may, the heart of the man and the fancy of the poet are the
two grand considerations for which I live: if miry ridges and dirty
dunghills are to engross the best part of the functions of my soul
immortal, I had better been a rook or a magpie at once, and then I
should not have been plagued with any ideas superior to breaking of
clods and picking up grubs; not to mention barn-door cocks of mallards,
creatures with which I could almost exchange lives at any time. If you
continue so deaf, I am afraid a visit will be no great pleasure to
either of us; but if I hear you are got so well again as to be able to
relish conversation, look you to it, Madam, for I will make my
threatenings good. I am to be at the New-year-day fair of Ayr, and, by
all that is sacred in the world, friend, I will come and see you.
Your meeting, which you so well describe, with your old schoolfellow and
friend, was truly interesting. Out upon the ways of the world! They
spoil these "social offsprings of the heart." Two veterans of the "men
of the world" would have met with little more heart-workings than two
old hacks worn out on the road. Apropos, is not the Scotch phrase, "Auld
lang syne," exceedingly expressive? There is an old song and tune which
has often thrilled through my soul. You know I am an enthusiast in old
Scotch song. I shall give you the verses on the other sheet, as I
suppose Mr. Kerr[92] will save you the postage.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot?
Light be the turf on the breast of the Heaven-inspired poet who composed
this glorious fragment! There is more of the fire of native genius in it
than in half a dozen of modern English Bacchanalians! Now I am on my
hobbyhorse, I cannot help inserting two other old stanzas, which please
me mightily:--
Go fetch to me a pint o' wine, etc.
R. B.
[Footnote 92: Postmaster in Edinburgh.]
* * * *
CXII.--TO MR. JOHN TENNANT.
_December_ 22_nd_, 1788.
I yesterday tried my cask of whisky for the first time, and I assure you
it does you great credit. It will bear five waters, strong: or six
ordinary toddy. The whisky of this country is a most rascally liquor;
and, by consequence, only drunk by the most rascally part of the
inhabitants. I am persuaded, if you once get a footing here, you might
do a great deal of business, in the way of consumpt; and should you
commence distiller again, this is the native barley country. I am
ignorant if, in your present way of dealing, you would think it worth
your while to extend your business so far as this country-side. I write
you this on the account of an accident, which I must take the merit of
having partly designed too. A neighbour of mine, a John Currie, miller,
in Carse Mill--a man who is, in a word, a very good man, even for a £500
bargain--he and his wife were in my house the time I broke open the
cask. They keep a country public-house and sell a great deal of foreign
spirits, but all along thought that whisky would have degraded their
house. They were perfectly astonished at my whisky, both for its taste
and strength; and, by their desire, I write you to know if you could
supply them with liquor of an equal quality, and what price. Please
write me by first post, and direct to me at Ellisland, near Dumfries. If
you could take a jaunt this way yourself, I have a spare spoon, knife,
and fork, very much at your service. My compliments to Mrs. Tennant, and
all the good folks in Glenconnel and Barguharrie.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXIII.--TO MRS. DUNLOP.
ELLISLAND, _New-year-day Morning_, 1789.
This, dear Madam, is a morning of wishes, and would to God that I came
under the Apostle James's description!--_the prayer of a righteous man
availeth much_. In that case, Madam, you should welcome in a year full
of blessings: everything that obstructs or disturbs tranquillity and
self-enjoyment should be removed, and every pleasure that frail humanity
can taste, should be yours. I own myself so little a Presbyterian, that
I approve of set times and seasons of more than ordinary acts of
devotion, for breaking in on that habituated routine of life and
thought, which is so apt to reduce our existence to a kind of instinct,
or even sometimes, and with some minds, to a state very little superior
to mere machinery.
This day; the first Sunday of May; a breezy blue-skyed noon some time
about the beginning, and a hoary morning and calm sunny day about the
end of autumn; these, time out of mind, have been with me a kind
of holiday.
I believe I owe this to that glorious paper in the _Spectator_ "The
Vision of Mirza," a piece that struck my young fancy before I was
capable of fixing an idea to a word of three syllables: "On the fifth
day of the moon, which, according to the custom of my forefathers, I
always _keep holy_, after having washed myself, and offered up my
morning devotions, I ascended the high hill of Bagdat, in order to pass
the rest of the day in meditation and prayer."
We know nothing, or next to nothing, of the substance or structure of
our souls, so cannot account for those seeming caprices in them, that
one should be particularly pleased with this thing, or struck with that,
which, on minds of a different cast, makes no extraordinary impression.
I have some favourite flowers in spring, among which are the
mountain-daisy, the hare-bell, the fox-glove, the wild brier-rose, the
budding birch, and the hoary hawthorn, that I view and hang over with
particular delight. I never hear the loud, solitary whistle of the
curlew in a summer noon, or the wild mixing cadence of a troop of grey
plovers, in an autumnal 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, which, like the
Æolian harp, passive, takes the impression of the passing accident? Or
do these workings argue something within us above the trodden clod? I
own myself partial to such proofs of those awful and important
realities--a God that made all things--man's immaterial and immortal
nature--and a world of weal or woe beyond death and the grave.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXIV.-TO DR. MOORE, LONDON.
ELLISLAND, 4_th Jan._ 1789.
Sir,--As often as I think of writing to you, which has been three or
four times every week these six months, it gives me something so like
the idea of an ordinary-sized statue offering at a conversation with the
Rhodian Colossus, that my mind misgives me, and the affair always
miscarries somewhere between purpose and resolve. I have at last got
some business with you, and business letters are written by the
style-book. I say my business is with you, Sir, for you never had any
with me, except the business that benevolence has in the mansion
of poverty.