song that you will find in Johnson. "Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon";
this air, I think, might find a place among your hundred, as Lear says
of his knights. Do you know the history of the air? It is curious
enough. A good many years ago, Mr. James Miller, writer in your good
town, a gentleman whom possibly you know, was in company with our friend
Clarke; and talking of Scottish music, Miller expressed an ardent
ambition to be able to compose a Scots air. Mr. Clarke, partly by way of
joke, told him to keep to the black keys of the harpsichord, and
preserve some kind of rhythm, and he would infallibly compose a Scots
air. Certain it is, that in a few days, Mr. Miller produced the
rudiments of an air, which Mr. Clarke, with some touches and
corrections, fashioned into the tune in question. Ritson, you know, has
the same story of the "Black keys;" but this account which I have just
given you, Mr. Clarke informed me of several years ago. Now, to shew you
how difficult it is to trace the origin of our airs, I have heard it
repeatedly asserted that this was an Irish air nay, I met with an Irish
gentleman who affirmed he had heard it in Ireland among the old women;
while, on the other hand, a countess informed me, that the first person
who introduced the air into this country was a baronet's lady of her
acquaintance, who took down the notes from an itinerant piper in the
Isle of Man. How difficult then to ascertain the truth respecting our
poesy and music! I, myself, have lately seen a couple of ballads sung
through the streets of Dumfries, with my name at the head of them as the
author, though it was the first time I had ever seen them.
I am ashamed, my dear fellow, to make the request; 'tis dunning your
generosity; but in a moment when I had forgotten whether I was rich or
poor, I promised Chloris a copy of your songs. It wrings my honest pride
to write you this; but an ungracious request is doubly so, by a tedious
apology. To make you some amends, as soon as I have extracted the
necessary information out of them, I will return you Ritson's volumes.
The lady is not a little proud that she is to make so distinguished a
figure in your collection, and I am not a little proud that I have it in
my power to please her so much. Lucky it is for your patience that my
paper is done, for when I am in a scribbling humour, I know not when to
give over.
[Footnote 147: Our Bard remarks upon it, "I could easily throw this
into an English mould; but, to my taste, in the simple and the tender
of the pastoral song, a sprinkling of the old Scottish has an
inimitable effect."]
* * * * *
XXI.
19_th Nov_. 1794.
Tell my friend Allan (for I am sure that we only want the trifling
circumstance of being known to one another to be the best friends on
earth) that I much suspect he has, in his plates, mistaken the figure of
the stock and horn. I have, at last, gotten one; but it is a very rude
instrument. It is composed of three parts; the stock, which is the
hinder thigh-bone of a sheep, such as you see in a mutton-ham, the horn,
which is a common Highland cow's horn, cut off at the smaller end, until
the aperture be large enough to admit the stock to be pushed up through
the horn, until it be held by the thicker end of the thigh-bone; and,
lastly, an oaten reed exactly cut and notched like that which you see
every shepherd boy have, when the corn stems are green and full-grown.
The reed is not made fast in the bone, but is held up by the lips, and
plays loose in the smaller end of the stock; while the stock, with the
horn hanging on its larger end, is held by the hands in playing. The
stock has six or seven ventiges on the upper side, and one back ventige,
like the common flute. This of mine was made by a man from the Braes of
Athole, and is exactly what the shepherds wont to use in that country.
However, either it is not quite properly bored in the holes, or else we
have not the art of blowing it rightly; for we can make little of it. If
Mr. Allan chooses, I will send him a sight of mine; as I look on myself
to be a kind of brother-brush with him. "Pride in poets is nae sin", and
I will say it, that I look on Mr. Allan and Mr. Burns to be the only
genuine and real painters of Scottish costume in the world.
* * * * *
XXII.
_January_ 1795.
I fear for my songs; however a few may please, yet originality is a coy
feature in composition, and in a multiplicity of efforts in the same
style, disappears altogether. For these three thousand years we poetic
folks have been describing the spring, for instance; and, as the spring
continues the same, there must soon be a sameness in the imagery, etc.,
of these said rhyming folks.
A great critic, Aikin on Songs, says that love and wine are the
exclusive themes for song-writing. The following is on neither subject,
and consequently is no song; but will be allowed, I think, to be two or
three pretty good prose thoughts, inverted into rhyme.
FOR A' THAT AND A' THAT.
Is there for honest poverty, (etc.)
* * * * *
XXIII.
Ecclefechan,[148] 7_th Feb_. 1795.
My Dear Thomson,--You cannot have any idea of the predicament in which I
write to you. In the course of my duty as supervisor (in which capacity
I have acted of late) I came yesternight to this unfortunate, wicked
little village. I have gone forward, but snows of ten feet deep have
impeded my progress: I have tried to "gae back the gate I cam again,"
but the same obstacle has shut me up within insuperable bars. To add to
my misfortune, since dinner, a scraper has been torturing catgut, in
sounds that would have insulted the dying agonies of a sow under the
hands of a butcher, and thinks himself, on that very account, exceeding
good company. In fact, I have been in a dilemma, either to get drunk, to
forget these miseries; or to hang myself, to get rid of them; like a
prudent man (a character congenial to my every thought, word, and deed)
I of two evils have chosen the least, and am very drunk at your service!
I wrote you yesterday from Dumfries. I had not time then to tell you all
I wanted to say; and Heaven knows, at present I have not capacity.
Do you know an air--I am sure you must know it, "We'll gang nae mair to
yon town?" I think, in slowish time, it would make an excellent song. I
am highly delighted with it; and if you should think it worthy of your
attention, I have a fair dame in my eye to whom I would consecrate it.
As I am just going to bed, I wish you a good night.
[Footnote 148: The birthplace of Carlyle.]
* * * * *
XXIV.
You see how I answer your orders; your tailor could not be more
punctual. I am just now in a high fit of poetising, provided that the
strait-jacket of criticism don't cure me. If you can, in a post or two,
administer a little of the intoxicating potion of your applause, it will
raise your humble servant's frenzy to any height you want. I am at this
moment "holding high converse" with the Muses, and have not a word to
throw away on such a prosaic dog as you are.
* * * *
XXV.
_April_ 1796.
Alas, my dear Thomson, I fear it will be some time ere I tune my lyre
again! "By Babel streams I have sat and wept" almost ever since I wrote
you last. I have only known existence by the pressure of the heavy hand
of sickness, and have counted time by the repercussions of pain!
Rheumatism, cold, and fever have formed to me a terrible combination. I
close my eyes in misery, and open them without hope. I look on the
vernal day, and say, with poor Fergusson--
Say, wherefore has an all indulgent Heaven
Light to the comfortless and wretched given?
This will be delivered to you by a Mrs. Hyslop, landlady of the Globe
Tavern here, which for these many years has been my _howff_, and where
our friend Clarke and I have had many a merry squeeze. I am highly
delighted with Mr. Allan's etchings. "Woo'd and married and a'", is
admirable! The _grouping_ is beyond all praise. The expression of the
figures, conformable to the story in the ballad, is absolutely faultless
perfection. I next admire "Turnim-spike". What I like least is, "Jenny
said to Jockey". Besides the female being in her appearance quite a
virago, if you take her stooping into the account, she is at least two
inches taller than her lover. Poor Cleghorn! I sincerely sympathise with
him! Happy am I to think that he yet has a well-grounded hope of health
and enjoyment in this world. As for me--but that is a damning subject!
* * * * *
XXVI.
[_Probably May_ 1796.]
My Dear Sir,--Inclosed is a certificate which (although little different
from the model) I suppose will amply answer the purpose, and I beg you
will prosecute the miscreants[149] without mercy. When your publication
is finished, I intend publishing a collection, on a cheap plan, of all
the songs I have written for you, The Museum, and others--at least, all
the songs of which I wish to be called the author. I do not propose this
so much in the way of emolument as to do justice to my muse, lest I
should be blamed for trash I never saw, or be defrauded by false
claimants of what is justly my own. The post is going.--I will write you
again to-morrow. Many thanks for the beautiful seal.
R. B.
[Footnote 149: For infringement of copyright.]
* * * * *
XXVII.
BROW-ON-SOLWAY, 4_th July_ 1796.
My Dear Sir,--I received your songs; but my health is so precarious,
nay, dangerously situated, that, as a last effort, I am here at
sea-bathing quarters. Besides an inveterate rheumatism, my appetite is
quite gone, and I am so emaciated as to be scarce able to support myself
on my own legs. Alas! Is this a time for me to woo the muses? However, I
am still anxiously willing to serve your work, and if possible shall
try. I would not like to see another employed--unless you could lay your
hand upon a poet whose productions would be equal to the rest. Farewell,
and God bless you.
R. BURNS.
* * * * *
XXVIII.
BROW, on the Solway Firth, 12_th July_ 1796.
After all my boasted independence, curst necessity compels me to implore
you for five pounds. A cruel wretch of a haberdasher, to whom I owe an
account, taking it into his head that I am dying, has commenced a
process, and will infallibly put me into jail.
Do, for God's sake, send me that sum, and that by return of post.
Forgive me this earnestness, but the horrors of a jail have made me half
distracted. I do not ask all this gratuitously; for, upon returning
health, I hereby promise and engage to furnish you with five pounds
worth of the neatest song-genius you have seen. I tried my hand on
"Rothiemurchie" this morning. The measure is so difficult that it is
impossible to infuse much genius into the lines; they are on the other
side. Forgive, forgive me![150]
Fairest maid on Devon banks,
Crystal Devon, winding Devon,
Wilt thou lay that frown aside,
And smile as thou wert wont to do? (etc.)
[Footnote 150: These verses, and the letter inclosing them, are
written in a character that marks the very feeble state of
their author.]
End of Project Gutenberg's The Letters of Robert Burns, by Robert Burns