that they are nieces of yours, and let me say that I never saw a more
interesting, sweeter pair of sisters in my life. I am the fool of my
feelings and attachments. I often take up a volume of my Spenser to
realise you to my imagination, [109a] and think over the social scenes
we have had together. God grant that there may be another world more
congenial for honest fellows beyond this; a world where these rubs and
plagues of absence, distance, misfortunes, ill-health, etc., shall no
more damp hilarity and divide friendship. This I know is your throng
season, but half a page will much oblige, my dear Sir, yours sincerely,
R. B.
[Footnote 109a: Mr. Dunbar had made him a present of a Spenser's
Poems.]
* * * * *
CXLVL.--To MRS. DUNLOP.
ELLISLAND, _25th January 1790._
It has been owing to unremitting hurry of business that I have not
written to you, Madam, long ere now. My health is greatly better, and I
now begin once more to share in satisfaction and enjoyment with the rest
of my fellow-creatures.
Many thanks, my much esteemed friend, for your kind letters; but why
will you make me run the risk of being contemptible and mercenary in my
own eyes? When I pique myself on my independent spirit, I hope it is
neither poetic licence, nor poetic rant; and I am so flattered with the
honour you have done me in making me your compeer in friendship and
friendly correspondence, that I cannot without pain, and a degree of
mortification, be reminded of the real inequality between our
situations.
Most sincerely do I rejoice with you, dear Madam, in the good news of
Anthony. Not only your anxiety about his fate, but my own esteem for
such a noble, warm-hearted, manly young fellow, in the little I had of
his acquaintance, has interested me deeply in his fortunes.
Falconer, the unfortunate author of the "Shipwreck," which you so much
admire, is no more. After witnessing the dreadful catastrophe he so
feelingly describes in his poem, and after weathering many hard gales of
fortune, he went to the bottom with the _Aurora_ frigate!
I forget what part of Scotland had the honour of giving him birth; but
he was the son of obscurity and mis'ortune.[110] He was one of those
daring, adventurous spirits, which Scotland, beyond any other country,
is remarkable for producing. Little does the fond mother think, as she
hangs delighted over the sweet little leech at her bosom, where the poor
fellow may hereafter wander, or what may be his fate. I remember a
stanza in an old Scottish ballad, which, notwithstanding its rude
simplicity, speaks feelingly to the heart:--
Little did my mother think,
That day she cradled me,
What land I was to travel in,
Or what death I should dee!
Old Scottish songs are, you know, a favourite study and pursuit of mine,
and now I am on that subject, allow me to give you two stanzas of
another old simple ballad, which I am sure will please you. The
catastrophe of the piece is a poor ruined female, lamenting her fate,
She concludes with this pathetic wish:--
O that my father had ne'er on me smil'd;
O that my mother had ne'er to me sung!
O that my cradle had never been rock'd;
But that I had died when I was young!
O that the grave it were my bed;
My blankets were my winding sheet;
The clocks and the worms my bedfellows a';
And O sad sound as I should sleep!
I do not remember in all my reading to have met with anything more truly
the language of misery than the exclamation in the last line. Misery is
like love; to speak its language truly, the author must have felt it.
I am every day expecting the doctor to give your little godson the
small-pox. They are _rife_ in the country, and I tremble for his fate.
By the way, I cannot help congratulating you on his looks and spirit.
Every person who sees him, acknowledges him to be the finest, handsomest
child he has ever seen. I am myself delighted with the manly swell of
his little chest, and a certain miniature dignity in the carriage of his
head, and the glance of his fine black eye, which promise the undaunted
gallantry of an independent mind.
I thought to have sent you some rhymes, but time forbids. I promise you
poetry until you are tired of it, next time I have the honour of
assuring you how truly I am, etc.
R. B.
[Footnote 110: He was of poor parentage, and a native of Edinburgh.]
* * * * *
CXLVII.--To MR. PETER HILL, BOOKSELLER, EDINBURGH.
ELLISLAND, _2nd Feb. 1790._
No! I will not say one word about apologies or excuses for not
writing--I am a poor, rascally gauger, condemned to gallop at least 200
miles every week to inspect dirty ponds and yeasty barrels, and where
can I find time to write to, or importance to interest anybody? The
upbraidings of my conscience, nay, the upbraidings of my wife, have
persecuted me on your account these two or three months past. I wish to
God I was a great man, that my correspondence might throw light upon
you, to let the world see what you really are: and then I would make
your fortune, without putting my hand in my pocket for you, which, like
all other great men, I suppose I would avoid as much as possible. What
are you doing, and how are you doing? Have you lately seen any of my few
friends? What has become of the borough reform, or how is the fate of my
poor namesake Mademoiselle Burns decided? O man! but for thee and thy
selfish appetites, and dishonest artifices, that beauteous form, and
that once innocent and still ingenuous mind, might have shone
conspicuous and lovely in the faithful wife, and the affectionate
mother; and shall the unfortunate sacrifice to thy pleasures have no
claim on thy humanity!
I saw lately, in a review, some extracts from a new poem, called the
"Village Curate;" send it me. I want likewise a cheap copy of _The
World_. Mr. Armstrong, the young poet, who does me the honour to mention
me so kindly in his works, please give him my best thanks for the copy
of his book.[111]--I shall write him, my first leisure hour. I like his
poetry much, but I think his style in prose quite astonishing.
Your book came safe, and I am going to trouble you with farther
commissions. I call it troubling you, because I want only books; the
cheapest way, the best; so you may have to hunt for them in the evening
auctions. I want Smollett's Works, for the sake of his incomparable
humour. I have already _Roderick Random_ and _Humphrey Clinker_;
--_Peregrine Pickle_, _Launcelot Greaves_, and _Ferdinand_, _Count
Fathom_, I still want; but, as I said, the veriest ordinary copies will
serve me. I am nice only in the appearance of my poets. I forget the
price of Cowper's _Poems_, but, I believe, I must have them. I saw the
other day, proposals for a publication, entitled _Banks's New and
Complete Christian Family Bible_, printed for C. Cooke, Paternoster Row,
London. He promises at least to give in the work, I think it is three
hundred and odd engravings, to which he has put the names of the first
artists in London. You will know the character of the performance, as
some numbers of it are published, and if it is really what it pretends
to be, set me down as a subscriber, and send me the published numbers.
Let me hear from you, your first leisure minute, and trust me, you shall
in future have no reason to complain of my silence. The dazzling
perplexity of novelty will dissipate, and leave me to pursue my course
in the quiet path of methodical routine.
R. B.
[Footnote 111: John Armstrong, student in the University of
Edinburgh, who had recently published a volume of Juvenile Poems.]
* * * * *
CXLVIIL.--To MR. W. NICOL.
ELLISLAND, _Feb. 9th, 1790._
My Dear Sir,--That damn'd mare of yours is dead. I would freely have
given her price to have saved her; she has vexed me beyond description.
Indebted as I was to your goodness beyond what I can ever repay, I
eagerly grasped at your offer to have the mare with me. That I might at
least show my readiness in wishing to be grateful, I took every care of
her in my power. She was never crossed for riding above half a score of
times by me or in my keeping. I drew her in the plough, one of three,
for one poor week. I refused fifty-five shillings for her, which was the
highest bode I could squeeze for her. I fed her up and had her in fine
order for Dumfries fair, when, four or five days before the fair, she
was seized with an unaccountable disorder in the sinews, or somewhere in
the bones of the neck--with a weakness or total want of power in her
fillets; and, in short, the whole vertebrae of her spine seemed to be
diseased and unhinged, and in eight and forty hours, in spite of the two
best farriers in the country, she died and be damn'd to her! The
farriers said that she had been quite strained in the fillets beyond
cure before you had bought her; and that the poor devil, though she
might keep a little flesh, had been jaded and quite worn out with
fatigue and oppression. While she was with me she was under my own eye,
and I assure you, my much valued friend, everything was done for her
that could be done; and the accident has vexed me to the heart. In fact,
I could not pluck up spirits to write to you, on account of the
unfortunate business.
There is little new in this country. Our theatrical company, of which
you must have heard, leave us this week. Their merit and character are
indeed very great, both on the stage and in private life; not a
worthless creature among them; and their encouragement has been
accordingly. Their usual run is from eighteen to twenty-five pounds a
night; seldom less than the one, and the house will hold no more than
the other. There have been repeated instances of sending away six, and
eight, and ten pounds a night for want of room. A new theatre is to be
built by subscription; the first stone is to be laid on Friday first to
come. Three hundred guineas have been raised by thirty subscribers, and
thirty more might have been got if wanted. The manager, Mr. Sutherland,
was introduced to me by a friend from Ayr; and a worthier or cleverer
fellow I have rarely met with. Some of our clergy have slipt in by
stealth now and then; but they have got up a farce of their own. You
must have heard how the Rev. Mr. Lawson of Kirkmahoe, seconded by the
Rev. Mr. Kirkpatrick of Dunscore, and the rest of that faction, have
accused, in formal process, the unfortunate and Rev. Mr. Heron of
Kirkgunzeon, that in ordaining Mr. Nielson to the cure of souls in
Kirkbean, he, the said Heron, feloniously and treasonably bound the said
Nielson to the confession of faith, _so far as it was agreeable to
reason and the word of God!_
Mrs. B. begs to be remembered most gratefully to you. Little Bobby and
Frank are charmingly well and healthy. I am jaded to death with fatigue.
For these two or three months, on an average, I have not ridden less
than two hundred miles per week. I have done little in the poetic way. I
have given Mr. Sutherland two Prologues, one of which was delivered last
week. I have likewise strung four or five barbarous stanzas, to the tune
of Chevy Chase, by way of Elegy on your poor unfortunate mare, beginning
(the name she got here was Peg Nicholson),--
Peg Nicholson was a good bay mare,
As ever trod on airn;
But now she's floating down the Nith,
And past the mouth o' Cairn.
My best compliments to Mrs. Nicol, and little Neddy, and all the family;
I hope Ned is a good scholar, and will come out to gather nuts and
apples with me next harvest.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXLIX.--To MR. CUNNINGHAM, WRITER, EDINBURGH.
ELLISLAND, _13th February 1790._
I beg your pardon, my dear and much valued friend, for writing to you on
this very unfashionable, unsightly sheet--
My poverty but not my will consents.
But to make amends, since of modish post I have none, except one poor
widowed half-sheet of gilt, which lies in my drawer, among my plebeian
foolscap pages, like the widow of a man of fashion, whom that unpolite
scoundrel, Necessity, has driven from Burgundy and Pineapple to a dish
of Bohea, with the scandal-bearing help-mate of a village-priest; or a
glass of whisky-toddy with a ruby-nosed yokefellow of a foot-padding
exciseman--I make a vow to inclose this sheet-full of epistolary
fragments in that my only scrap of gilt paper.
I am, indeed, your unworthy debtor for three friendly letters. I ought
to have written to you long ere now, but it is a literal fact, I have
scarcely a spare moment. It is not that I _will not_ write to you: Miss
Burnet is not more dear to her guardian angel, nor his grace the Duke of
Queensberry to the powers of darkness, than my friend Cunningham to me.
It is not that I cannot write to you; should you doubt it, take the
following fragment, which was intended for you some time ago, and be
convinced that I can antithesize sentiment, and circumvolute periods, as
well as any coiner of phrase in the regions of philology.
_December 1789._
My Dear Cunningham,--Where are you? And what are you doing? Can you be
that son of levity, who takes up a friendship as he takes up a fashion;
or are you, like some other of the worthiest fellows in the world, the
victim of indolence, laden with fetters of ever-increasing weight?
What strange beings we are! Since we have a portion of conscious
existence, equally capable of enjoying pleasure, happiness, and rapture,
or of suffering pain, wretchedness, and misery, it is surely worthy of
an inquiry, whether there be not such a thing as a science of life;
whether method, economy, and fertility of expedients, be not applicable
to enjoyment; and whether there be not a want of dexterity in pleasure,
which renders our little scantling of happiness still less; and a
profuseness, an intoxication in bliss, which leads to satiety, disgust,
and self-abhorrence. There is not a doubt but that health, talents,
character, decent competency, respectable friends, are real substantial
blessings; and yet do we not daily see those who enjoy many or all of
these good things, contrive, notwithstanding, to be as unhappy as others
to whose lot few of them have fallen? I believe one great source of this
mistake or misconduct is owing to a certain stimulus, with us called
ambition, which goads us up the hill of life, not as we ascend other
eminences; for the laudable curiosity of viewing an extended landscape,
but rather for the dishonest pride of looking down on others of our
fellow-creatures, seemingly diminutive in humbler stations, etc., etc.
_Sunday, 14th February 1790._
God help me! I am now obliged to join
Night to day, and Sunday to the week.
If there be any truth in the orthodox faith of these churches, I am
damn'd past redemption, and what is worse, damn'd to all eternity. I am
deeply read in Boston's _Four-fold State_, Marshal _On Sanctification_,
Guthrie's _Trial of a Saving Interest_, etc., but "there is no balm in
Gilead, there is no physician there," for me; so I shall e'en turn
Arminian, and trust to "Sincere though imperfect obedience."
_Tuesday, 16th._
Luckily for me, I was prevented from the discussion of the knotty point
at which I had just made a full stop. All my fears and cares are of this
world; if there is another, an honest man has nothing to fear from it. I
hate a man that wishes to be a deist; but I fear, every fair,
unprejudiced inquirer must in some degree be a sceptic. It is not that
there are any very staggering arguments against the immortality of man;
but, like electricity, phlogiston, etc., the subject is so involved in
darkness, that we want data to go upon. One thing frightens me much:
that we are to live for ever seems _too good news to be true_. That we
are to enter into a new scene of existence, where, exempt from want and
pain, we shall enjoy ourselves and our friends without satiety or
separation--how much should I be indebted to any one who could fully
assure me that this was certain!
My time is once more expired. I will write to Mr. Cleghorn soon. God
bless him and all his concerns! And may all the powers that preside over
conviviality and friendship, be present with all their kindest
influence, when the bearer of this, Mr. Syme, and you meet! I wish I
could also make one.
Finally, brethren, farewell! Whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever
things are gentle, whatsoever things are charitable, whatsoever things
are kind, think on these things, and think on
R. B.
* * * * *
CL.--To MR. HILL, BOOKSELLER, EDINBURGH.
ELLISLAND, _2nd March 1790._
At a late meeting of the Monkland Friendly Society, it was resolved to
augment their library by the following books, which you are to send us
as soon as possible:--_The Mirror, The Lounger, Man of Feeling, Man of
the World,_ (these, for my own sake, I wish to have by the first
carrier), Knox's _History of the Reformation_, Rae's _History of the
Rebellion in 1715_, any good History of the Rebellion in 1745, _A
Display of the Secession Act and Testimony_, by Mr. Gib, Hervey's
_Meditations_, Beveridge's _Thoughts_, and another copy of Watson's
_Body of Divinity_.
I wrote to Mr. A. Masterton three or four months ago, to pay some money
he owed me into your hands, and lately I wrote to you to the same
purpose, but I have heard from neither one nor other of you.
In addition to the books I commissioned in my last, I want very much, an
Index to the Excise Laws, or an Abridgment of all the statutes now in
force, relative to the Excise, by Jellinger Symons; I want three copies
of this book: if it is now to be had, cheap or dear, get it for me. An
honest country neighbour of mine wants too a Family Bible, the larger
the better, but second-handed, for he does not choose to give above ten
shillings for the book. I want likewise for myself, as you can pick them
up, second-handed or cheap, copies of Otway's Dramatic Works, Ben
Jonson's, Dryden's, Congreve's, Wycherley's, Vanbrugh's, Gibber's, or
any Dramatic Works of the more modern Macklin, Garrick, Foote, Colman,
or Sheridan. A good copy too of Moliere, in French, I much want. Any
other good dramatic authors in that language I want also; but comic
authors chiefly, though I should wish to have Racine, Corneille, and
Voltaire too. I am in no hurry for all, or any of these, but if you
accidentally meet with them very-cheap, get them for me.
And now, to quit the dry walk of business, how do you do, my dear
friend? and how is Mrs. Hill? I trust, if now and then not so
_elegantly_ handsome, at least as amiable, and sings as divinely as
ever. My good wife too has a charming "wood-note wild;" now could we
four get together, etc.
I am out of all patience with this vile world, for one thing. Mankind
are by nature benevolent creatures, except in a few scoundrelly
instances. I do not think that avarice of the good things we chance to
have, is born with us; but we are placed here amid so much nakedness,
and hunger, and poverty, and want, that we are under a cursed necessity
of studying selfishness, in order that we may exist! Still there are, in
every age, a few souls that all the wants and woes of life cannot debase
to selfishness, or even to the necessary alloy of caution and prudence.
If ever I am in danger of vanity, it is when I contemplate myself on
this side of my disposition and character. God knows I am no saint; I
have a whole host of follies and sins to answer for; but if I could--and
I believe I do it as far as I can--I would wipe away all tears from all
eyes. Adieu!
R. B.
* * * * *
CLI.--To MRS. DUNLOP.
ELLISLAND, _10th April 1790._
I have just now, my ever honoured friend, enjoyed a very high luxury, in
reading a paper of the _Lounger_. You know my national prejudices. I had
often read and admired the _Spectator_, _Adventurer_, _Rambler_, and
_World_, but still with a certain regret, that they were so thoroughly
and entirely English. Alas! have I often said to myself, what are all
the boasted advantages which my country reaps from the Union, that can
counterbalance the annihilation of her independence, and even her very
name? I often repeat that couplet of my favourite poet, Goldsmith--
States of native liberty possest,
Tho' very poor, may yet be very blest.
Nothing can reconcile me to the common terms, "English ambassador,"
"English court," etc., and I am out of all patience to see that
equivocal character, Hastings, impeached by "the Commons of England."
Tell me, my friend, is this weak prejudice? I believe in my conscience
such ideas as "my country; her independence; her honour; the illustrious
names that mark the history of my native land," etc.--I believe these,
among your _men of the world_, men who, in fact, guide for the most part
and govern our world, are looked on as so many modifications of
wrong-headedness. They know the use of bawling out such terms, to rouse
or lead THE RABBLE; but for their own private use, with almost all the
_able statesmen_ that ever existed, or now exist, when they talk of
right and wrong they only mean proper and improper; and their measure of
conduct is, not what they ought, but what they dare. For the truth of
this I shall not ransack the history of nations, but appeal to one of
the ablest judges of men that ever lived--the celebrated Earl of
Chesterfield. In fact, a man who could thoroughly control his vices
whenever they interfered with his interests, and who could completely
put on the appearance of every virtue as often as it suited his
purposes, is, on the Stanhopian plan, the _perfect man_; a man to lead
nations. But are great abilities, complete without a flaw, and polished
without a blemish, the standard of human excellence? This is certainly
the staunch opinion of _men of the world_; but I call on honour, virtue,
and worth, to give the Stygian doctrine a loud negative! However, this
must be allowed, that, if you abstract from man the idea of an existence
beyond the grave, _then_, the true measure of human conduct is, _proper_
and _improper_: virtue and vice, as dispositions of the heart, are, in
that case, of scarcely the same import and value to the world at large,
as harmony and discord in the modifications of sound; and a delicate
sense of honour, like a nice ear for music, though it may sometimes give
the possessor an ecstacy unknown to the coarser organs of the herd, yet,
considering the harsh gratings, and inharmonic jars, in this ill-tuned
state of being, it is odds but the individual would be as happy, and
certainly would be as much respected by the true judges of society as it
would then stand, without either a good ear or a good heart.
You must know I have just met with the _Mirror_ and _Lounger_ for the
first time, and I am quite in raptures with them; I should be glad to
have your opinion of some of the papers. The one I have just read,
_Lounger_, No. 61, has cost me more honest tears than anything I have
read for a long time. Mackenzie has been called the Addison of the
Scots, and in my opinion, Addison would not be hurt at the comparison.
If he has not Addison's exquisite humour, he as certainly outdoes him in
the tender and the pathetic. His _Man of Feeling_ (but I am not counsel
learned in the laws of criticism) I estimate as the first performance in
its kind I ever saw. From what book, moral or even pious, will the
susceptible young mind receive impressions more congenial to humanity
and kindness, generosity and benevolence; in short, more of all that
ennobles the soul to herself, or endears her to others--than from the
simple affecting tale of poor Harley?
Still, with all my admiration of Mackenzie's writings, I do not know if
they are the fittest reading for a young man who is about to set out, as
the phrase is, to make his way into life. Do you not think, Madam, that
among the few favoured of Heaven in the structure of their minds (for
such there certainly are) there may be a purity, a tenderness, a
dignity, an elegance of soul, which are of no use, nay, in some degree,
absolutely disqualifying for the truly important business of making a
man's way into life? If I am not much mistaken, my gallant young friend,
Antony, is very much under these disqualifications; and for the young
females of a family I could mention, well may they excite parental
solicitude; for I, a common acquaintance, or as my vanity will have it,
an humble friend, have often trembled for a turn of mind which may
render them eminently happy--or peculiarly miserable!
I have been manufacturing some verses lately; but as I have got the most
hurried season of Excise business over, I hope to have more leisure to
transcribe any thing that may show how much I have the honour to be,
Madam, yours, etc.
R. B.
* * * * *
CLII.--To DR. JOHN MOORE, LONDON.
DUMFRIES, _Excise-Office, 14th July 1790._