Need I make any apology for this trouble to a gentleman who has treated me with such marked benevolence and peculiar kindness who has entered into my interests with so much zeal, and on whose critical decisions I can so fully depend? A poet as I am by trade, these decisions are to me of the last consequence. My late transient acquaintance among some of the mere rank and file of greatness, I resign with ease; but to the distinguished champions of genius and learning I shall be ever ambitious of being known. The native genius and accurate discernment in Mr. Stewart's critical strictures; the justness (iron justice, for he has no bowels of compassion for a poor poetic sinner) of Dr. Gregory's remarks, and the delicacy of Professor Dalzel's taste, I shall ever revere.* I shall be in Edinburgh some time next month. I have the honour to be, Sir, Your highly obliged, and very humble servant, As I am conscious that, wherever I am, you do me the honour to interest yourself in my welfare, it gives me pleasure to inform you, that I am here at last, stationary in the serious business of life, and have now not only the retired leisure, but the hearty inclination, to attend to those great and important questions-what I am? where I am? and for what I am destined? In that first concern, the conduct of the man, there was ever but one side on which I was habitually blameable, and there I have secured myself in the way pointed out by Nature and Nature's GOD. I was sensible that, to so helpless a creature as a poor poet, a wife and family were incumbrances, which a species of prudence would bid him shun; but when the alternative was, being at eternal warfare with myself, on account of habitual follies, to give them no worse name, which no general example, no licentious wit, no sophistical infidelity, would, to me, ever justify, I must have been a fool to have hesitated, and a madman to have made another choice. Besides, I had in "my Jean" a long and much loved fellow creature's happiness or misery among my hands-and who could trifle with such a deposit? In the affair of a livelihood, I think myself tolerably secure: I have good hopes of my farm, but should they fail, I have an excise commission, which, on my simple petition, will, at any time, procure nie bread. There is a certain stigma affixed to the character of an excise officer, but I do not pretend to borrow honour from my profession; and though the salary be comparatively small, it is luxury to any thing that the first twenty-five years of my life taught me to expect. Thus, with a rational aim and method in life, you may easily guess, my reverend and muchhonoured friend, that my characteristical trade is not forgotten. I am, if possible, more than ever an enthusiast to the muses. I am determined to study man and nature, and in that view incessantly; and to try if the ripening and corrections of years can enable me to produce something worth preserving. You will see in your book, which I beg your pardon for detaining so long, that I have been tuning my lyre on the banks of Nith. Some large poetic plans that are floating in my imagination, or partly put in execution, I shall impart to you when I have the pleasure of meeting with you; which, if you are then in Edinburgh, I shall have about the beginning of March. That acquaintance, worthy Sir, with which you were pleased to honour me, you must still allow me to challenge; for with whatever unconcern I give up my transient connexion with the merely Great, I cannot lose the patronizing notice of the learned and good, without the bitterest regret. R. B. [The poet alludes to the merciless strictures of Dr. Gregory on the poem the "Wounded Hare," when he says he has no bowels of compassion for a poor poetic sinner. Stewart was more gentle in his criticisms: of him and his ladya poetess of no mean powers-Burns ever spoke in terms almost rapturous; they were kind to him when friends were few and praise scanty-he was not a man to forget such obligations.] Alexander Geddes, to whom this letter is addressed, was born at Arradowl in Banff-shire, in 1737. He was a scholar and controversialist; a poet, too, and one of the bishops of the broken remnant of the ancient Catholic church of Scotland. He is known in verse as the author of a very clever rustic poem, beginning "There was a wee wifiekie, was coming frae the fair." He is also known as the translator of one of the books of the Iliad. In his controversies and conversation he was so liberal that he incurred the displeasure of some of his brethren in Scotland, which induced him to remove to London, where he was patronized by Lord Petre, and undertook a "New Translation of the Bible," the prospectus to which is said to have alarmed both Jews and Christians. He was a man of undoubted talents and learning; his temper was quick, and his vanity not little. He died 20th February, 1802, in the sixty-fifth year of his age. The volume which Burns sent to the bishop was the Edinburgh copy of his poems, with the addition, in his own hand-writing, of such compositions as the muse of Nithsdale had inspired. The blanks too in the print were all filled up. This precious book belongs to Margaret Geddes, the wife of John Hyslop, surgeon, Finsbury-square, grandson of John Maxwell, of Terraughty, to whom the poet addressed one of his most spirited epistles; it is in good preservation, and in equally excellent hands.-CUNNINGHAM.] No. CXLIV. TO MR. JAMES BURNESS. Ellisland, 9th Feb. 1789. MY DEAR SIR, WHY I did not write to you long ago is what, even on the rack, I could not answer. If you can in your mind form an idea of indolence, dissipation, hurry, cares, change of country, entering on untried scenes of life, all combined, you will save me the trouble of a blushing apology. It could not be want of regard for a man for whom I had a high esteem before I knew him-an esteem which has much increased since I did know him; and, this caveat entered, I shall plead guilty to any other indictment with which you shall please to charge me. After I parted from you, for many months my life was one continued scene of dissipation. Here at last I am become stationary, and have taken a farm and a wife. The farm is beautifully situated on the Nith, a large river that runs by Dumfries, and falls into the Solway frith. I have gotten a lease of my farm as long as I pleased; but how it may turn out is just a guess, and it is yet to improve and enclose, &c.; however, I have good hopes of my bargain on the whole. My wife is my Jean, with whose story you are partly acquainted. I found I had a much loved fellow-creature's happiness or misery among my hands, and I durst not trifle with so sacred a deposit. Indeed I have not any reason to repent the step I have taken, as I have attached myself to a very good wife, and have shaken myself loose of every bad failing. I have found my book a very profitable business, and with the profits of it I have begun life pretty decently. Should fortune not favour me in farming, as I have no great faith in her fickle ladyship, I have provided myself in another resource, which, however some folks may affect to despise it, is still a comfortable shift in the day of misfortune. In the heyday of my fame, a gentleman, whose name at least I dare say you know, as his estate lies somewhere near Dundee, Mr. Graham, of Fintray, one of the Commissioners of Excise, offered me the commission of an excise officer. I thought it prudent to accept the offer; and accordingly I took my instructions, and have my commission by me. Whether I may ever do duty, or be a penny the better for it, is what I do not know; but I have the comfortable assurance that, come whatever ill fate will, I can, on * [Fanny Burns, the poet's cousin, merited all the commendations he has here bestowed. She subsequently became the wife of Adam Armour, the brother of bonnie Jean; my simple petition to the Excise-Board, get into employ. We have lost poor uncle Robert this winter. He has long been very weak, and, with very little alteration on him, he expired 3rd Jan. His son William has been with me this winter, and goes in May to be an apprentice to a mason. His other son, the eldest, John, comes to me I expect in summer. They are both remarkably stout young fellows, and promise to do well. His only daughter, Fanny, has been with me ever since her father's death, and I purpose keeping her in my family till she be quite woman grown, and fit for better service. She is one of the cleverest girls, and has one of the most amiable dispositions, I have ever HERE am I, my honoured friend, returned safe from the capital. To a man who has a home, however humble or remote- if that home is, like mine, the scene of domestic comfort-the bustle of Edinburgh will soon be a business of sickening disgust. "Vain pomp and glory of this world, I hate you!"* When I must skulk into a corner, lest the rattling equipage of some gaping blockhead, should mangle me in the mire, I am tempted to exclaim-"What merits has he had, or what demerit have I had, in some state of pre-existence, that he is ushered into this state of being with the sceptre of rule, and the key of riches in his puny fist, and I am kicked into the world, the sport of folly, or the victim of pride?" I have read somewhere of a monarch (in Spain I think it was), who was so out of humour with the Ptolomean system of astronomy that he said, had he been of the CREATOR'S Council, he could have saved him a great deal of labour and absurdity. I will not defend this blasphemous speech; but often, as I have glided with humble stealth through the pomp of Princes'-street, it has suggested itself to me, as an improvement on the present human figure, that a man, in proportion to his own she went with her husband to Mauchline, and is still alive (1838). Her son is now with his paternal uncle, pursuing successfully the honourable calling of a London merchant.] conceit of his consequence in the world, could have pushed out the longitude of his common size, as a snail pushes out his horns, or as we draw out a perspective. This trifling alteration, not to mention the prodigious saving it would be in the tear and wear of the neck and limbsinews of many of his majesty's liege subjects, in the way of tossing the head and tiptoe strutting, would evidently turn out a vast advantage, in enabling us at once to adjust the ceremonials in making a bow, or making way to a great man, and that too within a second of the precise spherical angle of reverence, or an inch of the particular point of respectful distance, which the important creature itself requires; as a measuring-glance at its towering altitude would determine the affair like instinct. poor You are right, Madam, in your idea of Mylne's poem, which he has addressed to me. The piece has a good deal of merit, but it has one great fault it is, by far, too long. Besides, my success has encouraged such a shoal of illspawned monsters to crawl into public notice, under the title of Scottish Poets, that the very term Scottish Poetry borders on the burlesque. When I write to Mr. Carfrae, I shall advise him rather to try one of his deceased friend's English pieces. I am prodigiously hurried with my own matters, else I would have requested a perusal of all Mylne's poetic performances; and would have offered his friends my assistance in either selecting or correcting what would be proper for the press. What it is that occupies me so much, and perhaps a little oppresses my spirits, shall fill up a paragraph in some future letter. In the mean time, allow me to close this epistle with a few lines done by I give you them, that, as you have seen the original, you may guess whether one or two alterations I have ventured to make in them be any real im a friend of mine * provement. "Like the fair plant that from our touch withdraws, I do not recollect that I have ever felt a se verer pang of shame than on looking at the date of your obliging letter which accompanied Mr. Mylne's poem. has done me, greatly enhanced in its value by I am much to blame: the honour Mr. Mylne the endearing, though melancholy, circumstance of its being the last production of his muse, deserved a better return. have so I have, as you hint, thought of sending a copy of the poem to some periodical publication; but, on second thoughts, I am afraid that, in the present case, it would be an improper step. My success, perhaps as much accidental as merited, has brought an inundation of nonsense under the name of Scottish poetry. Subscription - bills for Scottish poems dunned, and daily do dun the public, that the very name is in danger of contempt. For these reasons, if publishing any of Mr. Mylne's poems in a magazine, &c., be at all prudent, in my opinion it certainly should not be a Scottish poem. The profits of the labours of a man of genius are, I hope, as honourable as any profits whatever; and Mr. Mylne's relations are most justly entitled to that honest harvest which fate has denied him self to reap. But let the friends of Mr. Mylne's fame (among whom I crave the honour of ranking myself) always keep in eye his respectability as a man and as a poet, and take no measure that, before the world knows any thing about him, would risk his name and character being classed with the fools of the times. I have, Sir, some experience of publishing; and the way in which I would proceed with Mr. Mylne's poems is this:-I would publish, in two or three English and Scottish public papers, any one of his English poems which should, by private judges, be thought the most excellent, and mention it, at the same time, as one of the productions of a Lothian farmer, of respectable character, lately deceased, whose poems his friends had it in idea to publish, soon, by subscription, for the sake of his numerous family:-not in pity to that family, but in justice to what his friends think the poetic merits of the deceased; and to secure, in the most effectual manner, to those tender connexions, whose right it is, the pecuniary reward of those merits.† R. B. accompany this letter. He was a man highly respectable for every accomplishment and virtue which adorns the character of a man or a Christian. To a great degree of literature, of taste, and poetic genius, were added an invincible modesty of temper, which prevented, in some measure, his figuring in life, and confined the perfect knowledge of his character and talents to the small circle of his chosen friends. He was ultimately taken from us, a few weeks ago, by an inflamma Ο THE gentleman who will deliver you this is a Mr. Nielson, a worthy clergyman in my neighbourhood, and a very particular acquaintance of mine.* As I have troubled him with this packet, I must turn him over to your goodness, to recompense him for it in a way in which he much needs your assistance, and where you can effectually serve him:-Mr. Nielson is on his way for France, to wait on his Grace of Queensberry, on some little business of a good deal of importance to him, and he wishes for your instructions respecting the most eligible mode of travelling, &c., for him, when he has crossed the Channel. I should not have dared to take this liberty with you, but that I am told, by those who have the honour of your personal acquaintance, that to be a poor honest Scotchman is a letter of recommendation to you, and that to have it in your power to serve such a character gives you much pleasure. The enclosed ode is a compliment to the memory of the late Mrs. Oswald, of Auchencruive. You, probably, knew her personally, an honour of which I cannot boast; but I spent my early years in her neighbourhood, and among her servants and tenants. I know that she was detested with the most heartfelt cordiality. However, in the particular part of her conduct which roused my poetic wrath, she was much less blameable. În January last, on my road to Ayr-shire, I had put up at Bailie Whigham's, in Sanquhar, the only tolerable inn in the place. The frost was keen, and the grim evening and howling wind were ushering in a night of snow and drift. My horse and I were both much fatigued with the labours of the day, and just as my friend the Bailie and I were bidding defiance to the storm, over a smoking bowl, in wheels the funeral pageantry of the late great Mrs. Oswald, and poor I was forced to brave all the horrors of the tempestaous night, and jade my horse, my young favourite horse, whom I had just christened Pegasus, twelve miles farther on, through the wildest moors and hills of Ayr-shire, to New Cumnock, the next inn. The powers of poesy and prose sink under me, when I would describe what I felt. Suffice it to say that, when a good fire at New Cumnock had so far recovered my frozen sinews, I sat down and wrote the enclosed ode. I was at Edinburgh lately, and settled finally with Mr. Creech; and I must own that, at last, he has been amicable and fair with me. R. B.t among his parishioners men concerned in the contraband trade, nor did he escape the suspicion of silently permitting a traffic which injured the morals of his people more deeg y than either his admonitions or example could mend.) † [Dr. Moore's reply to this letter is as follows: "DEAR SIR, Clifford-street, June 10, 1789. "I thank you for the different communications you have made me of your occasional productions in manuscript, ail of which have merit, and some of them merit of a different kind from what appears in the poems you have published You ought carefully to preserve all your occasional produc tory fever, in the prime of life-beloved by all who enjoyed his acquaintance, and lamented by all who have any regard for virtue or genius. There is a woe pronounced in Scripture against the person whom all men speak well of; if ever that woe fell upon the head of mortal man, it fell upon him. He has left behind him a considerable number of compositions, chiefly poetical; sufficient, I imagine, to make a large octavo volume. In particular, two complete and regular tragedies, a farce of three acts, and some smaller poems on different subjects. It falls to my share, who have lived in the most intimate and uninterrupted friendship with him from my youth upwards, to transmit to you the verses he wrote on the publication of your incomparable poems. It is probabletions, to correct and improve them at your leisure; and when they were his last, as they were found in his scrutoire, folded up in the form of a letter addressed to you, and, I imagine, were only prevented from being sent by himself by that melancholy dispensation which we still bemoan. The verses themselves I will not pretend to criticise when writing to a gentleman whom I consider as entirely qualified to judge of their merit. They are the only verses he seems to have attempted in the Scottish style; and I hesitate not to say, in general, that they will bring no dishonour on the Scottish muse; and allow me to add that, if it is your opinion they are not unworthy of the Author, and will be no discredit to you, it is the inclination of Mr. Mylne's friends that they should be immediately published in some periodical work, to give the world a specimen of what may be expected from his performances in the poetic line, which. perhaps, will be afterwards published for the advantage of his family. lish it either at Edinburgh or London, by subscription; on you can select as many of these as will make a volume, pubsuch an occasion, it may be in my power, as it is very much in my inclinations, to be of service to you. "If I were to offer an opinion, it would be that in your future productions you should abandon the Scottish stanza and dialect, and adopt the measure and language of modern English poetry. "The stanza which you use in imitation of Christ Kirk on the Green, with the tiresome repetition of that day," is fatiguing to English ears, and I should think not very agree able to Scottish. "All the fine satire and humour of your Holy Fair is last on the English; yet, without more trouble to yourself, you could have conveyed the whole to them. The same is true of some of your other poems. In your Epistle to James Smith, the stanzas from that beginning with this line, Ts life, so far's I understand," to that which ends with,Shirt while it grieves,' are easy, flowing, gaily philosophical, and, of Horatian elegance-the language is English, with a few Scottish words, and some of those so harmonious as to add to the beauty; for what poet would not prefer gloaming to twilight? "I imagine that by carefully keeping, and occasionally polishing and correcting, those verses, which the Muse dietates, you will, within a year or two, have another volume as large as the first, ready for the press; and this without diverting you from every proper attention to the study and practice of husbandry, in which I understand you are very paper. It is economy, Sir; it is that cardinal virtue, prudence; so I beg you will sit down, and either compose or borrow a panegyric. If you are going to borrow, apply to ** ***+ to compose, or rather to compound, something very clever on my remarkable frugality; that I write to one of my most esteemed friends on this wretched paper, which was originally intended for the venal fist of some drunken exciseman, to take dirty notes in a miserable vault of an ale-cellar. learned, and which I fancy you will choose to adhere to as a wife, while poetry amuses you from time to time as a mistress. The former, like a prudent wife, must not shew ill humour, although you retain a sneaking kindness to this agreeable gipsey, and pay her occasional visits, which in no manner alienates your heart from your lawful spouse, but tends, on the contrary, to promote her interest. I desired Mr. Cadell to write to Mr. Creech, to send you a copy of Zeluco, This performance has had great success here; but I shall be glad to have your opinion of it, because Í value your opinion, and because I know you are above saying what you do not think. "I beg you will offer my best wishes to my very good friend, Mrs. Hamilton, who I understand is your neighbour. If she is as happy as I wish her, she is happy enough. Make my compliments also to Mrs. Burns, and believe me to be with sincere esteem, dear Sir, yours, &c. [The original of the above letter from the Poet to his O Frugality! thou mother of ten thousand blessings-thou cook of fat beef and dainty greens!-thou manufacturer of warm Shetland hose, and comfortable surtouts! — thou old housewife, darning thy decayed stockings with thy ancient spectacles on thy aged nose!-lead me, hand me in thy clutching palsied fist, up those heights, and through those thickets, hitherto inaccessible, and impervious to my anxious, weary feet :-not those Parnassian crags, bleak and barren, where the hungry worshippers of fame are, breathless, clambering, hanging between heaven and hell; but those glittering cliffs of Potosi, where the all-sufficient, allpowerful deity, Wealth, holds his immediate Court of joys and pleasures; where the sunny exposure of plenty, and the hot walls of profusion, produce those blissful fruits of luxury, exotics in this world, and natives of Paradise! usher me into thy refulgent, adored presence !---Thou withered sybil, my sage conductress, The power, splendid and potent as he now is, was once the puling nursling of thy faithful care, and tender arms!-Call me thy son, thy cousin, thy kinsman, or favourite, and adjure the god, by the scenes of his infant years, no longer to repulse me as a stranger, or an alien, but to favour me with his peculiar countenance and protection !--He daily bestows his greatest kindness on the undeserving and the worthless -assure him that I bring ample documents of meritorious demerits! Pledge yourself for me, that, for the glorious cause of LUCRE, I will do any thing, be any thing-but the horseleech of private oppression, or the vulture of public robbery! But to descend from heroics. There I want a Shakspeare; I want likewise an English dictionary-Johnson's, I suppose, is the best. In these, and all my prose commissions, the cheapest is always the best for me. is a small debt of honour that I owe Mr. Robert Cleghorn, in Saughton Mills, my worthy friend, and your well-wisher. Please give him, and urge him to take it, the first time you see him, ten shillings worth of any thing you have to sell, and place it to my account. brother William, is in the possession of Mr. J. Fraser, of the Red Lion Inn, Shakspeare Square, Edinburgh (a poet of no mean powers, and author of "Craigmillar," the "Soldier's Dream," and many other pieces, 1 vol. published in Edinburgh some time ago). The letter is framed and placed between two plates of glass-is suspended in one of the public apartments of the "Red Lion," where, trifling though it be, it is regarded by many visiters as a relic of no ordinary interest, and may be seen by any of the Poet's admirers. The letter was presented by Mr. Begg, schoolmaster, Ormiston, East Lothian, the poet's nephew (son of Nannie, alluded to in the letter,) to Mr. St. George Haddington, and by the latter gentleman to our friend Fraser. The letter itself is common-place enough, but the P.S. is strongly characteristic of Burns."-Kilmarnock Journal.] [Probably the name required to fill up this blank was CREECH.-CHAMBERS.] 2 X |