No. LXXXII. TO MISS CHALMERS. MY DEAR MADAM: Edinburgh, Dec. 1787. I JUST now have read yours. The poetic compliments I pay cannot be misunderstood. They are neither of them so particular as to point you out to the world at large; and the circle of your acquaintances will allow all I have said. Besides, I have complimented you chiefly, almost solely, on your mental charms. Shall I be plain with you? I will; so look to it. Personal attractions, madam, you have much above par; wit, understanding, and worth, you possess in the first class. This is a cursed flat way of telling you these truths, but let me hear no more of your sheepish timidity. I know the world a little. I know what they will say of my poems; by second sight I suppose; for I am seldom out in my conjectures; and you may believe me, my dear madam, I would not run any risk of hurting you by any ill-judged compliment. I wish to show to the world the odds between a poet's friends and those of simple prosemen. More for your information, both the pieces go in. One of them, "Where braving angry winter's storms," is already set-the tune is Neil Gow's Lamentation for Abercarny; the other is to be set to an old Highland air in Daniel Dow's collection of ancient Scots music; the name is "Ha a Chaillich air mo Dheith." My treacherous memory has forgot every circumstance about Les Incas, only I think you mentioned them as being in Creech's possession. I shall ask him about it. I am afraid the song of "Somebody" will come too late-as I shall, for certain, leave town in a week for Ayrshire, and from that to Dumfries, but there my hopes are slender. I leave my direction in town, so any thing, wherever I am, will reach me. I saw your's to did he take it amiss. ; it is not too severe, nor On the contrary, like a whipt spaniel, he talks of being with you in the Christmas days. Mr. has given him the invitation, and he is determined to accept of it. O selfishness! he owes, in his sober moments, that from his own volatility of inclination, the circumstances in which he is situated, and his knowledge of his father's disposition; the whole affair is chimerical-yet he will gratify an idle penchant at the enormous, cruel expense, of perhaps ruining the peace of the very woman for whom he professes the generous passion of love! He is a gentleman in his mind and manners-tant pis! He is a volatile school-boy-the heir of a man's fortune who well knows the value of two times two! Perdition seize them and their fortunes, before VOL. VI. they should make the amiable, the lovely the derided object of their purse-proud contempt! I am doubly happy to hear of Mrs.'s recovery, because I really thought all was over with her There are days of pleasure yet awaiting her: "As 1 came in by Glenap, I met with an aged woman; For the best o' my days was comin'." This day will decide my affairs with Creech. Things are, like myself, not what they ought to be; yet better than what they appear to be. "Heaven's sovereign saves all beings but himself— Farewell remember me to Charlotte. R. B. No. LXXXIII. TO MRS. DUNLOP. Edinburgh, January 21, 1788. AFTER Six weeks' confinement, I am beginning to walk across the room. They have been six horrible weeks; anguish and low spirits made me unfit to read, write, or think. I have a hundred times wished that one could resign life as an officer resigns a commission: for I would not take in any poor, ignorant wretch, by selling out. Lately I was a sixpenny private; and, God knows, a miserable soldier enough; now I march to the campaign, a starving cadet: a little more conspicuously wretched. I am ashamed of all this; for though I do want bravery for the warfare of life, I could wish, like some other soldiers, to have as much fortitude or cunning as to dissemble or conceal my cowardice. As soon as I can bear the journey, which will be, I suppose, about the middle of next week, I leave Edinburgh and soon after I shall pay my grateful duty at Dunlop-House. R. B. LXXXIV. TO THE SAME. Edinburgh, February 12, 1788. SOME things in your late letters hurt me: not that you say them, but that you mistake me. Religion, my honoured Madam, has not only been all my life my chief dependance but my dearest enjoyment. I have, indeed, been the luckless victim of wayward follies; but, alas! I have ever been " more fool than knave." A mathematician without religion is a probable character; an irreligious poet is a monster. R. B. [The freedom with which Burns spoke and commented on religious topics, induced the devout and the serious to look upon him as only something better than an infidel. The error he committed lay in treating such matters with levity: had he inquired calmly, and reasoned without being satirical, he might have done more harm to belief, and had a better name in the world, but he would have been a worse man.-ED.] |