see the much-loved wife of your bosom, and your helpless, prattling
little ones, turned adrift into the world, degraded and disgraced from a
situation in which they had been respectable and respected, and left
almost without the necessary support of a miserable existence. Alas,
Sir! must I think that such, soon, will be my lot! and from the damn'd,
dark insinuations of hellish, groundless envy too! I believe, Sir, I may
aver it, and in the sight of Omniscience, that I would not tell a
deliberate falsehood, no, not though even worse horrors, if worse can
be, than those I have mentioned, hung over my head; and I say, that the
allegation, whatever villain has made it, is a lie! To the British
Constitution, on revolution principles, next after my God, I am most
devoutly attached. You, Sir, have been much and generously my friend:
Heaven knows how warmly I have felt the obligation, and how gratefully I
have thanked you. Fortune, Sir, has made you powerful, and me impotent;
has given you patronage, and me dependence. I would not for my single
self call on your humanity; were such my insular, unconnected situation,
I would despise the tear that now swells in my eye--I could brave
misfortune, I could face ruin; for at the worst, "Death's thousand doors
stand open;" but, good God! the tender concerns that I have mentioned,
the claims and ties that I see at this moment, and feel around me, how
they unnerve Courage, and wither Resolution! To your patronage, as a man
of some genius, you have allowed me a claim; and your esteem, as an
honest man, I know is my due: to these, Sir, permit me to appeal; by
these may I adjure you to save me from that misery which threatens to
overwhelm me, and which, with my latest breath I will say it, I have
not deserved.
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXXIX.--To MRS. DUNLOP.
DUMFRIES, _31st December 1792._
Dear Madam,--A hurry of business, thrown in heaps by my absence, has
until now prevented my returning my grateful acknowledgments to the good
family of Dunlop, and you in particular, for that hospitable kindness
which rendered the four days I spent under that genial roof, four of the
pleasantest I ever enjoyed. Alas, my dearest friend! how few and
fleeting are those things we call pleasures! on my road to Ayrshire I
spent a night with a friend whom I much valued; a man whose days
promised to be many; and on Saturday last we laid him in the dust!
_Jan. 2nd, 1793._
I have just received yours of the 30th, and feel much for your
situation. However, I heartily rejoice in your prospect of recovery from
that vile jaundice. As to myself, I am better, though not quite free of
my complaint. You must not think, as you seem to insinuate, that in my
way of life I want exercise. Of that I have enough; but occasional hard
drinking is the devil to me. Against this I have again and again bent my
resolution, and have greatly succeeded. Taverns I have totally
abandoned: it is the private parties in the family way, among the
hard-drinking gentlemen of this country, that do me the mischief--but
even this I have more than half given over.
Mr. Corbet can be of little service to me at present; at least I should
be shy of applying. I cannot possibly be settled as a supervisor for
several years. I must wait the rotation of the list, and there are
twenty names before mine. --I might indeed get a job of officiating,
where a settled supervisor was ill, or aged; but that hauls me from my
family, as I could not remove them on such an uncertainty. Besides, some
envious, malicious devil has raised a little demur on my political
principles, and I wish to let that matter settle before I offer myself
too much in the eye of my supervisors. I have set, henceforth, a seal on
my lips, as to these unlucky politics; but to you I must breathe my
sentiments. In this, as in everything else, I shall show the undisguised
emotions of my soul. War I deprecate: misery and ruin to thousands are
in the blast that announces the destructive demon. But....
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXXX.--To MR. ROBERT GRAHAM OF FINTRY.
DUMFRIES, _Morning of 5th Jan._ 1793.
Sir,--I am this moment honoured with your letter. With what feelings I
received this other instance of your goodness I shall not pretend
to describe.
Now to the charges which malice and misrepresentation have brought
against me.[127] It has been said, it seems, that I not only belong to,
but head a disaffected party in this town. I know of no party here,
republican or reform, except an old Burgh-Reform party, with which I
never had anything to do. Individuals, both republican and reform, we
have, though not many of either; but if they have associated, it is more
than I have the least knowledge of, and if such an association exist it
must consist of such obscure, nameless beings as precludes any
possibility of my being known to them, or they to me.
I was in the playhouse one night when _Cà Ira_ was called for. I was in
the middle of the pit, and from the pit the clamour arose. One or two
persons, with whom I occasionally associate, were of the party, but I
neither knew of, nor joined in the plot, nor at all opened my lips to
hiss or huzza that, or any other political tune whatever. I looked on
myself as far too obscure a man to have any weight in quelling a riot,
and at the same time as a person of higher respectability than to yell
to the howlings of a rabble. I never uttered any invectives against the
king. His private worth it is altogether impossible that such a man as I
can appreciate; but in his public capacity I always revered, and always
will with the soundest loyalty revere the monarch of Great Britain
as--to speak in masonic--the sacred keystone of our royal arch
constitution. As to Reform principles, I look upon the British
Constitution, as settled at the Revolution, to be the most glorious on
earth, or that perhaps the wit of man can frame; at the same time I
think, not alone, that we have a good deal deviated from the original
principles of that Constitution,--particularly, that an alarming system
of corruption has pervaded the connection between the Executive and the
House of Commons. This is the whole truth of my Reform opinions, which,
before I knew the complexion of these innovating times, I too
unguardedly as I now see sported with: henceforth I seal up my lips. But
I never dictated to, corresponded with, or had the least connection with
any political association whatever. Of Johnstone, the publisher of the
_Edinburgh Gazetteer_, I know nothing. One evening, in company with four
or five friends, we met with his prospectus, which we thought manly and
independent; and I wrote to him, ordering his paper for us. If you think
I act improperly in allowing his paper to come addressed to me, I shall
immediately countermand it. I never wrote a line of prose to _The
Gazetteer_ in my life. An address, spoken by Miss Fontenelle on her
benefit night, and which I called "The Rights of Woman," I sent to _The
Gazetteer_, as also some stanzas on the Commemoration of the poet
Thomson: both of these I will subjoin for your perusal. You will see
they have nothing whatever to do with politics.
As to France, I was her enthusiastic votary in the beginning of the
business. When she came to shew her old avidity for conquest by annexing
Savoy and invading the rights of Holland, I altered my sentiments.
This, my honoured patron, is all. To this statement I challenge
disquisition. Mistaken prejudice or unguarded passion may mislead, have
often misled me; but when called on to answer for my mistakes, though no
man can feel keener compunction for them, yet no man can be more
superior to evasion or disguise.--I have the honour to be, Sir, your
ever grateful, etc.,
ROBT. BURNS.
[Footnote 127: Because of what Burns elsewhere called "Some temeraire
conduct of mine, in the political opinions of the day."]
* * * *
CLXXXI.--TO MR. ALEX. CUNNINGHAM, W.S., EDINBURGH.
DUMFRIES, _20th Feb_. 1793.
What are you doing? What hurry have you got on your head, my dear
Cunningham, that I have not heard from you? Are you deeply engaged in
the mazes of the Jaw, the mysteries of love, or the profound wisdom of
_politics_? Curse on the word!
_Q_. What is Politics?
_A_. It is a science wherewith, by means of nefarious cunning and
hypocritical pretence, we govern civil politics (sic) for the emolument
of ourselves and adherents.
Q. What is a minister?
A. An unprincipled fellow who, by the influence of hereditary or
acquired wealth, by superior abilities or by a lucky conjuncture of
circumstances, obtains a principal place in the administration of the
affairs of government.
Q. What is a patriot?
A. An individual exactly of the same description as a minister, only out
of place.
I was interrupted in my Catechism, and am returned at a late hour just
to subscribe my name, and to put you in mind of the forgotten friend of
that name who is still in the land of the living, though I can hardly
say in the place of hope.
I made the enclosed sonnet[128] the other day. Adieu!
ROBT. BURNS.
[Footnote 128: "On Hearing a Thrush Sing."]
* * * * *
CLXXXIL--To MR. CUNNINGHAM.
3rd March 1793.
Since I wrote to you the last lugubrious sheet, I have not had time to
write to you farther. When I say that I had not time, that, as usual,
means that the three demons, indolence, business, and ennui, have so
completely shared my hours among them, as not to leave me a five
minutes' fragment to take up a pen in.
Thank Heaven, I feel my spirits buoying upwards with the renovating
year. Now I shall in good earnest take up Thomson's songs. I dare say he
thinks I have used him unkindly, and I must own with too much appearance
of truth...
There is one commission that I must trouble you with. I lately lost a
valuable seal, a present from a departed friend, which vexes me much. I
have gotten one of your Highland pebbles, which I fancy would make a
very decent one; and I want to cut my armorial bearing on it; will you
be so obliging as inquire what will be the expense of such a business? I
do not know that my name is matriculated, as the heralds call it, at
all; but I have invented arms for myself, so you know I shall be chief
of the name; and, by courtesy of Scotland, will likewise be entitled to
supporters. These, however, I do not intend having on my seal. I am a
bit of a herald, and shall give you, _secundum artem_, my arms. On a
field, azure, a holly bush, seeded, proper, in base; a shepherd's pipe
and crook, saltier-wise, also proper, in chief. On a wreath of the
colours, a wood-lark perching on a sprig of bay-tree, proper, for crest.
Two mottoes; round the top of the crest, _Wood notes wild_; at the
bottom of the shield, in the usual place, _Better a wee bush than nae
bield_. By the shepherd's pipe and crook I do not mean the nonsense of
painters of Arcadia, but a _Stock and Horn_, and a _Club_ such as you
see at the head of Allan Ramsay, in Allan's quarto edition of the
"Gentle Shepherd." By-the-bye, do you know Allan? He must be a man of
very great genius--Why is he not more known?--Has he no patrons? or do
"Poverty's cold wind and crushing rain beat keen and heavy" on him? I
once, and but once, got a glance of that noble edition of the noblest
pastoral in the world: and dear as it was, I mean dear as to my pocket,
I would have bought it; but I was told that it was printed and engraved
for subscribers only. He is the _only_ artist who has hit _genuine_
pastoral _costume_. What, my dear Cunningham, is there in riches, that
they narrow and harden the heart so? I think, that were I as rich as the
sun, I should be as generous as the day: but as I have no reason to
imagine my soul a nobler one than any other man's, I must conclude that
wealth imparts a bird-lime quality to the possessor, at which the man,
in his native poverty, would have revolted. What has led me to this, is
the idea of such merit as Mr. Allan possesses, and such riches as a
nabob or government contractor possesses, and why they do not form a
mutual league. Let wealth shelter and cherish unprotected merit, and the
gratitude and celebrity of that merit will richly repay it.
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXXXIII.--To Miss BENSON, YORK, AFTERWARDS MRS. BASIL MONTAGU.
DUMFRIES, _21st March 1793._
Madam,--Among many things for which I envy those hale, long-lived old
fellows before the flood, is this in particular, that when they met with
anybody after their own heart, they had a charming long prospect of
many, many happy meetings with them in after-life.
Now, in this short, stormy, winter day of our fleeting existence, when
you now and then, in the Chapter of Accidents, meet an individual whose
acquaintance is a real acquisition, there are all the probabilities
against you, that you shall never meet with that valued character more.
On the other hand, brief as this miserable being is, it is none of the
least of the miseries belonging to it, that if there is any miscreant
whom you hate, or creature whom you despise, the ill-run of the chances
shall be so against you, that in the over takings, turnings, and
jostlings of life, pop! at some unlucky corner, eternally comes the
wretch upon you, and will not allow your indignation or contempt a
moment's repose. As I am a sturdy believer in the powers of darkness, I
take these to be the doings of that old author of mischief, the devil.
It is well known that he has some kind of short-hand way of taking down
our thoughts, and I make no doubt that he is perfectly acquainted with
my sentiments respecting Miss Benson; how much I admired her abilities
and valued her worth, and how very fortunate I thought myself in her
acquaintance. For this last reason, my dear Madam, I must entertain no
hopes of the very great pleasure of meeting with you again.--I am, etc.
R. B.
* * * *
CLXXXIV.-To MR. JOHN FRANCIS ERSKINE, OF MAR.
DUMFRIES, 13th _April 1793.
Sir,--Degenerate as human nature is said to be--and in many instances
worthless and unprincipled it is--still there are bright examples to the
contrary: examples that, even in the eyes of superior beings, must shed
a lustre on the name of Man.
Such an example have I now before me, when you, Sir, came forward to
patronise and befriend a distant and obscure stranger, merely because
poverty had made him helpless, and his British hardihood of mind had
provoked the arbitrary of wantonness and power. My much esteemed friend,
Mr, Riddel of Glenriddel, has just read me a paragraph of a letter he
had from you. Accept, Sir, of the silent throb of gratitude, for words
would but mock the emotions of my soul.
You have been misinformed as to my final dismissal from the Excise; I am
still in the service. Indeed, but for the exertions of a gentleman who
must be known to you, Mr. Graham of Fintry, a gentleman who has ever
been my warm and generous friend, I had, without so much as a hearing,
or the slightest previous intimation, been turned adrift, with my
helpless family, to all the horrors of want. Had I had any other
resource, probably I might have saved them the trouble of a dismissal;
but the little money I gained by my publication is almost every guinea
embarked to save from ruin an only brother, who, though one of the
worthiest, is by no means one of the most fortunate of men.
In my defence to their accusations, I said, that whatever might be my
sentiments of republics, ancient or modern, as to Britain, I abjured the
idea: That a constitution, which, in its original principles, experience
had proved to be every way fitted for our happiness in society, it would
be insanity to sacrifice to an untried visionary theory: That, in
consideration of my being situated in a department, however humble,
immediately in the hands of people in power, I had forborne taking any
active part, either personally, or as an author, in the present business
of Reform: but that, where I must declare my sentiments, I would say
there existed a system of corruption between the executive power and the
representative part of the legislature, which boded no good to our
glorious constitution, and which every patriotic Briton must wish to see
amended. Some such sentiments as these I stated in a letter to my
generous patron, Mr. Graham, which he laid before the Board at large;
where, it seems, my last remark gave great offence: and one of our
supervisors-general, a Mr. Corbet, was instructed to inquire on the
spot, and to document me--"that my business was to act, _not to think_;
and that whatever might be men or measures, it was for me to be _silent_
and _obedient_".
Mr. Corbet was likewise my steady friend; so between Mr. Graham and him
I have been partly forgiven; only I understand that all hopes of my
getting officially forward are blasted.
Now, Sir, to the business in which I would more immediately interest
you. The partiality of my countrymen has brought me forward as a man of
genius, and has given me a character to support. In the Poet I have
avowed manly and independent sentiments, which I trust will be found in
the man. Reasons of no less weight than the support of a wife and
family, have pointed out as the eligible, and situated as I was, the
only eligible line of life for me, my present occupation. Still my
honest fame is my dearest concern; and a thousand times have I trembled
at the idea of those _degrading_ epithets that malice or
misrepresentation may affix to my name. I have often, in blasting
anticipation, listened to some future hackney scribbler, with the heavy
malice of savage stupidity, exulting in his hireling paragraphs--"Burns,
notwithstanding the _fanfaronade_ of independence to be found in his
works, and after having been held forth to public view and to public
estimation as a man of some genius, yet, quite destitute of resources
within himself to support his borrowed dignity, he dwindled into a
paltry exciseman, and slunk out the rest of his insignificant existence
in the meanest of pursuits, and among the vilest of mankind."
In your illustrious hands, Sir, permit me to lodge my disavowal and
defiance of these slanderous falsehoods. Burns was a poor man from
birth, and an exciseman by necessity; but--I will say it! the sterling
of his honest worth no poverty could debase, and his independent British
mind, oppression might bend, but could not subdue. Have not I, to me a
more precious stake in my country's welfare, than the richest dukedom in
it?--I have a large family of children, and the prospect of more. I have
three sons, who, I see already, have brought into the world souls ill
qualified to inhabit the bodies of slaves.--Can I look tamely on, and
see any machinations to wrest from them the birthright of my boys,--the
little independent Britons, in whose veins runs my own blood?--No! I
will not! should my heart's blood stream around my attempt to defend it!
Does any man tell me that my full efforts can be of no service; and that
it does not belong to my humble station to meddle with the concerns of
a nation?
I can tell him that it is on such individuals as I that a nation has to
rest, both for the hand of support and the eye of intelligence. The
uninformed mob may swell a nation's bulk; and the titled, tinsel,
courtly throng may be its feathered ornament; but the number of those
who are elevated enough in life to reason and to reflect, yet low enough
to keep clear of the venal contagion of a court!--these are a
nation's strength.
I know not how to apologise for the impertinent length of this epistle;
but one small request I must ask of you farther--When you have honoured
this letter with a perusal, please to commit it to the flames. Burns, in
whose behalf you have so generously interested yourself, I have here, in
his native colours, drawn as he is; but should any of the people in
whose hands is the very bread he eats, get the least knowledge of the
picture, it would ruin the poor bard for ever!
My poems having just come out in another edition, I beg leave to present
you with a copy as a small mark of that high esteem and ardent gratitude
with which I have the honour to be, Sir, your deeply indebted, and ever
devoted, humble servant,
R. B.[129]
[Footnote 129: This letter was penned in response to the sympathy
which Mr. Erskine had expressed for Burns in a letter to Captain
Riddell of Carse, when Burns was taken to task by the Board of Excise
for his political opinions.]
* * * * *
CLXXXV.--To MISS M'MORDO, DRUMLANRIG.
DUMFRIES, _Juy 1793._
... Now let me add a few wishes which every man, who has himself the
honour of being a father, must breathe when he sees female youth,
beauty, and innocence about to enter into this chequered and very
precarious world. May you, my young madam, escape that frivolity which
threatens universally to pervade the minds and manners of fashionable
life, The mob of fashionable female youth--what are they? Are they
anything? They prattle, laugh, sing, dance, finger a lesson, or perhaps
turn the pages of a fashionable novel; but are their minds stored with
any information worthy of the noble powers of reason and judgment? and
do their hearts glow with sentiment, ardent, generous, or humane? Were I
to poetize on the subject I would call them the butterflies of the human
kind, remarkable only for the idle variety of their ordinary glare,
sillily straying from one blossoming weed to another, without a meaning
or an aim, the idiot prey of every pirate of the skies who thinks them
worth his while as he wings his way by them, and speedily by wintry time
swept to that oblivion whence they might as well never have appeared.
Amid this crowd of nothings may you be something, etc.
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXXXVI.--To JOHN M'MURDO, ESQ., DRUMLANRIG.
This is a painful, disagreeable letter, and the first of the kind I ever
wrote. I am truly in serious distress for three or four guineas: can
you, my dear sir, accommodate me? These accursed times by tripping up
importation have, for this year at least, lopped off a full third of my
income;[130] and with my large family this is to me a distressing matter.
R. B.
[Footnote 130: Never more than 70 UK pounds.]
* * * * *
CLXXXVII.--To MRS. RIDDEL.
Dear Madam,--I meant to have called on you yesternight, but as I edged
up to your box-door, the first object which greeted my view, was one of
those lobster-coated puppies[131] sitting like another dragon, guarding
the Hesperian fruit. On the conditions and capitulations you so
obligingly offer, I shall certainly make my weather-beaten rustic phiz a
part of your box-furniture on Tuesday; when we may arrange the business
of the visit.
Among the profusion of idle compliments, which insidious craft, or
unmeaning folly, incessantly offer at your shrine--a shrine, how far
exalted above such adoration--permit me, were it but for rarity's sake,
to pay you the honest tribute of a warm heart and an independent mind;
and to assure you that I am, thou most amiable, and most accomplished of
thy sex, with the most respectful esteem, and fervent regard,
thine, etc.
R. B.
[Footnote 131: Military officers.]
* * * * *
CLXXXVIII.--To MRS. RIDDEL.
I will wait on you, my ever valued friend, but whether in the morning I
am not sure. Sunday closes a period of our curst revenue business, and
may probably keep me employed with my pen until noon. Fine employment
for a poet's pen! There is a species of human genus that I call _the
gin-horse class_: what enviable dogs they are! Round, and round, and
round they go,--Mundell's ox, that drives his cotton mill, is their
exact prototype--without an idea or wish beyond their circle; fat,
sleek, stupid, patient, quiet, and contented; while here I sit,
altogether Novemberish, a damn'd melange of fretfulness and melancholy;
not enough of the one to rouse me to passion, nor of the other to repose
me in torpor; my soul flouncing and fluttering round her tenement, like
a wild finch, caught amid the horrors of winter, and newly thrust into a
cage. Well, I am persuaded that it was of me the Hebrew sage prophesied,
when he foretold-- "And behold, on whatsoever this man doth set his
heart, it shall not prosper!" If my resentment is awaked, it is sure to
be where it dare not squeak; and if--....
Pray that wisdom and bliss be more frequent visitors of
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXXXIX.--To MRS. RIDDEL.