beef and dainty greens!--thou manufacturer of warm Shetland hose, and
comfortable surtouts!--thou old housewife, darning thy decayed
stockings with thy ancient spectacles on thy aged nose!--lead me, hand
me in thy clutching palsied fist, up those heights, and through those
thickets, hitherto inaccessible, and impervious to my anxious, weary
feet:--not those Parnassian crags, bleak and barren, where the hungry
worshippers of fame are, breathless, clambering, hanging between heaven
and hell; but those glittering cliffs of Potosi, where the
all-sufficient, all-powerful deity, wealth, holds his immediate court of
joy and pleasures; where the sunny exposure of plenty, and the hot walls
of profusion, produce those blissful fruits of luxury, exotics in this
world, and natives of paradise!--Thou withered sibyl, my sage
conductress, usher me into thy refulgent, adored presence!--The power,
splendid and potent as he now is, was once the puling nursling of thy
faithful care and tender arms! Call me thy son, thy cousin, thy kinsman,
or favourite, and adjure the god by the scenes of his infant years, no
longer to repulse me as a stranger, or an alien, but to favour me with
his peculiar countenance and protection! He daily bestows his great
kindness on the undeserving and the worthless--assure him that I bring
ample documents of meritorious demerits! Pledge yourself for me, that,
for the glorious cause of lucre, I will do anything, be anything; but
the horse-leech of private oppression, or the vulture of public robbery!
But to descend from heroics.
I want a Shakespeare; I want likewise an English dictionary,--Johnson's,
I suppose, is best. In these and all my prose commissions, the cheapest
is always the best for me. There is a small debt of honour that I owe
Mr. Robert Cleghorn, in Saughton Mills, my worthy friend, and your
well-wisher. Please give him, and urge him to take it, the first time
you see him, ten shillings worth of anything you have to sell, and place
it to my account.
The library scheme that I mentioned to you is already begun under the
direction of Captain Riddel. There is another in emulation of it going
on at Closeburn, under the auspices of Mr. Monteith of Closeburn, which
will be on a greater scale than ours. Captain Riddel gave his infant
society a great many of his old books, else I had written you on that
subject; but, one of these days, I shall trouble you with a commission
for "The Monkland Friendly Society," a copy of _The Spectator_,
_Mirror_, and _Lounger_, _Man of Feeling_, _Man of the World_,
_Guthrie's Geographical Grammar_, with some religious pieces, will
likely be our first order.
When I grow richer, I will write to you on gilt-post, to make amends for
this sheet. At present every guinea has a five guinea errand with, my
dear Sir, your faithful, poor, but honest friend,
R. B.
[Footnote 97: Creech? or Ramsay of _The Courant?_]
* * * * *
CXXV.--TO MRS. M'MURDO, DRUMLANRIG.
ELLISLAND, _2nd May_ 1789.
Madam,--I have finished the piece which had the happy fortune to be
honoured with your approbation; and never did little Miss, with more
sparkling pleasure, show her applauded sampler to partial Mamma, than I
now send my poem to you and Mr. M'Murdo,[98] if he is returned to
Drumlanrig. You cannot easily imagine what thin-skinned animals--what
sensitive plants poor poets are. How do we shrink into the imbittered
corner of self-abasement, when neglected or condemned by those to whom
we look up! and how do we, in erect importance, add another cubit to our
stature on being noticed and applauded by those whom we honour and
respect! My late visit to Drumlanrig has, I can tell you, Madam, given
me a balloon waft up Parnassus, where, on my fancied elevation, I regard
my poetic self with no small degree of complacency. Surely with all
their sins, the rhyming tribe are not ungrateful creatures--I recollect
your goodness to your humble guest--I see Mr. M'Murdo adding to the
politeness of the gentleman, the kindness of a friend, and my heart
swells as it would burst, with warm emotions and ardent wishes! It may
be it is not gratitude--it may be a mixed sensation. That strange,
shifting, doubling animal, MAN, is so generally, at best, but a
negative, often a worthless creature, that we cannot see real goodness
and native worth, without feeling the bosom glow with sympathetic
approbation. With every sentiment of grateful respect, I have the honour
to be, Madam, your obliged and grateful humble servant,
R. B.
[Footnote 98: The piece beginning--There was a lass and she was
fair.]
* * * * *
CXXVI.--TO MR. CUNNINGHAM.
ELL ISLAND, 4_th May_ 1789.
My dear Sir,--Your _duty-free_ favour of the 25th April I received two
days ago; I will not say I perused it with pleasure; that is the cold
compliment of ceremony; I perused it, Sir, with delicious
satisfaction;--in short, it is such a letter, that not you, nor your
friend, but the legislature, by express proviso in their postage laws,
should frank. A letter informed with the soul of friendship is such an
honour to human nature, that they should order it free ingress and
egress to and from their bags and mails, as an encouragement and mark of
distinction to supereminent virtue.
I have just put the last hand to a little poem, which I think will be
something to your taste.[99] One morning lately, as I was out pretty
early in the fields, sowing some grass seeds, I heard the burst of a
shot from a neighbouring plantation, and presently a poor little wounded
hare came crippling by me. You will guess my indignation at the inhuman
fellow who could shoot a hare at this season, when all of them have
young ones. Indeed there is something in that business of destroying,
for our sport, individuals in the animal creation that do not injure us
materially, which I could never reconcile to my ideas of virtue.
Let me know how you like my poem. I am doubtful whether it would not be
an improvement to keep out the last stanza but one altogether.
Cruikshank is a glorious production of the author of man. You, he, and
the noble Colonel[100] of the Crochallan Fencibles are to me
Dear as the ruddy drops which warm my heart.
I have got a good mind to make verses on you all, to the tune of "_Three
guid fellows ayont the glen_"
R. B.
[Footnote 99: See the poem on the "Wounded Hare."]
[Footnote 100: That is, William Dunbar, W.S.]
* * * * *
CXXVIL--TO MR. RICHARD BROWN.
MAUCHLINE, _21st May_ 1789.
My Dear Friend,--I was in the country by accident, and hearing of your
safe arrival, I could not resist the temptation of wishing you joy on
your return--wishing you would write to me before you sail
again--wishing that you would always set me down as your bosom
friend--wishing you long life and prosperity, and that every good thing
may attend you--wishing Mrs. Brown and your little ones as free of the
evils of this world as is consistent with humanity--wishing you and she
were to make two at the ensuing lying-in, with which Mrs. B. threatens
very soon to favour me--wishing I had longer time to write to you at
present; and, finally, wishing that if there is to be another state of
existence, Mrs. Brown, Mrs. Burns, our little ones of both families, and
you and I, in some snug retreat, may make a jovial party to
all eternity!
My direction is at Ellisland, near Dumfries.--Yours,
R. B.
* * * * *
CXXVIIL--To MR. ROBERT AINSLIE.
ELLISLAND, _8th June_ 1789.
MY DEAR FRIEND,--I am perfectly ashamed of myself when I look at the
date of your last. It is not that I forget the friend of my heart and
the companion of my peregrinations; but I have been condemned to
drudgery beyond sufferance, though not, thank God, beyond redemption. I
have had a collection of poems by a lady put into my hands to prepare
them for the press; which horrid task, with sowing corn with my own
hand, a parcel of masons, wrights, plasterers, etc., to attend to,
roaming on business through Ayrshire--all this was against me, and the
very first dreadful article was of itself too much for me.
13th. I have not had a moment to spare from incessant toil since the
8th. Life, my dear Sir, is a serious matter. You know by experience that
a man's individual self is a good deal, but believe me, a wife and
family of children, whenever you have the honour to be a husband and a
father, will show you that your present and most anxious hours of
solitude are spent on trifles. The welfare of those who are very dear to
us, whose only support, hope, and stay we are--this, to a generous mind,
is another sort of more important object of care than any concerns
whatever which centre merely in the individual. On the other hand, let
no young, rakehelly dog among you, make a song of his pretended liberty
and freedom from care. If the relations we stand in to king, country,
kindred, and friends, be anything but the visionary fancies of dreaming
metaphysicians; if religion, virtue, magnanimity, generosity, humanity
and justice, be ought but empty sounds; then the man who may be said to
live only for others, for the beloved, honourable female, whose tender
faithful embrace endears life, and for the helpless little innocents who
are to be the men and women, the worshippers of his God, the subjects of
his king, and the support, nay the very vital existence of his COUNTRY,
in the ensuing age;--compare such a man with any fellow whatever, who,
whether he bustle and push in business among labourers, clerks,
statesmen; or whether he roar and rant, and drink and sing in taverns--a
fellow over whose grave no one will breathe a single heigh-ho, except
from the cobweb-tie of what is called good fellowship--who has no view
nor aim but what terminates in himself--if there be any grovelling
earth-born wretch of our species, a renegade to common sense, who would
fain believe that the noble creature, man, is no better than a sort of
fungus, generated out of nothing, nobody knows how, and soon dissipating
in nothing, nobody knows where; such a stupid beast, such a crawling
reptile, might balance the foregoing unexaggerated comparison, but no
one else would have the patience.
Forgive me, my dear Sir, for this long silence. _To make you amends_, I
shall send you soon, and more encouraging still, without any postage,
one or two rhymes of my later manufacture.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXXIX.--TO MRS. DUNLOP.
ELLISLAND, 21_st June_ 1789.
Dear Madam,--Will you take the effusions, the miserable effusions of low
spirits, just as they flow from their bitter spring? I know not of any
particular cause for this worst of all my foes besetting me; but for
some time my soul has been beclouded with a thickening atmosphere of
evil imaginations and gloomy presages.
_Monday Evening._
I have just heard Mr. Kilpatrick preach a sermon. He is a man famous for
his benevolence, and I revere him; but from such ideas of my Creator,
good Lord, deliver me! Religion, my honoured friend, is surely a simple
business, as it equally concerns the ignorant and the learned, the poor
and the rich. That there is an incomprehensible Great Being, to whom I
owe my existence, and that He must be intimately acquainted with the
operations and progress of the internal machinery, and consequent
outward deportment of this creature which He has made; these are, I
think, self-evident propositions. That there is a real and eternal
distinction between virtue and vice, and consequently, that I am an
accountable creature; that from the seeming nature of the human mind, as
well as from the evident imperfection, nay, positive injustice, in the
administration of affairs, both in the natural and moral worlds, there
must be a retributive scene of existence beyond the grave; must, I
think, be allowed by every one who will give himself a moment's
reflection. I will go farther, and affirm, that from the sublimity,
excellence, and purity of his doctrine and precepts, unparalleled by all
the aggregated wisdom and learning of many preceding ages, though, to
_appearance_ he, himself, was the obscurest and most illiterate of our
species; therefore Jesus Christ was from God.
Whatever mitigates the woes, or increases the happiness of others, this
is my criterion of goodness; and whatever injures society at large, or
any individual in it, this is my measure of iniquity.
What think you, Madam, of my creed? I trust that I have said nothing
that will lessen me in the eye of one, whose good opinion I value almost
next to the approbation of my own mind.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXXX.--TO MISS HELEN MARIA WILLIAMS.
ELLISLAND, 1789.
Madam,--Of the many problems in the nature of that wonderful creature,
man, this is one of the most extraordinary--that he shall go on from day
to day, from week to week, from month to month, or perhaps from year to
year, suffering a hundred times more in an hour from the impotent
consciousness of neglecting what he ought to do, than the very doing of
it would cost him. I am deeply indebted to you, first, for a most
elegant poetic compliment; then for a polite, obliging letter; and,
lastly, for your excellent poem on the Slave Trade; and yet, wretch that
I am! though the debts were debts of honour, and the creditor a lady, I
have put off and put off even the very acknowledgment of the obligation,
until you must indeed be the very angel I take you for, if you can
forgive me.
Your poem I have read with the highest pleasure. I have a way whenever I
read a book--I mean a book in our own trade, Madam, a poetic one, and
when it is my own property--that I take a pencil and mark at the ends of
verses, or note on margins and odd paper, little criticisms of
approbation or disapprobation as I peruse along. I will make no apology
for presenting you with a few unconnected thoughts that occurred to me
in my repeated perusals of your poem. I want to show you that I have
honesty enough to tell you what I take to be truths, even when they are
not quite on the side of approbation; and I do it in the firm faith that
you have equal greatness of mind to hear them with pleasure. [Here
follows a list of strictures.]
I had lately the honour of a letter from Dr. Moore, where he tells me
that he has sent me some books; they are not yet come to hand, but I
hear they are on the way.
Wishing you all success in your progress in the path of fame, and that
you may equally escape the danger of stumbling through incautious speed,
or losing ground through loitering neglect, I am, etc.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXXXI.--To MR. ROBERT GRAHAM, OF FINTRY.
ELLISLAND, 31st _july_ 1789.
Sir,--The language of gratitude has been so prostituted by servile
adulation and designing flattery that I know not how to express myself
when I would acknowledge receipt of your last letter. I beg and hope,
ever-honoured "Friend of my life and patron of my rhymes," that you will
always give me credit for the sincerest, chastest gratitude. I dare call
the Searcher of hearts and Author of all Goodness to witness how truly
grateful I am.
Mr. Mitchell[101] did not wait my calling on him, but sent me a kind
letter, giving me a hint of the business; and yesterday he entered with
the most friendly ardour into my views and interests. He seems to think,
and from my private knowledge I am certain he is right, that removing
the officer who now does, and for these many years has done, duty in the
Division in the middle of which I live, will be productive of at least
no disadvantage to the revenue, and may likewise be done without any
detriment to him. Should the Honourable Board [of Excise] think so, and
should they deem it eligible to appoint me to officiate in his present
place, I am then at the top of my wishes. The emoluments in my office
will enable me to carry on, and enjoy those improvements on my farm,
which but for this additional assistance, I might in a year or two have
abandoned. Should it be judged improper to place me in this Division, I
am deliberating whether I had not better give up my farming altogether,
and go into the Excise whenever I can find employment. Now that the
salary is £50 per annum, the Excise is surely a much superior object to
a farm, which, without some foreign assistance, must for half a lease be
a losing bargain. The worst of it is--I know there are some respectable
characters who do me the honour to interest themselves in my welfare and
behaviour, and, as leaving the farm so soon may have an unsteady,
giddy-headed appearance, I had better perhaps lose a little money than
hazard their esteem.
You see, Sir, with what freedom I lay before you all my little
matters--little indeed to the world, but of the most important magnitude
to me.... Were it not for a very few of our kind, the very existence of
magnanimity, generosity, and all their kindred virtues, would be as much
a question with metaphysicians as the existence of witchcraft. Perhaps
the nature of man is not so much to blame for this, as the situation in
which by some miscarriage or other he is placed in this world. The poor,
naked, helpless wretch, with such voracious appetites and such a famine
of provision for them, is under a cursed necessity of turning selfish in
his own defence. Except a few instances of original scoundrelism,
thorough-paced selfishness is always the work of time. Indeed, in a
little time, we generally grow so attentive to ourselves and so
regardless of others that I have often in poetic frenzy looked on this
world as one vast ocean, occupied and commoved by innumerable vortices,
each whirling round its centre. These vortices are the children of men.
The great design and, if I may say so, merit of each particular vortex
consists in how widely it can extend the influence of its circle, and
how much floating trash it can suck in and absorb.
I know not why I have got into this preaching vein, except it be to show
you that it is not my ignorance but my knowledge of mankind which makes
me so much admire your goodness to me.
I shall return your books very soon. I only wish to give Dr. Adam Smith
one other perusal, which I will do in one or two days.
R. B.
[Footnote 101: A collector in the Excise.]
* * * * *
CXXXIL--TO DAVID SILLAR, MERCHANT, IRVINE.[102]
ELLISLAND, 5 _Aug_. 1789.
My Dear Sir,--I was half in thoughts not to have written to you at all,
by way of revenge for the two damn'd business letters you sent me. I
wanted to know all about your publications--your news, your hopes,
fears, etc., in commencing poet in print. In short, I wanted you to
write to Robin like his old acquaintance Davie, and not in the style of
Mr. Tare to Mr. Tret, as thus:--
"Mr. Tret.--Sir,--This comes to advise you that fifteen barrels of
herrings were, by the blessing of God, shipped safe on board the _Lovely
Janet_, Q.D.C., Duncan Mac-Leerie, master, etc."
I hear you have commenced married man--so much the better. I know not
whether the nine gipsies are jealous of my lucky, but they are a good
deal shyer since I could boast the important relation of husband.
I have got about eleven subscribers for your book.... My best
compliments to Mrs. Sillar, and believe me to be, dear Davie,
ever yours,
ROBT. BURNS.
[Footnote 102: This letter was first published in 1879. The original
is probably lost, but a copy is to be found in the minute-book of the
Irvine Burns Club. Sillar was "Davie, a brother poet."]
* * * *
CXXXIII.--TO MR. JOHN LOGAN, OF KNOCK SHINNOCK.
ELLISLAND, NEAR DUMFRIES, 7_th Aug_. 1789.
Dear Sir,--I intended to have written you long ere now, and, as I told
you, I had gotten three stanzas on my way in a poetic epistle to you;
but that old enemy of all _good works_, the Devil, threw me into a
prosaic mire, and for the soul of me I cannot get out of it. I dare not
write you a long letter, as I am going to intrude on your time with a
long ballad. I have, as you will shortly see, finished "The Kirk's
Alarm;" but now that it is done, and that I have laughed once or twice
at the conceits in some of the stanzas, I am determined not to let it
get into the public; so I send you this copy, the first that I have sent
to Ayrshire, except some few of the stanzas, which I wrote off in embryo
for Gavin Hamilton, under the express provision and request that you
will only read it to a few of us, and do not on any account give, or
permit to be taken, any copy of the ballad. If I could be of any service
to Dr. M'Gill, I would do it, though it should be at a much greater
expense than irritating a few bigoted priests, but I am afraid serving
him in his present _embarras_ is a task too hard for me. I have enemies
enow, God knows, though I do not wantonly add to the number. Still, as I
think there is some merit in two or three of the thoughts, I send it to
you as a small, but sincere testimony how much, and with what respectful
esteem, I am, dear Sir, your obliged humble servant
R. B.
* * * * *
CXXXIV.--TO MR. PETER STUART, EDITOR, LONDON.
_End of Aug_. 1789.
My dear Sir,--The hurry of a farmer in this particular season, and the
indolence of a poet at all seasons, will, I hope, plead my excuse for
neglecting so long to answer your obliging letter of the 5th August.
... When I received your letter I was transcribing for _The Star_ my
letter to the magistrates of the Canongate of Edinburgh, begging their
permission to place a tombstone over poor Fergusson. [102a] Poor
Fergusson! if there be a life beyond the grave, which I trust there is;
and if there be a good God presiding over all nature, which I am sure
there is, thou art now enjoying existence in a glorious world where
worth of heart alone is distinction in the man; where riches, deprived
of their pleasure-purchasing powers, return to their native sordid
matter; where titles and honours are the disregarded reveries of an idle
dream; and where that heavy virtue, which is the negative consequence of
steady dulness, and those thoughtless though often destructive follies,
which are the unavoidable aberrations of frail human nature, will be
thrown into equal oblivion as if they had never been!
R. B.
[Footnote 102a: A young Scottish poet of undoubted ability who
perished miserably in Edinburgh at the age of twenty-four. He was the
senior of Burns, who greatly admired and mourned him, by about
eight years.]
* * * * *
CXXXV.--To HIS BROTHER, WILLIAM BURNS, SADDLER, NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE.
ELLISLAND, 14_th Aug_. 1789.
My Dear William,--I received your letter, and am very happy to hear that
you have got settled for the winter. I enclose you the two guinea-notes
of the Bank of Scotland, which I hope will serve your need. It is,
indeed, not quite so convenient for me to spare money as it once was,
but I know your situation, and, I will say it, in some respects your
worth. I have no time to write at present, but I beg you will endeavour
to pluck up a _little_ more of the Man than you used to have. Remember
my favourite quotations:
On reason build resolve,
That pillar of true majesty in man.[103]
and
What proves the hero truly great,
Is never, never to despair![103a]
Your mother and sisters desire their compliments. A Dieu je vous
commende,
ROBT. BURNS.
[Footnote 103: From Young.]
[Footnote 103a: From Thomson.]
* * * * *
CXXXVL--TO MRS. DUNLOP.
ELLISLAND, _6th Sept_. 1789.
Dear Madam,--I have mentioned, in my last, my appointment to the Excise,
and the birth of little Frank; who, by the bye, I trust will be no
discredit to the honourable name of Wallace, as he has a fine manly
countenance, and a figure that might do credit to a liltle fellow two
months older; and likewise an excellent good temper, though when he
pleases he has a pipe, only not quite so loud as the horn that his
immortal namesake blew as a signal to take out the pin of
Stirling bridge.
I had some time ago an epistle, part poetic, and part prosaic, from your
poetess Miss. J. Little,[104] a very ingenious, but modest composition.
I should have written her as she requested, but for the hurry of this
new business. I have heard of her and her compositions in this country;
and I am happy to add, always to the honour of her character. The fact
is, I knew not well how to write to her: I should sit down to a sheet of
paper that I knew not how to stain. I am no dab at fine-drawn
letter-writing; and, except when prompted by friendship or gratitude,
or, which happens extremely rarely, inspired by the Muse (I know not her
name) that presides over epistolary writing, I sit down, when
necessitated to write, as I would sit down to beat hemp.
Some parts of your letter of the 2oth August struck me with the most
melancholy concern for the state of your mind at present.
Would I could write you a letter of comfort, I would sit down to it with
as much pleasure as I would to write an epic poem of my own composition
that should equal the _Iliad!_ Religion, my dear friend, is the true
comfort. A strong persuasion in a future state of existence; a
proposition so obviously probable, that, setting revelation aside, every
nation and people, so far as investigation has reached, for at least
near four thousand years, have, in some mode or other, firmly believed
it. In vain would we reason and pretend to doubt. I have myself done so
to a very daring pitch; but, when I reflected that I was opposing the
most ardent wishes and the most darling hopes of good men, and flying in
the face of all human belief, in all ages, I was shocked at my
own conduct.