Ellisland, 17th December, 1788. MY DEAR HONOURED FRIEND: YOURS, dated Edinburgh, which I have just read, makes me very unhappy. "Almost blind and wholly deaf," are melancholy news of human nature; but when told of a much-loved and honoured friend, they carry misery in the sound. Goodness on your part, and gratitude on mine, began a tie which has gradually entwisted itself among the dearest chords of my bosom, and I tremble at the omens of your late and present ailing habit and shattered health. You miscalculate matters, widely, when you forbid my waiting on you, lest it should hurt my worldly concerns. My small scale of farming is exceedingly more simple and easy than what you have lately seen at Moreham Mains. But, be that as it may, the heart of the man and the fancy of the poet are the two grand considerations for which I live: if miry ridges and dirty dunghills are to engross the best part of the functions of my soul immortal, I had better been a rook or a magpie at once, and then I should not have been plagued with any ideas superior to breaking of clods and picking up grubs; not to mention barn-door cocks or mallards, creatures with which I could almost exchange lives at any time. If you continue so deaf, I am afraid a visit will be no great pleasure to either of us; but if I hear you are got so well again as to be able to relish conversation, look you to it, Madam, for I will make my threatenings good. I am to be at the New-year-day fair of Ayr; and, by all that is sacred in the world, friend, I will come and see you. Your meeting, which you so well describe, with your old schoolfellow and friend, was truly interesting. Out upon the ways of the world! They spoil these "social offsprings of the heart." Two veterans of the "men of the world" would have met with little more heartworkings than two old hacks worn out on the road. Apropos, is not the Scotch phrase, "Auld lang syne," exceedingly expressive? [It was little that Blacklock had in his power to do for a brother poet--but that little he did with a fond alacrity, and with a modest grace.-" Poetry was to him the dear solace of perpetual blindness; cheerfulness, even to gaiety, was, notwithstanding that irremediable misfortune, long the predominant colour of his mind. In his latter years, when the gloom might otherwise have thickened around him, hope, There is an old song and tune which have often thrilled through my soul. You know I am an enthusiast in old Scotch songs. I shall give you the verses on the other sheet, as I suppose Mr. Ker will save you the postage. "Should auld acquaintance be forgot?'' Light be the turf on the breast of the Heaven-inspired poet who composed this glorious fragment! There is more of the fire of native genius in it than in half-a-dozen of modern English Bacchanalians! Now I am on my hobby-horse, I cannot help inserting two other old stanzas, which please me mightily:"Go fetch to me a pint of wine." I UNDERSTAND my very worthy neighbour, Mr. Riddel, has informed you that I have made you the subject of some verses. There is something so provoking in the idea of being the burthen of a ballad that I do not think Job, er Moses, though such patterns of patience and meekness, could have resisted the curiosity to know what that ballad was: so my worthy friend has done me a mischief, which I dare say he never intended; and reduced me to the unfortunate alternative of leaving your curiosity ungratified, or else disgusting you with foolish verses, the unfinished production of a random moment, and never meant to have met your ear. I have heard or read somewhere of a gentleman who had some genius, much eccentricity, and very considerable dexterity with his pencil. In the accidental group of life into which one is thrown, wherever this gentleman met with a character in a more than ordinary degree congenial to his heart, he used to steal a sketch of the face, merely, he said, as a nota bene, to point out the agreeable recollection to his memory. What this gentleman's pencil was to him, my muse is to me; and the verses I do myself the honour to send you are a memento exactly of the same kind that he indulged in. It may be more owing to the fastidiousness of my caprice than the delicacy of my taste: but I am so often tired, disgusted, and hurt with the insipidity, affectation, and pride of mankind, that when I meet with a person "after my own heart," I positively feel what an orthodox Protestant would call a species of idolatry, which acts on my fancy like inspiration; and I can no more desist rhyming, on the impulse, than an Eolian harp can refuse its tones to the streaming air. A distich or two would be the consequence, though the object which hit my fancy were grey-bearded age; but where my theme is youth and beauty, a young lady whose personal charms, wit, and sentiment are equally striking and unaffected-by heavens! though I had lived three-score years a married man, and three-score years before I was a married man, my imagination would hallow the very idea and I am truly sorry that the enclosed stanzas have done such poor justice to such a subject.* R. B. 66 mine, a John Currie, miller in Carse-mill-a man who is, in a word, a very" good man, even for a £500 bargain—he and his wife were in my house the time I broke open the cask. They keep a country public house, and sell a great deal of foreign spirits, but all along thought that whiskey would have degraded this house. They were perfectly astonished at my whiskey, both for its taste and strength; and, by their desire, I write you to know if you could supply them with liquor of an equal quality, and what price. Please write me by first post, and direct to me at Ellisland, near Dumfries. If you could take a jaunt this way yourself, I have a spare spoon, knife, and fork, very much at your service. My compliments to Mrs. Tennant, and all the good folks in Glenconner and Barquharrie. R. B. No. CXXXVI. TO MR. JOHN TENNANT.† December, 22, 1788. 1 YESTERDAY tried my cask of whiskey for the first time, and I assure you it does you great credit. It will bear five waters, strong; or six, ordinary toddy. The whiskey of this country is a most rascally liquor; and, by consequence, only drunk by the most rascally part of the inhabitants. I am persuaded, if you once get a footing here, you might do a great deal of business, in the way of consumpt; and should you commence distiller again, this is the native barley country. I am ignorant if, in your present way of dealing, you would think it worth your while to extend your business so far as this country side. I write you this on the account of an accident, which I must take the merit of having partly designed to. A neighbour of * [The Laird of Glenriddel, it appears, had informed "The charming, lovely Davies" that Burns was making a ballad on her beauty. The Poet took advantage of this, and sent the song enclosed in this truly characteristic letter. [Mr. Tennant, of Ayr, one of the few surviving early friends of Burns, has the following recollections respecting him" He first knew the poet, when attending Mr. Murdoch's school at Ayr, he being then fifteen, and Burns a year and a half older. Burns and he were favourite pupils of Murdoch, who used to take them alternately to live with him, allowing them a share of his bed. Mr. Murdoch was a well-informed and zealous teacher-a particularly good French scholar, insomuch that he at one time taught the language in France. He thought his voice had some peculiar quality of power, adapting it in an uncommon degree for French pronunciation. To this predilection of the teacher it is probably owing that Burns acquired so much French, and had such a fancy for introducing snatches of it into his letters. Murdoch was so anxious to advance his two favourite pupils that, while they were living with him, he was always taking opportunities of communicating knowledge. The intellectual gifts of Burns even at this time greatly impressed his fellow-scholar. Robert and Gilbert WITH the sincerest grief I read your letter. You are truly a son of misfortune. I shall be extremely anxious to hear from you how your health goes on; if it is in any way re-establishing or if Leith promises well; in short, how you feel in the inner man. No news worth any thing: only godly Bryan was in the inquisition yesterday, and half the country-side as witnesses against him. He still stands out steady and denying: but proof was led yester-night of circumstances highly suspicious; almost de facto: one of the servant girls made faith that she upon a time rashly entered the house-to speak in your cant, "in the hour of cause." Burns were like no other young men. Their style of language was quite above that of their compeers. Robert had borrowed great numbers of books, and acquainted himself with their contents. He read rapidly, but remembered all that was interesting or valuable in what he read. He had the New Testament more at command than any other youth ever known to Mr. Tennant; who was, altogether, more impressed in these his boyish days by the discourse of the youthful poet than he afterwards was by his published verses. The elocution of Burns resembled that of Edmund Kean-deep, thoughtful, emphatic; and in controversy, no man could stand before him."] [The mill of John Currie stood on a small stream, which feeds the Loch of Friars-Carse. A little island seems to float in the midst of this sheet of water, to which it is said the people in ancient times, during an English raid, carried their most valuable effects. Among the letters and memoranda of the Poet, many lines and couplets occur in praise of ale, or the "dearest of distillations last and best." Some are worse-some better than the following: "I may be drunk to-night, I'll never be drunk no more. But aye where they sell guid ale, 1 may look in at the door."] I have waited on Armour since her return home not from any the least view of reconciliation, but merely to ask for her health, and -to you I will confess it-from a foolish hankering fondness-very ill placed indeed. The mother forbade me the house, nor did Jean shew the penitence that might have been expected. However, the priest, I am informed, will give me a certificate as a single man, if I comply with the rules of the church, which, for that very reason, I intend to do. I am going to put on sackcloth and ashes this day. I am indulged so far as to appear in my own seat. Peccavi, pater, miserere mei. My book will be ready in a fortnight. If you have any subscribers, return them by Connell. The Lord stand with the righteous: amen, amen.* No. CXXXVIII. TO JAMES JOHNSON,† R. B. EDITOR OF THE SCOTS MUSICAL MUSEUM. [Lawnmarket, Friday noon, 3d May, 1787.] DEAR SIR: I have sent you a song never before known, for your collection; the air by M'Gibbon, but I know not the author of the words, as I got it from Dr. Blacklock. Farewell, my dear Sir! I wished to have seen you, but I have been dreadfully throng, as I march to-morrow. Had my acquaintance with you been a little older, I would have asked the favour of your correspondence, as I have met with few people whose company and conversation gave me so much pleasure, because I have met with few whose sentiments are so congenial to my own. When Dunbar and you meet, tell him that I left Edinburgh with the idea of him hanging somewhere about my heart. Keep the original of this song till we meet again, whenever that may be. No. CXXXIX. TO MRS. DUNLOP. R. B. Ellisland, New-year-day Morning, 1789. THIS, dear Madam, is a morning of wishes, and would to God that I came under the apos * [The minister who so boldly took it upon him to pronounce Burns a single man, after he had been married according to the law and usage of Scotland, was the Rev. Mr. Auld, of Mauchline. That he had no such power, no one can deny. The kirk of Scotland and the civil law were long at variance on the important subject of marriage. When a young pair were married by a magistrate, the minister of their parish not uncommonly caused them to endure a rebuke in the church before they were re-admitted to its bosom; this was sometimes resisted by the more obstinate or knowing of the peasantry, and ill blood, harsh words, and threats of kirk-censure were the consequence. Burns, instead of mounting the common seat of shame, was allowed to stand in his own seat. There might be other reasons for this: Auld was alarmed lest severity on his part should call forth a burning satire on that of the other; moreover, the re tle James's description!—the prayer of a righteous man availeth much. In that case, Madam, you should welcome in a year full of blessings: every thing that obstructs or disturbs tranquillity and self-enjoyment should be removed, and every pleasure that frail humanity can taste should be yours. I own myself so little a! Presbyterian that I approve of set times and seasons of more than ordinary acts of devotion, | for breaking in on that habituated routine of life and thought, which is so apt to reduce our existence to a kind of instinct, or even sometimes, and with some minds, to a state very little superior to mere machinery. This day; the first Sunday of May; breezy, blue-skyed noon some time about the beginning, and a hoary morning and calm sunny day, about the end of autumn; these, time out of mind, have been with me a kind of holiday. I believe I owe this to that glorious paper in the Spectator, "The Vision of Mirza," a piece that struck my young fancy before I was capable of fixing an idea to a word of three svila-¦ bles: "On the 5th day of the moon, which, according to the custom of my forefathers, I always keep holy, after having washed myself, cended the high hill of Bagdat, in order to and offered up my morning devotions, I aspass the rest of the day in meditation and prayer." We know nothing, or next to nothing, of the substance or structure of our souls, so cannot account for those seeming caprices in them that one should be particularly pleased with this thing, or struck with that, which, on minds of a different cast, makes no extraordinary impression. I have some favourite flowers the hare-bell, the fox-glove, the wild brierin spring, among which are the mountain-daisy, rose, the budding birch, and the hoary hawlar delight. I never hear the loud, solitary thorn, that I view and hang over with particuwhistle of the curlew in a summer noon, or the wild mixing cadence of a troop of grey plovers, in an autumnal morning, without feeling an elevation of soul like the enthusiasm of devotion or poetry. Tell me, my dear friend, to what can this be owing? Are we a piece of machinery, which, like the Eolian harp, passive, takes the impression of the passing acci- ' pentance-stool had other occupants: the poet was one of seven who appeared, figuratively at least, in sack-cloth on the same day. In one of his memorandum books occurs the following singular entry:-" Mem.: to enquire at Mr. M'Math whether, when a man has appeared in church for a child, and had another prior to it in point of time, but net discovered till after, he is liable for that one again. Note The child was five and a half years old before the father was cited." The above Letter was communicated to Mr. Cunningham by James Grierson, Esq., of Dalgonar, in Dumfries-shire.) +[This letter was first published in Hogg and Motherwell's edition of the Poet's works, and was communicated by James Smith, Esq., of Jordan-hill. The song which it enclosed has not been ascertained.] As often as I think of writing to you, which has been three or four times every week these six months, it gives me something so like the idea of an ordinary-sized statue offering at a conversation with the Rhodian colossus, that my mind misgives me, and the affair always miscarries somewhere between purpose and resolve. I have at last got some business with you, and business letters are written by the style-book. I say my business is with you, Sir, for you never had any with me, except the business that benevolence has in the mansion of poverty. The character and employment of a poct were formerly my pleasure, but are now my pride. I know that a very great deal of my late eclat was owing to the singularity of my situation, and the honest prejudice of Scotsmen; but still, as I said in the preface to my first edition, I do look upon myself as having some pretensions from Nature to the poetic character. I have not a doubt but the knack, the aptitude, to learn the muses' trade, is a gift bestowed by Him "who forms the secret bias of the soul;"-but I as firmly believe that excellence in the profession is the fruit of industry, labour, attention, and pains. At least I am resolved to try my doctrine by the test of experience. Another appearance from the press I put off to a very distant day, a day that may never arrive but poesy I am determined to prosecute with all my vigour. Nature has given very few, if any, of the profession, the talents of shining in every species of composition. I shall try (for until trial it is impossible to know) whether she has "I HAVE just finished my New-year's day breakfast in the usual form, which naturally makes me call to mind the days of former years, and the society in which we used to begin them; and when I look at our family vicissitudes, thro' the dark postern of time long elapsed,' I cannot help remarking to you, my dear brother, how good the God of Seasons is to us; and that, however some clouds may seem to lower over the portion of time before us, we have great reason to hope that all will turn out well. The worst qualified me to shine in any one. of it is, by the time one has finished a piece, it has been so often viewed and reviewed before the mental eye that one loses, in a good measure, the powers of critical discrimination. Here the best criterion I know is a friend-not only of abilities to judge, but with good-nature enough, like a prudent teacher with a young learner, to praise perhaps a little more than is exactly just, lest the thin-skinned animal fall into that most deplorable of all poetic diseases --heart-breaking despondency of himself.Dare I, Sir, already immensely indebted to your goodness, ask the additional obligation of your being that friend to me? I enclose you an essay of mine in a walk of poesy to me entirely new; I mean the epistle addressed to R. G., Esq., or Robert Graham, of Fintray Esq., a gentleman of uncommon worth, to whom I lie under very great obligations. The story of the poem, like most of my poems, is connected with my own story, and to give you the one, I must give you something of the other. I cannot boast of Mr. Creech's ingenuous fair dealing with me. He kept me hanging about Edinburgh from the 7th August 1787, until the 13th April 1788, before he would condescend to give me a statement of affairs; nor had I got it even then, but for an angry letter I wrote him, which irritated his pride. "I could" not a "tale" but a detail "unfold," but what am I that should speak against the Lord's anointed Bailie of Edinburgh ?+ I believe I shall, in the whole, (1007. copy-right included,) clear about 4007. some little odds; and even part of this depends upon what the gentleman has yet to settle with me. I give you this information, because you did me the honour to interest yourself much in my welfare. I give you this information, but I give it to yourself only, for I am still much in the gentleman's mercy. Perhaps I injure the man in the idea I am sometimes tempted to have of him-God forbid I should! A little time will try, for in a month I shall go to town to wind up the business if possible. To give the rest of my story in brief, I have married " my Jean," and taken a farm: with the first step I have every day more and more reason to be satisfied with the last, it is rather the reverse. I have a younger brother, who "Your mother and sisters, with Robert the second, join me in the compliments of the season to you and Mrs. Burns, and beg you will remember us in the same manner to William, the first time you see him. "I am, dear Brother, yours, [Those who publish books for authors are not in general the most prompt in rendering returns, and for this there is some reason, as well as excuse, in the forms and circumstances of the book-trade; but Mr. Creech was remarkable for his reluctance to settle accounts of any kind, and of this the poet seems to have been eminently a victim.-CHAMBERS.] supports my aged mother; another still younger brother, and three sisters, in a farm. On my last return from Edinburgh, it cost me about 180l. to save them from ruin. Not that I have lost so much I only interposed between my brother and his impending fate by the loan of so much. I give myself no airs on this, for it was mere selfishness on my part: I was conscious that the wrong scale of the balance was pretty heavily charged, and I thought that throwing a little filial piety and fraternal affection into the scale in my favour, might help to smooth matters at the grand reckoning. There is still one thing would make my circumstances quite easy: I have an excise officer's commission, and I live in the midst of a country division. My request to Mr. Graham, who is one of the Cominissioners of Excise, was, if in his power, to procure me that division. If I were very sanguine, I might hope that some of my great patrons might procure me a treasury warrant for supervisor, surveyor-general, &c. Thus, secure of a livelihood, "to thee, sweet poetry, delightful maid," I would consecrate my future days.* R. B. common with hundreds.-But who are they? Men, like yourself, and of that aggregate body your compeers, seven tenths of whom come short of your advantages natural and accidental; while two of those that remain either neglect their parts, as flowers blooming in a desert, or mis-spend their strength, like a bull goring a bramble bush. But to change the theme: I am still catering for Johnson's publication; and among others, I have brushed up the following old favourite song a little, with a view to your worship. I have only altered a word here and there; but if you like the humour of it, we shall think of a stanza or two to add to it.† No. CXLII. TC R. B. THE enclosed sealed packet I sent to Edinburgh, a few days after I had the happiness of meeting you in Ayr-shire, but you were gone for the Continent. I have now added a few more of my productions, those for which I am indebted to the Nithsdale Muses. The piece inscribed to R. G., Esq., is a copy of verses I sent Mr. Graham, of Fintray, accompanying a request for his assistance in a matter, to me, of very great moment. To that gentleman I am already doubly indebted: for deeds of kindness of serious import to my dearest interests, done in a manner grateful to the delicate feelings of sensibility. This poem is a species of composi tion new to me, but I do not intend it shall be my last essay of the kind, as you will see by the "Poet's Progress." These fragments, my design succeed, are but a small part of the intended whole. I propose it shall be the work of my utmost exertions, ripened by years; of course I do not wish it much known. The fragment beginning "A little upright, pert, tart, &c.," I have not shewn to man living, till I now send it you. It forms the postulata, the axioms, the definition of a character, which, if it appear at all, shall be placed in a variety of lights. This particular part I send you merely as a sample of my hand at portrait-sketching; but, lest idle conjecture should pretend to point out the original, please to let it be for your single, sole inspection. [The name of the song which the poet brushed up and sent to his friend is no where intimated; it was no doubt one of a humorous or convivial cast. He was at this period, and indeed for years after, busily employed in writing original compositions, and in collecting and amending scraps of old song for Johnson's Musical Museum.] |