ungrateful of men. You did me the honour to present me with a book,
which does honour to science and the intellectual powers of man, and I
have not even so much as acknowledged the receipt of it. The fact is,
you yourself are to blame for it. Flattered as I was by your telling me
that you wished to have my opinion of the work, the old spiritual enemy
of mankind, who knows well that vanity is one of the sins that most
easily beset me, put it into my head to ponder over the performance with
the look-out of a critic, and to draw up forsooth a deep learned digest
of strictures on a composition, of which, in fact, until I read the
book, I did not even know the first principles. I own, Sir, that at
first glance, several of your propositions startled me as paradoxical.
That the martial clangour of a trumpet had something in it vastly more
grand, heroic, and sublime, than the twingle twangle of a Jews-harp;
that the delicate flexure of a rose-twig, when the half-blown flower is
heavy with the tears of the dawn, was infinitely more beautiful and
elegant than the upright stub of a burdock; and that from something
innate and independent of all associations of ideas;-these I had set
down as irrefragable, orthodox truths, until perusing your book shook my
faith. In short, Sir, except Euclid's Elements of Geometry, which I made
a shift to unravel by my father's fire-side, in the winter evening of
the first season I held the plough, I never read a book which gave me
such a quantum of information, and added so much to my stock of ideas,
as your _Essays on the Principles of Taste_. One thing, Sir, you must
forgive my mentioning as an uncommon merit in the work, I mean the
language. To clothe abstract philosophy in elegance of style, sounds
something like a contradiction in terms; but you have convinced me that
they are quite compatible.
I inclose you some poetic bagatelles of my late composition. The one in
print is my first essay in the way of telling a tale.--I am, Sir, etc.
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXII.--TO THE REV. G. BAIRD.
ELLISLAND, 1791.
Reverend Sir,--Why did you, my dear Sir, write to me in such a
hesitating style on the business of poor Bruce?[119] Don't I know, and
have I not felt, the many ills, the peculiar ills, that poetic flesh is
heir to? You shall have your choice of all the unpublished poems[120] I
have; and had your letter had my direction so as to have reached me
sooner (it only came to my hand this moment) I should have directly put
you out of suspense on the subject. I only ask, that some prefatory
advertisement in the book, as well as the subscription bills, may bear,
that the publication is solely for the benefit of Bruce's mother. I
would not put it in the power of ignorance to surmise, or malice to
insinuate, that I clubbed a share in the work from mercenary motives.
Nor need you give me credit for any remarkable generosity in my part of
the business. I have such a host of peccadilloes, failings, follies, and
backslidings (anybody but myself might perhaps give some of them a worse
appellation), that by way of some balance, however trifling, in the
account, I am fain to do any good that occurs in my very limited power
to a fellow-creature, just for the selfish purpose of clearing a little
the vista of retrospection.
R. B.
[Footnote 119: Michael Bruce, a young poet of Kinross-Shire.]
[Footnote 120: _Tam o' Shanter_ included! It was refused!!]
* * * * *
CLXIII.--TO MR. CUNNINGHAM, WRITER, EDINBURGH.
ELLISLAND, 2_th March_ 1791.
If the foregoing piece be worth your strictures, let me have them. For
my own part, a thing I have just composed always appears through a
double portion of that partial medium in which an author will ever view
his own works. I believe, in general, novelty has something in it that
inebriates the fancy, and not unfrequently dissipates and fumes away
like other intoxication, and leaves the poor patient, as usual, with an
aching heart. A striking instance of this might be adduced, in the
revolution of many a hymeneal honeymoon. But lest I sink into stupid
prose, and so sacrilegiously intrude on the office of my parish priest,
I shall fill up the page in my own way, and give you another song of my
late composition, which will appear perhaps in Johnson's work, as well
as the former.
You must know a beautiful Jacobite air, _There'll never be peace till
Jamie comes hame_. When political combustion ceases to be the object of
princes and patriots, it then, you know, becomes the lawful prey of
historians and poets.
By yon castle wa' at the close of the day,
I heard a man sing, tho' his head it was grey;
And as he was singing, the tears fast down came--
There'll never be peace till Jamie comes hame.
If you like the air, and if the stanzas hit your fancy, you cannot
imagine, my dear friend, how much you would oblige me, if, by the charms
of your delightful voice, you would give my honest effusion, to "the
memory of joys that are past," to the few friends whom you indulge in
that pleasure. But I have scribbled on till I hear the clock has
intimated the near approach of
That hour, o' night's black arch the key-stane.
So good night to you! Sound be your sleep, and delectable your dreams!
Apropos, how do you like this thought in a ballad I have just now on
the tapis?--
I look to the west when I gae to my rest,
That happy my dreams and my slumbers may be;
Far, far in the west is he I lo'e best,
The lad that is dear to my babie and me!
Good night once more, and God bless you!
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXIV.--TO MRS. DUNLOP.
ELLISLAND, 11_th April_ 1791.
I am once more able, my honoured friend, to return you, with my own
hand, thanks for the many instances of your friendship, and particularly
for your kind anxiety in this last disaster that my evil genius had in
store for me. However, life is chequered--joy and sorrow--for on
Saturday morning last, Mrs. Burns made me a present of a fine boy;
rather stouter, but not so handsome as your godson was at his time of
life. Indeed, I look on your little namesake to be my _chef d'oeuvre_ in
that species of manufacture, as I look on "Tam o' Shanter" to be my
standard performance in the poetical line. 'Tis true, both the one and
the other discover a spice of roguish waggery, that might perhaps be as
well spared; but then they also show, in my opinion, a force of genius,
and a finishing polish, that I despair of ever excelling. Mrs. Burns is
getting stout again, and laid as lustily about her to-day at breakfast,
as a reaper from the corn-ridge. That is the peculiar privilege and
blessing of our hale sprightly damsels, that are bred among the _hay_
_and heather_. We cannot hope for that highly polished mind, that
charming delicacy of soul, which is found among the female world in the
more elevated stations of life, and which is certainly by far the most
bewitching charm in the famous cestus of Venus, It is indeed such an
inestimable treasure, that where it can be had in its native heavenly
purity, unstained by some one or other of the many shades of
affectation, and unalloyed by some one or other of the many species of
caprice, I declare to Heaven I should think it cheaply purchased at the
expense of every other earthly good! But as this angelic creature is, I
am afraid, extremely rare in any station and rank of life, and totally
denied to such an humble one as mine, we meaner mortals must put up with
the next rank of female excellence. As fine a figure and face we can
produce as any rank of life whatever; rustic, native grace; unaffected
modesty and unsullied purity; nature's mother-wit and the rudiments of
taste, a simplicity of soul, unsuspicious of, because unacquainted with,
the crooked ways of a selfish, interested, disingenuous world; and the
dearest charm of all the rest, a yielding sweetness of disposition, and
a generous warmth of heart, grateful for love on our part, and ardently
glowing with a more than equal return; these, with a healthy frame, a
sound, vigorous constitution, which your higher ranks can scarcely ever
hope to enjoy, are the charms of lovely woman in my humble walk of life.
This is the greatest effort my broken arm has yet made. Do let me hear,
by first post, how _cher petit Monsieur_ comes on with his small-pox.
May Almighty goodness preserve and restore him!
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXV.--TO MR. CUNNINGHAM.
11_th June_ 1791.
Let me interest you, my dear Cunningham, in behalf of the gentleman who
waits on you with this. He is a Mr. Clarke, of Moffat, principal
schoolmaster there, and is at present suffering severely under the
persecution of one or two powerful individuals of his employers. He is
accused of harshness to boys that were placed under his care. God help
the teacher, if a man of sensibility and genius, and such is my friend
Clarke, when a booby father presents him with his booby son, and insists
on lighting up the rays of science in a fellow's head whose skull is
impervious and inaccessible by any other way than a positive fracture
with a cudgel: a fellow whom in fact it savours of impiety to attempt
making a scholar of, as he has been marked a blockhead in the book of
fate, at the almighty fiat of his Creator.
The patrons of Moffat school are the ministers, magistrates, and town
council of Edinburgh; and as the business comes now before them, let me
beg my dearest friend to do every thing in his power to serve the
interests of a man of genius and worth, and a man whom I particularly
respect and esteem. You know some good fellows among the magistracy and
council, but particularly you have much to say with a reverend gentleman
to whom you have the honour of being very nearly related, and whom this
country and age have had the honour to produce. I need not name the
historian of Charles V.[121] I tell him through the medium of his
nephew's influence, that Mr. Clarke is a gentleman who will not disgrace
even his patronage. I know the merits of the cause thoroughly, and say
it, that my friend is falling a sacrifice to prejudiced ignorance.
God help the children of dependence! Hated and persecuted by their
enemies, and too often, alas! almost unexceptionally always, received by
their friends with disrespect and reproach, under the thin disguise of
cold civility and humiliating advice. O! to be a sturdy savage, stalking
in the pride of his independence, amid the solitary wilds of his
deserts, rather than in civilised life, helplessly to tremble for a
subsistence precarious as the caprice of a fellow-creature! Every man
has his virtues, and no man is without his failings; and plague on that
privileged plain-dealing of friendship, which, in the hour of my
calamity, cannot reach forth the helping hand without at the same time
pointing out those failings, and apportioning them their share in
procuring my present distress. My friends, for such the world calls ye,
and such ye think yourselves to be, pass by my virtues if you please,
but do, also, spare my follies; the first will witness in my breast for
themselves, and the last will give pain enough to the ingenuous mind
without you. And since deviating more or less from the paths of
propriety and rectitude must be incident to human nature, do thou,
Fortune, put it in my power, always from myself, and of myself, to bear
the consequence of those errors! I do not want to be independent that I
may sin, but I want to be independent in my sinning.
To return in this rambling letter to the subject I set out with, let me
recommend my friend, Mr. Clarice, to your acquaintance and good offices;
his worth entitles him to the one, and his gratitude will merit the
other. I long much to hear from you. Adieu!
R. B.
[Footnote 121: Dr. Robertson, uncle to Mr. Alexander Cunningham.]
* * * * *
CLXVL--To MR. THOMAS SLOAN.[122]
ELLISLAND, _Sept. 1st_, 1791.
My Dear Sloan,--Suspense is worse than disappointment; for that reason I
hurry to tell you that I just now learn that Mr. Ballantine does not
choose to interfere more in the business. I am truly sorry for it, but
cannot help it.
You blame me for not writing you sooner, but you will please to
recollect that you omitted one little necessary piece of
information;--your address.
However, you know equally well my hurried life, indolent temper, and
strength of attachment. It must be a longer period than the longest life
"in the world's hale and undegenerate days," that will make me forget so
dear a friend as Mr. Sloan. I am prodigal enough at times, but I will
not part with such a treasure as that.
I can easily enter into the _embarras_ of your present situation. You
know my favourite quotation from Young--
On Reason build RESOLVE!
That column of true majesty in man,--
and that other favourite one from Thomson's "Alfred"--
What proves the hero truly GREAT,
Is, never, never to despair.
Or, shall I quote you an author of your acquaintance?--
Whether DOING, SUFFERING, or FORBEARING,
You may do miracles by--PERSEVERING.
I have nothing new to tell you. The few friends we have are going on in
the old way. I sold my crop on this day se'ennight, and sold it very
well. A guinea an acre, on an average, above value. But such a scene of
drunkenness was hardly ever seen in this country. After the roup was
over, about thirty people engaged in a battle, every man for his own
hand, and fought it out for three hours. Nor was the scene much better
in the house. No fighting, indeed, but folks lying drunk on the floor,
and decanting, until both my dogs got so drunk by attending them, that
they could not stand. You will easily guess how I enjoyed the scene, as
I was no farther over than you used to see me.
Mrs. B. and family have been in Ayrshire these many weeks.
Farewell! and God bless you, my dear Friend! R.B.
[Footnote 122: Of Wanlockhead. Burns got to know him during his
frequent journeys between Ellisland and Mauchline in 1788-9.]
* * * * *
CLXVII--TO MR. AINSLIE.
ELLISLAND, 1791.
My Dear Ainslie,--Can you minister to a mind diseased? can you, amid the
horrors of penitence, regret, remorse, head-ache, nausea, and all the
rest of the damn'd hounds of hell that beset a poor wretch who has been
guilty of the sin of drunkenness--can you speak peace to a
troubled soul?
_Miserable perdu_ that I am, I have tried every thing that used to amuse
me, but in vain; here must I sit, a monument of the vengeance laid up in
store for the wicked, slowly counting every click of the clock as it
slowly, slowly numbers over these lazy scoundrels of hours, who, damn
them, are ranked up before me, every one at his neighbour's backside,
and every one with a burthen of anguish on his back, to pour on my
devoted head--and there is none to pity me. My wife scolds me, my
business torments me, and my sins come staring me in the face, every one
telling a more bitter tale than his fellow.--When I tell you even ----
has lost its power to please, you will guess something of my hell
within, and all around me.--I began _Elibanks and Elibraes_, but the
stanzas fell unenjoyed and unfinished from my listless tongue: at last I
luckily thought of reading over an old letter of yours, that lay by me
in my bookcase, and I felt something for the first time since I opened
my eyes, of pleasurable existence.----Well--I begin to breathe a little,
since I began to write to you. How are you, and what are you doing? How
goes Law? Apropos, for correction's sake do not address to me
supervisor, for that is an honour I cannot pretend to--I am on the list,
as we call it, for a supervisor, and will be called out by-and-by to act
as one; but at present I am a simple gauger, tho' t'other day I got an
appointment to an excise division of £25 _per annum_ better than the
rest. My present income, down money, is £70 _per annum_.
I have one or two good fellows here whom you would be glad to know.
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXVIII.--TO MISS DAVIES.
It is impossible, Madam, that the generous warmth and angelic purity of
your youthful mind can have any idea of that moral disease under which I
unhappily must rank as the chief of sinners; I mean a torpitude of the
moral powers that may be called a lethargy of conscience. In vain
Remorse rears her horrent crest, and rouses all her snakes: beneath the
deadly-fixed eye and leaden hand of Indolence their wildest ire is
charmed into the torpor of the bat, slumbering out the rigours of winter
in the chink of a ruined wall. Nothing less, Madam, could have made me
so long neglect your obliging commands. Indeed, I had one apology--the
bagatelle was not worth presenting. Besides, so strongly am I interested
in Miss Davies's fate and welfare in the serious business of life, amid
its chances and changes, that to make her the subject of a silly ballad
is downright mockery of these ardent feelings; 'tis like an impertinent
jest to a dying friend.
Gracious Heaven! why this disparity between our wishes and our powers?
Why is the most generous wish to make others blest impotent and
ineffectual as the idle breeze that crosses the pathless desert? In my
walks of life I have met with a few people to whom how gladly would I
have said--"Go, be happy! I know that your hearts have been wounded by
the scorn of the proud, whom accident has placed above you; or worse
still, in whose hands are, perhaps, placed many of the comforts of your
life. But there! ascend that rock, Independence, and look justly down on
their littleness of soul. Make the worthless tremble under your
indignation, and the foolish sink before your contempt; and largely
impart that happiness to others which, I am certain, will give
yourselves so much pleasure to bestow."
Why, dear Madam, must I wake from this delightful reverie, and find it
all a dream? Why, amid my generous enthusiasm, must I find myself poor
and powerless, incapable of wiping one tear from the eye of pity, or of
adding one comfort to the friend I love? Out upon the world! say I, that
its affairs are administered so ill! They talk of reform;--good Heaven!
what a reform would I make among the sons, and even the daughters of
men! Down, immediately, should go fools from the high places where
misbegotten chance has perked them up, and through life should they
skulk, ever haunted by their native insignificance, as the body marches
accompanied by its shadow. As for a much more formidable class, the
knaves, I am at a loss what to do with them: had I a world, there should
not be a knave in it.
But the hand that could give, I would liberally fill: and I would pour
delight on the heart that could kindly forgive, and generously love.
Still the inequalities of life are, among men, comparatively tolerable;
but there is a delicacy, a tenderness, accompanying every view in which
we can place lovely Woman, that are grated and shocked at the rude,
capricious distinctions of Fortune. Woman is the blood-royal of life:
let there be slight degrees of precedency among them--but let them be
ALL sacred. Whether this last sentiment be right or wrong, I am not
accountable; it is an original component feature of my mind.
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXIX.--To MRS. DUNLOP.
_5th January_ 1792.
You see my hurried life, Madam: I can only command starts of time;
however, I am glad of one thing; since I finished the other sheet, the
political blast that threatened my welfare is overblown. I have
corresponded with Commissioner Graham, for the Board had made me the
subject of their animadversions; and now I have the pleasure of
informing you that all is set to rights in that quarter. Now as to these
informers, may the devil be let loose to--but, hold! I was praying most
fervently in my last sheet, and I must not so soon fall a swearing
in this.
Alas! how little do the wantonly or idly officious think what mischief
they do by their malicious insinuations, indirect impertinence, or
thoughtless babblings. What a difference there is in intrinsic worth,
candour, benevolence, generosity, kindness,--in all the charities and
all the virtues--between one class of human beings and another!
For instance, the amiable circle I so lately mixed with in the
hospitable hall of Dunlop, their generous hearts--their uncontaminated
dignified minds--their informed and polished understandings--what a
contrast, when compared--if such comparing were not downright
sacrilege--with the soul of the miscreant who can deliberately plot the
destruction of an honest man that never offended him, and with a grin of
satisfaction see the unfortunate being, his faithful wife, and prattling
innocents, turned over to beggary and ruin!
Your cup, my dear Madam, arrived safe. I had two worthy fellows dining
with me the other day, when I, with great formality, produced my
whigmeleerie cup, and told them that it had been a family-piece among
the descendants of William Wallace, This roused such an enthusiasm, that
they insisted on bumpering the punch round in it; and by-and-by, never
did your great ancestor lay a _Southron_ more completely to rest than
for a time did your cup my two friends. Apropos, this is the season of
wishing. May God bless you, my dear friend, and bless me, the humblest
and sincerest of your friends, by granting you yet many returns of the
season! May all good things attend you and yours wherever they are
scattered over the earth!
R.B.
* * * * *
CLXX.--TO MR. WILLIAM SMELLIE, PRINTER.
DUMFRIES, _22nd January_ 1792.
I sit down, my dear Sir, to introduce a young lady[123] to you, and a
lady in the first ranks of fashion, too. What a task! to you--who care
no more for the herd of animals called young ladies than you do for the
herd of animals called young gentlemen; to you--who despise and detest
the groupings and combinations of fashion, as an idiot painter that
seems industrious to place staring fools and unprincipled knaves in the
foreground of his picture, while men of sense and honesty are too often
thrown in the dimmest shades. Mrs. Riddell, who will take this letter to
town with her, and send it to you, is a character that, even in your own
way as a naturalist and a philosopher, would be an acquisition to your
acquaintance. The lady, too, is a votary of the muses; and as I think
myself somewhat of a judge in my own trade, I assure you that her
verses, always correct, and often elegant, are much beyond the common
run of the _lady poetesses_ of the day. She is a great admirer of your
book; and, hearing me say that I was acquainted with you, she begged to
be known to you, as she is just going to pay her first visit to our
Caledonian capital. I told her that her best way was to desire her near
relation, and your intimate friend, Craigdarroch, to have you at his
house while she was there; and lest you might think of a lively West
Indian girl of eighteen, as girls of eighteen too often deserve to be
thought of, I should take care to remove that prejudice. To be
impartial, however, in appreciating the lady's merits, she has one
unlucky failing--a failing which you will easily discover, as she seems
rather pleased with indulging in it; and a failing that you will easily
pardon, as it is a sin which very much besets yourself;--where she
dislikes, or despises, she is apt to make no more a secret of it, than
where she esteems and respects.
I will not present you with the unmeaning _compliments of the season_,
but I will send you my warmest wishes and most ardent prayers, that
Fortune may never throw your subsistence to the mercy of a knave, or set
your character on the judgment of a fool; but that, upright and erect,
you may walk to an honest grave, where men of letters shall say, here
lies a man who did honour to science, and men of worth shall say, here
lies a man who did honour to human nature.
R. B.
[Footnote 123: Maria Riddell, a gay, clever, young Creole, wife of
Walter, brother of Captain Riddell.]
* * * * *
CLXXL--TO MR. WILLIAM NICOL.
20_th February_ 1792.
O thou wisest among the wise, meridian blaze of prudence, full moon of
discretion, and chief of many counsellors! How infinitely is thy
puddle-headed, rattleheaded, wrong-headed, round-headed slave indebted
to thy super-eminent goodness, that from the luminous path of thy own
right-lined rectitude, thou lookest benignly down on an erring wretch,
of whom the zig-zag wanderings defy all the powers of calculation, from
the simple copulation of units, up to the hidden mysteries of fluxions!
May one feeble ray of that light of wisdom which darts from thy
sensorium, straight as the arrow of heaven, and bright as the meteor of
inspiration, may it be my portion, so that I may be less unworthy of the
face and favour of that father of proverbs and master of maxims, that
antipode of folly, and magnet among the sages, the wise and witty Willie
Nicol! Amen! Amen! Yea, so be it!
For me! I am a beast, a reptile, and know nothing! From the cave of my
ignorance, amid the fogs of my dulness, and pestilential fumes of my
political heresies, I look up to thee, as doth a toad through the
iron-barred lucarne of a pestiferous dungeon, to the cloudless glory of
a summer sun! Sorely sighing in bitterness of soul, I say, When shall my
name be the quotation of the wise, and my countenance be the delight of
the godly, like the illustrious lord of Laggan's many hills?[124] As for
him, his works are perfect: never did the pen of calumny blur the fair
page of his reputation, nor the bolt of hatred fly at his dwelling.
Thou mirror of purity, when shall the elfin lamp of my glimmerous
understanding, purged from sensual appetites and gross desires, shine
like the constellation of thy intellectual powers. As for thee, thy
thoughts are pure and thy lips are holy. Never did the unhallowed breath
of the powers of darkness, and the pleasures of darkness, pollute the
sacred flame of thy sky-descended and heaven-bound desires: never did
the vapours of impurity stain the unclouded serene of thy cerulean
imagination. O that like thine were the tenor of my life, like thine the
tenor of my conversation! then should no friend fear for my strength, no
enemy rejoice in my weakness! Then should I lie down and rise up, and
none to make me afraid. May thy pity and thy prayer be exercised for, O
thou lamp of wisdom and mirror of morality! thy devoted slave,
R. B.