fire of your genius will have power to warm even us frozen sisters of the north. "The fire-sides of Kilravock and Kildrummie unite in cordial regards to you. When you incline to figure either in your idea, suppose some of us reading your poems, and some of us singing your songs, and my little Hugh looking at your picture, and you'll seldom be wrong. We remember Mr. Nicol with as much goodwill as we can do anybody who hurried Mr. Burns from us. Farewell, Sir, I can only contribute the widow's mite to the esteem and admiration excited by your merits and genius, but this I give as she did, with all my heart-being sincerely MY DEAR SIR: Mossgiel, 24th February, 1788. THE language of refusal is to me the most difficult language on earth, and you are the [only] man of the world, excepting one of R. Hon. designation, to whom it gives me the greatest pain to hold such language. My brother has already got money, and shall want nothing in my power to enable him to fulfil his engagement with you; but to be security on so large a scale, even for a brother, is what I dare not do, except I were in such circumstances of life as that the worst that might happen could not greatly injure me. I am ever, Sir, Your obliged and very humble Servt., for I never wrote a letter which gave me so I CANNOT get the proper direction for my much pain in my life, as I know the unhappy friend in Jamaica, but the following will do: consequences; I shall incur the displeasure of To Mr. Jo. Hutchinson, at Jo. Brownrigg's, a gentleman for whom I have the highest res Esq., care of Mr. Benjamin Henriquez, mer-pect, and to whom I am deeply obliged. chant, Orange - street, Kingston. I arrived here, at my brother's, only yesterday, after fighting my way through Paisley and Kilmarnock, against those old powerful foes of mine, the devil, the world, and the flesh- -so terrible in the fields of dissipation. I have met with few incidents in my life which gave me so much pleasure as meeting you in Glasgow. There is a time of life beyond which we cannot form a tie worthy the name of friendship. "O youth! enchanting stage, profusely blest." Life is a fairy scene: almost all that deserves the name of enjoyment or pleasure is only a charming delusion; and in comes repining age, in all the gravity of hoary wisdom, and wretchedly chases away the bewitching phantom. When I think of life, I resolve to keep a strict lookout in the course of economy, for the sake of worldly convenience and independence of mind; to cultivate intimacy with a few of the companions of youth, that they may be the friends of age; never to refuse my liquorish humour a handful of the sweetmeats of life, when they come not too dear; and, for futurity, "The present moment is our ain, The neist we never saw !" How like you my philosophy? Give my best compliments to Mrs. B., and believe me to be, My dear Sir, Yours most truly, [The above letter, which now appears the first time in an edition of the Poet's works, was evidently written towards the end of February, 1788, and before he had settled with his publisher, Creech. He was not then aware how his affairs would turn out, and therefore acted with prudence. It will be seen, in his letter to Dr. Moore, how munificently he acted for the relief of his brother's distresses.] No. XCVIII. TO MR. WILLIAM CRUIKSHANK. MY DEAR SIR: APOLOGIES for not writing are frequently like apologies for not singing-the apology bet ter than the song. I have fought my way se verely through the savage hospitality of this country, to send every guest drunk to bed if they can. I executed your commission in Glasgow, and I hope the cocoa came safe. "Twas the same price and the very same kind as your former parcel, for the gentleman recollected your buying there perfectly well. I should return my thanks for your hospitality (I leave a blank for the epithet, as I know none can do it justice) to a poor, wayfaring bard, who was spent and almost overpowered, fighting with prosaic wickedness in high places; but I am afraid lest you should burn the letter whenever you come to the passage, so I pass over it in silence. I am just returned from visiting Mr. Miller's farm. The friend whom I told you I would take with me was highly pleased with the farm; and as he is, without exception, the most intelligent farmer in the country, he has staggered me a good deal. I have the two plans of life before me; I shall balance them to the best of my judgment, and fix on the most eligible. I have written Mr. Miller, and shall wait on him when I come to town, which shall be the beginning or middle of next week: I would be in sooner, but my unlucky knee is rather worse, and I fear for some time will scarcely stand the fatigue of my excise instructions. I only mention these ideas to you: and indeed, except Mr. Ainslie, whom I intend writing to to-morrow, I will not write at all to Edinburgh till I return to it. I would send my compliments to Mr. Nicol, but he would be hurt if he knew I wrote to anybody and not to him: so I shall only beg my best, kindest, kindest compliments to my worthy hostess and the sweet little rose-bud. So soon as I am settled in the routine of life, either as an Excise-officer, or as a farmer, I propose myself great pleasure from a regular correspondence with the only man almost I ever saw who joined the most attentive prudence with the warmest generosity. I am much interested for that best of men, Mr. Wood; I hope he is in better health and spirits than when I saw him last. I am ever, My dearest friend, Your obliged, humble Servant, [The "sensible" farmer who accompanied Burns to Dalswinton, and influenced him in taking the farm of Ellisland, was Mr. Tait of Glenconner, to whom the Poet addressed a metrical epistle [see page 248]. The two plans which he says lay before him, were farming and the Excise. The farm of Ellisland was, at the time of the Poet's leaving it, sadly out of heart. The original vigour of the ground had been extracted from it by a succession of occupants who had neither money to purchase manure, nor knowledge in the science of farming. In the hands of the present proprietor it bears tall and weighty crops, and may be compared with the best farms in the parish.-CUNNINGHAM.] [Dr. Currie omits all allusion to the circumstances which led to a permanent union between Burns and his Jean. That the mind of the Poet, notwithstanding all past irritation, and various entanglements with other beauties, was never altogether alienated from her is evident; but up to June, 1787, when he first returned from Edinburgh to Mauchline, he certainly did not entertain any self-avowed notion of ever again renewing his acquaintance with her. It was in this state of his feelings, that, one day, soon after his return from Edinburgh, when meeting some friends over a glass at John Dow's tavern, close to the residence of his once fondly No. XCIX. TO ROBERT AINSLIE, Esq. Mauchline, 3rd March, 1788. MY DEAR FRIEND: * I AM just returned from Mr. Miller's farm. My old friend whom I took with me was highly pleased with the bargain, and advised me to accept of it. He is the most intelligent sensible farmer in the county, and his advice has staggered me a good deal. I have the two plans before me: I shall endeavour to balance them to the best of my judgment, and fix on the most eligible. On the whole, if I find Mr. Miller in the same favourable disposition as when I saw him last, I shall in all probability turn farmer. I have been through sore tribulation, and under much buffetting of the wicked one since I came to this country. Jean I found banished, forlorn, destitute, and friendless: I have reconciled her to her fate, and I have reconciled her to her mother.+ I shall be in Edinburgh the middle of next week. My farming ideas I shall keep private till I see. I got a letter from Clarinda yesterday, and she tells me she has got no letter of mine but one. Tell her that I wrote to her from Glasgow, from Kilmarnock, from Mauchline, and yesterday from Cumnock as I returned from Dumfries. Indeed she is the only person in Edinburgh I have written to till this day. How are your soul and body putting up?-a little like man and wife, I suppose, No. C. TO RICHARD BROWN. R. B. Mauchline, 7th March, 1788. I HAVE been out of the country, my dear friend, and have not had an opportunity of writing till loved mistress, he chanced to encounter her in the court behind the inn, and was immediately inflamed with all his former affection. Their correspondence was renewed-was attended with its former results-and, towards the end of the year, when the Poet was fixed helplessly in Edinburgh, by a bruised limb, her shame becoming apparent to her parents, she was turned out of doors, and would have been utterly destitute, if she had not obtained shelter from a relation in the village of Ardrossan. Jean was once more delivered of twins-girls-on the 3rd of March, 1788, the date of the above letter: the infants died a few days after their birth.Ultimately, on the 3d of August, as we learn from the session books, the Poet and Jean were openly married; when Burns being informed that it was customary for the bridegroom, in such cases, to bestow something on the poor of the parish, gave a guinea for that purpose. The ceremony took place in Dow's tavern, unsanctioned by the lady's father, who never, to the day of the Poet's death, would treat him as a friend; even Gavin Hamilton, from respect for the feelings of Armour, declined being present. It was not till the ensuing winter that Mrs. Burns joined her husband at Ellislandtheir only child Robert following her in the subsequent spring. -CHAMBERS.] now, when I am afraid you will be gone out of the country too. I have been looking at farms, and, after all, perhaps I may settle in the character of a farmer. I have got so vicious a bent to idleness, and have ever been so little a man of business, that it will take no ordinary effort to bring my mind properly into the routine: but you will say a great effort is worthy of you." I say so myself; and butter up my vanity with all the stimulating compliments I can think of. Men of grave, geometrical minds, the sons of "which was to be demonstrated," may cry up reason as much as they please; but I have always found an honest passion, or native instinct, the truest auxiliary in the warfare of this world. Reason almost always comes to me like an unlucky wife to a poor devil of a husband, just in sufficient time to add her reproaches to his other grievances. I am gratified with your kind inquiries after Jean; as, after all, I may say with Othello "Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul, but I do love thee!" I go for Edinburgh on Monday. Yours,-R. B. But an honest man has nothing to fear. If we lie down in the grave, the whole man a piece of broken machinery, to moulder with the clods of the valley, be it so; at least there is an end of pain, cure, woes and wants: if that part of us called mind does survive the apparent destruction of the man-away with oldwife prejudices and tales! Every age and every nation has had a different set of stories; and as the many are always weak of consequence, they have often, perhaps always, been deceived: a man conscious of having acted an honest part among his fellow-creatures even granting that he may have been the sport at times of passions and instincts-he goes to a great unknown Being, who could have no other end in giving him existence but to make him happy, who gave him those passions and instincts, and well knows their force. These, my worthy friend, are my ideas; and I know they are not far different from yours. It becomes a man of sense to think for himself, particularly in a case where all men are equally interested, and where, indeed, all men equally in the dark. are Adieu, my dear Sir; God send us a cheerful meeting! No. CI. R. B. I HAVE partly changed my ideas, my dear friend, since I saw you. I took old Glenconner with me to Mr. Miller's farm, and he was so pleased with it that I have wrote an offer to Mr. Miller, which, if he accepts, I shall sit down a plain farmer, the happiest of lives when a man can live by it. In this case I shall not stay in Edinburgh above a week. I set out on Monday, and would have come by Kilmarnock, but there are several small sums owing me for my first edition about Galston and Newmills, and I shall set off so early as to dispatch my business and reach Glasgow by night. When I return, I shall devote a forenoon or two to make some kind of acknowledgment for all the kindness I owe your friendship. Now that I hope to settle with some credit and comfort at home, there was not any friendship or friendly correspondence that promised me more pleasure than yours; I hope I will not be disappointed. I trust the spring will renew your shattered frame, and make your friends happy. You and I have often agreed that life is no great blessing on the whole. The close of life, indeed, to a reasoning age, is— THE last paragraph in yours of the 20th February affected me most, so I shall begin my answer where you ended your letter. That I am often a sinner with any little wit I have, I do confess: but I have taxed my recollection, to no purpose, to find out when it was employed against you. I hate an ungenerous sarcasm a great deal worse than I do the devil; at least as Milton describes him; and though I may be rascally enough to be sometimes guilty of it myself, I cannot endure it in others. You, my honoured friend, who cannot appear in any light but you are sure of being respectableyou can afford to pass by an occasion to display your wit, because you may depend for fame on your sense; or, if you choose to be silent, you know you can rely on the gratitude of many. and the esteem of all; but, God help us, who are wits or witlings by profession, if we stand not for fame there, we sink unsupported! I am highly flattered by the news you tell me of Coila. I may say to the fair painter who does me so much honour, as Dr. Beattie says to Ross the poet of his muse Scota, from one or two attempts: Stothard hit off three or four happy groupes; Burnet wrought in the very spirit of "John Asderson, my jo;" and Wilkie added charms to the song of "Duncan Gray."] which, by the bye, I took the idea of Coila ('tis a poem of Beattie's in the Scottish dialect, which perhaps you have never seen):— "Ye shak your head, but o' my fegs, deed for, and highly susceptible of, enjoyment and rapture; but that enjoyment, alas! almost wholly at the mercy of the caprice, malevolence, stupidity, or wickedness of an animal at all times comparatively unfeeling, and often brutal. R. B. Her fiddle wanted strings and pegs, Wae's me, poor hizzie!" R. B. No. CIII. TO MISS CHALMERS. Edinburgh, March 14th, 1788. * I KNOW, my ever dear friend, that you will be pleased with the news when I tell you I have at last taken a lease of a farm. Yesternight I completed a bargain with Mr. Miller, of Dalswinton, for the farm of Ellisland, on the banks of the Nith, between five and six miles above Dumfries. I begin at Whit-Sunday to build a house, drive lime, &c.; and heaven be my help! for it will take a strong effort to bring my mind into the routine of business. I have discharged all the army of my former pursuits, fancies, and pleasures; a motley host! and have literally and strictly retained only the ideas of a few friends, which I have incorporated into a life-guard. I trust in Dr. Johnson's observation, "Where much is attempted, something is done." Firmness, both in sufferance and exertion, is a character I would wish to be thought to possess: and have always despised the whining yelp of complaint, and the cowardly, feeble resolve. Poor Miss K. is ailing a good deal this winter, and begged me to remember her to you the first time I wrote to you. Surely woman, amiable woman, is often made in vain. Too delicately formed for the rougher pursuits of ambition; too noble for the dirt of avarice, and even too gentle for the rage of pleasure; formed in [In building his farm-house the Poet had to perform the part of superintendent of the works; to dig the foundations, collect the stones, seek the sand, cart the lime, and see that all was performed according to the specifications; these were the uncouth cares of which he afterwards complained.] † [The excitement to which Burns alludes was occasioned by the dilatory movements of Creech in settling accounts between him and the Poet. The baillie parted with his money as a lover with his mistress "With slow, reluctant, amorous delay." "During the Poet's residence in Glasgow, a characteristic instance occurred of the way in which he would repress petulance and presumption. A young man of some literary pretensions, who had newly commenced business as a bookseller, had been in the practice of writing notices of Burns's Poems in a style so flippant, and withal so patronising, as to excite feelings in the poet towards him very different from what he counted upon. Reckoning, however, upon a very grateful reception from Burns, he was particularly anxious for an early introduction to his company, and, as his friends knew, had been at some pains to prepare himself for making a dazzling impression upon the Ayr-shire ploughman, as it was then the fashion, amongst a certain kind of literary folks, to call the poet. At the moment the introduction took place, Burns was engaged in one of his happiest and most No. CIV. TO RICHARD BROWN. Glasgow, 26th March, 1788. I AM monstrously to blame, my dear Sir, in not writing to you, and sending you the Directory. I have been getting my tack extended, as I have taken a farm; and I have been racking shop accounts with Mr. Creech, both of which, together with watching, fatigue, and a load of care almost too heavy for my shoulders, have in some degree actually fevered me.† I really forgot the Directory yesterday, which vexed me; but I was convulsed with rage a great part of the day. I have to thank you for the ingenious, friendly, and elegant epistle from your friend Mr. Crawford. I shall certainly write to him, but not now. This is merely a card to you, as I am posting to Dumfries-shire, where many perplexing arrangements await me. I am vexed about the Directory; but, my dear Sir, forgive me; these eight days I have been positively crazed. My compliments to Mrs. B. I shall write to you at Grenada.—I am ever, my dearest friend, Saughton Mills, April 27th, 1788. I WAS favoured with your very kind letter of the 31st. ult., and consider myself greatly obliged to you for your attention in sending me the song to my favourite air, Captain O'Kean. The words delight me much-they fit the tune to a hair. I wish you would send me a verse or two more; and, if you have no objection, I would have it in the Jacobite style. Suppose it should be sung after the fatal field of Culloden, by the unfortunate Charles. Tenducci personates the lovely Mary Stuart in the song, Queen Mary's Lamentation. Why may not I sing in the person of her great-great-great grandson? Any skill I have in country business you may truly command. Situation, soil, customs of countries, may vary from each other; but Farmer Attention is a good farmer in every O between Galloway and Ayr-shire, it being Sunday, I turned my thoughts to psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs; and your favourite "Captain O'Kean," coming at length into my head, I tried these words to it. You will see that the first part of the tune must be repeated.* air, I am tolerably pleased with these verses, but as I have only a sketch of the tune, I leave it with you to try if they suit the measure of the music. I am so harassed with care and anxiety, about this farming project of mine, that my muse has degenerated into the veriest prosewench that ever picked cinders, or followed a tinker. When I am fairly got into the routine of business, I shall trouble you with a longer epistle; perhaps with some queries respecting farming at present, the world sits such a load on my mind that it has effaced almost every trace of the poet in me. My very best compliments and good wishes to Mrs. Cleghorn. No. CVI. R. B. TO MR. WILLIAM DUNBAR, EDINBURGH. Mauchline, 7th April, 1788. I HAVE not delayed so long to write to you, my much respected friend, because I thought no farther of my promise. I have long since given up that kind of formal correspondence, where one sits down irksomely to write a letter, because we think we are in duty bound so to do. I have been roving over the country, as the farm I have taken is forty miles from this place, hiring servants, and preparing matters; but most of all, I am earnestly busy to bring about a revolution in my own mind. As, till within these eighteen months, I never was the wealthy master of ten guineas, my knowledge of busíness is to learn; add to this, my late scenes of idleness and dissipation have enervated my mind to an alarming degree. Skill in the sober science of life is my most serious and hourly study. I have dropt all conversation and all reading (prose reading), but what tends in some way or other to my serious aim. Except one worthy young fellow, I have not one single correspondent in Edinburgh. You have indeed kindly made me an offer of that kind. The world of wits, and gens comme il faut which I lately left, and with whom I never again will intimately mix-from that port, Sir, I expect your Gazette: what les beaux esprits are saying, what they are doing, and what they are singing. Any sober intelligence from my sequestered walks of life; any droll original; any passing remark, important forsooth, because it is mine; any little poetic effort, however embryoth; these, my dear Sir, are all you have to expect from me. When I talk of poetic efforts, I must have it always understood that I appeal from your wit and taste to your friendship and good nature. The first would be my favourite tribunal, where I defied censure; but the last, where I declined justice. I have scarcely made a single distich since I saw you. When I meet with an oid Scots air that has any facetious idea in its name, I have a peculiar pleasure in following out that idea for a verse or two. I trust that this will find you in better health than I did last time I called for you. A few lines from you, directed to me at Mauchline. were it but to let me know how you are, will set my mind a good deal [at rest]. Now, never shun the idea of writing me because perhaps you may be out of humour or spirits. I could give you a hundred good consequences attending a dull letter; one, for example, and the remaining ninety-nine some other time-it will always serve to keep in countenance, my much. respected Sir, your obliged friend and humble servant,† No. CVII. TO MISS CHALMERS. R. B. Mauchline, 7th April, 1788. I AM indebted to you and Miss Nimmo for letting me know Miss Kennedy. Strange! how apt we are to indulge prejudices in our judgments of one another! Even I, who pique myself on my skill in marking charactersbecause I am too proud of my character as a man, to be dazzled in my judgment for glaring wealth; and too proud of my situation as a poor man to be biassed against squalid poverty I was unacquainted with Miss K.'s very uncommon worth. I am going on a good deal progressive in mon grand bût, the sober science of life. I have lately made some sacrifices, for which, were I viva voce with you to paint the situation [Here the Bard gives the first two stanzas of the Che valier's Lament.] [The gentleman to whom the above letter is addressed, was a writer to the Signet, in Edinburgh, with whom the Poet appears to have been on very intimate and incadiy terms.] |