| By Author | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Title | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Language |
|
Download this book: [ ASCII | HTML ] Look for this book on Amazon Tweet |
Title: The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. - With a New Life of the Poet, and Notices, Critical and Biographical by Allan Cunningham
Author: Burns, Robert, 1759-1796, Cunningham, Allan, 1784-1842
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.
*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. - With a New Life of the Poet, and Notices, Critical and Biographical by Allan Cunningham" ***
public domain works from the University of Michigan Digital
Libraries.)
Transcriber's Note.
1. The hyphenation and accent of words is not uniform throughout the
book. No change has been made in this.
2. The relative indentations of Poems, Epitaphs, and Songs are as
printed in the original book.
THE
COMPLETE WORKS
OF
ROBERT BURNS:
CONTAINING HIS
POEMS, SONGS, AND CORRESPONDENCE.
WITH
A NEW LIFE OF THE POET,
AND
NOTICES, CRITICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL,
BY ALLAN CUNNINGHAM.
ELEGANTLY ILLUSTRATED.
BOSTON:
PHILLIPS, SAMPSON, AND COMPANY.
NEW YORK: J.C. DERBY.
1855
TO
ARCHIBALD HASTIE, ESQ.,
MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT FOR PAISLEY
THIS
EDITION
OF
THE WORKS AND MEMOIRS OF A GREAT POET,
IN WHOSE SENTIMENTS OF FREEDOM HE SHARES,
AND WHOSE PICTURES OF SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE HE LOVES,
IS RESPECTFULLY AND GRATEFULLY INSCRIBED
BY
ALLAN CUNNINGHAM.
DEDICATION.
TO THE
NOBLEMEN AND GENTLEMEN
OF THE
CALEDONIAN HUNT.
[On the title-page of the second or Edinburgh edition, were these
words: "Poems, chiefly in the Scottish Dialect, by Robert Burns,
printed for the Author, and sold by William Creech, 1787." The motto
of the Kilmarnock edition was omitted; a very numerous list of
subscribers followed: the volume was printed by the celebrated
Smellie.]
MY LORDS AND GENTLEMEN:
A Scottish Bard, proud of the name, and whose highest ambition is to
sing in his country's service, where shall he so properly look for
patronage as to the illustrious names of his native land: those who
bear the honours and inherit the virtues of their ancestors? The
poetic genius of my country found me, as the prophetic bard Elijah did
Elisha--at the PLOUGH, and threw her inspiring mantle over
me. She bade me sing the loves, the joys, the rural scenes and rural
pleasures of my native soil, in my native tongue; I tuned my wild,
artless notes as she inspired. She whispered me to come to this
ancient metropolis of Caledonia, and lay my songs under your honoured
protection: I now obey her dictates.
Though much indebted to your goodness, I do not approach you, my Lords
and Gentlemen, in the usual style of dedication, to thank you for past
favours: that path is so hackneyed by prostituted learning that honest
rusticity is ashamed of it. Nor do I present this address with the
venal soul of a servile author, looking for a continuation of those
favours: I was bred to the plough, and am independent. I come to claim
the common Scottish name with you, my illustrious countrymen; and to
tell the world that I glory in the title. I come to congratulate my
country that the blood of her ancient heroes still runs
uncontaminated, and that from your courage, knowledge, and public
spirit, she may expect protection, wealth, and liberty. In the last
place, I come to proffer my warmest wishes to the great fountain of
honour, the Monarch of the universe, for your welfare and happiness.
When you go forth to waken the echoes, in the ancient and favourite
amusement of your forefathers, may Pleasure ever be of your party: and
may social joy await your return! When harassed in courts or camps
with the jostlings of bad men and bad measures, may the honest
consciousness of injured worth attend your return to your native
seats; and may domestic happiness, with a smiling welcome, meet you at
your gates! May corruption shrink at your kindling indignant glance;
and may tyranny in the ruler, and licentiousness in the people,
equally find you an inexorable foe!
I have the honour to be,
With the sincerest gratitude and highest respect,
My Lords and Gentlemen,
Your most devoted humble servant,
ROBERT BURNS.
EDINBURGH, _April 4, 1787._
PREFACE.
I cannot give to my country this edition of one of its favourite
poets, without stating that I have deliberately omitted several pieces
of verse ascribed to Burns by other editors, who too hastily, and I
think on insufficient testimony, admitted them among his works. If I
am unable to share in the hesitation expressed by one of them on the
authorship of the stanzas on "Pastoral Poetry," I can as little share
in the feelings with which they have intruded into the charmed circle
of his poetry such compositions as "Lines on the Ruins of Lincluden
College," "Verses on the Destruction of the Woods of Drumlanrig,"
"Verses written on a Marble Slab in the Woods of Aberfeldy," and those
entitled "The Tree of Liberty." These productions, with the exception
of the last, were never seen by any one even in the handwriting of
Burns, and are one and all wanting in that original vigour of language
and manliness of sentiment which distinguish his poetry. With respect
to "The Tree of Liberty" in particular, a subject dear to the heart of
the Bard, can any one conversant with his genius imagine that he
welcomed its growth or celebrated its fruit with such "capon craws" as
these?
"Upo' this tree there grows sic fruit,
Its virtues a' can tell, man;
It raises man aboon the brute,
It mak's him ken himsel', man.
Gif ance the peasant taste a bit,
He's greater than a lord, man,
An' wi' a beggar shares a mite
O' a' he can afford, man."
There are eleven stanzas, of which the best, compared with the "A
man's a man for a' that" of Burns, sounds like a cracked pipkin
against the "heroic clang" of a Damascus blade. That it is extant in
the handwriting of the poet cannot be taken as a proof that it is his
own composition, against the internal testimony of utter want of all
the marks by which we know him--the Burns-stamp, so to speak, which is
visible on all that ever came from his pen. Misled by his handwriting,
I inserted in my former edition of his works an epitaph, beginning
"Here lies a rose, a budding rose,"
the composition of Shenstone, and which is to be found in the
church-yard of Hales-Owen: as it is not included in every edition of
that poet's acknowledged works, Burns, who was an admirer of his
genius, had, it seems, copied it with his own hand, and hence my
error. If I hesitated about the exclusion of "The Tree of Liberty,"
and its three false brethren, I could have no scruples regarding the
fine song of "Evan Banks," claimed and justly for Miss Williams by Sir
Walter Scott, or the humorous song called "Shelah O'Neal," composed by
the late Sir Alexander Boswell. When I have stated that I have
arranged the Poems, the Songs, and the Letters of Burns, as nearly as
possible in the order in which they were written; that I have omitted
no piece of either verse or prose which bore the impress of his hand,
nor included any by which his high reputation would likely be
impaired, I have said all that seems necessary to be said, save that
the following letter came too late for insertion in its proper place:
it is characteristic and worth a place anywhere.
ALLAN CUNNINGHAM.
* * * * *
TO DR. ARCHIBALD LAURIE.
_Mossgiel, 13th Nov. 1786._
DEAR SIR,
I have along with this sent the two volumes of Ossian, with the
remaining volume of the Songs. Ossian I am not in such a hurry about;
but I wish the Songs, with the volume of the Scotch Poets, returned as
soon as they can conveniently be dispatched. If they are left at Mr.
Wilson, the bookseller's shop, Kilmarnock, they will easily reach me.
My most respectful compliments to Mr. and Mrs. Laurie; and a Poet's
warmest wishes for their happiness to the young ladies; particularly
the fair musician, whom I think much better qualified than ever David
was, or could be, to charm an evil spirit out of a Saul.
Indeed, it needs not the Feelings of a poet to be interested in the
welfare of one of the sweetest scenes of domestic peace and kindred
love that ever I saw; as I think the peaceful unity of St. Margaret's
Hill can only be excelled by the harmonious concord of the Apocalyptic
Zion.
I am, dear Sir, yours sincerely,
ROBERT BURNS.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
THE LIFE OF ROBERT BURNS
Preface to the Kilmarnock Edition of 1786
Dedication to the Edinburgh Edition of 1787
* * * * *
POEMS.
Winter. A Dirge
The Death and dying Words of poor Mailie
Poor Mailie's Elegy
First Epistle to Davie, a brother Poet
Second
Address to the Deil
The auld Farmer's New-year Morning Salutation to his auld Mare Maggie
To a Haggis
A Prayer under the pressure of violent Anguish
A Prayer in the prospect of Death
Stanzas on the same occasion
A Winter Night
Remorse. A Fragment
The Jolly Beggars. A Cantata
Death and Dr. Hornbook. A True Story
The Twa Herds; or, the Holy Tulzie
Holy Willie's Prayer
Epitaph to Holy Willie
The Inventory; in answer to a mandate by the surveyor of taxes
The Holy Fair
The Ordination
The Calf
To James Smith
The Vision
Halloween
Man was made to Mourn. A Dirge
To Ruin
To John Goudie of Kilmarnock, on the publication of his Essays
To J. Lapraik, an old Scottish Bard. First Epistle
To J. Lapraik. Second Epistle
To J. Lapraik. Third Epistle
To William Simpson, Ochiltree
Address to an illegitimate Child
Nature's Law. A Poem humbly inscribed to G.H., Esq.
To the Rev. John M'Math
To a Mouse
Scotch Drink
The Author's earnest Cry and Prayer to the Scotch Representatives of
the House of Commons
Address to the unco Guid, or the rigidly Righteous
Tam Samson's Elegy
Lament, occasioned by the unfortunate issue of a Friend's Amour
Despondency. An Ode
The Cotter's Saturday Night
The first Psalm
The first six Verses of the ninetieth Psalm
To a Mountain Daisy
Epistle to a young Friend
To a Louse, on seeing one on a Lady's Bonnet at Church
Epistle to J. Rankine, enclosing some Poems
On a Scotch Bard, gone to the West Indies
The Farewell
Written on the blank leaf of my Poems, presented to an old Sweetheart
then married
A Dedication to Gavin Hamilton, Esq.
Elegy on the Death of Robert Ruisseaux
Letter to James Tennant of Glenconner
On the Birth of a posthumous Child
To Miss Cruikshank
Willie Chalmers
Verses left in the room where he slept
To Gavin Hamilton, Esq., recommending a boy
To Mr. M'Adam, of Craigen-gillan
Answer to a Poetical Epistle sent to the Author by a Tailor
To J. Rankine. "I am a keeper of the law."
Lines written on a Bank-note
A Dream
A Bard's Epitaph
The Twa Dogs. A Tale
Lines on meeting with Lord Daer
Address to Edinburgh
Epistle to Major Logan
The Brigs of Ayr
On the Death of Robert Dundas, Esq., of Arniston, late Lord President
of the Court of Session
On reading in a Newspaper the Death of John M'Leod, Esq.
To Miss Logan, with Beattie's Poems
The American War, A fragment
The Dean of Faculty. A new Ballad
To a Lady, with a Present of a Pair of Drinking-glasses
To Clarinda
Verses written under the Portrait of the Poet Fergusson
Prologue spoken by Mr. Woods, on his Benefit-night, Monday, April 16,
1787
Sketch. A Character
To Mr. Scott, of Wauchope
Epistle to William Creech
The humble Petition of Bruar-Water, to the noble Duke of Athole
On scaring some Water-fowl in Loch Turit
Written with a pencil, over the chimney-piece, in the parlour of the
Inn at Kenmore, Taymouth
Written with a pencil, standing by the Fall of Fyers, near Loch Ness
To Mr. William Tytler, with the present of the Bard's picture
Written in Friars-Carse Hermitage, on the banks of Nith, June, 1780.
First Copy
The same. December, 1788. Second Copy
To Captain Riddel, of Glenriddel. Extempore lines on returning a
Newspaper
A Mother's Lament for the Death of her Son
First Epistle to Robert Graham, Esq., of Fintray
On the Death of Sir James Hunter Blair
Epistle to Hugh Parker
Lines, intended to be written under a Noble Earl's Picture
Elegy on the year 1788. A Sketch
Address to the Toothache
Ode. Sacred to the memory of Mrs. Oswald, of Auchencruive
Fragment inscribed to the Right Hon. C.J. Fox
On seeing a wounded Hare limp by me, which a Fellow had just shot
To Dr. Blacklock. In answer to a Letter
Delia. An Ode
To John M'Murdo, Esq.
Prologue, spoken at the Theatre, Dumfries, 1st January, 1790
Scots Prologue, for Mr. Sutherland's Benefit-night, Dumfries
Sketch. New-year's Day. To Mrs. Dunlop
To a Gentleman who had sent him a Newspaper, and offered to continue
it free of expense
The Kirk's Alarm. A Satire. First Version
The Kirk's Alarm. A Ballad. Second Version
Peg Nicholson
On Captain Matthew Henderson, a gentleman who held the patent for his
honours immediately from Almighty God
The Five Carlins. A Scots Ballad
The Laddies by the Banks o' Nith
Epistle to Robert Graham, Esq., of Fintray, on the close of the
disputed Election between Sir James Johnstone, and Captain Miller, for
the Dumfries district of Boroughs
On Captain Grose's Peregrination through Scotland, collecting the
Antiquities of that kingdom
Written in a wrapper, enclosing a letter to Captain Grose
Tam O' Shanter. A Tale
Address of Beelzebub to the President of the Highland Society
To John Taylor
Lament of Mary Queen of Scots, on the approach of Spring
The Whistle
Elegy on Miss Burnet of Monboddo
Lament for James, Earl of Glencairn
Lines sent to Sir John Whitefoord, Bart., of Whitefoord, with the
foregoing Poem
Address to the Shade of Thomson, on crowning his Bust at Ednam with
bays
To Robert Graham, Esq., of Fintray
To Robert Graham, Esq., of Fintray, on receiving a favour
A Vision
To John Maxwell, of Terraughty, on his birthday
The Rights of Women, an occasional Address spoken by Miss Fontenelle,
on her benefit-night, Nov. 26, 1792
Monody on a Lady famed for her caprice
Epistle from Esopus to Maria
Poem on Pastoral Poetry
Sonnet, written on the 25th January, 1793, the birthday of the Author,
on hearing a thrush sing in a morning walk
Sonnet on the death of Robert Riddel, Esq., of Glenriddel, April, 1794
Impromptu on Mrs. Riddel's birthday
Liberty. A Fragment
Verses to a young Lady
The Vowels. A Tale
Verses to John Rankine
On Sensibility. To my dear and much-honoured friend, Mrs. Dunlop, of
Dunlop
Lines sent to a Gentleman whom he had offended Address spoken by Miss
Fontenelle on her Benefit-night
On seeing Miss Fontenelle in a favourite character
To Chloris
Poetical Inscription for an Altar to Independence
The Heron Ballads. Balled First
The Heron Ballads. Ballad Second
The Heron Ballads. Ballad Third
Poem addressed to Mr. Mitchell, Collector of Excise, Dumfries, 1796
To Miss Jessy Lewars, Dumfries, with Johnson's
Musical Museum
Poem on Life, addressed to Colonel de Peyster, Dumfries, 1796
* * * * *
EPITAPHS, EPIGRAMS, FRAGMENTS, &c.
On the Author's Father
On R.A., Esq.
On a Friend
For Gavin Hamilton
On wee Johnny
On John Dove, Innkeeper, Mauchline
On a Wag in Mauchline
On a celebrated ruling Elder
On a noisy Polemic
On Miss Jean Scott
On a henpecked Country Squire
On the same
On the same
The Highland Welcome
On William Smellie
Written on a window of the Inn at Carron
The Book-worms
Lines on Stirling
The Reproof
The Reply
Lines written under the Picture of the celebrated Miss Burns
Extempore in the Court of Session
The henpecked Husband
Written at Inverary
On Elphinston's Translation of Martial's Epigrams
Inscription on the Head-stone of Fergusson
On a Schoolmaster
A Grace before Dinner
A Grace before Meat
On Wat
On Captain Francis Grose
Impromptu to Miss Ainslie
The Kirk of Lamington
The League and Covenant
Written on a pane of glass in the Inn at Moffat
Spoken on being appointed to the Excise
Lines on Mrs. Kemble
To Mr. Syme
To Mr. Syme, with a present of a dozen of porter
A Grace
Inscription on a goblet
The Invitation
The Creed of Poverty
Written in a Lady's pocket-book
The Parson's Looks
The Toad-eater
On Robert Riddel
The Toast
On a Person nicknamed the Marquis
Lines written on a window
Lines written on a window of the Globe Tavern, Dumfries
The Selkirk Grace
To Dr. Maxwell, on Jessie Staig's Recovery
Epitaph
Epitaph on William Nicol
On the Death of a Lapdog, named Echo
On a noted Coxcomb
On seeing the beautiful Seat of Lord Galloway
On the same
On the same
To the same, on the Author being threatened with his resentment
On a Country Laird
On John Bushby
The true loyal Natives
On a Suicide
Extempore, pinned on a Lady's coach
Lines to John Rankine
Jessy Lewars
The Toast
On Miss Jessy Lewars
On the recovery of Jessy Lewars
Tam the Chapman
"Here's a bottle and an honest friend"
"Tho' fickle fortune has deceived me"
To John Kennedy
To the same
"There's naethin' like the honest nappy"
On the blank leaf of a work by Hannah More, presented by Mrs. C
To the Men and Brethren of the Masonic Lodge at Tarbolton
Impromptu
Prayer for Adam Armour
* * * * *
SONGS AND BALLADS.
Handsome Nell
Luckless Fortune
"I dream'd I lay where flowers were springing"
Tibbie, I hae seen the day
"My father was a farmer upon the Carrick border"
John Barleycorn. A Ballad
The Rigs o' Barley
Montgomery's Peggy
The Mauchline Lady
The Highland Lassie
Peggy
The rantin' Dog the Daddie o't
"My heart was ance as blithe and free"
My Nannie O
A Fragment. "One night as I did wander"
Bonnie Peggy Alison
Green grow the Rashes, O
My Jean
Robin
"Her flowing locks, the raven's wing"
"O leave novels, ye Mauchline belles"
Young Peggy
The Cure for all Care
Eliza
The Sons of Old Killie
And maun I still on Menie doat
The Farewell to the Brethren of St. James's Lodge, Tarbolton
On Cessnock Banks
Mary
The Lass of Ballochmyle
"The gloomy night is gathering fast"
"O whar did ye get that hauver meal bannock?"
The Joyful Widower
"O Whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad"
"I am my mammy's ae bairn"
The Birks of Aberfeldy
Macpherson's Farewell
Braw, braw Lads of Galla Water
"Stay, my charmer, can you leave me?"
Strathallan's Lament
My Hoggie
Her Daddie forbad, her Minnie forbad
Up in the Morning early
The young Highland Rover
Hey the dusty Miller
Duncan Davison
Theniel Menzies' bonnie Mary
The Banks of the Devon
Weary fa' you, Duncan Gray
The Ploughman
Landlady, count the Lawin
"Raving winds around her blowing"
"How long and dreary is the night"
Musing on the roaring Ocean
Blithe, blithe and merry was she
The blude red rose at Yule may blaw
O'er the Water to Charlie
A Rose-bud by my early walk
Rattlin', roarin' Willie
Where braving angry Winter's Storms
Tibbie Dunbar
Bonnie Castle Gordon
My Harry was a gallant gay
The Tailor fell through the bed, thimbles an' a'
Ay Waukin O!
Beware o' Bonnie Ann
The Gardener wi' his paidle
Blooming Nelly
The day returns, my bosom burns
My Love she's but a lassie yet
Jamie, come try me
Go fetch to me a Pint O' Wine
The Lazy Mist
O mount and go
Of a' the airts the wind can blaw
Whistle o'er the lave o't
O were I on Parnassus' Hill
"There's a youth in this city"
My heart's in the Highlands
John Anderson, my Jo
Awa, Whigs, awa
Ca' the Ewes to the Knowes
Merry hae I been teethin' a heckle
The Braes of Ballochmyle
To Mary in Heaven
Eppie Adair
The Battle of Sherriff-muir
Young Jockey was the blithest lad
O Willie brewed a peck o' maut
The braes o' Killiecrankie, O
I gaed a waefu' gate yestreen
The Banks of Nith
Tam Glen
Frae the friends and land I love
Craigie-burn Wood
Cock up your Beaver
O meikle thinks my luve o' my beauty
Gudewife, count the Lawin
There'll never be peace till Jamie comes hame
The bonnie lad that's far awa
I do confess thou art sae fair
Yon wild mossy mountains sae lofty and wide
It is na, Jean, thy bonnie face
When I think on the happy days
Whan I sleep I dream
"I murder hate by field or flood"
O gude ale comes and gude ale goes
Robin shure in hairst
Bonnie Peg
Gudeen to you, Kimmer
Ah, Chloris, since it may na be
Eppie M'Nab
Wha is that at my bower-door
What can a young lassie do wi' an auld man
Bonnie wee thing, cannie wee thing
The tither morn when I forlorn
Ae fond kiss, and then we sever
Lovely Davies
The weary Pond o' Tow
Naebody
An O for ane and twenty, Tam
O Kenmure's on and awa, Willie
The Collier Laddie
Nithsdale's Welcome Hame
As I was a-wand'ring ae Midsummer e'enin
Bessy and her Spinning-wheel
The Posie
The Country Lass
Turn again, thou fair Eliza
Ye Jacobites by name
Ye flowery banks o'bonnie Doon
Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon
Willie Wastle
O Lady Mary Ann
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation
The Carle of Kellyburn braes
Jockey's ta'en the parting kiss
Lady Onlie
The Chevalier's Lament
Song of Death
Flow gently, sweet Afton
Bonnie Bell
Hey ca' thro', ca' thro'
The Gallant weaver
The deuks dang o'er my Daddie
She's fair and fause
The Deil cam' fiddling thro' the town
The lovely Lass of Inverness
O my luve's like a red, red rose
Louis, what reck I by thee
Had I the wyte she bade me
Coming through the rye
Young Jamie, pride of a' the plain
Out over the Forth I look to the north
The Lass of Ecclefechan
The Cooper o' Cuddie
For the sake of somebody
I coft a stane o' haslock woo
The lass that made the bed for me
Sae far awa
I'll ay ca' in by yon town
O wat ye wha's in yon town
O May, thy morn
Lovely Polly Stewart
Bonnie laddie, Highland laddie
Anna, thy charms my bosom fire
Cassilis' Banks
To thee, lov'd Nith
Bannocks o' Barley
Hee Balou! my sweet wee Donald
Wae is my heart, and the tear's in my e'e
Here's his health in water
My Peggy's face, my Peggy's form
Gloomy December
My lady's gown, there's gairs upon 't
Amang the trees, where humming bees
The gowden locks of Anna
My ain kind dearie, O
Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary
She is a winsome wee thing
Bonny Leslie
Highland Mary
Auld Rob Morris
Duncan Gray
O poortith cauld, and restless love
Galla Water
Lord Gregory
Mary Morison
Wandering Willie. First Version
Wandering Willie. Last Version
Oh, open the door to me, oh!
Jessie
The poor and honest sodger
Meg o' the Mill
Blithe hae I been on yon hill
Logan Water
"O were my love yon lilac fair"
Bonnie Jean
Phillis the fair
Had I a cave on some wild distant shore
By Allan stream
O Whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad
Adown winding Nith I did wander
Come, let me take thee to my breast
Daintie Davie
Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled. First Version
Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled. Second Version
Behold the hour, the boat arrives
Thou hast left me ever, Jamie
Auld lang syne
"Where are the joys I have met in the morning"
"Deluded swain, the pleasure"
Nancy
Husband, husband, cease your strife
Wilt thou be my dearie?
But lately seen in gladsome green
"Could aught of song declare my pains"
Here's to thy health, my bonnie lass
It was a' for our rightfu' king
O steer her up and haud her gaun
O ay my wife she dang me
O wert thou in the cauld blast
The Banks of Cree
On the seas and far away
Ca' the Yowes to the Knowes
Sae flaxen were her ringlets
O saw ye my dear, my Phely?
How lang and dreary is the night
Let not woman e'er complain
The Lover's Morning Salute to his Mistress
My Chloris, mark how green the groves
Youthful Chloe, charming Chloe
Lassie wi' the lint-white locks
Farewell, thou stream, that winding flows
O Philly, happy be the day
Contented wi' little and cantie wi' mair
Canst thou leave me thus, my Katy
My Nannie's awa
O wha is she that lo'es me
Caledonia
O lay thy loof in mine, lass
The Fête Champêtre
Here's a health to them that's awa
For a' that, and a' that
Craigieburn Wood
O lassie, art thou sleeping yet
O tell na me o' wind and rain
The Dumfries Volunteers
Address to the Wood-lark
On Chloris being ill
Their groves o' sweet myrtle let foreign lands reckon
'Twas na her bonnie blue een was my ruin
How cruel are the parents
Mark yonder pomp of costly fashion
O this is no my ain lassie
Now Spring has clad the grove in green
O bonnie was yon rosy brier
Forlorn my love, no comfort near
Last May a braw wooer cam down the lang glen
Chloris
The Highland Widow's Lament
To General Dumourier
Peg-a-Ramsey
There was a bonnie lass
O Mally's meek, Mally's sweet
Hey for a lass wi' a tocher
Jessy. "Here's a health to ane I lo'e dear"
Fairest Maid on Devon banks
* * * * *
GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE.
1781.
No. I. To William Burness. His health a little better, but tired of
life. The Revelations
1783.
II. To Mr. John Murdoch. His present studies and temper of mind
III. To Mr. James Burness. His father's illness, and sad state of the
country
IV. To Miss E. Love
V. To Miss E. Love
VI. To Miss E. Love
VII. To Miss E. On her refusal of his hand
VIII. To Robert Riddel, Esq. Observations on poetry and human life
1784.
IX. To Mr. James Burness. On the death of his father
X. To Mr. James Burness. Account of the Buchanites
XI. To Miss ----. With a book
1786.
XII. To Mr. John Richmond. His progress in poetic composition
XIII. To Mr. John Kennedy. The Cotter's Saturday Night
XIV. To Mr. Robert Muir. Enclosing his "Scotch Drink"
XV. To Mr. Aiken. Enclosing a stanza on the blank leaf of a book by
Hannah More
XVI. To Mr. M'Whinnie, Subscriptions
XVII. To Mr. John Kennedy. Enclosing "The Gowan"
XVIII. To Mon. James Smith. His voyage to the West Indies
XIX. To Mr. John Kennedy. His poems in the press. Subscriptions
XX. To Mr. David Brice. Jean Armour's return,--printing his poems
XXI. To Mr. Robert Aiken. Distress of mind
XXII. To Mr. John Richmond. Jean Armour
XXIII. To John Ballantyne, Esq. Aiken's coldness. His marriage-lines
destroyed
XXIV. To Mr. David Brice. Jean Armour. West Indies
XXV. To Mr. John Richmond. West Indies The Armours
XXVI. To Mr. Robert Muir. Enclosing "The Calf"
XXVII. To Mrs. Dunlop. Thanks for her notice. Sir William Wallace
XXVIII. To Mr. John Kennedy. Jamaica
XXIX. To Mr. James Burness. His departure uncertain
XXX. To Miss Alexander. "The Lass of Ballochmyle"
XXXI. To Mrs. Stewart, of Stair and Afton. Enclosing some songs. Miss
Alexander
XXXII. Proclamation in the name of the Muses
XXXIII. To Mr. Robert Muir. Enclosing "Tam Samson." His Edinburgh
expedition
XXXIV. To Dr. Mackenzie. Enclosing the verses on dining with Lord Daer
XXXV. To Gavin Hamilton, Esq. Rising fame. Patronage
XXXVI. To John Ballantyne, Esq. His patrons and patronesses. The
Lounger
XXXVII. To Mr. Robert Muir. A note of thanks. Talks of sketching the
history of his life
XXXVIII. To Mr. William Chalmers. A humorous sally
1787.
XXXIX. To the Earl of Eglinton. Thanks for his patronage
XL. To Gavin Hamilton, Esq. Love
XLI. To John Ballantyne, Esq. Mr. Miller's offer of a farm
XLII. To John Ballantyne, Esq. Enclosing "The Banks o' Doon." First
Copy
XLIII. To Mrs. Dunlop. Dr. Moore and Lord Eglinton. His situation in
Edinburgh
XLIV. To Dr. Moore. Acknowledgments for his notice
XLV. To the Rev. G. Lowrie. Reflections on his situation in life. Dr.
Blacklock, Mackenzie
XLVI. To Dr. Moore. Miss Williams
XLVII. To John Ballantyne, Esq. His portrait engraving
XLVIII. To the Earl of Glencairn. Enclosing "Lines intended to be
written under a noble Earl's picture"
XLIX. To the Earl of Buchan. In reply to a letter of advice
L. To Mr. James Candlish. Still "the old man with his deeds"
LI. To ----. On Fergusson's headstone
LII. To Mrs. Dunlop. His prospects on leaving Edinburgh 341
LIII. To Mrs. Dunlop. A letter of acknowledgment for the payment of
the subscription
LIV. To Mr. Sibbald. Thanks for his notice in the magazine
LV. To Dr. Moore. Acknowledging the present of his View of Society
LVI. To Mr. Dunlop. Reply to criticisms
LVII. To the Rev. Dr. Hugh Blair. On leaving Edinburgh. Thanks for his
kindness
LVIII. To the Earl of Glencairn. On leaving Edinburgh
LIX. To Mr. William Dunbar. Thanking him for the present of Spenser's
poems
LX. To Mr. James Johnson. Sending a song to the Scots Musical Museum
LXI. To Mr. William Creech. His tour on the Border. Epistle in verse
to Creech
LXII. To Mr. Patison. Business
LXIII. To Mr. W. Nicol. A ride described in broad Scotch
LXIV. To Mr. James Smith. Unsettled in life. Jamaica
LXV. To Mr. W. Nicol. Mr. Miller, Mr. Burnside. Bought a pocket Milton
LXVI. To Mr. James Candlish. Seeking a copy of Lowe's poem of
"Pompey's Ghost"
LXVII. To Robert Ainslie, Esq. His tour
LXVIII. To Mr. W. Nicol. Auchtertyre
LXIX. To Mr. Wm. Cruikshank. Auchtertyre
LXX. To Mr. James Smith. An adventure
LXXI. To Mr. John Richmond. His rambles
LXXII. To Mr. Robert Ainslie. Sets high value on his friendship
LXXIII. To the same. Nithsdale and Edinburgh
LXXIV. To Dr. Moore. Account of his own life
LXXV. To Mr. Robert Ainslie. A humorous letter
LXXVI. To Mr. Robert Muir. Stirling, Bannockburn
LXXVII. To Gavin Hamilton, Esq. Of Mr. Hamilton's own family
LXXVIII. To Mr. Walker. Bruar Water. The Athole family
LXXIX. To Mr. Gilbert Burns. Account of his Highland tour
LXXX. To Miss Margaret Chalmers. Charlotte Hamilton. Skinner.
Nithsdale
LXXXI. To the same. Charlotte Hamilton, and "The Banks of the Devon"
LXXXII. To James Hoy, Esq. Mr. Nicol. Johnson's Musical Museum
LXXXIII. To Rev. John Skinner. Thanking him for his poetic compliment
LXXXIV. To James Hoy, Esq. Song by the Duke of Gordon
LXXXV. To Mr. Robert Ainslie. His friendship for him
LXXXVI. To the Earl of Glencairn. Requesting his aid in obtaining an
excise appointment
LXXXVII. To James Dalrymple, Esq. Rhyme. Lord Glencairn
LXXXVIII. To Charles Hay, Esq. Enclosing his poem on the death of the
Lord President Dundas
LXXXIX. To Miss M----n. Compliments
XC. To Miss Chalmers. Charlotte Hamilton
XCI. To the same. His bruised limb. The Bible. The Ochel Hills
XCII. To the same. His motto--"I dare." His own worst enemy
XCIII. To Sir John Whitefoord. Thanks for his friendship. Of poets
XCIV. To Miss Williams. Comments on her poem of the Slave Trade
XCV. To Mr. Richard Brown. Recollections of early life. Clarinda
XCVI. To Gavin Hamilton, Esq. Prayer for his health
XCVII. To Miss Chalmers. Complimentary poems. Creech
1788.
XCVIII. To Mrs. Dunlop. Lowness of spirits. Leaving Edinburgh
XCIX. To the same. Religion
C. To the Rev. John Skinner. Tullochgorum. Skinner's Latin
CI. To Mr. Richard Brown. His arrival in Glasgow
CII. To Mrs. Rose of Kilravock. Recollections of Kilravock
CIII. To Mr. Richard Brown. Friendship. The pleasures of the present
CIV. To Mr. William Cruikshank. Ellisland. Plans in life
CV. To Mr. Robert Ainslie. Ellisland. Edinburgh. Clarinda
CVI. To Mr. Richard Brown. Idleness. Farming
CVII. To Mr. Robert Muir. His offer for Ellisland. The close of life
CVIII. To Miss Chalmers. Taken Ellisland. Miss Kennedy
CIX. To Mrs. Dunlop. Coila's robe
CX. To Mr. Richard Brown. Apologies. On his way to Dumfries from
Glasgow
CXI. To Mr. Robert Cleghorn. Poet and fame. The air of Captain O'Kean
CXII. To Mr. William Dunbar. Foregoing poetry and wit for farming and
business
CXIII. To Miss Chalmers. Miss Kennedy. Jean Armour
CXIV. To the same. Creech's rumoured bankruptcy
CXV. To the same. His entering the Excise
CXVI. To Mrs. Dunlop. Fanning and the Excise. Thanks for the loan of
Dryden and Tasso
CXVII. To Mr. James Smith. Jocularity. Jean Armour
CXVIII. To Professor Dugald Stewart. Enclosing some poetic trifles
CXIX. To Mrs. Dunlop. Dryden's Virgil. His preference of Dryden to
Pope
CXX. To Mr. Robert Ainslie. His marriage.
CXXI. To Mrs. Dunlop. On the treatment of servants
CXXII. To the same. The merits of Mrs. Burns
CXXIII. To Mr. Robert Ainslie. The warfare of life. Books. Religion
CXXIV. To the same. Miers' profiles
CXXV. To the same. Of the folly of talking of one's private affairs
CXXVI. To Mr. George Lockhart. The Miss Baillies. Bruar Water
CXXVII. To Mr. Peter Hill. With the present of a cheese
CXXVIII. To Robert Graham Esq., of Fintray. The Excise
CXXIX. To Mr. William Cruikshank. Creech. Lines written in Friar's
Carse Hermitage
CXXX. To Mrs. Dunlop. Lines written at Friar's Carse. Graham of
Fintray
CXXXI. To the same. Mrs. Burns. Of accomplished young ladies
CXXXII. To the same. Mrs. Miller, of Dalswinton. "The Life and Age of
Man."
CXXXIII. To Mr. Beugo. Ross and "The Fortunate Shepherdess."
CXXXIV. To Miss Chalmers. Recollections. Mrs. Burns. Poetry
CXXXV. To Mr. Morison. Urging expedition with his clock and other
furniture for Ellisland
CXXXVI. To Mrs. Dunlop. Mr. Graham. Her criticisms
CXXXVII. To Mr. Peter Hill. Criticism on an "Address to Loch Lomond."
CXXXVIII. To the Editor of the Star. Pleading for the line of the
Stuarts
CXXXIX. To Mrs. Dunlop. The present of a heifer from the Dunlops
CXL. To Mr. James Johnson. Scots Musical Museum
CXLI. To Dr. Blacklock. Poetical progress. His marriage
CXLII. To Mrs. Dunlop. Enclosing "Auld Lang Syne"
CXLIII. To Miss Davies. Enclosing the song of "Charming, lovely
Davies"
CXLIV. To Mr. John Tennant. Praise of his whiskey
1789.
CXLV. To Mrs. Dunlop. Reflections suggested by the day
CXLVI. To Dr. Moore. His situation and prospects
CXLVII. To Mr. Robert Ainslie. His favourite quotations. Musical
Museum
CXLVIII. To Professor Dugald Stewart. Enclosing some poems for his
comments upon
CXLIX. To Bishop Geddes. His situation and prospects
CL. To Mr. James Burness. His wife and farm. Profit from his poems.
Fanny Burns
CLI. To Mrs. Dunlop. Reflections. His success in song encouraged a
shoal of bardlings
CLII. To the Rev. Peter Carfrae. Mr. Mylne's poem
CLIII. To Dr. Moore. Introduction. His ode to Mrs. Oswald
CLIV. To Mr. William Burns. Remembrance
CLV. To Mr. Peter Hill. Economy and frugality. Purchase of books
CLVI. To Mrs. Dunlop. Sketch inscribed to the Right Hon. C.J. Fox
CLVII. To Mr. William Burns. Asking him to make his house his home
CLVIII. To Mrs. M'Murdo. With the song of "Bonnie Jean"
CLIX. To Mr. Cunningham. With the poem of "The Wounded Hare"
CLX. To Mr. Samuel Brown. His farm. Ailsa fowling
CLXI. To Mr. Richard Brown. Kind wishes
CLXII. To Mr. James Hamilton. Sympathy
CLXIII. To William Creech, Esq. Toothache. Good wishes
CLXIV. To Mr. M'Auley. His own welfare
CLXV. To Mr. Robert Ainslie. Overwhelmed with incessant toil
CLXVI. To Mr. M'Murdo. Enclosing his newest song
CLXVII. To Mrs. Dunlop. Reflections on religion
CLXVIII. To Mr. ----. Fergusson the poet
CLXIX. To Miss Williams. Enclosing criticisms on her poems
CLXX. To Mr. John Logan. With "The Kirk's Alarm"
CLXXI. To Mrs. Dunlop. Religion. Dr. Moore's "Zeluco"
CLXXII. To Captain Riddel. "The Whistle"
CLXXIII. To the same. With some of his MS. poems
CLXXIV. To Mr. Robert Ainslie. His Excise employment
CLXXV. To Mr. Richard Brown. His Excise duties
CLXXVI. To Robert Graham, Esq., of Fintray. The Excise. Captain Grose.
Dr. M'Gill
CLXXVII. To Mrs. Dunlop. Reflections on immortality
CLXXVIII. To Lady M.W. Constable. Jacobitism
CLXXIX. To Provost Maxwell. At a loss for a subject
1790.
CLXXX. To Sir John Sinclair. Account of a book-society in Nithsdale
CLXXXI. To Charles Sharpe, Esq. A letter with a fictitious signature
CLXXXII. To Mr. Gilburt Burns. His farm a ruinous affair. Players
CLXXXIII. To Mr. Sutherland. Enclosing a Prologue
CLXXXIV. To Mr. William Dunbar. Excise. His children. Another world
CLXXXV. To Mrs. Dunlop. Falconer the poet. Old Scottish songs
CLXXXVI. To Mr. Peter Hill. Mademoiselle Burns. Hurdis. Smollett and
Cowper
CLXXXVII. To Mr. W. Nicol. The death of Nicol's mare Peg Nicholson
CLXXXVIII. To Mr. W. Cunningham. What strange beings we are
CLXXXIX. To Mr. Peter Hill. Orders for books. Mankind
CXC. To Mrs. Dunlop. Mackenzie and the Mirror and Lounger
CXCI. To Collector Mitchell. A county meeting
CXCII. To Dr. Moore. "Zeluco." Charlotte Smith
CXCIII. To Mr. Murdoch. William Burns
CXCIV. To Mr. M'Murdo. With the Elegy on Matthew Henderson
CXCV. To Mrs. Dunlop. His pride wounded
CXCVI. To Mr. Cunningham. Independence
CXCVII. To Dr. Anderson. "The Bee."
CXCVIII. To William Tytler, Esq. With some West-country ballads
CXCIX. To Crauford Tait, Esq. Introducing Mr. William Duncan
CC. To Crauford Tait, Esq. "The Kirk's Alarm"
CCI. To Mrs. Dunlop. On the birth of her grandchild. Tam O' Shanter
1791.
CCII. To Lady M.W. Constable. Thanks for the present of a gold
snuff-box
CCIII. To Mr. William Dunbar. Not gone to Elysium. Sending a poem
CCIV. To Mr. Peter Mill. Apostrophe to Poverty
CCV. To Mr. Cunningham. Tam O' Shanter. Elegy on Miss Burnet
CCVI. To A.F. Tytler, Esq. Tam O' Shanter
CCVII. To Mrs. Dunlop. Miss Burnet. Elegy writing
CCVIII. To Rev. Arch. Alison. Thanking him for his "Essay on Taste"
CCIX. To Dr. Moore. Tam O' Shanter. Elegy on Henderson. Zeluco. Lord
Glencairn
CCX. To Mr. Cunningham. Songs
CCXI. To Mr. Alex. Dalzel. The death of the Earl of Glencairn
CCXII. To Mrs. Graham, of Fintray. With "Queen Mary's Lament"
CCXIII. To the same. With his printed Poems
CCXIV. To the Rev. G. Baird. Michael Bruce
CCXV. To Mrs. Dunlop. Birth of a son
CCXVI. To the same. Apology for delay
CCXVII. To the same. Quaint invective on a pedantic critic
CCXVIII. To Mr. Cunningham. The case of Mr. Clarke of Moffat,
Schoolmaster
CCXIX. To the Earl of Buchan. With the Address to the shade of Thomson
CCXX. To Mr. Thomas Sloan. Apologies. His crop sold well
CCXXI. To Lady E. Cunningham. With the Lament for the Earl of
Glencairn
CCXXII. To Mr. Robert Ainslie. State of mind. His income
CCXXIII. To Col. Fullarton. With some Poems. His anxiety for
Fullarton's friendship
CCXXIV. To Miss Davis. Lethargy, Indolence, and Remorse. Our wishes
and our powers
CCXXV. To Mrs. Dunlop. Mrs. Henri. The Song of Death
1792.
CCXXVI. To Mrs. Dunlop. The animadversions of the Board of Excise
CCXXVII. To Mr. William Smellie. Introducing Mrs. Riddel
CCXXVIII. To Mr. W. Nicol. Ironical reply to a letter of counsel and
reproof
CCXXIX. To Francis Grose, Esq. Dugald Stewart
CCXXX. To the same. Witch stories
CCXXXI. To Mr. S. Clarke. Humorous invitation to teach music to the
M'Murdo family
CCXXXII. To Mrs. Dunlop. Love and Lesley Baillie
CCXXXIII. To Mr. Cunningham. Lesley Baillie
CCXXXIV. To Mr. Thomson. Promising his assistance to his collection of
songs and airs
CCXXXV. To Mrs. Dunlop. Situation of Mrs. Henri
CCXXXVI. To the same. On the death of Mrs. Henri
CCXXXVII. To Mr. Thomson. Thomson's fastidiousness. "My Nannie O," &c.
CCXXXVIII. To the same. With "My wife's a winsome wee thing," and
"Lesley Baillie"
CCXXXIX. To the same. With Highland Mary. The air of Katherine Ogie
CCXL. To the same. Thomson's alterations and observations
CCXLI. To the same. With "Auld Rob Morris," and "Duncan Gray"
CCXLII. To Mrs. Dunlop. Birth of a daughter. The poet Thomson's dramas
CCXLIII. To Robert Graham, Esq., of Fintray. The Excise inquiry into
his political conduct
CCXLIV. To Mrs. Dunlop. Hurry of business. Excise inquiry
1793.
CCXLV. To Mr. Thomson. With "Poortith cauld" and "Galla Water"
CCXLVI. To the same. William Tytler, Peter Pindar
CCXLVII. To Mr. Cunningham. The poet's seal. David Allan
CCXLVIII. To Thomson. With "Mary Morison"
CCCXLIX. To the same. With "Wandering Willie"
CCL. To Miss Benson. Pleasure he had in meeting her
CCLI. To Patrick Miller, Esq. With the present of his printed poems
CCLII. To Mr. Thomson. Review of Scottish song. Crawfurd and Ramsay
CCLIII. To the same. Criticism. Allan Ramsay
CCLIV. To the same. "The last time I came o'er the moor"
CCLV. To John Francis Erskine, Esq. Self-justification. The Excise
inquiry
CCLVI. To Mr. Robert Ainslie. Answering letters. Scholar-craft
CCLVII. To Miss Kennedy. A letter of compliment
CCLVIII. To Mr. Thomson. Frazer. "Blithe had I been on yon hill"
CCLIX. To Mr. Thomson. "Logan Water." "O gin my love were yon red
rose"
CCLX. To the same. With the song of "Bonnie Jean"
CCLXI. To the same. Hurt at the idea of pecuniary recompense. Remarks
on song
CCLXII. To the same. Note written in the name of Stephen Clarke
CCLXIII. To the same. With "Phillis the fair"
CCLXIV. To the same. With "Had I a cave on some wild distant shore"
CCLXV. To the same. With "Allan Water"
CCLXVI. To the same. With "O whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad,"
&c.
CCLXVII. To the same. With "Come, let me take thee to my breast"
CCLXVIII. To the same. With "Dainty Davie"
CCLXIX. To Miss Craik. Wretchedness of poets
CCLXX. To Lady Glencairn. Gratitude. Excise. Dramatic composition
CCLXXI. To Mr. Thomson. With "Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled"
CCLXXII. To the same. With "Behold the hour, the boat arrive"
CCLXXIII. To the same. Crawfurd and Scottish song
CCLXXIV. To the same. Alterations in "Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled"
CCLXXV. To the same. Further suggested alterations in "Scots wha hae"
rejected.
CCLXXVI. To the same. With "Deluded swain, the pleasure," and "Raving
winds around her blowing"
CCLXXVII. To the same. Erskine and Gavin Turnbull
CCLXXVIII. To John M'Murdo, Esq. Payment of a debt. "The Merry Muses"
CCLXXIX. To the same. With his printed poems
CCLXXX. To Captain ----. Anxiety for his acquaintance. "Scots wha hae
wi' Wallace bled"
CCLXXXI. To Mrs. Riddel. The Dumfries Theatre
1794.
CCLXXXII. To a Lady. In favour of a player's benefit
CCLXXXIII. To the Earl of Buchan. With a copy of "Scots wha hae"
CCLXXXIV. To Captain Miller. With a copy of "Scots wha hae"
CCLXXXV. To Mrs. Riddel. Lobster-coated puppies
CCLXXXVI. To the same. The gin-horse class of the human genus
CCLXXXVII. To the same. With "Werter." Her reception of him
CCLXXXVIII. To Mrs. Riddel. Her caprice
CCLXXXIX. To the same. Her neglect and unkindness
CCXC. To John Syme, Esq. Mrs. Oswald, and "O wat ye wha's in yon town"
CCXCI. To Miss ----. Obscure allusions to a friend's death. His
personal and poetic fame
CCXCII. To Mr. Cunningham. Hypochondria. Requests consolation
CCXCIII. To the Earl of Glencairn. With his printed poems
CCXCIV. To Mr. Thomson. David Allan. "The banks of Cree"
CCXCV. To David M'Culloch, Esq. Arrangements for a trip in Galloway
CCXCVI. To Mrs. Dunlop. Threatened with flying gout. Ode on
Washington's birthday
CCXCVII. To Mr. James Johnson. Low spirits. The Museum. Balmerino's
dirk
CCXCVIII. To Mr. Thomson. Lines written in "Thomson's Collection of
songs"
CCXCIX. To the same. With "How can my poor heart be glad"
CCC. To the same. With "Ca' the yowes to the knowes"
CCCI. To the same. With "Sae flaxen were her ringlets." Epigram to Dr.
Maxwell.
CCCII. To the same. The charms of Miss Lorimer. "O saw ye my dear, my
Phely," &c.
CCCIII. To the same. Ritson's Scottish Songs. Love and song
CCCIV. To the same. English songs. The air of "Ye banks and braes o'
bonnie Doon"
CCCV. To the same. With "O Philly, happy be the day," and "Contented
wi' little"
CCCVI. To the same. With "Canst thou leave me thus, my Katy"
CCCVII. To Peter Miller, jun., Esq. Excise. Perry's offer to write for
the Morning Chronicle
CCCVIII. To Mr. Samuel Clarke, jun. A political and personal quarrel.
Regret
CCCIX. To Mr. Thomson. With "Now in her green mantle blithe nature
arrays"
1795.
CCCX. To Mr. Thomson. With "For a' that and a' that"
CCCXI. To the same. Abuse of Ecclefechan
CCCXII. To the same. With "O stay, sweet warbling woodlark, stay," and
"The groves of sweet myrtle"
CCCXIII. To the same. With "How cruel are the parents" and "Mark
yonder pomp of costly fashion"
CCCXIV. To the same. Praise of David Allan's "Cotter's Saturday Night"
CCCXV. To the same. With "This is no my ain Lassie." Mrs. Riddel
CCCXVI. To Mr. Thomson. With "Forlorn, my love, no comfort near"
CCCXVII. To the same. With "Last May a braw wooer," and "Why tell thy
lover"
CCCXVIII. To Mrs. Riddel. A letter from the grave
CCCXIX. To the same. A letter of compliment. "Anacharsis' Travels"
CCCXX. To Miss Louisa Fontenelle. With a Prologue for her
benefit-night
CCCXXI. To Mrs. Dunlop. His family. Miss Fontenelle. Cowper's "Task"
CCCXXII. To Mr. Alexander Findlater. Excise schemes
CCCXXIII. To the Editor of the Morning Chronicle. Written for a
friend. A complaint
CCCXXIV. To Mr. Heron, of Heron. With two political ballads
CCCXXV. To Mrs. Dunlop. Thomson's Collection. Acting as Supervisor of
Excise
CCCXXVI. To the Right Hon. William Pitt. Address of the Scottish
Distillers
CCCXXVII. To the Provost, Bailies, and Town Council of Dumfries.
Request to be made a freeman of the town
1796.
CCCXXVIII. To Mrs. Riddel. "Anarcharsis' Travels." The muses
CCCXXIX. To Mrs. Dunlop. His ill-health.
CCCXXX. To Mr. Thomson. Acknowledging his present to Mrs. Burns of a
worsted shawl
CCCXXXI. To the same. Ill-health. Mrs. Hyslop. Allan's etchings.
Cleghorn
CCCXXXII. To the same. "Here's a health to ane I loe dear"
CCCXXXIII. To the same. His anxiety to review his songs, asking for
copies
CCCXXXIV. To Mrs. Riddel. His increasing ill-health
CCCXXXV. To Mr. Clarke, acknowledging money and requesting the loan of
a further sum
CCCXXXVI. To Mr. James Johnson. The Scots Musical Museum. Request for
a copy of the collection
CCCXXXVII. To Mr. Cunningham. Illness and poverty, anticipation of
death
CCCXXXVIII. To Mr. Gilbert Burns. His ill-health and debts
CCCXXXIX. To Mr. James Armour. Entreating Mrs. Armour to come to her
daughter's confinement
CCCXL. To Mrs. Burns. Sea-bathing affords little relief
CCCXLI. To Mrs. Dunlop. Her friendship. A farewell
CCCXLII. To Mr. Thomson. Solicits the sum of five pounds. "Fairest
Maid on Devon Banks"
CCCXLIII. To Mr. James Burness. Soliciting the sum of ten pounds
CCCXLIV. To James Gracie, Esq. His rheumatism, &c. &c.--his loss of
appetite
Remarks on Scottish Songs and Ballads
The Border Tour
The Highland Tour
Burns's Assignment of his Works
Glossary
LIFE
OF
ROBERT BURNS.
Robert Burns, the chief of the peasant poets of Scotland, was born in
a little mud-walled cottage on the banks of Doon, near "Alloway's auld
haunted kirk," in the shire of Ayr, on the 25th day of January, 1759.
As a natural mark of the event, a sudden storm at the same moment
swept the land: the gabel-wall of the frail dwelling gave way, and the
babe-bard was hurried through a tempest of wind and sleet to the
shelter of a securer hovel. He was the eldest born of three sons and
three daughters; his father, William, who in his native
Kincardineshire wrote his name Burness, was bred a gardener, and
sought for work in the West; but coming from the lands of the noble
family of the Keiths, a suspicion accompanied him that he had been
out--as rebellion was softly called--in the forty-five: a suspicion
fatal to his hopes of rest and bread, in so loyal a district; and it
was only when the clergyman of his native parish certified his loyalty
that he was permitted to toil. This suspicion of Jacobitism, revived
by Burns himself, when he rose into fame, seems not to have influenced
either the feelings, or the tastes of Agnes Brown, a young woman on
the Doon, whom he wooed and married in December, 1757, when he was
thirty-six years old. To support her, he leased a small piece of
ground, which he converted into a nursery and garden, and to shelter
her, he raised with his own hands that humble abode where she gave
birth to her eldest son.
The elder Burns was a well-informed, silent, austere man, who endured
no idle gaiety, nor indecorous language: while he relaxed somewhat the
hard, stern creed of the Covenanting times, he enforced all the
work-day, as well as sabbath-day observances, which the Calvinistic
kirk requires, and scrupled at promiscuous dancing, as the staid of
our own day scruple at the waltz. His wife was of a milder mood: she
was blest with a singular fortitude of temper; was as devout of heart,
as she was calm of mind; and loved, while busied in her household
concerns, to sweeten the bitterer moments of life, by chanting the
songs and ballads of her country, of which her store was great. The
garden and nursery prospered so much, that he was induced to widen his
views, and by the help of his kind landlord, the laird of Doonholm,
and the more questionable aid of borrowed money, he entered upon a
neighbouring farm, named Mount Oliphant, extending to an hundred
acres. This was in 1765; but the land was hungry and sterile; the
seasons proved rainy and rough; the toil was certain, the reward
unsure; when to his sorrow, the laird of Doonholm--a generous
Ferguson,--died: the strict terms of the lease, as well as the rent,
were exacted by a harsh factor, and with his wife and children, he was
obliged, after a losing struggle of six years, to relinquish the farm,
and seek shelter on the grounds of Lochlea, some ten miles off, in the
parish of Tarbolton. When, in after-days, men's characters were in the
hands of his eldest son, the scoundrel factor sat for that lasting
portrait of insolence and wrong, in the "Twa Dogs."
In this new farm William Burns seemed to strike root, and thrive. He
was strong of body and ardent of mind: every day brought increase of
vigour to his three sons, who, though very young, already put their
hands to the plough, the reap-hook, and the flail. But it seemed that
nothing which he undertook was decreed in the end to prosper: after
four seasons of prosperity a change ensued: the farm was far from
cheap; the gains under any lease were then so little, that the loss of
a few pounds was ruinous to a farmer: bad seed and wet seasons had
their usual influence: "The gloom of hermits and the moil of
galley-slaves," as the poet, alluding to those days, said, were
endured to no purpose; when, to crown all, a difference arose between
the landlord and the tenant, as to the terms of the lease; and the
early days of the poet, and the declining years of his father, were
harassed by disputes, in which sensitive minds are sure to suffer.
Amid these labours and disputes, the poet's father remembered the
worth of religious and moral instruction: he took part of this upon
himself. A week-day in Lochlea wore the sober looks of a Sunday: he
read the Bible and explained, as intelligent peasants are accustomed
to do, the sense, when dark or difficult; he loved to discuss the
spiritual meanings, and gaze on the mystical splendours of the
Revelations. He was aided in these labours, first, by the
schoolmaster of Alloway-mill, near the Doon; secondly, by John
Murdoch, student of divinity, who undertook to teach arithmetic,
grammar, French, and Latin, to the boys of Lochlea, and the sons of
five neighboring farmers. Murdoch, who was an enthusiast in learning,
much of a pedant, and such a judge of genius that he thought wit
should always be laughing, and poetry wear an eternal smile, performed
his task well: he found Robert to be quick in apprehension, and not
afraid to study when knowledge was the reward. He taught him to turn
verse into its natural prose order; to supply all the ellipses, and
not to desist till the sense was clear and plain: he also, in their
walks, told him the names of different objects both in Latin and
French; and though his knowledge of these languages never amounted to
much, he approached the grammar of the English tongue, through the
former, which was of material use to him, in his poetic compositions.
Burns was, even in those early days, a sort of enthusiast in all that
concerned the glory of Scotland; he used to fancy himself a soldier of
the days of the Wallace and the Bruce: loved to strut after the
bag-pipe and the drum, and read of the bloody struggles of his country
for freedom and existence, till "a Scottish prejudice," he says, "was
poured into my veins, which will boil there till the flood-gates of
life are shut in eternal rest."
In this mood of mind Burns was unconsciously approaching the land of
poesie. In addition to the histories of the Wallace and the Bruce, he
found, on the shelves of his neighbours, not only whole bodies of
divinity, and sermons without limit, but the works of some of the best
English, as well as Scottish poets, together with songs and ballads
innumerable. On these he loved to pore whenever a moment of leisure
came; nor was verse his sole favourite; he desired to drink knowledge
at any fountain, and Guthrie's Grammar, Dickson on Agriculture,
Addison's Spectator, Locke on the Human Understanding, and Taylor's
Scripture Doctrine of Original Sin, were as welcome to his heart as
Shakspeare, Milton, Pope, Thomson, and Young. There is a mystery in
the workings of genius: with these poets in his head and hand, we see
not that he has advanced one step in the way in which he was soon to
walk, "Highland Mary" and "Tam O' Shanter" sprang from other
inspirations.
Burns lifts up the veil himself, from the studies which made him a
poet. "In my boyish days," he says to Moore, "I owed much to an old
woman (Jenny Wilson) who resided in the family, remarkable for her
credulity and superstition. She had, I suppose, the largest collection
in the country of tales and songs, concerning devils, ghosts, fairies,
brownies, witches, warlocks, spunkies, kelpies, elf-candles,
dead-lights, wraiths, apparitions, cantraips, giants, enchanted
towers, dragons, and other trumpery. This cultivated the latent seeds
of poesie; but had so strong an effect upon my imagination that to
this hour, in my nocturnal rambles, I sometimes keep a look-out on
suspicious places." Here we have the young poet taking lessons in the
classic lore of his native land: in the school of Janet Wilson he
profited largely; her tales gave a hue, all their own, to many noble
effusions. But her teaching was at the hearth-stone: when he was in
the fields, either driving a cart or walking to labour, he had ever in
his hand a collection of songs, such as any stall in the land could
supply him with; and over these he pored, ballad by ballad, and verse
by verse, noting the true, tender, and the natural sublime from
affectation and fustian. "To this," he said, "I am convinced that I
owe much of my critic craft, such as it is." His mother, too,
unconsciously led him in the ways of the muse: she loved to recite or
sing to him a strange, but clever ballad, called "the Life and Age of
Man:" this strain of piety and imagination was in his mind when he
wrote "Man was made to Mourn."
He found other teachers--of a tenderer nature and softer influence.
"You know," he says to Moore, "our country custom of coupling a man
and woman together as partners in the labours of harvest. In my
fifteenth autumn my partner was a bewitching creature, a year younger
than myself: she was in truth a bonnie, sweet, sonsie lass, and
unwittingly to herself, initiated me in that delicious passion, which,
in spite of acid disappointment, gin-horse prudence, and bookworm
philosophy, I hold to be the first of human joys. How she caught the
contagion I cannot tell; I never expressly said I loved her: indeed I
did not know myself why I liked so much to loiter behind with her,
when returning in the evenings from our labours; why the tones of her
voice made my heart strings thrill like an Æolian harp, and
particularly why my pulse beat such a furious ratan, when I looked and
fingered over her little hand, to pick out the cruel nettle-stings and
thistles. Among other love-inspiring qualities, she sang sweetly, and
it was her favourite reel to which I attempted to give an embodied
vehicle in rhyme; thus with me began love and verse." This intercourse
with the fair part of the creation, was to his slumbering emotions, a
voice from heaven to call them into life and poetry.
From the school of traditionary lore and love, Burns now went to a
rougher academy. Lochlea, though not producing fine crops of corn, was
considered excellent for flax; and while the cultivation of this
commodity was committed to his father and his brother Gilbert, he was
sent to Irvine at Midsummer, 1781, to learn the trade of a
flax-dresser, under one Peacock, kinsman to his mother. Some time
before, he had spent a portion of a summer at a school in Kirkoswald,
learning mensuration and land-surveying, where he had mingled in
scenes of sociality with smugglers, and enjoyed the pleasure of a
silent walk, under the moon, with the young and the beautiful. At
Irvine he laboured by day to acquire a knowledge of his business, and
at night he associated with the gay and the thoughtless, with whom he
learnt to empty his glass, and indulge in free discourse on topics
forbidden at Lochlea. He had one small room for a lodging, for which
he gave a shilling a week: meat he seldom tasted, and his food
consisted chiefly of oatmeal and potatoes sent from his father's
house. In a letter to his father, written with great purity and
simplicity of style, he thus gives a picture of himself, mental and
bodily: "Honoured Sir, I have purposely delayed writing, in the hope
that I should have the pleasure of seeing you on new years' day, but
work comes so hard upon us that I do not choose to be absent on that
account. My health is nearly the same as when you were here, only my
sleep is a little sounder, and on the whole, I am rather better than
otherwise, though I mend by very slow degrees: the weakness of my
nerves had so debilitated my mind that I dare neither review past
wants nor look forward into futurity, for the least anxiety or
perturbation in my breast produces most unhappy effects on my whole
frame. Sometimes indeed, when for an hour or two my spirits are a
little lightened, I _glimmer_ a little into futurity; but my principal
and indeed my only pleasurable employment is looking backwards and
forwards in a moral and religious way. I am quite transported at the
thought that ere long, perhaps very soon, I shall bid an eternal adieu
to all the pains and uneasinesses, and disquietudes of this weary
life. As for the world, I despair of ever making a figure in it: I am
not formed for the bustle of the busy, nor the flutter of the gay. I
foresee that poverty and obscurity probably await me, and I am in some
measure prepared and daily preparing to meet them. I have but just
time and paper to return you my grateful thanks for the lessons of
virtue and piety you have given me, which were but too much neglected
at the time of giving them, but which, I hope, have been remembered
ere it is yet too late." This remarkable letter was written in the
twenty-second year of his age; it alludes to the illness which seems
to have been the companion of his youth, a nervous headache, brought
on by constant toil and anxiety; and it speaks of the melancholy which
is the common attendant of genius, and its sensibilities, aggravated
by despair of distinction. The catastrophe which happened ere this
letter was well in his father's hand, accords ill with quotations from
the Bible, and hopes fixed in heaven:--"As we gave," he says, "a
welcome carousal to the new year, the shop took fire, and burnt to
ashes, and I was left, like a true poet, not worth a sixpence."
This disaster was followed by one more grievous: his father was well
in years when he was married, and age and a constitution injured by
toil and disappointment, began to press him down, ere his sons had
grown up to man's estate. On all sides the clouds began to darken: the
farm was unprosperous: the speculations in flax failed; and the
landlord of Lochlea, raising a question upon the meaning of the lease,
concerning rotation of crop, pushed the matter to a lawsuit, alike
ruinous to a poor man either in its success or its failure. "After
three years tossing and whirling," says Burns, "in the vortex of
litigation, my father was just saved from the horrors of a jail by a
consumption, which, after two years' promises, kindly slept in and
carried him away to where the 'wicked cease from troubling and the
weary are at rest.' His all went among the hell-hounds that prowl in
the kennel of justice. The finishing evil which brought up the rear of
this infernal file, was my constitutional melancholy being increased
to such a degree, that for three months I was in a state of mind
scarcely to be envied by the hopeless wretches who have got their
mittimus, 'Depart from me, ye cursed.'"
Robert Burns was now the head of his father's house. He gathered
together the little that law and misfortune had spared, and took the
farm of Mossgiel, near Mauchline, containing one hundred and eighteen
acres, at a rent of ninety pounds a year: his mother and sisters took
the domestic superintendence of home, barn, and byre; and he
associated his brother Gilbert in the labours of the land. It was made
a joint affair: the poet was young, willing, and vigorous, and
excelled in ploughing, sowing, reaping, mowing, and thrashing. His
wages were fixed at seven pounds per annum, and such for a time was
his care and frugality, that he never exceeded this small allowance.
He purchased books on farming, held conversations with the old and the
knowing; and said unto himself, "I shall be prudent and wise, and my
shadow shall increase in the land." But it was not decreed that these
resolutions were to endure, and that he was to become a mighty
agriculturist in the west. Farmer Attention, as the proverb says, is a
good farmer, all the world over, and Burns was such by fits and by
starts. But he who writes an ode on the sheep he is about to shear, a
poem on the flower that he covers with the furrow, who sees visions on
his way to market, who makes rhymes on the horse he is about to yoke,
and a song on the girl who shows the whitest hands among his reapers,
has small chance of leading a market, or of being laird of the fields
he rents. The dreams of Burns were of the muses, and not of rising
markets, of golden locks rather than of yellow corn: he had other
faults. It is not known that William Burns was aware before his death
that his eldest son had sinned in rhyme; but we have Gilbert's
assurance, that his father went to the grave in ignorance of his son's
errors of a less venial kind--unwitting that he was soon to give a
two-fold proof of both in "Rob the Rhymer's Address to his Bastard
Child"--a poem less decorous than witty.
The dress and condition of Burns when he became a poet were not at all
poetical, in the minstrel meaning of the word. His clothes, coarse and
homely, were made from home-grown wool, shorn off his own sheeps'
backs, carded and spun at his own fireside, woven by the village
weaver, and, when not of natural hodden-gray, dyed a half-blue in the
village vat. They were shaped and sewed by the district tailor, who
usually wrought at the rate of a groat a day and his food; and as the
wool was coarse, so also was the workmanship. The linen which he wore
was home-grown, home-hackled, home-spun, home-woven, and
home-bleached, and, unless designed for Sunday use, was of coarse,
strong harn, to suit the tear and wear of barn and field. His shoes
came from rustic tanpits, for most farmers then prepared their own
leather; were armed, sole and heel, with heavy, broad-headed nails, to
endure the clod and the road: as hats were then little in use, save
among small lairds or country gentry, westland heads were commonly
covered with a coarse, broad, blue bonnet, with a stopple on its flat
crown, made in thousands at Kilmarnock, and known in all lands by the
name of scone bonnets. His plaid was a handsome red and white
check--for pride in poets, he said, was no sin--prepared of fine wool
with more than common care by the hands of his mother and sisters, and
woven with more skill than the village weaver was usually required to
exert. His dwelling was in keeping with his dress, a low, thatched
house, with a kitchen, a bedroom and closet, with floors of kneaded
clay, and ceilings of moorland turf: a few books on a shelf, thumbed
by many a thumb; a few hams drying above head in the smoke, which was
in no haste to get out at the roof--a wooden settle, some oak chairs,
chaff beds well covered with blankets, with a fire of peat and wood
burning at a distance from the gable wall, on the middle of the floor.
His food was as homely as his habitation, and consisted chiefly of
oatmeal-porridge, barley-broth, and potatoes, and milk. How the muse
happened to visit him in this clay biggin, take a fancy to a clouterly
peasant, and teach him strains of consummate beauty and elegance, must
ever be a matter of wonder to all those, and they are not few, who
hold that noble sentiments and heroic deeds are the exclusive portion
of the gently nursed and the far descended.
Of the earlier verses of Burns few are preserved: when composed, he
put them on paper, but the kept them to himself: though a poet at
sixteen, he seems not to have made even his brother his confidante
till he became a man, and his judgment had ripened. He, however, made
a little clasped paper book his treasurer, and under the head of
"Observations, Hints, Songs, and Scraps of Poetry," we find many a
wayward and impassioned verse, songs rising little above the humblest
country strain, or bursting into an elegance and a beauty worthy of
the highest of minstrels. The first words noted down are the stanzas
which he composed on his fair companion of the harvest-field, out of
whose hands he loved to remove the nettle-stings and the thistles: the
prettier song, beginning "Now westlin win's and slaughtering guns,"
written on the lass of Kirkoswald, with whom, instead of learning
mensuration, he chose to wander under the light of the moon: a strain
better still, inspired by the charms of a neighbouring maiden, of the
name of Annie Ronald; another, of equal merit, arising out of his
nocturnal adventures among the lasses of the west; and, finally, that
crowning glory of all his lyric compositions, "Green grow the rashes."
This little clasped book, however, seems not to have been made his
confidante till his twenty-third or twenty-fourth year: he probably
admitted to its pages only the strains which he loved most, or such as
had taken a place in his memory: at whatever age it was commenced, he
had then begun to estimate his own character, and intimate his
fortunes, for he calls himself in its pages "a man who had little art
in making money, and still less in keeping it."
We have not been told how welcome the incense of his songs rendered
him to the rustic maidens of Kyle: women are not apt to be won by the
charms of verse; they have little sympathy with dreamers on Parnassus,
and allow themselves to be influenced by something more substantial
than the roses and lilies of the muse. Burns had other claims to their
regard then those arising from poetic skill: he was tall, young,
good-looking, with dark, bright eyes, and words and wit at will: he
had a sarcastic sally for all lads who presumed to cross his path, and
a soft, persuasive word for all lasses on whom he fixed his fancy: nor
was this all--he was adventurous and bold in love trystes and love
excursions: long, rough roads, stormy nights, flooded rivers, and
lonesome places, were no letts to him; and when the dangers or labours
of the way were braved, he was alike skilful in eluding vigilant
aunts, wakerife mothers, and envious or suspicions sisters: for rivals
he had a blow as ready us he had a word, and was familiar with snug
stack-yards, broomy glens, and nooks of hawthorn and honeysuckle,
where maidens love to be wooed. This rendered him dearer to woman's
heart than all the lyric effusions of his fancy; and when we add to
such allurements, a warm, flowing, and persuasive eloquence, we need
not wonder that woman listened and was won; that one of the most
charming damsels of the West said, an hour with him in the dark was
worth a lifetime of light with any other body; or that the
accomplished and beautiful Duchess of Gordon declared, in a latter
day, that no man ever carried her so completely off her feet as Robert
Burns.
It is one of the delusions of the poet's critics and biographers, that
the sources of his inspiration are to be found in the great classic
poets of the land, with some of whom he had from his youth been
familiar: there is little or no trace of them in any of his
compositions. He read and wondered--he warmed his fancy at their
flame, he corrected his own natural taste by theirs, but he neither
copied nor imitated, and there are but two or three allusions to Young
and Shakspeare in all the range of his verse. He could not but feel
that he was the scholar of a different school, and that his thirst was
to be slaked at other fountains. The language in which those great
bards embodied their thoughts was unapproachable to an Ayrshire
peasant; it was to him as an almost foreign tongue: he had to think
and feel in the not ungraceful or inharmonious language of his own
vale, and then, in a manner, translate it into that of Pope or of
Thomson, with the additional difficulty of finding English words to
express the exact meaning of those of Scotland, which had chiefly been
retained because equivalents could not be found in the more elegant
and grammatical tongue. Such strains as those of the polished Pope or
the sublimer Milton were beyond his power, less from deficiency of
genius than from lack of language: he could, indeed, write English
with ease and fluency; but when he desired to be tender or
impassioned, to persuade or subdue, he had recourse to the Scottish,
and he found it sufficient.
The goddesses or the Dalilahs of the young poet's song were, like the
language in which he celebrated them, the produce of the district; not
dames high and exalted, but lasses of the barn and of the byre, who
had never been in higher company than that of shepherds or ploughmen,
or danced in a politer assembly than that of their fellow-peasants, on
a barn-floor, to the sound of the district fiddle. Nor even of these
did he choose the loveliest to lay out the wealth of his verse upon:
he has been accused, by his brother among others, of lavishing the
colours of his fancy on very ordinary faces. "He had always," says
Gilbert, "a jealousy of people who were richer than himself; his love,
therefore, seldom settled on persons of this description. When he
selected any one, out of the sovereignty of his good pleasure, to whom
he should pay his particular attention, she was instantly invested
with a sufficient stock of charms out of the plentiful stores of his
own imagination: and there was often a great dissimilitude between his
fair captivator, as she appeared to others and as she seemed when
invested with the attributes he gave her." "My heart," he himself,
speaking of those days, observes, "was completely tinder, and was
eternally lighted up by some goddess or other." Yet, it must be
acknowledged that sufficient room exists for believing that Burns and
his brethren of the West had very different notions of the captivating
and the beautiful; while they were moved by rosy checks and looks of
rustic health, he was moved, like a sculptor, by beauty of form or by
harmony of motion, and by expression, which lightened up ordinary
features and rendered them captivating. Such, I have been told, were
several of the lasses of the West, to whom, if he did not surrender
his heart, he rendered homage: and both elegance of form and beauty of
face were visible to all in those of whom he afterwards sang--the
Hamiltons and the Burnets of Edinburgh, and the Millers and M'Murdos
of the Nith.
The mind of Burns took now a wider range: he had sung of the maidens
of Kyle in strains not likely soon to die, and though not weary of the
softnesses of love, he desired to try his genius on matters of a
sterner kind--what those subjects were he tells us; they were homely
and at hand, of a native nature and of Scottish growth: places
celebrated in Roman story, vales made famous in Grecian song--hills of
vines and groves of myrtle had few charms for him. "I am hurt," thus
he writes in August, 1785, "to see other towns, rivers, woods, and
haughs of Scotland immortalized in song, while my dear native county,
the ancient Baillieries of Carrick, Kyle, and Cunningham, famous in
both ancient and modern times for a gallant and warlike race of
inhabitants--a county where civil and religious liberty have ever
found their first support and their asylum--a county, the birth-place
of many famous philosophers, soldiers, and statesmen, and the scene of
many great events recorded in history, particularly the actions of the
glorious Wallace--yet we have never had one Scotch poet of any
eminence to make the fertile banks of Irvine, the romantic woodlands
and sequestered scenes of Ayr. and the mountainous source and winding
sweep of the Doon, emulate Tay, Forth, Ettrick, and Tweed. This is a
complaint I would gladly remedy, but, alas! I am far unequal to the
task, both in genius and education." To fill up with glowing verse the
outline which this sketch indicates, was to raise the long-laid spirit
of national song--to waken a strain to which the whole land would
yield response--a miracle unattempted--certainly unperformed--since
the days of the Gentle Shepherd. It is true that the tongue of the
muse had at no time been wholly silent; that now and then a burst of
sublime woe, like the song of "Mary, weep no more for me," and of
lasting merriment and humour, like that of "Tibbie Fowler," proved
that the fire of natural poesie smouldered, if it did not blaze; while
the social strains of the unfortunate Fergusson revived in the city,
if not in the field, the memory of him who sang the "Monk and the
Miller's wife." But notwithstanding these and other productions of
equal merit, Scottish poesie, it must be owned, had lost much of its
original ecstasy and fervour, and that the boldest efforts of the
muse no more equalled the songs of Dunbar, of Douglas, of Lyndsay, and
of James the Fifth, than the sound of an artificial cascade resembles
the undying thunders of Corra.
To accomplish this required an acquaintance with man beyond what the
forge, the change-house, and the market-place of the village supplied;
a look further than the barn-yard and the furrowed field, and a
livelier knowledge and deeper feeling of history than, probably, Burns
ever possessed. To all ready and accessible sources of knowledge he
appears to have had recourse; he sought matter for his muse in the
meetings, religious as well as social, of the district--consorted with
staid matrons, grave plodding farmers--with those who preached as well
as those who listened--with sharp-tongued attorneys, who laid down the
law over a Mauchline gill--with country squires, whose wisdom was
great in the game-laws, and in contested elections--and with roving
smugglers, who at that time hung, as a cloud, on all the western coast
of Scotland. In the company of farmers and fellow-peasants, he
witnessed scenes which he loved to embody in verse, saw pictures of
peace and joy, now woven into the web of his song, and had a poetic
impulse given to him both by cottage devotion and cottage merriment.
If he was familiar with love and all its outgoings and incomings--had
met his lass in the midnight shade, or walked with her under the moon,
or braved a stormy night and a haunted road for her sake--he was as
well acquainted with the joys which belong to social intercourse, when
instruments of music speak to the feet, when the reek of punchbowls
gives a tongue to the staid and demure, and bridal festivity, and
harvest-homes, bid a whole valley lift up its voice and be glad. It is
more difficult to decide what poetic use he could make of his
intercourse with that loose and lawless class of men, who, from love
of gain, broke the laws and braved the police of their country: that
he found among smugglers, as he says, "men of noble virtues,
magnanimity, generosity, disinterested friendship, and modesty," is
easier to believe than that he escaped the contamination of their
sensual manners and prodigality. The people of Kyle regarded this
conduct with suspicion: they were not to be expected to know that when
Burns ranted and housed with smugglers, conversed with tinkers huddled
in a kiln, or listened to the riotous mirth of a batch of "randie
gangrel bodies" as they "toomed their powks and pawned their duds,"
for liquor in Poosie Nansie's, he was taking sketches for the future
entertainment and instruction of the world; they could not foresee
that from all this moral strength and poetic beauty would arise.
While meditating something better than a ballad to his mistress's
eyebrow, he did not neglect to lay out the little skill he had in
cultivating the grounds of Mossgiel. The prosperity in which he found
himself in the first and second seasons, induced him to hope that good
fortune had not yet forsaken him: a genial summer and a good market
seldom come together to the farmer, but at first they came to Burns;
and to show that he was worthy of them, he bought books on
agriculture, calculated rotation of crops, attended sales, held the
plough with diligence, used the scythe, the reap-hook, and the flail,
with skill, and the malicious even began to say that there was
something more in him than wild sallies of wit and foolish rhymes. But
the farm lay high, the bottom was wet, and in a third season,
indifferent seed and a wet harvest robbed him at once of half his
crop: he seems to have regarded this as an intimation from above, that
nothing which he undertook would prosper: and consoled himself with
joyous friends and with the society of the muse. The judgment cannot
be praised which selected a farm with a wet cold bottom, and sowed it
with unsound seed; but that man who despairs because a wet season robs
him of the fruits of the field, is unfit for the warfare of life,
where fortitude is as much required as by a general on a field of
battle, when the tide of success threatens to flow against him. The
poet seems to have believed, very early in life, that he was none of
the elect of Mammon; that he was too much of a genius ever to acquire
wealth by steady labour, or by, as he loved to call it, gin-horse
prudence, or grubbing industry.
And yet there were hours and days in which Burns, even when the rain
fell on his unhoused sheaves, did not wholly despair of himself: he
laboured, nay sometimes he slaved on his farm; and at intervals of
toil, sought to embellish his mind with such knowledge as might be
useful, should chance, the goddess who ruled his lot, drop him upon
some of the higher places of the land. He had, while he lived at
Tarbolton, united with some half-dozen young men, all sons of farmers
in that neighbourhood, in forming a club, of which the object was to
charm away a few evening hours in the week with agreeable chit-chat,
and the discussion of topics of economy or love. Of this little
society the poet was president, and the first question they were
called on to settle was this, "Suppose a young man bred a farmer, but
without any fortune, has it in his power to marry either of two women;
the one a girl of large fortune, but neither handsome in person, nor
agreeable in conversation, but who can manage the household affairs of
a farm well enough; the other of them, a girl every way agreeable in
person, conversation, and behaviour, but without any fortune, which of
them shall he choose?" This question was started by the poet, and once
every week the club were called to the consideration of matters
connected with rural life and industry: their expenses were limited to
threepence a week; and till the departure of Burns to the distant
Mossgiel, the club continued to live and thrive; on his removal it
lost the spirit which gave it birth, and was heard of no more; but its
aims and its usefulness were revived in Mauchline, where the poet was
induced to establish a society which only differed from the other in
spending the moderate fines arising from non-attendance, on books,
instead of liquor. Here, too, Burns was the president, and the members
were chiefly the sons of husbandmen, whom he found, he said, more
natural in their manners, and more agreeable than the self-sufficient
mechanics of villages and towns, who were ready to dispute on all
topics, and inclined to be convinced on none. This club had the
pleasure of subscribing for the first edition of the works of its
great associate. It has been questioned by his first biographer,
whether the refinement of mind, which follows the reading of books of
eloquence and delicacy,--the mental improvement resulting from such
calm discussions as the Tarbolton and Mauchline clubs indulged in, was
not injurious to men engaged in the barn and at the plough. A
well-ordered mind will be strengthened, as well as embellished, by
elegant knowledge, while over those naturally barren and ungenial all
that is refined or noble will pass as a sunny shower scuds over lumps
of granite, bringing neither warmth nor life.
In the account which the poet gives to Moore of his early poems, he
says little about his exquisite lyrics, and less about "The Death and
dying Words of Poor Mailie," or her "Elegy," the first of his poems
where the inspiration of the muse is visible; but he speaks with
exultation of the fame which those indecorous sallies, "Holy Willie's
Prayer" and "The Holy Tulzie" brought from some of the clergy, and the
people of Ayrshire. The west of Scotland is ever in the van, when
mutters either political or religious are agitated. Calvinism was
shaken, at this time, with a controversy among its professors, of
which it is enough to say, that while one party rigidly adhered to the
word and letter of the Confession of Faith, and preached up the palmy
and wholesome days of the Covenant, the other sought to soften the
harsher rules and observances of the kirk, and to bring moderation and
charity into its discipline as well as its councils. Both believed
themselves right, both were loud and hot, and personal,--bitter with a
bitterness only known in religious controversy. The poet sided with
the professors of the New Light, as the more tolerant were called, and
handled the professors of the Old Light, as the other party were
named, with the most unsparing severity. For this he had sufficient
cause:--he had experienced the mercilessness of kirk-discipline, when
his frailties caused him to visit the stool of repentance; and
moreover his friend Gavin Hamilton, a writer in Mauchline, had been
sharply censured by the same authorities, for daring to gallop on
Sundays. Moodie, of Riccarton, and Russel, of Kilmarnock, were the
first who tasted of the poet's wrath. They, though professors of the
Old Light, had quarrelled, and, it is added, fought: "The Holy
Tulzie," which recorded, gave at the same time wings to the scandal;
while for "Holy Willie," an elder of Mauchline, and an austere and
hollow pretender to righteousness, he reserved the fiercest of all his
lampoons. In "Holy Willie's Prayer," he lays a burning hand on the
terrible doctrine of predestination: this is a satire, daring,
personal, and profane. Willie claims praise in the singular,
acknowledges folly in the plural, and makes heaven accountable for his
sins! in a similar strain of undevout satire, he congratulates Goudie,
of Kilmarnock, on his Essays on Revealed Religion. These poems,
particularly the two latter, are the sharpest lampoons in the
language.
While drudging in the cause of the New Light controversialists, Burns
was not unconsciously strengthening his hands for worthier toils: the
applause which selfish divines bestowed on his witty, but graceless
effusions, could not be enough for one who knew how fleeting the fame
was which came from the heat of party disputes; nor was he insensible
that songs of a beauty unknown for a century to national poesy, had
been unregarded in the hue and cry which arose on account of "Holy
Willie's Prayer" and "The Holy Tulzie." He hesitated to drink longer
out of the agitated puddle of Calvinistic controversy, he resolved to
slake his thirst at the pure well-springs of patriot feeling and
domestic love; and accordingly, in the last and best of his
controversial compositions, he rose out of the lower regions of
lampoon into the upper air of true poetry. "The Holy Fair," though
stained in one or two verses with personalities, exhibits a scene
glowing with character and incident and life: the aim of the poem is
not so much to satirize one or two Old Light divines, as to expose and
rebuke those almost indecent festivities, which in too many of the
western parishes accompanied the administration of the sacrament. In
the earlier days of the church, when men were staid and sincere, it
was, no doubt, an impressive sight to see rank succeeding rank, of the
old and the young, all calm and all devout, seated before the tent of
the preacher, in the sunny hours of June, listening to his eloquence,
or partaking of the mystic bread and wine; but in these our latter
days, when discipline is relaxed, along with the sedate and the pious
come swarms of the idle and the profligate, whom no eloquence can
edify and no solemn rite affect. On these, and such as these, the poet
has poured his satire; and since this desirable reprehension the Holy
Fairs, east as well as west, have become more decorous, if not more
devout.
His controversial sallies were accompanied, or followed, by a series
of poems which showed that national character and manners, as Lockhart
has truly and happily said, were once more in the hands of a national
poet. These compositions are both numerous and various: they record
the poet's own experience and emotions; they exhibit the highest moral
feeling, the purest patriotic sentiments, and a deep sympathy with the
fortunes, both here and hereafter of his fellow-men; they delineate
domestic manners, man's stern as well as social hours, and mingle the
serious with the joyous, the sarcastic with the solemn, the mournful
with the pathetic, the amiable with the gay, and all with an ease and
unaffected force and freedom known only to the genius of Shakspeare.
In "The Twa Dogs" he seeks to reconcile the labourer to his lot, and
intimates, by examples drawn from the hall as well as the cottage,
that happiness resides in the humblest abodes, and is even partial to
the clouted shoe. In "Scotch Drink" he excites man to love his
country, by precepts both heroic and social; and proves that while
wine and brandy are the tipple of slaves, whiskey and ale are the
drink of the free: sentiments of a similar kind distinguish his
"Earnest Cry and Prayer to the Scotch Representatives in the House of
Commons," each of whom he exhorts by name to defend the remaining
liberties and immunities of his country. A higher tone distinguishes
the "Address to the Deil:" he records all the names, and some of them
are strange ones; and all the acts, and some of them are as whimsical
as they are terrible, of this far kenned and noted personage; to these
he adds some of the fiend's doings as they stand in Scripture,
together with his own experiences; and concludes by a hope, as
unexpected as merciful and relenting, that Satan may not be exposed to
an eternity of torments. "The Dream" is a humorous sally, and may be
almost regarded as prophetic. The poet feigns himself present, in
slumber, at the Royal birth-day; and supposes that he addresses his
majesty, on his household matters as well as the affairs of the
nation. Some of the princes, it has been satirically hinted, behaved
afterwards in such a way as if they wished that the scripture of the
Burns should be fulfilled: in this strain, he has imitated the license
and equalled the wit of some of the elder Scottish Poets.
"The Vision" is wholly serious; it exhibits the poet in one of those
fits of despondency which the dull, who have no misgivings, never
know: he dwells with sarcastic bitterness on the opportunities which,
for the sake of song, he has neglected of becoming wealthy, and is
drawing a sad parallel between rags and riches, when the muse steps in
and cheer his despondency, by assuring him of undying fame.
"Halloween" is a strain of a more homely kind, recording the
superstitious beliefs, and no less superstitious doings of Old
Scotland, on that night, when witches and elves and evil spirits are
let loose among the children of men: it reaches far back into manners
and customs, and is a picture, curious and valuable. The tastes and
feelings of husbandmen inspired "The old Farmer's Address to his old
mare Maggie," which exhibits some pleasing recollections of his days
of courtship and hours of sociality. The calm, tranquil picture of
household happiness and devotion in "the Cotter's Saturday Night," has
induced Hogg, among others, to believe that it has less than usual of
the spirit of the poet, but it has all the spirit that was required;
the toil of the week has ceased, the labourer has returned to his
well-ordered home--his "cozie ingle and his clean hearth-stane,"--and
with his wife and children beside him, turns his thoughts to the
praise of that God to whom he owes all: this he performs with a
reverence and an awe, at once natural, national, and poetic. "The
Mouse" is a brief and happy and very moving poem: happy, for it
delineates, with wonderful truth and life, the agitation of the mouse
when the coulter broke into its abode; and moving, for the poet takes
the lesson of ruin to himself, and feels the present and dreads the
future. "The Mountain Daisy," once, more properly, called by Burns
"The Gowan," resembles "The Mouse" in incident and in moral, and is
equally happy, in language and conception. "The Lament" is a dark, and
all but tragic page, from the poet's own life. "Man was made to
Mourn'" takes the part of the humble and the homeless, against the
coldness and selfishness of the wealthy and the powerful, a favourite
topic of meditation with Burns. He refrained, for awhile, from making
"Death and Doctor Hernbook" public; a poem which deviates from the
offensiveness of personal satire, into a strain of humour, at once
airy and original.
His epistles in verse may be reckoned amongst his happiest
productions: they are written in all moods of mind, and are, by turns,
lively and sad; careless and serious;--now giving advice, then taking
it; laughing at learning, and lamenting its want; scoffing at
propriety and wealth, yet admitting, that without the one he cannot be
wise, nor wanting the other, independent. The Epistle to David Sillar
is the first of these compositions: the poet has no news to tell, and
no serious question to ask: he has only to communicate his own
emotions of joy, or of sorrow, and these he relates and discusses with
singular elegance as well as ease, twining, at the same time, into the
fabric of his composition, agreeable allusions to the taste and
affections of his correspondent. He seems to have rated the intellect
of Sillar as the highest among his rustic friends: he pays him more
deference, and addresses him in a higher vein than he observes to
others. The Epistles to Lapraik, to Smith, and to Rankine, are in a
more familiar, or social mood, and lift the veil from the darkness of
the poet's condition, and exhibit a mind of first-rate power, groping,
and that surely, its way to distinction, in spite of humility of
birth, obscurity of condition, and the coldness of the wealthy or the
titled. The epistles of other poets owe some of their fame to the rank
or the reputation of those to whom they are addressed; those of Burns
are written, one and all, to nameless and undistinguished men. Sillar
was a country schoolmaster, Lapraik a moorland laird, Smith a small
shop-keeper, and Rankine a farmer, who loved a gill and a joke. Yet
these men were the chief friends, the only literary associates of the
poet, during those early years, in which, with some exceptions, his
finest works were written.
Burns, while he was writing the poems, the chief of which we have
named, was a labouring husbandman on the little farm of Mossgiel, a
pursuit which affords but few leisure hours for either reading or
pondering; but to him the stubble-field was musing-ground, and the
walk behind the plough, a twilight saunter on Parnassus. As, with a
careful hand and a steady eye, he guided his horses, and saw an evenly
furrow turned up by the share, his thoughts were on other themes; he
was straying in haunted glens, when spirits have power--looking in
fancy on the lasses "skelping barefoot," in silks and in scarlets, to
a field-preaching--walking in imagination with the rosy widow, who on
Halloween ventured to dip her left sleeve in the burn, where three
lairds' lands met--making the "bottle clunk," with joyous smugglers,
on a lucky run of gin or brandy--or if his thoughts at all approached
his acts--he was moralizing on the daisy oppressed by the furrow which
his own ploughshare had turned. That his thoughts were thus wandering
we have his own testimony, with that of his brother Gilbert; and were
both wanting, the certainty that he composed the greater part of his
immortal poems in two years, from the summer of 1784 to the summer of
1786, would be evidence sufficient. The muse must have been strong
within him, when, in spite of the rains and sleets of the
"ever-dropping west"--when in defiance of the hot and sweaty brows
occasioned by reaping and thrashing--declining markets, and showery
harvests--the clamour of his laird for his rent, and the tradesman for
his account, he persevered in song, and sought solace in verse, when
all other solace was denied him.
The circumstances under which his principal poems were composed, have
been related: the "Lament of Mailie" found its origin in the
catastrophe of a pet ewe; the "Epistle to Sillar" was confided by the
poet to his brother while they were engaged in weeding the kale-yard;
the "Address to the Deil" was suggested by the many strange portraits
which belief or fear had drawn of Satan, and was repeated by the one
brother to the other, on the way with their carts to the kiln, for
lime; the "Cotter's Saturday Night" originated in the reverence with
which the worship of God was conducted in the family of the poet's
father, and in the solemn tone with which he desired his children to
compose themselves for praise and prayer; "the Mouse," and its moral
companion "the Daisy," were the offspring of the incidents which they
relate; and "Death and Doctor Hornbook" was conceived at a
freemason-meeting, where the hero of the piece had shown too much of
the pedant, and composed on his way home, after midnight, by the poet,
while his head was somewhat dizzy with drink. One of the most
remarkable of his compositions, the "Jolly Beggars," a drama, to which
nothing in the language of either the North or South can be compared,
and which was unknown till after the death of the author, was
suggested by a scene which he saw in a low ale-house, into which, on a
Saturday night, most of the sturdy beggars of the district had met to
sell their meal, pledge their superfluous rags, and drink their gains.
It may be added, that he loved to walk in solitary spots; that his
chief musing-ground was the banks of the Ayr; the season most
congenial to his fancy that of winter, when the winds were heard in
the leafless woods, and the voice of the swollen streams came from
vale and hill; and that he seldom composed a whole poem at once, but
satisfied with a few fervent verses, laid the subject aside, till the
muse summoned him to another exertion of fancy. In a little back
closet, still existing in the farm-house of Mossgiel, he committed
most of his poems to paper.
But while the poet rose, the farmer sank. It was not the cold clayey
bottom of his ground, nor the purchase of unsound seed-corn, not the
fluctuation in the markets alone, which injured him; neither was it
the taste for freemason socialities, nor a desire to join the mirth of
comrades, either of the sea or the shore: neither could it be wholly
imputed to his passionate following of the softer sex--indulgence in
the "illicit rove," or giving way to his eloquence at the feet of one
whom he loved and honoured; other farmers indulged in the one, or
suffered from the other, yet were prosperous. His want of success
arose from other causes; his heart was not with his task, save by fits
and starts: he felt he was designed for higher purposes than
ploughing, and harrowing, and sowing, and reaping: when the sun called
on him, after a shower, to come to the plough, or when the ripe corn
invited the sickle, or the ready market called for the measured grain,
the poet was under other spells, and was slow to avail himself of
those golden moments which come but once in the season. To this may be
added, a too superficial knowledge of the art of farming, and a want
of intimacy with the nature of the soil he was called to cultivate. He
could speak fluently of leas, and faughs, and fallows, of change of
seed and rotation of crops, but practical knowledge and application
were required, and in these Burns was deficient. The moderate gain
which those dark days of agriculture brought to the economical farmer,
was not obtained: the close, the all but niggardly care by which he
could win and keep his crown-piece,--gold was seldom in the farmer's
hand,--was either above or below the mind of the poet, and Mossgiel,
which, in the hands of an assiduous farmer, might have made a
reasonable return for labour, was unproductive, under one who had
little skill, less economy, and no taste for the task.
Other reasons for his failure have been assigned. It is to the credit
of the moral sentiments of the husbandmen of Scotland, that when one
of their class forgets what virtue requires, and dishonours, without
reparation, even the humblest of the maidens, he is not allowed to go
unpunished. No proceedings take place, perhaps one hard word is not
spoken; but he is regarded with loathing by the old and the devout; he
is looked on by all with cold and reproachful eyes--sorrow is foretold
as his lot, sure disaster as his fortune; and is these chance to
arrive, the only sympathy expressed is, "What better could he expect?"
Something of this sort befel Burns: he had already satisfied the kirk
in the matter of "Sonsie, smirking, dear-bought Bess," his daughter,
by one of his mother's maids; and now, to use his own words, he was
brought within point-blank of the heaviest metal of the kirk by a
similar folly. The fair transgressor, both for her fathers and her own
youth, had a large share of public sympathy. Jean Armour, for it is of
her I speak, was in her eighteenth year; with dark eyes, a handsome
foot, and a melodious tongue, she made her way to the poet's
heart--and, as their stations in life were equal, it seemed that they
had only to be satisfied themselves to render their union easy. But
her father, in addition to being a very devout man, was a zealot of
the Old Light; and Jean, dreading his resentment, was willing, while
she loved its unforgiven satirist, to love him in secret, in the hope
that the time would come when she might safely avow it: she admitted
the poet, therefore, to her company in lonesome places, and walks
beneath the moon, where they both forgot themselves, and were at last
obliged to own a private marriage as a protection from kirk censure.
The professors of the Old Light rejoiced, since it brought a scoffing
rhymer within reach of their hand; but her father felt a twofold
sorrow, because of the shame of a favourite daughter, and for having
committed the folly with one both loose in conduct and profane of
speech. He had cause to be angry, but his anger, through his zeal,
became tyrannous: in the exercise of what he called a father's power,
he compelled his child to renounce the poet as her husband and burn
the marriage-lines; for he regarded her marriage, without the kirk's
permission, with a man so utterly cast away, as a worse crime than her
folly. So blind is anger! She could renounce neither her husband nor
his offspring in a lawful way, and in spite of the destruction of the
marriage lines, and renouncing the name of wife, she was as much Mrs.
Burns as marriage could make her. No one concerned seemed to think so.
Burns, who loved her tenderly, went all but mad when she renounced
him: he gave up his share of Mossgiel to his brother, and roamed,
moody and idle, about the land, with no better aim in life than a
situation in one of our western sugar-isles, and a vague hope of
distinction as a poet.
How the distinction which he desired as a poet was to be obtained,
was, to a poor bard in a provincial place, a sore puzzle: there were
no enterprising booksellers in the western land, and it was not to be
expected that the printers of either Kilmarnock or Paisley had money
to expend on a speculation in rhyme: it is much to the honour of his
native county that the publication which he wished for was at last
made easy. The best of his poems, in his own handwriting, had found
their way into the hands of the Ballantynes, Hamiltons, Parkers, and
Mackenzies, and were much admired. Mrs. Stewart, of Stair and Afton, a
lady of distinction and taste, had made, accidentally, the
acquaintance both of Burns and some of his songs, and was ready to
befriend him; and so favourable was the impression on all hands, that
a subscription, sufficient to defray the outlay of paper and print,
was soon filled up--one hundred copies being subscribed for by the
Parkers alone. He soon arranged materials for a volume, and put them
into the hands of a printer in Kilmarnock, the Wee Johnnie of one of
his biting epigrams. Johnnie was startled at the unceremonious freedom
of most of the pieces, and asked the poet to compose one of modest
language and moral aim, to stand at the beginning, and excuse some of
those free ones which followed: Burns, whose "Twa Dogs" was then
incomplete, finished the poem at a sitting, and put it in the van,
much to his printer's satisfaction. If the "Jolly Beggars" was omitted
for any other cause than its freedom of sentiment and language, or
"Death and Doctor Hornbook" from any other feeling than that of being
too personal, the causes of their exclusion have remained a secret. It
is less easy to account for the emission of many songs of high merit
which he had among his papers: perhaps he thought those which he
selected were sufficient to test the taste of the public. Before he
printed the whole, he, with the consent of his brother, altered his
name from Burness to Burns, a change which, I am told, he in after
years regretted.
In the summer of the year 1786, the little volume, big with the hopes
and fortunes of the bard made its appearance: it was entitled simply,
"Poems, chiefly in the Scottish Dialect; by Robert Burns;" and
accompanied by a modest preface, saying, that he submitted his book to
his country with fear and with trembling, since it contained little of
the art of poesie, and at the best was but a voice given, rude, he
feared, and uncouth, to the loves, the hopes, and the fears of his own
bosom. Had a summer sun risen on a winter morning, it could not have
surprised the Lowlands of Scotland more than this Kilmarnock volume
surprised and delighted the people, one and all. The milkmaid sang his
songs, the ploughman repeated his poems; the old quoted both, and
ever the devout rejoiced that idle verse had at last mixed a tone of
morality with its mirth. The volume penetrated even into Nithsdale.
"Keep it out of the way of your children," said a Cameronian divine,
when he lent it to my father, "lest ye find them, as I found mine,
reading it on the Sabbath." No wonder that such a volume made its way
to the hearts of a peasantry whose taste in poetry had been the marvel
of many writers: the poems were mostly on topics with which they were
familiar: the language was that of the fireside, raised above the
vulgarities of common life, by a purifying spirit of expression and
the exalting fervour of inspiration: and there was such a brilliant
and graceful mixture of the elegant and the homely, the lofty and the
low, the familiar and the elevated--such a rapid succession of scenes
which moved to tenderness or tears; or to subdued mirth or open
laughter--unlooked for allusions to scripture, or touches of sarcasm
and scandal--of superstitions to scare, and of humour to
delight--while through the whole was diffused, as the scent of flowers
through summer air, a moral meaning--a sentimental beauty, which
sweetened and sanctified all. The poet's expectations from this little
venture were humble: he hoped as much money from it as would pay for
his passage to the West Indies, where he proposed to enter into the
service of some of the Scottish settlers, and help to manage the
double mystery of sugar-making and slavery.
The hearty applause which I have recorded came chiefly from the
husbandman, the shepherd, and the mechanic: the approbation of the
magnates of the west, though not less-warm, was longer in coming. Mrs.
Stewart of Stair, indeed, commended the poems and cheered their
author: Dugald Stewart received his visits with pleasure, and wondered
at his vigour of conversation as much as at his muse: the door of the
house of Hamilton was open to him, where the table was ever spread,
and the hand ever ready to help: while the purses of the Ballantynes
and the Parkers were always as open to him as were the doors of their
houses. Those persons must be regarded as the real patrons of the
poet: the high names of the district are not to be found among those
who helped him with purse and patronage in 1786, that year of deep
distress and high distinction. The Montgomerys came with their praise
when his fame was up; the Kennedys and the Boswells were silent: and
though the Cunninghams gave effectual aid, it was when the muse was
crying with a loud voice before him, "Come all and see the man whom I
delight to honour." It would be unjust as well as ungenerous not to
mention the name of Mrs. Dunlop among the poet's best and early
patrons: the distance at which she lived from Mossgiel had kept his
name from her till his poems appeared: but his works induced her to
desire his acquaintance, and she became his warmest and surest friend.
To say the truth, Burns endeavoured in every honourable way to obtain
the notice of those who had influence in the land: he copied out the
best of his unpublished poems in a fair hand, and inserting them in
his printed volume, presented it to those who seemed slow to buy: he
rewarded the notice of this one with a song--the attentions of that
one with a sally of encomiastic verse: he left psalms of his own
composing in the manse when he feasted with a divine: he enclosed
"Holy Willie's Prayer," with an injunction to be grave, to one who
loved mirth: he sent the "Holy Fair" to one whom he invited to drink a
gill out of a mutchkin stoup, at Mauchline market; and on accidentally
meeting with Lord Daer, he immediately commemorated the event in a
sally of verse, of a strain more free and yet as flattering as ever
flowed from the lips of a court bard. While musing over the names of
those on whom fortune had smiled, yet who had neglected to smile on
him, he remembered that he had met Miss Alexander, a young beauty of
the west, in the walks of Ballochmyle; and he recorded the impression
which this fair vision made on him in a song of unequalled elegance
and melody. He had met her in the woods in July, on the 18th of
November he sent her the song, and reminded her of the circumstance
from which it arose, in a letter which it is evident he had laboured
to render polished and complimentary. The young lady took no notice of
either the song or the poet, though willing, it is said, to hear of
both now:--this seems to have been the last attempt he made on the
taste or the sympathies of the gentry of his native district: for on
the very day following we find him busy in making arrangements for his
departure to Jamaica.
For this step Burns had more than sufficient reasons: the profits of
his volume amounted to little more than enough to waft him across the
Atlantic: Wee Johnnie, though the edition was all sold, refused to
risk another on speculation: his friends, both Ballantynes and
Parkers, volunteered to relieve the printer's anxieties, but the poet
declined their bounty, and gloomily indented himself in a ship about
to sail from Greenock, and called on his muse to take farewell of
Caledonia, in the last song he ever expected to measure in his native
land. That fine lyric, beginning "The gloomy night is gathering fast,"
was the offspring of these moments of regret and sorrow. His feelings
were not expressed in song alone: he remembered his mother and his
natural daughter, and made an assignment of all that pertained to him
at Mossgiel--and that was but little--and of all the advantage which a
cruel, unjust, and insulting law allowed in the proceeds of his poems,
for their support and behoof. This document was publicly read in the
presence of the poet, at the market-cross of Ayr, by his friend
William Chalmers, a notary public. Even this step was to Burns one of
danger: some ill-advised person had uncoupled the merciless pack of
the law at his heels, and he was obliged to shelter himself as he best
could, in woods, it is said, by day and in barns by night, till the
final hour of his departure came. That hour arrived, and his chest was
on the way to the ship, when a letter was put into his hand which
seemed to light him to brighter prospects.
Among the friends whom his merits had procured him was Dr. Laurie, a
district clergyman, who had taste enough to admire the deep
sensibilities as well as the humour of the poet, and the generosity to
make known both his works and his worth to the warm-hearted and
amiable Blacklock, who boldly proclaimed him a poet of the first rank,
and lamented that he was not in Edinburgh to publish another edition
of his poems. Burns was ever a man of impulse: he recalled his chest
from Greenock; he relinquished the situation he had accepted on the
estate of one Douglas; took a secret leave of his mother, and, without
an introduction to any one, and unknown personally to all, save to
Dugald Stewart, away he walked, through Glenap, to Edinburgh, full of
new hope and confiding in his genius. When he arrived, he scarcely
knew what to do: he hesitated to call on the professor; he refrained
from making himself known, as it has been supposed he did, to the
enthusiastic Blacklock; but, sitting down in an obscure lodging, he
sought out an obscure printer, recommended by a humble comrade from
Kyle, and began to negotiate for a new edition of the Poems of the
Ayrshire Ploughman. This was not the way to go about it: his barge had
well nigh been shipwrecked in the launch; and he might have lived to
regret the letter which hindered his voyage to Jamaica, had he not met
by chance in the street a gentleman of the west, of the name of
Dalzell, who introduced him to the Earl of Glencairn, a nobleman whose
classic education did not hurt his taste for Scottish poetry, and who
was not too proud to lend his helping hand to a rustic stranger of
such merit as Burns. Cunningham carried him to Creech, then the Murray
of Edinburgh, a shrewd man of business, who opened the poet's eyes to
his true interests: the first proposals, then all but issued, were put
in the fire, and new ones printed and diffused over the island. The
subscription was headed by half the noblemen of the north: the
Caledonian Hunt, through the interest of Glencairn, took six hundred
copies: duchesses and countesses swelled the list, and such a crowding
to write down names had not been witnessed since the signing of the
solemn league and covenant.
While the subscription-papers were filling and the new volume printing
on a paper and in a type worthy of such high patronage, Burns remained
in Edinburgh, where, for the winter season, he was a lion, and one of an
unwonted kind. Philosophers, historians, and scholars had shaken the
elegant coteries of the city with their wit, or enlightened them with
their learning, but they were all men who had been polished by polite
letters or by intercourse with high life, and there was a sameness in
their very dress as well as address, of which peers and peeresses had
become weary. They therefore welcomed this rustic candidate for the
honour of giving wings to their hours of lassitude and weariness, with a
welcome more than common; and when his approach was announced, the
polished circle looked for the advent of a lout from the plough, in
whose uncouth manners and embarrassed address they might find matter
both for mirth and wonder. But they met with a barbarian who was not at
all barbarous: as the poet met in Lord Daer feelings and sentiments as
natural as those of a ploughman, so they met in a ploughman manners
worthy of a lord: his air was easy and unperplexed: his address was
perfectly well-bred, and elegant in its simplicity: he felt neither
eclipsed by the titled nor struck dumb before the learned and the
eloquent, but took his station with the ease and grace of one born to
it. In the society of men alone he spoke out: he spared neither his wit,
his humour, nor his sarcasm--he seemed to say to all--"I am a man, and
you are no more; and why should I not act and speak like one?"--it was
remarked, however, that he had not learnt, or did not desire, to conceal
his emotions--that he commended with more rapture than was courteous,
and contradicted with more bluntness than was accounted polite. It was
thus with him in the company of men: when woman approached, his look
altered, his eye beamed milder; all that was stern in his nature
underwent a change, and he received them with deference, but with a
consciousness that he could win their attention as he had won that of
others, who differed, indeed, from them only in the texture of their
kirtles. This natural power of rendering himself acceptable to women had
been observed and envied by Sillar, one of the dearest of his early
comrades; and it stood him in good stead now, when he was the object to
whom the Duchess of Gordon, the loveliest as well as the wittiest of
women--directed her discourse. Burns, she afterwards said, won the
attention of the Edinburgh ladies by a deferential way of address--by an
ease and natural grace of manners, as new as it was unexpected--that he
told them the stories of some of his tenderest songs or liveliest poems
in a style quite magical--enriching his little narratives, which had one
and all the merit of being short, with personal incidents of humour or
of pathos.
In a party, when Dr. Blair and Professor Walker were present, Burns
related the circumstances under which he had composed his melancholy
song, "The gloomy night is gathering fast," in a way even more
touching than the verses: and in the company of the ruling beauties of
the time, he hesitated not to lift the veil from some of the tenderer
parts of his own history, and give them glimpses of the romance of
rustic life. A lady of birth--one of his must willing listeners--used,
I am told, to say, that she should never forget the tale which he
related of his affection for Mary Campbell, his Highland Mary, as he
loved to call her. She was fair, he said, and affectionate, and as
guileless as she was beautiful; and beautiful he thought her in a very
high degree. The first time he saw her was during one of his musing
walks in the woods of Montgomery Castle; and the first time he spoke
to her was during the merriment of a harvest-kirn. There were others
there who admired her, but he addressed her, and had the luck to win
her regard from them all. He soon found that she was the lass whom he
had long sought, but never before found--that her good looks were
surpassed by her good sense; and her good sense was equalled by her
discretion and modesty. He met her frequently: she saw by his looks
that he was sincere; she put full trust in his love, and used to
wander with him among the green knowes and stream-banks till the sun
went down and the moon rose, talking, dreaming of love and the golden
days which awaited them. He was poor, and she had only her half-year's
fee, for she was in the condition of a servant; but thoughts of gear
never darkened their dream: they resolved to wed, and exchanged vows
of constancy and love. They plighted their vows on the Sabbath to
render them more sacred--they made them by a burn, where they had
courted, that open nature might be a witness--they made them over an
open Bible, to show that they thought of God in this mutual act--and
when they had done they both took water in their hands, and scattered
it in the air, to intimate that as the stream was pure so were their
intentions. They parted when they did this, but they parted never to
meet more: she died in a burning fever, during a visit to her
relations to prepare for her marriage; and all that he had of her was
a lock of her long bright hair, and her Bible, which she exchanged for
his.
Even with the tales which he related of rustic love and adventure his
own story mingled; and ladies of rank heard, for the first time, that
in all that was romantic in the passion of love, and in all that was
chivalrous in sentiment, men of distinction, both by education and
birth, were at least equalled by the peasantry of the land. They
listened with interest, and inclined their feathers beside the bard,
to hear how love went on in the west, and in no case it ran quite
smooth. Sometimes young hearts were kept asunder by the sordid
feelings of parents, who could not be persuaded to bestow their
daughter, perhaps an only one, on a wooer who could not count penny
for penny, and number cow for cow: sometimes a mother desired her
daughter to look higher than to one of her station: for her beauty and
her education entitled her to match among the lairds, rather than the
tenants; and sometimes, the devotional tastes of both father and
mother, approving of personal looks and connexions, were averse to
see a daughter bestow her hand on one, whose language in religion was
indiscreet, and whose morals were suspected. Yet, neither the
vigilance of fathers, nor the suspicious care of aunts and mothers,
could succeed in keeping those asunder whose hearts were together; but
in these meetings circumspection and invention were necessary: all
fears were to be lulled by the seeming carelessness of the lass,--all
perils were to be met and braved by the spirit of the lad. His home,
perhaps, was at a distance, and he had wild woods to come through, and
deep streams to pass, before he could see the signal-light, now shown
and now withdrawn, at her window; he had to approach with a quick eye
and a wary foot, lest a father or a brother should see, and deter him:
he had sometimes to wish for a cloud upon the moon, whose light,
welcome to him on his way in the distance, was likely to betray him
when near; and he not unfrequently reckoned a wild night of wind and
rain as a blessing, since it helped to conceal his coming, and proved
to his mistress that he was ready to brave all for her sake. Of rivals
met and baffled; of half-willing and half-unconsenting maidens,
persuaded and won; of the light-hearted and the careless becoming
affectionate and tender; and the coy, the proud, and the satiric being
gained by "persuasive words, and more persuasive sighs," as dames had
been gained of old, he had tales enow. The ladies listened, and smiled
at the tender narratives of the poet.
Of his appearance among the sons as well as the daughters of men, we
have the account of Dugald Stewart. "Burns," says the philosopher,
"came to Edinburgh early in the winter: the attentions which he
received from all ranks and descriptions of persons, were such as
would have turned any head but his own. He retained the same
simplicity of manners and appearance which had struck me so forcibly
when I first saw him in the country: his dress was suited to his
station; plain and unpretending, with sufficient attention to
neatness: he always wore boots, and, when on more than usual ceremony,
buckskin breeches. His manners were manly, simple, and independent;
strongly expressive of conscious genius and worth, but without any
indication of forwardness, arrogance, or vanity. He took his share in
conversation, but not more than belonged to him, and listened with
apparent deference on subjects where his want of education deprived
him of the means of information. If there had been a little more of
gentleness and accommodation in his temper, he would have been still
more interesting; but he had been accustomed to give law in the circle
of his ordinary acquaintance, and his dread of anything approaching to
meanness or servility, rendered his manner somewhat decided and hard.
Nothing perhaps was more remarkable among his various attainments,
than the fluency and precision and originality of language, when he
spoke in company; more particularly as he aimed at purity in his turn
of expression, and avoided more successfully than most Scotsmen, the
peculiarities of Scottish phraseology. From his conversation I should
have pronounced him to have been fitted to excel in whatever walk of
ambition he had chosen to exert his abilities. He was passionately
fond of the beauties of nature, and I recollect he once told me, when
I was admiring a distant prospect in one of our morning walks, that
the sight of so many smoking cottages gave a pleasure to his mind,
which none could understand who had not witnessed, like himself, the
happiness and worth which cottages contained."
Such was the impression which Burns made at first on the fair, the
titled, and the learned of Edinburgh; an impression which, though
lessened by intimacy and closer examination on the part of the men,
remained unimpaired, on that of the softer sex, till his dying-day.
His company, during the season of balls and festivities, continued to
be courted by all who desired to be reckoned gay or polite. Cards of
invitation fell thick on him; he was not more welcome to the plumed
and jewelled groups, whom her fascinating Grace of Gordon gathered
about her, than he was to the grave divines and polished scholars, who
assembled in the rooms of Stewart, or Blair, or Robertson. The classic
socialities of Tytler, afterwards Lord Woodhouslee, or the elaborate
supper-tables of the whimsical Monboddo, whose guests imagined they
were entertained in the manner of Lucullus or of Cicero, were not
complete without the presence of the ploughman of Kyle; and the
feelings of the rustic poet, facing such companies, though of surprise
and delight at first, gradually subsided, he said, as he discerned,
that man differed from man only in the polish, and not in the grain.
But Edinburgh offered tables and entertainers of a less orderly and
staid character than those I have named--where the glass circulated
with greater rapidity; where the wit flowed more freely; and where
there were neither highbred ladies to charm conversation within the
bounds of modesty, nor serious philosophers, nor grave divines, to set
a limit to the license of speech, or the hours of enjoyment. To these
companions--and these were all of the better classes, the levities of
the rustic poet's wit and humour were as welcome us were the tenderest
of his narratives to the accomplished Duchess of Gordon and the
beautiful Miss Burnet of Monboddo; they raised a social roar not at
all classic, and demanded and provoked his sallies of wild humour, or
indecorous mirth, with as much delight as he had witnessed among the
lads of Kyle, when, at mill or forge, his humorous sallies abounded as
the ale flowed. In these enjoyments the rough, but learned William
Nicol, and the young and amiable Robert Ainslie shared: the name of
the poet was coupled with those of profane wits, free livers, and that
class of half-idle gentlemen who hang about the courts of law, or for
a season or two wear the livery of Mars, and handle cold iron.
Edinburgh had still another class of genteel convivialists, to whom
the poet was attracted by principles as well as by pleasure; these
were the relics of that once numerous body, the Jacobites, who still
loved to cherish the feelings of birth or education rather than of
judgment, and toasted the name of Stuart, when the last of the race
had renounced his pretensions to a throne, for the sake of peace and
the cross. Young men then, and high names were among them, annually
met on the pretender's birth-day, and sang songs in which the white
rose of Jacobitism flourished; toasted toasts announcing adherence to
the male line of the Bruce and the Stuart, and listened to the strains
of the laureate of the day, who prophesied, in drink, the dismissal of
the intrusive Hanoverian, by the right and might of the righteous and
disinherited line. Burns, who was descended from a northern race,
whoso father was suspected of having drawn the claymore in 1745, and
who loved the blood of the Keith-Marishalls, under whose banners his
ancestors had marched, readily united himself to a band in whose
sentiments, political and social, he was a sharer. He was received
with acclamation: the dignity of laureate was conferred upon him, and
his inauguration ode, in which he recalled the names and the deeds of
the Grahams, the Erskines, the Boyds, and the Gordons, was applauded
for its fire, as well as for its sentiments. Yet, though he ate and
drank and sang with Jacobites, he was only as far as sympathy and
poesie went, of their number: his reason renounced the principles and
the religion of the Stuart line; and though he shed a tear over their
fallen fortunes--though he sympathized with the brave and honourable
names that perished in their cause--though he cursed "the butcher,
Cumberland," and the bloody spirit which commanded the heads of the
good and the heroic to be stuck where they would affright the
passer-by, and pollute the air--he had no desire to see the splendid
fabric of constitutional freedom, which the united genius of all
parties had raised, thrown wantonly down. His Jacobitism influenced,
not his head, but his heart, and gave a mournful hue to many of his
lyric compositions.
Meanwhile his poems were passing through the press. Burns made a few
emendations of those published in the Kilmarnock edition, and he added
others which, as he expressed it, he had carded and spun, since he
passed Glenbuck. Some rather coarse lines were softened or omitted in
the "Twa Dogs;" others, from a change of his personal feelings, were
made in the "Vision:" "Death and Doctor Hornbook," excluded before,
was admitted now: the "Dream" was retained, in spite of the
remonstrances of Mrs. Stewart, of Stair, and Mrs. Dunlop; and the
"Brigs of Ayr," in compliment to his patrons in his native district,
and the "Address to Edinburgh," in honour of his titled and
distinguished friends in that metropolis, were printed for the first
time. He was unwilling to alter what he had once printed: his friends,
classic, titled, and rustic, found him stubborn and unpliable, in
matters of criticism; yet he was generally of a complimental mood: he
loaded the robe of Coila in the "Vision," with more scenes than it
could well contain, that he might include in the landscape, all the
country-seats of his friends, and he gave more than their share of
commendation to the Wallaces, out of respect to his friend Mrs.
Dunlop. Of the critics of Edinburgh he said, they spun the thread of
their criticisms so fine that it was unfit for either warp or weft;
and of its scholars, he said, they were never satisfied with any
Scottish poet, unless they could trace him in Horace. One morning at
Dr. Blair's breakfast-table, when the "Holy Fair" was the subject of
conversation, the reverend critic said, "Why should
'--Moody speel the holy door
With tidings of _salvation_?'
if you had said, with tidings of _damnation_, the satire would have
been the better and the bitterer." "Excellent!" exclaimed the poet,
"the alteration is capital, and I hope you will honour me by allowing
me to say in a note at whose suggestion it was made." Professor
Walker, who tells the anecdote, adds that Blair evaded, with equal
good humour and decision, this not very polite request; nor was this
the only slip which the poet made on this occasion: some one asked him
in which of the churches of Edinburgh he had received the highest
gratification: he named the High-church, but gave the preference over
all preachers to Robert Walker, the colleague and rival in eloquence
of Dr. Blair himself, and that in a tone so pointed and decisive as to
make all at the table stare and look embarrassed. The poet confessed
afterwards that he never reflected on his blunder without pain and
mortification. Blair probably had this in his mind, when, on reading
the poem beginning "When Guildford good our pilot stood," he
exclaimed, "Ah! the politics of Burns always smell of the smithy,"
meaning, that they were vulgar and common.
In April, the second or Edinburgh, edition was published: it was
widely purchased, and as warmly commended. The country had been
prepared for it by the generous and discriminating criticisms of Henry
Mackenzie, published in that popular periodical, "The Lounger," where
he says, "Burns possesses the spirit as well as the fancy of a poet;
that honest pride and independence of soul, which are sometimes the
muse's only dower, break forth on every occasion, in his works." The
praise of the author of the "Man of Feeling" was not more felt by
Burns, than it was by the whole island: the harp of the north had not
been swept for centuries by a hand so forcible, and at the same time
so varied, that it awakened every tone, whether of joy or woe: the
language was that of rustic life; the scenes of the poems were the
dusty barn, the clay-floored reeky cottage, and the furrowed field;
and the characters were cowherds, ploughmen, and mechanics. The volume
was embellished by a head of the poet from the hand of the now
venerable Alexander Nasmith; and introduced by a dedication to the
noblemen and gentlemen of the Caledonian Hunt, in a style of vehement
independence, unknown hitherto in the history of subscriptions. The
whole work, verse, prose, and portrait, won public attention, and kept
it: and though some critics signified their displeasure at expressions
which bordered on profanity, and at a license of language which they
pronounced impure, by far the greater number united their praise to
the all but general voice; nay, some scrupled not to call him, from
his perfect ease and nature and variety, the Scottish Shakspeare. No
one rejoiced more in his success and his fame, than the matron of
Mossgiel.
Other matters than his poems and socialities claimed the attention of
Burns in Edinburgh. He had a hearty relish for the joyous genius of
Allan Ramsay; he traced out his residences, and rejoiced to think that
while he stood in the shop of his own bookseller, Creech, the same
floor had been trod by the feet of his great forerunner. He visited,
too, the lowly grave of the unfortunate Robert Fergusson; and it must
be recorded to the shame of the magistrates of Edinburgh, that they
allowed him to erect a headstone to his memory, and to the scandal of
Scotland, that in such a memorial he had not been anticipated. He
seems not to have regarded the graves of scholars or philosophers; and
he trod the pavements where the warlike princes and nobles had walked
without any emotion. He loved, however, to see places celebrated in
Scottish song, and fields where battles for the independence of his
country had been stricken; and, with money in his pocket which his
poems had produced, and with a letter from a witty but weak man, Lord
Buchan, instructing him to pull birks on the Yarrow, broom on the
Cowden-knowes, and not to neglect to admire the ruins of Drybrugh
Abbey, Burns set out on a border tour, accompanied by Robert Ainslie,
of Berrywell. As the poet had talked of returning to the plough, Dr.
Blair imagined that he was on his way back to the furrowed field, and
wrote him a handsome farewell, saying he was leaving Edinburgh with a
character which had survived many temptations; with a name which would
be placed with the Ramsays and the Fergussons, and with the hopes of
all, that, in a second volume, on which his fate as a poet would very
much depend, he might rise yet higher in merit and in fame. Burns, who
received this communication when laying his leg over the saddle to be
gone, is said to have muttered, "Ay, but a man's first book is
sometimes like his first babe, healthier and stronger than those which
follow."
On the 6th of May, 1787, Burns reached Berrywell: he recorded of the
laird, that he was clear-headed, and of Miss Ainslie, that she was
amiable and handsome--of Dudgeon, the author of "The Maid that tends
the Goats," that he had penetration and modesty, and of the preacher,
Bowmaker, that he was a man of strong lungs and vigorous remark. On
crossing the Tweed at Coldstream he took off his hat, and kneeling
down, repeated aloud the two last verses of the "Cotter's Saturday
Night:" on returning, he drunk tea with Brydone, the traveller, a man,
he said, kind and benevolent: he cursed one Cole as an English
Hottentot, for having rooted out an ancient garden belonging to a
Romish ruin; and he wrote of Macdowal, of Caverton-mill, that by his
skill in rearing sheep, he sold his flocks, ewe and lamb, for a couple
of guineas each: that he washed his sheep before shearing--and by his
turnips improved sheep-husbandry; he added, that lands were generally
let at sixteen shillings the Scottish acre; the farmers rich, and,
compared to Ayrshire, their houses magnificent. On his way to Jedburgh
he visited an old gentleman in whose house was an arm-chair, once the
property of the author of "The Seasons;" he reverently examined the
relic, and could scarcely be persuaded to sit in it: he was a warm
admirer of Thomson.
In Jedburgh, Burns found much to interest him: the ruins of a splendid
cathedral, and of a strong castle--and, what was still more
attractive, an amiable young lady, very handsome, with "beautiful
hazel eyes, full of spirit, sparkling with delicious moisture," and
looks which betokened a high order of female mind. He gave her his
portrait, and entered this remembrance of her attractions among his
memoranda:--"My heart is thawed into melting pleasure, after being so
long frozen up in the Greenland bay of indifference, amid the noise
and nonsense of Edinburgh. I am afraid my bosom has nearly as much
tinder as ever. Jed, pure be thy streams, and hallowed thy sylvan
banks: sweet Isabella Lindsay, may peace dwell in thy bosom
uninterrupted, except by the tumultuous throbbings of rapturous love!"
With the freedom of Jedburgh, handsomely bestowed by the magistrates,
in his pocket, Burns made his way to Wauchope, the residence of Mrs.
Scott, who had welcomed him into the world as a poet in verses lively
and graceful: he found her, he said, "a lady of sense and taste, and
of a decision peculiar to female authors." After dining with Sir
Alexander Don, who, he said, was a clever man, but far from a match
for his divine lady, a sister of his patron Glencairn, he spent an
hour among the beautiful ruins of Dryburgh Abbey; glanced on the
splendid remains of Melrose; passed, unconscious of the future, over
that ground on which have arisen the romantic towers of Abbotsford;
dined with certain of the Souters of Selkirk; and visited the old keep
of Thomas the Rhymer, and a dozen of the hills and streams celebrated
in song. Nor did he fail to pay his respects, after returning through
Dunse, to Sir James Hall, of Dunglass, and his lady, and was much
pleased with the scenery of their romantic place. He was now joined by
a gentleman of the name of Kerr, and crossing the Tweed a second time,
penetrated into England, as far as the ancient town of Newcastle,
where he smiled at a facetious Northumbrian, who at dinner caused the
beef to be eaten before the broth was served, in obedience to an
ancient injunction, lest the hungry Scotch should come and snatch it.
On his way back he saw, what proved to be prophetic of his own
fortune--the roup of an unfortunate farmer's stock: he took out his
journal, and wrote with a troubled brow, "Rigid economy, and decent
industry, do you preserve me from being the principal _dramatis
personæ_, in such a scene of horror." He extended his tour to
Carlisle, and from thence to the banks of the Nith, where he looked at
the farm of Ellisland, with the intention of trying once more his
fortune at the plough, should poetry and patronage fail him.
On his way through the West, Burns spent a few days with his mother at
Mossgiel: he had left her an unknown and an almost banished man: he
returned in fame and in sunshine, admired by all who aspired to be
thought tasteful or refined. He felt offended alike with the patrician
stateliness of Edinburgh and the plebeian servility of the husbandmen
of Ayrshire; and dreading the influence of the unlucky star which had
hitherto ruled his lot, he bought a pocket Milton, he said, for the
purpose of studying the intrepid independence and daring magnanimity,
and noble defiance of hardships, exhibited by Satan! In this mood he
reached Edinburgh--only to leave it again on three hurried excursions
into the Highlands. The route which he took and the sentiments which
the scenes awakened, are but faintly intimated in the memoranda which
he made. His first journey seems to have been performed in ill-humour;
at Stirling, his Jacobitism, provoked at seeing the ruined palace of
the Stuarts, broke out in some unloyal lines which he had the
indiscretion to write with a diamond on the window of a public inn. At
Carron, where he was refused a sight of the magnificent foundry, he
avenged himself in epigram. At Inverary he resented some real or
imaginary neglect on the part of his Grace of Argyll, by a stinging
lampoon; nor can he be said to have fairly regained his serenity of
temper, till he danced his wrath away with some Highland ladies at
Dumbarton.
His second excursion was made in the company of Dr. Adair, of
Harrowgate: the reluctant doors of Carron foundry were opened to him,
and he expressed his wonder at the blazing furnaces and broiling
labours of the place; he removed the disloyal lines from the window of
the inn at Stirling, and he paid a two days' visit to Ramsay of
Ochtertyre, a distinguished scholar, and discussed with him future
topics for the muse. "I have been in the company of many men of
genius," said Ramsay afterwards to Currie, "some of them poets, but
never witnessed such flashes of intellectual brightness as from
him--the impulse of the moment, sparks of celestial fire." From the
Forth he went to the Devon, in the county of Clackmannan, where, for
the first time, he saw the beautiful Charlotte Hamilton, the sister of
his friend Gavin Hamilton, of Mauchline. "She is not only beautiful,"
he thus writes to her brother, "but lovely: her form is elegant, her
features not regular, but they have the smile of sweetness, and the
settled complacency of good nature in the highest degree. Her eyes are
fascinating; at once expressive of good sense, tenderness and a noble
mind. After the exercise of our riding to the Falls, Charlotte was
exactly Dr. Donne's mistress:--
"Her pure and eloquent blood
Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought,
That one would almost say her body thought."
Accompanied by this charming dame, he visited an old lady, Mrs. Bruce,
of Clackmannan, who, in the belief that she had the blood of the royal
Bruce in her veins, received the poet with something of princely
state, and, half in jest, conferred the honour of knighthood upon him,
with her ancestor's sword, saying, in true Jacobitical mood, that she
had a better right to do that than some folk had! In the same pleasing
company he visited the famous cataract on the Devon, called the
Cauldron Lian, and the Rumbling bridge, a single arch thrown, it is
said by the devil, over the Devon, at the height of a hundred feet in
the air. It was the complaint of his companions that Burns exhibited
no raptures, and poured out no unpremeditated verses at such
magnificent scenes. But he did not like to be tutored or prompted:
"Look, look!" exclaimed some one, as Carron foundry belched forth
flames--"look, Burns, look! good heavens, what a grand sight!--look!"
"I would not look--look, sir, at your bidding," said the bard, turning
away, "were it into the mouth of hell!" When he visited, at a future
time, the romantic Linn of Creehope, in Nithsdale, he looked silently
at its wonders, and showed none of the hoped-for rapture. "You do not
admire it, I fear," said a gentleman who accompanied him; "I could not
admire it more, sir," replied Burns, "if He who made it were to desire
me to do it." There are other reasons for the silence of Burns amid
the scenes of the Devon: he was charmed into love by the sense and the
beauty of Charlotte Hamilton, and rendered her homage in that sweet
song, "The Banks of the Devon," and in a dozen letters written with
more than his usual care, elegance, and tenderness. But the lady was
neither to be won by verse nor by prose: she afterwards gave her hand
to Adair, the poet's companion, and, what was less meritorious, threw
his letters into the fire.
The third and last tour into the North was in company of Nicol of the
High-School of Edinburgh: on the fields of Bannockburn and
Falkirk--places of triumph and of woe to Scotland, he gave way to
patriotic impulses, and in these words he recorded them:--"Stirling,
August 20, 1787: this morning I knelt at the tomb of Sir John the
Graham, the gallant friend of the immortal Wallace; and two hours ago I
said a fervent prayer for old Caledonia, over the hole in a whinstone
where Robert the Bruce fixed his royal standard on the banks of
Bannockburn." He then proceeded northward by Ochtertyre, the water of
Earn, the vale of Glen Almond, and the traditionary grave of Ossian. He
looked in at princely Taymouth; mused an hour or two among the Birks of
Aberfeldy; gazed from Birnam top; paused amid the wild grandeur of the
pass of Killiecrankie, at the stone which marks the spot where a second
patriot Graham fell, and spent a day at Blair, where he experienced the
graceful kindness of the Duke of Athol, and in a strain truly elegant,
petitioned him, in the name of Bruar Water, to hide the utter nakedness
of its otherwise picturesque banks, with plantations of birch and oak.
Quitting Blair he followed the course of the Spey, and passing, as he
told his brother, through a wild country, among cliffs gray with eternal
snows, and glens gloomy and savage, reached Findhorn in mist and
darkness; visited Castle Cawdor, where Macbeth murdered Duncan; hastened
through Inverness to Urquhart Castle, and the Falls of Fyers, and turned
southward to Kilravock, over the fatal moor of Culloden. He admired the
ladies of that classic region for their snooded ringlets, simple
elegance of dress, and expressive eyes: in Mrs. Rose, of Kilravock
Castle, he found that matronly grace and dignity which he owned he
loved; and in the Duke and Duchess of Gordon a renewal of that more than
kindness with which they had welcomed him in Edinburgh. But while he
admired the palace of Fochabers, and was charmed by the condescensions
of the noble proprietors, he forgot that he had left a companion at the
inn, too proud and captious to be pleased at favours showered on others:
he hastened back to the inn with an invitation and an apology: he found
the fiery pedant in a foaming rage, striding up and down the street,
cursing in Scotch and Latin the loitering postilions for not yoking the
horses, and hurrying him away. All apology and explanation was in vain,
and Burns, with a vexation which he sought not to conceal, took his seat
silently beside the irascible pedagogue, and returned to the South by
Broughty Castle, the banks of Endermay and Queensferry. He parted with
the Highlands in a kindly mood, and loved to recal the scenes and the
people, both in conversation and in song.
On his return to Edinburgh he had to bide the time of his bookseller
and the public: the impression of his poems, extending to two thousand
eight hundred copies, was sold widely: much of the money had to come
from a distance, and Burns lingered about the northern metropolis,
expecting a settlement with Creech, and with the hope that those who
dispensed his country's patronage might remember one who then, as now,
was reckoned an ornament to the land. But Creech, a parsimonious man,
was slow in his payments; the patronage of the country was swallowed
up in the sink of politics, and though noblemen smiled, and ladies of
rank nodded their jewelled heads in approbation of every new song he
sung and every witty sally he uttered, they reckoned any further
notice or care superfluous: the poet, an observant man, saw all this;
but hope was the cordial of his heart, he said, and he hoped and
lingered on. Too active a genius to remain idle, he addressed himself
to the twofold business of love and verse. Repulsed by the stately
Beauty of the Devon, he sought consolation in the society of one, as
fair, and infinitely more witty; and as an accident had for a time
deprived him of the use of one of his legs, he gave wings to hours of
pain, by writing a series of letters to this Edinburgh enchantress, in
which he signed himself Sylvander, and addressed her under the name of
Clarinda. In these compositions, which no one can regard as serious,
and which James Grahame the poet called "a romance of real Platonic
affection," amid much affectation both of language and sentiment, and
a desire to say fine and startling things, we can see the proud heart
of the poet throbbing in the dread of being neglected or forgotten by
his country. The love which he offers up at the altar of wit and
beauty, seems assumed and put on, for its rapture is artificial, and
its brilliancy that of an icicle: no woman was ever wooed and won in
that Malvolio way; and there is no doubt that Mrs. M'Lehose felt as
much offence as pleasure at this boisterous display of regard. In
aftertimes he loved to remember her:--when wine circulated, Mrs. Mac
was his favourite toast.
During this season he began his lyric contributions to the Musical
Museum of Johnson, a work which, amid many imperfections of taste and
arrangement, contains more of the true old music and genuine old songs
of Scotland, than any other collection with which I am acquainted.
Burns gathered oral airs, and fitted them with words of mirth or of
woe, of tenderness or of humour, with unexampled readiness and
felicity; he eked out old fragments and sobered down licentious
strains so much in the olden spirit and feeling, that the new cannot
be distinguished from the ancient; nay, he inserted lines and half
lines, with such skill and nicety, that antiquarians are perplexed to
settle which is genuine or which is simulated. Yet with all this he
abated not of the natural mirth or the racy humour of the lyric muse
of Scotland: he did not like her the less because she walked like some
of the maidens of her strains, high-kilted at times, and spoke with
the freedom of innocence. In these communications we observe how
little his border-jaunt among the fountains of ancient song
contributed either of sentiment or allusion, to his lyrics; and how
deeply his strains, whether of pity or of merriment, were coloured by
what he had seen, and heard, and felt in the Highlands. In truth, all
that lay beyond the Forth was an undiscovered land to him; while the
lowland districts were not only familiar to his mind and eye, but all
their more romantic vales and hills and streams were already musical
in songs of such excellence as induced him to dread failure rather
than hope triumph. Moreover, the Highlands teemed with jacobitical
feelings, and scenes hallowed by the blood or the sufferings of men
heroic, and perhaps misguided; and the poet, willingly yielding to an
impulse which was truly romantic, and believed by thousands to be
loyal, penned his songs on Drumossie, and Killiecrankie, as the
spirit of sorrow or of bitterness prevailed. Though accompanied,
during his northern excursions, by friends whose socialities and
conversation forbade deep thought, or even serious remark, it will be
seen by those who read his lyrics with care, that his wreath is
indebted for some of its fairest flowers to the Highlands.
The second winter of the poet's abode in Edinburgh had now arrived: it
opened, as might have been expected, with less rapturous welcomes and
with more of frosty civility than the first. It must be confessed,
that indulgence in prolonged socialities, and in company which, though
clever, could not be called select, contributed to this; nor must it
be forgotten that his love for the sweeter part of creation was now
and then carried beyond the limits of poetic respect, and the
delicacies of courtesy; tending to estrange the austere and to lessen
the admiration at first common to all. Other causes may be assigned
for this wane of popularity: he took no care to conceal his contempt
for all who depended on mere scholarship for eminence, and he had a
perilous knack in sketching with a sarcastic hand the characters of
the learned and the grave. Some indeed of the high literati of the
north--Home, the author of Douglas, was one of them--spoke of the poet
as a chance or an accident: and though they admitted that he was a
poet, yet he was not one of settled grandeur of soul, brightened by
study. Burns was probably aware of this; he takes occasion in some of
his letters to suggest, that the hour may be at hand when he shall be
accounted by scholars as a meteor, rather than a fixed light, and to
suspect that the praise bestowed on his genius was partly owing to the
humility of his condition. From his lingering so long about Edinburgh,
the nobility began to dread a second volume by subscription, the
learned to regard him as a fierce Theban, who resolved to carry all
the outworks to the temple of Fame without the labour of making
regular approaches; while a third party, and not the least numerous,
looked on him with distrust, as one who hovered between Jacobite and
Jacobin; who disliked the loyal-minded, and loved to lampoon the
reigning family. Besides, the marvel of the inspired ploughman had
begun to subside; the bright gloss of novelty was worn off, and his
fault lay in his unwillingness to see that he had made all the sport
which the Philistines expected, and was required to make room for some
"salvage" of the season, to paw, and roar, and shake the mane. The
doors of the titled, which at first opened spontaneous, like those in
Milton's heaven, were now unclosed for him with a tardy courtesy: he
was received with measured stateliness, and seldom requested to repeat
his visit. Of this changed aspect of things he complained to a friend:
but his real sorrows were mixed with those of the fancy:--he told Mrs.
Dunlop with what pangs of heart he was compelled to take shelter in a
corner, lest the rattling equipage of some gaping blockhead should
mangle him in the mire. In this land of titles and wealth such
querulous sensibilities must have been frequently offended.
Burns, who had talked lightly hitherto of resuming the plough, began
now to think seriously about it, for he saw it must come to that at
last. Miller, of Dalswinton, a gentleman of scientific acquirements,
and who has the merit of applying the impulse of steam to navigation,
had offered the poet the choice of his farms, on a fair estate which
he had purchased on the Nith: aided by a westland farmer, he selected
Ellisland, a beautiful spot, fit alike for the steps of ploughman or
poet. On intimating this to the magnates of Edinburgh, no one lamented
that a genius so bright and original should be driven to win his bread
with the sweat of his brow: no one, with an indignant eye, ventured to
tell those to whom the patronage of this magnificent empire was
confided, that they were misusing the sacred trust, and that posterity
would curse them for their coldness or neglect: neither did any of the
rich nobles, whose tables he had adorned by his wit, offer to enable
him to toil free of rent, in a land of which he was to be a permanent
ornament;--all were silent--all were cold--the Earl of Glencairn
alone, aided by Alexander Wood, a gentleman who merits praise oftener
than he is named, did the little that was done or attempted to be done
for him: nor was that little done on the peer's part without
solicitation:--"I wish to go into the excise;" thus he wrote to
Glencairn; "and I am told your lordship's interest will easily procure
me the grant from the commissioners: and your lordship's patronage and
goodness, which have already rescued me from obscurity, wretchedness,
and exile, emboldens me to ask that interest. You have likewise put it
in my power to save the little tie of home that sheltered an aged
mother, two brothers, and three sisters from destruction. I am ill
qualified to dog the heels of greatness with the impertinence of
solicitation, and tremble nearly as much at the thought of the cold
promise as the cold denial." The farm and the excise exhibit the
poet's humble scheme of life: the money of the one, he thought, would
support the toil of the other, and in the fortunate management of
both, he looked for the rough abundance, if not the elegancies
suitable to a poet's condition.
While Scotland was disgraced by sordidly allowing her brightest genius
to descend to the plough and the excise, the poet hastened his
departure from a city which had witnessed both his triumph and his
shame: he bade farewell in a few well-chosen words to such of the
classic literati--the Blairs, the Stewarts, the Mackenzies, and the
Tytlers--as had welcomed the rustic bard and continued to countenance
him; while in softer accents he bade adieu to the Clarindas and
Chlorises of whose charms he had sung, and, having wrung a settlement
from Creech, he turned his steps towards Mossgiel and Mauchline. He
had several reasons, and all serious ones, for taking Ayrshire in his
way to the Nith: he desired to see his mother, his brothers and
sisters, who had partaken of his success, and were now raised from
pining penury to comparative affluence: he desired to see those who
had aided him in his early struggles into the upper air--perhaps
those, too, who had looked coldly on, and smiled at his outward
aspirations after fame or distinction; but more than all, he desired
to see one whom he once and still dearly loved, who had been a
sufferer for his sake, and whom he proposed to make mistress of his
fireside and the sharer of his fortunes. Even while whispering of love
to Charlotte Hamilton, on the banks of the Devon, or sighing out the
affected sentimentalities of platonic or pastoral love in the ear of
Clarinda, his thoughts wandered to her whom he had left bleaching her
webs among the daisies on Mauchline braes--she had still his heart,
and in spite of her own and her father's disclamation, she was his
wife. It was one of the delusions of this great poet, as well as of
those good people, the Armours, that the marriage had been dissolved
by the destruction of the marriage-lines, and that Robert Burns and
Jean Armour were as single as though they had neither vowed nor
written themselves man and wife. Be that as it may, the time was come
when all scruples and obstacles were to be removed which stood in the
way of their union: their hands were united by Gavin Hamilton,
according to law, in April, 1788: and even the Reverend Mr. Auld, so
mercilessly lampooned, smiled forgivingly as the poet satisfied a
church wisely scrupulous regarding the sacred ceremony of marriage.
Though Jean Armour was but a country lass of humble degree, she had
sense and intelligence, and personal charms sufficient not only to win
and fix the attentions of the poet, but to sanction the praise which
he showered on her in song. In a letter to Mrs. Dunlop, he thus
describes her: "The most placid good nature and sweetness of
disposition, a warm heart, gratefully devoted with all its powers to
love me; vigorous health and sprightly cheerfulness, set off to the
best advantage by a more than commonly handsome figure: these I think
in a woman may make a good wife, though she should never have read a
page but the Scriptures, nor have danced in a brighter assembly than
a penny-pay wedding." To the accomplished Margaret Chalmers, of
Edinburgh, he adds, to complete the picture, "I have got the
handsomest figure, the sweetest temper, the soundest constitution, and
kindest heart in the country: a certain late publication of Scots'
poems she has perused very devoutly, and all the ballads in the land,
as she has the finest wood-note wild you ever heard." With his young
wife, a punch bowl of Scottish marble, and an eight-day clock, both
presents from Mr. Armour, now reconciled to his eminent son-in-law,
with a new plough, and a beautiful heifer, given by Mrs. Dunlop, with
about four hundred pounds in his pocket, a resolution to toil, and a
hope of success, Burns made his appearance on the banks of the Nith,
and set up his staff at Ellisland. This farm, now a classic spot, is
about six miles up the river from Dumfries; it extends to upwards of a
hundred acres: the soil is kindly; the holmland portion of it loamy
and rich, and it has at command fine walks on the river side, and
views of the Friar's Carse, Cowehill, and Dalswinton. For a while the
poet had to hide his head in a smoky hovel; till a house to his fancy,
and offices for his cattle and his crops were built, his accommodation
was sufficiently humble; and his mind taking its hue from his
situation, infused a bitterness into the letters in which he first
made known to his western friends that he had fixed his abode in
Nithsdale. "I am here," said he, "at the very elbow of existence: the
only things to be found in perfection in this country are stupidity
and canting; prose they only know in graces and prayers, and the value
of these they estimate as they do their plaiden-webs, by the ell: as
for the muses, they have as much an idea of a rhinoceros as of a
poet." "This is an undiscovered clime," he at another period exclaims,
"it is unknown to poetry, and prose never looked on it save in drink.
I sit by the fire, and listen to the hum of the spinning-wheel: I
hear, but cannot see it, for it is hidden in the smoke which eddies
round and round me before it seeks to escape by window and door. I
have no converse but with the ignorance which encloses me: No kenned
face but that of my old mare, Jenny Geddes--my life is dwindled down
to mere existence."
When the poet's new house was built and plenished, and the atmosphere
of his mind began to clear, he found the land to be fruitful, and its
people intelligent and wise. In Riddel, of Friar's Carse, he found a
scholar and antiquarian; in Miller, of Dalswinton, a man conversant
with science as well as with the world; in M'Murdo, of Drumlanrig, a
generous and accomplished gentleman; and in John Syme, of Ryedale, a
man much after his own heart, and a lover of the wit and socialities
of polished life. Of these gentlemen Riddel, who was his neighbour,
was the favourite: a door was made in the march-fence which separated
Ellisland from Friar's Carse, that the poet might indulge in the
retirement of the Carse hermitage, a little lodge in the wood, as
romantic as it was beautiful, while a pathway was cut through the
dwarf oaks and birches which fringed the river bank, to enable the
poet to saunter and muse without lot or interruption. This attention
was rewarded by an inscription for the hermitage, written with
elegance as well as feeling, and which was the first fruits of his
fancy in this unpoetic land. In a happier strain he remembered Matthew
Henderson: this is one of the sweetest as well as happiest of his
poetic compositions. He heard of his friend's death, and called on
nature animate and inanimate, to lament the loss of one who held the
patent of his honours from God alone, and who loved all that was pure
and lovely and good. "The Whistle" is another of his Ellisland
compositions: the contest which he has recorded with such spirit and
humour took place almost at his door: the heroes were Fergusson, of
Craigdarroch, Sir Robert Laurie, of Maxwelltown, and Riddel, of the
Friar's Carse: the poet was present, and drank bottle and bottle about
with the best, and when all was done he seemed much disposed, as an
old servant at Friar's Carse remembered, to take up the victor.
Burns had become fully reconciled to Nithsdale, and was on the most
intimate terms with the muse when he produced Tam O' Shanter, the
crowning glory of all his poems. For this marvellous tale we are
indebted to something like accident: Francis Grose, the antiquary,
happened to visit Friar's Carse, and as he loved wine and wit, the
total want of imagination was no hinderance to his friendly
intercourse with the poet: "Alloway's auld haunted kirk" was
mentioned, and Grose said he would include it in his illustrations of
the antiquities of Scotland, if the bard of the Doon would write a
poem to accompany it. Burns consented, and before he left the table,
the various traditions which belonged to the ruin were passing through
his mind. One of these was of a farmer, who, on a night wild with
wind and rain, on passing the old kirk was startled by a light
glimmering inside the walls; on drawing near he saw a caldron hung
over a fire, in which the heads and limbs of children were simmering:
there was neither witch nor fiend to guard it, so he unhooked the
caldron, turned out the contents, and carried it home as a trophy. A
second tradition was of a man of Kyle, who, having been on a market
night detained late in Ayr, on crossing the old bridge of Doon, on his
way home, saw a light streaming through the gothic window of Alloway
kirk, and on riding near, beheld a batch of the district witches
dancing merrily round their master, the devil, who kept them "louping
and flinging" to the sound of a bagpipe. He knew several of the old
crones, and smiled at their gambols, for they were dancing in their
smocks: but one of them, and she happened to be young and rosy, had on
a smock shorter than those of her companions by two spans at least,
which so moved the farmer that he exclaimed, "Weel luppan, Maggie wi'
the short sark!" Satan stopped his music, the light was extinguished,
and out rushed the hags after the farmer, who made at the gallop for
the bridge of Doon, knowing that they could not cross a stream: he
escaped; but Maggie, who was foremost, seized his horse's tail at the
middle of the bridge, and pulled it off in her efforts to stay him.
This poem was the work of a single day: Burns walked out to his
favourite musing path, which runs towards the old tower of the Isle,
along Nithside, and was observed to walk hastily and mutter as he
went. His wife knew by these signs that he was engaged in composition,
and watched him from the window; at last wearying, and moreover
wondering at the unusual length of his meditations, she took her
children with her and went to meet him; but as he seemed not to see
her, she stept aside among the broom to allow him to pass, which he
did with a flushed brow and dropping eyes, reciting these lines
aloud:--
"Now Tam! O, Tum! had thae been queans,
A' plump and strapping in their teens,
Their sacks, instead o' creeshie flannen,
Been snaw-white seventeen hunder linen!
Thir breeks o' mine, my only pair,
That ance were plush, o' gude blue hair,
I wad hae gien them off my hurdies,
For ae blink o' the bonnie burdies!"
He embellished this wild tradition from fact as well as from fancy:
along the road which Tam came on that eventful night his memory
supplied circumstances which prepared him for the strange sight at the
kirk of Alloway. A poor chapman had perished, some winters before, in
the snow; a murdered child had been found by some early hunters; a
tippling farmer had fallen from his horse at the expense of his neck,
beside a "meikle stane"; and a melancholy old woman had hanged herself
at the bush aboon the well, as the poem relates: all these matters the
poet pressed into the service of the muse, and used them with a skill
which adorns rather than oppresses the legend. A pert lawyer from
Dumfries objected to the language as obscure: "Obscure, sir!" said
Burns; "you know not the language of that great master of your own
art--the devil. If you had a witch for your client you would not be
able to manage her defence!"
He wrote few poems after his marriage, but he composed many songs: the
sweet voice of Mrs. Burns and the craving of Johnson's Museum will in
some measure account for the number, but not for their variety, which
is truly wonderful. In the history of that mournful strain, "Mary in
Heaven," we read the story of many of his lyrics, for they generally
sprang from his personal feelings: no poet has put more of himself
into his poetry than Burns, "Robert, though ill of a cold," said his
wife, "had been busy all day--a day of September, 1789, with the
shearers in the field, and as he had got most of the corn into the
stack-yard, was in good spirits; but when twilight came he grew sad
about something, and could not rest: he wandered first up the
waterside, and then went into the stack-yard: I followed, and begged
him to come into the house, as he was ill, and the air was sharp and
cold. He said, 'Ay, ay,' but did not come: he threw himself down on
some loose sheaves, and lay looking at the sky, and particularly at a
large, bright star, which shone like another moon. At last, but that
was long after I had left him, he came home--the song was already
composed." To the memory of Mary Campbell he dedicated that touching
ode; and he thus intimates the continuance of his early affection for
"The fair haired lass of the west," in a letter of that time to Mrs.
Dunlop. "If there is another life, it must be only for the just, the
benevolent, the amiable, and the humane. What a flattering idea, then,
is a world to come! There shall I, with speechless agony of rapture,
again recognise my lost, my ever dear Mary, whose bosom was fraught
with truth, honour, constancy, and love." These melancholy words gave
way in their turn to others of a nature lively and humorous: "Tam
Glen," in which the thoughts flow as freely as the waters of the Nith,
on whose banks he wrote it; "Findlay," with its quiet vein of sly
simplicity; "Willie brewed a peck o' maut," the first of social, and
"She's fair and fause," the first of sarcastic songs, with "The deil's
awa wi' the Exciseman," are all productions of this period--a period
which had besides its own fears and its own forebodings.
For a while Burns seemed to prosper in his farm: he held the plough
with his own hand, he guided the harrows, he distributed the seed-corn
equally among the furrows, and he reaped the crop in its season, and
saw it safely covered in from the storms of winter with "thack and
rape;" his wife, too, superintended the dairy with a skill which she
had brought from Kyle, and as the harvest, for a season or two, was
abundant, and the dairy yielded butter and cheese for the market, it
seemed that "the luckless star" which ruled his lot had relented, and
now shone unboding and benignly. But much more is required than toil
of hand to make a successful farmer, nor will the attention bestowed
only by fits and starts, compensate for carelessness or oversight:
frugality, not in one thing but in all, is demanded, in small matters
as well as in great, while a careful mind and a vigilant eye must
superintend the labours of servants, and the whole system of in-door
and out-door economy. Now, during the three years which Burns stayed
in Ellisland, he neither wrought with that constant diligence which
farming demands, nor did he bestow upon it the unremitting attention
of eye and mind which such a farm required: besides his skill in
husbandry was but moderate--the rent, though of his own fixing, was
too high for him and for the times; the ground, though good, was not
so excellent as he might have had on the same estate--he employed more
servants than the number of acres demanded, and spread for them a
richer board than common: when we have said this we need not add the
expensive tastes induced by poetry, to keep readers from starting,
when they are told that Burns, at the close of the third year of
occupation, resigned his lease to the landlord, and bade farewell for
ever to the plough. He was not, however, quite desolate; he had for a
year or more been appointed on the excise, and had superintended a
district extending to ten large parishes, with applause; indeed, it
has been assigned as the chief reason for failure in his farm, that
when the plough or the sickle summoned him to the field, he was to be
found, either pursuing the defaulters of the revenue, among the
valleys of Dumfrieshire, or measuring out pastoral verse to the
beauties of the land. He retired to a house in the Bank-vennel of
Dumfries, and commenced a town-life: he commenced it with an empty
pocket, for Ellisland had swallowed up all the profits of his poems:
he had now neither a barn to produce meal nor barley, a barn-yard to
yield a fat hen, a field to which he could go at Martinmas for a mart,
nor a dairy to supply milk and cheese and butter to the table--he had,
in short, all to buy and little to buy with. He regarded it as a
compensation that he had no farm-rent to provide, no bankruptcies to
dread, no horse to keep, for his excise duties were now confined to
Dumfries, and that the burthen of a barren farm was removed from his
mind, and his muse at liberty to renew her unsolicited strains.
But from the day of his departure from "the barren" Ellisland, the
downward course of Burns may be dated. The cold neglect of his country
had driven him back indignantly to the plough, and he hoped to gain
from the furrowed field that independence which it was the duty of
Scotland to have provided: but he did not resume the plough with all
the advantages he possessed when he first forsook it: he had revelled
in the luxuries of polished life--his tastes had been rendered
expensive as well as pure: he had witnessed, and he hoped for the
pleasures of literary retirement, while the hands which had led
jewelled dames over scented carpets to supper tables leaded with
silver took hold of the hilts of the plough with more of reluctance
than good-will. Edinburgh, with its lords and its ladies, its delights
and its hopes, spoiled him for farming. Nor were his new labours more
acceptable to his haughty spirit than those of the plough: the excise
for a century had been a word of opprobrium or of hatred in the
north: the duties which it imposed were regarded, not by peasants
alone, as a serious encroachment upon the ancient rights of the
nation, and to mislead a gauger, or resist him, even to blood, was
considered by few as a fault. That the brightest genius of the
nation--one whose tastes and sensibilities were so peculiarly its
own--should be, as a reward, set to look after run-rum and smuggled
tobacco, and to gauge ale-wife's barrels, was a regret and a marvel to
many, and a source of bitter merriment to Burns himself.
The duties of his situation were however performed punctually, if not
with pleasure: he was a vigilant officer; he was also a merciful and
considerate one: though loving a joke, and not at all averse to a
dram, he walked among suspicious brewers, captious ale-wives, and
frowning shop-keepers as uprightly as courteously: he smoothed the
ruggedest natures into acquiescence by his gayety and humour, and yet
never gave cause for a malicious remark, by allowing his vigilance to
slumber. He was brave, too, and in the capture of an armed smuggler,
in which he led the attack, showed that he neither feared water nor
fire: he loved, also, to counsel the more forward of the smugglers to
abandon their dangerous calling; his sympathy for the helpless poor
induced him to give them now and then notice of his approach; he has
been known to interpret the severe laws of the excise into tenderness
and mercy in behalf of the widow and the fatherless. In all this he
did but his duty to his country and his kind: and his conduct was so
regarded by a very competent and candid judge. "Let me look at the
books of Burns," said Maxwell, of Terraughty, at the meeting of the
district magistrates, "for they show that an upright officer may be a
merciful one." With a salary of some seventy pounds a year, the chance
of a few guineas annually from the future editions of his poems, and
the hope of rising at some distant day to the more lucrative situation
of supervisor, Burns continued to live in Dumfries; first in the
Bank-vennel, and next in a small house in a humble street, since
called by his name.
In his earlier years the poet seems to have scattered songs as thick
as a summer eve scatters its dews; nor did he scatter them less
carelessly: he appears, indeed, to have thought much less of them than
of his poems: the sweet song of Mary Morison, and others not at all
inferior, lay unregarded among his papers till accident called them
out to shine and be admired. Many of these brief but happy
compositions, sometimes with his name, and oftener without, he threw
in dozens at a time into Johnson, where they were noticed only by the
captious Ritson: but now a work of higher pretence claimed a share in
his skill: in September, 1792, he was requested by George Thomson to
render, for his national collection, the poetry worthy of the muses of
the north, and to take compassion on many choice airs, which had
waited for a poet like the author of the Cotter's Saturday Night, to
wed them to immortal verse. To engage in such an undertaking, Burns
required small persuasion, and while Thomson asked for strains
delicate and polished, the poet characteristically stipulated that his
contributions were to be without remuneration, and the language
seasoned with a sprinkling of the Scottish dialect. As his heart was
much in the matter, he began to pour out verse with a readiness and
talent unknown in the history of song: his engagement with Thomson,
and his esteem for Johnson, gave birth to a series of songs as
brilliant as varied, and as naturally easy as they were gracefully
original. In looking over those very dissimilar collections it is not
difficult to discover that the songs which he wrote for the more
stately work, while they are more polished and elegant than those
which he contributed to the less pretending one, are at the same time
less happy in their humour and less simple in their pathos. "What
pleases _me_ as simple and naive," says Burns to Thomson, "disgusts
_you_ as ludicrous and low. For this reason 'Fye, gie me my coggie,
sirs,' 'Fye, let us a' to the bridal,' with several others of that
cast, are to me highly pleasing, while 'Saw ye my Father' delights me
with its descriptive simple pathos:" we read in these words the
reasons of the difference between the lyrics of the two collections.
The land where the poet lived furnished ready materials for song:
hills with fine woods, vales with clear waters, and dames as lovely as
any recorded in verse, were to be had in his walks and his visits;
while, for the purposes of mirth or of humour, characters, in whose
faces originality was legibly written, were as numerous in Nithsdale
as he had found them in the west. He had been reproached, while in
Kyle, with seeing charms in very ordinary looks, and hanging the
garlands of the muse on unlovely altars; he was liable to no such
censure in Nithsdale; he poured out the incense of poetry only on the
fair and captivating: his Jeans, his Lucys, his Phillises, and his
Jessies were ladies of such mental or personal charms as the
Reynolds's and the Lawrences of the time would have rejoiced to lay
out their choicest colours on. But he did not limit himself to the
charms of those whom he could step out to the walks and admire: his
lyrics give evidence of the wandering of his thoughts to the distant
or the dead--he loves to remember Charlotte Hamilton and Mary
Campbell, and think of the sighs and vows on the Devon and the Doon,
while his harpstrings were still quivering to the names of the Millers
and the M'Murdos--to the charms of the lasses with golden or with
flaxen locks, in the valley where he dwelt. Of Jean M'Murdo and her
sister Phillis he loved to sing; and their beauty merited his strains:
to one who died in her bloom, Lucy Johnston, he addressed a song of
great sweetness; to Jessie Lewars, two or three songs of gratitude and
praise: nor did he forget other beauties, for the accomplished Mrs.
Riddel is remembered, and the absence of fair Clarinda is lamented in
strains both impassioned and pathetic.
But the main inspirer of the latter songs of Burns was a young woman
of humble birth: of a form equal to the most exquisite proportions of
sculpture, with bloom on her cheeks, and merriment in her large bright
eyes, enough to drive an amatory poet crazy. Her name was Jean
Lorimer; she was not more than seventeen when the poet made her
acquaintance, and though she had got a sort of brevet-right from an
officer of the army, to use his southron name of Whelpdale, she loved
best to be addressed by her maiden designation, while the poet chose
to veil her in the numerous lyrics, to which she gave life, under the
names of "Chloris," "The lass of Craigie-burnwood," and "The lassie
wi' the lintwhite locks." Though of a temper not much inclined to
conceal anything, Burns complied so tastefully with the growing demand
of the age for the exterior decencies of life, that when the scrupling
dames of Caledonia sung a new song in her praise, they were as
unconscious whence its beauties came, as is the lover of art, that the
shape and gracefulness of the marble nymph which he admires, are
derived from a creature who sells the use of her charms indifferently
to sculpture or to love. Fine poetry, like other arts called fine,
springs from "strange places," as the flower in the fable said, when
it bloomed on the dunghill; nor is Burns more to be blamed than was
Raphael, who painted Madonnas, and Magdalens with dishevelled hair and
lifted eyes, from a loose lady, whom the pope, "Holy at Rome--here
Antichrist," charitably prescribed to the artist, while he laboured in
the cause of the church. Of the poetic use which he made of Jean
Lorimer's charms, Burns gives this account to Thomson. "The lady of
whom the song of Craigie-burnwood was made is one of the finest women
in Scotland, and in fact is to me in a manner what Sterne's Eliza was
to him--a mistress, or friend, or what you will, in the guileless
simplicity of platonic love. I assure you that to my lovely friend you
are indebted for many of my best songs. Do you think that the sober
gin-horse routine of my existence could inspire a man with life and
love and joy--could fire him with enthusiasm, or melt him with pathos,
equal to the genius of your book? No! no! Whenever I want to be more
than ordinary in song--to be in some degree equal to your diviner
airs--do you imagine I fast and pray for the celestial emanation?
Quite the contrary. I have a glorious recipe; the very one that for
his own use was invented by the divinity of healing and poesy, when
erst he piped to the flocks of Admetus. I put myself in a regimen of
admiring a fine woman; and in proportion to the adorability of her
charms, in proportion are you delighted with my verses. The lightning
of her eye is the godhead of Parnassus, and the witchery of her smile,
the divinity of Helicon."
Most of the songs which he composed under the influences to which I
have alluded are of the first order: "Bonnie Lesley," "Highland Mary,"
"Auld Rob Morris," "Duncan Gray," "Wandering Willie," "Meg o' the
Mill," "The poor and honest sodger," "Bonnie Jean," "Phillis the
fair," "John Anderson my Jo," "Had I a cave on some wild distant
shore," "Whistle and I'll come to you, my lad," "Bruce's Address to
his men at Bannockburn," "Auld Lang Syne," "Thine am I, my faithful
fair," "Wilt thou be my dearie," "O Chloris, mark how green the
groves," "Contented wi' little, and cantie wi' mair," "Their groves of
sweet myrtle," "Last May a braw wooer came down the long glen," "O
Mally's meek, Mally's sweet," "Hey for a lass wi' a tocher," "Here's
a health to ane I loe dear," and the "Fairest maid on Devon banks."
Many of the latter lyrics of Burns were more or less altered, to put
them into better harmony with the airs, and I am not the only one who
has wondered that a bard so impetuous and intractable in most matters,
should have become so soft and pliable, as to make changes which too
often sacrificed the poetry for the sake of a fuller and more swelling
sound. It is true that the emphatic notes of the music must find their
echo in the emphatic words of the verse, and that words soft and
liquid are fitter for ladies' lips, than words hissing and rough; but
it is also true that in changing a harsher word for one more
harmonious the sense often suffers, and that happiness of expression,
and that dance of words which lyric verse requires, lose much of their
life and vigour. The poet's favourite walk in composing his songs was
on a beautiful green sward on the northern side of the Nith, opposite
Lincluden: and his favourite posture for composition at home was
balancing himself on the hind legs of his arm-chair.
While indulging in these lyrical nights, politics penetrated into
Nithsdale, and disturbed the tranquillity of that secluded region.
First, there came a contest far the representation of the Dumfries
district of boroughs, between Patrick Miller, younger, of Dalswinton,
and Sir James Johnstone, of Westerhall, and some two years afterwards,
a struggle for the representation of the county of Kirkcudbright,
between the interest of the Stewarts, of Galloway, and Patrick Heron,
of Kerroughtree. In the first of these the poet mingled discretion
with his mirth, and raised a hearty laugh, in which both parties
joined; for this sobriety of temper, good reasons may be assigned:
Miller, the elder, of Dalswinton, had desired to oblige him in the
affair of Ellisland, and his firm and considerate friend, M'Murdo, of
Drumlanrig, was chamberlain to his Grace of Queensbury, on whoso
interest Miller stood. On the other hand, his old Jacobitical
affections made him the secret well-wisher to Westerhall, for up to
this time, at least till acid disappointment and the democratic
doctrine of the natural equality of man influenced him, Burns, or as a
western rhymer of his day and district worded the reproach--Rob was a
Tory. His situation, it will therefore be observed, disposed him to
moderation, and accounts for the milkiness of his Epistle to Fintray,
in which he marshals the chiefs of the contending factions, and
foretells the fierceness of the strife, without pretending to foresee
the event. Neither is he more explicit, though infinitely more
humorous, in his ballad of "The Five Carlins," in which he
impersonates the five boroughs--Dumfries, Kirkcudbright, Lochmaben,
Sanquhar, and Annan, and draws their characters as shrewd and
calculating dames, met in much wrath and drink to choose a
representative.
But the two or three years which elapsed between the election for the
boroughs, and that for the county adjoining, wrought a serious change
in the temper as well as the opinions of the poet. His Jacobitism, as
has been said was of a poetic kind, and put on but in obedience to old
feelings, and made no part of the man: he was in his heart as
democratic as the kirk of Scotland, which educated him--he
acknowledged no other superiority but the mental: "he was disposed,
too," said Professor Walker, "from constitutional temper, from
education and the accidents of life, to a jealousy of power, and a
keen hostility against every system which enabled birth and opulence
to anticipate those rewards which he conceived to belong to genius and
virtue." When we add to this, a resentment of the injurious treatment
of the dispensers of public patronage, who had neglected his claims,
and showered pensions and places on men unworthy of being named with
him, we have assigned causes for the change of side and the tone of
asperity and bitterness infused into "The Heron Ballads." Formerly
honey was mixed with his gall: a little praise sweetened his censure:
in these election lampoons he is fierce and even venomous:--no man has
a head but what is empty, nor a heart that is not black: men descended
without reproach from lines of heroes are stigmatized as cowards, and
the honest and conscientious are reproached as miserly, mean, and
dishonourable. Such is the spirit of party. "I have privately," thus
writes the poet to Heron, "printed a good many copies of the ballads,
and have sent them among friends about the country. You have already,
as your auxiliary, the sober detestation of mankind on the heads of
your opponents; find I swear by the lyre of Thalia, to muster on your
side all the votaries of honest laughter and fair, candid ridicule."
The ridicule was uncandid, and the laughter dishonest. The poet was
unfortunate in his political attachments: Miller gained the boroughs
which Burns wished he might lose, and Heron lost the county which he
foretold he would gain. It must also be recorded against the good
taste of the poet, that he loved to recite "The Heron Ballads," and
reckon them among his happiest compositions.
From attacking others, the poet was--in the interval between penning
these election lampoons--called on to defend himself: for this he
seems to have been quite unprepared, though in those yeasty times he
might have expected it. "I have been surprised, confounded, and
distracted," he thus writes to Graham, of Fintray, "by Mr. Mitchell,
the collector, telling me that he has received an order from your
board to inquire into my political conduct, and blaming me as a person
disaffected to government. Sir, you are a husband and a father: you
know what you would feel, to see the much-loved wife of your bosom,
and your helpless prattling little ones, turned adrift into the world,
degraded and disgraced, from a situation in which they had been
respectable and respected. I would not tell a deliberate falsehood,
no, not though even worse horrors, if worse can be than those I have
mentioned, hung over my head, and I say that the allegation, whatever
villain has made it, is a lie! To the British constitution, on
Revolution principles, next after my God, I am devotedly attached. To
your patronage as a man of some genius, you have allowed me a claim;
and your esteem as an honest man I know is my due. To these, sir,
permit me to appeal: by these I adjure you to save me from that misery
which threatens to overwhelm me, and which with my latest breath I
will say I have not deserved." In this letter, another, intended for
the eye of the Commissioners of the Board of Excise, was enclosed, in
which he disclaimed entertaining the idea of a British republic--a
wild dream of the day--but stood by the principles of the constitution
of 1688, with the wish to see such corruptions as had crept in,
amended. This last remark, it appears, by a letter from the poet to
Captain Erskine, afterwards Earl of Mar, gave great offence, for
Corbet, one of the superiors, was desired to inform him, "that his
business was to act, and not to think; and that whatever might be men
or measures, it was his duty to be silent and obedient." The
intercession of Fintray, and the explanations of Burns, were so far
effectual, that his political offense was forgiven, "only I
understand," said he, "that all hopes of my getting officially forward
are blasted." The records of the Excise Office exhibit no trace of
this memorable matter, and two noblemen, who were then in the
government, have assured me that this harsh proceeding received no
countenance at head-quarters, and must have originated with some
ungenerous or malicious person, on whom the poet had spilt a little of
the nitric acid of his wrath.
That Burns was numbered among the republicans of Dumfries I well
remember: but then those who held different sentiments from the men in
power, were all, in that loyal town, stigmatized as democrats: that he
either desired to see the constitution changed, or his country invaded
by the liberal French, who proposed to set us free with the bayonet,
and then admit us to the "fraternal embrace," no one ever believed. It
is true that he spoke of premiers and peers with contempt; that he
hesitated to take off his hat in the theatre, to the air of "God save
the king;" that he refused to drink the health of Pitt, saying he
preferred that of Washington--a far greater man; that he wrote bitter
words against that combination of princes, who desired to put down
freedom in France; that he said the titled spurred and the wealthy
switched England and Scotland like two hack-horses; and that all the
high places of the land, instead of being filled by genius and talent,
were occupied, as were the high-places of Israel, with idols of wood
or of stone. But all this and more had been done and said before by
thousands in this land, whose love of their country was never
questioned. That it was bad taste to refuse to remove his hat when
other heads were bared, and little better to refuse to pledge in
company the name of Pitt, because he preferred Washington, cannot
admit of a doubt; but that he deserved to be written down traitor, for
mere matters of whim or caprice, or to be turned out of the unenvied
situation of "gauging auld wives' barrels," because he thought there
were some stains on the white robe of the constitution, seems a sort
of tyranny new in the history of oppression. His love of country is
recorded in too many undying lines to admit of a doubt now: nor is it
that chivalrous love alone which men call romantic; it is a love which
may be laid up in every man's heart and practised in every man's life;
the words are homely, but the words of Burns are always expressive:--
"The kettle of the kirk and state
Perhaps a clout may fail in't,
But deil a foreign tinkler loon
Shall ever ca' a nail in't.
Be Britons still to Britons true,
Amang ourselves united;
For never but by British hands
Shall British wrongs be righted."
But while verses, deserving as these do to become the national motto,
and sentiments loyal and generous, were overlooked and forgotten, all
his rash words about freedom, and his sarcastic sallies about thrones
and kings, were treasured up to his injury, by the mean and the
malicious. His steps were watched and his words weighed; when he
talked with a friend in the street, he was supposed to utter sedition;
and when ladies retired from the table, and the wine circulated with
closed doors, he was suspected of treason rather than of toasting,
which he often did with much humour, the charms of woman; even when he
gave as a sentiment, "May our success be equal to the justice of our
cause," he was liable to be challenged by some gunpowder captain, who
thought that we deserved success in war, whether right or wrong. It is
true that he hated with a most cordial hatred all who presumed on
their own consequence, whether arising from wealth, titles, or
commissions in the army; officers he usually called "the epauletted
puppies," and lords he generally spoke of as "feather-headed fools,"
who could but strut and stare and be no answer in kind to retort his
satiric flings, his unfriends reported that it was unsafe for young
men to associate with one whose principles were democratic, and
scarcely either modest or safe for young women to listen to a poet
whose notions of female virtue were so loose and his songs so free.
These sentiments prevailed so far that a gentleman on a visit from
London, told me he was dissuaded from inviting Burns to a dinner,
given by way of welcome back to his native place, because he was the
associate of democrats and loose people; and when a modest dame of
Dumfries expressed, through a friend, a wish to have but the honour of
speaking to one of whose genius she was an admirer, the poet declined
the interview, with a half-serious smile, saying, "Alas! she is
handsome, and you know the character publicly assigned to me." She
escaped the danger of being numbered, it is likely, with the Annas and
the Chlorises of his freer strains.
The neglect of his country, the tyranny of the Excise, and the
downfall of his hopes and fortunes, were now to bring forth their
fruits--the poet's health began to decline. His drooping looks, his
neglect of his person, his solitary saunterings, his escape from the
stings of reflection into socialities, and his distempered joy in the
company of beauty, all spoke, as plainly as with a tongue, of a
sinking heart and a declining body. Yet though he was sensible of
sinking health, hope did not at once desert him: he continued to pour
out such tender strains, and to show such flashes of wit and humour at
the call of Thomson, as are recorded of no other lyrist: neither did
he, when in company after his own mind, hang the head, and speak
mournfully, but talked and smiled and still charmed all listeners by
his witty vivacities.
On the 20th of June, 1795, he writes thus of his fortunes and
condition to his friend Clarke, "Still, still the victim of
affliction; were you to see the emaciated figure who now holds the pen
to you, you would not know your old friend. Whether I shall ever get
about again is only known to HIM, the Great Unknown, whoso creature I
am. Alas, Clarke, I begin to fear the worst! As to my individual self
I am tranquil, and would despise myself if I were not: but Burns's
poor widow and half-a-dozen of his dear little ones, helpless orphans!
_Here_ I am as weak as a woman's tear. Enough of this! 'tis half my
disease. I duly received your last, enclosing the note: it came
extremely in time, and I am much obliged to your punctuality. Again I
must request you to do me the same kindness. Be so very good as by
return of post to enclose me _another_ note: I trust you can do so
without inconvenience, and it will seriously oblige me. If I must go,
I leave a few friends behind me, whom I shall regret while
consciousness remains. I know I shall live in their remembrance. O,
dear, dear Clarke! that I shall ever see you again is I am afraid
highly improbable." This remarkable letter proves both the declining
health, and the poverty of the poet: his digestion was so bad that he
could taste neither flesh nor fish: porridge and milk he could alone
swallow, and that but in small quantities. When it is recollected that
he had no more than thirty shillings a week to keep house, and live
like a gentleman, no one need wonder that his wife had to be obliged
to a generous neighbour for some of the chief necessaries for her
coming confinement, and that the poet had to beg, in extreme need, two
guinea notes from a distant friend.
His sinking state was not unobserved by his friends, and Syme and
M'Murdo united with Dr. Maxwell in persuading him, at the beginning of
the summer, to seek health at the Brow-well, a few miles east of
Dumfries, where there were pleasant walks on the Solway-side, and
salubrious breezes from the sea, which it was expected would bring the
health to the poet they had brought to many. For a while, his looks
brightened up, and health seemed inclined to return: his friend, the
witty and accomplished Mrs. Riddel, who was herself ailing, paid him a
visit. "I was struck," she said, "with his appearance on entering the
room: the stamp of death was impressed on his features. His first
words were, 'Well, Madam, have you any commands for the other world?'
I replied that it seemed a doubtful case which of us should be there
soonest; he looked in my face with an air of great kindness, and
expressed his concern at seeing me so ill, with his usual sensibility.
At table he ate little or nothing: we had a long conversation about
his present state, and the approaching termination of all his earthly
prospects. He showed great concern about his literary fame, and
particularly the publication of his posthumous works; he said he was
well aware that his death would occasion some noise, and that every
scrap of his writing would be revived against him, to the injury of
his future reputation; that letters and verses, written with unguarded
freedom, would be handed about by vanity or malevolence when no dread
of his resentment would restrain them, or prevent malice or envy from
pouring forth their venom on his name. I had seldom seen his mind
greater, or more collected. There was frequently a considerable degree
of vivacity in his sallies; but the concern and dejection I could not
disguise, damped the spirit of pleasantry he seemed willing to
indulge." This was on the evening of the 5th of July; another lady who
called to see him, found him seated at a window, gazing on the sun,
then setting brightly on the summits of the green hills of Nithsdale.
"Look how lovely the sun is," said the poet, "but he will soon have
done with shining for me."
He now longed for home: his wife, whom he ever tenderly loved, was
about to be confined in child-bed: his papers were in sad confusion,
and required arrangement; and he felt that desire to die, at least,
among familiar things and friendly faces, so common to our nature. He
had not long before, though much reduced in pocket, refused with scorn
an offer of fifty pounds, which a speculating bookseller made, for
leave to publish his looser compositions; he had refused an offer of
the like sum yearly, from Perry of the Morning Chronicle, for poetic
contributions to his paper, lest it might embroil him with the ruling
powers, and he had resented the remittance of five pounds from
Thomson, on account of his lyric contributions, and desired him to do
so no more, unless he wished to quarrel with him; but his necessities
now, and they had at no time been so great, induced him to solicit
five pounds from Thomson, and ten pounds from his cousin, James
Burness, of Montrose, and to beg his friend Alexander Cunningham to
intercede with the Commissioners of Excise, to depart from their usual
practice, and grant him his full salary; "for without that," he added,
"if I die not of disease, I must perish with hunger." Thomson sent the
five pounds, James Burness sent the ten, but the Commissioners of
Excise refused to be either merciful or generous. Stobie, a young
expectant in the customs, was both;--he performed the duties of the
dying poet, and refused to touch the salary. The mind of Burns was
haunted with the fears of want and the terrors of a jail; nor were
those fears without foundation; one Williamson, to whom he was
indebted for the cloth to make his volunteer regimentals, threatened
the one; and a feeling that he was without money for either his own
illness or the confinement of his wife, threatened the other.
Burns returned from the Brow-well, on the 18th of July: as he walked
from the little carriage which brought him up the Mill hole-brae to
his own door, he trembled much, and stooped with weakness and pain,
and kept his feet with difficulty: his looks were woe-worn and
ghastly, and no one who saw him, and there were several, expected to
see him again in life. It was soon circulated through Dumfries, that
Burns had returned worse from the Brow-well; that Maxwell thought ill
of him, and that, in truth, he was dying. The anxiety of all classes
was great; differences of opinion were forgotten, in sympathy for his
early fate: wherever two or three were met together their talk was of
Burns, of his rare wit, matchless humour, the vivacity of his
conversation, and the kindness of his heart. To the poet himself,
death, which he now knew was at hand, brought with it no fear; his
good-humour, which small matters alone ruffled, did not forsake him,
and his wit was ever ready. He was poor--he gave his pistols, which he
had used against the smugglers on the Solway, to his physician, adding
with a smile, that he had tried them and found them an honour to their
maker, which was more than he could say of the bulk of mankind! He was
proud--he remembered the indifferent practice of the corps to which he
belonged, and turning to Gibson, one of his fellow-soldiers, who stood
at his bedside with wet eyes, "John," said he, and a gleam of humour
passed over his face, "pray don't let the awkward-squad fire over me."
It was almost the last act of his life to copy into his Common-place
Book, the letters which contained the charge against him of the
Commissioners of Excise, and his own eloquent refutation, leaving
judgment to be pronounced by the candour of posterity.
It has been injuriously said of Burns, by Coleridge, that the man
sunk, but the poet was bright to the last: he did not sink in the
sense that these words imply: the man was manly to the latest draught
of breath. That he was a poet to the last, can be proved by facts, as
well as by the word of the author of Christabel. As he lay silently
growing weaker and weaker, he observed Jessie Lewars, a modest and
beautiful young creature, and sister to one of his brethren of the
Excise, watching over him with moist eyes, and tending him with the
care of a daughter; he rewarded her with one of those songs which are
an insurance against forgetfulness. The lyrics of the north have
nothing finer than this exquisite stanza:--
"Altho' thou maun never be mine,
Altho' even hope is denied,
'Tis sweeter for thee despairing,
Than aught in the world beside."
His thoughts as he lay wandered to Charlotte Hamilton, and he
dedicated some beautiful stanzas to her beauty and her coldness,
beginning, "Fairest maid on Devon banks."
It was a sad sight to see the poet gradually sinking; his wife in
hourly expectation of her sixth confinement, and his four helpless
children--a daughter, a sweet child, had died the year before--with no
one of their lineage to soothe them with kind words or minister to
their wants. Jessie Lewars, with equal prudence and attention, watched
over them all: she could not help seeing that the thoughts of the
desolation which his death would bring, pressed sorely on him, for he
loved his children, and hoped much from his boys. He wrote to his
father-in-law, James Armour, at Mauchline, that he was dying, his wife
nigh her confinement, and begged that his mother-in-law would hasten
to them and speak comfort. He wrote to Mrs. Dunlop, saying, "I have
written to you so often without receiving any answer that I would not
trouble you again, but for the circumstances in which I am. An illness
which has long hung about me in all probability will speedily send me
beyond that bourne whence no traveller returns. Your friendship, with
which for many years you honoured me, was a friendship dearest to my
soul: your conversation and your correspondence were at once highly
entertaining and instructive--with what pleasure did I use to break up
the seal! The remembrance yet adds one pulse more to my poor
palpitating heart. Farewell!" A tremor pervaded his frame; his tongue
grew parched, and he was at times delirious: on the fourth day after
his return, when his attendant, James Maclure, held his medicine to
his lips, he swallowed it eagerly, rose almost wholly up, spread out
his hands, sprang forward nigh the whole length of the bed, fell on
his face, and expired. He died on the 21st of July, when nearly
thirty-seven years and seven months old.
The burial of Burns, on the 25th of July, was an impressive and
mournful scene: half the people of Nithsdale and the neighbouring
parts of Galloway had crowded into Dumfries, to see their poet
"mingled with the earth," and not a few had been permitted to look at
his body, laid out for interment. It was a calm and beautiful day, and
as the body was borne along the street towards the old kirk-yard, by
his brethren of the volunteers, not a sound was heard but the measured
step and the solemn music: there was no impatient crushing, no fierce
elbowing--the crowd which filled the street seemed conscious of what
they were now losing for ever. Even while this pageant was passing,
the widow of the poet was taken in labour; but the infant born in that
unhappy hour soon shared his father's grave. On reaching the northern
nook of the kirk-yard, where the grave was made, the mourners halted;
the coffin was divested of the mort-cloth, and silently lowered to its
resting-place, and as the first shovel-full of earth fell on the lid,
the volunteers, too agitated to be steady, justified the fears of the
poet, by three ragged volleys. He who now writes this very brief and
imperfect account, was present: he thought then, as he thinks now,
that all the military array of foot and horse did not harmonize with
either the genius or the fortunes of the poet, and that the tears
which he saw on many cheeks around, as the earth was replaced, were
worth all the splendour of a show which mocked with unintended mockery
the burial of the poor and neglected Burns. The body of the poet was,
on the 5th of June, 1815, removed to a more commodious spot in the
same burial-ground--his dark, and waving locks looked then fresh and
glossy--to afford room for a marble monument, which embodies, with
neither skill nor grace, that well-known passage in the dedication to
the gentlemen of the Caledonian Hunt:--"The poetic genius of my
country found me, as the prophetic bard, Elijah, did Elisha, at the
plough, and threw her inspiring mantle over me." The dust of the bard
was again disturbed, when the body of Mrs. Burns was laid, in April,
1834, beside the remains of her husband: his skull was dug up by the
district craniologists, to satisfy their minds by measurement that he
was equal to the composition of "Tam o' Shanter," or "Mary in Heaven."
This done, they placed the skull in a leaden box, "carefully lined
with the softest materials," and returned it, we hope for ever, to the
hallowed ground.
Thus lived and died Robert Burns, the chief of Scottish poets: in his
person he was tall and sinewy, and of such strength and activity, that
Scott alone, of all the poets I have seen, seemed his equal: his
forehead was broad, his hair black, with an inclination to curl, his
visage uncommonly swarthy, his eyes large, dark and lustrous, and his
voice deep and manly. His sensibility was strong, his passions full to
overflowing, and he loved, nay, adored, whatever was gentle and
beautiful. He had, when a lad at the plough, an eloquent word and an
inspired song for every fair face that smiled on him, and a sharp
sarcasm or a fierce lampoon for every rustic who thwarted or
contradicted him. As his first inspiration came from love, he
continued through life to love on, and was as ready with the lasting
incense of the muse for the ladies of Nithsdale as for the lasses of
Kyle: his earliest song was in praise of a young girl who reaped by
his side, when he was seventeen--his latest in honour of a lady by
whose side he had wandered and dreamed on the banks of the Devon. He
was of a nature proud and suspicious, and towards the close of his
life seemed disposed to regard all above him in rank as men who
unworthily possessed the patrimony of genius: he desired to see the
order of nature restored, and worth and talent in precedence of the
base or the dull. He had no medium in his hatred or his love; he never
spared the stupid, as if they were not to be endured because he was
bright; and on the heads of the innocent possessors of titles or
wealth he was ever ready to shower his lampoons. He loved to start
doubts in religion which he knew inspiration only could solve, and he
spoke of Calvinism with a latitude of language that grieved pious
listeners. He was warm-hearted and generous to a degree, above all
men, and scorned all that was selfish and mean with a scorn quite
romantic. He was a steadfast friend and a good neighbour: while he
lived at Ellisland few passed his door without being entertained at
his table; and even when in poverty, on the Millhole-brae, the poor
seldom left his door but with blessings on their lips.
Of his modes of study he has himself informed us, as well as of the
seasons and the places in which he loved to muse. He composed while he
strolled along the secluded banks of the Doon, the Ayr, or the Nith:
as the images crowded on his fancy his pace became quickened, and in
his highest moods he was excited even to tears. He loved the winter
for its leafless trees, its swelling floods, and its winds which swept
along the gloomy sky, with frost and snow on their wings: but he loved
the autumn more--he has neglected to say why--the muse was then more
liberal of her favours, and he composed with a happy alacrity unfelt
in all other seasons. He filled his mind and heart with the materials
of song--and retired from gazing on woman's beauty, and from the
excitement of her charms, to record his impressions in verse, as a
painter delineates oil his canvas the looks of those who sit to his
pencil. His chief place of study at Ellisland is still remembered: it
extends along the river-bank towards the Isle: there the neighbouring
gentry love to walk and peasants to gather, and hold it sacred, as the
place where he composed Tam O' Shanter. His favourite place of study
when residing in Dumfries, was the ruins of Lincluden College, made
classic by that sublime ode, "The Vision," and that level and clovery
sward contiguous to the College, on the northern side of the Nith: the
latter place was his favourite resort; it is known now by the name of
Burns's musing ground, and there he conceived many of his latter
lyrics. In case of interruption he completed the verses at the
fireside, where he swung to and fro in his arm-chair till the task was
done: he then submitted the song to the ordeal of his wife's voice,
which was both sweet and clear, and while she sung he listened
attentively, and altered or amended till the whole was in harmony,
music and words.
The genius of Burns is of a high order: in brightness of expression
and unsolicited ease and natural vehemence of language, he stands in
the first rank of poets: in choice of subjects, in happiness of
conception, and loftiness of imagination, he recedes into the second.
He owes little of his fame to his objects, for, saving the beauty of a
few ladies, they were all of an ordinary kind: he sought neither in
romance nor in history for themes to the muse; he took up topics from
life around which were familiar to all, and endowed them with
character, with passion, with tenderness, with humour--elevating all
that he touched into the regions of poetry and morals. He went to no
far lands for the purpose of surprising us with wonders, neither did
he go to crowns or coronets to attract the stare of the peasantry
around him, by things which to them were as a book shut and sealed:
"The Daisy" grew on the lands which he ploughed; "The Mouse" built her
frail nest on his own stubble-field; "The Haggis" reeked on his own
table; "The Scotch Drink" of which he sang was the produce of a
neighbouring still; "The Twa Dogs," which conversed so wisely and
wittily, were, one of them at least, his own collies; "The Vision" is
but a picture, and a brilliant one, of his own hopes and fears; "Tam
Samson" was a friend whom he loved; "Doctor Hornbook" a neighbouring
pedant; "Matthew Henderson" a social captain on half-pay; "The Scotch
Bard" who had gone to the West Indies was Burns himself; the heroine
of "The Lament" was Jean Armour; and "Tam O' Shanter" a facetious
farmer of Kyle, who rode late and loved pleasant company, nay, even
"The Deil" himself, whom he had the hardihood to address, was a being
whose eldrich croon bad alarmed the devout matrons of Kyle, and had
wandered, not unseen by the bard himself, among the lonely glens of
the Doon. Burns was one of the first to teach the world that high
moral poetry resided in the humblest subjects: whatever he touched
became elevated; his spirit possessed and inspired the commonest
topics, and endowed them with life and beauty.
His songs have all the beauties and but few of them the faults of his
poems: they flow to the music as readily as if both air and words came
into the world together. The sentiments are from nature, they are
rarely strained or forced, and the words dance in their places and
echo the music in its pastoral sweetness, social glee, or in the
tender and the moving. He seems always to write with woman's eye upon
him: he is gentle, persuasive and impassioned: he appears to watch her
looks, and pours out his praise or his complaint according to the
changeful moods of her mind. He looks on her, too, with a sculptor's
as well as a poet's eye: to him who works in marble, the diamonds,
emeralds, pearls, and elaborate ornaments of gold, but load and injure
the harmony of proportion, the grace of form, and divinity of
sentiment of his nymph or his goddess--so with Burns the fashion of a
lady's boddice, the lustre of her satins, or the sparkle of her
diamonds, or other finery with which wealth or taste has loaded her,
are neglected us idle frippery; while her beauty, her form, or her
mind, matters which are of nature and not of fashion, are remembered
and praised. He is none of the millinery bards, who deal in scented
silks, spider-net laces, rare gems, set in rarer workmanship, and who
shower diamonds and pearls by the bushel on a lady's locks: he makes
bright eyes, flushing cheeks, the magic of the tongue, and the
"pulses' maddening play" perform all. His songs are, in general,
pastoral pictures: he seldom finishes a portrait of female beauty
without enclosing it in a natural frame-work of waving woods, running
streams, the melody of birds, and the lights of heaven. Those who
desire to feel Burns in all his force, must seek some summer glen,
when a country girl searches among his many songs for one which
sympathizes with her own heart, and gives it full utterance, till wood
and vale is filled with the melody. It is remarkable that the most
naturally elegant and truly impassioned songs in our literature were
written by a ploughman in honour of the rustic lasses around him.
His poetry is all life and energy, and bears the impress of a warm
heart and a clear understanding: it abounds with passions and
opinions--vivid pictures of rural happiness and the raptures of
successful love, all fresh from nature and observation, and not as
they are seen through the spectacles of books. The wit of the clouted
shoe is there without its coarseness: there is a prodigality of humour
without licentiousness, a pathos ever natural and manly, a social joy
akin sometimes to sadness, a melancholy not unallied to mirth, and a
sublime morality which seeks to elevate and soothe. To a love of man
he added an affection for the flowers of the valley, the fowls of the
air, and the beasts of the field: he perceived the tie of social
sympathy which united animated with unanimated nature, and in many of
his finest poems most beautifully he has enforced it. His thoughts are
original and his style new and unborrowed: all that he has written is
distinguished by a happy carelessness, a bounding elasticity of
spirit, and a singular felicity of expression, simple yet inimitable;
he is familiar yet dignified, careless, yet correct, and concise, yet
clear and full. All this and much more is embodied in the language of
humble life--a dialect reckoned barbarous by scholars, but which,
coming from the lips of inspiration, becomes classic and elevated.
The prose of this great poet has much of the original merit of his
verse, but it is seldom so natural and so sustained: it abounds with
fine outflashings and with a genial warmth and vigour, but it is
defaced by false ornament and by a constant anxiety to say fine and
forcible things. He seems not to know that simplicity was as rare and
as needful a beauty in prose as in verse; he covets the pauses of
Sterne and the point and antithesis of Junius, like one who believes
that to write prose well he must be ever lively, ever pointed, and
ever smart. Yet the account which he wrote of himself to Dr. Moore is
one of the most spirited and natural narratives in the language, and
composed in a style remote from the strained and groped-for witticisms
and put-on sensibilities of many of his letters:--"Simple," as John
Wilson says, "we may well call it; rich in fancy, overflowing in
feeling, and dashed off in every other paragraph with the easy
boldness of a great master."
PREFACE.
[The first edition, printed at Kilmarnock, July, 1786, by John Wilson,
bore on the title-page these simple words:--"Poems, chiefly in the
Scottish Dialect, by Robert Burns;" the following motto, marked
"Anonymous," but evidently the poet's own composition, was more
ambitious:--
"The simple Bard, unbroke by rules of art,
He pours the wild effusions of the heart:
And if inspired, 'tis nature's pow'rs inspire--
Hers all the melting thrill, and hers the kindling fire."]
The following trifles are not the production of the Poet, who, with
all the advantages of learned art, and perhaps amid the elegancies and
idlenesses of upper life, looks down for a rural theme with an eye to
Theocritus or Virgil. To the author of this, these, and other
celebrated names their countrymen, are, at least in their original
language, _a fountain shut up, and a book sealed._ Unacquainted with
the necessary requisites for commencing poet by rule, he sings the
sentiments and manners he felt and saw in himself and his rustic
compeers around him in his and their native language. Though a rhymer
from his earliest years, at least from the earliest impulse of the
softer passions, it was not till very lately that the applause,
perhaps the partiality, of friendship awakened his vanity so for as to
make him think anything of his worth showing: and none of the
following works were composed with a view to the press. To amuse
himself with the little creations of his own fancy, amid the toil and
fatigue of a laborious life; to transcribe the various feelings--the
loves, the griefs, the hopes, the fears--in his own breast; to find
some kind of counterpoise to the struggles of a world, always an alien
scene, a task uncouth to the poetical mind--these were his motives for
courting the Muses, and in these he found poetry to be its own reward.
Now that he appears in the public character of an author, he does it
with fear and trembling. So dear is fame to the rhyming tribe, that
even he, an obscure, nameless Bard, shrinks aghast at the thought of
being branded as--an impertinent blockhead, obtruding his nonsense on
the world; and, because he can make a shift to jingle a few doggerel
Scotch rhymes together, looking upon himself as a poet of no small
consequence, forsooth!
It is an observation of that celebrated poet, Shenstone, whose divine
elegies do honour to our language, our nation, and our species, that
"_Humility_ has depressed many a genius to a hermit, but never raised
one to fame!" If any critic catches at the word _genius_ the author
tells him, once for all, that he certainly looks upon himself as
possessed of some poetic abilities, otherwise his publishing in the
manner he has done would be a manoeuvre below the worst character,
which, he hopes, his worst enemy will ever give him. But to the genius
of a Ramsay, or the glorious dawnings of the poor, unfortunate
Fergusson, he, with equal unaffected sincerity, declares, that even in
his highest pulse of vanity, he has not the most distant pretensions.
These two justly admired Scotch poets he has often had in his eye in
the following pieces, but rather with a view to kindle at their flame,
than for servile imitation.
To his Subscriber, the Author returns his most sincere thanks. Not the
mercenary bow over a counter, but the heart-throbbing gratitude of the
Bard, conscious how much he owes to benevolence and friendship for
gratifying him, if he deserves it, in that dearest wish of every
poetic bosom--to be distinguished. He begs his readers, particularly
the learned and the polite, who may honour him with a perusal, that
they will make every allowance for education and circumstances of
life; but if, after a fair, candid, and impartial criticism, he shall
stand convicted of dulness and nonsense, let him be done by as he
would in that case do by others--let him be condemned, without mercy,
in contempt and oblivion.
THE
POETICAL WORKS
OF
ROBERT BURNS.
I.
WINTER.
A DIRGE.
[This is one of the earliest of the poet's recorded compositions: it
was written before the death of his father, and is called by Gilbert
Burns, 'a juvenile production.' To walk by a river while flooded, or
through a wood on a rough winter day, and hear the storm howling among
the leafless trees, exalted the poet's thoughts. "In such a season,"
he said, "just after a train of misfortunes, I composed _Winter, a
Dirge._"]
The wintry west extends his blast,
And hail and rain does blaw;
Or the stormy north sends driving forth
The blinding sleet and snaw;
While tumbling brown, the burn comes down,
And roars frae bank to brae;
And bird and beast in covert rest,
And pass the heartless day.
"The sweeping blast, the sky o'ercast,"[1]
The joyless winter day
Let others fear, to me more dear
Than all the pride of May:
The tempest's howl, it soothes my soul,
My griefs it seems to join;
The leafless trees my fancy please,
Their fate resembles mine!
Thou Power Supreme, whose mighty scheme
These woes of mine fulfil,
Here, firm, I rest, they must be best,
Because they are Thy will!
Then all I want (O, do thou grant
This one request of mine!)
Since to enjoy Thou dost deny,
Assist me to resign!
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 1: Dr. Young.]
* * * * *
II.
THE
DEATH AND DYING WORDS
OF
POOR MAILIE,
THE AUTHOR'S ONLY PET YOWE.
AN UNCO MOURNFU' TALE.
[This tale is partly true; the poet's pet ewe got entangled in her
tether, and tumbled into a ditch; the face of ludicrous and awkward
sorrow with which this was related by Hughoc, the herd-boy, amused
Burns so much, who was on his way to the plough, that he immediately
composed the poem, and repeated it to his brother Gilbert when they
met in the evening; the field where the poet held the plough, and the
ditch into which poor Mailie fell, are still pointed out.]
As Mailie, an' her lambs thegither,
Were ae day nibbling on the tether,
Upon her cloot she coost a hitch,
An' owre she warsl'd in the ditch:
There, groaning, dying, she did lie,
When Hughoc[2] he cam doytin by.
Wi' glowing e'en an' lifted han's,
Poor Hughoc like a statue stan's;
He saw her days were near-hand ended,
But, waes my heart! he could na mend it!
He gaped wide but naething spak--
At length poor Mailie silence brak.
"O thou, whose lamentable face
Appears to mourn my woefu' case!
My dying words attentive hear,
An' bear them to my master dear.
"Tell him, if e'er again he keep
As muckle gear as buy a sheep,
O bid him never tie them mair
Wi' wicked strings o' hemp or hair!
But ca' them out to park or hill,
An' let them wander at their will;
So may his flock increase, and grow
To scores o' lambs, an' packs of woo'!
"Tell him he was a master kin'
An' ay was gude to me an' mine;
An' now my dying charge I gie him,
My helpless lambs, I trust them wi' him.
"O, bid him save their harmless lives
Frae dogs, and tods, an' butchers' knives!
But gie them guid cow-milk their fill,
Till they be fit to fend themsel;
An' tent them duly, e'en an' morn,
Wi' teats o' hay, an' ripps o' corn.
"An' may they never learn the gaets
Of ither vile, wanrestfu' pets!
To sink thro' slaps, an' reave an' steal
At stacks o' pease, or stocks o' kail.
So may they, like their great forbears,
For monie a year come thro' the sheers;
So wives will gie them bits o' bread,
An' bairns greet for them when they're dead.
"My poor toop-lamb, my son an' heir,
O, bid him breed him up wi' care;
An' if he live to be a beast,
To pit some havins in his breast!
An' warn him what I winna name,
To stay content wi' yowes at hame
An' no to rin an' wear his cloots,
Like ither menseless, graceless brutes.
"An' niest my yowie, silly thing,
Gude keep thee frae a tether string!
O, may thou ne'er forgather up
Wi' ony blastit, moorland toop,
But ay keep mind to moop an' mell
Wi' sheep o' credit like thysel!
"And now, my bairns, wi' my last breath
I lea'e my blessin wi' you baith:
An' when you think upo' your mither,
Mind to be kind to ane anither.
"Now, honest Hughoc, dinna fail
To tell my master a' my tale;
An' bid him burn this cursed tether,
An', for thy pains, thou'se get my blather."
This said, poor Mailie turn'd her head,
And clos'd her een amang the dead.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 2: A neibor herd-callan.]
* * * * *
III.
POOR MAILIE'S ELEGY.
[Burns, when he calls on the bards of Ayr and Doon to join in the
lament for Mailie, intimates that he regards himself as a poet. Hogg
calls it a very elegant morsel: but says that it resembles too closely
"The Ewie and the Crooked Horn," to be admired as original: the
shepherd might have remembered that they both resemble Sempill's "Life
and death of the Piper of Kilbarchan."]
Lament in rhyme, lament in prose,
Wi' saut tears trickling down your nose;
Our bardie's fate is at a close,
Past a' remead;
The last sad cape-stane of his woes;
Poor Mailie's dead.
It's no the loss o' warl's gear,
That could sae bitter draw the tear,
Or mak our bardie, dowie, wear
The mourning weed;
He's lost a friend and neebor dear,
In Mailie dead.
Thro' a' the toun she trotted by him;
A long half-mile she could descry him;
Wi' kindly bleat, when she did spy him,
She run wi' speed:
A friend mair faithfu' ne'er cam nigh him,
Than Mailie dead.
I wat she was a sheep o' sense,
An' could behave hersel wi' mense:
I'll say't, she never brak a fence,
Thro' thievish greed.
Our bardie, tamely, keeps the spence
Sin' Mailie's dead.
Or, if he wonders up the howe,
Her living image in her yowe
Comes bleating to him, owre the knowe,
For bits o' bread;
An' down the briny pearls rowe
For Mailie dead.
She was nae get o' moorland tips,[3]
Wi' tawted ket, an hairy hips;
For her forbears were brought in ships
Frae yont the Tweed:
A bonnier fleesh ne'er cross'd the clips
Than Mailie dead.
Wae worth the man wha first did shape
That vile, wanchancie thing--a rape!
It maks guid fellows girn an' gape,
Wi' chokin dread;
An' Robin's bonnet wave wi' crape,
For Mailie dead.
O, a' ye bards on bonnie Doon!
An' wha on Ayr your chanters tune!
Come, join the melancholious croon
O' Robin's reed!
His heart will never get aboon!
His Mailie's dead!
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 3: VARIATION.
'She was nae get o' runted rams,
Wi' woo' like goats an' legs like trams;
She was the flower o' Farlie lambs,
A famous breed!
Now Robin, greetin, chews the hams
O' Mailie dead.']
* * * * *
IV.
FIRST EPISTLE TO DAVIE,
A BROTHER POET
[In the summer of 1781, Burns, while at work in the garden, repeated
this Epistle to his brother Gilbert, who was much pleased with the
performance, which he considered equal if not superior to some of
Allan Ramsay's Epistles, and said if it were printed he had no doubt
that it would be well received by people of taste.]
--_January_, [1784.]
I.
While winds frae aff Ben-Lomond blaw,
And bar the doors wi' driving snaw,
And hing us owre the ingle,
I set me down to pass the time,
And spin a verse or twa o' rhyme,
In hamely westlin jingle.
While frosty winds blaw in the drift,
Ben to the chimla lug,
I grudge a wee the great folks' gift,
That live sae bien an' snug:
I tent less and want less
Their roomy fire-side;
But hanker and canker
To see their cursed pride.
II.
It's hardly in a body's power
To keep, at times, frae being sour,
To see how things are shar'd;
How best o' chiels are whiles in want.
While coofs on countless thousands rant,
And ken na how to wair't;
But Davie, lad, ne'er fash your head,
Tho' we hae little gear,
We're fit to win our daily bread,
As lang's we're hale and fier:
"Muir spier na, nor fear na,"[4]
Auld age ne'er mind a feg,
The last o't, the warst o't,
Is only but to beg.
III.
To lie in kilns and barns at e'en
When banes are craz'd, and bluid is thin,
Is, doubtless, great distress!
Yet then content could make us blest;
Ev'n then, sometimes we'd snatch a taste
O' truest happiness.
The honest heart that's free frae a'
Intended fraud or guile,
However Fortune kick the ba',
Has ay some cause to smile:
And mind still, you'll find still,
A comfort this nae sma';
Nae mair then, we'll care then,
Nae farther we can fa'.
IV.
What tho', like commoners of air,
We wander out we know not where,
But either house or hall?
Yet nature's charms, the hills and woods,
The sweeping vales, and foaming floods,
Are free alike to all.
In days when daisies deck the ground,
And blackbirds whistle clear,
With honest joy our hearts will bound
To see the coming year:
On braes when we please, then,
We'll sit and sowth a tune;
Syne rhyme till't we'll time till't,
And sing't when we hae done.
V.
It's no in titles nor in rank;
It's no in wealth like Lon'on bank,
To purchase peace and rest;
It's no in makin muckle mair;
It's no in books, it's no in lear,
To make us truly blest;
If happiness hae not her seat
And centre in the breast,
We may be wise, or rich, or great,
But never can be blest:
Nae treasures, nor pleasures,
Could make us happy lang;
The heart ay's the part ay
That makes us right or wrang.
VI.
Think ye, that sic as you and I,
Wha drudge and drive thro' wet an' dry,
Wi' never-ceasing toil;
Think ye, are we less blest than they,
Wha scarcely tent us in their way,
As hardly worth their while?
Alas! how aft, in haughty mood
God's creatures they oppress!
Or else, neglecting a' that's guid,
They riot in excess!
Baith careless and fearless
Of either heaven or hell!
Esteeming and deeming
It's a' an idle tale!
VII.
Then let us cheerfu' acquiesce;
Nor make one scanty pleasures less,
By pining at our state;
And, even should misfortunes come,
I, here wha sit, hae met wi' some,
An's thankfu' for them yet.
They gie the wit of age to youth;
They let us ken oursel';
They make us see the naked truth,
The real guid and ill.
Tho' losses, and crosses,
Be lessons right severe,
There's wit there, ye'll get there,
Ye'll find nae other where.
VIII.
But tent me, Davie, ace o' hearts!
(To say aught less wad wrang the cartes,
And flatt'ry I detest,)
This life has joys for you and I;
And joys that riches ne'er could buy:
And joys the very best.
There's a' the pleasures o' the heart,
The lover an' the frien';
Ye hae your Meg your dearest part,
And I my darling Jean!
It warms me, it charms me,
To mention but her name:
It heats me, it beets me,
And sets me a' on flame!
IX.
O, all ye pow'rs who rule above!
O, Thou, whose very self art love!
Thou know'st my words sincere!
The life-blood streaming thro' my heart,
Or my more dear immortal part,
Is not more fondly dear!
When heart-corroding care and grief
Deprive my soul of rest,
Her dear idea brings relief
And solace to my breast.
Thou Being, All-seeing,
O hear my fervent pray'r!
Still take her, and make her
Thy most peculiar care!
X.
All hail, ye tender feelings dear!
The smile of love, the friendly tear,
The sympathetic glow!
Long since, this world's thorny ways
Had number'd out my weary days,
Had it not been for you!
Fate still has blest me with a friend,
In every care and ill;
And oft a more endearing hand,
A tie more tender still.
It lightens, it brightens
The tenebrific scene,
To meet with, and greet with
My Davie or my Jean!
XI.
O, how that name inspires my style
The words come skelpin, rank and file,
Amaist before I ken!
The ready measure rins as fine,
As Phoebus and the famous Nine
Were glowrin owre my pen.
My spaviet Pegasus will limp,
'Till ance he's fairly het;
And then he'll hilch, and stilt, and jimp,
An' rin an unco fit:
But least then, the beast then
Should rue this hasty ride,
I'll light now, and dight now
His sweaty, wizen'd hide.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 4: Ramsay.]
* * * * *
V.
SECOND EPISTLE TO DAVIE,
A BROTHER POET.
[David Sillar, to whom these epistles are addressed, was at that time
master of a country school, and was welcome to Burns both as a scholar
and a writer of verse. This epistle he prefixed to his poems printed
at Kilmarnock in the year 1789: he loved to speak of his early
comrade, and supplied Walker with some very valuable anecdotes: he
died one of the magistrates of Irvine, on the 2d of May, 1830, at the
age of seventy.]
AULD NIBOR,
I'm three times doubly o'er your debtor,
For your auld-farrent, frien'ly letter;
Tho' I maun say't, I doubt ye flatter,
Ye speak sae fair.
For my puir, silly, rhymin clatter
Some less maun sair.
Hale be your heart, hale be your fiddle;
Lang may your elbuck jink and diddle,
To cheer you thro' the weary widdle
O' war'ly cares,
Till bairn's bairns kindly cuddle
Your auld, gray hairs.
But Davie, lad, I'm red ye're glaikit;
I'm tauld the Muse ye hae negleckit;
An' gif it's sae, ye sud be licket
Until yo fyke;
Sic hauns as you sud ne'er be faiket,
Be hain't who like.
For me, I'm on Parnassus' brink,
Rivin' the words to gar them clink;
Whyles daez't wi' love, whyles daez't wi' drink,
Wi' jads or masons;
An' whyles, but ay owre late, I think
Braw sober lessons.
Of a' the thoughtless sons o' man,
Commen' me to the Bardie clan;
Except it be some idle plan
O' rhymin' clink,
The devil-haet, that I sud ban,
They ever think.
Nae thought, nae view, nae scheme o' livin',
Nae cares to gie us joy or grievin';
But just the pouchie put the nieve in,
An' while ought's there,
Then hiltie skiltie, we gae scrievin',
An' fash nae mair.
Leeze me on rhyme! it's aye a treasure,
My chief, amaist my only pleasure,
At hame, a-fiel', at work, or leisure,
The Muse, poor hizzie!
Tho' rough an' raploch be her measure,
She's seldom lazy.
Haud to the Muse, my dainty Davie:
The warl' may play you monie a shavie;
But for the Muse she'll never leave ye,
Tho' e'er so puir,
Na, even tho' limpin' wi' the spavie
Frae door to door.
* * * * *
VI.
ADDRESS TO THE DEIL
"O Prince! O Chief of many throned Pow'rs,
That led th' embattled Seraphim to war."
MILTON
[The beautiful and relenting spirit in which this fine poem finishes
moved the heart on one of the coldest of our critics. "It was, I
think," says Gilbert Burns, "in the winter of 1784, as we were going
with carts for coals to the family fire, and I could yet point out the
particular spot, that Robert first repeated to me the 'Address to the
Deil.' The idea of the address was suggested to him by running over in
his mind the many ludicrous accounts we have of that august
personage."]
O thou! whatever title suit thee,
Auld Hornie, Satan, Kick, or Clootie,
Wha in yon cavern grim an' sootie,
Closed under hatches,
Spairges about the brunstane cootie,
To scaud poor wretches!
Hear me, auld Hangie, for a wee,
An' let poor damned bodies be;
I'm sure sma' pleasure it can gie,
E'en to a deil,
To skelp an' scaud poor dogs like me,
An' hear us squeel!
Great is thy pow'r, an' great thy fame;
Far kend an' noted is thy name;
An' tho' yon lowin heugh's thy hame,
Thou travels far;
An', faith! thou's neither lag nor lame,
Nor blate nor scaur.
Whyles, ranging like a roaring lion,
For prey, a' holes an' corners tryin;
Whyles, on the strong-winged tempest flyin,
Tirlin the kirks;
Whiles, in the human bosom pryin,
Unseen thou lurks.
I've heard my reverend Graunie say,
In lanely glens ye like to stray;
Or where auld-ruin'd castles, gray,
Nod to the moon,
Ye fright the nightly wand'rer's way
Wi' eldricht croon.
When twilight did my Graunie summon,
To say her prayers, douce, honest woman!
Aft yont the dyke she's heard you bummin,
Wi' eerie drone;
Or, rustlin, thro' the boortries comin,
Wi' heavy groan.
Ae dreary, windy, winter night,
The stars shot down wi' sklentin light,
Wi' you, mysel, I gat a fright
Ayont the lough;
Ye, like a rash-buss, stood in sight,
Wi' waving sough.
The cudgel in my nieve did shake.
Each bristl'd hair stood like a stake,
When wi' an eldritch, stoor quaick--quaick--
Amang the springs,
Awa ye squatter'd, like a drake,
On whistling wings.
Let warlocks grim, an' wither'd hags,
Tell how wi' you, on rag weed nags,
They skim the muirs an' dizzy crags
Wi' wicked speed;
And in kirk-yards renew their leagues
Owre howkit dead.
Thence countra wives, wi' toil an' pain,
May plunge an' plunge the kirn in vain:
For, oh! the yellow treasure's taen
By witching skill;
An' dawtit, twal-pint hawkie's gaen
As yell's the bill.
Thence mystic knots mak great abuse
On young guidmen, fond, keen, an' crouse;
When the best wark-lume i' the house
By cantrip wit,
Is instant made no worth a louse,
Just at the bit,
When thowes dissolve the snawy hoord,
An' float the jinglin icy-boord,
Then water-kelpies haunt the foord,
By your direction;
An' nighted trav'llers are allur'd
To their destruction.
An' aft your moss-traversing spunkies
Decoy the wight that late an' drunk is,
The bleezin, curst, mischievous monkeys
Delude his eyes,
Till in some miry slough he sunk is,
Ne'er mair to rise.
When masons' mystic word an' grip
In storms an' tempests raise you up,
Some cock or cat your rage maun stop,
Or, strange to tell!
The youngest brother ye wad whip
Aff straught to hell!
Lang syne, in Eden's bonie yard,
When youthfu' lovers first were pair'd,
An' all the soul of love they shar'd,
The raptur'd hour,
Sweet on the fragrant, flow'ry sward,
In shady bow'r:
Then you, ye auld, snick-drawing dog!
Ye came to Paradise incog.
An' play'd on man a cursed brogue,
(Black be your fa'!)
An' gied the infant world a shog,
'Maist ruin'd a'.
D'ye mind that day, when in a bizz,
Wi' reekit duds, an' reestit gizz,
Ye did present your smoutie phiz
'Mang better folk,
An' sklented on the man of Uzz
Your spitefu' joke?
An' how ye gat him i' your thrall,
An' brak him out o' house an' hall,
While scabs an' botches did him gall,
Wi' bitter claw,
An' lows'd his ill tongu'd, wicked scawl,
Was warst ava?
But a' your doings to rehearse,
Your wily snares an' fechtin fierce,
Sin' that day Michael did you pierce,
Down to this time,
Wad ding a' Lallan tongue, or Erse,
In prose or rhyme.
An' now, auld Cloots, I ken ye're thinkin,
A certain Bardie's rantin, drinkin,
Some luckless hour will send him linkin
To your black pit;
But, faith! he'll turn a corner jinkin,
An' cheat you yet.
But fare ye well, auld Nickie-ben!
O wad ye tak a thought an' men'!
Ye aiblins might--I dinna ken--
Still hae a stake--
I'm wae to think upo' yon den
Ev'n for your sake!
* * * * *
[Illustration: "AULD MARE MAGGIE."]
VII.
THE AULD FARMER'S
NEW-YEAR MORNING SALUTATION TO HIS
AULD MARE MAGGIE,
ON GIVING HER THE ACCUSTOMED RIPP OF CORN TO HANSEL IN THE NEW YEAR
["Whenever Burns has occasion," says Hogg, "to address or mention any
subordinate being, however mean, even a mouse or a flower, then there
is a gentle pathos in it that awakens the finest feelings of the
heart." The Auld Farmer of Kyle has the spirit of knight-errant, and
loves his mare according to the rules of chivalry; and well he might:
she carried him safely home from markets, triumphantly from
wedding-brooses; she ploughed the stiffest land; faced the steepest
brae, and, moreover, bore home his bonnie bride with a consciousness
of the loveliness of the load.]
A guid New-year I wish thee, Maggie!
Hae, there's a rip to thy auld baggie:
Tho' thou's howe-backit, now, an' knaggie,
I've seen the day
Thou could hae gaen like onie staggie
Out-owre the lay.
Tho' now thou's dowie, stiff, an' crazy,
An' thy auld hide as white's a daisy,
I've seen thee dappl't, sleek, and glaizie,
A bonny gray:
He should been tight that daur't to raize thee,
Ance in a day.
Thou ance was i' the foremost rank,
A filly, buirdly, steeve, an' swank,
An set weel down a shapely shank,
As e'er tread yird;
An' could hae flown out-owre a stank,
Like ony bird.
It's now some nine-an'-twenty year,
Sin' thou was my guid-father's Meere;
He gied me thee, o' tocher clear,
An' fifty mark;
Tho' it was sma', 'twas weel-won gear,
An' thou was stark.
When first I gaed to woo my Jenny,
Ye then was trottin wi' your minnie:
Tho' ye was trickle, slee, an' funny,
Ye ne'er was donsie:
But hamely, tawie, quiet an' cannie,
An' unco sonsie.
That day ye pranc'd wi' muckle pride,
When ye bure hame my bonnie bride:
An' sweet an' gracefu' she did ride,
Wi' maiden air!
Kyle-Stewart I could bragged wide,
For sic a pair.
Tho' now ye dow but hoyte and hoble,
An' wintle like a saumont-coble,
That day, ye was a jinker noble,
For heels an' win'!
An' ran them till they a' did wauble,
Far, far, behin'!
When thou an' I were young an' skeigh,
An' stable-meals at fairs were dreigh,
How thou wad prance, an' snore, an' skreigh,
An' tak the road!
Town's bodies ran, an' stood abeigh,
An' ca't thee mad.
When thou was corn't, an' I was mellow,
We took the road ay like a swallow:
At Brooses thou had ne'er a fellow,
For pith an' speed;
But every tail thou pay't them hollow,
Where'er thou gaed.
The sma', droop-rumpl't, hunter cattle,
Might aiblins waur't thee for a brattle;
But sax Scotch miles thou try't their mettle,
An' gar't them whaizle:
Nae whip nor spur, but just a whattle
O' saugh or hazle.
Thou was a noble fittie-lan',
As e'er in tug or tow was drawn:
Aft thee an' I, in aught hours gaun,
In guid March-weather,
Hae turn'd sax rood beside our han'
For days thegither.
Thou never braindg't, an' fetch't, an' fliskit,
But thy auld tail thou wad hae whiskit,
An' spread abreed thy weel-fill'd brisket,
Wi' pith an' pow'r,
'Till spiritty knowes wad rair't and risket,
An' slypet owre.
When frosts lay lang, an' snaws were deep,
An' threaten'd labour back to keep,
I gied thy cog a wee-bit heap
Aboon the timmer;
I ken'd my Maggie wad na sleep
For that, or simmer.
In cart or car thou never reestit;
The steyest brae thou wad hae fac't it;
Thou never lap, an' sten't, an' breastit,
Then stood to blaw;
But just thy step a wee thing hastit,
Thou snoov't awa.
My pleugh is now thy bairntime a';
Four gallant brutes as e'er did draw;
Forbye sax mae, I've sell't awa,
That thou hast nurst:
They drew me thretteen pund an' twa,
The vera worst.
Monie a sair daurk we twa hae wrought,
An, wi' the weary warl' fought!
An' monie an anxious day, I thought
We wad be beat!
Yet here to crazy age we're brought,
Wi' something yet.
And think na, my auld, trusty servan',
That now perhaps thou's less deservin,
An' thy auld days may end in starvin,
For my last fow,
A heapit stimpart, I'll reserve ane
Laid by for you.
We've worn to crazy years thegither;
We'll toyte about wi' ane anither;
Wi' tentie care I'll flit thy tether,
To some hain'd rig,
Whare ye may nobly rax your leather,
Wi' sma' fatigue.
* * * * *
VIII.
TO A HAGGIS.
[The vehement nationality of this poem is but a small part of its
merit. The haggis of the north is the minced pie of the south; both
are characteristic of the people: the ingredients which compose the
former are all of Scottish growth, including the bag which contains
them; the ingredients of the latter are gathered chiefly from the four
quarters of the globe: the haggis is the triumph of poverty, the
minced pie the triumph of wealth.]
Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o' the pudding-race!
Aboon them a' ye tak your place,
Painch, tripe, or thairm:
Weel are ye wordy o' a grace
As lang's my arm.
The groaning trencher there ye fill,
Your hurdies like a distant hill,
Your pin wad help to mend a mill
In time o' need,
While thro' your pores the dews distil
Like amber bead.
His knife see rustic-labour dight,
An' cut you up wi' ready slight,
Trenching your gushing entrails bright
Like onie ditch;
And then, O what a glorious sight,
Warm-reekin, rich!
Then horn for horn they stretch an' strive,
Deil tak the hindmost, on they drive,
'Till a' their weel-swall'd kytes belyve
Are bent like drums;
Then auld Guidman, maist like to rive,
Bethankit hums.
Is there that o'er his French ragout,
Or olio that wad staw a sow,
Or fricassee wad mak her spew
Wi' perfect sconner,
Looks down wi' sneering, scornfu' view
On sic a dinner?
Poor devil! see him owre his trash,
As feckless as a wither'd rash,
His spindle shank a guid whip-lash,
His nieve a nit;
Thro' bloody flood or field to dash,
O how unfit!
But mark the rustic, haggis-fed,
The trembling earth resounds his tread,
Clap in his walie nieve a blade,
He'll mak it whissle;
An' legs, an' arms, an' heads will sned,
Like taps o' thrissle.
Ye pow'rs wha mak mankind your care,
And dish them out their bill o' fare,
Auld Scotland wants nae stinking ware
That jaups in luggies;
But, if ye wish her gratefu' pray'r,
Gie her a Haggis!
* * * * *
IX.
A PRAYER,
UNDER THE PRESSURE OF VIOLENT ANGUISH.
["There was a certain period of my life," says Burns, "that my spirit
was broke by repeated losses and disasters, which threatened and
indeed effected the ruin of my fortune. My body, too, was attacked by
the most dreadful distemper, a hypochondria or confirmed melancholy.
In this wretched state, the recollection of which makes me yet
shudder, I hung my harp on the willow-trees, except in some lucid
intervals, in one of which I composed the following."]
O Thou Great Being! what Thou art
Surpasses me to know;
Yet sure I am, that known to Thee
Are all Thy works below.
Thy creature here before Thee stands,
All wretched and distrest;
Yet sure those ills that wring my soul
Obey Thy high behest.
Sure Thou, Almighty, canst not act
From cruelty or wrath!
O, free my weary eyes from tears,
Or close them fast in death!
But if I must afflicted be,
To suit some wise design;
Then, man my soul with firm resolves
To bear and not repine!
* * * * *
X.
A PRAYER
IN THE PROSPECT OF DEATH.
[I have heard the third verse of this very moving Prayer quoted by
scrupulous men as a proof that the poet imputed his errors to the
Being who had endowed him with wild and unruly passions. The meaning
is very different: Burns felt the torrent-strength of passion
overpowering his resolution, and trusted that God would be merciful to
the errors of one on whom he had bestowed such o'ermastering gifts.]
O Thou unknown, Almighty Cause
Of all my hope and fear?
In whose dread presence, ere an hour
Perhaps I must appear!
If I have wander'd in those paths
Of life I ought to shun;
As something, loudly, in my breast,
Remonstrates I have done;
Thou know'st that Thou hast formed me,
With passions wild and strong;
And list'ning to their witching voice
Has often led me wrong.
Where human weakness has come short,
Or frailty stept aside,
Do Thou, All-Good! for such thou art,
In shades of darkness hide.
Where with intention I have err'd,
No other plea I have,
But, Thou art good; and goodness still
Delighteth to forgive.
* * * * *
XI.
STANZAS
ON THE SAME OCCASION.
[These verses the poet, in his common-place book, calls "Misgivings in
the Hour of Despondency and Prospect of Death." He elsewhere says they
were composed when fainting-fits and other alarming symptoms of a
pleurisy, or some other dangerous disorder, first put nature on the
alarm.]
Why am I loth to leave this earthly scene?
How I so found it full of pleasing charms?
Some drops of joy with draughts of ill between:
Some gleams of sunshine 'mid renewing storms:
Is it departing pangs my soul alarms?
Or Death's unlovely, dreary, dark abode?
For guilt, for guilt, my terrors are in arms;
I tremble to approach an angry God,
And justly smart beneath his sin-avenging rod.
Fain would I say, "Forgive my foul offence!"
Fain promise never more to disobey;
But, should my Author health again dispense,
Again I might desert fair virtue's way:
Again in folly's path might go astray;
Again exalt the brute and sink the man;
Then how should I for heavenly mercy pray,
Who act so counter heavenly mercy's plan?
Who sin so oft have mourn'd, yet to temptation ran?
O Thou, great Governor of all below!
If I may dare a lifted eye to Thee,
Thy nod can make the tempest cease to blow,
Or still the tumult of the raging sea:
With that controlling pow'r assist ev'n me
Those headlong furious passions to confine;
For all unfit I feel my pow'rs to be,
To rule their torrent in th' allowed line;
O, aid me with Thy help, Omnipotence Divine!
* * * * *
XII.
A WINTER NIGHT.
"Poor naked wretches, wheresoe'er you are
That bide the pelting of the pitiless storm!
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
Your looped and widow'd raggedness defend you
From seasons such as these?"
SHAKSPEARE.
["This poem," says my friend Thomas Carlyle, "is worth several
homilies on mercy, for it is the voice of Mercy herself. Burns,
indeed, lives in sympathy: his soul rushes forth into all the realms
of being: nothing that has existence can be indifferent to him."]
When biting Boreas, fell and doure,
Sharp shivers thro' the leafless bow'r;
When Phoebus gies a short-liv'd glow'r
Far south the lift,
Dim-darkening through the flaky show'r,
Or whirling drift:
Ae night the storm the steeples rocked,
Poor labour sweet in sleep was locked,
While burns, wi' snawy wreeths up-choked,
Wild-eddying swirl.
Or through the mining outlet bocked,
Down headlong hurl.
Listening, the doors an' winnocks rattle,
I thought me on the ourie cattle,
Or silly sheep, wha bide this brattle
O' winter war,
And through the drift, deep-lairing sprattle
Beneath a scar.
Ilk happing bird, wee, helpless thing,
That, in the merry months o' spring,
Delighted me to hear thee sing,
What comes o' thee?
Whare wilt thou cower thy chittering wing,
An' close thy e'e?
Ev'n you on murd'ring errands toil'd,
Lone from your savage homes exiled,
The blood-stained roost, and sheep-cote spoiled
My heart forgets,
While pitiless the tempest wild
Sore on you beats.
Now Phoebe, in her midnight reign,
Dark muffled, viewed the dreary plain;
Still crowding thoughts, a pensive train,
Rose in my soul,
When on my ear this plaintive strain
Slow, solemn, stole:--
"Blow, blow, ye winds, with heavier gust!
And freeze, thou bitter-biting frost:
Descend, ye chilly, smothering snows!
Not all your rage, as now united, shows
More hard unkindness, unrelenting,
Vengeful malice unrepenting,
Than heaven-illumined man on brother man bestows;
See stern oppression's iron grip,
Or mad ambition's gory hand,
Sending, like blood-hounds from the slip,
Woe, want, and murder o'er a land!
Even in the peaceful rural vale,
Truth, weeping, tells the mournful tale,
How pamper'd luxury, flattery by her side,
The parasite empoisoning her ear.
With all the servile wretches in the rear,
Looks o'er proud property, extended wide;
And eyes the simple rustic hind,
Whose toil upholds the glittering show,
A creature of another kind,
Some coarser substance, unrefin'd,
Placed for her lordly use thus far, thus vile, below.
Where, where is love's fond, tender throe,
With lordly honour's lofty brow,
The powers you proudly own?
Is there, beneath love's noble name,
Can harbour, dark, the selfish aim,
To bless himself alone!
Mark maiden innocence a prey
To love-pretending snares,
This boasted honour turns away,
Shunning soft pity's rising sway,
Regardless of the tears and unavailing prayers!
Perhaps this hour, in misery's squalid nest,
She strains your infant to her joyless breast,
And with a mother's fears shrinks at the rocking blast!
Oh ye! who, sunk in beds of down,
Feel not a want but what yourselves create,
Think, for a moment, on his wretched fate,
Whom friends and fortune quite disown!
Ill satisfied keen nature's clamorous call,
Stretched on his straw he lays himself to sleep,
While through the ragged roof and chinky wall,
Chill o'er his slumbers piles the drifty heap!
Think on the dungeon's grim confine,
Where guilt and poor misfortune pine!
Guilt, erring man, relenting view!
But shall thy legal rage pursue
The wretch, already crushed low
By cruel fortune's undeserved blow?
Affliction's sons are brothers in distress,
A brother to relieve, how exquisite the bliss!"
I heard nae mair, for Chanticleer
Shook off the pouthery snaw,
And hailed the morning with a cheer--
A cottage-rousing craw!
But deep this truth impressed my mind--
Through all his works abroad,
The heart benevolent and kind
The most resembles GOD.
* * * * *
XIII.
REMORSE.
A FRAGMENT.
["I entirely agree," says Burns, "with the author of the _Theory of
Moral Sentiments_, that Remorse is the most painful sentiment that can
embitter the human bosom; an ordinary pitch of fortitude may bear up
admirably well, under those calamities, in the procurement of which we
ourselves have had no hand; but when our follies or crimes have made
us wretched, to bear all with manly firmness, and at the same time
have a proper penitential sense of our misconduct, is a glorious
effort of self-command."]
Of all the numerous ills that hurt our peace,
That press the soul, or wring the mind with anguish,
Beyond comparison the worst are those
That to our folly or our guilt we owe.
In every other circumstance, the mind
Has this to say, 'It was no deed of mine;'
But when to all the evil of misfortune
This sting is added--'Blame thy foolish self!'
Or worser far, the pangs of keen remorse;
The torturing, gnawing consciousness of guilt,--
Of guilt, perhaps, where we've involved others;
The young, the innocent, who fondly lov'd us,
Nay, more, that very love their cause of ruin!
O burning hell! in all thy store of torments,
There's not a keener lash!
Lives there a man so firm, who, while his heart
Feels all the bitter horrors of his crime,
Can reason down its agonizing throbs;
And, after proper purpose of amendment,
Can firmly force his jarring thoughts to peace?
O, happy! happy! enviable man!
O glorious magnanimity of soul!
* * * * *
XIV.
THE JOLLY BEGGARS.
A CANTATA.
[This inimitable poem, unknown to Currie and unheardof while the poet
lived, was first given to the world, with other characteristic pieces,
by Mr. Stewart of Glasgow, in the year 1801. Some have surmised that
it is not the work of Burns; but the parentage is certain: the
original manuscript at the time of its composition, in 1785, was put
into the hands of Mr. Richmond of Mauchline, and afterwards given by
Burns himself to Mr. Woodburn, factor of the laird of Craigen-gillan;
the song of "For a' that, and a' that" was inserted by the poet, with
his name, in the _Musical Museum_ of February, 1790. Cromek admired,
yet did not, from overruling advice, print it in the _Reliques_, for
which he was sharply censured by Sir Walter Scott, in the _Quarterly
Review._ The scene of the poem is in Mauchline, where Poosie Nancy had
her change-house. Only one copy in the handwriting of Burns is
supposed to exist; and of it a very accurate fac-simile has been
given.]
RECITATIVO.
When lyart leaves bestrow the yird,
Or wavering like the bauckie-bird,
Bedim cauld Boreas' blast;
When hailstanes drive wi' bitter skyte
And infant frosts begin to bite,
In hoary cranreuch drest;
Ae night at e'en a merry core
O' randie, gangrel bodies,
In Poosie-Nansie's held the splore,
To drink their orra duddies:
Wi' quaffing and laughing,
They ranted an' they sang;
Wi' jumping and thumping,
The vera girdle rang.
First, neist the fire, in auld red rags,
Ane sat, weel brac'd wi' mealy bags,
And knapsack a' in order;
His doxy lay within his arm,
Wi' usquebae an' blankets warm--
She blinket on her sodger:
An' ay he gies the tozie drab
The tither skelpin' kiss,
While she held up her greedy gab
Just like an aumous dish.
Ilk smack still, did crack still,
Just like a cadger's whip,
Then staggering and swaggering
He roar'd this ditty up--
AIR.
Tune--"_Soldiers' Joy._"
I am a son of Mars,
Who have been in many wars,
And show my cuts and scars
Wherever I come;
This here was for a wench,
And that other in a trench,
When welcoming the French
At the sound of the drum.
Lal de daudle, &c.
My 'prenticeship I past
Where my leader breath'd his last,
When the bloody die was cast
On the heights of Abram;
I served out my trade
When the gallant game was play'd,
And the Moro low was laid
At the sound of the drum.
Lal de daudle, &c.
I lastly was with Curtis,
Among the floating batt'ries,
And there I left for witness
An arm and a limb;
Yet let my country need me,
With Elliot to head me,
I'd clatter on my stumps
At the sound of a drum.
Lal de dandle, &c.
And now tho' I must beg,
With a wooden arm and leg,
And many a tatter'd rag
Hanging over my bum
I'm as happy with my wallet,
My bottle and my callet,
As when I used in scarlet
To follow a drum.
Lal de daudle, &c.
What tho' with hoary locks
I must stand the winter shocks,
Beneath the woods and rocks
Oftentimes for a home,
When the tother bag I sell,
And the tother bottle tell,
I could meet a troop of hell,
At the sound of a drum.
Lal de daudle, &c.
RECITATIVO.
He ended; and kebars sheuk
Aboon the chorus roar;
While frighted rattons backward leuk,
And seek the benmost bore;
A fairy fiddler frae the neuk,
He skirl'd out--encore!
But up arose the martial Chuck,
And laid the loud uproar.
AIR.
Tune--"_Soldier laddie._"
I once was a maid, tho' I cannot tell when,
And still my delight is in proper young men;
Some one of a troop of dragoons was my daddie,
No wonder I'm fond of a sodger laddie.
Sing, Lal de dal, &c.
The first of my loves was a swaggering blade,
To rattle the thundering drum was his trade;
His leg was so tight, and his cheek was so ruddy,
Transported I was with my sodger laddie.
Sing, Lal de dal, &c.
But the godly old chaplain left him in the lurch,
The sword I forsook for the sake of the church;
He ventur'd the soul, and I risk'd the body,
'Twas then I prov'd false to my sodger laddie.
Sing, Lal de dal, &c.
Full soon I grew sick of my sanctified sot,
The regiment at large for a husband I got;
From the gilded spontoon to the fife I was ready,
I asked no more but a sodger laddie.
Sing, Lal de dal, &c.
But the peace it reduc'd me to beg in despair,
Till I met my old boy in a Cunningham fair;
His rags regimental they flutter'd so gaudy,
My heart is rejoic'd at my sodger laddie.
Sing, Lal de dal, &c.
And now I have liv'd--I know not how long,
And still I can join in a cup or a song;
But whilst with both hands I can hold the glass steady,
Here's to thee, my hero, my sodger laddie.
Sing, Lal de dal, &c.
RECITATIVO.
Poor Merry Andrew in the neuk,
Sat guzzling wi' a tinkler hizzie;
They mind't na wha the chorus teuk,
Between themselves they were sae busy:
At length wi' drink and courting dizzy
He stoitered up an' made a face;
Then turn'd, an' laid a smack on Grizzie,
Syne tun'd his pipes wi' grave grimace.
AIR.
Tune--"_Auld Sir Symon._"
Sir Wisdom's a fool when he's fou,
Sir Knave is a fool in a session;
He's there but a 'prentice I trow,
But I am a fool by profession.
My grannie she bought me a beuk,
And I held awa to the school;
I fear I my talent misteuk,
But what will ye hae of a fool?
For drink I would venture my neck,
A hizzie's the half o' my craft,
But what could ye other expect,
Of ane that's avowedly daft?
I ance was ty'd up like a stirk,
For civilly swearing and quaffing;
I ance was abused in the kirk,
Fer touzling a lass i' my daffin.
Poor Andrew that tumbles for sport,
Let naebody name wi' a jeer;
There's ev'n I'm tauld i' the court
A tumbler ca'd the premier.
Observ'd ye, yon reverend lad
Maks faces to tickle the mob;
He rails at our mountebank squad,
Its rivalship just i' the job.
And now my conclusion I'll tell,
For faith I'm confoundedly dry;
The chiel that's a fool for himsel',
Gude L--d! he's far dafter than I.
RECITATIVO.
Then neist outspak a raucle carlin,
Wha kent fu' weel to cleek the sterling,
For monie a pursie she had hooked,
And had in mony a well been ducked.
Her dove had been a Highland laddie,
But weary fa' the waefu' woodie!
Wi' sighs and sobs she thus began
To wail her braw John Highlandman.
AIR.
Tune--"_O an ye were dead, guidman._"
A Highland lad my love was born,
The Lalland laws he held in scorn;
But he still was faithfu' to his clan,
My gallant braw John Highlandman.
CHORUS.
Sing, hey my braw John Highlandman!
Sing, ho my braw John Highlandman!
There's not a lad in a' the lan'
Was match for my John Highlandman.
With his philibeg an' tartan plaid,
An' gude claymore down by his side,
The ladies' hearts he did trepan,
My gallant braw John Highlandman.
Sing, hey, &c.
We ranged a' from Tweed to Spey,
An' liv'd like lords and ladies gay;
For a Lalland face he feared none,
My gallant braw John Highlandman.
Sing, hey, &c.
They banished him beyond the sea,
But ere the bud was on the tree,
Adown my cheeks the pearls ran,
Embracing my John Highlandman.
Sing, hey, &c.
But, och! they catch'd him at the last,
And bound him in a dungeon fast;
My curse upon them every one,
They've hang'd my braw John Highlandman.
Sing, hey, &c.
And now a widow, I must mourn,
The pleasures that will ne'er return:
No comfort but a hearty can,
When I think on John Highlandman.
Sing, hey, &c.
RECITATIVO.
A pigmy scraper, wi' his fiddle,
Wha us'd at trysts and fairs to driddle,
Her strappan limb and gausy middle
He reach'd na higher,
Had hol'd his heartie like a riddle,
An' blawn't on fire.
Wi' hand on hainch, an' upward e'e,
He croon'd his gamut, one, two, three,
Then in an Arioso key,
The wee Apollo
Set off wi' Allegretto glee
His giga solo.
AIR.
Tune--"_Whistle o'er the lave o't._"
Let me ryke up to dight that tear,
And go wi' me and be my dear,
And then your every care and fear
May whistle owre the lave o't.
CHORUS.
I am a fiddler to my trade,
An' a' the tunes that e'er I play'd,
The sweetest still to wife or maid,
Was whistle owre the lave o't.
At kirns and weddings we'se be there,
And O! sae nicely's we will fare;
We'll house about till Daddie Care
Sings whistle owre the lave o't
I am, &c.
Sae merrily the banes we'll byke,
And sun oursells about the dyke,
And at our leisure, when ye like,
We'll whistle owre the lave o't.
I am, &c.
But bless me wi' your heav'n o' charms,
And while I kittle hair on thairms,
Hunger, cauld, and a' sic harms,
May whistle owre the lave o't.
I am, &c.
RECITATIVO.
Her charms had struck a sturdy caird,
As weel as poor gut-scraper;
He taks the fiddler by the beard,
And draws a roosty rapier--
He swoor by a' was swearing worth,
To speet him like a pliver,
Unless he wad from that time forth
Relinquish her for ever.
Wi' ghastly e'e, poor tweedle-dee
Upon his hunkers bended,
And pray'd for grace wi' ruefu' face,
And sae the quarrel ended.
But tho' his little heart did grieve
When round the tinkler prest her,
He feign'd to snirtle in his sleeve,
When thus the caird address'd her:
AIR.
Tune--"_Clout the Caudron._"
My bonny lass, I work in brass,
A tinkler is my station:
I've travell'd round all Christian ground
In this my occupation:
I've taen the gold, an' been enrolled
In many a noble sqadron:
But vain they search'd, when off I march'd
To go and clout the caudron.
I've taen the gold, &c.
Despise that shrimp, that wither'd imp,
Wi' a' his noise and caprin,
And tak a share wi' those that bear
The budget and the apron.
And by that stoup, my faith and houp,
An' by that dear Kilbaigie,[5]
If e'er ye want, or meet wi' scant,
May I ne'er weet my craigie.
An' by that stoup, &c.
RECITATIVO.
The caird prevail'd--th' unblushing fair
In his embraces sunk,
Partly wi' love o'ercome sae sair,
An' partly she was drunk.
Sir Violino, with an air
That show'd a man of spunk,
Wish'd unison between the pair,
An' made the bottle clunk
To their health that night.
But urchin Cupid shot a shaft,
That play'd a dame a shavie,
A sailor rak'd her fore and aft,
Behint the chicken cavie.
Her lord, a wight o' Homer's craft,
Tho' limping wi' the spavie,
He hirpl'd up and lap like daft,
And shor'd them Dainty Davie
O boot that night.
He was a care-defying blade
As ever Bacchus listed,
Tho' Fortune sair upon him laid,
His heart she ever miss'd it.
He had nae wish but--to be glad,
Nor want but--when he thirsted;
He hated nought but--to be sad,
And thus the Muse suggested
His sang that night.
AIR
Tune--"_For a' that, an' a' that._"
I am a bard of no regard
Wi' gentle folks, an' a' that:
But Homer-like, the glowran byke,
Frae town to town I draw that.
CHORUS
For a' that, an' a' that,
An' twice as muckle's a' that;
I've lost but ane, I've twa behin',
I've wife enough for a' that.
I never drank the Muses' stank,
Castalia's burn, an' a' that;
But there it streams, and richly reams,
My Helicon I ca' that.
For a' that, &c.
Great love I bear to a' the fair,
Their humble slave, an' a' that;
But lordly will, I hold it still
A mortal sin to thraw that.
For a' that, &c.
In raptures sweet, this hour we meet,
Wi' mutual love, an a' that:
But for how lang the flie may stang,
Let inclination law that.
For a' that, &c.
Their tricks and craft have put me daft.
They've ta'en me in, and a' that;
But clear your decks, and here's the sex!
I like the jads for a' that
CHORUS
For a' that, an' a' that,
An' twice as muckle's a' that;
My dearest bluid, to do them guid,
They're welcome till't for a' that
RECITATIVO
So sung the bard--and Nansie's wa's
Shook with a thunder of applause,
Re-echo'd from each mouth:
They toom'd their pocks, an' pawn'd their duds,
They scarcely left to co'er their fuds,
To quench their lowan drouth.
Then owre again, the jovial thrang,
The poet did request,
To loose his pack an' wale a sang,
A ballad o' the best;
He rising, rejoicing,
Between his twa Deborahs
Looks round him, an' found them
Impatient for the chorus.
AIR
Tune--"_Jolly Mortals, fill your Glasses._"
See! the smoking bowl before us,
Mark our jovial ragged ring!
Round and round take up the chorus,
And in raptures let us sing.
CHORUS.
A fig for those by law protected!
Liberty's a glorious feast!
Courts for cowards were erected,
Churches built to please the priest.
What is title? what is treasure?
What is reputation's care?
If we lead a life of pleasure,
'Tis no matter how or where!
A fig, &c.
With the ready trick and fable,
Round we wander all the day;
And at night, in barn or stable,
Hug our doxies on the hay.
A fig, &c.
Does the train-attended carriage
Through the country lighter rove?
Does the sober bed of marriage
Witness brighter scenes of love?
A fig, &c.
Life is all a variorum,
We regard not how it goes;
Let them cant about decorum
Who have characters to lose.
A fig, &c.
Here's to budgets, bags, and wallets!
Here's to all the wandering train!
Here's our ragged brats and wallets!
One and all cry out--Amen!
A fig for those by law protected!
Liberty's a glorious feast!
Courts for cowards were erected,
Churches built to please the priest.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 5: A peculiar sort of whiskey.]
* * * * *
XV.
DEATH AND DR. HORNBOOK.
A TRUE STORY.
[John Wilson, raised to the unwelcome elevation of hero to this poem,
was, at the time of its composition, schoolmaster in Tarbolton: he as,
it is said, a fair scholar, and a very worthy man, but vain of his
knowledge in medicine--so vain, that he advertised his merits, and
offered advice gratis. It was his misfortune to encounter Burns at a
mason meeting, who, provoked by a long and pedantic speech, from the
Dominie, exclaimed, the future lampoon dawning upon him, "Sit down,
Dr. Hornbook." On his way home, the poet seated himself on the ledge
of a bridge, composed the poem, and, overcome with poesie and drink,
fell asleep, and did not awaken till the sun was shining over Galston
Moors. Wilson went afterwards to Glasgow, embarked in mercantile and
matrimonial speculations, and prospered, and is still prospering.]
Some books are lies frae end to end,
And some great lies were never penn'd:
Ev'n ministers, they ha'e been kenn'd,
In holy rapture,
A rousing whid, at times, to vend,
And nail't wi' Scripture.
But this that I am gaun to tell,
Which lately on a night befel,
Is just as true's the Deil's in h--ll
Or Dublin-city;
That e'er he nearer comes oursel
'S a muckle pity.
The Clachan yill had made me canty,
I was na fou, but just had plenty;
I stacher'd whyles, but yet took tent ay
To free the ditches;
An' hillocks, stanes, and bushes, kenn'd ay
Frae ghaists an' witches.
The rising moon began to glow'r
The distant Cumnock hills out-owre:
To count her horns with a' my pow'r,
I set mysel;
But whether she had three or four,
I could na tell.
I was come round about the hill,
And todlin down on Willie's mill,
Setting my staff with a' my skill,
To keep me sicker;
Tho' leeward whyles, against my will,
I took a bicker.
I there wi' something did forgather,
That put me in an eerie swither;
An awfu' scythe, out-owre ae shouther,
Clear-dangling, hang;
A three-taed leister on the ither
Lay, large an' lang.
Its stature seem'd lang Scotch ells twa,
The queerest shape that e'er I saw,
For fient a wame it had ava:
And then, its shanks,
They were as thin, as sharp an' sma'
As cheeks o' branks.
"Guid-een," quo' I; "Friend, hae ye been mawin,
When ither folk are busy sawin?"
It seem'd to mak a kind o' stan',
But naething spak;
At length, says I, "Friend, where ye gaun,
Will ye go back?"
It spak right howe,--"My name is Death,
But be na fley'd."--Quoth I, "Guid faith,
Ye're may be come to stap my breath;
But tent me, billie;
I red ye weel, take care o' skaith,
See, there's a gully!"
"Guidman," quo' he, "put up your whittle,
I'm no design'd to try its mettle;
But if I did, I wad be kittle
To be mislear'd,
I wad nae mind it, no that spittle
Out-owre my beard."
"Weel, weel!" says I, "a bargain be't;
Come, gies your hand, an' sae we're gree't;
We'll ease our shanks an' tak a seat,
Come, gies your news!
This while ye hae been mony a gate
At mony a house.
"Ay, ay!" quo' he, an' shook his head,
"It's e'en a lang, lang time indeed
Sin' I began to nick the thread,
An' choke the breath:
Folk maun do something for their bread,
An' sae maun Death.
"Sax thousand years are near hand fled
Sin' I was to the butching bred,
An' mony a scheme in vain's been laid,
To stap or scar me;
Till ane Hornbook's ta'en up the trade,
An' faith, he'll waur me.
"Ye ken Jock Hornbook i' the Clachan,
Deil mak his kings-hood in a spleuchan!
He's grown sae weel acquaint wi' Buchan[6]
An' ither chaps,
The weans haud out their fingers laughin
And pouk my hips.
"See, here's a scythe, and there's a dart,
They hae pierc'd mony a gallant heart;
But Doctor Hornbook, wi' his art
And cursed skill,
Has made them baith no worth a f----t,
Damn'd haet they'll kill.
"'Twas but yestreen, nae farther gaen,
I threw a noble throw at ane;
Wi' less, I'm sure, I've hundreds slain;
But-deil-ma-care,
It just play'd dirl on the bane,
But did nae mair.
"Hornbook was by, wi' ready art,
And had sae fortified the part,
That when I looked to my dart,
It was sae blunt,
Fient haet o't wad hae pierc'd the heart
Of a kail-runt.
"I drew my scythe in sic a fury,
I near-hand cowpit wi' my hurry,
But yet the bauld Apothecary,
Withstood the shock;
I might as weel hae tried a quarry
O' hard whin rock.
"Ev'n them he canna get attended,
Although their face he ne'er had kend it,
Just sh---- in a kail-blade, and send it,
As soon's he smells't,
Baith their disease, and what will mend it,
At once he tells't.
"And then a' doctor's saws and whittles,
Of a' dimensions, shapes, an' mettles,
A' kinds o' boxes, mugs, an' bottles,
He's sure to hae;
Their Latin names as fast he rattles
As A B C.
"Calces o' fossils, earths, and trees;
True sal-marinum o' the seas;
The farina of beans and pease,
He has't in plenty;
Aqua-fortis, what you please,
He can content ye.
"Forbye some new, uncommon weapons,
Urinus spiritus of capons;
Or mite-horn shavings, filings, scrapings,
Distill'd _per se_;
Sal-alkali o' midge-tail clippings,
And mony mae."
"Waes me for Johnny Ged's-Hole[7] now,"
Quo' I, "If that thae news be true!
His braw calf-ward whare gowans grew,
Sae white and bonie,
Nae doubt they'll rive it wi' the plew;
They'll ruin Johnie!"
The creature grain'd an eldritch laugh,
And says, "Ye need na yoke the plough,
Kirkyards will soon be till'd eneugh,
Tak ye nae fear;
They'll a' be trench'd wi' mony a sheugh
In twa-three year.
"Whare I kill'd ane a fair strae death,
By loss o' blood or want of breath,
This night I'm free to tak my aith,
That Hornbook's skill
Has clad a score i' their last claith,
By drap an' pill.
"An honest wabster to his trade,
Whase wife's twa nieves were scarce weel bred,
Gat tippence-worth to mend her head,
When it was sair;
The wife slade cannie to her bed,
But ne'er spak mair
"A countra laird had ta'en the batts,
Or some curmurring in his guts,
His only son for Hornbook sets,
An' pays him well.
The lad, for twa guid gimmer-pets,
Was laird himsel.
"A bonnie lass, ye kend her name,
Some ill-brewn drink had hov'd her wame;
She trusts hersel, to hide the shame,
In Hornbook's care;
_Horn_ sent her aff to her lang hame,
To hide it there.
"That's just a swatch o' Hornbook's way;
Thus goes he on from day to day,
Thus does he poison, kill, an' slay,
An's weel paid for't;
Yet stops me o' my lawfu' prey,
Wi' his d--mn'd dirt:
"But, hark! I'll tell you of a plot,
Though dinna ye be speaking o't;
I'll nail the self-conceited sot,
As dead's a herrin':
Niest time we meet, I'll wad a groat,
He gets his fairin'!"
But just as he began to tell,
The auld kirk-hammer strak' the bell
Some wee short hour ayont the twal,
Which rais'd us baith:
I took the way that pleas'd mysel',
And sae did Death.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 6: Buchan's Domestic Medicine.]
[Footnote 7: The grave-digger.]
* * * * *
XVI.
THE TWA HERDS:
OR,
THE HOLY TULZIE.
[The actors in this indecent drama were Moodie, minister of Ricartoun,
and Russell, helper to the minister of Kilmarnock: though apostles of
the "Old Light," they forgot their brotherhood in the vehemence of
controversy, and went, it is said, to blows. "This poem," says Burns,
"with a certain description of the clergy as well as laity, met with a
roar of applause."]
O a' ye pious godly flocks,
Weel fed on pastures orthodox,
Wha now will keep you frae the fox,
Or worrying tykes,
Or wha will tent the waifs and crocks,
About the dykes?
The twa best herds in a' the wast,
That e'er ga'e gospel horn a blast,
These five and twenty simmers past,
O! dool to tell,
Ha'e had a bitter black out-cast
Atween themsel.
O, Moodie, man, and wordy Russell,
How could you raise so vile a bustle,
Ye'll see how New-Light herds will whistle
And think it fine:
The Lord's cause ne'er got sic a twistle
Sin' I ha'e min'.
O, sirs! whae'er wad ha'e expeckit
Your duty ye wad sae negleckit,
Ye wha were ne'er by lairds respeckit,
To wear the plaid,
But by the brutes themselves eleckit,
To be their guide.
What flock wi' Moodie's flock could rank,
Sae hale and hearty every shank,
Nae poison'd sour Arminian stank,
He let them taste,
Frae Calvin's well, ay clear they drank,--
O sic a feast!
The thummart, wil'-cat, brock, and tod,
Weel kend his voice thro' a' the wood,
He smelt their ilka hole and road,
Baith out and in,
And weel he lik'd to shed their bluid,
And sell their skin.
What herd like Russell tell'd his tale,
His voice was heard thro' muir and dale,
He kend the Lord's sheep, ilka tail,
O'er a' the height,
And saw gin they were sick or hale,
At the first sight.
He fine a mangy sheep could scrub,
Or nobly fling the gospel club,
And New-Light herds could nicely drub,
Or pay their skin;
Could shake them o'er the burning dub,
Or heave them in.
Sic twa--O! do I live to see't,
Sic famous twa should disagreet,
An' names, like villain, hypocrite,
Ilk ither gi'en,
While New-Light herds, wi' laughin' spite,
Say neither's liein'!
An' ye wha tent the gospel fauld,
There's Duncan, deep, and Peebles, shaul,
But chiefly thou, apostle Auld,
We trust in thee,
That thou wilt work them, hot and cauld,
Till they agree.
Consider, Sirs, how we're beset;
There's scarce a new herd that we get
But comes frae mang that cursed set
I winna name;
I hope frae heav'n to see them yet
In fiery flame.
Dalrymple has been lang our fae,
M'Gill has wrought us meikle wae,
And that curs'd rascal call'd M'Quhae,
And baith the Shaws,
That aft ha'e made us black and blae,
Wi' vengefu' paws.
Auld Wodrow lang has hatch'd mischief,
We thought ay death wad bring relief,
But he has gotten, to our grief,
Ane to succeed him,
A chield wha'll soundly buff our beef;
I meikle dread him.
And mony a ane that I could tell,
Wha fain would openly rebel,
Forbye turn-coats amang oursel,
There's Smith for ane,
I doubt he's but a grey-nick quill,
An' that ye'll fin'.
O! a' ye flocks o'er a' the hills,
By mosses, meadows, moors, and fells,
Come, join your counsel and your skills
To cow the lairds,
And get the brutes the powers themsels
To choose their herds;
Then Orthodoxy yet may prance,
And Learning in a woody dance,
And that fell cur ca'd Common Sense,
That bites sae sair,
Be banish'd o'er the sea to France:
Let him bark there.
Then Shaw's and Dalrymple's eloquence,
M'Gill's close nervous excellence,
M'Quhae's pathetic manly sense,
And guid M'Math,
Wi' Smith, wha thro' the heart can glance,
May a' pack aff.
* * * * *
XVII.
HOLY WILLIE'S PRAYER.
"And send the godly in a pet to pray."
POPE.
[Of this sarcastic and too daring poem many copies in manuscript were
circulated while the poet lived, but though not unknown or unfelt by
Currie, it continued unpublished till printed by Stewart with the
Jolly Beggars, in 1801. Holy Willie was a small farmer, leading elder
to Auld, a name well known to all lovers of Burns; austere in speech,
scrupulous in all outward observances, and, what is known by the name
of a "professing Christian." He experienced, however, a "sore fall;"
he permitted himself to be "filled fou," and in a moment when "self
got in" made free, it is said, with the money of the poor of the
parish. His name was William Fisher.]
O thou, wha in the heavens dost dwell,
Wha, as it pleases best thysel',
Sends ane to heaven, and ten to hell,
A' for thy glory,
And no for ony gude or ill
They've done afore thee!
I bless and praise thy matchless might,
Whan thousands thou hast left in night,
That I am here afore thy sight,
For gifts and grace,
A burnin' and a shinin' light
To a' this place.
What was I, or my generation,
That I should get sic exaltation,
I wha deserve sic just damnation,
For broken laws,
Five thousand years 'fore my creation,
Thro' Adam's cause.
When frae my mither's womb I fell,
Thou might hae plunged me in hell,
To gnash my gums, to weep and wail,
In burnin' lake,
Whar damned devils roar and yell,
Chain'd to a stake.
Yet I am here a chosen sample;
To show thy grace is great and ample;
I'm here a pillar in thy temple,
Strong as a rock,
A guide, a buckler, an example,
To a' thy flock.
But yet, O Lord! confess I must,
At times I'm fash'd wi' fleshly lust;
And sometimes, too, wi' warldly trust,
Vile self gets in;
But thou remembers we are dust,
Defil'd in sin.
O Lord! yestreen thou kens, wi' Meg--
Thy pardon I sincerely beg,
O! may't ne'er be a livin' plague
To my dishonour,
An' I'll ne'er lift a lawless leg
Again upon her.
Besides, I farther maun allow,
Wi' Lizzie's lass, three times I trow--
But Lord, that Friday I was fou,
When I came near her,
Or else, thou kens, thy servant true
Wad ne'er hae steer'd her.
Maybe thou lets this fleshly thorn,
Beset thy servant e'en and morn,
Lest he owre high and proud should turn,
'Cause he's sae gifted;
If sae, thy han' maun e'en be borne
Until thou lift it.
Lord, bless thy chosen in this place,
For here thou hast a chosen race:
But God confound their stubborn face,
And blast their name,
Wha bring thy elders to disgrace
And public shame.
Lord, mind Gawn Hamilton's deserts,
He drinks, and swears, and plays at carts,
Yet has sae mony takin' arts,
Wi' grit and sma',
Frae God's ain priests the people's hearts
He steals awa.
An' whan we chasten'd him therefore,
Thou kens how he bred sic a splore,
As set the warld in a roar
O' laughin' at us;--
Curse thou his basket and his store,
Kail and potatoes.
Lord, hear my earnest cry and pray'r,
Against the presbyt'ry of Ayr;
Thy strong right hand, Lord, mak it bare
Upo' their heads,
Lord weigh it down, and dinna spare,
For their misdeeds.
O Lord my God, that glib-tongu'd Aiken,
My very heart and saul are quakin',
To think how we stood groanin', shakin',
And swat wi' dread,
While Auld wi' hingin lips gaed sneakin'
And hung his head.
Lord, in the day of vengeance try him,
Lord, visit them wha did employ him,
And pass not in thy mercy by 'em,
Nor hear their pray'r;
But for thy people's sake destroy 'em,
And dinna spare.
But, Lord, remember me an mine,
Wi' mercies temp'ral and divine,
That I for gear and grace may shine,
Excell'd by nane,
And a' the glory shall be thine,
Amen, Amen!
* * * * *
XVIII.
EPITAPH ON HOLY WILLIE.
[We are informed by Richmond of Mauchline, that when he was clerk in
Gavin Hamilton's office, Burns came in one morning and said, "I have
just composed a poem, John, and if you will write it, I will repeat
it." He repeated Holy Willie's Prayer and Epitaph; Hamilton came in at
the moment, and having read them with delight, ran laughing with them
in his hand to Robert Aiken. The end of Holy Willie was other than
godly; in one of his visits to Mauchline, he drank more than was
needful, fell into a ditch on his way home, and was found dead in the
morning.]
Here Holy Willie's sair worn clay
Takes up its last abode;
His saul has ta'en some other way,
I fear the left-hand road.
Stop! there he is, as sure's a gun,
Poor, silly body, see him;
Nae wonder he's as black's the grun,
Observe wha's standing wi' him.
Your brunstane devilship I see,
Has got him there before ye;
But hand your nine-tail cat a wee,
Till ance you've heard my story.
Your pity I will not implore,
For pity ye hae nane;
Justice, alas! has gi'en him o'er,
And mercy's day is gaen.
But hear me, sir, deil as ye are,
Look something to your credit;
A coof like him wad stain your name,
If it were kent ye did it.
* * * * *
XIX.
THE INVENTORY;
IN ANSWER TO A MANDATE BY THE SURVEYOR
OF THE TAXES.
[We have heard of a poor play-actor who, by a humorous inventory of
his effects, so moved the commissioners of the income tax, that they
remitted all claim on him then and forever; we know not that this very
humorous inventory of Burns had any such effect on Mr. Aiken, the
surveyor of the taxes. It is dated "Mossgiel, February 22d, 1786," and
is remarkable for wit and sprightliness, and for the information which
it gives us of the poet's habits, household, and agricultural
implements.]
Sir, as your mandate did request,
I send you here a faithfu' list,
O' gudes, an' gear, an' a' my graith,
To which I'm clear to gi'e my aith.
_Imprimis_, then, for carriage cattle,
I have four brutes o' gallant mettle,
As ever drew afore a pettle.
My lan' afore's[8] a gude auld has been,
An' wight, an' wilfu' a' his days been.
My lan ahin's[9] a weel gaun fillie,
That aft has borne me hame frae Killie,[10]
An' your auld burro' mony a time,
In days when riding was nae crime--
But ance, whan in my wooing pride,
I like a blockhead boost to ride,
The wilfu' creature sae I pat to,
(L--d pardon a' my sins an' that too!)
I play'd my fillie sic a shavie,
She's a' bedevil'd with the spavie.
My fur ahin's[11] a wordy beast,
As e'er in tug or tow was trac'd.
The fourth's a Highland Donald hastie,
A d--n'd red wud Kilburnie blastie!
Forbye a cowt o' cowt's the wale,
As ever ran afore a tail.
If he be spar'd to be a beast,
He'll draw me fifteen pun' at least.--
Wheel carriages I ha'e but few,
Three carts, an' twa are feckly new;
Ae auld wheelbarrow, mair for token,
Ae leg an' baith the trams are broken;
I made a poker o' the spin'le,
An' my auld mither brunt the trin'le.
For men I've three mischievous boys,
Run de'ils for rantin' an' for noise;
A gaudsman ane, a thrasher t'other.
Wee Davock hauds the nowt in fother.
I rule them as I ought, discreetly,
An' aften labour them completely;
An' ay on Sundays, duly, nightly,
I on the Questions targe them tightly;
Till, faith, wee Davock's turn'd sae gleg,
Tho' scarcely langer than your leg,
He'll screed you aff Effectual calling,
As fast as ony in the dwalling.
I've nane in female servan' station,
(Lord keep me ay frae a' temptation!)
I ha'e nae wife--and that my bliss is,
An' ye have laid nae tax on misses;
An' then, if kirk folks dinna clutch me,
I ken the devils darena touch me.
Wi' weans I'm mair than weel contented,
Heav'n sent me ane mae than I wanted.
My sonsie smirking dear-bought Bess,
She stares the daddy in her face,
Enough of ought ye like but grace;
But her, my bonnie sweet wee lady,
I've paid enough for her already,
An' gin ye tax her or her mither,
B' the L--d! ye'se get them a'thegither.
And now, remember, Mr. Aiken,
Nae kind of license out I'm takin';
Frae this time forth, I do declare
I'se ne'er ride horse nor hizzie mair;
Thro' dirt and dub for life I'll paidle,
Ere I sae dear pay for a saddle;
My travel a' on foot I'll shank it,
I've sturdy bearers, Gude be thankit.
The kirk and you may tak' you that,
It puts but little in your pat;
Sae dinna put me in your buke.
Nor for my ten white shillings luke.
This list wi' my ain hand I wrote it,
the day and date as under noted;
Then know all ye whom it concerns,
_Subscripsi huic_ ROBERT BURNS.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 8: The fore-horse on the left-hand in the plough.]
[Footnote 9: The hindmost on the left-hand in the plough.]
[Footnote 10: Kilmarnock.]
[Footnote 11: The hindmost horse on the right-hand in the plough.]
* * * * *
XX.
THE HOLY FAIR.
A robe of seeming truth and trust
Did crafty observation;
And secret hung, with poison'd crust,
The dirk of Defamation:
A mask that like the gorget show'd,
Dye-varying on the pigeon;
And for a mantle large and broad,
He wrapt him in Religion.
HYPOCRISY A-LA-MODE.
[The scene of this fine poem is the church-yard of Mauchline, and the
subject handled so cleverly and sharply is the laxity of manners
visible in matters so solemn and terrible as the administration of the
sacrament. "This was indeed," says Lockhart, "an extraordinary
performance: no partisan of any sect could whisper that malice had
formed its principal inspiration, or that its chief attraction lay in
the boldness with which individuals, entitled and accustomed to
respect, were held up to ridicule: it was acknowledged, amidst the
sternest mutterings of wrath, that national manners were once more in
the hands of a national poet." "It is no doubt," says Hogg, "a
reckless piece of satire, but it is a clever one, and must have cut to
the bone. But much as I admire the poem I must regret that it is
partly borrowed from Ferguson."]
Upon a simmer Sunday morn,
When Nature's face is fair,
I walked forth to view the corn,
An' snuff the caller air.
The rising sun owre Galston muirs,
Wi' glorious light was glintin';
The hares were hirplin down the furs,
The lav'rocks they were chantin'
Fu' sweet that day.
As lightsomely I glowr'd abroad,
To see a scene sae gay,
Three hizzies, early at the road,
Cam skelpin up the way;
Twa had manteeles o' dolefu' black,
But ane wi' lyart lining;
The third, that gaed a-wee a-back,
Was in the fashion shining
Fu' gay that day.
The twa appear'd like sisters twin,
In feature, form, an' claes;
Their visage, wither'd, lang, an' thin,
An' sour as ony slaes:
The third cam up, hap-step-an'-lowp,
As light as ony lambie,
An' wi' a curchie low did stoop,
As soon as e'er she saw me,
Fu' kind that day.
Wi' bonnet aff, quoth I, "Sweet lass,
I think ye seem to ken me;
I'm sure I've seen that bonnie face,
But yet I canna name ye."
Quo' she, an' laughin' as she spak,
An' taks me by the hands,
"Ye, for my sake, hae gi'en the feck,
Of a' the ten commands
A screed some day.
"My name is Fun--your cronie dear,
The nearest friend ye hae;
An' this is Superstition here,
An' that's Hypocrisy.
I'm gaun to Mauchline holy fair,
To spend an hour in daffin:
Gin ye'll go there, yon runkl'd pair,
We will get famous laughin'
At them this day."
Quoth I, "With a' my heart I'll do't;
I'll get my Sunday's sark on,
An' meet you on the holy spot;
Faith, we'se hae fine remarkin'!"
Then I gaed hame at crowdie-time
An' soon I made me ready;
For roads were clad, frae side to side,
Wi' monie a wearie body,
In droves that day.
Here farmers gash, in ridin' graith
Gaed hoddin by their cottars;
There, swankies young, in braw braid-claith,
Are springin' o'er the gutters.
The lasses, skelpin barefit, thrang,
In silks an' scarlets glitter;
Wi' sweet-milk cheese, in monie a whang,
An' farls bak'd wi' butter,
Fu' crump that day.
When by the plate we set our nose,
Weel heaped up wi' ha'pence,
A greedy glowr Black Bonnet throws,
An' we maun draw our tippence.
Then in we go to see the show,
On ev'ry side they're gath'rin',
Some carrying dails, some chairs an' stools,
An' some are busy blethrin'
Right loud that day.
Here stands a shed to fend the show'rs,
An' screen our countra gentry,
There, racer Jess, and twa-three wh-res,
Are blinkin' at the entry.
Here sits a raw of titlin' jades,
Wi' heaving breast and bare neck,
An' there's a batch o' wabster lads,
Blackguarding frae Kilmarnock
For fun this day.
Here some are thinkin' on their sins,
An' some upo' their claes;
Ane curses feet that fyl'd his shins,
Anither sighs an' prays:
On this hand sits a chosen swatch,
Wi' screw'd up grace-proud faces;
On that a set o' chaps at watch,
Thrang winkin' on the lasses
To chairs that day.
O happy is that man an' blest!
Nae wonder that it pride him!
Wha's ain dear lass that he likes best,
Comes clinkin' down beside him;
Wi' arm repos'd on the chair back,
He sweetly does compose him;
Which, by degrees, slips round her neck,
An's loof upon her bosom,
Unkenn'd that day.
Now a' the congregation o'er
Is silent expectation;
For Moodie speeds the holy door,
Wi' tidings o' damnation.
Should Hornie, as in ancient days,
'Mang sons o' God present him,
The vera sight o' Moodie's face,
To's ain het hame had sent him
Wi' fright that day.
Hear how he clears the points o' faith
Wi' ratlin' an' wi' thumpin'!
Now meekly calm, now wild in wrath,
He's stampin an' he's jumpin'!
His lengthen'd chin, his turn'd-up snout,
His eldritch squeel and gestures,
Oh, how they fire the heart devout,
Like cantharidian plasters,
On sic a day.
But hark! the tent has chang'd its voice:
There's peace an' rest nae langer:
For a' the real judges rise,
They canna sit for anger.
Smith opens out his cauld harangues,
On practice and on morals;
An' aff the godly pour in thrangs,
To gie the jars an' barrels
A lift that day.
What signifies his barren shine,
Of moral pow'rs and reason?
His English style, an' gestures fine,
Are a' clean out o' season.
Like Socrates or Antonine,
Or some auld pagan heathen,
The moral man he does define,
But ne'er a word o' faith in
That's right that day.
In guid time comes an antidote
Against sic poison'd nostrum;
For Peebles, frae the water-fit,
Ascends the holy rostrum:
See, up he's got the word o' God,
An' meek an' mim has view'd it,
While Common-Sense has ta'en the road,
An' aff, an' up the Cowgate,[12]
Fast, fast, that day.
Wee Miller, neist the guard relieves,
An' orthodoxy raibles,
Tho' in his heart he weel believes,
An' thinks it auld wives' fables:
But faith! the birkie wants a manse,
So, cannily he hums them;
Altho' his carnal wit an' sense
Like hafflins-ways o'ercomes him
At times that day.
Now but an' ben, the Change-house fills,
Wi' yill-caup commentators:
Here's crying out for bakes and gills,
An' there the pint-stowp clatters;
While thick an' thrang, an' loud an' lang,
Wi' logic, an' wi' scripture,
They raise a din, that, in the end,
Is like to breed a rupture
O' wrath that day.
Leeze me on drink! it gies us mair
Than either school or college:
It kindles wit, it waukens lair,
It pangs us fou' o' knowledge,
Be't whisky gill, or penny wheep,
Or any stronger potion,
It never fails, on drinking deep,
To kittle up our notion
By night or day.
The lads an' lasses, blythely bent
To mind baith saul an' body,
Sit round the table, weel content,
An' steer about the toddy.
On this ane's dress, an' that ane's leuk,
They're making observations;
While some are cozie i' the neuk,
An' formin' assignations
To meet some day.
But now the Lord's ain trumpet touts,
Till a' the hills are rairin',
An' echoes back return the shouts:
Black Russell is na' sparin':
His piercing words, like Highlan' swords,
Divide the joints and marrow;
His talk o' Hell, where devils dwell,
Our vera sauls does harrow[13]
Wi' fright that day.
A vast, unbottom'd boundless pit,
Fill'd fou o' lowin' brunstane,
Wha's ragin' flame, an' scorchin' heat,
Wad melt the hardest whunstane!
The half asleep start up wi' fear,
An' think they hear it roarin',
When presently it does appear,
'Twas but some neibor snorin'
Asleep that day.
'Twad be owre lang a tale to tell
How monie stories past,
An' how they crowded to the yill,
When they were a' dismist:
How drink gaed round, in cogs an' caups,
Amang the furms an' benches:
An' cheese an' bread, frae women's laps,
Was dealt about in lunches,
An' dawds that day.
In comes a gaucie, gash guidwife,
An' sits down by the fire,
Syne draws her kebbuck an' her knife;
The lasses they are shyer.
The auld guidmen, about the grace,
Frae side to side they bother,
Till some ane by his bonnet lays,
An' gi'es them't like a tether,
Fu' lang that day.
Waesucks! for him that gets nae lass,
Or lasses that hae naething;
Sma' need has he to say a grace,
Or melvie his braw claithing!
O wives, be mindfu' ance yoursel
How bonnie lads ye wanted,
An' dinna, for a kebbuck-heel,
Let lasses be affronted
On sic a day!
Now Clinkumbell, wi' ratlin tow,
Begins to jow an' croon;
Some swagger hame, the best they dow,
Some wait the afternoon.
At slaps the billies halt a blink,
Till lasses strip their shoon:
Wi' faith an' hope, an' love an' drink,
They're a' in famous tune
For crack that day.
How monie hearts this day converts
O' sinners and o' lasses!
Their hearts o' stane, gin night, are gane,
As saft as ony flesh is.
There's some are fou o' love divine;
There's some are fou o' brandy;
An' monie jobs that day begin
May end in houghmagandie
Some ither day.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 12: A street so called, which faces the tent in Mauchline.]
[Footnote 13: Shakespeare's Hamlet.]
* * * * *
XXI.
THE ORDINATION.
"For sense they little owe to frugal heav'n--
To please the mob they hide the little giv'n."
[This sarcastic sally was written on the admission of Mr. Mackinlay, as
one of the ministers to the Laigh, or parochial Kirk of Kilmarnock, on
the 6th of April, 1786. That reverend person was an Auld Light
professor, and his ordination incensed all the New Lights, hence the
bitter levity of the poem. These dissensions have long since past away:
Mackinlay, a pious and kind-hearted sincere man, lived down all the
personalities of the satire, and though unwelcome at first, he soon
learned to regard them only as a proof of the powers of the poet.]
Kilmarnock wabsters fidge an' claw,
An' pour your creeshie nations;
An' ye wha leather rax an' draw,
Of a' denominations,
Swith to the Laigh Kirk, ane an' a',
An' there tak up your stations;
Then aff to Begbie's in a raw,
An' pour divine libations
For joy this day.
Curst Common-Sense, that imp o' hell,
Cam in wi' Maggie Lauder;[14]
But Oliphant aft made her yell,
An' Russell sair misca'd her;
This day Mackinlay taks the flail,
And he's the boy will blaud her!
He'll clap a shangan on her tail,
An' set the bairns to daud her
Wi' dirt this day.
Mak haste an' turn King David owre,
An' lilt wi' holy clangor;
O' double verse come gie us four,
An' skirl up the Bangor:
This day the Kirk kicks up a stoure,
Nae mair the knaves shall wrang her,
For Heresy is in her pow'r,
And gloriously she'll whang her
Wi' pith this day.
Come, let a proper text be read,
An' touch it aff wi' vigour,
How graceless Ham[15] leugh at his dad,
Which made Canaan a niger;
Or Phineas[16] drove the murdering blade,
Wi' wh-re-abhorring rigour;
Or Zipporah,[17] the scauldin' jad,
Was like a bluidy tiger
I' th' inn that day.
There, try his mettle on the creed,
And bind him down wi' caution,
That stipend is a carnal weed
He taks but for the fashion;
And gie him o'er the flock, to feed,
And punish each transgression;
Especial, rams that cross the breed,
Gie them sufficient threshin',
Spare them nae day.
Now, auld Kilmarnock, cock thy tail,
And toss thy horns fu' canty;
Nae mair thou'lt rowte out-owre the dale,
Because thy pasture's scanty;
For lapfu's large o' gospel kail
Shall fill thy crib in plenty,
An' runts o' grace the pick and wale,
No gi'en by way o' dainty,
But ilka day.
Nae mair by Babel's streams we'll weep,
To think upon our Zion;
And hing our fiddles up to sleep,
Like baby-clouts a-dryin':
Come, screw the pegs, wi' tunefu' cheep,
And o'er the thairms be tryin';
Oh, rare! to see our elbucks wheep,
An' a' like lamb-tails flyin'
Fu' fast this day!
Lang Patronage, wi' rod o' airn,
Has shor'd the Kirk's undoin',
As lately Fenwick, sair forfairn,
Has proven to its ruin:
Our patron, honest man! Glencairn,
He saw mischief was brewin';
And like a godly elect bairn
He's wal'd us out a true ane,
And sound this day.
Now, Robinson, harangue nae mair,
But steek your gab for ever.
Or try the wicked town of Ayr,
For there they'll think you clever;
Or, nae reflection on your lear,
Ye may commence a shaver;
Or to the Netherton repair,
And turn a carpet-weaver
Aff-hand this day.
Mutrie and you were just a match
We never had sic twa drones:
Auld Hornie did the Laigh Kirk watch,
Just like a winkin' baudrons:
And ay' he catch'd the tither wretch,
To fry them in his caudrons;
But now his honour maun detach,
Wi' a' his brimstane squadrons,
Fast, fast this day.
See, see auld Orthodoxy's faes
She's swingein' through the city;
Hark, how the nine-tail'd cat she plays!
I vow it's unco pretty:
There, Learning, with his Greekish face,
Grunts out some Latin ditty;
And Common Sense is gaun, she says,
To mak to Jamie Beattie
Her plaint this day.
But there's Morality himsel',
Embracing all opinions;
Hear, how he gies the tither yell,
Between his twa companions;
See, how she peels the skin an' fell.
As ane were peelin' onions!
Now there--they're packed aff to hell,
And banished our dominions,
Henceforth this day.
O, happy day! rejoice, rejoice!
Come bouse about the porter!
Morality's demure decoys
Shall here nae mair find quarter:
Mackinlay, Russell, are the boys,
That Heresy can torture:
They'll gie her on a rape a hoyse,
And cowe her measure shorter
By th' head some day.
Come, bring the tither mutchkin in,
And here's for a conclusion,
To every New Light[18] mother's son,
From this time forth Confusion:
If mair they deave us wi' their din,
Or Patronage intrusion,
We'll light a spunk, and ev'ry skin,
We'll rin them aff in fusion
Like oil, some day.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 14: Alluding to a scoffing ballad which was made on the
admission of the late reverend and worthy Mr. Lindsay to the Laigh
Kirk.]
[Footnote 15: Genesis, ix. 22.]
[Footnote 16: Numbers, xxv. 8.]
[Footnote 17: Exodus, iv. 25.]
[Footnote 18: "New Light" is a cant phrase in the West of Scotland, for
those religions opinions which Dr. Taylor of Norwich has defended.]
* * * * *
XXII.
THE CALF.
TO THE REV. MR. JAMES STEVEN.
On his text, MALACHI, iv. 2--"And ye shall go forth, and grow
up as CALVES of the stall."
[The laugh which this little poem raised against Steven was a loud
one. Burns composed it during the sermon to which it relates and
repeated it to Gavin Hamilton, with whom he happened on that day to
dine. The Calf--for the name it seems stuck--came to London, where the
younger brother of Burns heard him preach in Covent Garden Chapel, in
1796.]
Right, Sir! your text I'll prove it true,
Though Heretics may laugh;
For instance; there's yoursel' just now,
God knows, an unco Calf!
And should some patron be so kind,
As bless you wi' a kirk,
I doubt na, Sir, but then we'll find,
Ye're still as great a Stirk.
But, if the lover's raptur'd hour
Shall ever be your lot,
Forbid it, ev'ry heavenly power,
You e'er should be a stot!
Tho', when some kind, connubial dear,
Your but-and-ben adorns,
The like has been that you may wear
A noble head of horns.
And in your lug, most reverend James,
To hear you roar and rowte,
Few men o' sense will doubt your claims
To rank among the nowte.
And when ye're number'd wi' the dead,
Below a grassy hillock,
Wi' justice they may mark your head--
"Here lies a famous Bullock!"
* * * * *
XXIII.
TO JAMES SMITH.
"Friendship! mysterious cement of the soul!
Sweet'ner of life and solder of society!
I owe thee much!--"
BLAIR.
[The James Smith, to whom this epistle is addressed, was at that time
a small shop-keeper in Mauchline, and the comrade or rather follower of
the poet in all his merry expeditions with "Yill-caup commentators."
He was present in Poosie Nansie's when the Jolly Beggars first dawned
on the fancy of Burns: the comrades of the poet's heart were not
generally very successful in life: Smith left Mauchline, and
established a calico-printing manufactory at Avon near Linlithgow,
where his friend found him in all appearance prosperous in 1788; but
this was not to last; he failed in his speculations and went to the
West Indies, and died early. His wit was ready, and his manners lively
and unaffected.]
Dear Smith, the sleest, paukie thief,
That e'er attempted stealth or rief,
Ye surely hae some warlock-breef
Owre human hearts;
For ne'er a bosom yet was prief
Against your arts.
For me, I swear by sun an' moon,
And ev'ry star that blinks aboon,
Ye've cost me twenty pair o' shoon
Just gaun to see you;
And ev'ry ither pair that's done,
Mair ta'en I'm wi' you.
That auld capricious carlin, Nature,
To mak amends for scrimpit stature,
She's turn'd you aff, a human creature
On her first plan;
And in her freaks, on every feature
She's wrote, the Man.
Just now I've ta'en the fit o' rhyme,
My barmie noddle's working prime,
My fancy yerkit it up sublime
Wi' hasty summon:
Hae ye a leisure-moment's time
To hear what's comin'?
Some rhyme a neighbour's name to lash;
Some rhyme (vain thought!) for needfu' cash:
Some rhyme to court the countra clash,
An' raise a din;
For me, an aim I never fash;
I rhyme for fun.
The star that rules my luckless lot,
Has fated me the russet coat,
An' damn'd my fortune to the groat;
But in requit,
Has blest me with a random shot
O' countra wit.
This while my notion's ta'en a sklent,
To try my fate in guid black prent;
But still the mair I'm that way bent,
Something cries "Hoolie!
I red you, honest man, tak tent!
Ye'll shaw your folly.
"There's ither poets much your betters,
Far seen in Greek, deep men o' letters,
Hae thought they had ensur'd their debtors,
A' future ages:
Now moths deform in shapeless tatters,
Their unknown pages."
Then farewell hopes o' laurel-boughs,
To garland my poetic brows!
Henceforth I'll rove where busy ploughs
Are whistling thrang,
An' teach the lanely heights an' howes
My rustic sang.
I'll wander on, with tentless heed
How never-halting moments speed,
Till fate shall snap the brittle thread;
Then, all unknown,
I'll lay me with th' inglorious dead,
Forgot and gone!
But why o' death begin a tale?
Just now we're living sound and hale,
Then top and maintop crowd the sail,
Heave care o'er side!
And large, before enjoyment's gale,
Let's tak the tide.
This life, sae far's I understand,
Is a' enchanted fairy land,
Where pleasure is the magic wand,
That, wielded right,
Maks hours like minutes, hand in hand,
Dance by fu' light.
The magic wand then let us wield;
For, ance that five-an'-forty's speel'd,
See crazy, weary, joyless eild,
Wi' wrinkl'd face,
Comes hostin', hirplin', owre the field,
Wi' creepin' pace.
When ance life's day draws near the gloamin',
Then fareweel vacant careless roamin';
An' fareweel cheerfu' tankards foamin',
An' social noise;
An' fareweel dear, deluding woman!
The joy of joys!
O Life! how pleasant in thy morning,
Young Fancy's rays the hills adorning!
Cold-pausing Caution's lesson scorning,
We frisk away,
Like school-boys, at th' expected warning,
To joy and play.
We wander there, we wander here,
We eye the rose upon the brier,
Unmindful that the thorn is near,
Among the leaves;
And tho' the puny wound appear,
Short while it grieves.
Some, lucky, find a flow'ry spot,
For which they never toil'd nor swat;
They drink the sweet and eat the fat,
But care or pain;
And, haply, eye the barren hut
With high disdain.
With steady aim some Fortune chase;
Keen hope does ev'ry sinew brace;
Thro' fair, thro' foul, they urge the race,
And seize the prey;
Then cannie, in some cozie place,
They close the day.
And others, like your humble servan',
Poor wights! nae rules nor roads observin';
To right or left, eternal swervin',
They zig-zag on;
'Till curst with age, obscure an' starvin',
They aften groan.
Alas! what bitter toil an' straining--
But truce with peevish, poor complaining!
Is fortune's fickle Luna waning?
E'en let her gang!
Beneath what light she has remaining,
Let's sing our sang.
My pen I here fling to the door,
And kneel, "Ye Pow'rs," and warm implore,
"Tho' I should wander terra e'er,
In all her climes,
Grant me but this, I ask no more,
Ay rowth o' rhymes.
"Gie dreeping roasts to countra lairds,
Till icicles hing frae their beards;
Gie fine braw claes to fine life-guards,
And maids of honour!
And yill an' whisky gie to cairds,
Until they sconner.
"A title, Dempster merits it;
A garter gie to Willie Pitt;
Gie wealth to some be-ledger'd cit,
In cent. per cent.
But give me real, sterling wit,
And I'm content.
"While ye are pleas'd to keep me hale,
I'll sit down o'er my scanty meal,
Be't water-brose, or muslin-kail,
Wi' cheerfu' face,
As lang's the muses dinna fail
To say the grace."
An anxious e'e I never throws
Behint my lug, or by my nose;
I jouk beneath misfortune's blows
As weel's I may;
Sworn foe to sorrow, care, and prose,
I rhyme away.
O ye douce folk, that live by rule,
Grave, tideless-blooded, calm and cool,
Compar'd wi' you--O fool! fool! fool!
How much unlike!
Your hearts are just a standing pool,
Your lives a dyke!
Nae hair-brain'd, sentimental traces,
In your unletter'd nameless faces!
In arioso trills and graces
Ye never stray,
But gravissimo, solemn basses
Ye hum away.
Ye are sae grave, nae doubt ye're wise;
Nae ferly tho' ye do despise
The hairum-scarum, ram-stam boys,
The rattling squad:
I see you upward cast your eyes--
Ye ken the road--
Whilst I--but I shall haud me there--
Wi' you I'll scarce gang ony where--
Then, Jamie, I shall say nae mair,
But quat my sang,
Content wi' you to mak a pair,
Whare'er I gang.
* * * * *
XXIV.
THE VISION.
DUAN FIRST.[19]
[The Vision and the Briggs of Ayr, are said by Jeffrey to be "the only
pieces by Burns which can be classed under the head of pure fiction:"
but Tam O' Shanter and twenty other of his compositions have an equal
right to be classed with works of fiction. The edition of this poem
published at Kilmarnock, differs in some particulars from the edition
which followed in Edinburgh. The maiden whose foot was so handsome as
to match that of Coila, was a Bess at first, but old affection
triumphed, and Jean, for whom the honour was from the first designed,
regained her place. The robe of Coila, too, was expanded, so far
indeed that she got more cloth than she could well carry.]
The sun had clos'd the winter day,
The curlers quat their roaring play,
An' hunger'd maukin ta'en her way
To kail-yards green,
While faithless snaws ilk step betray
Whare she has been.
The thresher's weary flingin'-tree
The lee-lang day had tired me;
And when the day had closed his e'e
Far i' the west,
Ben i' the spence, right pensivelie,
I gaed to rest.
There, lanely, by the ingle-cheek,
I sat and ey'd the spewing reek,
That fill'd, wi' hoast-provoking smeek,
The auld clay biggin';
An' heard the restless rattons squeak
About the riggin'.
All in this mottie, misty clime,
I backward mused on wastet time,
How I had spent my youthfu' prime,
An' done nae thing,
But stringin' blethers up in rhyme,
For fools to sing.
Had I to guid advice but harkit,
I might, by this hae led a market,
Or strutted in a bank an' clarkit
My cash-account:
While here, half-mad, half-fed, half-sarkit,
Is a' th' amount.
I started, mutt'ring, blockhead! coof!
And heav'd on high my waukit loof,
To swear by a' yon starry roof,
Or some rash aith,
That I, henceforth, would be rhyme-proof
Till my last breath--
When, click! the string the snick did draw:
And, jee! the door gaed to the wa';
An' by my ingle-lowe I saw,
Now bleezin' bright,
A tight outlandish hizzie, braw
Come full in sight.
Ye need na doubt, I held my wisht;
The infant aith, half-form'd, was crusht;
I glowr'd as eerie's I'd been dusht
In some wild glen;
When sweet, like modest worth, she blusht,
And stepped ben.
Green, slender, leaf-clad holly-boughs
Were twisted, gracefu', round her brows,
I took her for some Scottish Muse,
By that same token;
An' come to stop those reckless vows,
Wou'd soon be broken.
A "hair-brain'd, sentimental trace"
Was strongly marked in her face;
A wildly-witty, rustic grace
Shone full upon her:
Her eye, ev'n turn'd on empty space,
Beam'd keen with honour.
Down flow'd her robe, a tartan sheen,
'Till half a leg was scrimply seen:
And such a leg! my bonnie Jean
Could only peer it;
Sae straught, sae taper, tight, and clean,
Nane else came near it.
Her mantle large, of greenish hue,
My gazing wonder chiefly drew;
Deep lights and shades, bold-mingling, threw
A lustre grand;
And seem'd to my astonish'd view,
A well-known land.
Here, rivers in the sea were lost;
There, mountains to the skies were tost:
Here, tumbling billows mark'd the coast,
With surging foam;
There, distant shone Art's lofty boast,
The lordly dome.
Here, Doon pour'd down his far-fetch'd floods;
There, well-fed Irwine stately thuds:
Auld hermit Ayr staw thro' his woods,
On to the shore;
And many a lesser torrent scuds,
With seeming roar.
Low, in a sandy valley spread,
An ancient borough rear'd her head;
Still, as in Scottish story read,
She boasts a race,
To ev'ry nobler virtue bred,
And polish'd grace.
By stately tow'r, or palace fair,
Or ruins pendent in the air,
Bold stems of heroes, here and there,
I could discern;
Some seem'd to muse, some seem'd to dare,
With feature stern.
My heart did glowing transport feel,
To see a race[20] heroic wheel,
And brandish round the deep-dy'd steel
In sturdy blows;
While back-recoiling seem'd to reel
Their southron foes.
His Country's Saviour,[21] mark him well!
Bold Richardton's[22] heroic swell;
The chief on Sark[23] who glorious fell,
In high command;
And He whom ruthless fates expel
His native land.
There, where a sceptr'd Pictish shade[24]
Stalk'd round his ashes lowly laid,
I mark'd a martial race portray'd
In colours strong;
Bold, soldier-featur'd, undismay'd
They strode along.
Thro' many a wild romantic grove,[25]
Near many a hermit-fancy'd cove,
(Fit haunts for friendship or for love,)
In musing mood,
An aged judge, I saw him rove,
Dispensing good.
With deep-struck, reverential awe,[26]
The learned sire and son I saw,
To Nature's God and Nature's law,
They gave their lore,
This, all its source and end to draw;
That, to adore.
Brydone's brave ward[27] I well could spy,
Beneath old Scotia's smiling eye;
Who call'd on Fame, low standing by,
To hand him on,
Where many a Patriot-name on high
And hero shone.
* * * * *
DUAN SECOND
With musing-deep, astonish'd stare,
I view'd the heavenly-seeming fair;
A whisp'ring throb did witness bear
Of kindred sweet,
When with an elder sister's air
She did me greet.
"All hail! My own inspired bard!
In me thy native Muse regard!
Nor longer mourn thy fate is hard,
Thus poorly low!
I come to give thee such reward
As we bestow.
"Know, the great genius of this land,
Has many a light aërial band,
Who, all beneath his high command,
Harmoniously,
As arts or arms they understand,
Their labours ply.
"They Scotia's race among them share;
Some fire the soldier on to dare;
Some rouse the patriot up to bare
Corruption's heart.
Some teach the bard, a darling care,
The tuneful art.
"'Mong swelling floods of reeking gore,
They, ardent, kindling spirits, pour;
Or 'mid the venal senate's roar,
They, sightless, stand,
To mend the honest patriot-lore,
And grace the hand.
"And when the bard, or hoary sage,
Charm or instruct the future age,
They bind the wild, poetic rage
In energy,
Or point the inconclusive page
Full on the eye.
"Hence Fullarton, the brave and young;
Hence Dempster's zeal-inspired tongue;
Hence sweet harmonious Beattie sung
His 'Minstrel' lays;
Or tore, with noble ardour stung,
The sceptic's bays.
"To lower orders are assign'd
The humbler ranks of human-kind,
The rustic bard, the lab'ring hind,
The artisan;
All choose, as various they're inclin'd
The various man.
"When yellow waves the heavy grain,
The threat'ning storm some, strongly, rein;
Some teach to meliorate the plain,
With tillage-skill;
And some instruct the shepherd-train,
Blythe o'er the hill.
"Some hint the lover's harmless wile;
Some grace the maiden's artless smile;
Some soothe the lab'rer's weary toil,
For humble gains,
And make his cottage-scenes beguile
His cares and pains.
"Some, bounded to a district-space,
Explore at large man's infant race,
To mark the embryotic trace
Of rustic bard:
And careful note each op'ning grace,
A guide and guard.
"Of these am I--Coila my name;
And this district as mine I claim,
Where once the Campbells, chiefs of fame,
Held ruling pow'r:
I mark'd thy embryo-tuneful flame,
Thy natal hour.
"With future hope, I oft would gaze,
Fond, on thy little early ways,
Thy rudely carroll'd, chiming phrase,
In uncouth rhymes,
Fir'd at the simple, artless lays
Of other times.
"I saw thee seek the sounding shore,
Delighted with the dashing roar;
Or when the north his fleecy store
Drove through the sky,
I saw grim Nature's visage hoar
Struck thy young eye.
"Or when the deep green-mantled earth
Warm cherish'd ev'ry flow'ret's birth,
And joy and music pouring forth
In ev'ry grove,
I saw thee eye the general mirth
With boundless love.
"When ripen'd fields, and azure skies,
Called forth the reaper's rustling noise,
I saw thee leave their evening joys,
And lonely stalk,
To vent thy bosom's swelling rise
In pensive walk.
"When youthful love, warm-blushing, strong,
Keen-shivering shot thy nerves along,
Those accents, grateful to thy tongue,
Th' adored Name
I taught thee how to pour in song,
To soothe thy flame.
"I saw thy pulse's maddening play,
Wild send thee pleasure's devious way,
Misled by Fancy's meteor-ray,
By passion driven;
But yet the light that led astray
Was light from Heaven.
"I taught thy manners-painting strains,
The loves, the ways of simple swains,
Till now, o'er all my wide domains
Thy fame extends;
And some, the pride of Coila's plains,
Become thy friends.
"Thou canst not learn, nor can I show,
To paint with Thomson's landscape glow;
Or wake the bosom-melting throe,
With Shenstone's art;
Or pour, with Gray, the moving flow,
Warm on the heart.
"Yet, all beneath the unrivall'd rose,
The lowly daisy sweetly blows;
Tho' large the forest's monarch throws
His army shade,
Yet green the juicy hawthorn grows,
Adown the glade.
"Then never murmur nor repine;
Strive in thy humble sphere to shine;
And, trust me, not Potosi's mine,
Nor king's regard,
Can give a bliss o'ermatching thine,
A rustic bard.
"To give my counsels all in one,
Thy tuneful flame still careful fan;
Preserve the dignity of man,
With soul erect;
And trust, the universal plan
Will all protect.
"And wear thou this,"--she solemn said,
And bound the holly round my head:
The polish'd leaves and berries red
Did rustling play;
And like a passing thought, she fled
In light away.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 19: Duan, a term of Ossian's for the different divisions of a
digressive poem. See his "Cath-Loda," vol. ii. of Macpherson's
translation.]
[Footnote 20: The Wallaces.]
[Footnote 21: Sir William Wallace.]
[Footnote 22: Adam Wallace, of Richardton, cousin to the immortal
preserver of Scottish independence.]
[Footnote 23: Wallace, Laird of Craigie, who was second in command
under Douglas, Earl of Ormond, at the famous battle on the banks of
Sark, fought anno 1448. That glorious victory was principally owing to
the judicious conduct and intrepid valour of the gallant laird of
Craigie, who died of his wounds after the action.]
[Footnote 24: Coilus, king of the Picts, from whom the district of Kyle
is said to take its name, lies buried, as tradition says, near the
family seat of the Montgomeries of Coilsfield, where his burial-place
is still shown.]
[Footnote 25: Barskimming, the seat of the late Lord Justice-Clerk (Sir
Thomas Miller of Glenlee, afterwards President of the Court of
Session.)]
[Footnote 26: Catrine, the seat of Professor Dugald Steward.]
[Footnote 27: Colonel Fullarton.]
* * * * *
XXV.
HALLOWEEN.[28]
"Yes! let the rich deride, the proud disdain,
The simple pleasures of the lowly train;
To me more dear, congenial to my heart,
One native charm, than all the gloss of art."
GOLDSMITH.
[This Poem contains a lively and striking picture of some of the
superstitious observances of old Scotland: on Halloween the desire to
look into futurity was once all but universal in the north; and the
charms and spells which Burns describes, form but a portion of those
employed to enable the peasantry to have a peep up the dark vista of
the future. The scene is laid on the romantic shores of Ayr, at a
farmer's fireside, and the actors in the rustic drama are the whole
household, including supernumerary reapers and bandsmen about to be
discharged from the engagements of harvest. "I never can help
regarding this," says James Hogg, "as rather a trivial poem!"]
Upon that night, when fairies light
On Cassilis Downans[29] dance,
Or owre the lays, in splendid blaze,
On sprightly coursers prance;
Or for Colean the rout is ta'en,
Beneath the moon's pale beams;
There, up the Cove,[30] to stray an' rove
Amang the rocks an' streams
To sport that night.
Amang the bonnie winding banks
Where Doon rins, wimplin', clear,
Where Bruce[31] ance rul'd the martial ranks,
An' shook his Carrick spear,
Some merry, friendly, countra folks,
Together did convene,
To burn their nits, an' pou their stocks,
An' haud their Halloween
Fu' blythe that night.
The lasses feat, an' cleanly neat,
Mair braw than when they're fine;
Their faces blythe, fu' sweetly kythe,
Hearts leal, an' warm, an' kin';
The lads sae trig, wi' wooer babs,
Weel knotted on their garten,
Some unco blate, an' some wi' gabs,
Gar lasses' hearts gang startin'
Whiles fast at night.
Then, first and foremost, thro' the kail,
Their stocks[32] maun a' be sought ance;
They steek their een, an' graip an' wale,
For muckle anes an' straught anes.
Poor hav'rel Will fell aff the drift,
An' wander'd through the bow-kail,
An' pou't, for want o' better shift,
A runt was like a sow-tail,
Sae bow't that night.
Then, straught or crooked, yird or nane,
They roar an' cry a' throu'ther;
The vera wee-things, todlin', rin
Wi' stocks out-owre their shouther;
An' gif the custoc's sweet or sour,
Wi' joctelegs they taste them;
Syne coziely, aboon the door,
Wi' cannie care, they've placed them
To lie that night.
The lasses staw frae mang them a'
To pou their stalks o' corn;[33]
But Rab slips out, an' jinks about,
Behint the muckle thorn:
He grippet Nelly hard an' fast;
Loud skirl'd a' the lasses;
But her tap-pickle maist was lost,
When kiuttlin' in the fause-house[34]
Wi' him that night.
The auld guidwife's weel hoordet nits[35]
Are round an' round divided;
An' monie lads' an' lasses' fates
Are there that night decided:
Some kindle, couthie, side by side,
An' burn thegither trimly;
Some start awa' wi' saucy pride,
And jump out-owre the chimlie
Fu' high that night.
Jean slips in twa wi' tentie e'e;
Wha 'twas, she wadna tell;
But this is Jock, an' this is me,
She says in to hersel':
He bleez'd owre her, an' she owre him,
As they wad never mair part;
'Till, fuff! he started up the lum,
An' Jean had e'en a sair heart
To see't that night.
Poor Willie, wi' his bow-kail runt,
Was brunt wi' primsie Mallie;
An' Mallie, nae doubt, took the drunt,
To be compar'd to Willie;
Mall's nit lap out wi' pridefu' fling,
An' her ain fit it brunt it;
While Willie lap, and swoor, by jing,
'Twas just the way he wanted
To be that night.
Nell had the fause-house in her min',
She pits hersel an' Rob in;
In loving bleeze they sweetly join,
'Till white in ase they're sobbin';
Nell's heart, was dancin' at the view,
She whisper'd Rob to leuk for't:
Rob, stowlins, prie'd her bonie mou',
Fu' cozie in the neuk for't,
Unseen that night.
But Merran sat behint their backs,
Her thoughts on Andrew Bell;
She lea'es them gashin' at their cracks,
And slips out by hersel':
She through the yard the nearest taks,
An' to the kiln she goes then,
An' darklins graipit for the bauks,
And in the blue-clue[36] throws then,
Right fear't that night.
An' ay she win't, an' ay she swat,
I wat she made nae jaukin';
'Till something held within the pat,
Guid L--d! but she was quaukin'!
But whether 'twas the Deil himsel',
Or whether 'twas a bauk-en',
Or whether it was Andrew Bell,
She did na wait on talkin'
To spier that night.
Wee Jenny to her graunie says,
"Will ye go wi' me, graunie?
I'll eat the apple[37] at the glass,
I gat frae uncle Johnnie:"
She fuff't her pipe wi' sic a lunt,
In wrath she was sae vap'rin',
She notic't na, an aizle brunt
Her braw new worset apron
Out thro' that night.
"Ye little skelpie-limmer's face!
I daur you try sic sportin',
As seek the foul Thief onie place,
For him to spae your fortune:
Nae doubt but ye may get a sight!
Great cause ye hae to fear it;
For monie a ane has gotten a fright,
An' liv'd an' died deleeret
On sic a night.
"Ae hairst afore the Sherra-moor,
I mind't as weel's yestreen,
I was a gilpey then, I'm sure
I was na past fifteen:
The simmer had been cauld an' wat,
An' stuff was unco green;
An' ay a rantin' kirn we gat,
An' just on Halloween
It fell that night.
"Our stibble-rig was Rab M'Graen,
A clever, sturdy fellow:
He's sin gat Eppie Sim wi' wean,
That liv'd in Achmacalla:
He gat hemp-seed,[38] I mind it weel,
And he made unco light o't;
But monie a day was by himsel',
He was sae sairly frighted
That vera night."
Then up gat fechtin' Jamie Fleck,
An' he swoor by his conscience,
That he could saw hemp-seed a peck;
For it was a' but nonsense;
The auld guidman raught down the pock,
An' out a' handfu' gied him;
Syne bad him slip frae 'mang the folk,
Sometime when nae ane see'd him,
An' try't that night.
He marches thro' amang the stacks,
Tho' he was something sturtin;
The graip he for a harrow taks,
An' haurls at his curpin;
An' ev'ry now an' then he says,
"Hemp-seed, I saw thee,
An' her that is to be my lass,
Come after me, an' draw thee
As fast that night."
He whistl'd up Lord Lennox' march,
To keep his courage cheery;
Altho' his hair began to arch,
He was sae fley'd an' eerie;
'Till presently he hears a squeak,
An' then a grane an' gruntle;
He by his shouther gae a keek,
An' tumbl'd wi' a wintle
Out-owre that night.
He roar'd a horrid murder-shout,
In dreadfu' desperation!
An' young an' auld cam rinnin' out,
An' hear the sad narration;
He swoor 'twas hilchin Jean M'Craw,
Or crouchie Merran Humphie,
'Till, stop! she trotted thro' them a';
An' wha was it but Grumphie
Asteer that night!
Meg fain wad to the barn hae gaen,
To win three wechts o' naething;[39]
But for to meet the deil her lane,
She pat but little faith in:
She gies the herd a pickle nits,
An' twa red cheekit apples,
To watch, while for the barn she sets,
In hopes to see Tam Kipples
That vera night.
She turns the key wi' cannie thraw,
An' owre the threshold ventures;
But first on Sawnie gies a ca',
Syne bauldly in she enters:
A ratton rattled up the wa',
An' she cried, L--d preserve her!
An' ran thro' midden-hole an' a',
An' pray'd wi' zeal and fervour,
Fu' fast that night.
They hoy't out Will, wi sair advice;
They hecht him some fine braw ane;
It chanc'd the stack he faddom't thrice,[40]
Was timmer-propt for thrawin';
He taks a swirlie auld moss-oak,
For some black, grousome carlin;
An' loot a winze, an' drew a stroke,
'Till skin in blypes cam haurlin'
Aff's nieves that night.
A wanton widow Leezie was,
As canty as a kittlin;
But, och! that night, amang the shaws,
She got a fearfu' settlin'!
She thro' the whins, an' by the cairn,
An' owre the hill gaed scrievin,
Whare three lairds' lands met at a burn,[41]
To dip her left sark-sleeve in,
Was bent that night.
Whyles owre a linn the burnie plays,
As through the glen it wimpl't;
Whyles round a rocky scaur it strays,
Whyles in a wiel it dimpl't;
Whyles glitter'd to the nightly rays,
Wi' bickering, dancing dazzle;
Whyles cookit underneath the braes,
Below the spreading hazel,
Unseen that night.
Amang the brackens on the brae,
Between her an' the moon,
The deil, or else an outler quey,
Gat up an' gae a croon:
Poor Leezie's heart maist lap the hool!
Near lav'rock-height she jumpit,
But mist a fit, an' in the pool
Out-owre the lugs she plumpit,
Wi' a plunge that night.
In order, on the clean hearth-stane,
The luggies three[42] are ranged,
And ev'ry time great care is ta'en,
To see them duly changed:
Auld uncle John, wha wedlock's joys
Sin Mar's-year did desire,
Because he gat the toom-dish thrice,
He heav'd them on the fire
In wrath that night.
Wi' merry sangs, and friendly cracks,
I wat they did na weary;
An' unco tales, an' funnie jokes,
Their sports were cheap an' cheery;
Till butter'd so'ns[43] wi' fragrant lunt,
Set a' their gabs a-steerin';
Syne, wi' a social glass o' strunt,
They parted aff careerin'
Fu' blythe that night.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 28: Is thought to be a night when witches, devils, and other
mischief-making beings are all abroad on their baneful midnight errands:
particularly those aërial people, the Fairies, are said on that night to
hold a grand anniversary.]
[Footnote 29: Certain little, romantic, rocky green hills, in the
neighbourhood of the ancient seat of the Earls of Cassilis.]
[Footnote 30: A noted cavern near Colean-house, called the Cove of
Colean which, as well as Cassilis Downans, is famed in country story
for being a favourite haunt of fairies.]
[Footnote 31: The famous family of that name, the ancestors of Robert,
the great deliverer of his country, were Earls of Carrick.]
[Footnote 32: The first ceremony of Halloween is pulling each a stock,
or plant of kail. They must go out, hand-in-hand, with eyes shut, and
pull the first they meet with: its being big or little, straight or
crooked, is prophetic of the size and shape of the grand object of all
their spells--the husband or wife. If any yird, or earth, stick to the
root, that is tocher, or fortune; and the taste of the custoc, that
is, the heart of the stem, is indicative of the natural temper and
disposition. Lastly, the stems, or, to give them their ordinary
appellation, the runts, are placed somewhere above the head of the
door; and the Christian names of the people whom chance brings into
the house are, according to the priority of placing the runts, the
names in question.]
[Footnote 33: They go to the barn-yard, and pull each at three several
times, a stalk of oats. If the third stalk wants the top-pickle, that
is, the grain at the top of the stalk, the party in question will come
to the marriage-bed anything but a maid.]
[Footnote 34: When the corn is in a doubtful state, by being too green
or wet, the stack-builder, by means of old timber, &c., makes a large
apartment in his stack, with an opening in the side which is fairest
exposed to the wind: this he calls a fause-house.]
[Footnote 35: Burning the nuts is a famous charm. They name the lad and
lass to each particular nut, as they lay them in the fire, and
according as they burn quietly together, or start from beside one
another, the course and issue of the courtship will be.]
[Footnote 36: Whoever would, with success, try this spell, must
strictly observe these directions: Steal out, all alone, to the kiln,
and, darkling, throw into the pot a clue of blue yarn; wind it in a
clue off the old one; and towards the latter end, something will hold
the thread; demand "wha hauds?" i.e. who holds? an answer will be
returned from the kiln-pot, naming the Christian and surname of your
future spouse.]
[Footnote 37: Take a candle, and go alone to a looking-glass; eat an
apple before it, and some traditions say, you should comb your hair
all the time; the face of your conjugal companion, to be, will be seen
in the glass, as if peeping over your shoulder.]
[Footnote 38: Steal out unperceived, and sow a handful of hemp-seed,
harrowing it with anything you can conveniently draw after you.
Repeat, now and then, "Hemp-seed, I saw thee; hemp-seed, I saw thee;
and him (or her) that is to be my true love, come after me and pou
thee." Look over your left shoulder, and you will see the appearance
of the person invoked, in the attitude of pulling hemp. Some
traditions say, "Come after me, and shaw thee," that is, show thyself;
in which case it simply appears. Others omit the harrowing, and say,
"Come after me, and harrow thee."]
[Footnote 39: This charm must likewise be performed, unperceived, and
alone. You go to the barn, and open both doors, taking them off the
hinges, if possible; for there is danger that the being about to
appear may shut the doors and do you some mischief. Then take that
instrument used in winnowing the corn, which, in our country dialect,
we call a wecht; and go through all the attitudes of letting down corn
against the wind. Repeat it three times; and the third time, an
apparition will pass through the barn, in at the windy door, and out
at the other, having both the figure in question, and the appearance
or retinue marking the employment or station in life.]
[Footnote 40: Take an opportunity of going unnoticed, to a bean stack,
and fathom it three times round. The last fathom of the last time, you
will catch in your arms the appearance of your future conjugal
yoke-fellow.]
[Footnote 41: You go out, one or more, for this is a social spell, to a
south running spring or rivulet, where "three lairds' lands meet," and
dip your left shirt-sleeve. Go to bed in sight of a fire, and hang
your wet sleeve before it to dry. Lie awake: and, some time near
midnight, an apparition having the exact figure of the grand object in
question, will come and turn the sleeve, as if to dry the other side
of it.]
[Footnote 42: Take three dishes: put clean water in one, foul water in
another, and leave the third empty; blindfold a person and lead him to
the hearth where the dishes are ranged; he (or she) dips the left
hand: if by chance in the clean water, the future husband or wife will
come to the bar of matrimony a maid; if in the foul, a widow; if in
the empty dish, it foretells, with equal certainty, no marriage at
all. It is repeated three times, and every time the arrangement of the
dishes is altered.]
[Footnote 43: Sowens, with butter instead of milk to them, is always
the Halloween supper.]
* * * * *
XXVI.
MAN WAS MADE TO MOURN.
A DIRGE.
[The origin of this fine poem is alluded to by Burns in one of his
letters to Mrs. Dunlop: "I had an old grand-uncle with whom my mother
lived in her girlish years: the good old man was long blind ere he
died, during which time his highest enjoyment was to sit and cry,
while my mother would sing the simple old song of 'The Life and Age of
Man.'" From that truly venerable woman, long after the death of her
distinguished son, Cromek, in collecting the Reliques, obtained a copy
by recitation of the older strain. Though the tone and sentiment
coincide closely with "Man was made to Mourn," I agree with Lockhart,
that Burns wrote it in obedience to his own habitual feelings.]
When chill November's surly blast
Made fields and forests bare,
One ev'ning as I wandered forth
Along the banks of Ayr,
I spy'd a man whose aged step
Seem'd weary, worn with care;
His face was furrow'd o'er with years,
And hoary was his hair.
"Young stranger, whither wand'rest thou?"
Began the rev'rend sage;
"Does thirst of wealth thy step constrain,
Or youthful pleasure's rage?
Or haply, prest with cares and woes,
Too soon thou hast began
To wander forth, with me to mourn
The miseries of man.
"The sun that overhangs yon moors,
Out-spreading far and wide,
Where hundreds labour to support
A haughty lordling's pride:
I've seen yon weary winter-sun
Twice forty times return,
And ev'ry time had added proofs
That man was made to mourn.
"O man! while in thy early years,
How prodigal of time!
Misspending all thy precious hours,
Thy glorious youthful prime!
Alternate follies take the sway;
Licentious passions burn;
Which tenfold force gives nature's law,
That man was made to mourn.
"Look not alone on youthful prime,
Or manhood's active might;
Man then is useful to his kind,
Supported in his right:
But see him on the edge of life,
With cares and sorrows worn;
Then age and want--oh! ill-match'd pair!--
Show man was made to mourn.
"A few seem favorites of fate,
In pleasure's lap carest:
Yet, think not all the rich and great
Are likewise truly blest.
But, oh! what crowds in every land,
All wretched and forlorn!
Thro' weary life this lesson learn--
That man was made to mourn.
"Many and sharp the num'rous ills
Inwoven with our frame!
More pointed still we make ourselves,
Regret, remorse, and shame!
And man, whose heaven-erected face
The smiles of love adorn,
Man's inhumanity to man
Makes countless thousands mourn!
"See yonder poor, o'erlabour'd wight,
So abject, mean, and vile,
Who begs a brother of the earth
To give him leave to toil;
And see his lordly fellow-worm
The poor petition spurn,
Unmindful, though a weeping wife
And helpless offspring mourn.
"If I'm design'd yon lordling's slave--
By Nature's law design'd--
Why was an independent wish
E'er planted in my mind?
If not, why am I subject to
His cruelty or scorn?
Or why has man the will and power
To make his fellow mourn?
"Yet, let not this too much, my son,
Disturb thy youthful breast;
This partial view of human-kind
Is surely not the best!
The poor, oppressed, honest man
Had never, sure, been born,
Had there not been some recompense
To comfort those that mourn!
"O Death! the poor man's dearest friend--
The kindest and the best!
Welcome the hour, my aged limbs
Are laid with thee at rest!
The great, the wealthy, fear thy blow,
From pomp and pleasure torn!
But, oh! a blest relief to those
That weary-laden mourn."
* * * * *
XXVII.
TO RUIN.
["I have been," says Burns, in his common-place book, "taking a peep
through, as Young finely says, 'The dark postern of time long
elapsed.' 'Twas a rueful prospect! What a tissue of thoughtlessness,
weakness, and folly! my life reminded me of a ruined temple. What
strength, what proportion in some parts, what unsightly gaps, what
prostrate ruins in others!" The fragment, To Ruin, seems to have had
its origin in moments such as these.]
I.
All hail! inexorable lord!
At whose destruction-breathing word,
The mightiest empires fall!
Thy cruel, woe-delighted train,
The ministers of grief and pain,
A sullen welcome, all!
With stern-resolv'd, despairing eye,
I see each aimed dart;
For one has cut my dearest tie,
And quivers in my heart.
Then low'ring and pouring,
The storm no more I dread;
Though thick'ning and black'ning,
Round my devoted head.
II.
And thou grim pow'r, by life abhorr'd,
While life a pleasure can afford,
Oh! hear a wretch's prayer!
No more I shrink appall'd, afraid;
I court, I beg thy friendly aid,
To close this scene of care!
When shall my soul, in silent peace,
Resign life's joyless day;
My weary heart its throbbings cease,
Cold mould'ring in the clay?
No fear more, no tear more,
To stain my lifeless face;
Enclasped, and grasped
Within thy cold embrace!
* * * * *
XXVIII.
TO
JOHN GOUDIE OF KILMARNOCK.
ON THE PUBLICATION OF HIS ESSAYS
[This burning commentary, by Burns, on the Essays of Goudie in the
Macgill controversy, was first published by Stewart, with the Jolly
Beggars, in 1801; it is akin in life and spirit to Holy Willie's
Prayer; and may be cited as a sample of the wit and the force which
the poet brought to the great, but now forgotten, controversy of the
West.]
O Goudie! terror of the Whigs,
Dread of black coats and rev'rend wigs,
Sour Bigotry, on her last legs,
Girnin', looks back,
Wishin' the ten Egyptian plagues
Wad seize you quick.
Poor gapin', glowrin' Superstition,
Waes me! she's in a sad condition:
Fie! bring Black Jock, her state physician,
To see her water:
Alas! there's ground o' great suspicion
She'll ne'er get better.
Auld Orthodoxy lang did grapple,
But now she's got an unco ripple;
Haste, gie her name up i' the chapel,
Nigh unto death;
See, how she fetches at the thrapple,
An' gasps for breath.
Enthusiasm's past redemption,
Gaen in a gallopin' consumption,
Not a' the quacks, wi' a' their gumption,
Will ever mend her.
Her feeble pulse gies strong presumption
Death soon will end her.
'Tis you and Taylor[44] are the chief,
Wha are to blame for this mischief,
But gin the Lord's ain focks gat leave,
A toom tar-barrel,
An' twa red peats wad send relief,
An' end the quarrel.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 44: Dr. Taylor, of Norwich.]
* * * * *
XXIX.
TO
J. LAPRAIK.
AN OLD SCOTTISH BARD.
_April 1st, 1785._
(FIRST EPISTLE.)
["The epistle to John Lapraik," says Gilbert Burns, "was produced
exactly on the occasion described by the author. Rocking is a term
derived from primitive times, when our country-women employed their
spare hours in spinning on the roke or distaff. This simple instrument
is a very portable one; and well fitted to the social inclination of
meeting in a neighbour's house; hence the phrase of going a rocking,
or with the roke. As the connexion the phrase had with the implement
was forgotten when the roke gave place to the spinning-wheel, the
phrase came to be used by both sexes on social occasions, and men talk
of going with their rokes as well as women."]
While briers an' woodbines budding green,
An' paitricks scraichin' loud at e'en,
An' morning poussie whidden seen,
Inspire my muse,
This freedom in an unknown frien'
I pray excuse.
On Fasten-een we had a rockin',
To ca' the crack and weave our stockin',
And there was muckle fun an' jokin',
Ye need na doubt;
At length we had a hearty yokin'
At sang about.
There was ae sang, amang the rest,
Aboon them a' it pleas'd me best,
That some kind husband had addrest
To some sweet wife;
It thirl'd the heart-strings thro' the breast,
A' to the life.
I've scarce heard aught describ'd sae weel,
What gen'rous manly bosoms feel,
Thought I, "Can this be Pope or Steele,
Or Beattie's wark?"
They told me 'twas an odd kind chiel
About Muirkirk.
It pat me fidgin-fain to hear't,
And sae about him there I spier't,
Then a' that ken't him round declar'd
He had injine,
That, nane excell'd it, few cam near't,
It was sae fine.
That, set him to a pint of ale,
An' either douce or merry tale,
Or rhymes an' sangs he'd made himsel',
Or witty catches,
'Tween Inverness and Tiviotdale,
He had few matches.
Then up I gat, an' swoor an aith,
Tho' I should pawn my pleugh and graith,
Or die a cadger pownie's death
At some dyke-back,
A pint an' gill I'd gie them baith
To hear your crack.
But, first an' foremost, I should tell,
Amaist as soon as I could spell,
I to the crambo-jingle fell,
Tho' rude an' rough,
Yet crooning to a body's sel',
Does weel eneugh.
I am nae poet in a sense,
But just a rhymer, like, by chance,
An' hae to learning nae pretence,
Yet what the matter?
Whene'er my Muse does on me glance,
I jingle at her.
Your critic-folk may cock their nose,
And say, "How can you e'er propose,
You, wha ken hardly verse frae prose,
To mak a sang?"
But, by your leaves, my learned foes,
Ye're may-be wrang.
What's a' your jargon o' your schools,
Your Latin names for horns an' stools;
If honest nature made you fools,
What sairs your grammars?
Ye'd better taen up spades and shools,
Or knappin-hammers.
A set o' dull, conceited hashes,
Confuse their brains in college classes!
They gang in stirks and come out asses,
Plain truth to speak;
An' syne they think to climb Parnassus
By dint o' Greek!
Gie me ae spark o' Nature's fire!
That's a' the learning I desire;
Then though I drudge thro' dub an' mire
At pleugh or cart,
My muse, though hamely in attire,
May touch the heart.
O for a spunk o' Allan's glee,
Or Fergusson's, the bauld and slee,
Or bright Lapraik's, my friend to be,
If I can hit it!
That would be lear eneugh for me,
If I could get it.
Now, sir, if ye hae friends enow,
Tho' real friends, I b'lieve, are few,
Yet, if your catalogue be fou,
I'se no insist,
But gif ye want ae friend that's true--
I'm on your list.
I winna blaw about mysel;
As ill I like my fauts to tell;
But friends an' folk that wish me well,
They sometimes roose me;
Tho' I maun own, as monie still
As far abuse me.
There's ae wee faut they whiles lay to me,
I like the lasses--Gude forgie me!
For monie a plack they wheedle frae me,
At dance or fair;
May be some ither thing they gie me
They weel can spare.
But Mauchline race, or Mauchline fair;
I should be proud to meet you there!
We'se gie ae night's discharge to care,
If we forgather,
An' hae a swap o' rhymin'-ware
Wi' ane anither.
The four-gill chap, we'se gar him clatter,
An' kirsen him wi' reekin' water;
Syne we'll sit down an' tak our whitter,
To cheer our heart;
An' faith, we'se be acquainted better,
Before we part.
Awa, ye selfish, warly race,
Wha think that havins, sense, an' grace,
Ev'n love an' friendship, should give place
To catch-the-plack!
I dinna like to see your face,
Nor hear your crack.
But ye whom social pleasure charms,
Whose hearts the tide of kindness warms,
Who hold your being on the terms,
"Each aid the others,"
Come to my bowl, come to my arms,
My friends, my brothers!
But, to conclude my lang epistle,
As my auld pen's worn to the grissle;
Twa lines frae you wad gar me fissle,
Who am, most fervent,
While I can either sing or whissle,
Your friend and servant.
* * * * *
XXX.
To
J. LAPRAIK.
(SECOND EPISTLE.)
[The John Lapraik to whom these epistles are addressed lived at
Dalfram in the neighbourhood of Muirkirk, and was a rustic worshipper
of the Muse: he unluckily, however, involved himself in that Western
bubble, the Ayr Bank, and consoled himself by composing in his
distress that song which moved the heart of Burns, beginning
"When I upon thy bosom lean."
He afterwards published a volume of verse, of a quality which proved
that the inspiration in his song of domestic sorrow was no settled
power of soul.]
_April 21st_, 1785.
While new-ca'd ky, rowte at the stake,
An' pownies reek in pleugh or braik,
This hour on e'enin's edge I take
To own I'm debtor,
To honest-hearted, auld Lapraik,
For his kind letter.
Forjesket sair, wi' weary legs,
Rattlin' the corn out-owre the rigs,
Or dealing thro' amang the naigs
Their ten hours' bite,
My awkart muse sair pleads and begs,
I would na write.
The tapetless ramfeezl'd hizzie,
She's saft at best, and something lazy,
Quo' she, "Ye ken, we've been sae busy,
This month' an' mair,
That trouth, my head is grown right dizzie,
An' something sair."
Her dowff excuses pat me mad:
"Conscience," says I, "ye thowless jad!
I'll write, an' that a hearty blaud,
This vera night;
So dinna ye affront your trade,
But rhyme it right.
"Shall bauld Lapraik, the king o' hearts,
Tho' mankind were a pack o' cartes,
Roose you sae weel for your deserts,
In terms sae friendly,
Yet ye'll neglect to show your parts,
An' thank him kindly?"
Sae I gat paper in a blink
An' down gaed stumpie in the ink:
Quoth I, "Before I sleep a wink,
I vow I'll close it;
An' if ye winna mak it clink,
By Jove I'll prose it!"
Sae I've begun to scrawl, but whether
In rhyme or prose, or baith thegither,
Or some hotch-potch that's rightly neither,
Let time mak proof;
But I shall scribble down some blether
Just clean aff-loof.
My worthy friend, ne'er grudge an' carp,
Tho' fortune use you hard an' sharp;
Come, kittle up your moorland-harp
Wi' gleesome touch!
Ne'er mind how fortune waft an' warp;
She's but a b--tch.
She's gien me monie a jirt an' fleg,
Sin' I could striddle owre a rig;
But, by the L--d, tho' I should beg
Wi' lyart pow,
I'll laugh, an' sing, an' shake my leg,
As lang's I dow!
Now comes the sax an' twentieth simmer,
I've seen the bud upo' the timmer,
Still persecuted by the limmer
Frae year to year;
But yet despite the kittle kimmer,
I, Rob, am here.
Do ye envy the city gent,
Behint a kist to lie and sklent,
Or purse-proud, big wi' cent. per cent.
And muckle wame,
In some bit brugh to represent
A bailie's name?
Or is't the paughty, feudal Thane,
Wi' ruffl'd sark an' glancing cane,
Wha thinks himsel nae sheep-shank bane,
But lordly stalks,
While caps and bonnets aff are taen,
As by he walks!
"O Thou wha gies us each guid gift!
Gie me o' wit an' sense a lift,
Then turn me, if Thou please, adrift,
Thro' Scotland wide;
Wi' cits nor lairds I wadna shift,
In a' their pride!"
Were this the charter of our state,
"On pain' o' hell be rich an' great,"
Damnation then would be our fate,
Beyond remead;
But, thanks to Heav'n, that's no the gate
We learn our creed.
For thus the royal mandate ran,
When first the human race began,
"The social, friendly, honest man,
Whate'er he be,
'Tis he fulfils great Nature's plan,
An' none but he!"
O mandate, glorious and divine!
The followers o' the ragged Nine,
Poor thoughtless devils! yet may shine
In glorious light,
While sordid sons o' Mammon's line
Are dark as night.
Tho' here they scrape, an' squeeze, an' growl,
Their worthless nievfu' of a soul
May in some future carcase howl
The forest's fright;
Or in some day-detesting owl
May shun the light.
Then may Lapraik and Burns arise,
To reach their native kindred skies,
And sing their pleasures, hopes, an' joys,
In some mild sphere,
Still closer knit in friendship's ties
Each passing year!
* * * * *
XXXI.
TO
J. LAPRAIK.
(THIRD EPISTLE.)
[I have heard one of our most distinguished English poets recite with
a sort of ecstasy some of the verses of these epistles, and praise the
ease of the language and the happiness of the thoughts. He averred,
however, that the poet, when pinched for a word, hesitated not to coin
one, and instanced, "tapetless," "ramfeezled," and "forjesket," as
intrusions in our dialect. These words seem indeed, to some Scotchmen,
strange and uncouth, but they are true words of the west.]
_Sept._ 13th, 1785.
Guid speed an' furder to you, Johnny,
Guid health, hale han's, an' weather bonny;
Now when ye're nickan down fu' canny
The staff o' bread,
May ye ne'er want a stoup o' bran'y
To clear your head.
May Boreas never thresh your rigs,
Nor kick your rickles aff their legs,
Sendin' the stuff o'er muirs an' haggs
Like drivin' wrack;
But may the tapmast grain that wags
Come to the sack.
I'm bizzie too, an' skelpin' at it,
But bitter, daudin' showers hae wat it,
Sae my auld stumpie pen I gat it
Wi' muckle wark,
An' took my jocteleg an' whatt it,
Like ony clark.
It's now twa month that I'm your debtor
For your braw, nameless, dateless letter,
Abusin' me for harsh ill nature
On holy men,
While deil a hair yoursel' ye're better,
But mair profane.
But let the kirk-folk ring their bells,
Let's sing about our noble sel's;
We'll cry nae jads frae heathen hills
To help, or roose us,
But browster wives an' whiskey stills,
They are the muses.
Your friendship, Sir, I winna quat it
An' if ye mak' objections at it,
Then han' in nieve some day we'll knot it,
An' witness take,
An' when wi' Usquabae we've wat it
It winna break.
But if the beast and branks be spar'd
Till kye be gaun without the herd,
An' a' the vittel in the yard,
An' theekit right,
I mean your ingle-side to guard
Ae winter night.
Then muse-inspirin' aqua-vitæ
Shall make us baith sae blythe an' witty,
Till ye forget ye're auld an' gatty,
An' be as canty,
As ye were nine year less than thretty,
Sweet ane an' twenty!
But stooks are cowpet wi' the blast,
An' now the sin keeks in the west,
Then I maun rin amang the rest
An' quat my chanter;
Sae I subscribe myself in haste,
Yours, Rab the Ranter.
* * * * *
XXXII.
TO
WILLIAM SIMPSON,
OCHILTREE.
[The person to whom this epistle is addressed, was schoolmaster of
Ochiltree, and afterwards of New Lanark: he was a writer of verses
too, like many more of the poet's comrades;--of verses which rose not
above the barren level of mediocrity: "one of his poems," says
Chambers, "was a laughable elegy on the death of the Emperor Paul." In
his verses to Burns, under the name of a Tailor, there is nothing to
laugh at, though they are intended to be laughable as well as
monitory.]
_May, 1785._
I gat your letter, winsome Willie;
Wi' gratefu' heart I thank you brawlie;
Tho' I maun say't, I wad be silly,
An' unco vain,
Should I believe, my coaxin' billie,
Your flatterin' strain.
But I'se believe ye kindly meant it,
I sud be laith to think ye hinted
Ironic satire, sidelins sklented
On my poor Musie;
Tho' in sic phraisin' terms ye've penn'd it,
I scarce excuse ye.
My senses wad be in a creel,
Should I but dare a hope to speel,
Wi' Allan, or wi' Gilbertfield,
The braes o' fame;
Or Fergusson, the writer chiel,
A deathless name.
(O Fergusson! thy glorious parts
Ill suited law's dry, musty arts!
My curse upon your whunstane hearts,
Ye Enbrugh gentry!
The tythe o' what ye waste at cartes
Wad stow'd his pantry!)
Yet when a tale comes i' my head,
Or lasses gie my heart a screed,
As whiles they're like to be my dead
(O sad disease!)
I kittle up my rustic reed,
It gies me ease.
Auld Coila, now, may fidge fu' fain,
She's gotten poets o' her ain,
Chiels wha their chanters winna hain,
But tune their lays,
Till echoes a' resound again
Her weel-sung praise.
Nae poet thought her worth his while,
To set her name in measur'd stile;
She lay like some unkenn'd-of isle
Beside New-Holland,
Or whare wild-meeting oceans boil
Besouth Magellan.
Ramsay an' famous Fergusson
Gied Forth and Tay a lift aboon;
Yarrow an' Tweed, to monie a tune,
Owre Scotland rings,
While Irwin, Lugar, Ayr, an' Doon,
Nae body sings.
Th' Ilissus, Tiber, Thames, an' Seine,
Glide sweet in monie a tunefu' line!
But, Willie, set your fit to mine,
An' cock your crest,
We'll gar our streams an' burnies shine
Up wi' the best.
We'll sing auld Coila's plains an' fells,
Her moor's red-brown wi' heather bells,
Her banks an' braes, her dens an' dells,
Where glorious Wallace
Aft bure the gree, as story tells,
Frae southron billies.
At Wallace' name, what Scottish blood
But boils up in a spring-tide flood!
Oft have our fearless fathers strode
By Wallace' side,
Still pressing onward, red-wat shod,
Or glorious dy'd.
O sweet are Coila's haughs an' woods,
When lintwhites chant amang the buds,
And jinkin' hares, in amorous whids
Their loves enjoy,
While thro' the braes the cushat croods
With wailfu' cry!
Ev'n winter bleak has charms to me
When winds rave thro' the naked tree;
Or frosts on hills of Ochiltree
Are hoary gray:
Or blinding drifts wild-furious flee,
Dark'ning the day.
O Nature! a' thy shews an' forms
To feeling, pensive hearts hae charms!
Whether the summer kindly warms,
Wi' life an' light,
Or winter howls, in gusty storms,
The lang, dark night!
The muse, nae Poet ever fand her,
'Till by himsel' he learn'd to wander,
Adown some trotting burn's meander,
An' no think lang;
O sweet, to stray an' pensive ponder
A heart-felt sang!
The warly race may drudge an' drive,
Hog-shouther, jundie, stretch an' strive,
Let me fair Nature's face descrive,
And I, wi' pleasure,
Shall let the busy, grumbling hive
Bum owre their treasure.
Fareweel, my "rhyme-composing brither!"
We've been owre lang unkenn'd to ither:
Now let us lay our heads thegither,
In love fraternal;
May envy wallop in a tether,
Black fiend, infernal!
While Highlandmen hate tolls an' taxes;
While moorlan' herds like guid fat braxies;
While terra firma, on her axes
Diurnal turns,
Count on a friend, in faith an' practice,
In Robert Burns.
POSTSCRIPT
My memory's no worth a preen:
I had amaist forgotten clean,
Ye bade me write you what they mean,
By this New Light,
'Bout which our herds sae aft hae been,
Maist like to fight.
In days when mankind were but callans,
At grammar, logic, an' sic talents,
They took nae pains their speech to balance,
Or rules to gie,
But spak their thoughts in plain, braid Lallans,
Like you or me.
In thae auld times, they thought the moon,
Just like a sark, or pair o' shoon,
Wore by degrees, 'till her last roon,
Gaed past their viewing,
An' shortly after she was done,
They gat a new one.
This past for certain--undisputed;
It ne'er cam i' their heads to doubt it,
'Till chiels gat up an' wad confute it,
An' ca'd it wrang;
An' muckle din there was about it,
Baith loud an' lang.
Some herds, weel learn'd upo' the beuk,
Wad threap auld folk the thing misteuk;
For 'twas the auld moon turned a neuk,
An' out o' sight,
An' backlins-comin', to the leuk,
She grew mair bright.
This was deny'd, it was affirm'd;
The herds an' hissels were alarm'd:
The rev'rend gray-beards rav'd and storm'd
That beardless laddies
Should think they better were inform'd
Than their auld daddies.
Frae less to mair it gaed to sticks;
Frae words an' aiths to clours an' nicks,
An' monie a fallow gat his licks,
Wi' hearty crunt;
An' some, to learn them for their tricks,
Were hang'd an' brunt.
This game was play'd in monie lands,
An' Auld Light caddies bure sic hands,
That, faith, the youngsters took the sands
Wi' nimble shanks,
'Till lairds forbade, by strict commands,
Sic bluidy pranks.
But New Light herds gat sic a cowe,
Folk thought them ruin'd stick-an'-stowe,
Till now amaist on every knowe,
Ye'll find ane plac'd;
An' some their New Light fair avow,
Just quite barefac'd.
Nae doubt the Auld Light flocks are bleatin';
Their zealous herds are vex'd an' sweatin':
Mysel', I've even seen them greetin'
Wi' girnin' spite,
To hear the moon sae sadly lie'd on
By word an' write.
But shortly they will cowe the loons;
Some Auld Light herds in neibor towns
Are mind't in things they ca' balloons,
To tak a flight,
An' stay ae month amang the moons
And see them right.
Guid observation they will gie them:
An' when the auld moon's gaun to lea'e them,
The hindmost shaird, they'll fetch it wi' them,
Just i' their pouch,
An' when the New Light billies see them,
I think they'll crouch!
Sae, ye observe that a' this clatter
Is naething but a "moonshine matter;"
But tho' dull prose-folk Latin splatter
In logic tulzie,
I hope we bardies ken some better
Than mind sic brulzie.
* * * * *
XXXIII.
ADDRESS
TO AN
ILLEGITIMATE CHILD.
[This hasty and not very decorous effusion, was originally entitled
"The Poet's Welcome; or, Rab the Rhymer's Address to his Bastard
Child." A copy, with the more softened, but less expressive title, was
published by Stewart, in 1801, and is alluded to by Burns himself, in
his biographical letter to Moore. "Bonnie Betty," the mother of the
"sonsie-smirking, dear-bought Bess," of the Inventory, lived in
Largieside: to support this daughter the poet made over the copyright
of his works when he proposed to go to the West Indies. She lived to
be a woman, and to marry one John Bishop, overseer at Polkemmet, where
she died in 1817. It is said she resembled Burns quite as much as any
of the rest of his children.]
Thou's welcome, wean, mischanter fa' me,
If ought of thee, or of thy mammy,
Shall ever daunton me, or awe me,
My sweet wee lady,
Or if I blush when thou shalt ca' me
Tit-ta or daddy.
Wee image of my bonny Betty,
I, fatherly, will kiss and daut thee,
As dear and near my heart I set thee
Wi' as gude will
As a' the priests had seen me get thee
That's out o' hell.
What tho' they ca' me fornicator,
An' tease my name in kintry clatter:
The mair they talk I'm kent the better,
E'en let them clash;
An auld wife's tongue's a feckless matter
To gie ane fash.
Sweet fruit o' mony a merry dint,
My funny toil is now a' tint,
Sin' thou came to the warl asklent,
Which fools may scoff at;
In my last plack thy part's be in't
The better ha'f o't.
An' if thou be what I wad hae thee,
An' tak the counsel I sall gie thee,
A lovin' father I'll be to thee,
If thou be spar'd;
Thro' a' thy childish years I'll e'e thee,
An' think't weel war'd.
Gude grant that thou may ay inherit
Thy mither's person, grace, an' merit,
An' thy poor worthless daddy's spirit,
Without his failins;
'Twill please me mair to hear an' see it
Than stocket mailens.
* * * * *
XXXIV.
NATURE'S LAW.
A POEM HUMBLY INSCRIBED TO G. H. ESQ.
"Great nature spoke, observant man obey'd."
Pope.
[This Poem was written by Burns at Mossgiel, and "humbly inscribed to
Gavin Hamilton, Esq." It is supposed to allude to his intercourse with
Jean Armour, with the circumstances of which he seems to have made
many of his comrades acquainted. These verses were well known to many
of the admirers of the poet, but they remained in manuscript till
given to the world by Sir Harris Nicolas, in Pickering's Aldine
Edition of the British Poets.]
Let other heroes boast their scars,
The marks of sturt and strife;
And other poets sing of wars,
The plagues of human life;
Shame fa' the fun; wi' sword and gun
To slap mankind like lumber!
I sing his name, and nobler fame,
Wha multiplies our number.
Great Nature spoke with air benign,
"Go on, ye human race!
This lower world I you resign;
Be fruitful and increase.
The liquid fire of strong desire
I've pour'd it in each bosom;
Here, in this hand, does mankind stand,
And there, is beauty's blossom."
The hero of these artless strains,
A lowly bard was he,
Who sung his rhymes in Coila's plains
With meikle mirth an' glee;
Kind Nature's care had given his share,
Large, of the flaming current;
And all devout, he never sought
To stem the sacred torrent.
He felt the powerful, high behest,
Thrill vital through and through;
And sought a correspondent breast,
To give obedience due:
Propitious Powers screen'd the young flowers,
From mildews of abortion;
And lo! the bard, a great reward,
Has got a double portion!
Auld cantie Coil may count the day,
As annual it returns,
The third of Libra's equal sway,
That gave another B[urns],
With future rhymes, an' other times,
To emulate his sire;
To sing auld Coil in nobler style,
With more poetic fire.
Ye Powers of peace, and peaceful song,
Look down with gracious eyes;
And bless auld Coila, large and long,
With multiplying joys:
Lang may she stand to prop the land,
The flow'r of ancient nations;
And B[urns's] spring, her fame to sing,
Thro' endless generations!
* * * * *
XXXV.
TO THE REV. JOHN M'MATH.
[Poor M'Math was at the period of this epistle assistant to Wodrow,
minister of Tarbolton: he was a good preacher, a moderate man in
matters of discipline, and an intimate of the Coilsfield Montgomerys.
His dependent condition depressed his spirits: he grew dissipated; and
finally, it is said, enlisted as a common soldier, and died in a
foreign land.]
_Sept. 17th, 1785._
While at the stook the shearers cow'r
To shun the bitter blaudin' show'r,
Or in gulravage rinnin' scow'r
To pass the time,
To you I dedicate the hour
In idle rhyme.
My musie, tir'd wi' mony a sonnet
On gown, an' ban', and douse black bonnet,
Is grown right eerie now she's done it,
Lest they should blame her,
An' rouse their holy thunder on it
And anathem her.
I own 'twas rash, an' rather hardy,
That I, a simple countra bardie,
Shou'd meddle wi' a pack sae sturdy,
Wha, if they ken me,
Can easy, wi' a single wordie,
Lowse hell upon me.
But I gae mad at their grimaces,
Their sighin' cantin' grace-proud faces,
Their three-mile prayers, and hauf-mile graces,
Their raxin' conscience,
Whase greed, revenge, an' pride disgraces,
Waur nor their nonsense.
There's Gaun,[45] miska't waur than a beast,
Wha has mair honour in his breast
Than mony scores as guid's the priest
Wha sae abus't him.
An' may a bard no crack his jest
What way they've use't him.
See him, the poor man's friend in need,
The gentleman in word an' deed,
An' shall his fame an' honour bleed
By worthless skellums,
An' not a muse erect her head
To cowe the blellums?
O Pope, had I thy satire's darts
To gie the rascals their deserts,
I'd rip their rotten, hollow hearts,
An' tell aloud
Their jugglin' hocus-pocus arts
To cheat the crowd.
God knows, I'm no the thing I shou'd be,
Nor am I even the thing I cou'd be,
But twenty times, I rather wou'd be
An atheist clean,
Than under gospel colours hid be
Just for a screen.
An honest man may like a glass,
An honest man may like a lass,
But mean revenge, an' malice fause
He'll still disdain,
An' then cry zeal for gospel laws,
Like some we ken.
They take religion in their mouth;
They talk o' mercy, grace, an' truth,
For what?--to gie their malice skouth
On some puir wight,
An' hunt him down, o'er right, an' ruth,
To ruin straight.
All hail, Religion! maid divine!
Pardon a muse sae mean as mine,
Who in her rough imperfect line,
Thus daurs to name thee;
To stigmatize false friends of thine
Can ne'er defame thee.
Tho' blotch'd an' foul wi' mony a stain,
An' far unworthy of thy train,
With trembling voice I tune my strain
To join with those,
Who boldly daur thy cause maintain
In spite o' foes:
In spite o' crowds, in spite o' mobs,
In spite of undermining jobs,
In spite o' dark banditti stabs
At worth an' merit,
By scoundrels, even wi' holy robes,
But hellish spirit.
O Ayr! my dear, my native ground,
Within thy presbyterial bound
A candid lib'ral band is found
Of public teachers,
As men, as Christians too, renown'd,
An' manly preachers.
Sir, in that circle you are nam'd;
Sir, in that circle you are fam'd;
An' some, by whom your doctrine's blam'd,
(Which gies you honour,)
Even Sir, by them your heart's esteem'd,
An' winning manner.
Pardon this freedom I have ta'en,
An' if impertinent I've been,
Impute it not, good Sir, in ane
Whase heart ne'er wrang'd ye,
But to his utmost would befriend
Ought that belang'd ye.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 45: Gavin Hamilton, Esq.]
* * * * *
XXXVI.
TO A MOUSE,
ON TURNING HER UP IN HER NEST WITH THE PLOUGH,
NOVEMBER, 1785.
[This beautiful poem was imagined while the poet was holding the
plough, on the farm of Mossgiel: the field is still pointed out: and a
man called Blane is still living, who says he was gaudsman to the bard
at the time, and chased the mouse with the plough-pettle, for which he
was rebuked by his young master, who inquired what harm the poor mouse
had done him. In the night that followed, Burns awoke his gaudsman,
who was in the same bed with him, recited the poem as it now stands,
and said, "What think you of our mouse now?"]
Wee, sleekit, cow'rin', tim'rous beastie,
O, what a panic's in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi' bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,
Wi' murd'ring pattle!
I'm truly sorry man's dominion
Has broken nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor earth-born companion,
An' fellow-mortal!
I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen icker in a thrave
'S a sma' request:
I'll get a blessin' wi' the lave,
And never miss't!
Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin;
Its silly wa's the win's are strewin'!
An' naething, now, to big a new ane,
O' foggage green!
An' bleak December's winds ensuin',
Baith snell and keen!
Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste,
An' weary winter comin' fast,
An' cozie here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell,
'Till, crash! the cruel coulter past
Out thro' thy cell.
That wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble,
Has cost thee mony a weary nibble!
Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble,
But house or hald,
To thole the winter's sleety dribble,
An' cranreuch cauld!
But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o' mice an' men,
Gang aft a-gley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief and pain,
For promis'd joy.
Still thou art blest, compar'd wi' me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But, Och! I backward cast my e'e,
On prospects drear!
An' forward, tho' I canna see,
I guess an' fear.
* * * * *
XXXVII.
SCOTCH DRINK.
"Gie him strong drink, until he wink,
That's sinking in despair;
An' liquor guid to fire his bluid,
That's prest wi' grief an' care;
There let him bouse, an' deep carouse,
Wi' bumpers flowing o'er,
Till he forgets his loves or debts,
An' minds his griefs no more."
SOLOMON'S PROVERB, xxxi. 6, 7.
["I here enclose you," said Burns, 20 March, 1786, to his friend
Kennedy, "my Scotch Drink; I hope some time before we hear the gowk,
to have the pleasure of seeing you at Kilmarnock: when I intend we
shall have a gill between us, in a mutchkin stoup."]
Let other poets raise a fracas
'Bout vines, an' wines, an' dru'ken Bacchus,
An' crabbit names and stories wrack us,
An' grate our lug,
I sing the juice Scotch bear can mak us,
In glass or jug.
O, thou, my Muse! guid auld Scotch drink;
Whether thro' wimplin' worms thou jink,
Or, richly brown, ream o'er the brink,
In glorious faem,
Inspire me, till I lisp an' wink,
To sing thy name!
Let husky wheat the haughs adorn,
An' aits set up their awnie horn,
An' pease an' beans, at e'en or morn,
Perfume the plain,
Leeze me on thee, John Barleycorn,
Thou king o' grain!
On thee aft Scotland chows her cood,
In souple scones, the wale o' food!
Or tumblin' in the boilin' flood
Wi' kail an' beef;
But when thou pours thy strong heart's blood,
There thou shines chief.
Food fills the wame an' keeps us livin';
Tho' life's a gift no worth receivin'
When heavy dragg'd wi' pine an' grievin';
But, oil'd by thee,
The wheels o' life gae down-hill, scrievin,'
Wi' rattlin' glee.
Thou clears the head o' doited Lear;
Thou cheers the heart o' drooping Care;
Thou strings the nerves o' Labour sair,
At's weary toil;
Thou even brightens dark Despair
Wi' gloomy smile.
Aft, clad in massy, siller weed,
Wi' gentles thou erects thy head;
Yet humbly kind in time o' need,
The poor man's wine,
His wee drap parritch, or his bread,
Thou kitchens fine.
Thou art the life o' public haunts;
But thee, what were our fairs an' rants?
Ev'n godly meetings o' the saunts,
By thee inspir'd,
When gaping they besiege the tents,
Are doubly fir'd.
That merry night we get the corn in,
O sweetly then thou reams the horn in!
Or reekin' on a new-year morning
In cog or dicker,
An' just a wee drap sp'ritual burn in,
An' gusty sucker!
When Vulcan gies his bellows breath,
An' ploughmen gather wi' their graith,
O rare! to see thee fizz an' freath
I' th' lugget caup!
Then Burnewin comes on like Death
At ev'ry chap.
Nae mercy, then, for airn or steel;
The brawnie, bainie, ploughman chiel,
Brings hard owrehip, wi' sturdy wheel,
The strong forehammer,
Till block an' studdie ring an' reel
Wi' dinsome clamour.
When skirlin' weanies see the light,
Thou maks the gossips clatter bright,
How fumblin' cuifs their dearies slight;
Wae worth the name!
Nae howdie gets a social night,
Or plack frae them.
When neibors anger at a plea,
An' just as wud as wud can be,
How easy can the barley-bree
Cement the quarrel!
It's aye the cheapest lawyer's fee,
To taste the barrel.
Alake! that e'er my muse has reason
To wyte her countrymen wi' treason!
But monie daily weet their weason
Wi' liquors nice,
An' hardly, in a winter's season,
E'er spier her price.
Wae worth that brandy, burning trash!
Fell source o' monie a pain an' brash!
Twins monie a poor, doylt, druken hash,
O' half his days;
An' sends, beside, auld Scotland's cash
To her warst faes.
Ye Scots, wha wish auld Scotland well,
Ye chief, to you my tale I tell,
Poor plackless devils like mysel',
It sets you ill,
Wi' bitter, dearthfu' wines to mell,
Or foreign gill.
May gravels round his blather wrench,
An' gouts torment him inch by inch,
Wha twists his gruntle wi' a glunch
O' sour disdain,
Out owre a glass o' whiskey punch
Wi' honest men;
O whiskey! soul o' plays an' pranks!
Accept a Bardie's gratefu' thanks!
When wanting thee, what tuneless cranks
Are my poor verses!
Thou comes--they rattle i' their ranks
At ither's a----s!
Thee, Ferintosh! O sadly lost!
Scotland lament frae coast to coast!
Now colic grips, an' barkin' hoast,
May kill us a';
For loyal Forbes' charter'd boast,
Is ta'en awa.
Thae curst horse-leeches o' th' Excise,
Wha mak the whiskey stells their prize!
Haud up thy han', Deil! ance, twice, thrice!
There, seize the blinkers!
An' bake them up in brunstane pies
For poor d--n'd drinkers.
Fortune! if thou'll but gie me still
Hale breeks, a scone, an' whiskey gill,
An' rowth o' rhyme to rave at will,
Tak' a' the rest,
An' deal't about as thy blind skill
Directs thee best.
* * * * *
XXXVIII.
THE AUTHOR'S
EARNEST CRY AND PRAYER
TO THE
SCOTCH REPRESENTATIVES
IN THE
HOUSE OF COMMONS.
'Dearest of distillation! last and best!----
------How art thou lost!--------'
PARODY ON MILTON
["This Poem was written," says Burns, "before the act anent the
Scottish distilleries, of session 1786, for which Scotland and the
author return their most grateful thanks." Before the passing of this
lenient act, so sharp was the law in the North, that some distillers
relinquished their trade; the price of barley was affected, and
Scotland, already exasperated at the refusal of a militia, for which
she was a petitioner, began to handle her claymore, and was perhaps
only hindered from drawing it by the act mentioned by the poet. In an
early copy of the poem, he thus alludes to Colonel Hugh Montgomery,
afterwards Earl of Eglinton:--
"Thee, sodger Hugh, my watchman stented,
If bardies e'er are represented,
I ken if that yere sword were wanted
Ye'd lend yere hand;
But when there's aught to say anent it
Yere at a stand."
The poet was not sure that Montgomery would think the compliment to
his ready hand an excuse in full for the allusion to his unready
tongue, and omitted the stanza.]
Ye Irish lords, ye knights an' squires,
Wha represent our brughs an' shires,
An' doucely manage our affairs
In Parliament,
To you a simple Bardie's prayers
Are humbly sent.
Alas! my roupet Muse is hearse!
Your honours' hearts wi' grief 'twad pierce,
To see her sittin' on her a--e
Low i' the dust,
An' scriechin' out prosaic verse,
An' like to brust!
Tell them wha hae the chief direction,
Scotland an' me's in great affliction,
E'er sin' they laid that curst restriction
On aqua-vitæ;
An' rouse them up to strong conviction,
An' move their pity.
Stand forth, an' tell yon Premier youth,
The honest, open, naked truth:
Tell him o' mine an' Scotland's drouth,
His servants humble:
The muckie devil blaw ye south,
If ye dissemble!
Does ony great man glunch an' gloom?
Speak out, an' never fash your thumb!
Let posts an' pensions sink or soom
Wi' them wha grant 'em:
If honestly they canna come,
Far better want 'em.
In gath'rin votes you were na slack;
Now stand as tightly by your tack;
Ne'er claw your lug, an' fidge your back,
An' hum an' haw;
But raise your arm, an' tell your crack
Before them a'.
Paint Scotland greetin' owre her thrizzle,
Her mutchkin stoup as toom's a whissle:
An' damn'd excisemen in a bussle,
Seizin' a stell,
Triumphant crushin't like a mussel
Or lampit shell.
Then on the tither hand present her,
A blackguard smuggler, right behint her,
An' cheek-for-chow, a chuffie vintner,
Colleaguing join,
Picking her pouch as bare as winter
Of a' kind coin.
Is there, that bears the name o' Scot,
But feels his heart's bluid rising hot,
To see his poor auld mither's pot
Thus dung in staves,
An' plunder'd o' her hindmost groat
By gallows knaves?
Alas! I'm but a nameless wight,
Trode i' the mire out o' sight!
But could I like Montgomeries fight,
Or gab like Boswell,
There's some sark-necks I wad draw tight,
An' tie some hose well.
God bless your honours, can ye see't,
The kind, auld, canty carlin greet,
An' no get warmly on your feet,
An' gar them hear it!
An' tell them with a patriot heat,
Ye winna bear it?
Some o' you nicely ken the laws,
To round the period an' pause,
An' wi' rhetorie clause on clause
To mak harangues:
Then echo thro' Saint Stephen's wa's
Auld Scotland's wrangs.
Dempster, a true blue Scot I'se warran';
Thee, aith-detesting, chaste Kilkerran;[46]
An' that glib-gabbet Highland baron,
The Laird o' Graham;[47]
An' ane, a chap that's damn'd auldfarren,
Dundas his name.
Erskine, a spunkie Norland billie;
True Campbells, Frederick an' Hay;
An' Livingstone, the bauld Sir Willie:
An' monie ithers,
Whom auld Demosthenes or Tully
Might own for brithers.
Arouse, my boys! exert your mettle,
To get auld Scotland back her kettle:
Or faith! I'll wad my new pleugh-pettle,
Ye'll see't or lang,
She'll teach you, wi' a reekin' whittle,
Anither sang.
This while she's been in crankous mood,
Her lost militia fir'd her bluid;
(Deil na they never mair do guid,
Play'd her that pliskie!)
An' now she's like to rin red-wud
About her whiskey.
An' L--d, if once they pit her till't,
Her tartan petticoat she'll kilt,
An' durk an' pistol at her belt,
She'll tak the streets,
An' rin her whittle to the hilt,
I' th' first she meets!
For God sake, sirs, then speak her fair,
An' straik her cannie wi' the hair,
An' to the muckle house repair,
Wi' instant speed,
An' strive, wi' a' your wit and lear,
To get remead.
Yon ill-tongu'd tinkler, Charlie Fox,
May taunt you wi' his jeers an' mocks;
But gie him't het, my hearty cocks!
E'en cowe the cadie!
An' send him to his dicing box,
An' sportin' lady.
Tell yon guid bluid o' auld Boconnock's
I'll be his debt twa mashlum bonnocks,
An' drink his health in auld Nanse Tinnock's[48]
Nine times a-week,
If he some scheme, like tea an' winnocks,
Wad kindly seek.
Could he some commutation broach,
I'll pledge my aith in guid braid Scotch,
He need na fear their foul reproach
Nor erudition,
Yon mixtie-maxtie queer hotch-potch,
The Coalition.
Auld Scotland has a raucle tongue;
She's just a devil wi' a rung;
An' if she promise auld or young
To tak their part,
Tho' by the neck she should be strung,
She'll no desert.
An' now, ye chosen Five-and-Forty,
May still your mither's heart support ye,
Then, though a minister grow dorty,
An' kick your place,
Ye'll snap your fingers, poor an' hearty,
Before his face.
God bless your honours a' your days,
Wi' sowps o' kail and brats o' claise,
In spite o' a' the thievish kaes,
That haunt St. Jamie's:
Your humble Poet signs an' prays
While Rab his name is.
POSTSCRIPT.
Let half-starv'd slaves in warmer skies
See future wines, rich clust'ring, rise;
Their lot auld Scotland ne'er envies,
But blythe and frisky,
She eyes her freeborn, martial boys,
Tak aff their whiskey.
What tho' their Phoebus kinder warms,
While fragrance blooms and beauty charms!
When wretches range, in famish'd swarms,
The scented groves,
Or hounded forth, dishonour arms
In hungry droves.
Their gun's a burden on their shouther;
They downa bide the stink o' powther;
Their bauldest thought's a' hank'ring swither
To stan' or rin,
Till skelp--a shot--they're aff, a' throther
To save their skin.
But bring a Scotsman frae his hill,
Clap in his check a Highland gill,
Say, such is royal George's will,
An' there's the foe,
He has nae thought but how to kill
Twa at a blow.
Nae could faint-hearted doubtings tease him;
Death comes, wi' fearless eye he sees him;
Wi' bluidy han' a welcome gies him;
An' when he fa's,
His latest draught o' breathin' lea'es him
In faint huzzas!
Sages their solemn een may steek,
An' raise a philosophic reek,
An' physically causes seek,
In clime an' season;
But tell me whiskey's name in Greek,
I'll tell the reason.
Scotland, my auld, respected mither!
Tho' whiles ye moistify your leather,
Till whare ye sit, on craps o' heather
Ye tine your dam;
Freedom and whiskey gang thegither!--
Tak aff your dram!
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 46: Sir Adam Ferguson.]
[Footnote 47: The Duke of Montrose.]
[Footnote 48: A worthy old hostess of the author's in Mauchline, where
he sometimes studies politics over a glass of guid auld Scotch drink.]
* * * * *
XXXIX.
ADDRESS TO THE UNCO GUID,
OR THE
RIGIDLY RIGHTEOUS.
"My son, these maxims make a rule,
And lump them ay thegither;
The Rigid Righteous is a fool,
The Rigid Wise anither:
The cleanest corn that e'er was dight
May hae some pyles o' caff in;
So ne'er a fellow-creature slight
For random fits o' daffin."
SOLOMON.--Eccles. ch. vii. ver. 16.
["Burns," says Hogg, in a note on this Poem, "has written more from
his own heart and his own feelings than any other poet. External
nature had few charms for him; the sublime shades and hues of heaven
and earth never excited his enthusiasm: but with the secret fountains
of passion in the human soul he was well acquainted." Burns, indeed,
was not what is called a descriptive poet: yet with what exquisite
snatches of description are some of his poems adorned, and in what
fragrant and romantic scenes he enshrines the heroes and heroines of
many of his finest songs! Who the high, exalted, virtuous dames were,
to whom the Poem refers, we are not told. How much men stand indebted
to want of opportunity to sin, and how much of their good name they
owe to the ignorance of the world, were inquiries in which the poet
found pleasure.]
I.
O ye wha are sae guid yoursel',
Sae pious and sae holy,
Ye've nought to do but mark and tell
Your neibor's fauts and folly!
Whase life is like a weel-gaun mill,
Supply'd wi' store o' water,
The heaped happer's ebbing still,
And still the clap plays clatter.
II.
Hear me, ye venerable core,
As counsel for poor mortals,
That frequent pass douce Wisdom's door
For glaikit Folly's portals;
I, for their thoughtless, careless sakes,
Would here propone defences,
Their donsie tricks, their black mistakes,
Their failings and mischances.
III.
Ye see your state wi' theirs compar'd,
And shudder at the niffer,
But cast a moment's fair regard,
What maks the mighty differ?
Discount what scant occasion gave,
That purity ye pride in,
And (what's aft mair than a' the lave)
Your better art o' hiding.
IV.
Think, when your castigated pulse
Gies now and then a wallop,
What ragings must his veins convulse,
That still eternal gallop:
Wi' wind and tide fair i' your tail,
Right on ye scud your sea-way;
But in the teeth o' baith to sail,
It makes an unco lee-way.
V.
See social life and glee sit down,
All joyous and unthinking,
'Till, quite transmugrify'd, they're grown
Debauchery and drinking;
O would they stay to calculate
Th' eternal consequences;
Or your more dreaded hell to state,
D--mnation of expenses!
VI.
Ye high, exalted, virtuous dames,
Ty'd up in godly laces,
Before ye gie poor frailty names,
Suppose a change o' cases;
A dear lov'd lad, convenience snug,
A treacherous inclination--
But, let me whisper, i' your lug,
Ye're aiblins nae temptation.
VII.
Then gently scan your brother man,
Still gentler sister woman;
Though they may gang a kennin' wrang,
To step aside is human:
One point must still be greatly dark,
The moving why they do it:
And just as lamely can ye mark,
How far perhaps they rue it.
VIII.
Who made the heart, 'tis He alone
Decidedly can try us,
He knows each chord--its various tone,
Each spring--its various bias:
Then at the balance let's be mute,
We never can adjust it;
What's done we partly may compute,
But know not what's resisted.
* * * * *
XL.
TAM SAMSON'S ELEGY.[49]
"An honest man's the noblest work of God."
POPE.
[Tam Samson was a west country seedsman and sportsman, who loved a
good song, a social glass, and relished a shot so well that he
expressed a wish to die and be buried in the moors. On this hint Burns
wrote the Elegy: when Tam heard o' this he waited on the poet, caused
him to recite it, and expressed displeasure at being numbered with the
dead: the author, whose wit was as ready as his rhymes, added the Per
Contra in a moment, much to the delight of his friend. At his death
the four lines of Epitaph were cut on his gravestone. "This poem has
always," says Hogg, "been a great country favourite: it abounds with
happy expressions.
'In vain the burns cam' down like waters,
An acre braid.'
What a picture of a flooded burn! any other poet would have given us a
long description: Burns dashes it down at once in a style so graphic
no one can mistake it.
'Perhaps upon his mouldering breast
Some spitefu' moorfowl bigs her nest.'
Match that sentence who can."]
Has auld Kilmarnock seen the deil?
Or great M'Kinlay[50] thrawn his heel?
Or Robinson[51] again grown weel,
To preach an' read?
"Na, waur than a'!" cries ilka chiel,
Tam Samson's dead!
Kilmarnock lang may grunt an' grane,
An' sigh, an' sob, an' greet her lane,
An' cleed her bairns, man, wife, an wean,
In mourning weed;
To death, she's dearly paid the kane,
Tam Samson's dead!
The brethren o' the mystic level
May hing their head in woefu' bevel,
While by their nose the tears will revel,
Like ony bead;
Death's gien the lodge an unco devel,
Tam Samson's dead!
When Winter muffles up his cloak,
And binds the mire like a rock;
When to the lochs the curlers flock,
Wi' gleesome speed,
Wha will they station at the cock?
Tam Samson's dead!
He was the king o' a' the core,
To guard or draw, or wick a bore,
Or up the rink like Jehu roar
In time o' need;
But now he lags on death's hog-score,
Tam Samson's dead!
Now safe the stately sawmont sail,
And trouts be-dropp'd wi' crimson hail,
And eels weel ken'd for souple tail,
And geds for greed,
Since dark in death's fish-creel we wail
Tam Samson dead.
Rejoice, ye birring patricks a';
Ye cootie moor-cocks, crousely craw;
Ye maukins, cock your fud fu' braw,
Withouten dread;
Your mortal fae is now awa'--
Tam Samson's dead!
That woefu' morn be ever mourn'd
Saw him in shootin' graith adorn'd,
While pointers round impatient burn'd,
Frae couples freed;
But, Och! he gaed and ne'er return'd!
Tam Samson's dead!
In vain auld age his body batters;
In vain the gout his ancles fetters;
In vain the burns cam' down like waters,
An acre braid!
Now ev'ry auld wife, greetin', clatters,
Tam Samson's dead!
Owre many a weary hag he limpit,
An' ay the tither shot he thumpit,
Till coward death behind him jumpit,
Wi' deadly feide;
Now he proclaims, wi' tout o' trumpet,
Tam Samson's dead!
When at his heart he felt the dagger,
He reel'd his wonted bottle swagger,
But yet he drew the mortal trigger
Wi' weel-aim'd heed;
"L--d, five!" he cry'd, an' owre did stagger;
Tam Samson's dead!
Ilk hoary hunter mourn'd a brither;
Ilk sportsman youth bemoan'd a father;
Yon auld grey stane, amang the heather,
Marks out his head,
Whare Burns has wrote in rhyming blether
Tam Samson's dead!
There low he lies, in lasting rest;
Perhaps upon his mould'ring breast
Some spitefu' muirfowl bigs her nest,
To hatch an' breed;
Alas! nae mair he'll them molest!
Tam Samson's dead!
When August winds the heather wave,
And sportsmen wander by yon grave,
Three volleys let his mem'ry crave
O' pouther an' lead,
'Till echo answer frae her cave
Tam Samson's dead!
Heav'n rest his soul, whare'er he be!
Is th' wish o' mony mae than me;
He had twa fauts, or may be three,
Yet what remead?
Ae social, honest man want we:
Tam Samson's dead!
* * * * *
EPITAPH.
Tam Samson's weel-worn clay here lies,
Ye canting zealots spare him!
If honest worth in heaven rise,
Ye'll mend or ye win near him.
* * * * *
PER CONTRA.
Go, Fame, an' canter like a filly
Thro' a' the streets an' neuks o' Killie,
Tell ev'ry social honest billie
To cease his grievin',
For yet, unskaith'd by death's gleg gullie,
Tam Samson's livin'.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 49: When this worthy old sportsman went out last muirfowl
season, he supposed it was to be, in Ossian's phrase, "the last of his
fields."]
[Footnote 50: A preacher, a great favourite with the million. _Vide_
the Ordination, stanza II]
[Footnote 51: Another preacher, an equal favourite with the few, who
was at that time ailing. For him see also the Ordination, stanza IX.]
* * * * *
XLI.
LAMENT,
OCCASIONED BY THE UNFORTUNATE ISSUE
OF A
FRIEND'S AMOUR.
"Alas! how oft does goodness wound itself!
And sweet affection prove the spring of woe."
HOME.
[The hero and heroine of this little mournful poem, were Robert Burns
and Jean Armour. "This was a most melancholy affair," says the poet in
his letter to Moore, "which I cannot yet bear to reflect on, and had
very nearly given me one or two of the principal qualifications for a
place among those who have lost the chart and mistaken the reckoning
of rationality." Hogg and Motherwell, with an ignorance which is
easier to laugh at than account for, say this Poem was "written on the
occasion of Alexander Cunningham's darling sweetheart alighting him
and marrying another:--she acted a wise part." With what care they had
read the great poet whom they jointly edited in is needless to say:
and how they could read the last two lines of the third verse and
commend the lady's wisdom for slighting her lover, seems a problem
which defies definition. This mistake was pointed out by a friend, and
corrected in a second issue of the volume.]
I.
O thou pale orb, that silent shines,
While care-untroubled mortals sleep!
Thou seest a wretch who inly pines,
And wanders here to wail and weep!
With woe I nightly vigils keep,
Beneath thy wan, unwarming beam,
And mourn, in lamentation deep,
How life and love are all a dream.
II.
A joyless view thy rays adorn
The faintly marked distant hill:
I joyless view thy trembling horn,
Reflected in the gurgling rill:
My fondly-fluttering heart, be still:
Thou busy pow'r, Remembrance, cease!
Ah! must the agonizing thrill
For ever bar returning peace!
III.
No idly-feign'd poetic pains,
My sad, love-lorn lamentings claim;
No shepherd's pipe--Arcadian strains;
No fabled tortures, quaint and tame:
The plighted faith; the mutual flame;
The oft-attested Pow'rs above;
The promis'd father's tender name;
These were the pledges of my love!
IV.
Encircled in her clasping arms,
How have the raptur'd moments flown!
How have I wish'd for fortune's charms,
For her dear sake, and hers alone!
And must I think it!--is she gone,
My secret heart's exulting boast?
And does she heedless hear my groan?
And is she ever, ever lost?
V.
Oh! can she bear so base a heart,
So lost to honour, lost to truth,
As from the fondest lover part,
The plighted husband of her youth!
Alas! life's path may be unsmooth!
Her way may lie thro' rough distress!
Then, who her pangs and pains will soothe,
Her sorrows share, and make them less?
VI.
Ye winged hours that o'er us past,
Enraptur'd more, the more enjoy'd,
Your dear remembrance in my breast,
My fondly-treasur'd thoughts employ'd,
That breast, how dreary now, and void,
For her too scanty once of room!
Ev'n ev'ry ray of hope destroy'd,
And not a wish to gild the gloom!
VII.
The morn that warns th' approaching day,
Awakes me up to toil and woe:
I see the hours in long array,
That I must suffer, lingering slow.
Full many a pang, and many a throe,
Keen recollection's direful train,
Must wring my soul, ere Phoebus, low,
Shall kiss the distant, western main.
VIII.
And when my nightly couch I try,
Sore-harass'd out with care and grief,
My toil-beat nerves, and tear-worn eye,
Keep watchings with the nightly thief:
Or if I slumber, fancy, chief,
Reigns haggard-wild, in sore affright:
Ev'n day, all-bitter, brings relief,
From such a horror-breathing night.
IX.
O! thou bright queen, who o'er th' expanse
Now highest reign'st, with boundless sway!
Oft has thy silent-marking glance
Observ'd us, fondly-wand'ring, stray!
The time, unheeded, sped away,
While love's luxurious pulse beat high,
Beneath thy silver-gleaming ray,
To mark the mutual kindling eye.
X.
Oh! scenes in strong remembrance set!
Scenes never, never to return!
Scenes, if in stupor I forget,
Again I feel, again I burn!
From ev'ry joy and pleasure torn,
Life's weary vale I'll wander thro';
And hopeless, comfortless, I'll mourn
A faithless woman's broken vow.
* * * * *
XLII.
DESPONDENCY.
AN ODE.
["I think," said Burns, "it is one of the greatest pleasures attending
a poetic genius, that we can give our woes, cares, joys, and loves an
embodied form in verse, which to me is ever immediate ease." He
elsewhere says, "My passions raged like so many devils till they got
vent in rhyme." That eminent painter, Fuseli, on seeing his wife in a
passion, said composedly, "Swear my love, swear heartily: you know not
how much it will ease you!" This poem was printed in the Kilmarnock
edition, and gives a true picture of those bitter moments experienced
by the bard, when love and fortune alike deceived him.]
I.
Oppress'd with grief, oppress'd with care,
A burden more than I can bear,
I set me down and sigh:
O life! thou art a galling load,
Along a rough, a weary road,
To wretches such as I!
Dim-backward as I cast my view,
What sick'ning scenes appear!
What sorrows yet may pierce me thro'
Too justly I may fear!
Still caring, despairing,
Must be my bitter doom;
My woes here shall close ne'er
But with the closing tomb!
II.
Happy, ye sons of busy life,
Who, equal to the bustling strife,
No other view regard!
Ev'n when the wished end's deny'd,
Yet while the busy means are ply'd,
They bring their own reward:
Whilst I, a hope-abandon'd wight,
Unfitted with an aim,
Meet ev'ry sad returning night
And joyless morn the same;
You, bustling, and justling,
Forget each grief and pain;
I, listless, yet restless,
Find every prospect vain.
III.
How blest the solitary's lot,
Who, all-forgetting, all forgot,
Within his humble cell,
The cavern wild with tangling roots,
Sits o'er his newly-gather'd fruits,
Beside his crystal well!
Or, haply, to his ev'ning thought,
By unfrequented stream,
The ways of men are distant brought,
A faint collected dream;
While praising, and raising
His thoughts to heav'n on high,
As wand'ring, meand'ring,
He views the solemn sky.
IV.
Than I, no lonely hermit plac'd
Where never human footstep trac'd,
Less fit to play the part;
The lucky moment to improve,
And just to stop, and just to move,
With self-respecting art:
But, ah! those pleasures, loves, and joys,
Which I too keenly taste,
The solitary can despise,
Can want, and yet be blest!
He needs not, he heeds not,
Or human love or hate,
Whilst I here, must cry here
At perfidy ingrate!
V.
Oh! enviable, early days,
When dancing thoughtless pleasure's maze,
To care, to guilt unknown!
How ill exchang'd for riper times,
To feel the follies, or the crimes,
Of others, or my own!
Ye tiny elves that guiltless sport,
Like linnets in the bush,
Ye little know the ills ye court,
When manhood is your wish!
The losses, the crosses,
That active man engage!
The fears all, the tears all,
Of dim declining age!
* * * * *
[Illustration: "THE COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT."]
XLIII.
THE
COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT.
INSCRIBED TO ROBERT AIKEN, ESQ.
"Let not ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure:
Nor grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile,
The short and simple annals of the poor."
GRAY
[The house of William Burns was the scene of this fine, devout, and
tranquil drama, and William himself was the saint, the father, and the
husband, who gives life and sentiment to the whole. "Robert had
frequently remarked to me," says Gilbert Burns, "that he thought there
was something peculiarly venerable in the phrase, 'Let us worship
God!' used by a decent sober head of a family, introducing family
worship." To this sentiment of the author the world is indebted for
the "Cotter's Saturday Night." He owed some little, however, of the
inspiration to Fergusson's "Farmer's Ingle," a poem of great merit.
The calm tone and holy composure of the Cotter's Saturday Night have
been mistaken by Hogg for want of nerve and life. "It is a dull,
heavy, lifeless poem," he says, "and the only beauty it possesses, in
my estimation, is, that it is a sort of family picture of the poet's
family. The worst thing of all, it is not original, but is a decided
imitation of Fergusson's beautiful pastoral, 'The Farmer's Ingle:' I
have a perfect contempt for all plagiarisms and imitations."
Motherwell tries to qualify the censure of his brother editor, by
quoting Lockhart's opinion--at once lofty and just, of this fine
picture of domestic happiness and devotion.]
I.
My lov'd, my honour'd, much respected friend!
No mercenary bard his homage pays;
With honest pride, I scorn each selfish end:
My dearest meed, a friend's esteem and praise:
To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays,
The lowly train in life's sequester'd scene;
The native feelings strong, the guileless ways;
What Aiken in a cottage would have been;
Ah! tho' his work unknown, far happier there, I ween!
II.
November chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh;
The short'ning winter-day is near a close;
The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh:
The black'ning trains o' craws to their repose:
The toil-worn Cotter frae his labour goes,
This night his weekly moil is at an end,
Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes,
Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend,
And weary, o'er the moor, his course does homeward bend.
III.
At length his lonely cot appears in view,
Beneath the shelter of an aged tree;
Th' expectant wee-things, toddlin', stacher thro'
To meet their Dad, wi' flichterin' noise an' glee.
His wee bit ingle, blinkin' bonnily.
His clean hearth-stane, his thriftie Wifie's smile,
The lisping infant prattling on his knee,
Does a' his weary kiaugh and care beguile,
An' makes him quite forget his labour and his toil.
IV.
Belyve, the elder bairns come drapping in,
At service out amang the farmers roun':
Some ca' the pleugh, some herd, some tentie rin
A cannie errand to a neebor town:
Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman grown,
In youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her e'e,
Comes hame, perhaps to shew a braw new gown,
Or deposite her sair won penny-fee,
To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be.
V.
With joy unfeign'd, brothers and sisters meet,
An' each for other's welfare kindly spiers:
The social hours, swift-wing'd, unnotic'd, fleet;
Each tells the unco's that he sees or hears;
The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years;
Anticipation forward points the view.
The Mother, wi' her needle an' her shears,
Gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the new;
The Father mixes a' wi' admonition due.
VI.
Their master's an' their mistress's command,
The younkers a' are warned to obey;
And mind their labours wi' an eydent hand,
An' ne'er, tho' out of sight, to jauk or play:
"And O! be sure to fear the Lord alway!
And mind your duty, duly, morn and night!
Lest in temptation's path ye gang astray,
Implore His counsel and assisting might:
They never sought in vain, that sought the Lord aright!"
VII.
But, hark! a rap comes gently to the door;
Jenny, wha kens the meaning o' the same,
Tells how a neebor lad cam o'er the moor,
To do some errands, and convoy her hame.
The wily Mother sees the conscious flame
Sparkle in Jenny's e'e, and flush her cheek,
With heart-struck anxious care, inquires his name,
While Jenny hafflins is afraid to speak;
Weel pleas'd the Mother hears it's nae wild, worthless rake.
VIII.
Wi' kindly welcome, Jenny brings him ben;
A strappan youth; he taks the Mother's eye;
Blythe Jenny sees the visit's no ill ta'en;
The Father cracks of horses, pleughs, and kye.
The youngster's artless heart o'erflows wi' joy,
But blate, an laithfu', scarce can weel behave;
The Mother, wi' a woman's wiles, can spy
What makes the youth sae bashfu' and sae grave;
Weel pleas'd to think her bairn's respected like the lave.
IX.
O happy love! Where love like this is found!
O heart-felt raptures!--bliss beyond compare!
I've paced much this weary, mortal round,
And sage experience bids me this declare--
"If heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare,
One cordial in this melancholy vale,
'Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair,
In other's arms, breathe out the tender tale,
Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the ev'ning gale."
X.
Is there, in human form, that bears a heart--
A wretch! a villain! lost to love and truth!
That can, with studied, sly, ensnaring art,
Betray sweet Jenny's unsuspecting youth?
Curse on his perjur'd arts! dissembling smooth!
Are honour, virtue, conscience, all exil'd?
Is there no pity, no relenting ruth,
Points to the parents fondling o'er their child?
Then paints the ruin'd maid, and their distraction wild?
XI.
But now the supper crowns their simple board,
The halesome parritch, chief of Scotia's food:
The soupe their only hawkie does afford,
That 'yont the hallan snugly chows her cood:
The dame brings forth in complimental mood,
To grace the lad, her weel-hain'd kebbuck, fell,
An' aft he's prest, an' aft he ca's it guid;
The frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell,
How 'twas a towmond auld, sin' lint was i' the bell.
XII.
The cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face,
They, round the ingle, form a circle wide;
The Sire turns o'er, with patriarchal grace,
The big ha'-Bible, ance his father's pride;
His bonnet rev'rently is laid aside,
His lyart haffets wearing thin an' bare;
Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide,
He wales a portion with judicious care;
And 'Let us worship GOD!' he says, with solemn air.
XIII.
They chant their artless notes in simple guise;
They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim:
Perhaps Dundee's wild-warbling measures rise,
Or plaintive Martyrs, worthy of the name;
Or noble Elgin beets the heaven-ward flame,
The sweetest far of Scotia's holy lays:
Compar'd with these, Italian trills are tame;
The tickl'd ear no heart-felt raptures raise;
Nae unison hae they with our Creator's praise.
XIV.
The priest-like Father reads the sacred page,
How Abram was the friend of God on high;
Or, Moses bade eternal warfare wage
With Amalek's ungracious progeny;
Or how the royal bard did groaning lie
Beneath the stroke of Heaven's avenging ire;
Or Job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry;
Or rapt Isaiah's wild, seraphic fire;
Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre.
XV.
Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme,
How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed;
How HE, who bore in Heaven the second name,
Had not on earth whereon to lay his head:
How His first followers and servants sped,
The precepts sage they wrote to many a land:
How he who lone in Patmos banished,
Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand;
And heard great Bab'lon's doom pronounc'd by Heaven's command.
XVI.
Then kneeling down, to HEAVEN'S ETERNAL KING,
The Saint, the Father, and the Husband prays:
Hope 'springs exulting on triumphant wing,'[52]
That thus they all shall meet in future days:
There ever bask in uncreated rays,
No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear,
Together hymning their Creator's praise,
In such society, yet still more dear:
While circling Time moves round in an eternal sphere.
XVII.
Compar'd with this, how poor Religion's pride,
In all the pomp of method and of art,
When men display to congregations wide,
Devotion's ev'ry grace, except the heart!
The Pow'r, incens'd, the pageant will desert,
The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole;
But haply, in some cottage far apart,
May hear, well pleas'd, the language of the soul;
And in His book of life the inmates poor enrol.
XVIII.
Then homeward all take off their sev'ral way;
The youngling cottagers retire to rest:
Their Parent-pair their secret homage pay,
And proffer up to Heaven the warm request,
That HE, who stills the raven's clam'rous nest,
And decks the lily fair in flow'ry pride,
Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best,
For them and for their little ones provide;
But, chiefly, in their hearts with grace divine preside.
XIX.
From scenes like these, old Scotia's grandeur springs,
That makes her lov'd at home, rever'd abroad:
Princes and lords are but the breath of kings,
"An honest man's the noblest work of GOD;"[53]
And certes, in fair virtue's heav'nly road,
The cottage leaves the palace far behind;
What is a lordship's pomp? a cumbrous load,
Disguising oft the wretch of human kind,
Studied in arts of Hell, in wickedness refin'd!
XX.
O Scotia! my dear, my native soil!
For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent!
Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil
Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content!
And, O! may heaven their simple lives prevent
From luxury's contagion, weak and vile!
Then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent,
A virtuous populace may rise the while,
And stand a wall of fire around their much-lov'd Isle.
XXI.
O Thou! who pour'd the patriotic tide
That stream'd through Wallace's undaunted heart:
Who dar'd to nobly stem tyrannic pride,
Or nobly die, the second glorious part,
(The patriot's God, peculiarly Thou art,
His friend, inspirer, guardian, and reward!)
O never, never, Scotia's realm desert;
But still the patriot, and the patriot bard,
In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard!
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 52: Pope.]
[Footnote 53: Pope.]
* * * * *
XLIV.
THE FIRST PSALM.
[This version was first printed in the second edition of the poet's
work. It cannot be regarded as one of his happiest compositions: it is
inferior, not indeed in ease, but in simplicity and antique rigour of
language, to the common version used in the Kirk of Scotland. Burns
had admitted "Death and Dr. Hornbook" into Creech's edition, and
probably desired to balance it with something at which the devout
could not cavil.]
The man, in life wherever plac'd,
Hath happiness in store,
Who walks not in the wicked's way,
Nor learns their guilty lore!
Nor from the seat of scornful pride
Casts forth his eyes abroad,
But with humility and awe
Still walks before his GOD.
That man shall flourish like the trees
Which by the streamlets grow;
The fruitful top is spread on high,
And firm the root below.
But he whose blossom buds in guilt
Shall to the ground be cast,
And, like the rootless stubble, tost
Before the sweeping blast.
For why? that GOD the good adore
Hath giv'n them peace and rest,
But hath decreed that wicked men
Shall ne'er be truly blest.
* * * * *
XLV.
THE FIRST SIX VERSES
OF THE
NINETIETH PSALM.
[The ninetieth Psalm is said to have been a favourite in the household
of William Burns: the version used by the Kirk, though unequal,
contains beautiful verses, and possesses the same strain of sentiment
and moral reasoning as the poem of "Man was made to Mourn." These
verses first appeared in the Edinburgh edition; and they might have
been spared; for in the hands of a poet ignorant of the original
language of the Psalmist, how could they be so correct in sense and
expression as in a sacred strain is not only desirable but necessary?]
O Thou, the first, the greatest friend
Of all the human race!
Whose strong right hand has ever been
Their stay and dwelling place!
Before the mountains heav'd their heads
Beneath Thy forming hand,
Before this ponderous globe itself
Arose at Thy command;
That Pow'r which rais'd and still upholds
This universal frame,
From countless, unbeginning time
Was ever still the same.
Those mighty periods of years
Which seem to us so vast,
Appear no more before Thy sight
Than yesterday that's past.
Thou giv'st the word: Thy creature, man,
Is to existence brought;
Again thou say'st, "Ye sons of men,
Return ye into nought!"
Thou layest them, with all their cares,
In everlasting sleep;
As with a flood Thou tak'st them off
With overwhelming sweep.
They flourish like the morning flow'r,
In beauty's pride array'd;
But long ere night, cut down, it lies
All wither'd and decay'd.
* * * * *
XLVI.
TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY,
ON TURNING ONE DOWN WITH THE PLOUGH IN
APRIL, 1786.
[This was not the original title of this sweet poem: I have a copy in
the handwriting of Burns entitled "The Gowan." This more natural name
he changed as he did his own, without reasonable cause; and he changed
it about the same time, for he ceased to call himself Burness and his
poem "The Gowan," in the first edition of his works. The field at
Mossgiel where he turned down the Daisy is said to be the same field
where some five months before he turned up the Mouse; but this seems
likely only to those who are little acquainted with tillage--who think
that in time and place reside the chief charms of verse; and who feel
not the beauty of "The Daisy," till they seek and find the spot on
which it grew. Sublime morality and the deepest emotions of the soul
pass for little with those who remember only what the genius loves to
forget.]
Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flow'r,
Thou's met me in an evil hour;
For I maun crush amang the stoure
Thy slender stem:
To spare thee now is past my pow'r,
Thou bonnie gem.
Alas! it's no thy neebor sweet,
The bonnie lark, companion meet!
Bending thee 'mang the dewy weet,
Wi' spreckl'd breast,
When upward-springing, blythe, to greet
The purpling east.
Cauld blew the bitter-biting north
Upon thy early, humble birth;
Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth
Amid the storm,
Scarce rear'd above the parent earth
Thy tender form.
The flaunting flowers our gardens yield,
High shelt'ring woods and wa's maun shield
But thou, beneath the random bield
O' clod or stane,
Adorns the histie stibble-field,
Unseen, alane.
There, in thy scanty mantle clad,
Thy snawie bosom sunward spread,
Thou lifts thy unassuming head
In humble guise;
But now the share uptears thy bed,
And low thou lies!
Such is the fate of artless maid,
Sweet flow'ret of the rural shade!
By love's simplicity betray'd,
And guileless trust,
'Till she, like thee, all soil'd, is laid
Low i' the dust.
Such is the fate of simple bard,
On life's rough ocean luckless starr'd!
Unskilful he to note the card
Of prudent lore,
'Till billows rage, and gales blow hard,
And whelm him o'er!
Such fate to suffering worth is giv'n,
Who long with wants and woes has striv'n,
By human pride or cunning driv'n
To mis'ry's brink,
'Till wrenched of every stay but Heav'n,
He, ruin'd, sink!
Ev'n thou who mourn'st the Daisy's fate,
That fate is thine--no distant date;
Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives, elate,
Full on thy bloom,
'Till crush'd beneath the furrow's weight,
Shall be thy doom!
* * * * *
XLVII.
EPISTLE TO A YOUNG FRIEND.
MAY, 1786.
[Andrew Aikin, to whom this poem of good counsel is addressed, was one
of the sons of Robert Aiken, writer in Ayr, to whom the Cotter's
Saturday Night is inscribed. He became a merchant in Liverpool, with
what success we are not informed, and died at St. Petersburgh. The
poet has been charged with a desire to teach hypocrisy rather than
truth to his "Andrew dear;" but surely to conceal one's own thoughts
and discover those of others, can scarcely be called hypocritical: it
is, in fact, a version of the celebrated precept of prudence,
"Thoughts close and looks loose." Whether he profited by all the
counsel showered upon him by the muse we know not: he was much
respected--his name embalmed, like that of his father, in the poetry
of his friend, is not likely soon to perish.]
I.
I lang hae thought, my youthfu' friend,
A something to have sent you,
Though it should serve nae ither end
Than just a kind memento;
But how the subject-theme may gang,
Let time and chance determine;
Perhaps it may turn out a sang,
Perhaps, turn out a sermon.
II.
Ye'll try the world soon, my lad,
And, Andrew dear, believe me,
Ye'll find mankind an unco squad,
And muckle they may grieve ye:
For care and trouble set your thought,
Ev'n when your end's attain'd;
And a' your views may come to nought,
Where ev'ry nerve is strained.
III.
I'll no say men are villains a';
The real, harden'd wicked,
Wha hae nae check but human law,
Are to a few restricked;
But, och! mankind are unco weak,
An' little to be trusted;
If self the wavering balance shake,
It's rarely right adjusted!
IV.
Yet they wha fa' in Fortune's strife,
Their fate we should na censure,
For still th' important end of life
They equally may answer;
A man may hae an honest heart,
Tho' poortith hourly stare him;
A man may tak a neebor's part,
Yet hae nae cash to spare him.
V.
Ay free, aff han' your story tell,
When wi' a bosom crony;
But still keep something to yoursel'
Ye scarcely tell to ony.
Conceal yoursel' as weel's ye can
Frae critical dissection;
But keek thro' ev'ry other man,
Wi' sharpen'd, sly inspection.
VI.
The sacred lowe o' weel-plac'd love,
Luxuriantly indulge it;
But never tempt th' illicit rove,
Tho' naething should divulge it:
I waive the quantum o' the sin,
The hazard of concealing;
But, och! it hardens a' within,
And petrifies the feeling!
VII.
To catch dame Fortune's golden smile,
Assiduous wait upon her;
And gather gear by ev'ry wile
That's justified by honour;
Not for to hide it in a hedge,
Nor for a train-attendant;
But for the glorious privilege
Of being independent.
VIII.
The fear o' Hell's a hangman's whip,
To haud the wretch in order;
But where ye feel your honour grip,
Let that ay be your border:
Its slightest touches, instant pause--
Debar a' side pretences;
And resolutely keep its laws,
Uncaring consequences.
IX.
The great Creator to revere
Must sure become the creature;
But still the preaching cant forbear,
And ev'n the rigid feature:
Yet ne'er with wits profane to range,
Be complaisance extended;
An Atheist laugh's a poor exchange
For Deity offended!
X.
When ranting round in pleasure's ring,
Religion may be blinded;
Or if she gie a random sting,
It may be little minded;
But when on life we're tempest-driv'n,
A conscience but a canker--
A correspondence fix'd wi' Heav'n
Is sure a noble anchor!
XI.
Adieu, dear, amiable youth!
Your heart can ne'er be wanting!
May prudence, fortitude, and truth
Erect your brow undaunting!
In ploughman phrase, 'God send you speed,'
Still daily to grow wiser:
And may you better reck the rede
Than ever did th' adviser!
* * * * *
XLVIII.
TO A LOUSE,
ON SEEING ONE IN A LADY'S BONNET, AT CHURCH
[A Mauchline incident of a Mauchline lady is related in this poem,
which to many of the softer friends of the bard was anything but
welcome: it appeared in the Kilmarnock copy of his Poems, and
remonstrance and persuasion were alike tried in vain to keep it out of
the Edinburgh edition. Instead of regarding it as a seasonable rebuke
to pride and vanity, some of his learned commentators called it course
and vulgar--those classic persons might have remembered that Julian,
no vulgar person, but an emperor and a scholar, wore a populous beard,
and was proud of it.]
Ha! whare ye gaun, ye crowlin ferlie!
Your impudence protects you sairly:
I canna say by ye strunt rarely,
Owre gauze and lace;
Tho' faith, I fear, ye dine but sparely
On sic a place.
Ye ugly, creepin', blastit wonner,
Detested, shunn'd, by saunt an' sinner,
How dare you set your fit upon her,
Sae fine a lady!
Gae somewhere else, and seek your dinner
On some poor body.
Swith, in some beggar's haffet squattle;
There ye may creep, and sprawl, and sprattle
Wi' ither kindred, jumping cattle,
In shoals and nations;
Whare horn nor bane ne'er daur unsettle
Your thick plantations.
Now haud you there, ye're out o' sight,
Below the fatt'rells, snug an' tight;
Na, faith ye yet! ye'll no be right
'Till ye've got on it,
The vera topmost, tow'ring height
O' Miss's bonnet.
My sooth! right bauld ye set your nose out,
As plump an' gray as onie grozet;
O for some rank, mercurial rozet,
Or fell, red smeddum,
I'd gie you sic a hearty doze o't,
Wad dross your droddum!
I wad na been surpris'd to spy
You on an auld wife's flainen toy;
Or aiblins some bit duddie boy,
On's wyliecoat;
But Miss's fine Lunardi! fie!
How daur ye do't?
O, Jenny, dinna toss your head,
An' set your beauties a' abread!
Ye little ken what cursed speed
The blastie's makin'!
Thae winks and finger-ends, I dread,
Are notice takin'!
O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us
An' foolish notion;
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us,
And ev'n devotion!
* * * * *
XLIX.
EPISTLE TO J. RANKINE,
ENCLOSING SOME POEMS.
[The person to whom these verses are addressed lived at Adamhill in
Ayrshire, and merited the praise of rough and ready-witted, which the
poem bestows. The humorous dream alluded to, was related by way of
rebuke to a west country earl, who was in the habit of calling all
people of low degree "Brutes!--damned brutes." "I dreamed that I was
dead," said the rustic satirist to his superior, "and condemned for
the company I kept. When I came to hell-door, where mony of your
lordship's friends gang, I chappit, and 'Wha are ye, and where d'ye
come frae?' Satan exclaimed. I just said, that my name was Rankine,
and I came frae yere lordship's land. 'Awa wi' you,' cried Satan, ye
canna come here: hell's fou o' his lordship's damned brutes
already.'"]
O rough, rude, ready-witted Rankine,
The wale o' cocks for fun an' drinkin'!
There's monie godly folks are thinkin',
Your dreams[54] an' tricks
Will send you, Korah-like, a-sinkin'
Straught to auld Nick's.
Ye hae sae monie cracks an' cants,
And in your wicked, dru'ken rants,
Ye mak a devil o' the saunts,
An' fill them fou;
And then their failings, flaws, an' wants,
Are a' seen through.
Hypocrisy, in mercy spare it!
That holy robe, O dinna tear it!
Spare't for their sakes wha aften wear it,
The lads in black!
But your curst wit, when it comes near it,
Rives't aff their back.
Think, wicked sinner, wha ye're skaithing,
It's just the blue-gown badge and claithing
O' saunts; tak that, ye lea'e them naething
To ken them by,
Frae ony unregenerate heathen,
Like you or I.
I've sent you here some rhyming ware,
A' that I bargain'd for, an' mair;
Sae, when you hae an hour to spare,
I will expect
Yon sang,[55] ye'll sen't wi cannie care,
And no neglect.
Tho' faith, sma' heart hae I to sing!
My muse dow scarcely spread her wing!
I've play'd mysel' a bonnie spring,
An' danc'd my fill!
I'd better gaen an' sair't the king,
At Bunker's Hill.
'Twas ae night lately, in my fun,
I gaed a roving wi' the gun,
An' brought a paitrick to the grun',
A bonnie hen,
And, as the twilight was begun,
Thought nane wad ken.
The poor wee thing was little hurt;
I straikit it a wee for sport,
Ne'er thinkin' they wad fash me for't;
But, deil-ma-care!
Somebody tells the poacher-court
The hale affair.
Some auld us'd hands had taen a note,
That sic a hen had got a shot;
I was suspected for the plot;
I scorn'd to lie;
So gat the whissle o' my groat,
An' pay't the fee.
But, by my gun, o' guns the wale,
An' by my pouther an' my hail,
An' by my hen, an' by her tail,
I vow an' swear!
The game shall pay o'er moor an' dale,
For this niest year.
As soon's the clockin-time is by,
An' the wee pouts begun to cry,
L--d, I'se hae sportin' by an' by,
For my gowd guinea;
Tho' I should herd the buckskin kye
For't, in Virginia.
Trowth, they had muckle for to blame!
'Twas neither broken wing nor limb,
But twa-three draps about the wame
Scarce thro' the feathers;
An' baith a yellow George to claim,
An' thole their blethers!
It pits me ay as mad's a hare;
So I can rhyme nor write nae mair;
But pennyworths again is fair,
When time's expedient:
Meanwhile I am, respected Sir,
Your most obedient.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 54: A certain humorous dream of his was then making a noise
in the country-side.]
[Footnote 55: A song he had promised the author.]
* * * * *
L.
ON A SCOTCH BARD,
GONE TO THE WEST INDIES.
[Burns in this Poem, as well as in others, speaks openly of his tastes
and passions: his own fortunes are dwelt on with painful minuteness,
and his errors are recorded with the accuracy, but not the seriousness
of the confessional. He seems to have been fond of taking himself to
task. It was written when "Hungry ruin had him in the wind," and
emigration to the West Indies was the only refuge which he could think
of, or his friends suggest, from the persecutions of fortune.]
A' ye wha live by sowps o' drink,
A' ye wha live by crambo-clink,
A' ye wha live and never think,
Come, mourn wi' me!
Our billie's gien us a' a jink,
An' owre the sea.
Lament him a' ye rantin' core,
Wha dearly like a random-splore,
Nae mair he'll join the merry roar
In social key;
For now he's taen anither shore,
An' owre the sea!
The bonnie lasses weel may wiss him,
And in their dear petitions place him;
The widows, wives, an' a' may bless him,
Wi' tearfu' e'e;
For weel I wat they'll sairly miss him
That's owre the sea!
O Fortune, they hae room to grumble!
Hadst thou taen' aff some drowsy bummle
Wha can do nought but fyke and fumble,
'Twad been nae plea,
But he was gleg as onie wumble,
That's owre the sea!
Auld, cantie Kyle may weepers wear,
An' stain them wi' the saut, saut tear;
'Twill mak her poor auld heart, I fear,
In flinders flee;
He was her laureate monie a year,
That's owre the sea!
He saw Misfortune's cauld nor-west
Lang mustering up a bitter blast;
A jillet brak his heart at last,
Ill may she be!
So, took a birth afore the mast,
An' owre the sea.
To tremble under fortune's cummock,
On scarce a bellyfu' o' drummock,
Wi' his proud, independent stomach,
Could ill agree;
So, row't his hurdies in a hammock,
An' owre the sea.
He ne'er was gien to great misguiding,
Yet coin his pouches wad na bide in;
Wi' him it ne'er was under hiding:
He dealt it free;
The muse was a' that he took pride in,
That's owre the sea.
Jamaica bodies, use him weel,
An' hap him in a cozie biel;
Ye'll find him ay a dainty chiel,
And fou o' glee;
He wad na wrang'd the vera deil,
That's owre the sea.
Fareweel, my rhyme-composing billie!
Your native soil was right ill-willie;
But may ye flourish like a lily,
Now bonnilie!
I'll toast ye in my hindmost gillie,
Tho' owre the sea!
* * * * *
LI.
THE FAREWELL.
"The valiant, in himself, what can he suffer?
Or what does he regard his single woes?
But when, alas! he multiplies himself,
To dearer selves, to the lov'd tender fair,
The those whose bliss, whose beings hang upon him,
To helpless children! then, O then! he feels
The point of misery fest'ring in his heart,
And weakly weeps his fortune like a coward.
Such, such am I! undone."
THOMSON.
[In these serious stanzas, where the comic, as in the lines to the
Scottish bard, are not permitted to mingle, Burns bids farewell to all
on whom his heart had any claim. He seems to have looked on the sea as
only a place of peril, and on the West Indies as a charnel-house.]
I.
Farewell, old Scotia's bleak domains,
Far dearer than the torrid plains
Where rich ananas blow!
Farewell, a mother's blessing dear!
A brother's sigh! a sister's tear!
My Jean's heart-rending throe!
Farewell, my Bess! tho' thou'rt bereft
Of my parental care,
A faithful brother I have left,
My part in him thou'lt share!
Adieu too, to you too,
My Smith, my bosom frien';
When kindly you mind me,
O then befriend my Jean!
II.
What bursting anguish tears my heart!
From thee, my Jeany, must I part!
Thou weeping answ'rest--"No!"
Alas! misfortune stares my face,
And points to ruin and disgrace,
I for thy sake must go!
Thee, Hamilton, and Aiken dear,
A grateful, warm adieu;
I, with a much-indebted tear,
Shall still remember you!
All-hail then, the gale then,
Wafts me from thee, dear shore!
It rustles, and whistles
I'll never see thee more!
* * * * *
LII.
WRITTEN
ON THE BLANK LEAF OF A COPY OF MY POEMS, PRESENTED TO AN OLD
SWEETHEART, THEN MARRIED.
[This is another of the poet's lamentations, at the prospect of
"torrid climes" and the roars of the Atlantic. To Burns, Scotland was
the land of promise, the west of Scotland his paradise; and the land
of dread, Jamaica! I found these lines copied by the poet into a
volume which he presented to Dr. Geddes: they were addressed, it is
thought, to the "Dear E." of his earliest correspondence.]
Once fondly lov'd and still remember'd dear;
Sweet early object of my youthful vows!
Accept this mark of friendship, warm, sincere,--
Friendship! 'tis all cold duty now allows.
And when you read the simple artless rhymes,
One friendly sigh for him--he asks no more,--
Who distant burns in flaming torrid climes,
Or haply lies beneath th' Atlantic roar.
* * * * *
LIII.
A DEDICATION
TO
GAVIN HAMILTON, ESQ.
[The gentleman to whom these manly lines are addressed, was of good
birth, and of an open and generous nature: he was one of the first of
the gentry of the west to encourage the muse of Coila to stretch her
wings at full length. His free life, and free speech, exposed him to
the censures of that stern divine, Daddie Auld, who charged him with
the sin of absenting himself from church for three successive days;
for having, without the fear of God's servant before him, profanely
said damn it, in his presence, and far having gallopped on Sunday.
These charges were contemptuously dismissed by the presbyterial court.
Hamilton was the brother of the Charlotte to whose charms, on the
banks of Devon, Burns, it is said, paid the homage of a lover, as well
as of a poet. The poem had a place in the Kilmarnock edition, but not
as an express dedication.]
Expect na, Sir, in this narration,
A fleechin', fleth'rin dedication,
To roose you up, an' ca' you guid,
An' sprung o' great an' noble bluid,
Because ye're surnam'd like his Grace;
Perhaps related to the race;
Then when I'm tir'd--and sae are ye,
Wi' monie a fulsome, sinfu' lie,
Set up a face, how I stop short,
For fear your modesty be hurt.
This may do--maun do, Sir, wi' them wha
Maun please the great folk for a wamefou;
For me! sae laigh I needna bow,
For, Lord be thankit, I can plough;
And when I downa yoke a naig,
Then, Lord be thankit, I can beg;
Sae I shall say, an' that's nae flatt'rin',
It's just sic poet, an' sic patron.
The Poet, some guid angel help him,
Or else, I fear some ill ane skelp him,
He may do weel for a' he's done yet,
But only--he's no just begun yet.
The Patron, (Sir, ye maun forgie me,
I winna lie, come what will o' me,)
On ev'ry hand it will allow'd be,
He's just--nae better than he should be.
I readily and freely grant,
He downa see a poor man want;
What's no his ain, he winna tak it;
What ance he says, he winna break it;
Ought he can lend he'll no refus't,
'Till aft his guidness is abus'd;
And rascals whyles that do him wrang,
E'en that, he does na mind it lang:
As master, landlord, husband, father,
He does na fail his part in either.
But then, nae thanks to him for a' that;
Nae godly symptom ye can ca' that;
It's naething but a milder feature,
Of our poor sinfu', corrupt nature:
Ye'll get the best o' moral works,
'Mang black Gentoos and pagan Turks,
Or hunters wild on Ponotaxi,
Wha never heard of orthodoxy.
That he's the poor man's friend in need,
The gentleman in word and deed,
It's no thro' terror of damnation;
It's just a carnal inclination.
Morality, thou deadly bane,
Thy tens o' thousands thou hast slain!
Vain is his hope, whose stay and trust is
In moral mercy, truth and justice!
No--stretch a point to catch a plack;
Abuse a brother to his back;
Steal thro' a winnock frae a whore,
But point the rake that taks the door;
Be to the poor like onie whunstane,
And haud their noses to the grunstane,
Ply ev'ry art o' legal thieving;
No matter--stick to sound believing.
Learn three-mile pray'rs an' half-mile graces,
Wi' weel-spread looves, and lang wry faces;
Grunt up a solemn, lengthen'd groan,
And damn a' parties but your own;
I'll warrant then, ye're nae deceiver,
A steady, sturdy, staunch believer.
O ye wha leave the springs o' Calvin,
For gumlie dubs of your ain delvin'!
Ye sons of heresy and error,
Ye'll some day squeal in quaking terror!
When Vengeance draws the sword in wrath,
And in the fire throws the sheath;
When Ruin, with his sweeping besom,
Just frets 'till Heav'n commission gies him:
While o'er the harp pale Mis'ry moans,
And strikes the ever-deep'ning tones,
Still louder shrieks, and heavier groans!
Your pardon, Sir, for this digression.
I maist forgat my dedication;
But when divinity comes cross me
My readers still are sure to lose me.
So, Sir, ye see 'twas nae daft vapour,
But I maturely thought it proper,
When a' my works I did review,
To dedicate them, Sir, to you:
Because (ye need na tak it ill)
I thought them something like yoursel'.
Then patronize them wi' your favour,
And your petitioner shall ever--
I had amaist said, ever pray,
But that's a word I need na say:
For prayin' I hae little skill o't;
I'm baith dead sweer, an' wretched ill o't;
But I'se repeat each poor man's pray'r,
That kens or hears about you, Sir--
"May ne'er misfortune's gowling bark,
Howl thro' the dwelling o' the Clerk!
May ne'er his gen'rous, honest heart,
For that same gen'rous spirit smart!
May Kennedy's far-honour'd name
Lang beet his hymeneal flame,
Till Hamiltons, at least a dizen,
Are frae their nuptial labours risen:
Five bonnie lasses round their table,
And seven braw fellows, stout an' able
To serve their king and country weel,
By word, or pen, or pointed steel!
May health and peace, with mutual rays,
Shine on the ev'ning o' his days;
'Till his wee curlie John's-ier-oe,
When ebbing life nae mair shall flow,
The last, sad, mournful rites bestow."
I will not wind a lang conclusion,
With complimentary effusion:
But whilst your wishes and endeavours
Are blest with Fortune's smiles and favours,
I am, dear Sir, with zeal most fervent,
Your much indebted, humble servant.
But if (which pow'rs above prevent)
That iron-hearted carl, Want,
Attended in his grim advances
By sad mistakes and black mischances,
While hopes, and joys, and pleasures fly him,
Make you as poor a dog as I am,
Your humble servant then no more;
For who would humbly serve the poor!
But by a poor man's hope in Heav'n!
While recollection's pow'r is given,
If, in the vale of humble life,
The victim sad of fortune's strife,
I, thro' the tender gushing tear,
Should recognise my Master dear,
If friendless, low, we meet together,
Then Sir, your hand--my friend and brother.
* * * * *
LIV.
ELEGY
ON
THE DEATH OF ROBERT RUISSEAUX.
[Cromek found these verses among the loose papers of Burns, and
printed them in the Reliques. They contain a portion of the character
of the poet, record his habitual carelessness in worldly affairs, and
his desire to be distinguished.]
Now Robin lies in his last lair,
He'll gabble rhyme, nor sing nae mair,
Cauld poverty, wi' hungry stare,
Nae mair shall fear him;
Nor anxious fear, nor cankert care,
E'er mair come near him.
To tell the truth, they seldom fash't him,
Except the moment that they crush't him;
For sune as chance or fate had hush't 'em,
Tho' e'er sae short,
Then wi' a rhyme or song he lash't 'em,
And thought it sport.
Tho' he was bred to kintra wark,
And counted was baith wight and stark.
Yet that was never Robin's mark
To mak a man;
But tell him he was learned and clark,
Ye roos'd him than!
* * * * *
LV.
LETTER TO JAMES TENNANT,
OF GLENCONNER.
[The west country farmer to whom this letter was sent was a social
man. The poet depended on his judgment in the choice of a farm, when
he resolved to quit the harp for the plough: but as Ellisland was his
choice, his skill may be questioned.]
Auld comrade dear, and brither sinner,
How's a' the folk about Glenconner?
How do you this blae eastlin wind,
That's like to blaw a body blind?
For me, my faculties are frozen,
My dearest member nearly dozen'd,
I've sent you here, by Johnie Simson,
Twa sage philosophers to glimpse on;
Smith, wi' his sympathetic feeling,
An' Reid, to common sense appealing.
Philosophers have fought and wrangled,
An' meikle Greek and Latin mangled,
Till wi' their logic-jargon tir'd,
An' in the depth of science mir'd,
To common sense they now appeal,
What wives and wabsters see and feel.
But, hark ye, friend! I charge you strictly
Peruse them, an' return them quickly,
For now I'm grown sae cursed douce
I pray and ponder butt the house,
My shins, my lane, I there sit roastin',
Perusing Bunyan, Brown, an' Boston;
Till by an' by, if I haud on,
I'll grunt a real gospel groan:
Already I begin to try it,
To cast my e'en up like a pyet,
When by the gun she tumbles o'er,
Flutt'ring an' gasping in her gore:
Sae shortly you shall see me bright,
A burning and a shining light.
My heart-warm love to guid auld Glen,
The ace an' wale of honest men:
When bending down wi' auld gray hairs,
Beneath the load of years and cares,
May He who made him still support him,
An' views beyond the grave comfort him,
His worthy fam'ly far and near,
God bless them a' wi' grace and gear!
My auld schoolfellow, preacher Willie,
The manly tar, my mason Billie,
An' Auchenbay, I wish him joy;
If he's a parent, lass or boy,
May he be dad, and Meg the mither,
Just five-and-forty years thegither!
An' no forgetting wabster Charlie,
I'm tauld he offers very fairly.
An' Lord, remember singing Sannock,
Wi' hale breeks, saxpence, an' a bannock,
An' next my auld acquaintance, Nancy,
Since she is fitted to her fancy;
An' her kind stars hae airted till her
A good chiel wi' a pickle siller.
My kindest, best respects I sen' it,
To cousin Kate, an' sister Janet;
Tell them, frae me, wi' chiels be cautious,
For, faith, they'll aiblins fin' them fashious;
To grant a heart is fairly civil,
But to grant the maidenhead's the devil
An' lastly, Jamie, for yoursel',
May guardian angels tak a spell,
An' steer you seven miles south o' hell:
But first, before you see heaven's glory,
May ye get monie a merry story,
Monie a laugh, and monie a drink,
And aye eneugh, o' needfu' clink.
Now fare ye weel, an' joy be wi' you,
For my sake this I beg it o' you.
Assist poor Simson a' ye can,
Ye'll fin' him just an honest man;
Sae I conclude, and quat my chanter,
Your's, saint or sinner,
ROB THE RANTER.
* * * * *
LVI.
ON THE
BIRTH OF A POSTHUMOUS CHILD.
[From letters addressed by Burns to Mrs. Dunlop, it would appear that
this "Sweet Flow'ret, pledge o' meikle love," was the only son of her
daughter, Mrs. Henri, who had married a French gentleman. The mother
soon followed the father to the grave: she died in the south of
France, whither she had gone in search of health.]
Sweet flow'ret, pledge o' meikle love,
And ward o' mony a pray'r,
What heart o' stane wad thou na move,
Sae helpless, sweet, and fair!
November hirples o'er the lea,
Chill on thy lovely form;
And gane, alas! the shelt'ring tree,
Should shield thee frae the storm.
May He who gives the rain to pour,
And wings the blast to blaw,
Protect thee frae the driving show'r,
The bitter frost and snaw!
May He, the friend of woe and want,
Who heals life's various stounds,
Protect and guard the mother-plant,
And heal her cruel wounds!
But late she flourish'd, rooted fast,
Fair on the summer-morn:
Now feebly bends she in the blast,
Unshelter'd and forlorn.
Blest be thy bloom, thou lovely gem,
Unscath'd by ruffian hand!
And from thee many a parent stem
Arise to deck our land!
* * * * *
LVII.
TO MISS CRUIKSHANK,
A VERY YOUNG LADY.
WRITTEN ON THE BLANK LEAF OF A BOOK, PRESENTED
TO HER BY THE AUTHOR.
[The beauteous rose-bud of this poem was one of the daughters of Mr.
Cruikshank, a master in the High School of Edinburgh, at whose table
Burns was a frequent guest during the year of hope which he spent in
the northern metropolis.]
Beauteous rose-bud, young and gay,
Blooming in thy early May,
Never may'st thou, lovely flow'r,
Chilly shrink in sleety show'r!
Never Boreas' hoary path,
Never Eurus' poisonous breath,
Never baleful stellar lights,
Taint thee with untimely blights!
Never, never reptile thief
Riot on thy virgin leaf!
Nor even Sol too fiercely view
Thy bosom blushing still with dew!
May'st thou long, sweet crimson gem,
Richly deck thy native stem:
'Till some evening, sober, calm,
Dropping dews and breathing balm,
While all around the woodland rings,
And ev'ry bird thy requiem sings;
Thou, amid the dirgeful sound,
Shed thy dying honours round,
And resign to parent earth
The loveliest form she e'er gave birth.
* * * * *
LVIII.
WILLIE CHALMERS.
[Lockhart first gave this poetic curiosity to the world: he copied it
from a small manuscript volume of Poems given by Burns to Lady Harriet
Don, with an explanation in these words: "W. Chalmers, a gentleman in
Ayrshire, a particular friend of mine, asked me to write a poetic
epistle to a young lady, his Dulcinea. I had seen her, but was
scarcely acquainted with her, and wrote as follows." Chalmers was a
writer in Ayr. I have not heard that the lady was influenced by this
volunteer effusion: ladies are seldom rhymed into the matrimonial
snare.]
I.
Wi' braw new branks in mickle pride,
And eke a braw new brechan,
My Pegasus I'm got astride,
And up Parnassus pechin;
Whiles owre a bush wi' downward crush
The doitie beastie stammers;
Then up he gets and off he sets
For sake o' Willie Chalmers.
II.
I doubt na, lass, that weel kenn'd name
May cost a pair o' blushes;
I am nae stranger to your fame,
Nor his warm urged wishes.
Your bonnie face sae mild and sweet
His honest heart enamours,
And faith ye'll no be lost a whit,
Tho' waired on Willie Chalmers.
III.
Auld Truth hersel' might swear ye're fair,
And Honour safely back her,
And Modesty assume your air,
And ne'er a ane mistak' her:
And sic twa love-inspiring een
Might fire even holy Palmers;
Nae wonder then they've fatal been
To honest Willie Chalmers.
IV.
I doubt na fortune may you shore
Some mim-mou'd pouthered priestie,
Fu' lifted up wi' Hebrew lore,
And band upon his breastie:
But Oh! what signifies to you
His lexicons and grammars;
The feeling heart's the royal blue,
And that's wi' Willie Chalmers.
V.
Some gapin' glowrin' countra laird,
May warstle for your favour;
May claw his lug, and straik his beard,
And hoast up some palaver.
My bonnie maid, before ye wed
Sic clumsy-witted hammers,
Seek Heaven for help, and barefit skelp
Awa' wi' Willie Chalmers.
VI.
Forgive the Bard! my fond regard
For ane that shares my bosom,
Inspires my muse to gie 'm his dues,
For de'il a hair I roose him.
May powers aboon unite you soon,
And fructify your amours,--
And every year come in mair dear
To you and Willie Chalmers.
* * * * *
LIX.
LYING AT A REVEREND FRIEND'S HOUSE ON NIGHT,
THE AUTHOR LEFT THE FOLLOWING
VERSES
IN THE ROOM WHERE HE SLEPT.
[Of the origin of those verses Gilbert Burns gives the following
account. "The first time Robert heard the spinet played was at the house
of Dr. Lawrie, then minister of Loudon, now in Glasgow. Dr. Lawrie has
several daughters; one of them played; the father and the mother led
down the dance; the rest of the sisters, the brother, the poet and the
other guests mixed in it. It was a delightful family scene for our poet,
then lately introduced to the world; his mind was roused to a poetic
enthusiasm, and the stanzas were left in the room where he slept."]
I.
O thou dread Power, who reign'st above!
I know thou wilt me hear,
When for this scene of peace and love
I make my prayer sincere.
II.
The hoary sire--the mortal stroke,
Long, long, be pleased to spare;
To bless his filial little flock
And show what good men are.
III.
She who her lovely offspring eyes
With tender hopes and fears,
O, bless her with a mother's joys,
But spare a mother's tears!
IV.
Their hope--their stay--their darling youth,
In manhood's dawning blush--
Bless him, thou GOD of love and truth,
Up to a parent's wish!
V.
The beauteous, seraph sister-band,
With earnest tears I pray,
Thous know'st the snares on ev'ry hand--
Guide Thou their steps alway.
VI.
When soon or late they reach that coast,
O'er life's rough ocean driven,
May they rejoice, no wanderer lost,
A family in Heaven!
* * * * *
LX.
TO GAVIN HAMILTON, ESQ.,
MAUCHLINE.
(RECOMMENDING A BOY.)
[Verse seems to have been the natural language of Burns. The Master
Tootie whose skill he records, lived in Mauchline, and dealt in cows:
he was an artful and contriving person, great in bargaining and
intimate with all the professional tricks by which old cows are made
to look young, and six-pint hawkies pass for those of twelve.]
_Mossgiel, May 3, 1786._
I.
I hold it, Sir, my bounden duty,
To warn you how that Master Tootie,
Alias, Laird M'Gaun,
Was here to hire yon lad away
'Bout whom ye spak the tither day,
An' wad ha'e done't aff han':
But lest he learn the callan tricks,
As, faith, I muckle doubt him,
Like scrapin' out auld Crummie's nicks,
An' tellin' lies about them;
As lieve then, I'd have then,
Your clerkship he should sair,
If sae be, ye may be
Not fitted otherwhere.
II.
Altho' I say't, he's gleg enough,
An' bout a house that's rude an' rough
The boy might learn to swear;
But then, wi' you, he'll be sae taught,
An' get sic fair example straught,
I havena ony fear.
Ye'll catechize him every quirk,
An' shore him weel wi' Hell;
An' gar him follow to the kirk--
--Ay when ye gang yoursel'.
If ye then, maun be then
Frae hame this comin' Friday;
Then please Sir, to lea'e Sir,
The orders wi' your lady.
III.
My word of honour I hae gien,
In Paisley John's, that night at e'n,
To meet the Warld's worm;
To try to get the twa to gree,
An' name the airles[56] an' the fee,
In legal mode an' form:
I ken he weel a snick can draw,
When simple bodies let him;
An' if a Devil be at a',
In faith he's sure to get him.
To phrase you, an' praise you,
Ye ken your Laureat scorns:
The pray'r still, you share still,
Of grateful MINSTREL BURNS.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 56: The airles--earnest money.]
* * * * *
LXI.
TO MR. M'ADAM,
OF CRAIGEN-GILLAN.
[It seems that Burns, delighted with the praise which the Laird of
Craigen-Gillan bestowed on his verses,--probably the Jolly Beggars,
then in the hands of Woodburn, his steward,--poured out this little
unpremeditated natural acknowledgment.]
Sir, o'er a gill I gat your card,
I trow it made me proud;
See wha tak's notice o' the bard
I lap and cry'd fu' loud.
Now deil-ma-care about their jaw,
The senseless, gawky million:
I'll cock my nose aboon them a'--
I'm roos'd by Craigen-Gillan!
'Twas noble, Sir; 'twas like yoursel',
To grant your high protection:
A great man's smile, ye ken fu' well,
Is ay a blest infection.
Tho' by his[57] banes who in a tub
Match'd Macedonian Sandy!
On my ain legs thro' dirt and dub,
I independent stand ay.--
And when those legs to gude, warm kail,
Wi' welcome canna bear me;
A lee dyke-side, a sybow-tail,
And barley-scone shall cheer me.
Heaven spare you lang to kiss the breath
O' many flow'ry simmers!
And bless your bonnie lasses baith,
I'm tauld they're loosome kimmers!
And GOD bless young Dunaskin's laird,
The blossom of our gentry!
And may he wear an auld man's beard,
A credit to his country.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 57: Diogenes.]
* * * * *
LXII.
ANSWER TO A POETICAL EPISTLE
SENT TO THE AUTHOR BY A TAILOR.
[The person who in the name of a Tailor took the liberty of
admonishing Burns about his errors, is generally believed to have been
William Simpson, the schoolmaster of Ochiltree: the verses seem about
the measure of his capacity, and were attributed at the time to his
hand. The natural poet took advantage of the mask in which the made
poet concealed himself, and rained such a merciless storm upon him, as
would have extinguished half the Tailors in Ayrshire, and made the
amazed dominie
"Strangely fidge and fyke."
It was first printed in 1801, by Stewart.]
What ails ye now, ye lousie b----h,
To thresh my back at sic a pitch?
Losh, man! hae mercy wi' your natch,
Your bodkin's bauld,
I didna suffer ha'f sae much
Frae Daddie Auld.
What tho' at times when I grow crouse,
I gie their wames a random pouse,
Is that enough for you to souse
Your servant sae?
Gae mind your seam, ye prick-the-louse,
An' jag-the-flae.
King David o' poetic brief,
Wrought 'mang the lasses sic mischief,
As fill'd his after life wi' grief,
An' bluidy rants,
An' yet he's rank'd amang the chief
O' lang-syne saunts.
And maybe, Tam, for a' my cants,
My wicked rhymes, an' druken rants,
I'll gie auld cloven Clootie's haunts
An unco' slip yet,
An' snugly sit among the saunts
At Davie's hip get.
But fegs, the Session says I maun
Gae fa' upo' anither plan,
Than garrin lasses cowp the cran
Clean heels owre body,
And sairly thole their mither's ban
Afore the howdy.
This leads me on, to tell for sport,
How I did wi' the Session sort,
Auld Clinkum at the inner port
Cried three times--"Robin!
Come hither, lad, an' answer for't,
Ye're blamed for jobbin'."
Wi' pinch I pat a Sunday's face on,
An' snoov'd away before the Session;
I made an open fair confession--
I scorn'd to lee;
An' syne Mess John, beyond expression,
Fell foul o' me.
* * * * *
LXIII.
TO J. RANKINE.
[With the Laird of Adamhill's personal character the reader is already
acquainted: the lady about whose frailties the rumour alluded to was
about to rise, has not been named, and it would neither be delicate
nor polite to guess.]
I am a keeper of the law
In some sma' points, altho' not a';
Some people tell me gin I fa'
Ae way or ither.
The breaking of ae point, though sma',
Breaks a' thegither
I hae been in for't once or twice,
And winna say o'er far for thrice,
Yet never met with that surprise
That broke my rest,
But now a rumour's like to rise,
A whaup's i' the nest.
* * * * *
LXIV.
LINES
WRITTEN ON A BANK-NOTE.
[The bank-note on which these characteristic lines were endorsed, came
into the hands of the late James Gracie, banker in Dumfries: he knew
the handwriting of Burns, and kept it as a curiosity. The concluding
lines point to the year 1786, as the date of the composition.]
Wae worth thy power, thou cursed leaf,
Fell source o' a' my woe an' grief;
For lack o' thee I've lost my lass,
For lack o' thee I scrimp my glass.
I see the children of affliction
Unaided, through thy cursed restriction
I've seen the oppressor's cruel smile
Amid his hapless victim's spoil:
And for thy potence vainly wished,
To crush the villain in the dust.
For lack o' thee, I leave this much-lov'd shore,
Never, perhaps, to greet old Scotland more.
R. B.
* * * * *
LXV.
A DREAM.
"Thoughts, words, and deeds, the statute blames with reason;
But surely dreams were ne'er indicted treason."
On reading, in the public papers, the "Laureate's Ode," with the other
parade of June 4th, 1786, the author was no sooner dropt asleep, than
he imagined himself transported to the birth-day levee; and, in his
dreaming fancy, made the following "Address."
[The prudent friends of the poet remonstrated with him about this
Poem, which they appeared to think would injure his fortunes and stop
the royal bounty to which he was thought entitled. Mrs. Dunlop, and
Mrs. Stewart, of Stair, solicited him in vain to omit it in the
Edinburgh edition of his poems. I know of no poem for which a claim of
being prophetic would be so successfully set up: it is full of point
as well as of the future. The allusions require no comment.]
Guid-mornin' to your Majesty!
May Heaven augment your blisses,
On ev'ry new birth-day ye see,
A humble poet wishes!
My bardship here, at your levee,
On sic a day as this is,
Is sure an uncouth sight to see,
Amang thae birth-day dresses
Sae fine this day.
I see ye're complimented thrang,
By many a lord an' lady;
"God save the King!" 's a cuckoo sang
That's unco easy said ay;
The poets, too, a venal gang,
Wi' rhymes weel-turn'd and ready,
Wad gar you trow ye ne'er do wrang,
But ay unerring steady,
On sic a day.
For me, before a monarch's face,
Ev'n there I winna flatter;
For neither pension, post, nor place,
Am I your humble debtor:
So, nae reflection on your grace,
Your kingship to bespatter;
There's monie waur been o' the race,
And aiblins ane been better
Than you this day.
'Tis very true, my sov'reign king,
My skill may weel be doubted:
But facts are chiels that winna ding,
An' downa be disputed:
Your royal nest beneath your wing,
Is e'en right reft an' clouted,
And now the third part of the string,
An' less, will gang about it
Than did ae day.
Far be't frae me that I aspire
To blame your legislation,
Or say, ye wisdom want, or fire,
To rule this mighty nation.
But faith! I muckle doubt, my sire,
Ye've trusted ministration
To chaps, wha, in a barn or byre,
Wad better fill'd their station
Than courts yon day.
And now ye've gien auld Britain peace,
Her broken shins to plaister;
Your sair taxation does her fleece,
Till she has scarce a tester;
For me, thank God, my life's a lease,
Nae bargain wearing faster,
Or, faith! I fear, that, wi' the geese,
I shortly boost to pasture
I' the craft some day.
I'm no mistrusting Willie Pitt,
When taxes he enlarges,
(An' Will's a true guid fallow's get,
A name not envy spairges,)
That he intends to pay your debt,
An' lessen a' your charges;
But, G-d-sake! let nae saving-fit
Abridge your bonnie barges
An' boats this day.
Adieu, my Liege! may freedom geck
Beneath your high protection;
An' may ye rax corruption's neck,
And gie her for dissection!
But since I'm here, I'll no neglect,
In loyal, true affection,
To pay your Queen, with due respect,
My fealty an' subjection
This great birth-day
Hail, Majesty Most Excellent!
While nobles strive to please ye,
Will ye accept a compliment
A simple poet gi'es ye?
Thae bonnie bairntime, Heav'n has lent,
Still higher may they heeze ye
In bliss, till fate some day is sent,
For ever to release ye
Frae care that day.
For you, young potentate o' Wales,
I tell your Highness fairly,
Down pleasure's stream, wi' swelling sails,
I'm tauld ye're driving rarely;
But some day ye may gnaw your nails,
An' curse your folly sairly,
That e'er ye brak Diana's pales,
Or rattl'd dice wi' Charlie,
By night or day.
Yet aft a ragged cowte's been known
To mak a noble aiver;
So, ye may doucely fill a throne,
For a' their clish-ma-claver:
There, him at Agincourt wha shone,
Few better were or braver;
And yet, wi' funny, queer Sir John,
He was an unco shaver
For monie a day.
For you, right rev'rend Osnaburg,
Nane sets the lawn-sleeve sweeter,
Altho' a ribbon at your lug,
Wad been a dress completer:
As ye disown yon paughty dog
That bears the keys of Peter,
Then, swith! an' get a wife to hug,
Or, trouth! ye'll stain the mitre
Some luckless day.
Young, royal Tarry Breeks, I learn,
Ye've lately come athwart her;
A glorious galley,[58] stem an' stern,
Weel rigg'd for Venus' barter;
But first hang out, that she'll discern
Your hymeneal charter,
Then heave aboard your grapple airn,
An', large upon her quarter,
Come full that day.
Ye, lastly, bonnie blossoms a',
Ye royal lasses dainty,
Heav'n mak you guid as weel as braw,
An' gie you lads a-plenty:
But sneer na British Boys awa',
For kings are unco scant ay;
An' German gentles are but sma',
They're better just than want ay
On onie day.
God bless you a'! consider now,
Ye're unco muckle dautet;
But ere the course o' life be thro',
It may be bitter sautet:
An' I hae seen their coggie fou,
That yet hae tarrow't at it;
But or the day was done, I trow,
The laggen they hae clautet
Fu' clean that day.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 58: Alluding to the newspaper account of a certain royal
sailor's amour]
* * * * *
LXVI.
A BARD'S EPITAPH.
[This beautiful and affecting poem was printed in the Kilmarnock
edition: Wordsworth writes with his usual taste and feeling about it:
"Whom did the poet intend should be thought of, as occupying that
grave, over which, after modestly setting forth the moral discernment
and warm affections of the 'poor inhabitant' it is supposed to be
inscribed that
'Thoughtless follies laid him low,
And stained his name!'
Who but himself--himself anticipating the but too probable termination
of his own course? Here is a sincere and solemn avowal--a confession
at once devout, poetical, and human--a history in the shape of a
prophecy! What more was required of the biographer, than to have put
his seal to the writing, testifying that the foreboding had been
realized and that the record was authentic?"]
Is there a whim-inspired fool,
Owre fast for thought, owre hot for rule,
Owre blate to seek, owre proud to snool,
Let him draw near;
And owre this grassy heap sing dool,
And drap a tear.
Is there a bard of rustic song,
Who, noteless, steals the crowds among,
That weekly this area throng,
O, pass not by!
But with a frater-feeling strong,
Here heave a sigh.
Is there a man, whose judgment clear,
Can others teach the course to steer,
Yet runs, himself, life's mad career,
Wild as the wave;
Here pause--and, through the starting tear,
Survey this grave.
The poor inhabitant below
Was quick to learn and wise to know,
And keenly felt the friendly glow,
And softer flame,
But thoughtless follies laid him low,
And stain'd his name!
Reader, attend--whether thy soul
Soars fancy's flights beyond the pole,
Or darkling grubs this earthly hole,
In low pursuit;
Know, prudent, cautious self-control,
Is wisdom's root.
* * * * *
LXVII.
THE TWA DOGS.
A TALE.
[Cromek, an anxious and curious inquirer, informed me, that the Twa
Dogs was in a half-finished state, when the poet consulted John
Wilson, the printer, about the Kilmarnock edition. On looking over the
manuscripts, the printer, with a sagacity common to his profession,
said, "The Address to the Deil" and "The Holy Fair" were grand things,
but it would be as well to have a calmer and sedater strain, to put at
the front of the volume. Burns was struck with the remark, and on his
way home to Mossgiel, completed the Poem, and took it next day to
Kilmarnock, much to the satisfaction of "Wee Johnnie." On the 17th
February Burns says to John Richmond, of Mauchline, "I have completed
my Poem of the Twa Dogs, but have not shown it to the world." It is
difficult to fix the dates with anything like accuracy, to
compositions which are not struck off at one heat of the fancy. "Luath
was one of the poet's dogs, which some person had wantonly killed,"
says Gilbert Burns; "but Cæsar was merely the creature of the
imagination." The Ettrick Shepherd, a judge of collies, says that
Luath is true to the life, and that many a hundred times he has seen
the dogs bark for very joy, when the cottage children were merry.]
Twas in that place o' Scotland's isle
That bears the name o' Auld King Coil,
Upon a bonnie day in June,
When wearing through the afternoon,
Twa dogs that were na thrang at hame,
Forgather'd ance upon a time.
The first I'll name, they ca'd him Cæsar,
Was keepit for his honour's pleasure;
His hair, his size, his mouth, his lugs,
Show'd he was nane o' Scotland's dogs;
But whalpit some place far abroad,
Where sailors gang to fish for cod.
His locked, letter'd, braw brass collar
Show'd him the gentleman and scholar;
But though he was o' high degree,
The fient a pride--nae pride had he;
But wad hae spent an hour caressin',
Ev'n wi' a tinkler-gypsey's messin'.
At kirk or market, mill or smiddie,
Nae tawted tyke, though e'er sae duddie,
But he wad stan't, as glad to see him,
And stroan't on stanes and hillocks wi' him.
The tither was a ploughman's collie,
A rhyming, ranting, raving billie,
Wha for his friend an' comrade had him,
And in his freaks had Luath ca'd him,
After some dog in Highland sang,[59]
Was made lang syne--Lord know how lang.
He was a gash an' faithful tyke,
As ever lap a sheugh or dyke.
His honest, sonsie, baws'nt face,
Ay gat him friends in ilka place.
His breast was white, his touzie back
Weel clad wi' coat o' glossy black;
His gaucie tail, wi' upward curl,
Hung o'er his hurdies wi' a swirl.
Nae doubt but they were fain o' ither,
An' unco pack an' thick thegither;
Wi' social nose whyles snuff'd and snowkit,
Whyles mice and moudiewarts they howkit;
Whyles scour'd awa in lang excursion,
An' worry'd ither in diversion;
Until wi' daffin weary grown,
Upon a knowe they sat them down,
And there began a lang digression
About the lords o' the creation.
CÆSAR.
I've aften wonder'd, honest Luath,
What sort o' life poor dogs like you have;
An' when the gentry's life I saw,
What way poor bodies liv'd ava.
Our laird gets in his racked rents,
His coals, his kain, and a' his stents;
He rises when he likes himsel';
His flunkies answer at the bell;
He ca's his coach, he ca's his horse;
He draws a bonnie silken purse
As lang's my tail, whare, through the steeks,
The yellow letter'd Geordie keeks.
Frae morn to e'en its nought but toiling,
At baking, roasting, frying, boiling;
An' though the gentry first are stechin,
Yet even the ha' folk fill their pechan
Wi' sauce, ragouts, and sic like trashtrie,
That's little short o' downright wastrie.
Our whipper-in, wee, blastit wonner,
Poor worthless elf, eats a dinner,
Better than ony tenant man
His honour has in a' the lan';
An' what poor cot-folk pit their painch in,
I own it's past my comprehension.
LUATH.
Trowth, Cæsar, whyles they're fash't eneugh
A cotter howkin in a sheugh,
Wi' dirty stanes biggin' a dyke,
Baring a quarry, and sic like;
Himself, a wife, he thus sustains,
A smytrie o' wee duddie weans,
An' nought but his han' darg, to keep
Them right and tight in thack an' rape.
An' when they meet wi' sair disasters,
Like loss o' health, or want o' masters,
Ye maist wad think a wee touch langer
An' they maun starve o' cauld and hunger;
But, how it comes, I never kenn'd yet,
They're maistly wonderfu' contented:
An' buirdly chiels, an' clever hizzies,
Are bred in sic a way as this is.
CÆSAR.
But then to see how ye're negleckit,
How huff'd, and cuff'd, and disrespeckit!
L--d, man, our gentry care as little
For delvers, ditchers, an' sic cattle;
They gang as saucy by poor folk,
As I wad by a stinking brock.
I've notic'd, on our Laird's court-day,
An' mony a time my heart's been wae,
Poor tenant bodies, scant o' cash,
How they maun thole a factor's snash:
He'll stamp an' threaten, curse an' swear,
He'll apprehend them, poind their gear;
While they maun stan', wi' aspect humble,
An' hear it a', an' fear an' tremble!
I see how folk live that hae riches;
But surely poor folk maun be wretches!
LUATH.
They're no sae wretched's ane wad think;
Tho' constantly on poortith's brink:
They're sae accustom'd wi' the sight,
The view o't gies them little fright.
Then chance an' fortune are sae guided,
They're ay in less or mair provided;
An' tho' fatigu'd wi' close employment,
A blink o' rest's a sweet enjoyment.
The dearest comfort o' their lives,
Their grushie weans, an' faithfu' wives;
The prattling things are just their pride,
That sweetens a' their fire-side;
An' whyles twalpennie worth o' nappy
Can mak' the bodies unco happy;
They lay aside their private cares,
To mind the Kirk and State affairs:
They'll talk o' patronage and priests;
Wi' kindling fury in their breasts;
Or tell what new taxation's comin',
And ferlie at the folk in Lon'on.
As bleak-fac'd Hallowmass returns,
They get the jovial, ranting kirns,
When rural life, o' ev'ry station,
Unite in common recreation;
Love blinks, Wit slaps, an' social Mirth
Forgets there's Care upo' the earth.
That merry day the year begins,
They bar the door on frosty win's;
The nappy reeks wi' mantling ream,
An' sheds a heart-inspiring steam;
The luntin pipe, an sneeshin mill,
Are handed round wi' right guid will;
The cantie auld folks crackin' crouse,
The young anes rantin' thro' the house,--
My heart has been sae fain to see them,
That I for joy hae barkit wi' them.
Still it's owre true that ye hae said,
Sic game is now owre aften play'd.
There's monie a creditable stock
O' decent, honest, fawsont folk,
Are riven out baith root and branch,
Some rascal's pridefu' greed to quench,
Wha thinks to knit himsel' the faster
In favour wi' some gentle master,
Wha aiblins, thrang a parliamentin',
For Britain's guid his saul indentin'--
CÆSAR.
Haith, lad, ye little ken about it!
For Britain's guid! guid faith, I doubt it!
Say rather, gaun as Premiers lead him,
An' saying, aye or no's they bid him,
At operas an' plays parading,
Mortgaging, gambling, masquerading;
Or may be, in a frolic daft,
To Hague or Calais takes a waft,
To mak a tour, an' tak' a whirl,
To learn _bon ton_, an' see the worl'.
There, at Vienna or Versailles,
He rives his father's auld entails;
Or by Madrid he takes the rout,
To thrum guitars, an' fecht wi' nowt;
Or down Italian vista startles,
Wh--re-hunting amang groves o' myrtles
Then bouses drumly German water,
To mak' himsel' look fair and fatter,
An' clear the consequential sorrows,
Love-gifts of carnival signoras.
For Britain's guid!--for her destruction
Wi' dissipation, feud, an' faction.
LUATH.
Hech, man! dear sirs! is that the gate
They waste sae mony a braw estate!
Are we sae foughten an' harass'd
For gear to gang that gate at last!
O, would they stay aback frae courts,
An' please themsels wi' countra sports,
It wad for ev'ry ane be better,
The Laird, the Tenant, an' the Cotter!
For thae frank, rantin', ramblin' billies,
Fient haet o' them's ill-hearted fellows;
Except for breakin' o' their timmer,
Or speakin' lightly o' their limmer,
Or shootin' o' a hare or moor-cock,
The ne'er a bit they're ill to poor folk.
But will ye tell me, Master Cæsar,
Sure great folk's life's a life o' pleasure?
Nae cauld or hunger e'er can steer them,
The vera thought o't need na fear them.
CÆSAR.
L--d, man, were ye but whyles whare I am,
The gentles ye wad ne'er envy 'em.
It's true, they needna starve or sweat,
Thro' winters cauld, or simmer's heat;
They've nae sair wark to craze their banes,
An' fill auld age wi' grips an' granes:
But human bodies are sic fools,
For a' their colleges and schools,
That when nae real ills perplex them,
They mak enow themsels to vex them;
An' ay the less they hae to sturt them,
In like proportion, less will hurt them.
A country fellow at the pleugh,
His acres till'd, he's right eneugh;
A country girl at her wheel,
Her dizzen's done, she's unco weel:
But Gentlemen, an' Ladies warst,
Wi' ev'n down want o' wark are curst.
They loiter, lounging, lank, an' lazy;
Tho' deil haet ails them, yet uneasy;
Their days insipid, dull, an' tasteless;
Their nights unquiet, lang an' restless;
An' even their sports, their balls an' races,
Their galloping thro' public places,
There's sic parade, sic pomp, an' art,
The joy can scarcely reach the heart.
The men cast out in party matches,
Then sowther a' in deep debauches;
Ae night they're mad wi' drink and wh-ring,
Niest day their life is past enduring.
The Ladies arm-in-arm in clusters,
As great and gracious a' as sisters;
But hear their absent thoughts o' ither,
They're a' run deils an' jads thegither.
Whyles, o'er the wee bit cup an' platie,
They sip the scandal potion pretty;
Or lee-lang nights, wi' crabbit leuks
Pore owre the devil's pictur'd beuks;
Stake on a chance a farmer's stack-yard,
An' cheat like onie unhang'd blackguard.
There's some exception, man an' woman;
But this is Gentry's life in common.
By this, the sun was out o' sight,
An' darker gloaming brought the night:
The bum-clock humm'd wi' lazy drone;
The kye stood rowtin i' the loan;
When up they gat, and shook their lugs,
Rejoic'd they were na men, but dogs;
An' each took aff his several way,
Resolv'd to meet some ither day.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 59: Cuchullin's dog in Ossian's Fingal.]
* * * * *
LXVIII.
LINES
ON
MEETING WITH LORD DAER.
["The first time I saw Robert Burns," says Dugald Stewart, "was on the
23rd of October, 1786, when he dined at my house in Ayrshire, together
with our common friend, John Mackenzie, surgeon in Mauchline, to whom I
am indebted for the pleasure of his acquaintance. My excellent and
much-lamented friend, the late Basil, Lord Daer, happened to arrive at
Catrine the same day, and, by the kindness and frankness of his manners,
left an impression on the mind of the poet which was never effaced. The
verses which the poet wrote on the occasion are among the most imperfect
of his pieces, but a few stanzas may perhaps be a matter of curiosity,
both on account of the character to which they relate and the light
which they throw on the situation and the feelings of the writer before
his work was known to the public." Basil, Lord Daer, the uncle of the
present Earl of Selkirk, was born in the year 1769, at the family seat
of St. Mary's Isle: he distinguished himself early at school, and at
college excelled in literature and science; he had a greater regard for
democracy than was then reckoned consistent with his birth and rank. He
was, when Burns met him, in his twenty-third year; was very tall,
something careless in his dress, and had the taste and talent common to
his distinguished family. He died in his thirty-third year.]
This wot ye all whom it concerns,
I, Rhymer Robin, alias Burns,
October twenty-third,
A ne'er-to-be-forgotten day,
Sae far I sprachled up the brae,
I dinner'd wi' a Lord.
I've been at druken writers' feasts,
Nay, been bitch-fou' 'mang godly priests,
Wi' rev'rence be it spoken:
I've even join'd the honour'd jorum,
When mighty squireships of the quorum
Their hydra drouth did sloken.
But wi' a Lord--stand out, my shin!
A Lord--a Peer--an Earl's son!--
Up higher yet, my bonnet!
And sic a Lord!--lang Scotch ells twa,
Our Peerage he o'erlooks them a',
As I look o'er my sonnet.
But, oh! for Hogarth's magic pow'r!
To show Sir Bardie's willyart glow'r,
And how he star'd and stammer'd,
When goavan, as if led wi' branks,
An' stumpan on his ploughman shanks,
He in the parlour hammer'd.
I sidling shelter'd in a nook,
An' at his lordship steal't a look,
Like some portentous omen;
Except good sense and social glee,
An' (what surpris'd me) modesty,
I marked nought uncommon.
I watch'd the symptoms o' the great,
The gentle pride, the lordly state,
The arrogant assuming;
The fient a pride, nae pride had he,
Nor sauce, nor state, that I could see,
Mair than an honest ploughman.
Then from his lordship I shall learn,
Henceforth to meet with unconcern
One rank as weel's another;
Nae honest worthy man need care
To meet with noble youthful Daer,
For he but meets a brother.
* * * * *
LXIX.
ADDRESS TO EDINBURGH.
["I enclose you two poems," said Burns to his friend Chalmers, "which
I have carded and spun since I passed Glenbuck. One blank in the
Address to Edinburgh, 'Fair B----,' is the heavenly Miss Burnet,
daughter to Lord Monboddo, at whose house I have had the honour to be
more than once. There has not been anything nearly like her, in all
the combinations of beauty, grace, and goodness the great Creator has
formed, since Milton's Eve, on the first day of her existence." Lord
Monboddo made himself ridiculous by his speculations on human nature,
and acceptable by his kindly manners and suppers in the manner of the
ancients, where his viands were spread under ambrosial lights, and his
Falernian was wreathed with flowers. At these suppers Burns sometimes
made his appearance. The "Address" was first printed in the Edinburgh
edition: the poet's hopes were then high, and his compliments, both to
town and people, were elegant and happy.]
I.
Edina! Scotia's darling seat!
All hail thy palaces and tow'rs,
Where once beneath a monarch's feet
Sat Legislation's sov'reign pow'rs!
From marking wildly-scatter'd flow'rs,
As on the banks of Ayr I stray'd,
And singing, lone, the ling'ring hours,
I shelter in thy honour'd shade.
II.
Here wealth still swells the golden tide,
As busy Trade his labour plies;
There Architecture's noble pride
Bids elegance and splendour rise;
Here Justice, from her native skies,
High wields her balance and her rod;
There Learning, with his eagle eyes,
Seeks Science in her coy abode.
III.
Thy sons, Edina! social, kind,
With open arms the stranger hail;
Their views enlarg'd, their liberal mind,
Above the narrow, rural vale;
Attentive still to sorrow's wail,
Or modest merit's silent claim;
And never may their sources fail!
And never envy blot their name!
IV.
Thy daughters bright thy walks adorn,
Gay as the gilded summer sky,
Sweet as the dewy milk-white thorn,
Dear as the raptur'd thrill of joy!
Fair Burnet strikes th' adoring eye,
Heav'n's beauties on my fancy shine;
I see the Sire of Love on high,
And own his work indeed divine!
V.
There, watching high the least alarms,
Thy rough, rude fortress gleams afar,
Like some bold vet'ran, gray in arms,
And mark'd with many a seamy scar:
The pond'rous wall and massy bar,
Grim-rising o'er the rugged rock,
Have oft withstood assailing war,
And oft repell'd th' invader's shock.
VI.
With awe-struck thought, and pitying tears,
I view that noble, stately dome,
Where Scotia's kings of other years,
Fam'd heroes! had their royal home:
Alas, how chang'd the times to come!
Their royal name low in the dust!
Their hapless race wild-wand'ring roam,
Tho' rigid law cries out, 'twas just!
VII.
Wild beats my heart to trace your steps,
Whose ancestors, in days of yore,
Thro' hostile ranks and ruin'd gaps
Old Scotia's bloody lion bore:
Ev'n I who sing in rustic lore,
Haply, my sires have left their shed,
And fac'd grim danger's loudest roar,
Bold-following where your fathers led!
VIII.
Edina! Scotia's darling seat!
All hail thy palaces and tow'rs,
Where once beneath a monarch's feet
Sat Legislation's sov'reign pow'rs!
From marking wildly-scatter'd flow'rs,
As on the hanks of Ayr I stray'd,
And singing, lone, the ling'ring hours,
I shelter in thy honour'd shade.
* * * * *
LXX.
EPISTLE TO MAJOR LOGAN.
[Major Logan, of Camlarg, lived, when this hasty Poem was written,
with his mother and sister at Parkhouse, near Ayr. He was a good
musician, a joyous companion, and something of a wit. The Epistle was
printed, for the first time, in my edition of Burns, in 1834, and
since then no other edition has wanted it.]
Hail, thairm-inspirin', rattlin' Willie!
Though fortune's road be rough an' hilly
To every fiddling, rhyming billie,
We never heed,
But tak' it like the unback'd filly,
Proud o' her speed.
When idly goavan whyles we saunter
Yirr, fancy barks, awa' we canter
Uphill, down brae, till some mishanter,
Some black bog-hole,
Arrests us, then the scathe an' banter
We're forced to thole.
Hale be your heart! Hale be your fiddle!
Lang may your elbuck jink and diddle,
To cheer you through the weary widdle
O' this wild warl',
Until you on a crummock driddle
A gray-hair'd carl.
Come wealth, come poortith, late or soon,
Heaven send your heart-strings ay in tune,
And screw your temper pins aboon
A fifth or mair,
The melancholious, lazy croon
O' cankrie care.
May still your life from day to day
Nae "lente largo" in the play,
But "allegretto forte" gay
Harmonious flow:
A sweeping, kindling, bauld strathspey--
Encore! Bravo!
A blessing on the cheery gang
Wha dearly like a jig or sang,
An' never think o' right an' wrang
By square an' rule,
But as the clegs o' feeling stang
Are wise or fool.
My hand-waled curse keep hard in chase
The harpy, hoodock, purse-proud race,
Wha count on poortith as disgrace--
Their tuneless hearts!
May fireside discords jar a base
To a' their parts!
But come, your hand, my careless brither,
I' th' ither warl', if there's anither,
An' that there is I've little swither
About the matter;
We check for chow shall jog thegither,
I'se ne'er bid better.
We've faults and failings--granted clearly,
We're frail backsliding mortals merely,
Eve's bonny squad, priests wyte them sheerly
For our grand fa';
But stilt, but still, I like them dearly--
God bless them a'!
Ochon! for poor Castalian drinkers,
When they fa' foul o' earthly jinkers,
The witching curs'd delicious blinkers
Hae put me hyte,
And gart me weet my waukrife winkers,
Wi' girnan spite.
But by yon moon!--and that's high swearin'--
An' every star within my hearin'!
An' by her een wha was a dear ane!
I'll ne'er forget;
I hope to gie the jads a clearin'
In fair play yet.
My loss I mourn, but not repent it,
I'll seek my pursie whare I tint it,
Ance to the Indies I were wonted,
Some cantraip hour,
By some sweet elf I'll yet be dinted,
Then, _vive l'amour_!
_Faites mes baisemains respectueuse_,
To sentimental sister Susie,
An' honest Lucky; no to roose you,
Ye may be proud,
That sic a couple fate allows ye
To grace your blood.
Nae mair at present can I measure,
An' trowth my rhymin' ware's nae treasure;
But when in Ayr, some half-hour's leisure,
Be't light, be't dark,
Sir Bard will do himself the pleasure
To call at Park.
ROBERT BURNS.
_Mossgiel, 30th October_, 1786.
* * * * *
LXXI.
THE BRIGS OF AYR,
A POEM,
INSCRIBED TO J. BALLANTYNE, ESQ., AYR.
[Burns took the hint of this Poem from the Planestanes and Causeway of
Fergusson, but all that lends it life and feeling belongs to his own
heart and his native Ayr: he wrote it for the second edition of his
poems, and in compliment to the patrons of his genius in the west.
Ballantyne, to whom the Poem is inscribed, was generous when the
distresses of his farming speculations pressed upon him: others of his
friends figure in the scene: Montgomery's courage, the learning of
Dugald Stewart, and condescension and kindness of Mrs. General
Stewart, of Stair, are gratefully recorded.]
The simple Bard, rough at the rustic plough,
Learning his tuneful trade from ev'ry bough;
The chanting linnet, or the mellow thrush,
Hailing the setting sun, sweet, in the green thorn bush:
The soaring lark, the perching red-breast shrill,
Or deep-ton'd plovers, gray, wild-whistling o'er the hill;
Shall he, nurst in the peasant's lowly shed,
To hardy independence bravely bred,
By early poverty to hardship steel'd,
And train'd to arms in stern misfortune's field--
Shall he be guilty of their hireling crimes,
The servile, mercenary Swiss of rhymes?
Or labour hard the panegyric close,
With all the venal soul of dedicating prose?
No! though his artless strains he rudely sings,
And throws his hand uncouthly o'er the strings,
He glows with all the spirit of the Bard,
Fame, honest fame, his great, his dear reward!
Still, if some patron's gen'rous care he trace,
Skill'd in the secret to bestow with grace;
When Ballantyne befriends his humble name,
And hands the rustic stranger up to fame,
With heart-felt throes his grateful bosom swells,
The godlike bliss, to give, alone excels.
* * * * *
'Twas when the stacks get on their winter hap,
And thack and rape secure the toil-won crap;
Potato-bings are snugged up frae skaith
Of coming Winter's biting, frosty breath;
The bees, rejoicing o'er their summer toils,
Unnumber'd buds, an' flow'rs delicious spoils,
Seal'd up with frugal care in massive waxen piles,
Are doom'd by man, that tyrant o'er the weak,
The death o' devils smoor'd wi' brimstone reek
The thundering guns are heard on ev'ry side,
The wounded coveys, reeling, scatter wide;
The feather'd field-mates, bound by Nature's tie,
Sires, mothers, children, in one carnage lie:
(What warm, poetic heart, but inly bleeds,
And execrates man's savage, ruthless deeds!)
Nae mair the flow'r in field or meadow springs;
Nae mair the grove with airy concert rings,
Except, perhaps, the robin's whistling glee,
Proud o' the height o' some bit half-lang tree:
The hoary morns precede the sunny days,
Mild, calm, serene, wide spreads the noontide blaze,
While thick the gossamer waves wanton in the rays.
'Twas in that season, when a simple bard,
Unknown and poor, simplicity's reward,
Ae night, within the ancient brugh of Ayr,
By whim inspired, or haply prest wi' care,
He left his bed, and took his wayward rout,
And down by Simpson's[60] wheel'd the left about:
(Whether impell'd by all-directing Fate,
To witness what I after shall narrate;
Or whether, rapt in meditation high,
He wander'd out he knew not where nor why)
The drowsy Dungeon-clock,[61] had number'd two,
And Wallace Tow'r[61] had sworn the fact was true:
The tide-swol'n Firth, with sullen sounding roar,
Through the still night dash'd hoarse along the shore.
All else was hush'd as Nature's closed e'e:
The silent moon shone high o'er tow'r and tree:
The chilly frost, beneath the silver beam,
Crept, gently-crusting, o'er the glittering stream.--
When, lo! on either hand the list'ning Bard,
The clanging sugh of whistling wings is heard;
Two dusky forms dart thro' the midnight air,
Swift as the gos[62] drives on the wheeling hare;
Ane on th' Auld Brig his airy shape uprears,
The ither flutters o'er the rising piers:
Our warlock Rhymer instantly descry'd
The Sprites that owre the brigs of Ayr preside.
(That Bards are second-sighted is nae joke,
And ken the lingo of the sp'ritual folk;
Fays, Spunkies, Kelpies, a', they can explain them,
And ev'n the vera deils they brawly ken them.)
Auld Brig appear'd of ancient Pictish race,
The very wrinkles gothic in his face:
He seem'd as he wi' Time had warstl'd lang,
Yet, teughly doure, he bade an unco bang.
New Brig was buskit in a braw new coat,
That he at Lon'on, frae ane Adams got;
In's hand five taper staves as smooth's a bead,
Wi' virls and whirlygigums at the head.
The Goth was stalking round with anxious search,
Spying the time-worn flaws in ev'ry arch;--
It chanc'd his new-come neebor took his e'e,
And e'en a vex'd and angry heart had he!
Wi' thieveless sneer to see his modish mien,
He, down the water, gies him this guid-e'en:--
AULD BRIG.
I doubt na', frien', ye'll think ye're nae sheep-shank,
Ance ye were streekit o'er frae bank to bank!
But gin ye be a brig as auld as me,
Tho' faith, that day I doubt ye'll never see;
There'll be, if that date come, I'll wad a boddle,
Some fewer whigmeleeries in your noddle.
NEW BRIG.
Auld Vandal, ye but show your little mense,
Just much about it wi' your scanty sense;
Will your poor, narrow foot-path of a street,
Where twa wheel-barrows tremble when they meet--
Your ruin'd formless bulk o' stane en' lime,
Compare wi' bonnie Brigs o' modern time?
There's men o' taste wou'd tak the Ducat-stream,[63]
Tho' they should cast the vera sark and swim,
Ere they would grate their feelings wi' the view
Of sic an ugly, Gothic hulk as you.
AULD BRIG.
Conceited gowk! puff'd up wi' windy pride!--
This mony a year I've stood the flood an' tide;
And tho' wi' crazy eild I'm sair forfairn,
I'll be a Brig, when ye're a shapeless cairn!
As yet ye little ken about the matter,
But twa-three winters will inform ye better.
When heavy, dark, continued a'-day rains,
Wi' deepening deluges o'erflow the plains;
When from the hills where springs the brawling Coil,
Or stately Lugar's mossy fountains boil,
Or where the Greenock winds his moorland course,
Or haunted Garpal[64] draws his feeble source,
Arous'd by blust'ring winds an' spotting thowes,
In mony a torrent down the snaw-broo rowes;
While crashing ice born on the roaring speat,
Sweeps dams, an' mills, an' brigs, a' to the gate;
And from Glenbuck,[65] down to the Ratton-key,[66]
Auld Ayr is just one lengthen'd tumbling sea--
Then down ye'll hurl, deil nor ye never rise!
And dash the gumlie jaups up to the pouring skies.
A lesson sadly teaching, to your cost,
That Architecture's noble art is lost!
NEW BRIG.
Fine Architecture, trowth, I needs must say't o't!
The L--d be thankit that we've tint the gate o't!
Gaunt, ghastly, ghaist-alluring edifices,
Hanging with threat'ning jut like precipices;
O'er-arching, mouldy, gloom-inspiring coves,
Supporting roofs fantastic, stony groves;
Windows and doors, in nameless sculpture drest,
With order, symmetry, or taste unblest;
Forms like some bedlam Statuary's dream,
The craz'd creations of misguided whim;
Forms might be worshipp'd on the bended knee,
And still the second dread command be free,
Their likeness is not found on earth, in air, or sea.
Mansions that would disgrace the building taste
Of any mason reptile, bird or beast;
Fit only for a doited monkish race,
Or frosty maids forsworn the dear embrace;
Or cuifs of later times wha held the notion
That sullen gloom was sterling true devotion;
Fancies that our guid Brugh denies protection!
And soon may they expire, unblest with resurrection!
AULD BRIG.
O ye, my dear-remember'd ancient yealings,
Were ye but here to share my wounded feelings!
Ye worthy Proveses, an' mony a Bailie,
Wha in the paths o' righteousness did toil ay;
Ye dainty Deacons and ye douce Conveeners,
To whom our moderns are but causey-cleaners:
Ye godly Councils wha hae blest this town;
Ye godly Brethren o' the sacred gown,
Wha meekly gie your hurdies to the smiters;
And (what would now be strange) ye godly writers;
A' ye douce folk I've borne aboon the broo,
Were ye but here, what would ye say or do!
How would your spirits groan in deep vexation,
To see each melancholy alteration;
And, agonizing, curse the time and place
When ye begat the base, degen'rate race!
Nae langer rev'rend men, their country's glory,
In plain braid Scots hold forth a plain braid story!
Nae langer thrifty citizens an' douce,
Meet owre a pint, or in the council-house;
But staumrel, corky-headed, graceless gentry,
The herryment and ruin of the country;
Men, three parts made by tailors and by barbers,
Wha waste your weel-hain'd gear on d--d new Brigs and Harbours!
NEW BRIG.
Now haud you there! for faith ye've said enough,
And muckle mair than ye can mak to through;
As for your Priesthood, I shall say but little,
Corbies and Clergy, are a shot right kittle:
But under favour o' your langer beard,
Abuse o' Magistrates might weel be spar'd:
To liken them to your auld-warld squad,
I must needs say, comparisons are odd.
In Ayr, wag-wits nae mair can have a handle
To mouth 'a citizen,' a term o' scandal;
Nae mair the Council waddles down the street,
In all the pomp of ignorant conceit;
Men wha grew wise priggin' owre hops an' raisins,
Or gather'd lib'ral views in bonds and seisins,
If haply Knowledge, on a random tramp,
Had shor'd them with a glimmer of his lamp,
And would to Common-sense for once betray'd them,
Plain, dull Stupidity stept kindly in to aid them
* * * * *
What farther clishmaclaver might been said,
What bloody wars, if Spirites had blood to shed,
No man can tell; but all before their sight,
A fairy train appear'd in order bright:
Adown the glitt'ring stream they featly danc'd;
Bright to the moon their various dresses glanc'd:
They footed owre the wat'ry glass so neat,
The infant ice scarce bent beneath their feet:
While arts of minstrelsy among them rung,
And soul-ennobling bards heroic ditties sung.--
O had M'Lauchlan,[67] thairm-inspiring Sage,
Been there to hear this heavenly band engage,
When thro' his dear strathspeys they bore with highland rage;
Or when they struck old Scotia's melting airs,
The lover's raptur'd joys or bleeding cares;
How would his highland lug been nobler fir'd,
And ev'n his matchless hand with finer touch inspir'd!
No guess could tell what instrument appear'd,
But all the soul of Music's self was heard,
Harmonious concert rung in every part,
While simple melody pour'd moving on the heart.
The Genius of the stream in front appears,
A venerable Chief advanc'd in years;
His hoary head with water-lilies crown'd,
His manly leg with garter tangle bound.
Next came the loveliest pair in all the ring,
Sweet Female Beauty hand in hand with Spring;
Then, crown'd with flow'ry hay, came Rural Joy,
And Summer, with his fervid-beaming eye:
All-cheering Plenty, with her flowing horn,
Led yellow Autumn, wreath'd with nodding corn;
Then Winter's time-bleach'd looks did hoary show,
By Hospitality with cloudless brow.
Next follow'd Courage, with his martial stride,
From where the Feal wild woody coverts hide;
Benevolence, with mild, benignant air,
A female form, came from the tow'rs of Stair:
Learning and Worth in equal measures trode
From simple Catrine, their long-lov'd abode:
Last, white-rob'd Peace, crown'd with a hazel wreath,
To rustic Agriculture did bequeath
The broken iron instruments of death;
At sight of whom our Sprites forgat their kindling wrath.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 60: A noted tavern at the auld Brig end.]
[Footnote 61: The two steeples.]
[Footnote 62: The gos-hawk or falcon.]
[Footnote 63: A noted ford, just above the Auld Brig.]
[Footnote 64: The banks of Garpal Water is one of the few places in the
West of Scotland, where those fancy-scaring beings, known by the name
of Ghaists, still continue pertinaciously to inhabit.]
[Footnote 65: The source of the river Ayr.]
[Footnote 66: A small landing-place above the large key.]
[Footnote 67: A well known performer of Scottish music on the violin.]
* * * * *
LXXII.
ON
THE DEATH OF ROBERT DUNDAS, ESQ.,
OF ARNISTON,
LATE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COURT OF SESSION.
[At the request of Advocate Hay, Burns composed this Poem, in the hope
that it might interest the powerful family of Dundas in his fortunes.
I found it inserted in the handwriting of the poet, in an interleaved
copy of his Poems, which he presented to Dr. Geddes, accompanied by
the following surly note:--"The foregoing Poem has some tolerable
lines in it, but the incurable wound of my pride will not suffer me to
correct, or even peruse it. I sent a copy of it with my best prose
letter to the son of the great man, the theme of the piece, by the
hands of one of the noblest men in God's world, Alexander Wood,
surgeon: when, behold! his solicitorship took no more notice of my
Poem, or of me, than I had been a strolling fiddler who had made free
with his lady's name, for a silly new reel. Did the fellow imagine
that I looked for any dirty gratuity?" This Robert Dundas was the
elder brother of that Lord Melville to whose hands, soon after these
lines were written, all the government patronage in Scotland was
confided, and who, when the name of Burns was mentioned, pushed the
wine to Pitt, and said nothing. The poem was first printed by me, in
1834.]
Lone on the bleaky hills the straying flocks
Shun the fierce storms among the sheltering rocks;
Down from the rivulets, red with dashing rains,
The gathering floods burst o'er the distant plains;
Beneath the blasts the leafless forests groan;
The hollow caves return a sullen moan.
Ye hills, ye plains, ye forests and ye caves,
Ye howling winds, and wintry swelling waves!
Unheard, unseen, by human ear or eye,
Sad to your sympathetic scenes I fly;
Where to the whistling blast and waters' roar
Pale Scotia's recent wound I may deplore.
O heavy loss, thy country ill could bear!
A loss these evil days can ne'er repair!
Justice, the high vicegerent of her God,
Her doubtful balance ey'd, and sway'd her rod;
Hearing the tidings of the fatal blow
She sunk, abandon'd to the wildest woe.
Wrongs, injuries, from many a darksome den,
Now gay in hope explore the paths of men:
See from this cavern grim Oppression rise,
And throw on poverty his cruel eyes;
Keen on the helpless victim see him fly,
And stifle, dark, the feebly-bursting cry:
Mark ruffian Violence, distain'd with crimes,
Rousing elate in these degenerate times;
View unsuspecting Innocence a prey,
As guileful Fraud points out the erring way:
While subtile Litigation's pliant tongue
The life-blood equal sucks of Right and Wrong:
Hark, injur'd Want recounts th' unlisten'd tale,
And much-wrong'd Mis'ry pours th' unpitied wail!
Ye dark waste hills, and brown unsightly plains,
To you I sing my grief-inspired strains:
Ye tempests, rage! ye turbid torrents, roll!
Ye suit the joyless tenor of my soul.
Life's social haunts and pleasures I resign,
Be nameless wilds and lonely wanderings mine,
To mourn the woes my country must endure,
That wound degenerate ages cannot cure.
* * * * *
LXXIII.
ON READING IN A NEWSPAPER
THE DEATH OF JOHN M'LEOD, ESQ.
BROTHER TO A YOUNG LADY, A PARTICULAR FRIEND
OF THE AUTHOR'S.
[John M'Leod was of the ancient family of Raza, and brother to that
Isabella M'Leod, for whom Burns, in his correspondence, expressed
great regard. The little Poem, when first printed, consisted of six
verses: I found a seventh in M'Murdo Manuscripts, the fifth in this
edition, along with an intimation in prose, that the M'Leod family had
endured many unmerited misfortunes. I observe that Sir Harris Nicolas
has rejected this new verse, because, he says, it repeats the same
sentiment as the one which precedes it. I think differently, and have
retained it.]
Sad thy tale, thou idle page,
And rueful thy alarms:
Death tears the brother of her love
From Isabella's arms.
Sweetly deck'd with pearly dew
The morning rose may blow;
But cold successive noontide blasts
May lay its beauties low.
Fair on Isabella's morn
The sun propitious smil'd;
But, long ere noon, succeeding clouds
Succeeding hopes beguil'd.
Fate oft tears the bosom chords
That nature finest strung:
So Isabella's heart was form'd,
And so that heart was wrung.
Were it in the poet's power,
Strong as he shares the grief
That pierces Isabella's heart,
To give that heart relief!
Dread Omnipotence, alone,
Can heal the wound He gave;
Can point the brimful grief-worn eyes
To scenes beyond the grave.
Virtue's blossoms there shall blow,
And fear no withering blast;
There Isabella's spotless worth
Shall happy be at last.
* * * * *
LXXIV.
TO MISS LOGAN,
WITH BEATTIE'S POEMS FOR A NEW YEAR'S GIFT.
JAN. 1, 1787.
[Burns was fond of writing compliments in books, and giving them in
presents among his fair friends. Miss Logan, of Park house, was sister
to Major Logan, of Camlarg, and the "sentimental sister Susie," of the
Epistle to her brother. Both these names were early dropped out of the
poet's correspondence.]
Again the silent wheels of time
Their annual round have driv'n,
And you, tho' scarce in maiden prime,
Are so much nearer Heav'n.
No gifts have I from Indian coasts
The infant year to hail:
I send you more than India boasts
In Edwin's simple tale.
Our sex with guile and faithless love
Is charg'd, perhaps, too true;
But may, dear maid, each lover prove
An Edwin still to you!
* * * * *
LXXV.
THE AMERICAN WAR.
A FRAGMENT.
[Dr. Blair said that the politics of Burns smelt of the smithy, which,
interpreted, means, that they were unstatesman-like, and worthy of a
country ale-house, and an audience of peasants. The Poem gives us a
striking picture of the humorous and familiar way in which the hinds
and husbandmen of Scotland handle national topics: the smithy is a
favourite resort, during the winter evenings, of rustic politicians;
and national affairs and parish scandal are alike discussed. Burns was
in those days, and some time after, a vehement Tory: his admiration of
"Chatham's Boy," called down on him the dusty indignation of the
republican Ritson.]
I.
When Guildford good our pilot stood,
And did our hellim thraw, man,
Ae night, at tea, began a plea,
Within America, man:
Then up they gat the maskin-pat,
And in the sea did jaw, man;
An' did nae less in full Congress,
Than quite refuse our law, man.
II.
Then thro' the lakes Montgomery takes,
I wat he was na slaw, man;
Down Lowrie's burn he took a turn,
And Carleton did ca', man;
But yet, what-reck, he, at Quebec,
Montgomery-like did fa', man,
Wi' sword in hand, before his band,
Amang his en'mies a', man.
III.
Poor Tammy Gage, within a cage,
Was kept at Boston ha', man;
Till Willie Howe took o'er the knowe
For Philadelphia, man;
Wi' sword an' gun he thought a sin
Guid Christian blood to draw, man:
But at New York, wi' knife an' fork,
Sir-loin he hacked sma', man.
IV.
Burgoyne gaed up, like spur an' whip,
Till Fraser brave did fa', man,
Then lost his way, ae misty day,
In Saratoga shaw, man.
Cornwallis fought as lang's he dought,
An' did the buckskins claw, man;
But Clinton's glaive frae rust to save,
He hung it to the wa', man.
V.
Then Montague, an' Guilford, too,
Began to fear a fa', man;
And Sackville dour, wha stood the stoure,
The German Chief to thraw, man;
For Paddy Burke, like ony Turk,
Nae mercy had at a', man;
An' Charlie Fox threw by the box,
An' lows'd his tinkler jaw, man.
VI.
Then Rockingham took up the game,
Till death did on him ca', man;
When Shelburne meek held up his cheek,
Conform to gospel law, man;
Saint Stephen's boys, wi' jarring noise,
They did his measures thraw, man,
For North an' Fox united stocks,
An' bore him to the wa', man.
VII.
Then clubs an' hearts were Charlie's cartes,
He swept the stakes awa', man,
Till the diamond's ace, of Indian race,
Led him a sair _faux pas_, man;
The Saxon lads, wi' loud placads,
On Chatham's boy did ca', man;
An' Scotland drew her pipe, an' blew,
"Up, Willie, waur them a', man!"
VIII.
Behind the throne then Grenville's gone,
A secret word or twa, man;
While slee Dundas arous'd the class,
Be-north the Roman wa', man:
An' Chatham's wraith, in heavenly graith,
(Inspired Bardies saw, man)
Wi' kindling eyes cry'd "Willie, rise!
Would I hae fear'd them a', man?"
IX.
But, word an' blow, North, Fox, and Co.,
Gowff'd Willie like a ba', man,
Till Suthron raise, and coost their claise
Behind him in a raw, man;
An' Caledon threw by the drone,
An' did her whittle draw, man;
An' swoor fu' rude, thro' dirt an' blood
To make it guid in law, man.
* * * * *
LXXVI.
THE DEAN OF FACULTY.
A NEW BALLAD.
[The Hal and Bob of these satiric lines were Henry Erskine, and Robert
Dundas: and their contention was, as the verses intimate, for the
place of Dean of the Faculty of Advocates: Erskine was successful. It
is supposed that in characterizing Dundas, the poet remembered "the
incurable wound which his pride had got" in the affair of the elegiac
verses on the death of the elder Dundas. The poem first appeared in
the Reliques of Burns.]
I.
Dire was the hate at old Harlaw,
That Scot to Scot did carry;
And dire the discord Langside saw,
For beauteous, hapless Mary:
But Scot with Scot ne'er met so hot,
Or were more in fury seen, Sir,
Than 'twixt Hal and Bob for the famous job--
Who should be Faculty's Dean, Sir.--
II.
This Hal for genius, wit, and lore,
Among the first was number'd;
But pious Bob, 'mid learning's store,
Commandment tenth remember'd.--
Yet simple Bob the victory got,
And won his heart's desire;
Which shows that heaven can boil the pot,
Though the devil p--s in the fire.--
III.
Squire Hal besides had in this case
Pretensions rather brassy,
For talents to deserve a place
Are qualifications saucy;
So, their worships of the Faculty,
Quite sick of merit's rudeness,
Chose one who should owe it all, d'ye see,
To their gratis grace and goodness.--
IV.
As once on Pisgah purg'd was the sight
Of a son of Circumcision,
So may be, on this Pisgah height,
Bob's purblind, mental vision:
Nay, Bobby's mouth may be open'd yet
Till for eloquence you hail him,
And swear he has the angel met
That met the Ass of Balaam.
* * * * *
LXXVII.
TO A LADY,
WITH A PRESENT OF A PAIR OF DRINKING-GLASSES.
[To Mrs. M'Lehose, of Edinburgh, the poet presented the
drinking-glasses alluded to in the verses: they are, it seems, still
preserved, and the lady on occasions of high festival, indulges, it is
said, favourite visiters with a draught from them of "The blood of
Shiraz' scorched vine."]
Fair Empress of the Poet's soul,
And Queen of Poetesses;
Clarinda, take this little boon,
This humble pair of glasses.
And fill them high with generous juice,
As generous as your mind;
And pledge me in the generous toast--
"The whole of human kind!"
"To those who love us!"--second fill;
But not to those whom we love;
Lest we love those who love not us!--
A third--"to thee and me, love!"
* * * * *
LXXVIII.
TO CLARINDA.
[This is the lady of the drinking-glasses; the Mrs. Mac of many a
toast among the poet's acquaintances. She was, in those days, young
and beautiful, and we fear a little giddy, since she indulged in that
sentimental and platonic flirtation with the poet, contained in the
well-known letters to Clarinda. The letters, after the poet's death,
appeared in print without her permission: she obtained an injunction
against the publication, which still remains in force, but her anger
seems to have been less a matter of taste than of whim, for the
injunction has been allowed to slumber in the case of some editors,
though it has been enforced against others.]
Clarinda, mistress of my soul,
The measur'd time is run!
The wretch beneath the dreary pole
So marks his latest sun.
To what dark cave of frozen night
Shall poor Sylvander hie;
Depriv'd of thee, his life and light,
The sun of all his joy.
We part--but, by these precious drops
That fill thy lovely eyes!
No other light shall guide my steps
Till thy bright beams arise.
She, the fair sun of all her sex,
Has blest my glorious day;
And shall a glimmering planet fix
My worship to its ray?
* * * * *
LXXIX.
VERSES
WRITTEN UNDER THE PORTRAIT OF FERGUSSON, THE POET, IN A COPY OF THAT
AUTHOR'S WORKS PRESENTED TO A YOUNG LADY.
[Who the young lady was to whom the poet presented the portrait and
Poems of the ill-fated Fergusson, we have not been told. The verses
are dated Edinburgh, March 19th, 1787.]
Curse on ungrateful man, that can be pleas'd,
And yet can starve the author of the pleasure!
O thou my elder brother in misfortune,
By far my elder brother in the muses,
With tears I pity thy unhappy fate!
Why is the bard unpitied by the world,
Yet has so keen a relish of its pleasures?
* * * * *
LXXX.
PROLOGUE
SPOKEN BY MR. WOODS ON HIS BENEFIT NIGHT,
MONDAY, 16 April, 1787.
[The Woods for whom this Prologue was written, was in those days a
popular actor in Edinburgh. He had other claims on Burns: he had been
the friend as well as comrade of poor Fergusson, and possessed some
poetical talent. He died in Edinburgh, December 14th, 1802.]
When by a generous Public's kind acclaim,
That dearest meed is granted--honest fame;
When _here_ your favour is the actor's lot,
Nor even the _man_ in _private life_ forgot;
What breast so dead to heavenly virtue's glow,
But heaves impassion'd with the grateful throe?
Poor is the task to please a barbarous throng,
It needs no Siddons' powers in Southerne's song;
But here an ancient nation fam'd afar,
For genius, learning high, as great in war--
Hail, CALEDONIA, name for ever dear!
Before whose sons I'm honoured to appear!
Where every science--every nobler art--
That can inform the mind, or mend the heart,
Is known; as grateful nations oft have found
Far as the rude barbarian marks the bound.
Philosophy, no idle pedant dream,
Here holds her search by heaven-taught Reason's beam;
Here History paints, with elegance and force,
The tide of Empires' fluctuating course;
Here Douglas forms wild Shakspeare into plan,
And Harley[68] rouses all the god in man.
When well-form'd taste and sparkling wit unite,
With manly lore, or female beauty bright,
(Beauty, where faultless symmetry and grace,
Can only charm as in the second place,)
Witness my heart, how oft with panting fear,
As on this night, I've met these judges here!
But still the hope Experience taught to live,
Equal to judge--you're candid to forgive.
Nor hundred-headed Riot here we meet,
With decency and law beneath his feet:
Nor Insolence assumes fair Freedom's name;
Like CALEDONIANS, you applaud or blame.
O Thou dread Power! whose Empire-giving hand
Has oft been stretch'd to shield the honour'd land!
Strong may she glow with all her ancient fire:
May every son be worthy of his sire;
Firm may she rise with generous disdain
At Tyranny's, or direr Pleasure's chain;
Still self-dependent in her native shore,
Bold may she brave grim Danger's loudest roar,
Till Fate the curtain drop on worlds to be no more.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 68: The Man of Feeling, by Mackenzie.]
* * * * *
LXXXI.
SKETCH.
[This Sketch is a portion of a long Poem which Burns proposed to call
"The Poet's Progress." He communicated the little he had done, for he
was a courter of opinions, to Dugald Stewart. "The Fragment forms,"
said he, "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." It is probable that the professor's response was
not favourable for we hear no more of the Poem.]
A little, upright, pert, tart, tripping wight,
And still his precious self his dear delight;
Who loves his own smart shadow in the streets
Better than e'er the fairest she he meets:
A man of fashion, too, he made his tour,
Learn'd vive la bagatelle, et vive l'amour:
So travell'd monkeys their grimace improve,
Polish their grin, nay, sigh for ladies' love.
Much specious lore, but little understood;
Veneering oft outshines the solid wood:
His solid sense--by inches you must tell.
But mete his cunning by the old Scots ell;
His meddling vanity, a busy fiend,
Still making work his selfish craft must mend.
* * * * *
LXXXII.
TO MRS. SCOTT,
OF WAUCHOPE.
[The lady to whom this epistle is addressed was a painter and a
poetess: her pencil sketches are said to have been beautiful; and she
had a ready skill in rhyme, as the verses addressed to Burns fully
testify. Taste and poetry belonged to her family; she was the niece of
Mrs. Cockburn, authoress of a beautiful variation of The Flowers of
the Forest.]
I mind it weel in early date,
When I was beardless, young and blate,
An' first could thresh the barn;
Or hand a yokin at the pleugh;
An' tho' forfoughten sair enough,
Yet unco proud to learn:
When first amang the yellow corn
A man I reckon'd was,
An' wi' the lave ilk merry morn
Could rank my rig and lass,
Still shearing, and clearing,
The tither stooked raw,
Wi' claivers, an' haivers,
Wearing the day awa.
E'en then, a wish, I mind its pow'r,
A wish that to my latest hour
Shall strongly heave my breast,
That I for poor auld Scotland's sake
Some usefu' plan or beuk could make,
Or sing a sang at least.
The rough burr-thistle, spreading wide
Amang the bearded bear,
I turn'd the weeder-clips aside,
An' spar'd the symbol dear:
No nation, no station,
My envy e'er could raise,
A Scot still, but blot still,
I knew nae higher praise.
But still the elements o' sang
In formless jumble, right an' wrang,
Wild floated in my brain;
'Till on that har'st I said before,
My partner in the merry core,
She rous'd the forming strain:
I see her yet, the sonsie quean,
That lighted up her jingle,
Her witching smile, her pauky een
That gart my heart-strings tingle:
I fired, inspired,
At every kindling keek,
But bashing and dashing
I feared aye to speak.
Health to the sex, ilk guid chiel says,
Wi' merry dance in winter days,
An' we to share in common:
The gust o' joy, the balm of woe,
The saul o' life, the heaven below,
Is rapture-giving woman.
Ye surly sumphs, who hate the name,
Be mindfu' o' your mither:
She, honest woman, may think shame
That ye're connected with her.
Ye're wae men, ye're nae men
That slight the lovely dears;
To shame ye, disclaim ye,
Ilk honest birkie swears.
For you, no bred to barn and byre,
Wha sweetly tune the Scottish lyre,
Thanks to you for your line:
The marled plaid ye kindly spare,
By me should gratefully be ware;
'Twad please me to the nine.
I'd be mair vauntie o' my hap,
Douce hingin' owre my curple
Than ony ermine ever lap,
Or proud imperial purple.
Fareweel then, lang heel then,
An' plenty be your fa';
May losses and crosses
Ne'er at your hallan ca'.
* * * * *
LXXXIII.
EPISTLE TO WILLIAM CREECH.
[A storm of rain detained Burns one day, during his border tour, at
Selkirk, and he employed his time in writing this characteristic
epistle to Creech, his bookseller. Creech was a person of education
and taste; he was not only the most popular publisher in the north,
but he was intimate with almost all the distinguished men who, in
those days, adorned Scottish literature. But though a joyous man, a
lover of sociality, and the keeper of a good table, he was close and
parsimonious, and loved to hold money to the last moment that the law
allowed.]
_Selkirk_, 13 _May_, 1787.
Auld chukie Reekie's[69] sair distrest,
Down droops her ance weel-burnisht crest,
Nae joy her bonnie buskit nest
Can yield ava,
Her darling bird that she lo'es best,
Willie's awa!
O Willie was a witty wight,
And had o' things an unco slight;
Auld Reekie ay he keepit tight,
An' trig an' braw:
But now they'll busk her like a fright,
Willie's awa!
The stiffest o' them a' he bow'd;
The bauldest o' them a' he cow'd;
They durst nae mair than he allow'd,
That was a law;
We've lost a birkie weel worth gowd,
Willie's awa!
Now gawkies, tawpies, gowks, and fools,
Frae colleges and boarding-schools,
May sprout like simmer puddock stools
In glen or shaw;
He wha could brush them down to mools,
Willie's awa!
The brethren o' the Commerce-Chaumer[70]
May mourn their loss wi' doofu' clamour;
He was a dictionar and grammar
Amang them a';
I fear they'll now mak mony a stammer,
Willie's awa!
Nae mair we see his levee door
Philosophers and poets pour,[71]
And toothy critics by the score
In bloody raw!
The adjutant o' a' the core,
Willie's awa!
Now worthy Gregory's Latin face,
Tytler's and Greenfield's modest grace;
Mackenzie, Stewart, sic a brace
As Rome n'er saw;
They a' maun meet some ither place,
Willie's awa!
Poor Burns--e'en Scotch drink canna quicken,
He cheeps like some bewilder'd chicken,
Scar'd frae its minnie and the cleckin
By hoodie-craw;
Grief's gien his heart an unco kickin',
Willie's awa!
Now ev'ry sour-mou'd girnin' blellum,
And Calvin's fock are fit to fell him;
And self-conceited critic skellum
His quill may draw;
He wha could brawlie ward their bellum,
Willie's awa!
Up wimpling stately Tweed I've sped,
And Eden scenes on crystal Jed,
And Ettrick banks now roaring red,
While tempests blaw;
But every joy and pleasure's fled,
Willie's awa!
May I be slander's common speech;
A text for infamy to preach;
And lastly, streekit out to bleach
In winter snaw;
When I forget thee! Willie Creech,
Tho' far awa!
May never wicked fortune touzle him!
May never wicked man bamboozle him!
Until a pow as auld's Methusalem
He canty claw!
Then to the blessed New Jerusalem,
Fleet wing awa!
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 69: Edinburgh.]
[Footnote 70: The Chamber of Commerce in Edinburgh, of which Creech was
Secretary.]
[Footnote 71: Many literary gentlemen were accustomed to meet at Mr.
Creech's house at breakfast.]
* * * * *
LXXXIV.
THE
HUMBLE PETITION OF BRUAR WATER
TO THE
NOBLE DUKE OF ATHOLE.
[The Falls of Bruar in Athole are exceedingly beautiful and
picturesque; and their effect, when Burns visited them, was much
impaired by want of shrubs and trees. This was in 1787: the poet,
accompanied by his future biographer, Professor Walker, went, when
close on twilight, to this romantic scene: "he threw himself," said
the Professor, "on a heathy seat, and gave himself up to a tender,
abstracted, and voluptuous enthusiasm of imagination. In a few days I
received a letter from Inverness, for the poet had gone on his way,
with the Petition enclosed." His Grace of Athole obeyed the
injunction: the picturesque points are now crowned with thriving
woods, and the beauty of the Falls is much increased.]
I.
My Lord, I know your noble ear
Woe ne'er assails in vain;
Embolden'd thus, I beg you'll hear
Your humble slave complain,
How saucy Phoebus' scorching beams
In flaming summer-pride,
Dry-withering, waste my foamy streams,
And drink my crystal tide.
II.
The lightly-jumpin' glowrin' trouts,
That thro' my waters play,
If, in their random, wanton spouts,
They near the margin stray;
If, hapless chance! they linger lang,
I'm scorching up so shallow,
They're left the whitening stanes amang,
In gasping death to wallow.
III.
Last day I grat wi' spite and teen,
As Poet Burns came by,
That to a bard I should be seen
Wi' half my channel dry:
A panegyric rhyme, I ween,
Even as I was he shor'd me;
But had I in my glory been,
He, kneeling, wad ador'd me.
IV.
Here, foaming down the shelvy rocks,
In twisting strength I rin;
There, high my boiling torrent smokes,
Wild-roaring o'er a linn:
Enjoying large each spring and well,
As Nature gave them me,
I am, altho' I say't mysel',
Worth gaun a mile to see.
V.
Would then my noble master please
To grant my highest wishes,
He'll shade my banks wi' tow'ring trees,
And bonnie spreading bushes.
Delighted doubly then, my Lord,
You'll wander on my banks,
And listen mony a grateful bird
Return you tuneful thanks.
VI.
The sober laverock, warbling wild,
Shall to the skies aspire;
The gowdspink, music's gayest child,
Shall sweetly join the choir:
The blackbird strong, the lintwhite clear,
The mavis mild and mellow;
The robin pensive autumn cheer,
In all her locks of yellow.
VII.
This, too, a covert shall insure
To shield them from the storm;
And coward maukin sleep secure,
Low in her grassy form:
Here shall the shepherd make his seat,
To weave his crown of flow'rs;
Or find a shelt'ring safe retreat
From prone-descending show'rs.
VIII.
And here, by sweet, endearing stealth,
Shall meet the loving pair,
Despising worlds with all their wealth
As empty idle care.
The flow'rs shall vie in all their charms
The hour of heav'n to grace,
And birks extend their fragrant arms
To screen the dear embrace.
IX.
Here haply too, at vernal dawn,
Some musing bard may stray,
And eye the smoking, dewy lawn,
And misty mountain gray;
Or, by the reaper's nightly beam,
Mild-chequering thro' the trees,
Rave to my darkly-dashing stream,
Hoarse-swelling on the breeze.
X.
Let lofty firs, and ashes cool,
My lowly banks o'erspread,
And view, deep-bending in the pool,
Their shadows' wat'ry bed!
Let fragrant birks in woodbines drest
My craggy cliffs adorn;
And, for the little songster's nest,
The close embow'ring thorn.
XI.
So may old Scotia's darling hope,
Your little angel band,
Spring, like their fathers, up to prop
Their honour'd native land!
So may thro' Albion's farthest ken,
To social-flowing glasses,
The grace be--"Athole's honest men,
And Athole's bonnie lasses?"
* * * * *
LXXXV.
ON SCARING SOME WATER-FOWL
IN LOCH-TURIT.
[When Burns wrote these touching lines, he was staying with Sir
William Murray, of Ochtertyre, during one of his Highland tours.
Loch-Turit is a wild lake among the recesses of the hills, and was
welcome from its loneliness to the heart of the poet.]
Why, ye tenants of the lake,
For me your wat'ry haunt forsake?
Tell me, fellow-creatures, why
At my presence thus you fly?
Why disturb your social joys,
Parent, filial, kindred ties?--
Common friend to you and me,
Nature's gifts to all are free:
Peaceful keep your dimpling wave,
Busy feed, or wanton lave:
Or, beneath the sheltering rock,
Bide the surging billow's shock.
Conscious, blushing for our race,
Soon, too soon, your fears I trace.
Man, your proud usurping foe,
Would be lord of all below:
Plumes himself in Freedom's pride,
Tyrant stern to all beside.
The eagle, from the cliffy brow,
Marking you his prey below,
In his breast no pity dwells,
Strong necessity compels:
But man, to whom alone is giv'n
A ray direct from pitying heav'n,
Glories in his heart humane--
And creatures for his pleasure slain.
In these savage, liquid plains,
Only known to wand'ring swains,
Where the mossy riv'let strays,
Far from human haunts and ways;
All on Nature you depend,
And life's poor season peaceful spend.
Or, if man's superior might
Dare invade your native right,
On the lofty ether borne,
Man with all his pow'rs you scorn;
Swiftly seek, on clanging wings,
Other lakes and other springs;
And the foe you cannot brave,
Scorn at least to be his slave.
* * * * *
LXXXVI.
WRITTEN WITH A PENCIL,
OVER THE CHIMNEY-PIECE, IN THE PARLOUR OF THE
INN AT KENMORE, TAYMOUTH.
[The castle of Taymouth is the residence of the Earl of Breadalbane:
it is a magnificent structure, contains many fine paintings: has some
splendid old trees and romantic scenery.]
Admiring Nature in her wildest grace,
These northern scenes with weary feet I trace;
O'er many a winding dale and painful steep,
Th' abodes of covey'd grouse and timid sheep,
My savage journey, curious I pursue,
'Till fam'd Breadalbane opens to my view.--
The meeting cliffs each deep-sunk glen divides,
The woods, wild scatter'd, clothe their ample sides;
Th' outstretching lake, embosom'd 'mong the hills,
The eye with wonder and amazement fills;
The Tay, meand'ring sweet in infant pride,
The palace, rising on its verdant side;
The lawns, wood-fring'd in Nature's native taste;
The hillocks, dropt in Nature's careless haste;
The arches, striding o'er the new-born stream;
The village, glittering in the noontide beam--
* * * * *
Poetic ardours in my bosom swell,
Lone wand'ring by the hermit's mossy cell:
The sweeping theatre of hanging woods;
Th' incessant roar of headlong tumbling floods--
* * * * *
Here Poesy might wake her heav'n-taught lyre,
And look through Nature with creative fire;
Here, to the wrongs of fate half reconcil'd,
Misfortune's lighten'd steps might wander wild;
And Disappointment, in these lonely bounds,
Find balm to soothe her bitter--rankling wounds:
Here heart-struck Grief might heav'nward stretch her scan,
And injur'd Worth forget and pardon man.
* * * * *
LXXXVII.
WRITTEN WITH A PENCIL,
STANDING BY THE FALL OF FYERS,
NEAR LOCH-NESS
[This is one of the many fine scenes, in the Celtic Parnassus of
Ossian: but when Burns saw it, the Highland passion of the stream was
abated, for there had been no rain for some time to swell and send it
pouring down its precipices in a way worthy of the scene. The descent
of the water is about two hundred feet. There is another fall further
up the stream, very wild and savage, on which the Fyers makes three
prodigious leaps into a deep gulf where nothing can be seen for the
whirling foam and agitated mist.]
Among the heathy hills and ragged woods
The roaring Fyers pours his mossy floods;
Till full he dashes on the rocky mounds,
Where, thro' a shapeless breach, his stream resounds,
As high in air the bursting torrents flow,
As deep-recoiling surges foam below,
Prone down the rock the whitening sheet descends,
And viewless Echo's ear, astonish'd, rends.
Dim seen, through rising mists and ceaseless show'rs,
The hoary cavern, wide surrounding, low'rs.
Still thro' the gap the struggling river toils,
And still below, the horrid cauldron boils--
* * * * *
LXXXVIII.
POETICAL ADDRESS
TO MR. W. TYTLER,
WITH THE PRESENT OF THE BARD'S PICTURE.
[When these verses were written there was much stately Jacobitism
about Edinburgh, and it is likely that Tytler, who laboured to dispel
the cloud of calumny which hung over the memory of Queen Mary, had a
bearing that way. Taste and talent have now descended in the Tytlers
through three generations: an uncommon event in families. The present
edition of the Poem has been completed from the original in the poet's
handwriting.]
Revered defender of beauteous Stuart,
Of Stuart, a name once respected,
A name, which to love, was once mark of a true heart,
But now 'tis despis'd and neglected.
Tho' something like moisture conglobes in my eye,
Let no one misdeem me disloyal;
A poor friendless wand'rer may well claim a sigh,
Still more, if that wand'rer were royal.
My fathers that name have rever'd on a throne,
My fathers have fallen to right it;
Those fathers would spurn their degenerate son,
That name should he scoffingly slight it.
Still in prayers for King George I most heartily join,
The Queen and the rest of the gentry,
Be they wise, be they foolish, is nothing of mine;
Their title's avow'd by my country.
But why of that epocha make such a fuss,
That gave us th' Electoral stem?
If bringing them over was lucky for us,
I'm sure 'twas as lucky for them.
But loyalty truce! we're on dangerous ground,
Who knows how the fashions may alter?
The doctrine, to-day, that is loyalty sound,
To-morrow may bring us a halter.
I send you a trifle, the head of a bard,
A trifle scarce worthy your care;
But accept it, good Sir, as a mark of regard,
Sincere as a saint's dying prayer.
Now life's chilly evening dim shades on your eye,
And ushers the long dreary night;
But you, like the star that athwart gilds the sky,
Your course to the latest is bright.
* * * * *
LXXXIX.
WRITTEN IN
FRIARS-CARSE HERMITAGE,
ON THE BANKS OF NITH.
JUNE. 1788.
[FIRST COPY.]
[The interleaved volume presented by Burns to Dr. Geddes, has enabled
me to present the reader with the rough draught of this truly
beautiful Poem, the first-fruits perhaps of his intercourse with the
muses of Nithside.]
Thou whom chance may hither lead,
Be thou clad in russet weed,
Be thou deck'd in silken stole,
Grave these maxims on thy soul.
Life is but a day at most,
Sprung from night, in darkness lost;
Day, how rapid in its flight--
Day, how few must see the night;
Hope not sunshine every hour,
Fear not clouds will always lower.
Happiness is but a name,
Make content and ease thy aim.
Ambition is a meteor gleam;
Fame, a restless idle dream:
Pleasures, insects on the wing
Round Peace, the tenderest flower of Spring;
Those that sip the dew alone,
Make the butterflies thy own;
Those that would the bloom devour,
Crush the locusts--save the flower.
For the future be prepar'd,
Guard wherever thou canst guard;
But, thy utmost duly done,
Welcome what thou canst not shun.
Follies past, give thou to air,
Make their consequence thy care:
Keep the name of man in mind,
And dishonour not thy kind.
Reverence with lowly heart
Him whose wondrous work thou art;
Keep His goodness still in view,
Thy trust--and thy example, too.
Stranger, go! Heaven be thy guide!
Quod the Beadsman on Nithside.
* * * * *
XC.
WRITTEN IN
FRIARS-CARSE HERMITAGE,
ON NITHSIDE.
DECEMBER, 1788.
[Of this Poem Burns thought so well that he gave away many copies in
his own handwriting: I have seen three. When corrected to his mind,
and the manuscripts showed many changes and corrections, he published
it in the new edition of his Poems as it stands in this second copy.
The little Hermitage where these lines were written, stood in a lonely
plantation belonging to the estate of Friars-Carse, and close to the
march-dyke of Ellisland; a small door in the fence, of which the poet
had the key, admitted him at pleasure, and there he found seclusion
such as he liked, with flowers and shrubs all around him. The first
twelve lines of the Poem were engraved neatly on one of the
window-panes, by the diamond pencil of the Bard. On Riddel's death,
the Hermitage was allowed to go quietly to decay: I remember in 1803
turning two outlyer stots out of the interior.]
Thou whom chance may hither lead,
Be thou clad in russet weed,
Be thou deck'd in silken stole,
Grave these counsels on thy soul.
Life is but a day at most,
Sprung from night, in darkness lost;
Hope not sunshine ev'ry hour.
Fear not clouds will always lour.
As Youth and Love with sprightly dance
Beneath thy morning star advance,
Pleasure with her siren air
May delude the thoughtless pair:
Let Prudence bless enjoyment's cup,
Then raptur'd sip, and sip it up.
As thy day grows warm and high,
Life's meridian flaming nigh,
Dost thou spurn the humble vale?
Life's proud summits would'st thou scale?
Check thy climbing step, elate,
Evils lurk in felon wait:
Dangers, eagle-pinion'd, bold,
Soar around each cliffy hold,
While cheerful peace, with linnet song,
Chants the lowly dells among.
As the shades of ev'ning close,
Beck'ning thee to long repose;
As life itself becomes disease,
Seek the chimney-nook of ease.
There ruminate, with sober thought,
On all thou'st seen, and heard, and wrought;
And teach the sportive younkers round,
Saws of experience, sage and sound.
Say, man's true genuine estimate,
The grand criterion of his fate,
Is not--Art thou high or low?
Did thy fortune ebb or flow?
Wast thou cottager or king?
Peer or peasant?--no such thing!
Did many talents gild thy span?
Or frugal nature grudge thee one?
Tell them, and press it on their mind,
As thou thyself must shortly find,
The smile or frown of awful Heav'n,
To virtue or to vice is giv'n.
Say, to be just, and kind, and wise,
There solid self-enjoyment lies;
That foolish, selfish, faithless ways
Lead to the wretched, vile, and base.
Thus, resign'd and quiet, creep
To the bed of lasting sleep;
Sleep, whence thou shalt ne'er awake,
Night, where dawn shall never break,
Till future life, future no more,
To light and joy the good restore,
To light and joy unknown before.
Stranger, go! Hea'vn be thy guide!
Quod the beadsman of Nithside.
* * * * *
XCI.
TO CAPTAIN RIDDEL,
OF GLENRIDDEL.
EXTEMPORE LINES ON RETURNING A NEWSPAPER.
[Captain Riddel, the Laird of Friars-Carse, was Burns's neighbour, at
Ellisland: he was a kind, hospitable man, and a good antiquary. The
"News and Review" which he sent to the poet contained, I have heard,
some sharp strictures on his works: Burns, with his usual strong
sense, set the proper value upon all contemporary criticism; genius,
he knew, had nothing to fear from the folly or the malice of all such
nameless "chippers and hewers." He demanded trial by his peers, and
where were such to be found?]
_Ellisland, Monday Evening._
Your news and review, Sir, I've read through and through, Sir,
With little admiring or blaming;
The papers are barren of home-news or foreign,
No murders or rapes worth the naming.
Our friends, the reviewers, those chippers and hewers,
Are judges of mortar and stone, Sir,
But of _meet_ or _unmeet_ in a _fabric complete_,
I'll boldly pronounce they are none, Sir.
My goose-quill too rude is to tell all your goodness
Bestow'd on your servant, the Poet;
Would to God I had one like a beam of the sun,
And then all the world, Sir, should know it!
* * * * *
XCII.
A MOTHER'S LAMENT
FOR THE DEATH OF HER SON.
["The Mother's Lament," says the poet, in a copy of the verses now
before me, "was composed partly with a view to Mrs. Fergusson of
Craigdarroch, and partly to the worthy patroness of my early unknown
muse, Mrs. Stewart, of Afton."]
Fate gave the word, the arrow sped,
And pierc'd my darling's heart;
And with him all the joys are fled
Life can to me impart.
By cruel hands the sapling drops,
In dust dishonour'd laid:
So fell the pride of all my hopes,
My age's future shade.
The mother-linnet in the brake
Bewails her ravish'd young;
So I, for my lost darling's sake,
Lament the live day long.
Death, oft I've fear'd thy fatal blow,
Now, fond I bare my breast,
O, do thou kindly lay me low
With him I love, at rest!
* * * * *
XCIII.
FIRST EPISTLE
TO ROBERT GRAHAM, ESQ.
OF FINTRAY.
[In his manuscript copy of this Epistle the poet says "accompanying a
request." What the request was the letter which enclosed it relates.
Graham was one of the leading men of the Excise in Scotland, and had
promised Burns a situation as exciseman: for this the poet had
qualified himself; and as he began to dread that farming would be
unprofitable, he wrote to remind his patron of his promise, and
requested to be appointed to a division in his own neighbourhood. He
was appointed in due time: his division was extensive, and included
ten parishes.]
When Nature her great master-piece designed,
And fram'd her last, best work, the human mind,
Her eye intent on all the mazy plan,
She form'd of various parts the various man.
Then first she calls the useful many forth;
Plain plodding industry, and sober worth:
Thence peasants, farmers, native sons of earth,
And merchandise' whole genus take their birth:
Each prudent cit a warm existence finds,
And all mechanics' many-apron'd kinds.
Some other rarer sorts are wanted yet,
The lead and buoy are needful to the net;
The _caput mortuum_ of gross desires
Makes a material for mere knights and squires;
The martial phosphorus is taught to flow,
She kneads the lumpish philosophic dough,
Then marks th' unyielding mass with grave designs,
Law, physic, politics, and deep divines:
Last, she sublimes th' Aurora of the poles,
The flashing elements of female souls.
The order'd system fair before her stood,
Nature, well pleas'd, pronounc'd it very good;
But ere she gave creating labour o'er,
Half-jest, she tried one curious labour more.
Some spumy, fiery, _ignis fatuus_ matter,
Such as the slightest breath of air might scatter;
With arch alacrity and conscious glee
(Nature may have her whim as well as we,
Her Hogarth-art perhaps she meant to show it)
She forms the thing, and christens it--a Poet.
Creature, tho' oft the prey of care and sorrow,
When blest to-day, unmindful of to-morrow.
A being form'd t'amuse his graver friends,
Admir'd and prais'd--and there the homage ends:
A mortal quite unfit for fortune's strife,
Yet oft the sport of all the ills of life;
Prone to enjoy each pleasure riches give,
Yet haply wanting wherewithal to live;
Longing to wipe each tear, to heal each groan,
Yet frequent all unheeded in his own.
But honest Nature is not quite a Turk,
She laugh'd at first, then felt for her poor work.
Pitying the propless climber of mankind,
She cast about a standard tree to find;
And, to support his helpless woodbine state,
Attach'd him to the generous truly great,
A title, and the only one I claim,
To lay strong hold for help on bounteous Graham.
Pity the tuneful muses' hapless train,
Weak, timid landsmen on life's stormy main!
Their hearts no selfish stern absorbent stuff,
That never gives--tho' humbly takes enough;
The little fate allows, they share as soon,
Unlike sage proverb'd wisdom's hard-wrung boon.
The world were blest did bliss on them depend,
Ah, that "the friendly e'er should want a friend!"
Let prudence number o'er each sturdy son
Who life and wisdom at one race begun,
Who feel by reason and who give by rule,
(Instinct's a brute, and sentiment a fool!)
Who make poor _will do_ wait upon _I should_--
We own they're prudent, but who feels they're good?
Ye wise ones, hence! ye hurt the social eye!
God's image rudely etch'd on base alloy!
But come ye who the godlike pleasure know,
Heaven's attribute distinguished--to bestow!
Whose arms of love would grasp the human race:
Come thou who giv'st with all a courtier's grace;
Friend of my life, true patron of my rhymes!
Prop of my dearest hopes for future times.
Why shrinks my soul half blushing, half afraid,
Backward, abash'd to ask thy friendly aid?
I know my need, I know thy giving hand,
I crave thy friendship at thy kind command;
But there are such who court the tuneful nine--
Heavens! should the branded character be mine!
Whose verse in manhood's pride sublimely flows,
Yet vilest reptiles in their begging prose.
Mark, how their lofty independent spirit
Soars on the spurning wing of injur'd merit!
Seek not the proofs in private life to find;
Pity the best of words should be but wind!
So to heaven's gates the lark's shrill song ascends,
But grovelling on the earth the carol ends.
In all the clam'rous cry of starving want,
They dun benevolence with shameless front;
Oblige them, patronize their tinsel lays,
They persecute you all your future days!
Ere my poor soul such deep damnation stain,
My horny fist assume the plough again;
The pie-bald jacket let me patch once more;
On eighteen-pence a week I've liv'd before.
Tho', thanks to Heaven, I dare even that last shift!
I trust, meantime, my boon is in thy gift:
That, plac'd by thee upon the wish'd-for height,
Where, man and nature fairer in her sight,
My muse may imp her wing for some sublimer flight.
* * * * *
XCIV.
ON THE DEATH OF
SIR JAMES HUNTER BLAIR.
[I found these lines written with a pencil in one of Burns's
memorandum-books: he said he had just composed them, and pencilled
them down lest they should escape from his memory. They differed in
nothing from the printed copy of the first Liverpool edition. That
they are by Burns there cannot be a doubt, though they were, I know
not for what reason, excluded from several editions of the Posthumous
Works of the poet.]
The lamp of day, with ill-presaging glare,
Dim, cloudy, sunk beneath the western wave;
Th' inconstant blast howl'd thro' the darkening air,
And hollow whistled in the rocky cave.
Lone as I wander'd by each cliff and dell,
Once the lov'd haunts of Scotia's royal train;[72]
Or mus'd where limpid streams once hallow'd well,[73]
Or mould'ring ruins mark the sacred fane.[74]
Th' increasing blast roared round the beetling rocks,
The clouds, swift-wing'd, flew o'er the starry sky,
The groaning trees untimely shed their locks,
And shooting meteors caught the startled eye.
The paly moon rose in the livid east,
And 'mong the cliffs disclos'd a stately form,
In weeds of woe that frantic beat her breast,
And mix'd her wailings with the raving storm.
Wild to my heart the filial pulses glow,
'Twas Caledonia's trophied shield I view'd:
Her form majestic droop'd in pensive woe,
The lightning of her eye in tears imbued.
Revers'd that spear, redoubtable in war,
Reclined that banner, erst in fields unfurl'd,
That like a deathful meteor gleam'd afar,
And brav'd the mighty monarchs of the world.--
"My patriot son fills an untimely grave!"
With accents wild and lifted arms--she cried;
"Low lies the hand that oft was stretch'd to save,
Low lies the heart that swell'd with honest pride.
"A weeping country joins a widow's tear,
The helpless poor mix with the orphan's cry;
The drooping arts surround their patron's bier,
And grateful science heaves the heart-felt sigh!
"I saw my sons resume their ancient fire;
I saw fair freedom's blossoms richly blow:
But ah! how hope is born but to expire!
Relentless fate has laid their guardian low.
"My patriot falls, but shall he lie unsung,
While empty greatness saves a worthless name!
No; every muse shall join her tuneful tongue,
And future ages hear his growing fame.
"And I will join a mother's tender cares,
Thro' future times to make his virtues last;
That distant years may boast of other Blairs!"--
She said, and vanish'd with the sweeping blast.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 72: The King's Park, at Holyrood-house.]
[Footnote 73: St. Anthony's Well.]
[Footnote 74: St. Anthony's Chapel.]
* * * * *
XCV.
EPISTLE TO HUGH PARKER.
[This little lively, biting epistle was addressed to one of the poet's
Kilmarnock companions. Hugh Parker was the brother of William Parker,
one of the subscribers to the Edinburgh edition of Burns's Poems: he
has been dead many years: the Epistle was recovered, luckily, from his
papers, and printed for the first time in 1834.]
In this strange land, this uncouth clime,
A land unknown to prose or rhyme;
Where words ne'er crost the muse's heckles,
Nor limpet in poetic shackles:
A land that prose did never view it,
Except when drunk he stacher't thro' it,
Here, ambush'd by the chimla cheek,
Hid in an atmosphere of reek,
I hear a wheel thrum i' the neuk,
I hear it--for in vain I leuk.--
The red peat gleams, a fiery kernel,
Enhusked by a fog infernal:
Here, for my wonted rhyming raptures,
I sit and count my sins by chapters;
For life and spunk like ither Christians,
I'm dwindled down to mere existence,
Wi' nae converse but Gallowa' bodies,
Wi' nae kend face but Jenny Geddes.[75]
Jenny, my Pegasean pride!
Dowie she saunters down Nithside,
And ay a westlin leuk she throws,
While tears hap o'er her auld brown nose!
Was it for this, wi' canny care,
Thou bure the bard through many a shire?
At howes or hillocks never stumbled,
And late or early never grumbled?--
O had I power like inclination,
I'd heeze thee up a constellation,
To canter with the Sagitarre,
Or loup the ecliptic like a bar;
Or turn the pole like any arrow;
Or, when auld Phoebus bids good-morrow,
Down the zodiac urge the race,
And cast dirt on his godship's face;
For I could lay my bread and kail
He'd ne'er cast saut upo' thy tail.--
Wi' a' this care and a' this grief,
And sma,' sma' prospect of relief,
And nought but peat reek i' my head,
How can I write what ye can read?--
Tarbolton, twenty-fourth o' June,
Ye'll find me in a better tune;
But till we meet and weet our whistle,
Tak this excuse for nae epistle.
ROBERT BURNS.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 75: His mare.]
* * * * *
XCVI.
LINES
INTENDED TO BE WRITTEN UNDER
A NOBLE EARL'S PICTURE.
[Burns placed the portraits of Dr. Blacklock and the Earl of
Glencairn, over his parlour chimney-piece at Ellisland: beneath the
head of the latter he wrote some verses, which he sent to the Earl,
and requested leave to make public. This seems to have been refused;
and, as the verses were lost for years, it was believed they were
destroyed: a rough copy, however, is preserved, and is now in the safe
keeping of the Earl's name-son, Major James Glencairn Burns. James
Cunningham, Earl of Glencairn, died 20th January, 1791, aged 42 years;
he was succeeded by his only and childless brother, with whom this
ancient race was closed.]
Whose is that noble dauntless brow?
And whose that eye of fire?
And whose that generous princely mien,
E'en rooted foes admire?
Stranger! to justly show that brow,
And mark that eye of fire,
Would take _His_ hand, whose vernal tints
His other works inspire.
Bright as a cloudless summer sun,
With stately port he moves;
His guardian seraph eyes with awe
The noble ward he loves--
Among th' illustrious Scottish sons
That chief thou may'st discern;
Mark Scotia's fond returning eye--
It dwells upon Glencairn.
* * * * *
XCVII.
ELEGY
ON THE YEAR 1788
A SKETCH.
[This Poem was first printed by Stewart, in 1801. The poet loved to
indulge in such sarcastic sallies: it is full of character, and
reflects a distinct image of those yeasty times.]
For Lords or Kings I dinna mourn,
E'en let them die--for that they're born,
But oh! prodigious to reflec'!
A Towmont, Sirs, is gane to wreck!
O Eighty-eight, in thy sma' space
What dire events ha'e taken place!
Of what enjoyments thou hast reft us!
In what a pickle thou hast left us!
The Spanish empire's tint a-head,
An' my auld toothless Bawtie's dead;
The tulzie's sair 'tween Pitt and Fox,
And our guid wife's wee birdie cocks;
The tane is game, a bluidie devil,
But to the hen-birds unco civil:
The tither's something dour o' treadin',
But better stuff ne'er claw'd a midden--
Ye ministers, come mount the pu'pit,
An' cry till ye be hearse an' roupet,
For Eighty-eight he wish'd you weel,
An' gied you a' baith gear an' meal;
E'en mony a plack, and mony a peck,
Ye ken yoursels, for little feck!
Ye bonnie lasses, dight your e'en,
For some o' you ha'e tint a frien';
In Eighty-eight, ye ken, was ta'en,
What ye'll ne'er ha'e to gie again.
Observe the very nowt an' sheep,
How dowf and dowie now they creep;
Nay, even the yirth itsel' does cry,
For Embro' wells are grutten dry.
O Eighty-nine, thou's but a bairn,
An' no owre auld, I hope, to learn!
Thou beardless boy, I pray tak' care,
Thou now has got thy daddy's chair,
Nae hand-cuff'd, mizl'd, hap-shackl'd Regent,
But, like himsel' a full free agent.
Be sure ye follow out the plan
Nae waur than he did, honest man!
As muckle better as ye can.
_January 1_, 1789.
* * * * *
[Illustration: "THE TOOTHACHE."]
XCVIII.
ADDRESS TO THE TOOTHACHE.
["I had intended," says Burns to Creech, 30th May, 1789, "to have
troubled you with a long letter, but at present the delightful
sensation of an omnipotent toothache so engrosses all my inner man, as
to put it out of my power even to write nonsense." The poetic Address
to the Toothache seems to belong to this period.]
My curse upon thy venom'd stang,
That shoots my tortur'd gums alang;
And thro' my lugs gies mony a twang,
Wi' gnawing vengeance;
Tearing my nerves wi' bitter pang,
Like racking engines!
When fevers burn, or ague freezes,
Rheumatics gnaw, or cholic squeezes;
Our neighbours' sympathy may ease us,
Wi' pitying moan;
But thee--thou hell o' a' diseases,
Ay mocks our groan!
Adown my beard the slavers trickle!
I kick the wee stools o'er the mickle,
As round the fire the giglets keckle,
To see me loup;
While, raving mad, I wish a heckle
Were in their doup.
O' a' the num'rous human dools,
Ill har'sts, daft bargains, cutty-stools,
Or worthy friends rak'd i' the mools,
Sad sight to see!
The tricks o' knaves, or fash o' fools,
Thou bears't the gree.
Where'er that place be priests ca' hell,
Whence a' the tones o' mis'ry yell,
And ranked plagues their numbers tell,
In dreadfu' raw,
Thou, Toothache, surely bear'st the bell
Amang them a'!
O thou grim mischief-making chiel,
That gars the notes of discord squeel,
'Till daft mankind aft dance a reel
In gore a shoe-thick!--
Gie' a' the faes o' Scotland's weal
A towmond's Toothache.
* * * * *
XCIX.
ODE
SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF
MRS. OSWALD,
OF AUCHENCRUIVE.
[The origin of this harsh effusion shows under what feelings Burns
sometimes wrote. He was, he says, on his way to Ayrshire, one stormy
day in January, and had made himself comfortable, in spite of the
snow-drift, over a smoking bowl, at an inn at the Sanquhar, when in
wheeled the whole funeral pageantry of Mrs. Oswald. He was obliged to
mount his horse and ride for quarters to New Cumnock, where, over a
good fire, he penned, in his very ungallant indignation, the Ode to
the lady's memory. He lived to think better of the name.]
Dweller in yon dungeon dark,
Hangman of creation, mark!
Who in widow-weeds appears,
Laden with unhonoured years,
Noosing with care a bursting purse,
Baited with many a deadly curse?
STROPHE.
View the wither'd beldam's face--
Can thy keen inspection trace
Aught of Humanity's sweet melting grace?
Note that eye, 'tis rheum o'erflows,
Pity's flood there never rose.
See these hands, ne'er stretch'd to save,
Hands that took--but never gave.
Keeper of Mammon's iron chest,
Lo, there she goes, unpitied and unblest
She goes, but not to realms of everlasting rest!
ANTISTROPHE.
Plunderer of armies, lift thine eyes,
(Awhile forbear, ye tort'ring fiends;)
Seest thou whose step, unwilling hither bends?
No fallen angel, hurl'd from upper skies;
'Tis thy trusty quondam mate,
Doom'd to share thy fiery fate,
She, tardy, hell-ward plies.
EPODE.
And are they of no more avail,
Ten thousand glitt'ring pounds a-year?
In other worlds can Mammon fail,
Omnipotent as he is here?
O, bitter mock'ry of the pompous bier,
While down the wretched vital part is driv'n!
The cave-lodg'd beggar, with a conscience clear,
Expires in rags, unknown, and goes to Heav'n.
* * * * *
C.
FRAGMENT INSCRIBED
TO THE RIGHT HON. C.J. FOX.
[It was late in life before Burns began to think very highly of Fox:
he had hitherto spoken of him rather as a rattler of dice, and a
frequenter of soft company, than as a statesman. As his hopes from the
Tories vanished, he began to think of the Whigs: the first did
nothing, and the latter held out hopes; and as hope, he said was the
cordial of the human heart, he continued to hope on.]
How wisdom and folly meet, mix, and unite;
How virtue and vice blend their black and their white;
How genius, th' illustrious father of fiction,
Confounds rule and law, reconciles contradiction--
I sing: if these mortals, the critics, should bustle,
I care not, not I--let the critics go whistle!
But now for a patron, whose name and whose glory
At once may illustrate and honour my story.
Thou first of our orators, first of our wits;
Yet whose parts and acquirements seem mere lucky hits;
With knowledge so vast, and with judgment so strong,
No man with the half of 'em e'er went far wrong;
With passions so potent, and fancies so bright,
No man with the half of 'em e'er went quite right;--
A sorry, poor misbegot son of the muses,
For using thy name offers fifty excuses.
Good L--d, what is man? for as simple he looks,
Do but try to develope his hooks and his crooks;
With his depths and his shallows, his good and his evil,
All in all he's a problem must puzzle the devil.
On his one ruling passion Sir Pope hugely labours,
That, like th' old Hebrew walking-switch, eats up its neighbours;
Mankind are his show-box--a friend, would you know him?
Pull the string, ruling passion the picture will show him.
What pity, in rearing so beauteous a system,
One trifling particular, truth, should have miss'd him;
For spite of his fine theoretic positions,
Mankind is a science defies definitions.
Some sort all our qualities each to its tribe,
And think human nature they truly describe;
Have you found this, or t'other? there's more in the wind,
As by one drunken fellow his comrades you'll find.
But such is the flaw, or the depth of the plan,
In the make of that wonderful creature, call'd man,
No two virtues, whatever relation they claim,
Nor even two different shades of the same,
Though like as was ever twin brother to brother,
Possessing the one shall imply you've the other.
But truce with abstraction, and truce with a muse,
Whose rhymes you'll perhaps, Sir, ne'er deign to peruse:
Will you leave your justings, your jars, and your quarrels,
Contending with Billy for proud-nodding laurels.
My much-honour'd Patron, believe your poor poet,
Your courage much more than your prudence you show it;
In vain with Squire Billy, for laurels you struggle,
He'll have them by fair trade, if not, he will smuggle;
Not cabinets even of kings would conceal 'em,
He'd up the back-stairs, and by G--he would steal 'em.
Then feats like Squire Billy's you ne'er can achieve 'em;
It is not, outdo him, the task is, out-thieve him.
* * * * *
CI.
ON SEEING
A WOUNDED HARE
LIMP BY ME,
WHICH A FELLOW HAD JUST SHOT.
[This Poem is founded on fact. A young man of the name of Thomson told
me--quite unconscious of the existence of the Poem--that while Burns
lived at Ellisland--he shot at and hurt a hare, which in the twilight
was feeding on his father's wheat-bread. The poet, on observing the
hare come bleeding past him, "was in great wrath," said Thomson, "and
cursed me, and said little hindered him from throwing me into the
Nith; and he was able enough to do it, though I was both young and
strong." The boor of Nithside did not use the hare worse than the
critical Dr. Gregory, of Edinburgh, used the Poem: when Burns read his
remarks he said, "Gregory is a good man, but he crucifies me!"]
Inhuman man! curse on thy barb'rous art,
And blasted be thy murder-aiming eye;
May never pity soothe thee with a sigh,
Nor ever pleasure glad thy cruel heart.
Go live, poor wanderer of the wood and field!
The bitter little that of life remains:
No more the thickening brakes and verdant plains
To thee shall home, or food, or pastime yield.
Seek, mangled wretch, some place of wonted rest,
No more of rest, but now thy dying bed!
The sheltering rushes whistling o'er thy head,
The cold earth with thy bloody bosom prest.
Oft as by winding Nith, I, musing, wait
The sober eve, or hail the cheerful dawn;
I'll miss thee sporting o'er the dewy lawn,
And curse the ruffian's aim, and mourn thy hapless fate.
* * * * *
CII.
TO DR. BLACKLOCK,
IN ANSWER TO A LETTER.
[This blind scholar, though an indifferent Poet, was an excellent and
generous man: he was foremost of the Edinburgh literati to admire the
Poems of Burns, promote their fame, and advise that the author,
instead of shipping himself for Jamaica, should come to Edinburgh and
publish a new edition. The poet reverenced the name of Thomas
Blacklock to the last hour of his life.--Henry Mackenzie, the Earl of
Glencairn, and the Blind Bard, were his three favourites.]
_Ellisland, 21st Oct._ 1789.
Wow, but your letter made me vauntie!
And are ye hale, and weel, and cantie?
I kenn'd it still your wee bit jauntie
Wad bring ye to:
Lord send you ay as weel's I want ye,
And then ye'll do.
The ill-thief blaw the heron south!
And never drink be near his drouth!
He tauld mysel' by word o' mouth,
He'd tak my letter:
I lippen'd to the chief in trouth,
And bade nae better.
But aiblins honest Master Heron,
Had at the time some dainty fair one,
To ware his theologic care on,
And holy study;
And tir'd o' sauls to waste his lear on
E'en tried the body.
But what dy'e think, my trusty fier,
I'm turn'd a gauger--Peace be here!
Parnassian queans, I fear, I fear,
Ye'll now disdain me!
And then my fifty pounds a year
Will little gain me.
Ye glaiket, gleesome, dainty damies,
Wha, by Castalia's wimplin' streamies,
Lowp, sing, and lave your pretty limbies,
Ye ken, ye ken,
That strang necessity supreme is
'Mang sons o' men.
I hae a wife and twa wee laddies,
They maun hae brose and brats o' duddies;
Ye ken yoursels my heart right proud is--
I need na vaunt,
But I'll sned besoms--thraw saugh woodies,
Before they want.
Lord help me thro' this warld o' care!
I'm weary sick o't late and air!
Not but I hae a richer share
Than mony ithers:
But why should ae man better fare,
And a' men brithers?
Come, firm Resolve, take then the van,
Thou stalk o' carl-hemp in man!
And let us mind, faint-heart ne'er wan
A lady fair:
Wha does the utmost that he can,
Will whyles do mair.
But to conclude my silly rhyme,
(I'm scant o' verse, and scant o' time,)
To make a happy fire-side clime
To weans and wife,
That's the true pathos and sublime
Of human life.
My compliments to sister Beckie;
And eke the same to honest Lucky,
I wat she is a dainty chuckie,
As e'er tread clay!
And gratefully, my guid auld cockie,
I'm yours for ay,
ROBERT BURNS.
* * * * *
CIII.
DELIA.
AN ODE.
[These verses were first printed in the Star newspaper, in May, 1789.
It is said that one day a friend read to the poet some verses from the
Star, composed on the pattern of Pope's song, by a Person of Quality.
"These lines are beyond you," he added: "the muse of Kyle cannot match
the muse of London." Burns mused a moment, then recited "Delia, an
Ode."]
Fair the face of orient day,
Fair the tints of op'ning rose,
But fairer still my Delia dawns,
More lovely far her beauty blows.
Sweet the lark's wild-warbled lay,
Sweet the tinkling rill to hear;
But, Delia, more delightful still
Steal thine accents on mine ear.
The flow'r-enamoured busy bee
The rosy banquet loves to sip;
Sweet the streamlet's limpid lapse
To the sun-brown'd Arab's lip;--
But, Delia, on thy balmy lips
Let me, no vagrant insect, rove!
O, let me steal one liquid kiss!
For, oh! my soul is parch'd with love.
* * * * *
CIV.
TO JOHN M'MURDO, ESQ.
[John M'Murdo, Esq., one of the chamberlains of the Duke of
Queensberry, lived at Drumlanrig: he was a high-minded, warm-hearted
man, and much the friend of the poet. These lines accompanied a
present of books: others were added soon afterwards on a pane of glass
in Drumlanrig castle.
"Blest be M'Murdo to his latest day!
No envious cloud o'ercast his evening ray;
No wrinkle furrowed by the hand of care,
Nor ever sorrow add one silver hair!
O may no son the father's honour stain,
Nor ever daughter give the mother pain."
How fully the poet's wishes were fulfilled need not be told to any one
acquainted with the family.]
O, could I give thee India's wealth,
As I this trifle send!
Because thy joy in both would be
To share them with a friend.
But golden sands did never grace
The Heliconian stream;
Then take what gold could never buy--
An honest Bard's esteem.
* * * * *
CV.
PROLOGUE,
SPOKEN AT THE THEATRE, DUMFRIES,
1 JAN. 1790.
[This prologue was written in December, 1789, for Mr. Sutherland, who
recited it with applause in the little theatre of Dumfries, on
new-year's night. Sir Harris Nicolas, however, has given to Ellisland
the benefit of a theatre! and to Burns the whole barony of Dalswinton
for a farm!]
No song nor dance I bring from yon great city
That queens it o'er our taste--the more's the pity:
Tho', by-the-by, abroad why will you roam?
Good sense and taste are natives here at home:
But not for panegyric I appear,
I come to wish you all a good new year!
Old Father Time deputes me here before ye,
Not for to preach, but tell his simple story:
The sage grave ancient cough'd, and bade me say,
"You're one year older this important day."
If wiser too--he hinted some suggestion,
But 'twould be rude, you know, to ask the question;
And with a would-be roguish leer and wink,
He bade me on you press this one word--"think!"
Ye sprightly youths, quite flushed with hope and spirit,
Who think to storm the world by dint of merit,
To you the dotard has a deal to say,
In his sly, dry, sententious, proverb way;
He bids you mind, amid your thoughtless rattle,
That the first blow is ever half the battle:
That tho' some by the skirt may try to snatch him,
Yet by the forelock is the hold to catch him;
That whether doing, suffering, or forbearing,
You may do miracles by persevering.
Last, tho' not least in love, ye youthful fair,
Angelic forms, high Heaven's peculiar care!
To yon old Bald-pate smooths his wrinkled brow,
And humbly begs you'll mind the important NOW!
To crown your happiness he asks your leave,
And offers bliss to give and to receive.
For our sincere, tho' haply weak endeavours,
With grateful pride we own your many favours,
And howsoe'er our tongues may ill reveal it,
Believe our glowing bosoms truly feel it.
* * * * *
CVI.
SCOTS PROLOGUE,
FOR MR. SUTHERLAND'S BENEFIT NIGHT,
DUMFRIES.
[Burns did not shine in prologues: he produced some vigorous lines,
but they did not come in harmony from his tongue, like the songs in
which he recorded the loveliness of the dames of Caledonia. Sutherland
was manager of the theatre, and a writer of rhymes.--Burns said his
players were a very decent set: he had seen them an evening or two.]
What needs this din about the town o' Lon'on,
How this new play an' that new sang is comin'?
Why is outlandish stuff sae meikle courted?
Does nonsense mend like whiskey, when imported?
Is there nae poet, burning keen for fame,
Will try to gie us songs and plays at hame?
For comedy abroad he need nae toil,
A fool and knave are plants of every soil;
Nor need he hunt as far as Rome and Greece
To gather matter for a serious piece;
There's themes enough in Caledonian story,
Would show the tragic muse in a' her glory.
Is there no daring bard will rise, and tell
How glorious Wallace stood, how hapless fell?
Where are the muses fled that could produce
A drama worthy o' the name o' Bruce;
How here, even here, he first unsheath'd the sword,
'Gainst mighty England and her guilty lord,
And after mony a bloody, deathless doing,
Wrench'd his dear country from the jaws of ruin?
O for a Shakspeare or an Otway scene,
To draw the lovely, hapless Scottish Queen!
Vain all th' omnipotence of female charms
'Gainst headlong, ruthless, mad Rebellion's arms.
She fell, but fell with spirit truly Roman,
To glut the vengeance of a rival woman;
A woman--tho' the phrase may seem uncivil--
As able and as cruel as the Devil!
One Douglas lives in Home's immortal page,
But Douglases were heroes every age:
And tho' your fathers, prodigal of life,
A Douglas follow'd to the martial strife,
Perhaps if bowls row right, and right succeeds,
Ye yet may follow where a Douglas leads!
As ye hae generous done, if a' the land
Would take the muses' servants by the hand;
Not only hear, but patronize, befriend them,
And where ye justly can commend, commend them;
And aiblins when they winna stand the test,
Wink hard, and say the folks hae done their best!
Would a' the land do this, then I'll be caution
Ye'll soon hae poets o' the Scottish nation,
Will gar fame blaw until her trumpet crack,
And warsle time, on' lay him on his back!
For us and for our stage should ony spier,
"Whose aught thae chiels maks a' this bustle here!"
My best leg foremost, I'll set up my brow,
We have the honour to belong to you!
We're your ain bairns, e'en guide us as ye like,
But like good withers, shore before ye strike.--
And gratefu' still I hope ye'll ever find us,
For a' the patronage and meikle kindness
We've got frae a' professions, sets, and ranks:
God help us! we're but poor--ye'se get but thanks.
* * * * *
CVII.
SKETCH.
NEW YEAR'S DAY.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[This is a picture of the Dunlop family: it was printed from a hasty
sketch, which the poet called extempore. The major whom it mentions,
was General Andrew Dunlop, who died in 1804: Rachel Dunlop was
afterwards married to Robert Glasgow, Esq. Another of the Dunlops
served with distinction in India, where he rose to the rank of
General. They were a gallant race, and all distinguished.]
This day, Time winds th' exhausted chain,
To run the twelvemonth's length again:
I see the old, bald-pated follow,
With ardent eyes, complexion sallow,
Adjust the unimpair'd machine,
To wheel the equal, dull routine.
The absent lover, minor heir,
In vain assail him with their prayer;
Deaf as my friend, he sees them press,
Nor makes the hour one moment less.
Will you (the Major's with the hounds,
The happy tenants share his rounds;
Coila's fair Rachel's care to-day,
And blooming Keith's engaged with Gray)
From housewife cares a minute borrow--
That grandchild's cap will do to-morrow--
And join with me a moralizing,
This day's propitious to be wise in.
First, what did yesternight deliver?
"Another year is gone for ever."
And what is this day's strong suggestion?
"The passing moment's all we rest on!"
Rest on--for what? what do we here?
Or why regard the passing year?
Will time, amus'd with proverb'd lore,
Add to our date one minute more?
A few days more--a few years must--
Repose us in the silent dust.
Then is it wise to damp our bliss?
Yes--all such reasonings are amiss!
The voice of nature loudly cries,
And many a message from the skies,
That something in us never dies:
That on this frail, uncertain state,
Hang matters of eternal weight:
That future life in worlds unknown
Must take its hue from this alone;
Whether as heavenly glory bright,
Or dark as misery's woeful night.--
Since then, my honour'd, first of friends,
On this poor being all depends,
Let us th' important _now_ employ,
And live as those who never die.--
Tho' you, with days and honours crown'd,
Witness that filial circle round,
(A sight, life's sorrows to repulse,
A sight, pale envy to convulse,)
Others now claim your chief regard;
Yourself, you wait your bright reward.
* * * * *
CVIII.
TO A GENTLEMAN
WHO HAD SENT HIM A NEWSPAPER, AND OFFERED TO
CONTINUE IT FREE OF EXPENSE.
[These sarcastic lines contain a too true picture of the times in
which they were written. Though great changes have taken place in
court and camp, yet Austria, Russia, and Prussia keep the tack of
Poland: nobody says a word of Denmark: emasculated Italy is still
singing; opera girls are still dancing; but Chatham Will, glaikit
Charlie, Daddie Burke, Royal George, and Geordie Wales, have all
passed to their account.]
Kind Sir, I've read your paper through,
And, faith, to me 'twas really new!
How guess'd ye, Sir, what maist I wanted?
This mony a day I've grain'd and gaunted,
To ken what French mischief was brewin';
Or what the drumlie Dutch were doin';
That vile doup-skelper, Emperor Joseph,
If Venus yet had got his nose off;
Or how the collieshangie works
Atween the Russians and the Turks:
Or if the Swede, before he halt,
Would play anither Charles the Twalt:
If Denmark, any body spak o't;
Or Poland, wha had now the tack o't;
How cut-throat Prussian blades were hingin';
How libbet Italy was singin';
If Spaniard, Portuguese, or Swiss
Were sayin' or takin' aught amiss:
Or how our merry lads at hame,
In Britain's court kept up the game:
How royal George, the Lord leuk o'er him!
Was managing St. Stephen's quorum;
If sleekit Chatham Will was livin';
Or glaikit Charlie got his nieve in:
How daddie Burke the plea was cookin',
If Warren Hastings' neck was yeukin;
How cesses, stents, and fees were rax'd,
Or if bare a--s yet were tax'd;
The news o' princes, dukes, and earls,
Pimps, sharpers, bawds, and opera girls;
If that daft buckie, Geordie Wales,
Was threshin' still at hizzies' tails;
Or if he was grown oughtlins douser,
And no a perfect kintra cooser.--
A' this and mair I never heard of;
And but for you I might despair'd of.
So, gratefu', back your news I send you,
And pray, a' guid things may attend you!
_Ellisland, Monday morning_, 1790.
* * * * *
CIX.
THE KIRK'S ALARM;[76]
A SATIRE.
[FIRST VERSION.]
[The history of this Poem is curious. M'Gill, one of the ministers of
Ayr, long suspected of entertaining heterodox opinions concerning
original sin and the Trinity, published "A Practical Essay on the
Death of Jesus Christ," which, in the opinion of the more rigid
portion of his brethren, inclined both to Arianism and Socinianism.
This essay was denounced as heretical, by a minister of the name
Peebles, in a sermon preached November 5th, 1788, and all the west
country was in a flame. The subject was brought before the Synod, and
was warmly debated till M'Gill expressed his regret for the disquiet
he had occasioned, explained away or apologized for the challenged
passages in his Essay, and declared his adherence to the Standard
doctrines of his mother church. Burns was prevailed upon to bring his
satire to the aid of M'Gill, but he appears to have done so with
reluctance.]
Orthodox, orthodox,
Wha believe in John Knox,
Let me sound an alarm to your conscience:
There's a heretic blast
Has been blawn in the wast,
That what is no sense must be nonsense.
Dr. Mac,[77] Dr. Mac,
You should stretch on a rack,
To strike evil doers wi' terror;
To join faith and sense
Upon ony pretence,
Is heretic, damnable error.
Town of Ayr, town of Ayr,
It was mad, I declare,
To meddle wi' mischief a-brewing;
Provost John[78] is still deaf
To the church's relief,
And orator Bob[79] is its ruin.
D'rymple mild,[80] D'rymple mild,
Thro' your heart's like a child,
And your life like the new driven snaw,
Yet that winna save ye,
Auld Satan must hav ye,
For preaching that three's ane an' twa.
Rumble John,[81] Rumble John,
Mount the steps wi' a groan,
Cry the book is wi' heresy cramm'd;
Then lug out your ladle,
Deal brimstone like adle,
And roar every note of the danm'd.
Simper James,[82] Simper James,
Leave the fair Killie dames,
There's a holier chase in your view;
I'll lay on your head
That the pack ye'll soon lead.
For puppies like you there's but few.
Singet Sawney,[83] Singet Sawney,
Are ye herding the penny,
Unconscious what evil await?
Wi' a jump, yell, and howl,
Alarm every soul,
For the foul thief is just at your gate.
Daddy Auld,[84] Daddy Auld,
There's a tod in the fauld,
A tod meikle waur than the clerk;
Though yo can do little skaith,
Ye'll be in at the death,
And gif ye canna bite, ye may bark.
Davie Bluster,[85] Davie Bluster,
If for a saint ye do muster,
The corps is no nice of recruits;
Yet to worth let's be just,
Royal blood ye might boast,
If the ass was the king of the brutes.
Jamy Goose,[86] Jamy Goose,
Ye ha'e made but toom roose,
In hunting the wicked lieutenant;
But the Doctor's your mark,
For the L--d's haly ark;
He has cooper'd and cawd a wrang pin in't.
Poet Willie,[87] Poet Willie,
Fie the Doctor a volley,
Wi' your liberty's chain and your wit;
O'er Pegasus' side
Ye ne'er laid astride,
Ye but smelt, man, the place where he ----.
Andro Gouk,[88], Andro Gouk,
Ye may slander the book,
And the book not the waur, let me tell ye;
Ye are rich and look big,
But lay by hat and wig,
And ye'll ha'e a calf's head o' sma' value.
Barr Steenie,[89] Barr Steenie,
What mean ye, what mean ye?
If ye'll meddle nae mair wi' the matter,
Ye may ha'e some pretence
To havins and sense,
Wi' people wha ken ye nae better.
Irvine side,[90] Irvine side,
Wi' your turkey-cock pride,
Of manhood but sum' is your share,
Ye've the figure 'tis true,
Even your faes will allow,
And your friends they dae grunt you nae mair.
Muirland Jock,[91] Muirland Jock,
When the L--d makes a rock
To crush Common sense for her sins,
If ill manners were wit,
There's no mortal so fit
To confound the poor Doctor at ance.
Holy Will,[92] Holy Will,
There was wit i' your skull,
When ye pilfer'd the alms o' the poor;
The timmer is scant,
When ye're ta'en for a saunt,
Wha should swing in a rape for an hour.
Calvin's sons, Calvin's sons,
Seize your spir'tual guns,
Ammunition you never can need;
Your hearts are the stuff,
Will be powther enough,
And your skulls are storehouses o' lead.
Poet Burns, Poet Burns,
Wi' your priest-skelping turns,
Why desert ye your auld native shire?
Your muse is a gipsie,
E'en tho' she were tipsie,
She could ca' us nae waur than we are.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 76: This Poem was written a short time after the publication
of M'Gill's Essay.]
[Footnote 77: Dr. M'Gill.]
[Footnote 78: John Ballantyne.]
[Footnote 79: Robert Aiken.]
[Footnote 80: Dr. Dalrymple.]
[Footnote 81: Mr. Russell.]
[Footnote 82: Mr. M'Kinlay.]
[Footnote 83: Mr. Moody, of Riccarton.]
[Footnote 84: Mr. Auld of Mauchline.]
[Footnote 85: Mr. Grant, of Ochiltree.]
[Footnote 86: Mr. Young, of Cumnock.]
[Footnote 87: Mr. Peebles, Ayr.]
[Footnote 88: Dr. Andrew Mitchell, of Monkton.]
[Footnote 89: Mr. Stephen Young, of Barr.]
[Footnote 90: Mr. George Smith, of Galston.]
[Footnote 91: Mr. John Shepherd, Muirkirk.]
[Footnote 92: Holy Willie, alias William Fisher, Elder in Mauchline.]
* * * * *
CX.
THE KIRK'S ALARM.
A BALLAD.
[SECOND VERSION.]
[This version is from the papers of Miss Logan, of Afton. The origin
of the Poem is thus related to Graham of Fintry by the poet himself:
"Though I dare say you have none of the solemn League and Covenant
fire Which shone so conspicuous in Lord George Gordon, and the
Kilmarnock weavers, yet I think you must have heard of Dr. M'Gill, one
of the clergymen of Ayr, and his heretical book, God help him, poor
man! Though one of the worthiest, as well as one of the ablest of the
whole priesthood of the Kirk of Scotland, in every sense of that
ambiguous term, yet the poor doctor and his numerous family are in
imminent danger of being thrown out (9th December, 1790) to the mercy
of the winter winds. The enclosed ballad on that business, is, I
confess too local: but I laughed myself at some conceits in it, though
I am convinced in my conscience there are a good many heavy stanzas in
it too." The Kirk's Alarm was first printed by Stewart, in 1801.
Cromek calls it, "A silly satire, on some worthy ministers of the
gospel, in Ayrshire."]
I.
Orthodox, orthodox,
Who believe in John Knox,
Let me sound an alarm to your conscience--
There's a heretic blast,
Has been blawn i' the wast,
That what is not sense must be nonsense,
Orthodox,
That what is not sense must be nonsense.
II.
Doctor Mac, Doctor Mac,
Ye should stretch on a rack,
And strike evil doers wi' terror;
To join faith and sense,
Upon any pretence,
Was heretic damnable error,
Doctor Mac,
Was heretic damnable error.
III.
Town of Ayr, town of Ayr,
It was rash I declare,
To meddle wi' mischief a-brewing;
Provost John is still deaf,
To the church's relief,
And orator Bob is its ruin,
Town Of Ayr,
And orator Bob is its ruin.
IV.
D'rymple mild, D'rymple mild,
Tho' your heart's like a child,
And your life like the new-driven snaw,
Yet that winna save ye,
Old Satan must have ye
For preaching that three's are an' twa,
D'rymple mild,
For preaching that three's are an' twa.
V.
Calvin's sons, Calvin's sons,
Seize your spiritual guns,
Ammunition ye never can need;
Your hearts are the stuff,
Will be powder enough,
And your skulls are a storehouse of lead,
Calvin's sons,
And your skulls are a storehouse of lead.
VI.
Rumble John, Rumble John,
Mount the steps with a groan,
Cry the book is with heresy cramm'd;
Then lug out your ladle,
Deal brimstone like aidle,
And roar every note o' the damn'd,
Rumble John,
And roar every note o' the damn'd.
VII.
Simper James, Simper James,
Leave the fair Killie dames,
There's a holier chase in your view;
I'll lay on your head,
That the pack ye'll soon lead,
For puppies like you there's but few,
Simper James,
For puppies like you there's but few.
VIII.
Singet Sawnie, Singet Sawnie,
Are ye herding the penny,
Unconscious what danger awaits?
With a jump, yell, and howl,
Alarm every soul,
For Hannibal's just at your gates,
Singet Sawnie,
For Hannibal's just at your gates.
IX.
Andrew Gowk, Andrew Gowk,
Ye may slander the book,
And the book nought the waur--let me tell you;
Tho' ye're rich and look big,
Yet lay by hat and wig,
And ye'll hae a calf's-head o' sma' value,
Andrew Gowk,
And ye'll hae a calf's-head o' sma' value.
X.
Poet Willie, Poet Willie,
Gie the doctor a volley,
Wi' your "liberty's chain" and your wit;
O'er Pegasus' side,
Ye ne'er laid a stride
Ye only stood by when he ----,
Poet Willie,
Ye only stood by when he ----.
XI.
Barr Steenie, Barr Steenie,
What mean ye? what mean ye?
If ye'll meddle nae mair wi' the matter,
Ye may hae some pretence, man,
To havins and sense, man,
Wi' people that ken ye nae better,
Barr Steenie,
Wi' people that ken ye nae better.
XII.
Jamie Goose, Jamie Goose,
Ye hae made but toom roose,
O' hunting the wicked lieutenant;
But the doctor's your mark,
For the L--d's holy ark,
He has cooper'd and ca'd a wrong pin in't,
Jamie Goose,
He has cooper'd and ca'd a wrong pin in't.
XIII.
Davie Bluster, Davie Bluster,
For a saunt if ye muster,
It's a sign they're no nice o' recruits,
Yet to worth let's be just,
Royal blood ye might boast,
If the ass were the king o' the brutes,
Davie Bluster,
If the ass were the king o' the brutes.
XIV.
Muirland George, Muirland George,
Whom the Lord made a scourge,
To claw common sense for her sins;
If ill manners were wit,
There's no mortal so fit,
To confound the poor doctor at ance,
Muirland George,
To confound the poor doctor at ance.
XV.
Cessnockside, Cessnockside,
Wi' your turkey-cock pride,
O' manhood but sma' is your share;
Ye've the figure, it's true,
Even our faes maun allow,
And your friends daurna say ye hae mair,
Cessnockside,
And your friends daurna say ye hae mair.
XVI.
Daddie Auld, Daddie Auld,
There's a tod i' the fauld
A tod meikle waur than the clerk;[93]
Tho' ye downa do skaith,
Ye'll be in at the death,
And if ye canna bite ye can bark,
Daddie Auld,
And if ye canna bite ye can bark.
XVII.
Poet Burns, Poet Burns,
Wi' your priest-skelping turns,
Why desert ye your auld native shire?
Tho' your Muse is a gipsy,
Yet were she even tipsy,
She could ca' us nae waur than we are,
Poet Burns,
She could ca' us nae waur than we are.
* * * * *
POSTSCRIPT.
Afton's Laird, Afton's Laird,
When your pen can be spar'd,
A copy o' this I bequeath,
On the same sicker score
I mentioned before,
To that trusty auld worthy Clackleith,
Afton's Laird,
To that trusty auld worthy Clackleith.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 93: Gavin Hamilton.]
* * * * *
CXI.
PEG NICHOLSON.
[These hasty verses are to be found in a letter addressed to Nicol, of
the High School of Edinburgh, by the poet, giving him on account of
the unlooked-for death of his mare, Peg Nicholson, the successor of
Jenny Geddes. She had suffered both in the employ of the joyous priest
and the thoughtless poet. She acquired her name from that frantic
virago who attempted to murder George the Third.]
Peg Nicholson was a good bay mare,
As ever trode on airn;
But now she's floating down the Nith,
And past the mouth o' Cairn.
Peg Nicholson was a good bay mare,
And rode thro' thick an' thin;
But now she's floating down the Nith,
And wanting even the skin.
Peg Nicholson was a good bay mare,
And ance she bore a priest;
But now she's flouting down the Nith,
For Solway fish a feast.
Peg Nicholson was a good bay mare,
And the priest he rode her sair;
And much oppress'd and bruis'd she was;
As priest-rid cattle are, &c. &c.
* * * * *
CXII.
ON
CAPTAIN MATTHEW HENDERSON,
A GENTLEMAN WHO HELD THE PATENT FOR HIS HONOURS
IMMEDIATELY FROM ALMIGHTY GOD.
"Should the poor be flattered?"
SHAKSPEARE.
But now his radiant course is run,
For Matthew's course was bright;
His soul was like the glorious sun,
A matchless heav'nly light!
[Captain Matthew Henderson, a gentleman of very agreeable manners and
great propriety of character, usually lived in Edinburgh, dined
constantly at Fortune's Tavern, and was a member of the Capillaire
Club, which was composed of all who desired to be thought witty or
joyous: he died in 1789: Burns, in a note to the Poem, says, "I loved
the man much, and have not flattered his memory." Henderson seems
indeed to have been universally liked. "In our travelling party," says
Sir James Campbell, of Ardkinglass, "was Matthew Henderson, then
(1759) and afterwards well known and much esteemed in the town of
Edinburgh; at that time an officer in the twenty-fifth regiment of
foot, and like myself on his way to join the army; and I may say with
truth, that in the course of a long life I have never known a more
estimable character, than Matthew Henderson." _Memoirs of Campbell, of
Ardkinglass_, p. 17.]
O death! thou tyrant fell and bloody!
The meikle devil wi' a woodie
Haurl thee hame to his black smiddie,
O'er hurcheon hides,
And like stock-fish come o'er his studdie
Wi' thy auld sides!
He's gane! he's gane! he's frae us torn,
The ae best fellow e'er was born!
Thee, Matthew, Nature's sel' shall mourn
By wood and wild,
Where, haply, pity strays forlorn,
Frae man exil'd!
Ye hills! near neebors o' the starns,
That proudly cock your cresting cairns!
Ye cliffs, the haunts of sailing yearns,
Where echo slumbers!
Come join, ye Nature's sturdiest bairns,
My wailing numbers!
Mourn, ilka grove the cushat kens!
Ye haz'lly shaws and briery dens!
Ye burnies, wimplin' down your glens,
Wi' toddlin' din,
Or foaming strang, wi' hasty stens,
Frae lin to lin!
Mourn, little harebells o'er the lea;
Ye stately foxgloves fair to see;
Ye woodbines, hanging bonnilie,
In scented bow'rs;
Ye roses on your thorny tree,
The first o' flow'rs.
At dawn, when ev'ry grassy blade
Droops with a diamond at its head,
At ev'n, when beans their fragrance shed
I' th' rustling gale,
Ye maukins whiddin thro' the glade,
Come join my wail.
Mourn, ye wee songsters o' the wood;
Ye grouse that crap the heather bud;
Ye curlews calling thro' a clud;
Ye whistling plover;
An' mourn, ye whirring paitrick brood!--
He's gane for ever!
Mourn, sooty coots, and speckled teals;
Ye fisher herons, watching eels:
Ye duck and drake, wi' airy wheels
Circling the lake;
Ye bitterns, till the quagmire reels,
Rair for his sake.
Mourn, clam'ring craiks, at close o' day,
'Mang fields o' flowering clover gay;
And when ye wing your annual way
Frae our cauld shore,
Tell thae far warlds, wha lies in clay,
Wham we deplore.
Ye houlets, frae your ivy bow'r,
In some auld tree, or eldritch tow'r,
What time the moon, wi' silent glow'r,
Sets up her horn,
Wail thro' the dreary midnight hour
'Till waukrife morn!
O rivers, forests, hills, and plains!
Oft have ye heard my canty strains:
But now, what else for me remains
But tales of woe?
And frae my een the drapping rains
Maun ever flow.
Mourn, spring, thou darling of the year!
Ilk cowslip cup shall kep a tear:
Thou, simmer, while each corny spear
Shoots up its head,
The gay, green, flow'ry tresses shear
For him that's dead!
Thou, autumn, wi' thy yellow hair,
In grief thy sallow mantle tear:
Thou, winter, hurling thro' the air
The roaring blast,
Wide, o'er the naked world declare
The worth we've lost!
Mourn him, thou sun, great source of light!
Mourn, empress of the silent night!
And you, ye twinkling starnies bright,
My Matthew mourn!
For through your orbs he's ta'en his flight,
Ne'er to return.
O, Henderson! the man--the brother!
And art thou gone, and gone for ever?
And hast thou crost that unknown river
Life's dreary bound?
Like thee, where shall I find another,
The world around?
Go to your sculptur'd tombs, ye great,
In a' the tinsel trash o' state!
But by thy honest turf I'll wait,
Thou man of worth!
And weep the ae best fellow's fate
E'er lay in earth.
THE EPITAPH.
Stop, passenger!--my story's brief,
And truth I shall relate, man;
I tell nae common tale o' grief--
For Matthew was a great man.
If thou uncommon merit hast,
Yet spurn'd at fortune's door, man,
A look of pity hither cast--
For Matthew was a poor man.
If thou a noble sodger art,
That passest by this grave, man,
There moulders here a gallant heart--
For Matthew was a brave man.
If thou on men, their works and ways,
Canst throw uncommon light, man,
Here lies wha weel had won thy praise--
For Matthew was a bright man.
If thou at friendship's sacred ca'
Wad life itself resign, man,
Thy sympathetic tear maun fa'--
For Matthew was a kind man!
If thou art staunch without a stain,
Like the unchanging blue, man,
This was a kinsman o' thy ain--
For Matthew was a true man.
If thou hast wit, and fun, and fire,
And ne'er guid wine did fear, man,
This was thy billie, dam and sire--
For Matthew was a queer man.
If ony whiggish whingin sot,
To blame poor Matthew dare, man,
May dool and sorrow be his lot!
For Matthew was a rare man.
* * * * *
CXIII.
THE FIVE CARLINS.
A SCOTS BALLAD.
Tune--_Chevy Chase._
[This is a local and political Poem composed on the contest between
Miller, the younger, of Dalswinton, and Johnstone, of Westerhall, for
the representation of the Dumfries and Galloway district of Boroughs.
Each town or borough speaks and acts in character: Maggy personates
Dumfries; Marjory, Lochmaben; Bess of Solway-side, Annan; Whiskey Jean,
Kirkcudbright; and Black Joan, Sanquhar. On the part of Miller, all
the Whig interest of the Duke of Queensberry was exerted, and all the
Tory interest on the side of the Johnstone: the poet's heart was with
the latter. Annan and Lochmaben stood staunch by old names and old
affections: after a contest, bitterer than anything of the kind
remembered, the Whig interest prevailed.]
There were five carlins in the south,
They fell upon a scheme,
To send a lad to London town,
To bring them tidings hame.
Not only bring them tidings hame,
But do their errands there;
And aiblins gowd and honour baith
Might be that laddie's share.
There was Maggy by the banks o' Nith,
A dame wi' pride eneugh;
And Marjory o' the mony lochs,
A carlin auld and teugh.
And blinkin' Bess of Annandale,
That dwelt near Solway-side;
And whiskey Jean, that took her gill
In Galloway sae wide.
And black Joan, frae Crighton-peel,
O' gipsey kith an' kin;--
Five wighter carlins were na found
The south countrie within.
To send a lad to London town,
They met upon a day;
And mony a knight, and mony a laird,
This errand fain wad gae.
O mony a knight, and mony a laird,
This errand fain wad gae;
But nae ane could their fancy please,
O ne'er a ane but twae.
The first ane was a belted knight,
Bred of a border band;
And he wad gae to London town,
Might nae man him withstand.
And he wad do their errands weel,
And meikle he wad say;
And ilka ane about the court
Wad bid to him gude-day.
The neist cam in a sodger youth,
And spak wi' modest grace,
And he wad gae to London town,
If sae their pleasure was.
He wad na hecht them courtly gifts,
Nor meikle speech pretend;
But he wad hecht an honest heart,
Wad ne'er desert his friend.
Then wham to chuse, and wham refuse,
At strife thir carlins fell;
For some had gentlefolks to please,
And some wad please themsel'.
Then out spak mim-mou'd Meg o' Nith,
And she spak up wi' pride,
And she wad send the sodger youth,
Whatever might betide.
For the auld gudeman o' London court
She didna care a pin;
But she wad send the sodger youth
To greet his eldest son.
Then slow raise Marjory o' the Lochs
And wrinkled was her brow;
Her ancient weed was russet gray,
Her auld Scotch heart was true.
"The London court set light by me--
I set as light by them;
And I wilt send the sodger lad
To shaw that court the same."
Then up sprang Bess of Annandale,
And swore a deadly aith,
Says, "I will send the border-knight
Spite o' you carlins baith.
"For far-off fowls hae feathers fair,
And fools o' change are fain;
But I hae try'd this border-knight,
I'll try him yet again."
Then whiskey Jean spak o'er her drink,
"Ye weel ken, kimmersa',
The auld gudeman o' London court,
His back's been at the wa'.
"And mony a friend that kiss'd his caup,
Is now a fremit wight;
But it's ne'er be sae wi' whiskey Jean,--
We'll send the border-knight."
Says black Joan o' Crighton-peel,
A carlin stoor and grim,--
"The auld gudeman, or the young gudeman,
For me may sink or swim.
"For fools will prate o' right and wrang,
While knaves laugh in their sleeve;
But wha blaws best the horn shall win,
I'll spier nae courtier's leave."
So how this mighty plea may end
There's naebody can tell:
God grant the king, and ilka man,
May look weel to himsel'!
* * * * *
CXIV.
THE LADDIES BY THE BANKS O' NITH.
[This short Poem was first published by Robert Chambers. It intimates
pretty strongly, how much the poet disapproved of the change which
came over the Duke of Queensberry's opinions, when he supported the
right of the Prince of Wales to assume the government, without consent
of Parliament, during the king's alarming illness, in 1788.]
The laddies by the banks o' Nith,
Wad trust his Grace wi' a', Jamie,
But he'll sair them, as he sair'd the King,
Turn tail and rin awa', Jamie.
Up and waur them a', Jamie,
Up and waur them a';
The Johnstones hae the guidin' o't,
Ye turncoat Whigs awa'.
The day he stude his country's friend,
Or gied her faes a claw, Jamie:
Or frae puir man a blessin' wan,
That day the Duke ne'er saw, Jamie.
But wha is he, his country's boast?
Like him there is na twa, Jamie,
There's no a callant tents the kye,
But kens o' Westerha', Jamie.
To end the wark here's Whistlebirk,[94]
Lang may his whistle blaw, Jamie;
And Maxwell true o' sterling blue:
And we'll be Johnstones a', Jamie.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 94: Birkwhistle: a Galloway laird, and elector.]
* * * * *
CXV.
EPISTLE TO ROBERT GRAHAM, ESQ.
OF FINTRAY:
ON THE CLOSE OF THE DISPUTED ELECTION BETWEEN
SIR JAMES JOHNSTONE AND CAPTAIN MILLER, FOR
THE DUMFRIES DISTRICT OF BOROUGHS.
["I am too little a man," said Burns, in the note to Fintray, which
accompanied this poem, "to have any political attachment: I am deeply
indebted to, and have the warmest veneration for individuals of both
parties: but a man who has it in his power to be the father of a
country, and who acts like his Grace of Queensberry, is a character
that one cannot speak of with patience." This Epistle was first
printed in my edition of Burns in 1834: I had the use of the Macmurdo
and the Afton manuscripts for that purpose: to both families the poet
was much indebted for many acts of courtesy and kindness.]
Fintray, my stay in worldly strife,
Friend o' my muse, friend o' my life,
Are ye as idle's I am?
Come then, wi' uncouth, kintra fleg,
O'er Pegasus I'll fling my leg,
And ye shall see me try him.
I'll sing the zeal Drumlanrig bears,
Who left the all-important cares
Of princes and their darlings;
And, bent on winning borough towns,
Came shaking hands wi' wabster lowns,
And kissing barefit carlins.
Combustion thro' our boroughs rode,
Whistling his roaring pack abroad
Of mad unmuzzled lions;
As Queensberry buff and blue unfurl'd,
And Westerha' and Hopeton hurl'd
To every Whig defiance.
But cautious Queensberry left the war,
Th' unmanner'd dust might soil his star;
Besides, he hated bleeding:
But left behind him heroes bright,
Heroes in Cæsarean fight,
Or Ciceronian pleading.
O! for a throat like huge Mons-meg,
To muster o'er each ardent Whig
Beneath Drumlanrig's banner;
Heroes and heroines commix,
All in the field of politics,
To win immortal honour.
M'Murdo[95] and his lovely spouse,
(Th' enamour'd laurels kiss her brows!)
Led on the loves and graces:
She won each gaping burgess' heart,
While he, all-conquering, play'd his part
Among their wives and lasses.
Craigdarroch[96] led a light-arm'd corps,
Tropes, metaphors and figures pour,
Like Hecla streaming thunder:
Glenriddel,[97] skill'd in rusty coins,
Blew up each Tory's dark designs,
And bar'd the treason under.
In either wing two champions fought,
Redoubted Staig[98] who set at nought
The wildest savage Tory:
And Welsh,[99] who ne'er yet flinch'd his ground,
High-wav'd his magnum-bonum round
With Cyclopeian fury.
Miller brought up th' artillery ranks,
The many-pounders of the Banks,
Resistless desolation!
While Maxwelton, that baron bold,
'Mid Lawson's[100] port intrench'd his hold,
And threaten'd worse damnation.
To these what Tory hosts oppos'd,
With these what Tory warriors clos'd.
Surpasses my descriving:
Squadrons extended long and large,
With furious speed rush to the charge,
Like raging devils driving.
What verse can sing, what prose narrate,
The butcher deeds of bloody fate
Amid this mighty tulzie!
Grim Horror grinn'd--pale Terror roar'd,
As Murther at his thrapple shor'd,
And hell mix'd in the brulzie.
As highland craigs by thunder cleft,
When lightnings fire the stormy lift,
Hurl down with crashing rattle:
As flames among a hundred woods;
As headlong foam a hundred floods;
Such is the rage of battle!
The stubborn Tories dare to die;
As soon the rooted oaks would fly
Before the approaching fellers:
The Whigs come on like Ocean's roar,
When all his wintry billows pour
Against the Buchan Bullers.
Lo, from the shades of Death's deep night,
Departed Whigs enjoy the fight,
And think on former daring:
The muffled murtherer[101] of Charles
The Magna Charter flag unfurls,
All deadly gules it's bearing.
Nor wanting ghosts of Tory fame.
Bold Scrimgeour[102] follows gallant Graham,[103]
Auld Covenanters shiver.
(Forgive, forgive, much-wrong'd Montrose!
Now death and hell engulph thy foes,
Thou liv'st on high for ever!)
Still o'er the field the combat burns,
The Tories, Whigs, give way by turns;
But fate the word has spoken:
For woman's wit and strength o' man,
Alas! can do but what they can!
The Tory ranks are broken.
O that my een were flowing burns,
My voice a lioness that mourns
Her darling cubs' undoing!
That I might greet, that I might cry,
While Tories fall, while Tories fly,
And furious Whigs pursuing!
What Whig but melts for good Sir James!
Dear to his country by the names
Friend, patron, benefactor!
Not Pulteney's wealth can Pulteney save!
And Hopeton falls, the generous brave!
And Stewart,[104] bold as Hector.
Thou, Pitt, shalt rue this overthrow;
And Thurlow growl a curse of woe;
And Melville melt in wailing!
How Fox and Sheridan rejoice!
And Burke shall sing, O Prince, arise,
Thy power is all prevailing!
For your poor friend, the Bard, afar
He only hears and sees the war,
A cool spectator purely;
So, when the storm the forests rends,
The robin in the hedge descends,
And sober chirps securely.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 95: John M'Murdo, Esq., of Drumlanrig.]
[Footnote 96: Fergusson of Craigdarroch.]
[Footnote 97: Riddel of Friars-Carse.]
[Footnote 98: Provost Staig of Dumfries.]
[Footnote 99: Sheriff Welsh.]
[Footnote 100: A wine merchant in Dumfries.]
[Footnote 101: The executioner of Charles I. was masked.]
[Footnote 102: Scrimgeour, Lord Dundee.]
[Footnote 103: Graham, Marquis of Montrose.]
[Footnote 104: Stewart of Hillside.]
* * * * *
CXVI.
ON
CAPTAIN GROSE'S
PEREGRINATIONS THROUGH SCOTLAND,
COLLECTING THE
ANTIQUITIES OF THAT KINGDOM.
[This "fine, fat, fodgel wight" was a clever man, a skilful antiquary,
and fond of wit and wine. He was well acquainted with heraldry, and
was conversant with the weapons and the armor of his own and other
countries. He found his way to Friars-Carse, in the Vale of Nith, and
there, at the social "board of Glenriddel," for the first time saw
Burns. The Englishman heard, it is said, with wonder, the sarcastic
sallies and eloquent bursts of the inspired Scot, who, in his turn,
surveyed with wonder the remarkable corpulence, and listened with
pleasure to the independent sentiments and humourous turns of
conversation in the joyous Englishman. This Poem was the fruit of the
interview, and it is said that Grose regarded some passages as rather
personal.]
Hear, Land o' Cakes and brither Scots,
Frae Maidenkirk to Johnny Groat's;
If there's a hole in a' your coats,
I rede you tent it:
A chiel's amang you taking notes,
And, faith, he'll prent it!
If in your bounds ye chance to light
Upon a fine, fat, fodgel wight,
O' stature short, but genius bright,
That's he, mark weel--
And wow! he has an unco slight
O' cauk and keel.
By some auld, houlet-haunted biggin,
Or kirk deserted by its riggin,
It's ten to one ye'll find him snug in
Some eldritch part,
Wi' deils, they say, L--d save's! colleaguin'
At some black art.
Ilk ghaist that haunts auld ha' or chaumer,
Ye gipsey-gang that deal in glamour,
And you deep read in hell's black grammar,
Warlocks and witches;
Ye'll quake at his conjuring hammer,
Ye midnight b----s!
It's tauld he was a sodger bred,
And ane wad rather fa'n than fled;
But now he's quat the spurtle-blade,
And dog-skin wallet,
And ta'en the--Antiquarian trade,
I think they call it.
He has a fouth o' auld nick-nackets:
Rusty airn caps and jinglin' jackets,
Wad haud the Lothians three in tackets,
A towmont guid;
And parritch-pats, and auld saut-backets,
Afore the flood.
Of Eve's first fire he has a cinder;
Auld Tubal-Cain's fire-shool and fender;
That which distinguished the gender
O' Balaam's ass;
A broom-stick o' the witch o' Endor,
Weel shod wi' brass.
Forbye, he'll shape you aff, fu' gleg,
The cut of Adam's philibeg:
The knife that nicket Abel's craig
He'll prove you fully,
It was a faulding jocteleg,
Or lang-kail gully.--
But wad ye see him in his glee,
For meikle glee and fun has he,
Then set him down, and twa or three
Guid fellows wi' him;
And port, O port! shine thou a wee,
And then ye'll see him!
Now, by the pow'rs o' verse and prose!
Thou art a dainty chiel, O Grose!--
Whae'er o' thee shall ill suppose,
They sair misca' thee;
I'd take the rascal by the nose,
Wad say, Shame fa' thee!
* * * * *
CXVII.
WRITTEN IN A WRAPPER,
ENCLOSING
A LETTER TO CAPTAIN GROSE.
[Burns wrote out some antiquarian and legendary memoranda, respecting
certain ruins in Kyle, and enclosed them in a sheet of a paper to
Cardonnel, a northern antiquary. As his mind teemed with poetry he
could not, as he afterwards said, let the opportunity, pass of sending
a rhyming inquiry after his fat friend, and Cardonnel spread the
condoling inquiry over the North--
"Is he slain by Highlan' bodies?
And eaten like a wether-haggis?"]
Ken ye ought o' Captain Grose?
Igo and ago,
If he's amang his friends or foes?
Iram, coram, dago.
Is he south or is he north?
Igo and ago,
Or drowned in the river Forth?
Iram, coram, dago.
Is he slain by Highlan' bodies?
Igo and ago,
And eaten like a wether-haggis?
Iram, coram, dago.
Is he to Abram's bosom gane?
Igo and ago,
Or haudin' Sarah by the wame?
Iram, coram, dago.
Where'er he be, the L--d be near him!
Igo and ago,
As for the deil, he daur na steer him!
Iram, coram, dago.
But please transmit the enclosed letter,
Igo and ago,
Which will oblige your humble debtor,
Iram, coram, dago.
So may he hae auld stanes in store,
Igo and ago,
The very stanes that Adam bore,
Iram, coram, dago.
So may ye get in glad possession,
Igo and ago,
The coins o' Satan's coronation!
Iram, coram, dago.
* * * * *
CXVIII.
TAM O' SHANTER.
A TALE.
"Of brownys and of bogilis full is this buke."
GAWIN DOUGLAS
[This is a West-country legend, embellished by genius. No other Poem
in our language displays such variety of power, in the same number of
lines. It was written as an inducement to Grose to admit Alloway-Kirk
into his work on the Antiquities of Scotland; and written with such
ecstasy, that the poet shed tears in the moments of composition. The
walk in which it was conceived, on the braes of Ellisland, is held in
remembrance in the vale, and pointed out to poetic inquirers: while
the scene where the poem is laid--the crumbling ruins--the place where
the chapman perished in the snow--the tree on which the poor mother of
Mungo ended her sorrows--the cairn where the murdered child was found
by the hunters--and the old bridge over which Maggie bore her
astonished master when all hell was in pursuit, are first-rate objects
of inspection and inquiry in the "Land of Burns." "In the inimitable
tale of Tam o' Shanter," says Scott "Burns has left us sufficient
evidence of his ability to combine the ludicrous with the awful, and
even the horrible. No poet, with the exception of Shakspeare, ever
possessed the power of exciting the most varied and discordant
emotions with such rapid transitions."]
When chapman billies leave the street,
And drouthy neebors neebors meet,
As market-days are wearing late,
An' folk begin to tak' the gate;
While we sit bousing at the nappy,
An' gettin' fou and unco happy,
We think na on the lang Scots miles,
The mosses, waters, slaps, and stiles,
That lie between us and our hame,
Where sits our sulky sullen dame,
Gathering her brows like gathering storm,
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.
This truth fand honest Tam O' Shanter,
As he frae Ayr ae night did canter,
(Auld Ayr, wham ne'er a town surpasses,
For honest men and bonny lasses.)
O Tam! hadst thou but been sae wise,
As ta'en thy ain wife Kate's advice!
She tauld thee weel thou was a skellum,
A blethering, blustering, drunken blellum;
That frae November till October,
Ae market-day thou wasna sober;
That ilka melder, wi' the miller,
Thou sat as lang as thou had siller;
That ev'ry naig was ca'd a shoe on,
The smith and thee gat roaring fou on;
That at the Lord's house, ev'n on Sunday,
Thou drank wi' Kirton Jean till Monday.
She prophesy'd, that late or soon,
Thou would be found deep drown'd in Doon;
Or catch'd wi' warlocks in the mirk,
By Alloway's auld haunted kirk.
Ah, gentle dames! it gars me greet,
To think how mony counsels sweet,
How mony lengthen'd sage advices,
The husband frae the wife despises!
But to our tale:--Ae market night,
Tam had got planted unco right;
Fast by an ingle bleezing finely,
Wi' reaming swats, that drank divinely;
And at his elbow, Souter Johnny,
His ancient, trusty, drouthy crony;
Tam lo'ed him like a vera brither;
They had been fou' for weeks thegither!
The night drave on wi' sangs an' clatter;
And ay the ale was growing better:
The landlady and Tam grew gracious;
Wi' favors secret, sweet, and precious;
The Souter tauld his queerest stories;
The landlord's laugh was ready chorus:[105]
The storm without might rair and rustle--
Tam did na mind the storm a whistle.
Care, mad to see a man sae happy,
E'en drown'd himself amang the nappy!
As bees flee hame wi' lades o' treasure,
The minutes wing'd their way wi' pleasure:
Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious,
O'er a' the ills o' life victorious.
But pleasures are like poppies spread,
You seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed;
Or like the snow falls in the river,
A moment white--then melts for ever;
Or like the borealis race,
That flit ere you can point their place;
Or like the rainbow's lovely form
Evanishing amid the storm.
Nae man can tether time or tide;
The hour approaches Tam maun ride;
That hour, o' night's black arch the key-stane,
That dreary hour he mounts his beast in;
And sic a night he taks the road in
As ne'er poor sinner was abroad in.
The wind blew as 'twad blawn its last;
The rattling show'rs rose on the blast;
The speedy gleams the darkness swallow'd;
Loud, deep, and lang the thunder bellow'd:
That night, a child might understand,
The de'il had business on his hand.
Weel mounted on his gray mare, Meg,
A better never lifted leg,
Tam skelpit on thro' dub and mire,
Despising wind, and rain, and fire;
Whiles holding fast his guid blue bonnet;
Whiles crooning o'er some auld Scots sonnet;
Whiles glow'ring round wi' prudent cares,
Lest bogles catch him unawares;
Kirk-Alloway was drawing nigh,
Whare ghaists and houlets nightly cry.--
By this time he was cross the foord,
Whare in the snaw the chapman smoor'd;
And past the birks and meikle stane,
Where drunken Charlie brak's neck-bane;
And thro' the whins, and by the cairn,
Where hunters fand the murder'd bairn;
And near the thorn, aboon the well,
Where Mungo's mither hang'd hersel'.
Before him Doon pours all his floods;
The doubling storm roars thro' the woods;
The lightnings flash from pole to pole;
Near and more the thunders roll;
When, glimmering thro' the groaning trees,
Kirk-Alloway seem'd in a bleeze;
Thro' ilka bore the beams were glancing;
And loud resounded mirth and dancing.
Inspiring, bold John Barleycorn!
What dangers thou canst make us scorn!
Wi' tippenny, we fear nae evil;
Wi' usquabae we'll face the devil!
The swats sae ream'd in Tammie's noddle,
Fair play, he car'd nae deils a boddle.
But Maggie stood right sair astonish'd,
'Till, by the heel and hand admonish'd,
She ventur'd forward on the light;
And wow! Tam saw an unco sight!
Warlocks and witches in a dance;
Nae cotillion brent new frae France,
But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels,
Put life and mettle in their heels:
A winnock-bunker in the east,
There sat auld Nick, in shape o' beast;
A towzie tyke, black, grim, and large,
To gie them music was his charge;
He screw'd the pipes and gart them skirl,
Till roof and rafters a' did dirl.--
Coffins stood round, like open presses;
That shaw'd the dead in their last dresses;
And by some devilish cantrip slight
Each in its cauld hand held a light--
By which heroic Tam was able
To note upon the haly table,
A murderer's banes in gibbet airns;
Twa span-lang, wee, unchristen'd bairns;
A thief, new-cutted frae a rape,
Wi' his last gasp his gab did gape;
Five tomahawks, wi' bluid red-rusted;
Five scimitars, wi' murder crusted;
A garter, which a babe had strangled;
A knife, a father's throat had mangled,
Whom his ain son o' life bereft,
The gray hairs yet stack to the heft:[106]
Wi' mair o' horrible and awfu',
Which ev'n to name would be unlawfu'.
As Tammie glowr'd, amaz'd, and curious,
The mirth and fun grew fast and furious:
The piper loud and louder blew;
The dancers quick and quicker flew;
They reel'd, they set, they cross'd, they cleekit,
'Till ilka carlin swat and reekit,
And coost her duddies to the wark,
And linket at it in her sark!
Now Tam, O Tam! had thae been queans
A' plump and strapping, in their teens;
Their sarks, instead o' creeshie flannen,
Been snaw-white seventeen hunder linen,
Thir breeks o' mine, my only pair,
That ance were plush, o' guid blue hair,
I wad hae gi'en them off my hurdies,
For ae blink o' the bonnie burdies!
But wither'd beldams, auld and droll,
Rigwoodie hags, wad spean a foal,
Lowping an' flinging on a cummock,
I wonder didna turn thy stomach.
But Tam kenn'd what was what fu' brawlie,
There was a winsome wench and walie,
That night enlisted in the core,
(Lang after kenn'd on Carrick shore;
For mony a beast to dead she shot,
And perish'd mony a bonnie boat,
And shook baith meikle corn and bear,
And kept the country-side in fear.)
Her cutty sark, o' Paisley harn,
That, while a lassie, she had worn,
In longitude tho' sorely scanty,
It was her best, and she was vauntie--
Ah! little kenn'd the reverend grannie,
That sark she coft for her wee Nannie,
Wi' twa pund Scots ('twas a' her riches),
Wad ever grac'd a dance of witches!
But here my muse her wing maun cour;
Sic flights are far beyond her pow'r;
To sing how Nannie lap and flang,
(A souple jade she was and strung,)
And how Tam stood, like ane bewitch'd;
And thought his very een enrich'd;
Even Satan glowr'd, and fidg'd fu' fain,
And hotch'd and blew wi' might and main:
'Till first ae caper, syne anither,
Tam tint his reason a' thegither,
And roars out, "Weel done, Cutty-sark!"
And in an instant all was dark:
And scarcely had he Maggie rallied,
When out the hellish legion sallied.
As bees bizz out wi' angry fyke,
When plundering herds assail their byke;
As open pussie's mortal foes,
When, pop! she starts before their nose;
As eager runs the market-crowd,
When "Catch the thief!" resounds aloud;
So Maggie runs, the witches follow,
Wi' mony an eldritch screech and hollow.
Ah, Tam! Ah, Tam! thou'll get thy fairin'!
In hell they'll roast thee like a herrin'!
In vain thy Kate awaits thy comin'!
Kate soon will be a woefu' woman!
Now do thy speedy utmost, Meg,
And win the key-stane[107] of the brig;
There at them thou thy tail may toss,
A running stream they darena cross!
But ere the key-stane she could make,
The fient a tail she had to shake!
For Nannie, far before the rest,
Hard upon noble Maggie prest,
And flew at Tam wi' furious ettle;
But little wist she Maggie's mettle--
Ae spring brought off her master hale,
But left behind her ain gray tail:
The carlin claught her by the rump,
And left poor Maggie scarce a stump.
Now, wha this tale o' truth shall read,
Ilk man and mother's son, take heed:
Whene'er to drink you are inclin'd,
Or cutty-sarks run in your mind,
Think! ye may buy the joys o'er dear--
Remember Tam O' Shanter's mare.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 105: VARIATION.
The cricket raised its cheering cry,
The kitten chas'd its tail in joy.]
[Footnote 106: VARIATION.
Three lawyers' tongues turn'd inside out,
Wi' lies seem'd like a beggar's clout;
And priests' hearts rotten black as muck,
Lay stinking vile, in every neuk.]
[Footnote 107: It is a well-known fact that witches, or any evil
spirits, have no power to follow a poor wight any further than the
middle of the next running stream. It may be proper likewise to
mention to the benighted traveller, that when he falls in with
_bogles_, whatever danger there may be in his going forward, there is
much more hazard in turning back.]
* * * * *
CXIX.
ADDRESS OF BEELZEBUB
TO THE
PRESIDENT OF THE HIGHLAND SOCIETY.
[This Poem made its first appearance, as I was assured by my friend
the late Thomas Pringle, in the Scots Magazine, for February, 1818,
and was printed from the original in the handwriting of Burns. It was
headed thus, "To the Right honorable the Earl of Brendalbyne,
President of the Right Honourable and Honourable the Highland Society,
which met on the 23d of May last, at the Shakspeare, Covent Garden, to
concert ways and means to frustrate the designs of four hundred
Highlanders, who, as the Society were informed by Mr. M. ----, of A----s,
were so audacious as to attempt an escape from their lawful lairds
and masters, whose property they were, by emigrating from the lands of
Mr. Macdonald, of Glengarry, to the wilds of Canada, in search of that
fantastic thing--LIBERTY." The Poem was communicated by Burns
to his friend Rankine of Adam Hill, in Ayrshire.]
Long life, my Lord, an' health be yours,
Unskaith'd by hunger'd Highland boors;
Lord grant mae duddie desperate beggar,
Wi' dirk, claymore, or rusty trigger,
May twin auld Scotland o' a life
She likes--as lambkins like a knife.
Faith, you and A----s were right
To keep the Highland hounds in sight;
I doubt na! they wad bid nae better
Than let them ance out owre the water;
Then up among the lakes and seas
They'll mak' what rules and laws they please;
Some daring Hancock, or a Franklin';
May set their Highland bluid a ranklin';
Some Washington again may head them,
Or some Montgomery fearless lead them,
Till God knows what may be effected
When by such heads and hearts directed--
Poor dunghill sons of dirt and mire
May to Patrician rights aspire!
Nae sage North, now, nor sager Sackville,
To watch and premier o'er the pack vile,
An' whare will ye get Howes and Clintons
To bring them to a right repentance,
To cowe the rebel generation,
An' save the honour o' the nation?
They an' be d----d! what right hae they
To meat or sleep, or light o' day?
Far less to riches, pow'r, or freedom,
But what your lordship likes to gie them?
But hear, my lord! Glengarry, hear!
Your hand's owre light on them, I fear;
Your factors, grieves, trustees, and bailies,
I canna' say but they do gaylies;
They lay aside a' tender mercies,
An' tirl the hallions to the birses;
Yet while they're only poind't and herriet,
They'll keep their stubborn Highland spirit;
But smash them! crash them a' to spails!
An' rot the dyvors i' the jails!
The young dogs, swinge them to the labour;
Let wark an' hunger mak' them sober!
The hizzies, if they're aughtlins fawsont,
Let them in Drury-lane be lesson'd!
An' if the wives an' dirty brats
E'en thigger at your doors an' yetts,
Flaffan wi' duds an' grey wi' beas',
Frightin' awa your deuks an' geese,
Get out a horsewhip or a jowler,
The langest thong, the fiercest growler,
An' gar the tattered gypsies pack
Wi' a' their bastards on their back!
Go on, my Lord! I lang to meet you,
An' in my house at hame to greet you;
Wi' common lords ye shanna mingle,
The benmost neuk beside the ingle,
At my right han' assigned your seat
'Tween Herod's hip an Polycrate,--
Or if you on your station tarrow,
Between Almagro and Pizarro,
A seat I'm sure ye're weel deservin't;
An' till ye come--Your humble rervant,
BEELZEBUB.
_June 1st, Anno Mundi 5790._
* * * * *
CXX.
TO
JOHN TAYLOR.
[Burns, it appears, was, in one of his excursions in revenue matters,
likely to be detained at Wanlockhead: the roads were slippery with
ice, his mare kept her feet with difficulty, and all the blacksmiths
of the village were pre-engaged. To Mr. Taylor, a person of influence
in the place, the poet, in despair, addressed this little Poem,
begging his interference: Taylor spoke to a smith; the smith flew to
his tools, sharpened or frosted the shoes, and it is said lived for
thirty years to boast that he had "never been well paid but ance, and
that was by a poet, who paid him in money, paid him in drink, and paid
him in verse."]
With Pegasus upon a day,
Apollo weary flying,
Through frosty hills the journey lay,
On foot the way was plying,
Poor slip-shod giddy Pegasus
Was but a sorry walker;
To Vulcan then Apollo goes,
To get a frosty calker.
Obliging Vulcan fell to work,
Threw by his coat and bonnet,
And did Sol's business in a crack;
Sol paid him with a sonnet.
Ye Vulcan's sons of Wanlockhead,
Pity my sad disaster;
My Pegasus is poorly shod--
I'll pay you like my master.
ROBERT BURNS.
_Ramages_, _3 o'clock_, (_no date._)
* * * * *
CXXI.
LAMENT
OF
MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS,
ON THE APPROACH OF SPRING.
[The poet communicated this "Lament" to his friend, Dr. Moore, in
February, 1791, but it was composed about the close of the preceding
year, at the request of Lady Winifred Maxwell Constable, of
Terreagles, the last in direct descent of the noble and ancient house
of Maxwell, of Nithsdale. Burns expressed himself more than commonly
pleased with this composition; nor was he unrewarded, for Lady
Winifred gave him a valuable snuff-box, with the portrait of the
unfortunate Mary on the lid. The bed still keeps its place in
Terreagles, on which the queen slept as she was on her way to take
refuge with her cruel and treacherous cousin, Elizabeth; and a letter
from her no less unfortunate grandson, Charles the First, calling the
Maxwells to arm in his cause, is preserved in the family archives.]
I.
Now Nature hangs her mantle green
On every blooming tree,
And spreads her sheets o' daisies white
Out o'er the grassy lea:
Now Phoebus cheers the crystal streams,
And glads the azure skies;
But nought can glad the weary wight
That fast in durance lies.
II.
Now lav'rocks wake the merry morn,
Aloft on dewy wing;
The merle, in his noontide bow'r,
Makes woodland echoes ring;
The mavis wild wi' mony a note,
Sings drowsy day to rest:
In love and freedom they rejoice,
Wi' care nor thrall opprest.
III.
Now blooms the lily by the bank,
The primrose down the brae;
The hawthorn's budding in the glen,
And milk-white is the slae;
The meanest hind in fair Scotland
May rove their sweets amang;
But I, the Queen of a' Scotland,
Maun lie in prison strang!
IV.
I was the Queen o' bonnie France,
Where happy I hae been;
Fu' lightly rase I in the morn,
As blythe lay down at e'en:
And I'm the sov'reign o' Scotland,
And mony a traitor there;
Yet here I lie in foreign bands
And never-ending care.
V.
But as for thee, thou false woman!
My sister and my fae,
Grim vengeance yet shall whet a sword
That thro' thy soul shall gae!
The weeping blood in woman's breast
Was never known to thee;
Nor th' balm that draps on wounds of woe
Frae woman's pitying e'e.
VI.
My son! my son! may kinder stars
Upon thy fortune shine;
And may those pleasures gild thy reign,
That ne'er wad blink on mine!
God keep thee frae thy mother's faes,
Or turn their hearts to thee:
And where thou meet'st thy mother's friend
Remember him for me!
VII.
O! soon, to me, may summer suns
Nae mair light up the morn!
Nae mair, to me, the autumn winds
Wave o'er the yellow corn!
And in the narrow house o' death
Let winter round me rave;
And the next flow'rs that deck the spring
Bloom on my peaceful grave!
* * * * *
CXXII.
THE WHISTLE.
["As the authentic prose history," says Burns, "of the 'Whistle' is
curious, I shall here give it. In the train of Anne of Denmark, when
she came to Scotland with our James the Sixth, there came over also a
Danish gentleman of gigantic stature and great prowess, and a
matchless champion of Bacchus. He had a little ebony whistle, which at
the commencement of the orgies, he laid on the table, and whoever was
the last able to blow it, everybody else being disabled by the potency
of the bottle, was to carry off the whistle as a trophy of victory.
The Dane produced credentials of his victories, without a single
defeat, at the courts of Copenhagen, Stockholm, Moscow, Warsaw, and
several of the petty courts in Germany; and challenged the Scotch
Bacchanalians to the alternative of trying his prowess, or else of
acknowledging their inferiority. After man overthrows on the part of
the Scots, the Dane was encountered by Sir Robert Lawrie, of
Maxwelton, ancestor of the present worthy baronet of that name; who,
after three days and three nights' hard contest, left the Scandinavian
under the table,
'And blew on the whistle his requiem shrill.'
"Sir Walter, son to Sir Robert before mentioned, afterwards lost the
whistle to Walter Riddel, of Glenriddel, who had married a sister of
Sir Walter's.--On Friday, the 16th of October, 1790, at Friars-Carse,
the whistle was once more contended for, as related in the ballad, by
the present Sir Robert of Maxwelton; Robert Riddel, Esq., of
Glenriddel, lineal descendant and representative of Walter Riddel, who
won the whistle, and in whose family it had continued; and Alexander
Fergusson, Esq., of Craigdarroch, likewise descended of the great Sir
Robert; which last gentleman carried off the hard-won honours of the
field."
The jovial contest took place in the dining-room of Friars-Carse, in
the presence of the Bard, who drank bottle and bottle about with them,
and seemed quite disposed to take up the conqueror when the day
dawned.]
I sing of a whistle, a whistle of worth,
I sing of a whistle, the pride of the North,
Was brought to the court of our good Scottish king,
And long with this whistle all Scotland shall ring.
Old Loda,[108] still rueing the arm of Fingal,
The god of the bottle sends down from his hall--
"This whistle's your challenge--to Scotland get o'er,
And drink them to hell, Sir! or ne'er see me more!"
Old poets have sung, and old chronicles tell,
What champions ventur'd, what champions fell;
The son of great Loda was conqueror still,
And blew on his whistle his requiem shrill.
Till Robert, the Lord of the Cairn and the Scaur,
Unmatch'd at the bottle, unconquer'd in war,
He drank his poor godship as deep as the sea,
No tide of the Baltic e'er drunker than he.
Thus Robert, victorious, the trophy has gain'd;
Which now in his house has for ages remain'd;
Till three noble chieftains, and all of his blood,
The jovial contest again have renew'd.
Three joyous good fellows, with hearts clear of flaw;
Craigdarroch, so famous for wit, worth, and law;
And trusty Glenriddel, so skill'd in old coins;
And gallant Sir Robert, deep-read in old wines.
Craigdarroch began, with a tongue smooth as oil,
Desiring Glenriddel to yield up the spoil;
Or else he would muster the heads of the clan,
And once more, in claret, try which was the man.
"By the gods of the ancients!" Glenriddel replies,
"Before I surrender so glorious a prize,
I'll conjure the ghost of the great Rorie More,[109]
And bumper his horn with him twenty times o'er."
Sir Robert, a soldier, no speech would pretend,
But he ne'er turn'd his back on his foe--or his friend,
Said, toss down the whistle, the prize of the field,
And, knee-deep in claret, he'd die or he'd yield.
To the board of Glenriddel our heroes repair,
So noted for drowning of sorrow and care;
Bur for wine and for welcome not more known to fame
Than the sense, wit, and taste of a sweet lovely dame.
A bard was selected to witness the fray,
And tell future ages the feats of the day;
A bard who detested all sadness and spleen,
And wish'd that Parnassus a vineyard had been.
The dinner being over, the claret they ply,
And ev'ry new cork is a new spring of joy;
In the bands of old friendship and kindred so set,
And the bands grew the tighter the more they were wet.
Gay Pleasure ran riot as bumpers ran o'er;
Bright Phoebus ne'er witness'd so joyous a core,
And vow'd that to leave them he was quite forlorn,
Till Cynthia hinted he'd find them next morn.
Six bottles a-piece had well wore out the night,
When gallant Sir Robert, to finish the fight,
Turn'd o'er in one bumper a bottle of red,
And swore 'twas the way that their ancestor did.
Then worthy Glenriddel, so cautions and sage,
No longer the warfare, ungodly, would wage;
A high-ruling Elder to wallow in wine!
He left the foul business to folks less divine.
The gallant Sir Robert fought hard to the end;
But who can with fate and quart-bumpers contend?
Though fate said--a hero shall perish in light;
So up rose bright Phoebus--and down fell the knight.
Next up rose our bard, like a prophet in drink;--
"Craigdarroch, thou'lt soar when creation shall sink;
But if thou would flourish immortal in rhyme,
Come--one bottle more--and have at the sublime!
"Thy line, that have struggled for freedom with Bruce,
Shall heroes and patriots ever produce:
So thine be the laurel, and mine be the bay;
The field thou hast won, by yon bright god of day!"
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 108: See Ossian's Carie-thura.]
[Footnote 109: See Johnson's Tour to the Hebrides]
* * * * *
CXXIII.
ELEGY
ON
MISS BURNET,
OF MONBODDO.
[This beautiful and accomplished lady, the heavenly Burnet, as Burns
loved to call her, was daughter to the odd and the elegant, the clever
and the whimsical Lord Monboddo. "In domestic circumstances," says
Robert Chambers, "Monboddo was particularly unfortunate. His wife, a
very beautiful woman, died in child-bed. His son, a promising boy, in
whose education he took great delight, was likewise snatched from his
affections by a premature death; and his second daughter, in personal
loveliness one of the first women of the age, was cut off by
consumption, when only twenty-five years old." Her name was
Elizabeth.]
Life ne'er exulted in so rich a prize
As Burnet, lovely from her native skies;
Nor envious death so triumph'd in a blow,
As that which laid th' accomplish'd Burnet low.
Thy form and mind, sweet maid, can I forget?
In richest ore the brightest jewel set!
In thee, high Heaven above was truest shown,
As by his noblest work, the Godhead best is known.
In vain ye flaunt in summer's pride, ye groves;
Thou crystal streamlet with thy flowery shore,
Ye woodland choir that chant your idle loves,
Ye cease to charm--Eliza is no more!
Ye heathy wastes, immix'd with reedy fens;
Ye mossy streams, with sedge and rushes stor'd;
Ye rugged cliffs, o'erhanging dreary glens,
To you I fly, ye with my soul accord.
Princes, whose cumb'rous pride was all their worth,
Shall venal lays their pompous exit hail?
And thou, sweet excellence! forsake our earth,
And not a muse in honest grief bewail?
We saw thee shine in youth and beauty's pride,
And virtue's light, that beams beyond the spheres;
But like the sun eclips'd at morning tide,
Thou left'st us darkling in a world of tears.
The parent's heart that nestled fond in thee,
That heart how sunk, a prey to grief and care;
So leck'd the woodbine sweet yon aged tree;
So from it ravish'd, leaves it bleak and bare.
* * * * *
CXXIV.
LAMENT
FOR
JAMES, EARL OF GLENCAIRN.
[Burns lamented the death of this kind and accomplished nobleman with
melancholy sincerity: he moreover named one of his sons for him: he
went into mourning when he heard of his death, and he sung of his
merits in a strain not destined soon to lose the place it has taken
among the verses which record the names of the noble and the generous.
He died January 30, 1791, in the forty-second year of his age. James
Cunningham was succeeded in his title by his brother, and with him
expired, in 1796, the last of a race, whose name is intimately
connected with the History of Scotland, from the days of Malcolm
Canmore.]
I.
The wind blew hollow frae the hills,
By fits the sun's departing beam
Look'd on the fading yellow woods
That wav'd o'er Lugar's winding stream:
Beneath a craggy steep, a bard,
Laden with years and meikle pain,
In loud lament bewail'd his lord,
Whom death had all untimely ta'en.
II.
He lean'd him to an ancient aik,
Whose trunk was mould'ring down with years;
His locks were bleached white with time,
His hoary cheek was wet wi' tears;
And as he touch'd his trembling harp,
And as he tun'd his doleful sang,
The winds, lamenting thro' their caves,
To echo bore the notes alang.
III.
"Ye scattered birds that faintly sing,
The reliques of the vernal quire!
Ye woods that shed on a' the winds
The honours of the aged year!
A few short months, and glad and gay,
Again ye'll charm the ear and e'e;
But nocht in all revolving time
Can gladness bring again to me.
IV.
"I am a bending aged tree,
That long has stood the wind and rain;
But now has come a cruel blast,
And my last hold of earth is gane:
Nae leaf o' mine shall greet the spring,
Nae simmer sun exalt my bloom;
But I maun lie before the storm,
And ithers plant them in my room.
V.
"I've seen sae mony changefu' years,
On earth I am a stranger grown;
I wander in the ways of men,
Alike unknowing and unknown:
Unheard, unpitied, unrelieved,
I bear alane my lade o' care,
For silent, low, on beds of dust,
Lie a' that would my sorrows share.
VI.
"And last (the sum of a' my griefs!)
My noble master lies in clay;
The flow'r amang our barons bold,
His country's pride! his country's stay--
In weary being now I pine,
For a' the life of life is dead,
And hope has left my aged ken,
On forward wing for ever fled.
VII.
"Awake thy last sad voice, my harp!
The voice of woe and wild despair;
Awake! resound thy latest lay--
Then sleep in silence evermair!
And thou, my last, best, only friend,
That fillest an untimely tomb,
Accept this tribute from the bard
Though brought from fortune's mirkest gloom.
VIII.
"In poverty's low barren vale
Thick mists, obscure, involve me round;
Though oft I turn'd the wistful eye,
Nae ray of fame was to be found:
Thou found'st me, like the morning sun,
That melts the fogs in limpid air,
The friendless bard and rustic song
Became alike thy fostering care.
IX.
"O! why has worth so short a date?
While villains ripen fray with time;
Must thou, the noble, gen'rous, great,
Fall in bold manhood's hardy prime!
Why did I live to see that day?
A day to me so full of woe!--
O had I met the mortal shaft
Which laid my benefactor low.
X.
"The bridegroom may forget the bride
Was made his wedded wife yestreen;
The monarch may forget the crown
That on his head an hour has been;
The mother may forget the child
That smiles sae sweetly on her knee;
But I'll remember thee, Glencairn,
And a' that thou hast done for me!"
* * * * *
CXXV.
LINES
SENT TO
SIR JOHN WHITEFOORD, BART.,
OF WHITEFOORD.
WITH THE FOREGOING POEM.
[Sir John Whitefoord, a name of old standing in Ayrshire, inherited
the love of his family for literature, and interested himself early in
the fame and fortunes of Burns.]
Thou, who thy honour as thy God rever'st,
Who, save thy mind's reproach, nought earthly fear'st,
To thee this votive offering I impart,
The tearful tribute of a broken heart.
The friend thou valuedst, I, the patron, lov'd;
His worth, his honour, all the world approv'd,
We'll mourn till we too go as he has gone,
And tread the dreary path to that dark world unknown.
* * * * *
CXXVI.
ADDRESS
TO
THE SHADE OF THOMSON,
ON CROWNING HIS BUST AT EDNAM WITH BAYS.
["Lord Buchan has the pleasure to invite Mr. Burns to make one at the
coronation of the bust of Thomson, on Ednam Hill, on the 22d of
September: for which day perhaps his muse may inspire an ode suited to
the occasion. Suppose Mr. Burns should, leaving the Nith, go across
the country, and meet the Tweed at the nearest point from his farm,
and, wandering along the pastoral banks of Thomson's pure parent
stream, catch inspiration in the devious walk, till he finds Lord
Buchan sitting on the ruins of Dryburgh. There the Commendator will
give him a hearty welcome, and try to light his lamp at the pure flame
of native genius, upon the altar of Caledonian virtue." Such was the
invitation of the Earl of Buchan to Burns. To request the poet to lay
down his sickle when his harvest was half reaped, and traverse one of
the wildest and most untrodden ways in Scotland, for the purpose of
looking at the fantastic coronation of the bad bust of on excellent
poet, was worthy of Lord Buchan. The poor bard made answer, that a
week's absence in the middle of his harvest was a step he durst not
venture upon--but he sent this Poem.
The poet's manuscript affords the following interesting variations:--
"While cold-eyed Spring, a virgin coy,
Unfolds her verdant mantle sweet,
Or pranks the sod in frolic joy,
A carpet for her youthful feet:
"While Summer, with a matron's grace,
Walks stately in the cooling shade,
And oft delighted loves to trace
The progress of the spiky blade:
"While Autumn, benefactor kind,
With age's hoary honours clad,
Surveys, with self-approving mind,
Each creature on his bounty fed."]
While virgin Spring, by Eden's flood,
Unfolds her tender mantle green,
Or pranks the sod in frolic mood,
Or tunes Æolian strains between:
While Summer, with a matron grace,
Retreats to Dryburgh's cooling shade,
Yet oft, delighted, stops to trace
The progress of the spiky blade:
While Autumn, benefactor kind,
By Tweed erects his aged head,
And sees, with self-approving mind,
Each creature on his bounty fed:
While maniac Winter rages o'er
The hills whence classic Yarrow flows,
Rousing the turbid torrent's roar,
Or sweeping, wild, a waste of snows:
So long, sweet Poet of the year!
Shall bloom that wreath thou well hast won;
While Scotia, with exulting tear,
Proclaims that Thomson was her son.
* * * * *
CXXVII.
TO
ROBERT GRAHAM, ESQ.,
OF FINTRAY.
[By this Poem Burns prepared the way for his humble request to be
removed to a district more moderate in its bounds than one which
extended over ten country parishes, and exposed him both to fatigue
and expense. This wish was expressed in prose, and was in due time
attended to, for Fintray was a gentleman at once kind and
considerate.]
Late crippl'd of an arm, and now a leg,
About to beg a pass for leave to beg:
Dull, listless, teas'd, dejected, and deprest,
(Nature is adverse to a cripple's rest;)
Will generous Graham list to his Poet's wail?
(It soothes poor misery, hearkening to her tale,)
And hear him curse the light he first survey'd,
And doubly curse the luckless rhyming trade?
Thou, Nature, partial Nature! I arraign;
Of thy caprice maternal I complain:
The lion and the bull thy care have found,
One shakes the forests, and one spurns the ground:
Thou giv'st the ass his hide, the snail his shell,
Th' envenom'd wasp, victorious, guards his cell;
Thy minions, kings, defend, control, devour,
In all th' omnipotence of rule and power;
Foxes and statesmen, subtile wiles insure;
The cit and polecat stink, and are secure;
Toads with their poison, doctors with their drug,
The priest and hedgehog in their robes are snug;
Ev'n silly woman has her warlike arts,
Her tongue and eyes, her dreaded spear and darts;--
But, oh! thou bitter stepmother and hard,
To thy poor fenceless, naked child--the Bard!
A thing unteachable in world's skill,
And half an idiot too, more helpless still;
No heels to bear him from the op'ning dun;
No claws to dig, his hated sight to shun;
No horns, but those by luckless Hymen worn,
And those, alas! not Amalthea's horn:
No nerves olfact'ry, Mammon's trusty cur,
Clad in rich dullness' comfortable fur;--
In naked feeling, and in aching pride,
He bears the unbroken blast from every side.
Vampyre booksellers drain him to the heart,
And scorpion critics cureless venom dart.
Critics!--appall'd I venture on the name,
Those cut-throat bandits in the paths of fame.
Bloody dissectors, worse than ten Monroes!
He hacks to teach, they mangle to expose.
His heart by causeless wanton malice wrung,
By blockheads' daring into madness stung;
His well-won bays, than life itself more dear,
By miscreants torn, who ne'er one sprig must wear:
Foil'd, bleeding, tortur'd, in the unequal strife,
The hapless poet flounders on through life;
Till, fled each hope that once his bosom fir'd,
And fled each muse that glorious once inspir'd,
Low sunk in squalid, unprotected age,
Dead, even resentment, for his injur'd page,
He heeds or feels no more the ruthless critic's rage!
So, by some hedge, the gen'rous steed deceas'd,
For half-starv'd snarling curs a dainty feast:
By toil and famine wore to skin and bone,
Lies senseless of each tugging bitch's son.
O dullness! portion of the truly blest!
Calm sheltered haven of eternal rest!
Thy sons ne'er madden in the fierce extremes
Of fortune's polar frost, or torrid beams.
If mantling high she fills the golden cup,
With sober selfish ease they sip it up;
Conscious the bounteous meed they well deserve,
They only wonder "some folks" do not starve.
The grave sage hern thus easy picks his frog,
And thinks the mallard a sad worthless dog.
When disappointment snaps the clue of hope,
And thro' disastrous night they darkling grope,
With deaf endurance sluggishly they bear,
And just conclude that "fools are fortune's care."
So, heavy, passive to the tempest's shocks,
Strong on the sign-post stands the stupid ox.
Not so the idle muses' mad-cap train,
Not such the workings of their moon-struck brain;
In equanimity they never dwell,
By turns in soaring heav'n or vaulted hell
I dread thee, fate, relentless and severe,
With all a poet's, husband's, father's fear!
Already one strong hold of hope is lost,
Glencairn, the truly noble, lies in dust;
(Fled, like the sun eclips'd as noon appears,
And left us darkling in a world of tears:)
O! hear my ardent, grateful, selfish pray'r!--
Fintray, my other stay, long bless and spare!
Thro' a long life his hopes and wishes crown;
And bright in cloudless skies his sun go down!
May bliss domestic smooth his private path;
Give energy to life; and soothe his latest breath,
With many a filial tear circling the bed of death!
* * * * *
CXXVIII.
TO
ROBERT GRAHAM, ESQ.,
OF FINTRAY.
ON RECEIVING A FAVOUR.
[Graham of Fintray not only obtained for the poet the appointment in
Excise, which, while he lived in Edinburgh, he desired, but he also
removed him, as he wished, to a better district; and when imputations
were thrown out against his loyalty, he defended him with obstinate
and successful eloquence. Fintray did all that was done to raise Burns
out of the toiling humility of his condition, and enable him to serve
the muse without fear of want.]
I call no goddess to inspire my strains,
A fabled muse may suit a bard that feigns;
Friend of my life! my ardent spirit burns,
And all the tribute of my heart returns,
For boons accorded, goodness ever new,
The gift still dearer, as the giver, you.
Thou orb of day! thou other paler light!
And all ye many sparkling stars of night;
If aught that giver from my mind efface;
If I that giver's bounty e'er disgrace;
Then roll to me, along your wandering spheres,
Only to number out a villain's years!
* * * * *
CXXIX.
A VISION.
[This Vision of Liberty descended on Burns among the magnificent ruins
of the College of Lincluden, which stand on the junction of the Cluden
and the Nith, a short mile above Dumfries. He gave us the Vision;
perhaps, he dared not in those yeasty times venture on the song, which
his secret visitant poured from her lips. The scene is chiefly copied
from nature: the swellings of the Nith, the howling of the fox on the
hill, and the cry of the owl, unite at times with the natural beauty
of the spot, and give it life and voice. These ruins were a favourite
haunt of the poet.]
As I stood by yon roofless tower,
Where the wa'-flower scents the dewy air,
Where th' howlet mourns in her ivy bower
And tells the midnight moon her care;
The winds were laid, the air was still,
The Stars they shot along the sky;
The fox was howling on the hill,
And the distant echoing glens reply.
The stream, adown its hazelly path,
Was rushing by the ruin'd wa's,
Hasting to join the sweeping Nith,[109A]
Whose distant roaring swells and fa's.
The cauld blue north was streaming forth
Her lights, wi' hissing eerie din;
Athort the lift they start and shift,
Like fortune's favours, tint as win.
By heedless chance I turn'd mine eyes,
And, by the moon-beam, shook to see
A stern and stalwart ghaist arise,
Attir'd as minstrels wont to be.[109B]
Had I a statue been o' stane,
His darin' look had daunted me;
And on his bonnet grav'd was plain,
The sacred posy--'Libertie!'
And frae his harp sic strains did flow,
Might rous'd the slumb'ring dead to hear;
But, oh! it was a tale of woe,
As ever met a Briton's ear.
He sang wi' joy the former day,
He weeping wail'd his latter times;
But what he said it was nae play,--
I winna ventur't in my rhymes.
[Footnote 109A: VARIATIONS.
To join yon river on the Strath.]
[Footnote 109B: VARIATIONS.
Now looking over firth and fauld,
Her horn the pale-fac'd Cynthia rear'd;
When, lo, in form of minstrel auld,
A storm and stalwart ghaist appear'd.]
* * * * *
CXXX.
TO
JOHN MAXWELL OF TERRAUGHTY,
ON HIS BIRTHDAY.
[John Maxwell of Terraughty and Munshes, to whom these verses are
addressed, though descended from the Earls of Nithsdale, cared little
about lineage, and claimed merit only from a judgment sound and
clear--a knowledge of business which penetrated into all the concerns
of life, and a skill in handling the most difficult subjects, which
was considered unrivalled. Under an austere manner, he hid much
kindness of heart, and was in a fair way of doing an act of gentleness
when giving a refusal. He loved to meet Burns: not that he either
cared for or comprehended poetry; but he was pleased with his
knowledge of human nature, and with the keen and piercing remarks in
which he indulged. He was seventy-one years old when these verses were
written, and survived the poet twenty years.]
Health to the Maxwell's vet'ran chief!
Health, ay unsour'd by care or grief:
Inspir'd, I turn'd Fate's sybil leaf
This natal morn;
I see thy life is stuff o' prief,
Scarce quite half worn.
This day thou metes three score eleven,
And I can tell that bounteous Heaven
(The second sight, ye ken, is given
To ilka Poet)
On thee a tack o' seven times seven
Will yet bestow it.
If envious buckies view wi' sorrow
Thy lengthen'd days on this blest morrow,
May desolation's lang teeth'd harrow,
Nine miles an hour,
Rake them like Sodom and Gomorrah,
In brunstane stoure--
But for thy friends, and they are mony,
Baith honest men and lasses bonnie,
May couthie fortune, kind and cannie,
In social glee,
Wi' mornings blythe and e'enings funny
Bless them and thee!
Fareweel, auld birkie! Lord be near ye,
And then the Deil he daur na steer ye;
Your friends ay love, your faes ay fear ye;
For me, shame fa' me,
If neist my heart I dinna wear ye
While BURNS they ca' me!
_Dumfries, 18 Feb. 1792._
* * * * *
CXXXI.
THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN.
AN OCCASIONAL ADDRESS SPOKEN BY MISS FONTENELLE
ON HER BENEFIT NIGHT,
Nov. 26, 1792.
[Miss Fontenelle was one of the actresses whom Williamson, the
manager, brought for several seasons to Dumfries: she was young and
pretty, indulged in little levities of speech, and rumour added,
perhaps maliciously, levities of action. The Rights of Man had been
advocated by Paine, the Rights of Woman by Mary Wolstonecroft, and
nought was talked of, but the moral and political regeneration of the
world. The line
"But truce with kings and truce with constitutions,"
got an uncivil twist in recitation, from some of the audience. The
words were eagerly caught up, and had some hisses bestowed on them.]
While Europe's eye is fix'd on mighty things,
The fate of empires and the fall of kings;
While quacks of state must each produce his plan,
And even children lisp the Rights of Man;
Amid this mighty fuss just let me mention,
The Rights of Woman merit some attention.
First on the sexes' intermix'd connexion,
One sacred Right of Woman is protection.
The tender flower that lifts its head, elate,
Helpless, must fall before the blasts of fate,
Sunk on the earth, defac'd its lovely form,
Unless your shelter ward th' impending storm.
Our second Right--but needless here is caution,
To keep that right inviolate's the fashion,
Each man of sense has it so full before him,
He'd die before he'd wrong it--'tis decorum.--
There was, indeed, in far less polish'd days,
A time, when rough, rude man had haughty ways;
Would swagger, swear, get drunk, kick up a riot,
Nay, even thus invade a lady's quiet.
Now, thank our stars! these Gothic times are fled;
Now, well-bred men--and you are all well-bred--
Most justly think (and we are much the gainers)
Such conduct neither spirit, wit, nor manners.
For Right the third, our last, our best, our dearest,
That right to fluttering female hearts the nearest,
Which even the Rights of Kings in low prostration
Most humbly own--'tis dear, dear admiration!
In that blest sphere alone we live and move;
There taste that life of life--immortal love.--
Smiles, glances, sighs, tears, fits, flirtations, airs,
'Gainst such an host what flinty savage dares--
When awful Beauty joins with all her charms,
Who is so rash as rise in rebel arms?
But truce with kings and truce with constitutions,
With bloody armaments and revolutions,
Let majesty your first attention summon,
Ah! ça ira! the majesty of woman!
* * * * *
CXXXII.
MONODY,
ON A LADY FAMED FOR HER CAPRICE.
[The heroine Of this rough lampoon was Mrs. Riddel of Woodleigh Park:
a lady young and gay, much of a wit, and something of a poetess, and
till the hour of his death the friend of Burns himself. She pulled his
displeasure on her, it is said, by smiling more sweetly than he liked
on some "epauletted coxcombs," for so he sometimes designated
commissioned officers: the lady soon laughed him out of his mood. We
owe to her pen an account of her last interview with the poet, written
with great beauty and feeling.]
How cold is that bosom which folly once fired,
How pale is that cheek where the rouge lately glisten'd!
How silent that tongue which the echoes oft tired,
How dull is that ear which to flattery so listen'd!
If sorrow and anguish their exit await,
From friendship and dearest affection remov'd;
How doubly severer, Maria, thy fate,
Thou diest unwept as thou livedst unlov'd.
Loves, Graces, and Virtues, I call not on you;
So shy, grave, and distant, ye shed not a tear:
But come, all ye offspring of Folly so true,
And flowers let us cull for Maria's cold bier.
We'll search through the garden for each silly flower,
We'll roam through the forest for each idle weed;
But chiefly the nettle, so typical, shower,
For none e'er approach'd her but rued the rash deed.
We'll sculpture the marble, we'll measure the lay;
Here Vanity strums on her idiot lyre;
There keen indignation shall dart on her prey,
Which spurning Contempt shall redeem from his ire.
* * * * *
THE EPITAPH.
Here lies, now a prey to insulting neglect,
What once was a butterfly, gay in life's beam:
Want only of wisdom denied her respect,
Want only of goodness denied her esteem
* * * * *
CXXXIII.
EPISTLE
FROM
ESOPUS TO MARIA.
[Williamson, the actor, Colonel Macdouall, Captain Gillespie, and Mrs.
Riddel, are the characters which pass over the stage in this strange
composition: it is printed from the Poet's own manuscript, and seems a
sort of outpouring of wrath and contempt, on persons who, in his eyes,
gave themselves airs beyond their condition, or their merits. The
verse of the lady is held up to contempt and laughter: the satirist
celebrates her
"Motley foundling fancies, stolen or strayed;"
and has a passing hit at her
"Still matchless tongue that conquers all reply."]
From those drear solitudes and frowsy cells,
Where infamy with sad repentance dwells;
Where turnkeys make the jealous portal fast,
And deal from iron hands the spare repast;
Where truant 'prentices, yet young in sin,
Blush at the curious stranger peeping in;
Where strumpets, relics of the drunken roar,
Resolve to drink, nay, half to whore, no more;
Where tiny thieves not destin'd yet to swing,
Beat hemp for others, riper for the string:
From these dire scenes my wretched lines I date,
To tell Maria her Esopus' fate.
"Alas! I feel I am no actor here!"
'Tis real hangmen, real scourges bear!
Prepare, Maria, for a horrid tale
Will turn thy very rouge to deadly pale;
Will make they hair, tho' erst from gipsy polled,
By barber woven, and by barber sold,
Though twisted smooth with Harry's nicest care,
Like hoary bristles to erect and stare.
The hero of the mimic scene, no more
I start in Hamlet, in Othello roar;
Or haughty Chieftain, 'mid the din of arms,
In Highland bonnet woo Malvina's charms;
While sans culottes stoop up the mountain high,
And steal from me Maria's prying eye.
Blest Highland bonnet! Once my proudest dress,
Now prouder still, Maria's temples press.
I see her wave thy towering plumes afar,
And call each coxcomb to the wordy war.
I see her face the first of Ireland's sons,[110]
And even out-Irish his Hibernian bronze;
The crafty colonel[111] leaves the tartan'd lines,
For other wars, where he a hero shines;
The hopeful youth, in Scottish senate bred,
Who owns a Bushby's heart without the head;
Comes, 'mid a string of coxcombs to display
That veni, vidi, vici, is his way;
The shrinking bard adown the alley skulks,
And dreads a meeting worse than Woolwich hulks;
Though there, his heresies in church and state
Might well award him Muir and Palmer's fate:
Still she undaunted reels and rattles on,
And dares the public like a noontide sun.
(What scandal call'd Maria's janty stagger
The ricket reeling of a crooked swagger,
Whose spleen e'en worse than Burns' venom when
He dips in gall unmix'd his eager pen,--
And pours his vengeance in the burning line,
Who christen'd thus Maria's lyre divine;
The idiot strum of vanity bemused,
And even th' abuse of poesy abused!
Who call'd her verse, a parish workhouse made
For motley foundling fancies, stolen or stray'd?)
A workhouse! ah, that sound awakes my woes,
And pillows on the thorn my rack'd repose!
In durance vile here must I wake and weep,
And all my frowsy couch in sorrow steep;
That straw where many a rogue has lain of yore,
And vermin'd gipsies litter'd heretofore.
Why, Lonsdale, thus thy wrath on vagrants pour?
Must earth no rascal save thyself endure?
Must thou alone in guilt immortal swell,
And make a vast monopoly of hell?
Thou know'st, the virtues cannot hate thee worse,
The vices also, must they club their curse?
Or must no tiny sin to others fall,
Because thy guilt's supreme enough for all?
Maria, send me too thy griefs and cares;
In all of thee sure thy Esopus shares.
As thou at all mankind the flag unfurls,
Who on my fair one satire's vengeance hurls?
Who calls thee, pert, affected, vain coquette,
A wit in folly, and a fool in wit?
Who says, that fool alone is not thy due,
And quotes thy treacheries to prove it true?
Our force united on thy foes we'll turn,
And dare the war with all of woman born:
For who can write and speak as thou and I?
My periods that deciphering defy,
And thy still matchless tongue that conquers all reply.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 110: Captain Gillespie.]
[Footnote 111: Col. Macdouall.]
* * * * *
CXXXIV.
POEM
ON PASTORAL POETRY.
[Though Gilbert Burns says there is some doubt of this Poem being by
his brother, and though Robert Chambers declares that he "has scarcely
a doubt that it is not by the Ayrshire Bard," I must print it as his,
for I have no doubt on the subject. It was found among the papers of
the poet, in his own handwriting: the second, the fourth, and the
concluding verses bear the Burns' stamp, which no one has been
successful in counterfeiting: they resemble the verses of Beattie, to
which Chambers has compared them, as little as the cry of the eagle
resembles the chirp of the wren.]
Hail Poesie! thou Nymph reserv'd!
In chase o' thee, what crowds hae swerv'd
Frae common sense, or sunk enerv'd
'Mang heaps o' clavers;
And och! o'er aft thy joes hae starv'd
Mid a' thy favours!
Say, Lassie, why thy train amang,
While loud the trump's heroic clang,
And sock or buskin skelp alang,
To death or marriage;
Scarce ane has tried the shepherd-sang
But wi' miscarriage?
In Homer's craft Jock Milton thrives;
Eschylus' pen Will Shakspeare drives;
Wee Pope, the knurlin, 'till him rives
Horatian fame;
In thy sweet sang, Barbauld, survives
Even Sappho's flame.
But thee, Theocritus, wha matches?
They're no herd's ballats, Maro's catches;
Squire Pope but busks his skinklin patches
O' heathen tatters;
I pass by hunders, nameless wretches,
That ape their betters.
In this braw age o' wit and lear,
Will nane the Shepherd's whistle mair
Blaw sweetly in its native air
And rural grace;
And wi' the far-fam'd Grecian share
A rival place?
Yes! there is ane; a Scottish callan--
There's ane; come forrit, honest Allan!
Thou need na jouk behint the hallan,
A chiel sae clever;
The teeth o' time may gnaw Tantallan,
But thou's for ever!
Thou paints auld nature to the nines,
In thy sweet Caledonian lines;
Nae gowden stream thro' myrtles twines,
Where Philomel,
While nightly breezes sweep the vines,
Her griefs will tell!
In gowany glens thy burnie strays,
Where bonnie lasses bleach their claes;
Or trots by hazelly shaws and braes,
Wi' hawthorns gray,
Where blackbirds join the shepherd's lays
At close o' day.
Thy rural loves are nature's sel';
Nae bombast spates o' nonsense swell;
Nae snap conceits, but that sweet spell
O' witchin' love;
That charm that can the strongest quell,
The sternest move.
* * * * *
CXXXV.
SONNET,
WRITTEN ON THE TWENTY-FIFTH OF JANUARY, 1793,
THE BIRTHDAY OF THE AUTHOR, ON HEARING A
THRUSH SING IN A MORNING WALK.
[Burns was fond of a saunter in a leafless wood, when the winter storm
howled among the branches. These characteristic lines were composed on
the morning of his birthday, with the Nith at his feet, and the ruins
of Lincluden at his side: he is willing to accept the unlooked-for
song of the thrush as a fortunate omen.]
Sing on, sweet thrush, upon the leafless bough,
Sing on, sweet bird, I listen to thy strain:
See, aged Winter, 'mid his surly reign,
At thy blythe carol clears his furrow'd brow.
So, in lone Poverty's dominion drear,
Sits meek Content with light unanxious heart,
Welcomes the rapid moments, bids them part,
Nor asks if they bring aught to hope or fear.
I thank Thee, Author of this opening day!
Thou whose bright sun now gilds yon orient skies!
Riches denied, Thy boon was purer joys,
What wealth could never give nor take away.
Yet come, thou child of poverty and care,
The mite high Heaven bestow'd, that mite with thee I'll share.
* * * * *
CXXXVI.
SONNET,
ON THE
DEATH OF ROBERT RIDDEL, ESQ.
OF GLENRIDDEL,
APRIL, 1794.
[The death of Glencairn, who was his patron, and the death of
Glenriddel, who was his friend, and had, while he lived at Ellisland,
been his neighbor, weighed hard on the mind of Burns, who, about this
time, began to regard his own future fortune with more of dismay than
of hope. Riddel united antiquarian pursuits with those of literature,
and experienced all the vulgar prejudices entertained by the peasantry
against those who indulge in such researches. His collection of what
the rustics of the vale called "queer quairns and swine-troughs," is
now scattered or neglected: I have heard a competent judge say, that
they threw light on both the public and domestic history of Scotland.]
No more, ye warblers of the wood--no more!
Nor pour your descant, grating, on my soul;
Thou young-eyed Spring, gay in thy verdant stole,
More welcome were to me grim Winter's wildest roar.
How can ye charm, ye flow'rs, with all your dyes?
Ye blow upon the sod that wraps my friend:
How can I to the tuneful strain attend?
That strain flows round th' untimely tomb where Riddel lies.
Yes, pour, ye warblers, pour the notes of woe!
And soothe the Virtues weeping on this bier:
The Man of Worth, who has not left his peer,
Is in his "narrow house" for ever darkly low.
Thee, Spring, again with joy shall others greet,
Me, mem'ry of my loss will only meet.
* * * * *
CXXXVII.
IMPROMPTU,
ON MRS. R----'S BIRTHDAY.
[By compliments such as these lines contain, Burns soothed the smart
which his verses "On a lady famed for her caprice" inflicted on the
accomplished Mrs. Riddel.]
Old Winter, with his frosty beard,
Thus once to Jove his prayer preferr'd,--
What have I done of all the year,
To bear this hated doom severe?
My cheerless suns no pleasure know;
Night's horrid car drags, dreary, slow:
My dismal months no joys are crowning,
But spleeny English, hanging, drowning.
Now, Jove, for once be mighty civil,
To counterbalance all this evil;
Give me, and I've no more to say,
Give me Maria's natal day!
That brilliant gift shall so enrich me,
Spring, Summer, Autumn, cannot match me;
'Tis done! says Jove; so ends my story,
And Winter once rejoiced in glory.
* * * * *
CXXXVIII.
LIBERTY.
A FRAGMENT.
[Fragment of verse were numerous, Dr. Currie said, among the loose
papers of the poet. These lines formed the commencement of an ode
commemorating the achievement of liberty for America under the
directing genius of Washington and Franklin.]
Thee, Caledonia, thy wild heaths among,
Thee, fam'd for martial deed and sacred song,
To thee I turn with swimming eyes;
Where is that soul of freedom fled?
Immingled with the mighty dead!
Beneath the hallow'd turf where Wallace lies!
Hear it not, Wallace, in thy bed of death!
Ye babbling winds, in silence sweep;
Disturb not ye the hero's sleep,
Nor give the coward secret breath.
Is this the power in freedom's war,
That wont to bid the battle rage?
Behold that eye which shot immortal hate,
Crushing the despot's proudest bearing!
* * * * *
CXXXIX.
VERSES
TO A YOUNG LADY.
[This young lady was the daughter of the poet's friend, Graham of
Fintray; and the gift alluded to was a copy of George Thomson's
Select Scottish Songs: a work which owes many attractions to the lyric
genius of Burns.]
Here, where the Scottish muse immortal lives,
In sacred strains and tuneful numbers join'd,
Accept the gift;--tho' humble he who gives,
Rich is the tribute of the grateful mind.
So may no ruffian feeling in thy breast,
Discordant jar thy bosom-chords among;
But peace attune thy gentle soul to rest,
Or love ecstatic wake his seraph song.
Or pity's notes in luxury of tears,
As modest want the tale of woe reveals;
While conscious virtue all the strain endears,
And heaven-born piety her sanction seals.
* * * * *
CXL.
THE VOWELS.
A TALE.
[Burns admired genius adorned by learning; but mere learning without
genius he always regarded as pedantry. Those critics who scrupled too
much about words he called eunuchs of literature, and to one, who
taxed him with writing obscure language in questionable grammar, he
said, "Thou art but a Gretna-green match-maker between vowels and
consonants!"]
'Twas where the birch and sounding thong are ply'd,
The noisy domicile of pedant pride;
Where ignorance her darkening vapour throws,
And cruelty directs the thickening blows;
upon a time, Sir Abece the great,
In all his pedagogic powers elate,
His awful chair of state resolves to mount,
And call the trembling vowels to account.--
First enter'd A, a grave, broad, solemn wight,
But, ah! deform'd, dishonest to the sight!
His twisted head look'd backward on the way,
And flagrant from the scourge he grunted, _ai!_
Reluctant, E stalk'd in; with piteous race
The justling tears ran down his honest face!
That name! that well-worn name, and all his own,
Pale he surrenders at the tyrant's throne!
The pedant stifles keen the Roman sound
Not all his mongrel diphthongs can compound;
And next the title following close behind,
He to the nameless, ghastly wretch assign'd.
The cobweb'd gothic dome resounded Y!
In sullen vengeance, I, disdain'd reply:
The pedant swung his felon cudgel round,
And knock'd the groaning vowel to the ground!
In rueful apprehension enter'd O,
The wailing minstrel of despairing woe;
Th' Inquisitor of Spain the most expert
Might there have learnt new mysteries of his art;
So grim, deform'd, with horrors entering U,
His dearest friend and brother scarcely knew!
As trembling U stood staring all aghast,
The pedant in his left hand clutched him fast,
In helpless infants' tears he dipp'd his right,
Baptiz'd him _eu_, and kick'd him from his sight.
* * * * *
CXLI.
VERSES
TO JOHN RANKINE.
[With the "rough, rude, ready-witted Rankine," of Adamhill, in
Ayrshire, Burns kept up a will o'-wispish sort of a correspondence in
rhyme, till the day of his death: these communications, of which this
is one, were sometimes graceless, but always witty. It is supposed,
that those lines were suggested by Falstaff's account of his ragged
recruits:--
"I'll not march through Coventry with them, that's flat!"]
Ae day, as Death, that grusome carl,
Was driving to the tither warl'
A mixtie-maxtie motley squad,
And mony a guilt-bespotted lad;
Black gowns of each denomination,
And thieves of every rank and station,
From him that wears the star and garter,
To him that wintles in a halter:
Asham'd himsel' to see the wretches,
He mutters, glowrin' at the bitches,
"By G--d, I'll not be seen behint them,
Nor 'mang the sp'ritual core present them,
Without, at least, ae honest man,
To grace this d--d infernal clan."
By Adamhill a glance he threw,
"L--d G--d!" quoth he, "I have it now,
There's just the man I want, i' faith!"
And quickly stoppit Rankine's breath.
* * * * *
CXLII.
ON SENSIBILITY.
TO
MY DEAR AND MUCH HONOURED FRIEND, MRS. DUNLOP,
OF DUNLOP.
[These verses were occasioned, it is said, by some sentiments
contained in a communication from Mrs. Dunlop. That excellent lady was
sorely tried with domestic afflictions for a time, and to these he
appears to allude; but he deadened the effect of his sympathy, when he
printed the stanzas in the Museum, changing the fourth line to,
"Dearest Nancy, thou canst tell!"
and so transferring the whole to another heroine.]
Sensibility how charming,
Thou, my friend, canst truly tell:
But distress with horrors arming,
Thou host also known too well.
Fairest flower, behold the lily,
Blooming in the sunny ray:
Let the blast sweep o'er the valley,
See it prostrate on the clay.
Hear the woodlark charm the forest,
Telling o'er his little joys:
Hapless bird! a prey the surest,
To each pirate of the skies.
Dearly bought, the hidden treasure,
Finer feeling can bestow;
Chords that vibrate sweetest pleasure,
Thrill the deepest notes of woe.
* * * * *
CXLIII.
LINES,
SENT TO A GENTLEMAN WHOM HE HAD
OFFENDED.
[The too hospitable board of Mrs. Riddel occasioned these repentant
strains: they were accepted as they were meant by the party. The poet
had, it seems, not only spoken of mere titles and rank with
disrespect, but had allowed his tongue unbridled license of speech, on
the claim of political importance, and domestic equality, which Mary
Wolstonecroft and her followers patronized, at which Mrs. Riddel
affected to be grievously offended.]
The friend whom wild from wisdom's way,
The fumes of wine infuriate send;
(Not moony madness more astray;)
Who but deplores that hapless friend?
Mine was th' insensate frenzied part,
Ah, why should I such scenes outlive
Scenes so abhorrent to my heart!
'Tis thine to pity and forgive.
* * * * *
CXLIV.
ADDRESS,
SPOKEN BY MISS FONTENELLE ON HER BENEFIT
NIGHT.
[This address was spoken by Miss Fontenelle, at the Dumfries theatre,
on the 4th of December, 1795.]
Still anxious to secure your partial favour,
And not less anxious, sure, this night than ever,
A Prologue, Epilogue, or some such matter,
'Twould vamp my bill, said I, if nothing better;
So sought a Poet, roosted near the skies,
Told him I came to feast my curious eyes;
Said nothing like his works was ever printed;
And last, my Prologue-business slyly hinted!
"Ma'am, let me tell you," quoth my man of rhymes,
"I know your bent--these are no laughing times:
Can you--but, Miss, I own I have my fears,
Dissolve in pause--and sentimental tears;
With laden sighs, and solemn-rounded sentence,
Rouse from his sluggish slumbers, fell Repentance;
Paint Vengeance as he takes his horrid stand,
Waving on high the desolating brand,
Calling the storms to bear him o'er a guilty land?"
I could no more--askance the creature eyeing,
D'ye think, said I, this face was made for crying?
I'll laugh, that's poz--nay more, the world shall know it;
And so your servant: gloomy Master Poet!
Firm as my creed, Sirs, 'tis my fix'd belief,
That Misery's another word for Grief;
I also think--so may I be a bride!
That so much laughter, so much life enjoy'd.
Thou man of crazy care and ceaseless sigh,
Still under bleak Misfortune's blasting eye;
Doom'd to that sorest task of man alive--
To make three guineas do the work of five:
Laugh in Misfortune's face--the beldam witch!
Say, you'll be merry, tho' you can't be rich.
Thou other man of care, the wretch in love,
Who long with jiltish arts and airs hast strove;
Who, us the boughs all temptingly project,
Measur'st in desperate thought--a rope--thy neck--
Or, where the beetling cliff o'erhangs the deep,
Peerest to meditate the healing leap:
Would'st thou be cur'd, thou silly, moping elf?
Laugh at their follies--laugh e'en at thyself:
Learn to despise those frowns now so terrific,
And love a kinder--that's your grand specific.
To sum up all, be merry, I advise;
And as we're merry, may we still be wise.
* * * * *
CXLV.
ON
SEEING MISS FONTENELLE
IN A FAVOURITE CHARACTER.
[The good looks and the natural acting of Miss Fontenelle pleased
others as well as Burns. I know not to what character in the range of
her personations he alludes: she was a favourite on the Dumfries
boards.]
Sweet naiveté of feature,
Simple, wild, enchanting elf,
Not to thee, but thanks to nature,
Thou art acting but thyself.
Wert thou awkward, stiff, affected,
Spurning nature, torturing art;
Loves and graces all rejected,
Then indeed thou'dst act a part.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXLVI.
TO CHLORIS.
[Chloris was a Nithsdale beauty. Love and sorrow were strongly mingled
in her early history: that she did not look so lovely in other eyes as
she did in those of Burns is well known: but he had much of the taste
of an artist, and admired the elegance of her form, and the harmony of
her motion, as much as he did her blooming face and sweet voice.]
'Tis Friendship's pledge, my young, fair friend,
Nor thou the gift refuse,
Nor with unwilling ear attend
The moralizing muse.
Since thou in all thy youth and charms,
Must bid the world adieu,
(A world 'gainst peace in constant arms)
To join the friendly few.
Since, thy gay morn of life o'ercast,
Chill came the tempest's lower;
(And ne'er misfortune's eastern blast
Did nip a fairer flower.)
Since life's gay scenes must charm no more,
Still much is left behind;
Still nobler wealth hast thou in store--
The comforts of the mind!
Thine is the self-approving glow,
On conscious honour's part;
And, dearest gift of heaven below,
Thine friendship's truest heart.
The joys refin'd of sense and taste,
With every muse to rove:
And doubly were the poet blest,
These joys could he improve.
* * * * *
CXLVII.
POETICAL INSCRIPTION
FOR AN ALTAR TO INDEPENDENCE.
[It was the fashion of the feverish times of the French Revolution to
plant trees of Liberty, and raise altars to Independence. Heron of
Kerroughtree, a gentleman widely esteemed in Galloway, was about to
engage in an election contest, and these noble lines served the
purpose of announcing the candidate's sentiments on freedom.]
Thou of an independent mind,
With soul resolv'd, with soul resign'd;
Prepar'd Power's proudest frown to brave,
Who wilt not be, nor have a slave;
Virtue alone who dost revere,
Thy own reproach alone dost fear,
Approach this shrine, and worship here.
* * * * *
CXLVIII.
THE HERON BALLADS.
[BALLAD FIRST.]
[This is the first of several party ballads which Burns wrote to serve
Patrick Heron, of Kerroughtree, in two elections for the Stewartry of
Kirkcudbright, in which he was opposed, first, by Gordon of Balmaghie,
and secondly, by the Hon. Montgomery Stewart. There is a personal
bitterness in these lampoons, which did not mingle with the strains in
which the poet recorded the contest between Miller and Johnstone. They
are printed here as matters of poetry, and I feel sure that none will
be displeased, and some will smile.]
I.
Whom will you send to London town,
To Parliament and a' that?
Or wha in a' the country round
The best deserves to fa' that?
For a' that, and a' that;
Thro Galloway and a' that;
Where is the laird or belted knight
That best deserves to fa' that?
II.
Wha sees Kerroughtree's open yett,
And wha is't never saw that?
Wha ever wi' Kerroughtree meets
And has a doubt of a' that?
For a' that, and a' that,
Here's Heron yet for a' that,
The independent patriot,
The honest man, an' a' that.
III.
Tho' wit and worth in either sex,
St. Mary's Isle can shaw that;
Wi' dukes and lords let Selkirk mix,
And weel does Selkirk fa' that.
For a' that, and a' that,
Here's Heron yet for a' that!
The independent commoner
Shall be the man for a' that.
IV.
But why should we to nobles jouk,
And it's against the law that;
For why, a lord may be a gouk,
Wi' ribbon, star, an' a' that.
For a' that, an' a' that,
Here's Heron yet for a' that!
A lord may be a lousy loun,
Wi' ribbon, star, an' a' that.
V.
A beardless boy comes o'er the hills,
Wi' uncle's purse an' a' that;
But we'll hae ane frae 'mang oursels,
A man we ken, an' a' that.
For a' that, an' a' that,
Here's Heron yet for a' that!
For we're not to be bought an' sold
Like naigs, an' nowt, an' a' that.
VI.
Then let us drink the Stewartry,
Kerroughtree's laird, an' a' that,
Our representative to be,
For weel he's worthy a' that.
For a' that, an' a' that,
Here's Heron yet for a' that,
A House of Commons such as he,
They would be blest that saw that.
* * * * *
CXLIX.
THE HERON BALLADS.
[BALLAD SECOND.]
[In this ballad the poet gathers together, after the manner of "Fy!
let us a' to the bridal," all the leading electors of the Stewartry,
who befriended Heron, or opposed him; and draws their portraits in the
colours of light or darkness, according to the complexion of their
politics. He is too severe in most instances, and in some he is
venomous. On the Earl of Galloway's family, and on the Murrays of
Broughton and Caillie, as well as on Bushby of Tinwaldowns, he pours
his hottest satire. But words which are unjust, or undeserved, fall
off their victims like rain-drops from a wild-duck's wing. The Murrays
of Broughton and Caillie have long borne, from the vulgar, the stigma
of treachery to the cause of Prince Charles Stewart: from such infamy
the family is wholly free: the traitor, Murray, was of a race now
extinct; and while he was betraying the cause in which so much noble
and gallant blood was shed, Murray of Broughton and Caillie was
performing the duties of an honourable and loyal man: he was, like his
great-grandson now, representing his native district in parliament.]
THE ELECTION.
I.
Fy, let us a' to Kirkcudbright,
For there will be bickerin' there;
For Murray's[112] light horse are to muster,
And O, how the heroes will swear!
An' there will be Murray commander,
And Gordon[113] the battle to win;
Like brothers they'll stand by each other,
Sae knit in alliance an' kin.
II.
An' there will be black-lippit Johnnie,[114]
The tongue o' the trump to them a';
And he get na hell for his haddin'
The deil gets na justice ava';
And there will Kempleton's birkie,
A boy no sae black at the bane,
But, as for his fine nabob fortune,
We'll e'en let the subject alane.
III.
An' there will be Wigton's new sheriff,
Dame Justice fu' brawlie has sped,
She's gotten the heart of a Bushby,
But, Lord, what's become o' the head?
An' there will be Cardoness,[115] Esquire,
Sae mighty in Cardoness' eyes;
A wight that will weather damnation,
For the devil the prey will despise.
IV.
An' there will be Douglasses[116] doughty,
New christ'ning towns far and near;
Abjuring their democrat doings,
By kissing the ---- o' a peer;
An' there will be Kenmure[117] sae gen'rous,
Whose honour is proof to the storm,
To save them from stark reprobation,
He lent them his name to the firm.
V.
But we winna mention Redcastle,[118]
The body, e'en let him escape!
He'd venture the gallows for siller,
An' 'twere na the cost o' the rape.
An' where is our king's lord lieutenant,
Sae fam'd for his gratefu' return?
The billie is gettin' his questions,
To say in St. Stephen's the morn.
VI.
An' there will be lads o' the gospel,
Muirhead,[119] wha's as gude as he's true;
An' there will be Buittle's[120] apostle,
Wha's more o' the black than the blue;
An' there will be folk from St. Mary's,[121]
A house o' great merit and note,
The deil ane but honours them highly,--
The deil ane will gie them his vote!
VII.
An' there will be wealthy young Richard,[122]
Dame Fortune should hing by the neck;
For prodigal, thriftless, bestowing,
His merit had won him respect:
An' there will be rich brother nabobs,
Tho' nabobs, yet men of the first,
An' there will be Collieston's[123] whiskers,
An' Quintin, o' lads not the worst.
VIII.
An' there will be stamp-office Johnnie,[124]
Tak' tent how ye purchase a dram;
An' there will be gay Cassencarrie,
An' there will be gleg Colonel Tam;
An' there will be trusty Kerroughtree,[125]
Whose honour was ever his law,
If the virtues were pack'd in a parcel,
His worth might be sample for a'.
IX.
An' can we forget the auld major,
Wha'll ne'er be forgot in the Greys,
Our flatt'ry we'll keep for some other,
Him only 'tis justice to praise.
An' there will be maiden Kilkerran,
And also Barskimming's gude knight,
An' there will be roarin' Birtwhistle,
Wha luckily roars in the right.
X.
An' there, frae the Niddisdale borders,
Will mingle the Maxwells in droves;
Teugh Johnnie, staunch Geordie, an' Walie,
That griens for the fishes an' loaves;
An' there will be Logan Mac Douall,[126]
Sculdudd'ry an' he will be there,
An' also the wild Scot of Galloway,
Sodgerin', gunpowder Blair.
XI.
Then hey the chaste interest o' Broughton,
An' hey for the blessings 'twill bring?
It may send Balmaghie to the Commons,
In Sodom 'twould make him a king;
An' hey for the sanctified M----y,
Our land who wi' chapels has stor'd;
He founder'd his horse among harlots,
But gied the auld naig to the Lord.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 112: Murray, of Broughton and Caillie.]
[Footnote 113: Gordon of Balmaghie.]
[Footnote 114: Bushby, of Tinwald-Downs.]
[Footnote 115: Maxwell, of Cardoness.]
[Footnote 116: The Douglasses, of Orchardtown and Castle-Douglas.]
[Footnote 117: Gordon, afterwards Viscount Kenmore.]
[Footnote 118: Laurie, of Redcastle.]
[Footnote 119: Morehead, Minister of Urr.]
[Footnote 120: The Minister of Buittle.]
[Footnote 121: Earl of Selkirk's family.]
[Footnote 122: Oswald, of Auchuncruive.]
[Footnote 123: Copland, of Collieston and Blackwood.]
[Footnote 124: John Syme, of the Stamp-office.]
[Footnote 125: Heron, of Kerroughtree.]
[Footnote 126: Colonel Macdouall, of Logan.]
* * * * *
CL.
THE HERON BALLADS.
[BALLAD THIRD.]
[This third and last ballad was written on the contest between Heron
and Stewart, which followed close on that with Gordon. Heron carried
the election, but was unseated by the decision of a Committee of the
House of Commons: a decision which it is said he took so much to heart
that it affected his health, and shortened his life.]
AN EXCELLENT NEW SONG.
Tune.--"_Buy broom besoms._"
Wha will buy my troggin,
Fine election ware;
Broken trade o' Broughton,
A' in high repair.
Buy braw troggin,
Frae the banks o' Dee;
Wha wants troggin
Let him come to me.
There's a noble Earl's[127]
Fame and high renown
For an auld sang--
It's thought the gudes were stown.
Buy braw troggin, &c.
Here's the worth o' Broughton[128]
In a needle's ee;
Here's a reputation
Tint by Balmaghie.
Buy braw troggin, &c.
Here's an honest conscience
Might a prince adorn;
Frae the downs o' Tinwald--[129]
So was never worn.
Buy braw troggin, &c.
Here's its stuff and lining,
Cardoness'[130] head;
Fine for a sodger
A' the wale o' lead.
Buy braw troggin, &c.
Here's a little wadset
Buittle's[131] scrap o' truth,
Pawn'd in a gin-shop
Quenching holy drouth.
Buy braw troggin, &c.
Here's armorial bearings
Frae the manse o' Urr;[132]
The crest, an auld crab-apple
Rotten at the core.
Buy braw troggin, &c.
Here is Satan's picture,
Like a bizzard gled,
Pouncing poor Redcastle,[133]
Sprawlin' as a taed.
Buy braw troggin, &c.
Here's the worth and wisdom
Collieston[134] can boast;
By a thievish midge
They had been nearly lost.
Buy braw troggin, &c.
Here is Murray's fragments
O' the ten commands;
Gifted by black Jock[135]
To get them aff his hands.
Buy braw troggin, &c.
Saw ye e'er sic troggin?
If to buy ye're slack,
Hornie's turnin' chapman,
He'll buy a' the pack.
Buy braw troggin,
Frae the banks o' Dee;
Wha wants troggin
Let him come to me.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 127: The Earl of Galloway.]
[Footnote 128: Murray, of Broughton and Caillie.]
[Footnote 129: Bushby, of Tinwald-downs.]
[Footnote 130: Maxwell, of Cardoness.]
[Footnote 131: The Minister of Buittle.]
[Footnote 132: Morehead, of Urr.]
[Footnote 133: Laurie, of Redcastle.]
[Footnote 134: Copland, of Collieston and Blackwood.]
[Footnote 135: John Bushby, of Tinwald-downs.]
* * * * *
CLI.
POEM,
ADDRESSED TO
MR. MITCHELL, COLLECTOR OF EXCISE.
DUMFRIES, 1796.
[The gentlemen to whom this very modest, and, under the circumstances,
most affecting application for his salary was made, filled the office
of Collector of Excise for the district, and was of a kind and
generous nature: but few were aware that the poet was suffering both
from ill-health and poverty.]
Friend of the Poet, tried and leal,
Wha, wanting thee, might beg or steal;
Alake, alake, the meikle deil
Wi' a' his witches
Are at it, skelpin' jig and reel,
In my poor pouches!
I modestly fu' fain wad hint it,
That one pound one, I sairly want it,
If wi' the hizzie down ye sent it,
It would be kind;
And while my heart wi' life-blood dunted
I'd bear't in mind.
So may the auld year gang out moaning
To see the new come laden, groaning,
Wi' double plenty o'er the loanin
To thee and thine;
Domestic peace and comforts crowning
The hale design.
* * * * *
POSTSCRIPT.
Ye've heard this while how I've been licket,
And by felt death was nearly nicket;
Grim loon! he got me by the fecket,
And sair me sheuk;
But by guid luck I lap a wicket,
And turn'd a neuk.
But by that health, I've got a share o't,
And by that life, I'm promised mair o't,
My hale and weel I'll tak a care o't,
A tentier way:
Then farewell folly, hide and hair o't,
For ance and aye!
* * * * *
CLII.
TO
MISS JESSY LEWARS,
DUMFRIES.
WITH JOHNSON'S 'MUSICAL MUSEUM.'
[Miss Jessy Lewars watched over the declining days of the poet, with
the affectionate reverence of a daughter: for this she has the silent
gratitude of all who admire the genius of Burns; she has received
more, the thanks of the poet himself, expressed in verses not destined
soon to die.]
Thine be the volumes, Jessy fair,
And with them take the Poet's prayer;
That fate may in her fairest page,
With every kindliest, best presage
Of future bliss, enrol thy name:
With native worth and spotless fame,
And wakeful caution still aware
Of ill--but chief, man's felon snare;
All blameless joys on earth we find,
And all the treasures of the mind--
These be thy guardian and reward;
So prays thy faithful friend, The Bard.
_June_ 26, 1796.
* * * * *
CLIII.
POEM ON LIFE,
ADDRESSED TO
COLONEL DE PEYSTER.
DUMFRIES, 1796.
[This is supposed to be the last Poem written by the hand, or
conceived by the muse of Burns. The person to whom it is addressed was
Colonel of the gentlemen Volunteers of Dumfries, in whose ranks Burns
was a private: he was a Canadian by birth, and prided himself on
having defended Detroit, against the united efforts of the French and
Americans. He was rough and austere, and thought the science of war
the noblest of all sciences: he affected a taste for literature, and
wrote verses.]
My honoured colonel, deep I feel
Your interest in the Poet's weal;
Ah! now sma' heart hae I to speel
The steep Parnassus,
Surrounded thus by bolus, pill,
And potion glasses.
O what a canty warld were it,
Would pain and care and sickness spare it;
And fortune favour worth and merit,
As they deserve!
(And aye a rowth, roast beef and claret;
Syne, wha wad starve?)
Dame Life, tho' fiction out may trick her,
And in paste gems and frippery deck her;
Oh! flickering, feeble, and unsicker
I've found her still,
Ay wavering like the willow-wicker,
'Tween good and ill.
Then that curst carmagnole, auld Satan,
Watches, like baudrons by a rattan,
Our sinfu' saul to get a claut on
Wi' felon ire;
Syne, whip! his tail ye'll ne'er cast saut on--
He's aff like fire.
Ah Nick! ah Nick! it is na fair,
First shewing us the tempting ware,
Bright wines and bonnie lasses rare,
To put us daft;
Syne, weave, unseen, thy spider snare
O' hell's damn'd waft.
Poor man, the flie, aft bizzes bye,
And aft as chance he comes thee nigh,
Thy auld danm'd elbow yeuks wi' joy,
And hellish pleasure;
Already in thy fancy's eye,
Thy sicker treasure!
Soon heels-o'er gowdie! in he gangs,
And like a sheep head on a tangs,
Thy girning laugh enjoys his pangs
And murd'ring wrestle,
As, dangling in the wind, he hangs
A gibbet's tassel.
But lest you think I am uncivil,
To plague you with this draunting drivel,
Abjuring a' intentions evil,
I quat my pen:
The Lord preserve us frae the devil,
Amen! amen!
* * * * *
EPITAPHS, EPIGRAMS, FRAGMENTS,
ETC., ETC.
I.
ON THE AUTHOR'S FATHER.
[William Burness merited his son's eulogiums: he was an example of
piety, patience, and fortitude.]
O ye whose cheek the tear of pity stains,
Draw near with pious rev'rence and attend!
Here lie the loving husband's dear remains,
The tender father and the gen'rous friend.
The pitying heart that felt for human woe;
The dauntless heart that feared no human pride;
The friend of man, to vice alone a foe;
"For ev'n his failings lean'd to virtue's side."
* * * * *
II.
ON R.A., ESQ.
[Robert Aiken, Esq., to whom "The Cotter's Saturday Night" is
addressed: a kind and generous man.]
Know thou, O stranger to the fame
Of this much lov'd, much honour'd name!
(For none that knew him need be told)
A warmer heart death ne'er made cold.
* * * * *
III.
ON A FRIEND.
[The name of this friend is neither mentioned nor alluded to in any of
the poet's productions.]
An honest man here lies at rest
As e'er God with his image blest!
The friend of man, the friend of truth;
The friend of age, and guide of youth;
Few hearts like his, with virtue warm'd,
Few heads with knowledge so inform'd:
If there's another world, he lives in bliss;
If there is none, he made the best of this.
* * * * *
IV.
FOR GAVIN HAMILTON.
[These lines allude to the persecution which Hamilton endured for
presuming to ride on Sunday, and say, "damn it," in the presence of
the minister of Mauchline.]
The poor man weeps--here Gavin sleeps,
Whom canting wretches blam'd:
But with such as he, where'er he be,
May I be sav'd or damn'd!
* * * * *
V.
ON WEE JOHNNY.
HIC JACET WEE JOHNNY.
[Wee Johnny was John Wilson, printer of the Kilmarnock edition of
Burns's Poems: he doubted the success of the speculation, and the poet
punished him in these lines, which he printed unaware of their
meaning.]
Whoe'er thou art, O reader, know,
That death has murder'd Johnny!
An' here his body lies fu' low--
For saul he ne'er had ony.
* * * * *
VI.
ON JOHN DOVE,
INNKEEPER, MAUCHLINE.
[John Dove kept the Whitefoord Arms in Mauchline: his religion is made
to consist of a comparative appreciation of the liquors he kept.]
Here lies Johnny Pidgeon;
What was his religion?
Wha e'er desires to ken,
To some other warl'
Maun follow the carl,
For here Johnny Pidgeon had nane!
Strong ale was ablution--
Small beer, persecution,
A dram was _memento mori_;
But a full flowing bowl
Was the saving his soul,
And port was celestial glory.
* * * * *
VII.
ON A WAG IN MAUCHLINE.
[This laborious and useful wag was the "Dear Smith, thou sleest pawkie
thief," of one of the poet's finest epistles: he died in the West
Indies.]
Lament him, Mauchline husbands a',
He aften did assist ye;
For had ye staid whole weeks awa,
Your wives they ne'er had missed ye.
Ye Mauchline bairns, as on ye press
To school in bands thegither,
O tread ye lightly on his grass,--
Perhaps he was your father.
* * * * *
VIII.
ON A CELEBRATED RULING ELDER.
[Souter Hood obtained the distinction of this Epigram by his
impertinent inquiries into what he called the moral delinquencies of
Burns.]
Here souter Hood in death does sleep;--
To h--ll, if he's gane thither,
Satan, gie him thy gear to keep,
He'll haud it weel thegither.
* * * * *
IX.
ON A NOISY POLEMIC.
[This noisy polemic was a mason of the name of James Humphrey: he
astonished Cromek by an eloquent dissertation on free grace,
effectual-calling, and predestination.]
Below thir stanes lie Jamie's banes:
O Death, it's my opinion,
Thou ne'er took such a blethrin' b--ch
Into thy dark dominion!
* * * * *
X.
ON MISS JEAN SCOTT.
[The heroine of these complimentary lines lived in Ayr, and cheered
the poet with her sweet voice, as well as her sweet looks.]
Oh! had each Scot of ancient times,
Been Jeany Scott, as thou art,
The bravest heart on English ground
Had yielded like a coward!
* * * * *
XI.
ON A HENPECKED COUNTRY SQUIRE.
[Though satisfied with the severe satire of these lines, the poet made
a second attempt.]
As father Adam first was fool'd,
A case that's still too common,
Here lies a man a woman rul'd,
The devil rul'd the woman.
* * * * *
XII.
ON THE SAME.
[The second attempt did not in Burns's fancy exhaust this fruitful
subject: he tried his hand again.]
O Death, hadst thou but spared his life,
Whom we this day lament,
We freely wad exchang'd the wife,
And a' been weel content!
Ev'n as he is, cauld in his graff,
The swap we yet will do't;
Take thou the carlin's carcase aff,
Thou'se get the soul to boot.
* * * * *
XIII.
ON THE SAME.
[In these lines he bade farewell to the sordid dame, who lived, it is
said, in Netherplace, near Mauchline.]
One Queen Artemisia, as old stories tell,
When depriv'd of her husband she loved so well,
In respect for the love and affection he'd show'd her,
She reduc'd him to dust and she drank up the powder.
But Queen Netherplace, of a diff'rent complexion,
When call'd on to order the fun'ral direction,
Would have eat her dear lord, on a slender pretence,
Not to show her respect, but to save the expense.
* * * * *
XIV.
THE HIGHLAND WELCOME.
[Burns took farewell of the hospitalities of the Scottish Highlands in
these happy lines.]
When Death's dark stream I ferry o'er,
A time that surely shall come;
In Heaven itself I'll ask no more
Than just a Highland welcome.
* * * * *
XV.
ON WILLIAM SMELLIE.
[Smellie, author of the Philosophy of History; a singular person, of
ready wit, and negligent in nothing save his dress.]
Shrewd Willie Smellie to Crochallan came,
The old cock'd hat, the gray surtout, the same;
His bristling beard just rising in its might,
'Twas four long nights and days to shaving night:
His uncomb'd grizzly locks wild staring, thatch'd
A head for thought profound and clear, unmatch'd:
Yet tho' his caustic wit was biting, rude,
His heart was warm, benevolent, and good.
* * * * *
XVI.
VERSES
WRITTEN ON A WINDOW OF THE INN AT CARRON.
[These lines were written on receiving what the poet considered an
uncivil refusal to look at the works of the celebrated Carron
foundry.]
We came na here to view your warks
In hopes to be mair wise,
But only, lest we gang to hell,
It may be nae surprise:
For whan we tirl'd at your door,
Your porter dought na hear us;
Sae may, shou'd we to hell's yetts come
Your billy Satan sair us!
* * * * *
XVII.
THE BOOK-WORMS.
[Burns wrote this reproof in a Shakspeare, which he found splendidly
bound and gilt, but unread and worm-eaten, in a noble person's
library.]
Through and through the inspir'd leaves,
Ye maggots, make your windings;
But oh! respect his lordship's taste,
And spare his golden bindings.
* * * * *
XVIII.
LINES ON STIRLING.
[On visiting Stirling, Burns was stung at beholding nothing but
desolation in the palaces of our princes and our halls of legislation,
and vented his indignation in those unloyal lines: some one has said
that they were written by his companion, Nicol, but this wants
confirmation.]
Here Stuarts once in glory reign'd,
And laws for Scotland's weal ordain'd;
But now unroof'd their palace stands,
Their sceptre's sway'd by other hands;
The injured Stuart line is gone,
A race outlandish fills their throne;
An idiot race, to honour lost;
Who know them best despise them most.
* * * * *
XIX.
THE REPROOF.
[The imprudence of making the lines written at Stirling public was
hinted to Burns by a friend; he said, "Oh, but I mean to reprove
myself for it," which he did in these words.]
Rash mortal, and slanderous Poet, thy name
Shall no longer appear in the records of fame;
Dost not know that old Mansfield, who writes like the Bible,
Says the more 'tis a truth, Sir, the more 'tis a libel?
* * * * *
XX.
THE REPLY.
[The minister of Gladsmuir wrote a censure on the Stirling lines,
intimating, as a priest, that Burns's race was nigh run, and as a
prophet, that oblivion awaited his muse. The poet replied to the
expostulation.]
Like Esop's lion, Burns says, sore I feel
All others' scorn--but damn that ass's heel.
* * * * *
XXI.
LINES
WRITTEN UNDER THE PICTURE OF THE CELEBRATED MISS BURNS.
[The Miss Burns of these lines was well known in those days to the
bucks of the Scottish metropolis: there is still a letter by the poet,
claiming from the magistrates of Edinburgh a liberal interpretation of
the laws of social morality, in belief of his fair namesake.]
Cease, ye prudes, your envious railings,
Lovely Burns has charms--confess:
True it is, she had one failing--
Had a woman ever less?
* * * * *
XXII.
EXTEMPORE IN THE COURT OF SESSION.
[These portraits are strongly coloured with the partialities of the
poet: Dundas had offended his pride, Erskine had pleased his vanity;
and as he felt he spoke.]
LORD ADVOCATE.
He clench'd his pamphlets in his fist,
He quoted and he hinted,
'Till in a declamation-mist
His argument he tint it:
He gaped for't, he grap'd for't,
He fand it was awa, man;
But what his common sense came short
He eked out wi' law, man.
MR. ERSKINE.
Collected Harry stood awee,
Then open'd out his arm, man:
His lordship sat wi' rueful e'e,
And ey'd the gathering storm, man;
Like wind-driv'n hail it did assail,
Or torrents owre a linn, man;
The Bench sae wise lift up their eyes,
Half-wauken'd wi' the din, man.
* * * * *
XXIII.
THE HENPECKED HUSBAND.
[A lady who expressed herself with incivility about her husband's
potations with Burns, was rewarded by these sharp lines.]
Curs'd be the man, the poorest wretch in life,
The crouching vassal to the tyrant wife!
Who has no will but by her high permission;
Who has not sixpence but in her possession;
Who must to her his dear friend's secret tell;
Who dreads a curtain lecture worse than hell!
Were such the wife had fallen to my part,
I'd break her spirit, or I'd break her heart;
I'd charm her with the magic of a switch,
I'd kiss her maids, and kick the perverse b----h.
* * * * *
XXIV.
WRITTEN AT INVERARY.
[Neglected at the inn of Inverary, on account of the presence of some
northern chiefs, and overlooked by his Grace of Argyll, the poet let
loose his wrath and his rhyme: tradition speaks of a pursuit which
took place on the part of the Campbell, when he was told of his
mistake, and of a resolution not to be soothed on the part of the
bard.]
Whoe'er he be that sojourns here,
I pity much his case,
Unless he's come to wait upon
The Lord their God, his Grace.
There's naething here but Highland pride
And Highland cauld and hunger;
If Providence has sent me here,
T'was surely in his anger.
* * * * *
XXV.
ON ELPHINSTON'S TRANSLATIONS.
OF
MARTIAL'S EPIGRAMS.
[Burns thus relates the origin of this sally:--"Stopping at a
merchant's shop in Edinburgh, a friend of mine one day put
Elphinston's Translation of Martial into my hand, and desired my
opinion of it. I asked permission to write my opinion on a blank leaf
of the book; which being granted, I wrote this epigram."]
O thou, whom poesy abhors,
Whom prose has turned out of doors,
Heard'st thou that groan? proceed no further;
'Twas laurell'd Martial roaring murther!
* * * * *
XXVI.
INSCRIPTION.
ON THE HEADSTONE OF FERGUSSON.
[Some social friends, whose good feelings were better than their
taste, have ornamented with supplemental iron work the headstone which
Burns erected, with this inscription to the memory of his brother
bard, Fergusson.]
Here lies
ROBERT FERGUSSON, Poet.
Born, September 5, 1751;
Died, Oct. 15, 1774.
No sculptured marble here, nor pompous lay,
"No storied urn nor animated bust;"
This simple stone directs pale Scotia's way
To pour her sorrows o'er her poet's dust.
* * * * *
XXVII.
ON A SCHOOLMASTER.
[The Willie Michie of this epigram was, it is said, schoolmaster of
the parish of Cleish, in Fifeshire: he met Burns during his first
visit to Edinburgh.]
Here lie Willie Michie's banes;
O, Satan! when ye tak' him,
Gi' him the schoolin' o' your weans,
For clever de'ils he'll mak' them.
* * * * *
XXVIII.
A GRACE BEFORE DINNER.
[This was an extempore grace, pronounced by the poet at a
dinner-table, in Dumfries: he was ever ready to contribute the small
change of rhyme, for either the use or amusement of a company.]
O thou, who kindly dost provide
For every creature's want!
We bless thee, God of Nature wide,
For all thy goodness lent:
And if it please thee, Heavenly Guide,
May never worse be sent;
But, whether granted or denied,
Lord bless us with content!
Amen.
* * * * *
XXIX.
A GRACE BEFORE MEAT.
[Pronounced, tradition says, at the table of Mrs. Riddel, of
Woodleigh-Park.]
O thou in whom we live and move,
Who mad'st the sea and shore,
Thy goodness constantly we prove,
And grateful would adore.
And if it please thee, Power above,
Still grant us with such store,
The friend we trust, the fair we love,
And we desire no more.
* * * * *
XXX.
ON WAT.
[The name of the object of this fierce epigram might be found, but in
gratifying curiosity, some pain would be inflicted.]
Sic a reptile was Wat,
Sic a miscreant slave,
That the very worms damn'd him
When laid in his grave.
"In his flesh there's a famine,"
A starv'd reptile cries;
"An' his heart is rank poison,"
Another replies.
* * * * *
XXXI.
ON CAPTAIN FRANCIS GROSE.
[This was a festive sally: it is said that Grose, who was very fat,
though he joined in the laugh, did not relish it.]
The devil got notice that Grose was a-dying,
So whip! at the summons, old Satan came flying;
But when he approach'd where poor Francis lay moaning,
And saw each bed-post with its burden a-groaning,
Astonish'd! confounded! cry'd Satan, "By ----,
I'll want him, ere I take such a damnable load!"
* * * * *
XXXII.
IMPROMPTU,
TO MISS AINSLIE.
[These lines were occasioned by a sermon on sin, to which the poet and
Miss Ainslie of Berrywell had listened, during his visit to the
border.]
Fair maid, you need not take the hint,
Nor idle texts pursue:--
'Twas guilty sinners that he meant,
Not angels such as you!
* * * * *
XXXIII.
THE KIRK OF LAMINGTON.
[One rough, cold day, Burns listened to a sermon, so little to his
liking, in the kirk of Lamington, in Clydesdale, that he left this
protest on the seat where he sat.]
As cauld a wind as ever blew,
As caulder kirk, and in't but few;
As cauld a minister's e'er spak,
Ye'se a' be het ere I come back.
* * * * *
XXXIV.
THE LEAGUE AND COVENANT.
[In answer to a gentleman, who called the solemn League and Covenant
ridiculous and fanatical.]
The solemn League and Covenant
Cost Scotland blood--cost Scotland tears;
But it sealed freedom's sacred cause--
If thou'rt a slave, indulge thy sneers.
* * * * *
XXXV.
WRITTEN ON A PANE OF GLASS,
IN THE INN AT MOFFAT.
[A friend asked the poet why God made Miss Davies so little, and a
lady who was with her, so large: before the ladies, who had just
passed the window, were out of sight, the following answer was
recorded on a pane of glass.]
Ask why God made the gem so small,
And why so huge the granite?
Because God meant mankind should set
The higher value on it.
* * * * *
XXXVI.
SPOKEN,
ON BEING APPOINTED TO THE EXCISE.
[Burns took no pleasure in the name of gauger: the situation was
unworthy of him, and he seldom hesitated to say so.]
Searching auld wives' barrels,
Och--hon! the day!
That clarty barm should stain my laurels;
But--what'll ye say!
These movin' things ca'd wives and weans
Wad move the very hearts o' stanes!
* * * * *
XXXVII.
LINES ON MRS. KEMBLE.
[The poet wrote these lines in Mrs. Riddel's box in the Dumfries
Theatre, in the winter of 1794: he was much moved by Mrs. Kemble's
noble and pathetic acting.]
Kemble, thou cur'st my unbelief
Of Moses and his rod;
At Yarico's sweet notes of grief
The rock with tears had flow'd.
* * * * *
XXXVIII.
TO MR. SYME.
[John Syme, of Ryedale, a rhymer, a wit, and a gentleman of education
and intelligence, was, while Burns resided in Dumfries, his chief
companion: he was bred to the law.]
No more of your guests, be they titled or not,
And cook'ry the first in the nation;
Who is proof to thy personal converse and wit,
Is proof to all other temptation.
* * * * *
XXXIX.
TO MR. SYME.
WITH A PRESENT OF A DOZEN OF PORTER.
[The tavern where these lines were written was kept by a wandering
mortal of the name of Smith; who, having visited in some capacity or
other the Holy Land, put on his sign, "John Smith, from Jerusalem." He
was commonly known by the name of Jerusalem John.]
O, had the malt thy strength of mind,
Or hops the flavour of thy wit,
'Twere drink for first of human kind,
A gift that e'en for Syme were fit.
_Jerusalem Tavern, Dumfries._
* * * * *
XL.
A GRACE.
[This Grace was spoken at the table of Ryedale, where to the best
cookery was added the richest wine, as well as the rarest wit: Hyslop
was a distiller.]
Lord, we thank and thee adore,
For temp'ral gifts we little merit;
At present we will ask no more,
Let William Hyslop give the spirit.
* * * * *
XLI.
INSCRIPTION ON A GOBLET.
[Written on a dinner-goblet by the hand of Burns. Syme, exasperated at
having his set of crystal defaced, threw the goblet under the grate:
it was taken up by his clerk, and it is still preserved as a
curiosity.]
There's death in the cup--sae beware!
Nay, more--there is danger in touching;
But wha can avoid the fell snare?
The man and his wine's sae bewitching!
* * * * *
XLII.
THE INVITATION.
[Burns had a happy knack in acknowledging civilities. These lines were
written with a pencil on the paper in which Mrs. Hyslop, of
Lochrutton, enclosed an invitation to dinner.]
The King's most humble servant I,
Can scarcely spare a minute;
But I am yours at dinner-time,
Or else the devil's in it.
* * * * *
XLIII.
THE CREED OF POVERTY.
[When the commissioners of Excise told Burns that he was to act, and
not to think; he took out his pencil and wrote "The Creed of
Poverty."]
In politics if thou would'st mix,
And mean thy fortunes be;
Bear this in mind--be deaf and blind;
Let great folks hear and see.
* * * * *
XLIV.
WRITTEN IN A LADY'S POCKET-BOOK.
[That Burns loved liberty and sympathized with those who were warring
in its cause, these lines, and hundreds more, sufficiently testify.]
Grant me, indulgent Heav'n, that I may live
To see the miscreants feel the pains they give,
Deal Freedom's sacred treasures free as air,
Till slave and despot be but things which were.
* * * * *
XLV.
THE PARSON'S LOOKS.
[Some sarcastic person said, in Burns's hearing, that there was
falsehood in the Reverend Dr. Burnside's looks: the poet mused for a
moment, and replied in lines which have less of truth than point.]
That there is falsehood in his looks
I must and will deny;
They say their master is a knave--
And sure they do not lie.
* * * * *
XLVI.
THE TOAD-EATER.
[This reproof was administered extempore to one of the guests at the
table of Maxwell, of Terraughty, whose whole talk was of Dukes with
whom he had dined, and of earls with whom he had supped.]
What of earls with whom you have supt,
And of dukes that you dined with yestreen?
Lord! a louse, Sir, is still but a louse,
Though it crawl on the curl of a queen.
* * * * *
XLVII.
ON ROBERT RIDDEL.
[I copied these lines from a pane of glass in the Friars-Carse
Hermitage, on which they had been traced with the diamond of Burns.]
To Riddel, much-lamented man,
This ivied cot was dear;
Reader, dost value matchless worth?
This ivied cot revere.
* * * * *
XLVIII.
THE TOAST.
[Burns being called on for a song, by his brother volunteers, on a
festive occasion, gave the following Toast.]
Instead of a song, boys, I'll give you a toast--
Here's the memory of those on the twelfth that we lost!--
That we lost, did I say? nay, by Heav'n, that we found;
For their fame it shall last while the world goes round.
The next in succession, I'll give you--the King!
Whoe'er would betray him, on high may he swing;
And here's the grand fabric, our free Constitution,
As built on the base of the great Revolution;
And longer with politics not to be cramm'd,
Be Anarchy curs'd, and be Tyranny damn'd;
And who would to Liberty e'er prove disloyal,
May his son be a hangman, and he his first trial.
* * * * *
XLIX.
ON A PERSON NICKNAMED
THE MARQUIS.
[In a moment when vanity prevailed against prudence, this person, who
kept a respectable public-house in Dumfries, desired Burns, to write
his epitaph.]
Here lies a mock Marquis, whose titles were shamm'd;
If ever he rise, it will be to be damn'd.
* * * * *
L.
LINES
WRITTEN ON A WINDOW.
[Burns traced these words with a diamond, on the window of the King's
Arms Tavern, Dumfries, as a reply, or reproof, to one who had been
witty on excisemen.]
Ye men of wit and wealth, why all this sneering
'Gainst poor Excisemen? give the cause a hearing;
What are you, landlords' rent-rolls? teasing ledgers:
What premiers--what? even monarchs' mighty gaugers:
Nay, what are priests, those seeming godly wise men?
What are they, pray, but spiritual Excisemen?
* * * * *
LI.
LINES
WRITTEN ON A WINDOW OF THE GLOBE TAVERN, DUMFRIES.
[The Globe Tavern was Burne's favourite "Howff," as he called it. It
had other attractions than good liquor; there lived "Anna, with the
golden locks."]
The greybeard, old Wisdom, may boast of his treasures,
Give me with gay Folly to live;
I grant him his calm-blooded, time-settled pleasures,
But Folly has raptures to give.
* * * * *
LII.
THE SELKIRK GRACE.
[On a visit to St. Mary's Isle, Burns was requested by the noble owner
to say grace to dinner; he obeyed in these lines, now known in
Galloway by the name of "The Selkirk Grace."]
Some hae meat and canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it;
But we hae meat and we can eat,
And sae the Lord be thanket.
* * * * *
LIII.
TO DR. MAXWELL,
ON JESSIE STAIG'S RECOVERY.
[Maxwell was a skilful physician; and Jessie Staig, the Provost's
oldest daughter, was a young lady of great beauty: she died early.]
Maxwell, if merit here you crave
That merit I deny,
You save fair Jessie from the grave--
An angel could not die.
* * * * *
LIV.
EPITAPH.
[These lines were traced by the hand of Burns on a goblet belonging to
Gabriel Richardson, brewer, in Dumfries: it is carefully preserved in
the family.]
Here brewer Gabriel's fire's extinct,
And empty all his barrels:
He's blest--if, as he brew'd, he drink--
In upright virtuous morals.
* * * * *
LV.
EPITAPH
ON WILLIAM NICOL.
[Nicol was a scholar, of ready and rough wit, who loved a joke and a
gill.]
Ye maggots, feast on Nicol's brain,
For few sic feasts ye've gotten;
And fix your claws in Nicol's heart,
For deil a bit o't's rotten.
* * * * *
LVI.
ON THE DEATH OF A LAP-DOG,
NAMED ECHO.
[When visiting with Syme at Kenmore Castle, Burns wrote this Epitaph,
rather reluctantly, it is said, at the request of the lady of the
house, in honour of her lap dog.]
In wood and wild, ye warbling throng,
Your heavy loss deplore;
Now half extinct your powers of song,
Sweet Echo is no more.
Ye jarring, screeching things around,
Scream your discordant joys;
Now half your din of tuneless sound
With Echo silent lies.
* * * * *
LVII.
ON A NOTED COXCOMB.
[Neither Ayr, Edinburgh, nor Dumfries have contested the honour of
producing the person on whom these lines were written:--coxcombs are
the growth of all districts.]
Light lay the earth on Willy's breast,
His chicken-heart so tender;
But build a castle on his head,
His skull will prop it under.
* * * * *
LVIII.
ON SEEING THE BEAUTIFUL SEAT OF
LORD GALLOWAY.
[This, and the three succeeding Epigrams, are hasty squibs thrown amid
the tumult of a contested election, and must not be taken as the fixed
and deliberate sentiments of the poet, regarding an ancient and noble
house.]
What dost thou in that mansion fair?--
Flit, Galloway, and find
Some narrow, dirty, dungeon cave,
The picture of thy mind!
* * * * *
LIX.
ON THE SAME.
No Stewart art thou, Galloway,
The Stewarts all were brave;
Besides, the Stewarts were but fools,
Not one of them a knave.
* * * * *
LX.
ON THE SAME.
Bright ran thy line, O Galloway,
Thro' many a far-fam'd sire!
So ran the far-fam'd Roman way,
So ended in a mire.
* * * * *
LXI.
TO THE SAME,
ON THE AUTHOR BEING THREATENED WITH HIS
RESENTMENT.
Spare me thy vengeance, Galloway,
In quiet let me live:
I ask no kindness at thy hand,
For thou hast none to give.
* * * * *
LXII.
ON A COUNTRY LAIRD.
[Mr. Maxwell, of Cardoness, afterwards Sir David, exposed himself to
the rhyming wrath of Burns, by his activity in the contested elections
of Heron.]
Bless Jesus Christ, O Cardoness,
With grateful lifted eyes,
Who said that not the soul alone
But body too, must rise:
For had he said, "the soul alone
From death I will deliver;"
Alas! alas! O Cardoness,
Then thou hadst slept for ever.
* * * * *
LXIII.
ON JOHN BUSHBY.
[Burns, in his harshest lampoons, always admitted the talents of
Bushby: the peasantry, who hate all clever attorneys, loved to handle
his character with unsparing severity.]
Here lies John Bushby, honest man!
Cheat him, Devil, gin ye can.
* * * * *
LXIV.
THE TRUE LOYAL NATIVES.
[At a dinner-party, where politics ran high, lines signed by men who
called themselves the true loyal natives of Dumfries, were handed to
Burns: he took a pencil, and at once wrote this reply.]
Ye true "Loyal Natives," attend to my song,
In uproar and riot rejoice the night long;
From envy or hatred your corps is exempt,
But where is your shield from the darts of contempt?
* * * * *
LXV.
ON A SUICIDE.
[Burns was observed by my friend, Dr. Copland Hutchinson, to fix, one
morning, a bit of paper on the grave of a person who had committed
suicide: on the paper these lines were pencilled.]
Earth'd up here lies an imp o' hell,
Planted by Satan's dibble--
Poor silly wretch, he's damn'd himsel'
To save the Lord the trouble.
* * * * *
LXVI.
EXTEMPORE
PINNED ON A LADY'S COUCH.
["Printed," says Sir Harris Nicolas, "from a copy in Burns's
handwriting," a slight alteration in the last line is made from an
oral version.]
If you rattle along like your mistress's tongue,
Your speed will outrival the dart:
But, a fly for your load, you'll break down on the road
If your stuff has the rot, like her heart.
* * * * *
LXVII.
LINES
TO JOHN RANKINE.
[These lines were said to have been written by the poet to Rankine, of
Adamhill, with orders to forward them when he died.]
He who of Rankine sang lies stiff and dead,
And a green grassy hillock hides his head;
Alas! alas! a devilish change indeed.
* * * * *
LXVIII.
JESSY LEWARS.
[Written on the blank side of a list of wild beasts, exhibiting in
Dumfries. "Now," said the poet, who was then very ill, "it is fit to
be presented to a lady."]
Talk not to me of savages
From Afric's burning sun,
No savage e'er could rend my heart
As, Jessy, thou hast done.
But Jessy's lovely hand in mine,
A mutual faith to plight,
Not even to view the heavenly choir
Would be so blest a sight.
* * * * *
LXIX.
THE TOAST.
[One day, when Burns was ill and seemed in slumber, he observed Jessy
Lewars moving about the house with a light step lest she should
disturb him. He took a crystal goblet containing wine-and-water for
moistening his lips, wrote these words upon it with a diamond, and
presented it to her.]
Fill me with the rosy-wine,
Call a toast--a toast divine;
Give the Poet's darling flame,
Lovely Jessy be the name;
Then thou mayest freely boast,
Thou hast given a peerless toast.
* * * * *
LXX.
ON MISS JESSY LEWARS.
[The constancy of her attendance on the poet's sick-bed and anxiety of
mind brought a slight illness upon Jessy Lewars. "You must not die
yet," said the poet: "give me that goblet, and I shall prepare you for
the worst." He traced these lines with his diamond, and said, "That
will be a companion to 'The Toast.'"]
Say, sages, what's the charm on earth
Can turn Death's dart aside?
It is not purity and worth,
Else Jessy had not died.
R. B.
* * * * *
LXXI.
ON THE
RECOVERY OF JESSY LEWARS.
[A little repose brought health to the young lady. "I knew you would
not die," observed the poet, with a smile: "there is a poetic reason
for your recovery;" he wrote, and with a feeble hand, the following
lines.]
But rarely seen since Nature's birth,
The natives of the sky;
Yet still one seraph's left on earth,
For Jessy did not die.
R. B.
* * * * *
LXXII.
TAM, THE CHAPMAN.
[Tam, the chapman, is said by the late William Cobbett, who knew him,
to have been a Thomas Kennedy, a native of Ayrshire, agent to a
mercantile house in the west of Scotland. Sir Harris Nicolas confounds
him with the Kennedy to whom Burns addressed several letters and
verses, which I printed in my edition of the poet in 1834: it is
perhaps enough to say that the name of the one was Thomas and the name
of the other John.]
As Tam the Chapman on a day,
Wi' Death forgather'd by the way,
Weel pleas'd he greets a wight so famous,
And Death was nae less pleas'd wi' Thomas,
Wha cheerfully lays down the pack,
And there blaws up a hearty crack;
His social, friendly, honest heart,
Sae tickled Death they could na part:
Sac after viewing knives and garters,
Death takes him hame to gie him quarters.
* * * * *
LXXIII.
[These lines seem to owe their origin to the precept of Mickle.
"The present moment is our ain,
The next we never saw."]
Here's a bottle and an honest friend!
What wad you wish for mair, man?
Wha kens before his life may end,
What his share may be o' care, man?
Then catch the moments as they fly,
And use them as ye ought, man?
Believe me, happiness is shy,
And comes not ay when sought, man.
* * * * *
LXXIV.
[The sentiment which these lines express, was one familiar to Burns,
in the early, as well as concluding days of his life.]
Though fickle Fortune has deceived me,
She promis'd fair and perform'd but ill;
Of mistress, friends, and wealth bereav'd me,
Yet I bear a heart shall support me still.--
I'll act with prudence as far's I'm able,
But if success I must never find,
Then come misfortune, I bid thee welcome,
I'll meet thee with an undaunted mind.
* * * * *
LXXV.
TO JOHN KENNEDY.
[The John Kennedy to whom these verses and the succeeding lines were
addressed, lived, in 1796, at Dumfries-house, and his taste was so
much esteemed by the poet, that he submitted his "Cotter's Saturday
Night" and the "Mountain Daisy" to his judgment: he seems to have been
of a social disposition.]
Now, Kennedy, if foot or horse
E'er bring you in by Mauchline Cross,
L--d, man, there's lasses there wad force
A hermit's fancy.
And down the gate in faith they're worse
And mair unchancy.
But as I'm sayin', please step to Dow's,
And taste sic gear as Johnnie brews,
Till some bit callan bring me news
That ye are there,
And if we dinna hae a bouze
I'se ne'er drink mair.
It's no I like to sit an' swallow,
Then like a swine to puke and wallow,
But gie me just a true good fellow,
Wi' right ingine,
And spunkie ance to make us mellow,
And then we'll shine.
Now if ye're ane o' warl's folk,
Wha rate the wearer by the cloak,
An' sklent on poverty their joke
Wi' bitter sneer,
Wi' you nae friendship I will troke,
Nor cheap nor dear.
But if, as I'm informed weel,
Ye hate as ill's the very deil
The flinty heart that canna feel--
Come, Sir, here's tae you!
Hae, there's my haun, I wiss you weel,
And gude be wi' you.
ROBERT BURNESS.
_Mossgiel, 3 March, 1786._
* * * * *
LXXVI.
TO JOHN KENNEDY.
Farewell, dear friend! may guid luck hit you,
And 'mang her favourites admit you!
If e'er Detraction shore to smit you,
May nane believe him!
And ony deil that thinks to get you,
Good Lord deceive him!
R. B.
_Kilmarnock, August, 1786_
* * * * *
LXXVII.
[Cromek found these characteristic lines among the poet's papers.]
There's naethin like the honest nappy!
Whaur'll ye e'er see men sae happy,
Or women, sonsie, saft an' sappy,
'Tween morn an' morn
As them wha like to taste the drappie
In glass or horn?
I've seen me daezt upon a time;
I scarce could wink or see a styme;
Just ae hauf muchkin does me prime,
Ought less is little,
Then back I rattle on the rhyme,
As gleg's a whittle.
* * * * *
LXXVIII.
ON THE BLANK LEAF
OF A
WORK BY HANNAH MORE.
PRESENTED BY MRS C----.
Thou flattering work of friendship kind,
Still may thy pages call to mind
The dear, the beauteous donor;
Though sweetly female every part,
Yet such a head, and more the heart,
Does both the sexes honour.
She showed her taste refined and just,
When she selected thee,
Yet deviating, own I must,
For so approving me!
But kind still, I'll mind still
The giver in the gift;
I'll bless her, and wiss her
A Friend above the Lift.
_Mossgiel, April_, 1786.
* * * * *
LXXIX.
TO THE MEN AND BRETHREN
OF THE
MASONIC LODGE AT TARBOLTON.
Within your dear mansion may wayward contention
Or withering envy ne'er enter:
May secrecy round be the mystical bound,
And brotherly love be the centre.
_Edinburgh_, 23 _August_, 1787.
* * * * *
LXXX.
IMPROMPTU.
[The tumbler on which these verses are inscribed by the diamond of
Burns, found its way to the hands of Sir Walter Scott, and is now
among the treasures of Abbotsford.]
You're welcome, Willie Stewart,
You're welcome, Willie Stewart;
There's ne'er a flower that blooms in May,
That's half sae welcome's thou art.
Come bumpers high, express your joy,
The bowl we maun renew it;
The tappit-hen, gae bring her ben,
To welcome Willie Stewart.
My foes be strang, and friends be slack,
Ilk action may he rue it,
May woman on him turn her back,
That wrongs thee, Willie Stewart.
* * * * *
LXXXI.
PRAYER FOR ADAM ARMOUR.
[The origin of this prayer is curious. In 1785, the maid-servant of an
innkeeper at Mauchline, having been caught in what old ballad-makers
delicately call "the deed of shame," Adam Armour, the brother of the
poet's bonnie Jean, with one or two more of his comrades, executed a
rustic act of justice upon her, by parading her perforce through the
village, placed on a rough, unpruned piece of wood: an unpleasant
ceremony, vulgarly called "Riding the Stang." This was resented by
Geordie and Nanse, the girl's master and mistress; law was restored
to, and as Adam had to hide till the matter was settled, he durst not
venture home till late on the Saturday nights. In one of these
home-comings he met Burns who laughed when he heard the story, and
said, "You have need of some one to pray for you." "No one can do that
better than yourself," was the reply, and this humorous intercession
was made on the instant, and, as it is said, "clean off loof." From
Adam Armour I obtained the verses, and when he wrote them out, he told
the story in which the prayer originated.]
Lord, pity me, for I am little,
An elf of mischief and of mettle,
That can like ony wabster's shuttle,
Jink there or here,
Though scarce as lang's a gude kale-whittle,
I'm unco queer.
Lord pity now our waefu' case,
For Geordie's Jurr we're in disgrace,
Because we stang'd her through the place,
'Mang hundreds laughin',
For which we daurna show our face
Within the clachan.
And now we're dern'd in glens and hallows,
And hunted as was William Wallace,
By constables, those blackguard fellows,
And bailies baith,
O Lord, preserve us frae the gallows!
That cursed death.
Auld, grim, black-bearded Geordie's sel',
O shake him ewre the mouth o' hell,
And let him hing and roar and yell,
Wi' hideous din,
And if he offers to rebel
Just heave him in.
When Death comes in wi' glimmering blink,
And tips auld drunken Nanse the wink'
Gaur Satan gie her a--e a clink
Behint his yett,
And fill her up wi' brimstone drink,
Red reeking het!
There's Jockie and the hav'rel Jenny,
Some devil seize them in a hurry,
And waft them in th' infernal wherry,
Straught through the lake,
And gie their hides a noble curry,
Wi' oil of aik.
As for the lass, lascivious body,
She's had mischief enough already,
Weel stang'd by market, mill, and smiddie,
She's suffer'd sair;
But may she wintle in a widdie,
If she wh--re mair.
* * * * *
SONGS AND BALLADS.
[Illustration: HANDSOME NELL.]
I.
HANDSOME NELL.
Tune.--"_I am a man unmarried."_
["This composition," says Burns in his "Common-place Book," "was the
first of my performances, and done at an early period in life, when my
heart glowed with honest, warm simplicity; unacquainted and
uncorrupted with the ways of a wicked world. The subject of it was a
young girl who really deserved all the praises I have bestowed on
her."]
I.
O once I lov'd a bonnie lass,
Ay, and I love her still;
And whilst that honour warms my breast,
I'll love my handsome Nell.
II.
As bonnie lasses I hae seen,
And mony full as braw;
But for a modest gracefu' mien
The like I never saw.
III.
A bonnie lass, I will confess,
Is pleasant to the e'e,
But without some better qualities
She's no a lass for me.
IV.
But Nelly's looks are blithe and sweet,
And what is best of a',
Her reputation is complete,
And fair without a flaw.
V.
She dresses ay sae clean and neat,
Both decent and genteel:
And then there's something in her gait
Gars ony dress look weel.
VI.
A gaudy dress and gentle air
May slightly touch the heart;
But it's innocence and modesty
That polishes the dart.
VII.
'Tis this in Nelly pleases me,
'Tis this enchants my soul;
For absolutely in my breast
She reigns without control
* * * * *
II.
LUCKLESS FORTUNE.
[Those lines, as Burns informs us, were written to a tune of his own
composing, consisting of three parts, and the words were the echo of
the air.]
O raging fortune's withering blast
Has laid my leaf full low, O!
O raging fortune's withering blast
Has laid my leaf full low, O!
My stem was fair, my bud was green,
My blossom sweet did blow, O;
The dew fell fresh, the sun rose mild,
And made my branches grow, O.
But luckless fortune's northern storms
Laid a' my blossoms low, O;
But luckless fortune's northern storms
Laid a' my blossoms low, O.
* * * * *
III.
I DREAM'D I LAY.
[These melancholy verses were written when the poet was some seventeen
years old: his early days were typical of his latter.]
I.
I dream'd I lay where flowers were springing
Gaily in the sunny beam;
List'ning to the wild birds singing,
By a falling crystal stream:
Straight the sky grew black and daring;
Thro' the woods the whirlwinds rave;
Trees with aged arms were warring.
O'er the swelling drumlie wave.
II.
Such was my life's deceitful morning,
Such the pleasure I enjoy'd:
But lang or noon, loud tempests storming,
A' my flowery bliss destroy'd.
Tho' fickle fortune has deceiv'd me,
She promis'd fair, and perform'd but ill;
Of mony a joy and hope bereav'd me,
I bear a heart shall support me still.
* * * * *
IV.
TIBBIE, I HAE SEEN THE DAY.
Tune--"_Invercald's Reel._"
[The Tibbie who "spak na, but gaed by like stoure," was, it is said,
the daughter of a man who was laird of three acres of peatmoss, and
thought it became her to put on airs in consequence.]
CHORUS.
O Tibbie, I hae seen the day,
Ye wad na been sae shy;
For lack o' gear ye lightly me,
But, trowth, I care na by.
I.
Yestreen I met you on the moor,
Ye spak na, but gaed by like stoure;
Ye geck at me because I'm poor,
But fient a hair care I.
II.
I doubt na, lass, but ye may think,
Because ye hae the name o' clink,
That ye can please me at a wink,
Whene'er ye like to try.
III.
But sorrow tak him that's sae mean,
Altho' his pouch o' coin were clean,
Wha follows ony saucy quean,
That looks sae proud and high.
IV.
Altho' a lad were e'er sae smart,
If that he want the yellow dirt,
Ye'll cast your head anither airt,
And answer him fu' dry.
V.
But if he hae the name o' gear,
Ye'll fasten to him like a brier,
Tho' hardly he, for sense or lear,
Be better than the kye.
VI.
But, Tibbie, lass, tak my advice,
Your daddie's gear maks you sae nice;
The deil a ane wad spier your price,
Were ye as poor as I.
VII.
There lives a lass in yonder park,
I would nae gie her in her sark,
For thee, wi' a' thy thousan' mark;
Ye need na look sae high.
* * * * *
V.
MY FATHER WAS A FARMER.
Tune--"_The Weaver and his Shuttle, O._"
["The following song," says the poet, "is a wild rhapsody, miserably
deficient in versification, but as the sentiments are the genuine
feelings of my heart, for that reason I have a particular pleasure in
conning it over."]
I.
My father was a farmer
Upon the Carrick border, O,
And carefully he bred me,
In decency and order, O;
He bade me act a manly part,
Though I had ne'er a farthing, O;
For without an honest manly heart,
No man was worth regarding, O.
II.
Then out into the world
My course I did determine, O;
Tho' to be rich was not my wish,
yet to be great was charming, O:
My talents they were not the worst,
Nor yet my education, O;
Resolv'd was I, at least to try,
To mend my situation, O.
III.
In many a way, and vain essay,
I courted fortune's favour, O;
Some cause unseen still stept between,
To frustrate each endeavour, O:
Sometimes by foes I was o'erpower'd,
Sometimes by friends forsaken, O,
And when my hope was at the top,
I still was worst mistaken, O.
IV.
Then sore harass'd, and tir'd at last,
With fortune's vain delusion, O,
I dropt my schemes, like idle dreams,
And came to this conclusion, O:
The past was bad, and the future hid;
Its good or ill untried, O;
But the present hour, was in my pow'r
And so I would enjoy it, O.
V.
No help, nor hope, nor view had I,
Nor person to befriend me, O;
So I must toil, and sweat and broil,
And labour to sustain me, O:
To plough and sow, to reap and mow,
My father bred me early, O;
For one, he said, to labour bred,
Was a match for fortune fairly, O.
VI.
Thus all obscure, unknown, and poor,
Thro' life I'm doom'd to wander, O,
Till down my weary bones I lay,
In everlasting slumber, O.
No view nor care, but shun whate'er
Might breed me pain or sorrow, O:
I live to-day as well's I may,
Regardless of to-morrow, O.
VII.
But cheerful still, I am as well,
As a monarch in a palace, O,
Tho' Fortune's frown still hunts me down,
With all her wonted malice, O:
I make indeed my daily bread,
But ne'er can make it farther, O;
But, as daily bread is all I need,
I do not much regard her, O.
VIII.
When sometimes by my labour
I earn a little money, O,
Some unforeseen misfortune
Comes gen'rally upon me, O:
Mischance, mistake, or by neglect,
Or my goodnatur'd folly, O;
But come what will, I've sworn it still,
I'll ne'er be melancholy, O.
IX.
All you who follow wealth and power,
With unremitting ardour, O,
The more in this you look for bliss,
You leave your view the farther, O:
Had you the wealth Potosi boasts,
Or nations to adorn you, O,
A cheerful honest-hearted clown
I will prefer before you, O.
* * * * *
VI.
JOHN BARLEYCORN:
A BALLAD.
[Composed on the plan of an old song, of which David Laing has given
an authentic version in his very curious volume of Metrical Tales.]
I.
There were three kings into the east,
Three kings both great and high;
And they hae sworn a solemn oath
John Barleycorn should die.
II.
They took a plough and plough'd him down,
Put clods upon his head;
And they ha'e sworn a solemn oath
John Barleycorn was dead.
III.
But the cheerful spring came kindly on,
And show'rs began to fall;
John Barleycorn got up again,
And sore surpris'd them all.
IV.
The sultry suns of summer came,
And he grew thick and strong;
His head weel arm'd wi' pointed spears
That no one should him wrong.
V.
The sober autumn enter'd mild,
When he grew wan and pale;
His beading joints and drooping head
Show'd he began to fail.
VI.
His colour sicken'd more and more,
He faded into age;
And then his enemies began
To show their deadly rage.
VII.
They've ta'en a weapon, long and sharp,
And cut him by the knee;
Then ty'd him fast upon a cart,
Like a rogue for forgerie.
VIII.
They laid him down upon his back,
And cudgell'd him full sore;
They hung him up before the storm.
And turn'd him o'er and o'er.
IX.
They filled up a darksome pit
With water to the brim;
They heaved in John Barleycorn,
There let him sink or swim.
X.
They laid him out upon the floor,
To work him farther woe;
And still, as signs of life appear'd,
They toss'd him to and fro.
XI.
They wasted o'er a scorching flame
The marrow of his bones;
But a miller us'd him worst of all--
He crush'd him 'tween the stones.
XII.
And they ha'e ta'en his very heart's blood,
And drank it round and round;
And still the more and more they drank,
Their joy did more abound.
XIII.
John Barleycorn was a hero bold,
Of noble enterprise;
For if you do but taste his blood,
'Twill make your courage rise.
XIV.
'Twill make a man forget his woe;
'Twill heighten all his joy:
'Twill make the widow's heart to sing,
Tho' the tear were in her eye.
XV.
Then let us toast John Barleycorn,
Each man a glass in hand;
And may his great posterity
Ne'er fail in old Scotland!
* * * * *
VII.
THE RIGS O' BARLEY.
Tune--"_Corn rigs are bonnie."_
[Two young women of the west, Anne Ronald and Anne Blair, have each,
by the district traditions, been claimed as the heroine of this early
song.]
I.
It was upon a Lammas night,
When corn rigs are bonnie,
Beneath the moon's unclouded light,
I held awa to Annie:
The time flew by wi' tentless heed,
'Till 'tween the late and early,
Wi' sma' persuasion she agreed,
To see me through the barley.
II.
The sky was blue, the wind was still,
The moon was shining clearly;
I set her down wi' right good will,
Amang the rigs o' barley:
I ken't her heart was a' my ain;
I lov'd her most sincerely;
I kiss'd her owre and owre again,
Amang the rigs o' barley.
III.
I lock'd her in my fond embrace!
Her heart was beating rarely:
My blessings on that happy place.
Amang the rigs o' barley!
But by the moon and stars so bright.
That shone that hour so clearly?
She ay shall bless that happy night,
Amang the rigs o' barley!
IV.
I hae been blithe wi' comrades dear;
I hae been merry drinkin';
I hae been joyfu' gath'rin' gear;
I hae been happy thinkin':
But a' the pleasures e'er I saw,
Tho' three times doubled fairly,
That happy night was worth them a',
Amang the rigs o' barley.
CHORUS.
Corn rigs, an' barley rigs,
An' corn rigs are bonnie:
I'll ne'er forget that happy night,
Amang the rigs wi' Annie.
* * * * *
VIII.
MONTGOMERY'S PEGGY.
Tune--"_Galla-Water."_
["My Montgomery's Peggy," says Burns, "was my deity for six or eight
months: she had been bred in a style of life rather elegant: it cost
me some heart-aches to get rid of the affair." The young lady listened
to the eloquence of the poet, poured out in many an interview, and
then quietly told him that she stood unalterably engaged to another.]
I.
Altho' my bed were in yon muir,
Amang the heather, in my plaidie,
Yet happy, happy would I be,
Had I my dear Montgomery's Peggy.
II.
When o'er the hill beat surly storms,
And winter nights were dark and rainy;
I'd seek some dell, and in my arms
I'd shelter dear Montgomery's Peggy.
III.
Were I a baron proud and high,
And horse and servants waiting ready,
Then a' 'twad gie o' joy to me,
The sharin't with Montgomery's Peggy.
* * * * *
IX.
THE MAUCHLINE LADY.
Tune--"_I had a horse, I had nae mair._"
[The Mauchline lady who won the poet's heart was Jean Armour: she
loved to relate how the bard made her acquaintance: his dog run across
some linen webs which she was bleaching among Mauchline gowans, and he
apologized so handsomely that she took another look at him. To this
interview the world owes some of our most impassioned strains.]
When first I came to Stewart Kyle,
My mind it was nae steady;
Where'er I gaed, where'er I rade,
A mistress still I had ay:
But when I came roun' by Mauchline town,
Not dreadin' any body,
My heart was caught before I thought,
And by a Mauchline lady.
* * * * *
X.
THE HIGHLAND LASSIE.
Tune--"_The deuks dang o'er my daddy_!"
["The Highland Lassie" was Mary Campbell, whose too early death the
poet sung in strains that will endure while the language lasts. "She
was," says Burns, "a warm-hearted, charming young creature as ever
blessed a man with generous love."]
I.
Nae gentle dames, tho' e'er sae fair,
Shall ever be my muse's care:
Their titles a' are empty show;
Gie me my Highland lassie, O.
Within the glen sae bushy, O,
Aboon the plains sae rushy, O,
I set me down wi' right good-will,
To sing my Highland lassie, O.
II.
Oh, were yon hills and valleys mine,
Yon palace and yon gardens fine,
The world then the love should know
I bear my Highland lassie, O.
III.
But fickle fortune frowns on me,
And I maun cross the raging sea;
But while my crimson currents flow,
I'll love my Highland lassie, O.
IV.
Altho' thro' foreign climes I range,
I know her heart will never change,
For her bosom burns with honour's glow,
My faithful Highland lassie, O.
V.
For her I'll dare the billows' roar,
For her I'll trace a distant shore,
That Indian wealth may lustre throw
Around my Highland lassie, O.
VI.
She has my heart, she has my hand,
by sacred truth and honour's band!
'Till the mortal stroke shall lay me low,
I'm thine, my Highland lassie, O.
Farewell the glen sae bushy, O!
Farewell the plain sae rushy, O!
To other lands I now must go,
To sing my Highland lassie, O.
* * * * *
XI.
PEGGY.
[The heroine of this song is said to have been "Montgomery's Peggy."]
Tune--"_I had a horse, I had nae mair._"
I.
Now westlin winds and slaughtering guns
Bring autumn's pleasant weather;
The moor-cock springs, on whirring wings,
Amang the blooming heather:
Now waving grain, wide o'er the plain,
Delights the weary farmer;
And the moon shines bright, when I rove at night
To muse upon my charmer.
II.
The partridge loves the fruitful fells;
The plover loves the mountains;
The woodcock haunts the lonely dells;
The soaring hern the fountains;
Thro' lofty groves the cushat roves
The path of man to shun it;
The hazel bush o'erhangs the thrush,
The spreading thorn the linnet.
III.
Thus ev'ry kind their pleasure find,
The savage and the tender;
Some social join, and leagues combine;
Some solitary wander:
Avaunt, away! the cruel sway,
Tyrannic man's dominion;
The sportsman's joy, the murd'ring cry,
The flutt'ring, gory pinion.
IV.
But Peggy, dear, the ev'ning's clear,
Thick flies the skimming swallow;
The sky is blue, the fields in view,
All fading-green and yellow:
Come, let us stray our gladsome way,
And view the charms of nature;
The rustling corn, the fruited thorn,
And every happy creature.
V.
We'll gently walk, and sweetly talk,
Till the silent moon shine clearly;
I'll grasp thy waist, and, fondly prest,
Swear how I love thee dearly:
Not vernal show'rs to budding flow'rs,
Not autumn to the farmer,
So dear can be as thou to me,
My fair, my lovely charmer!
* * * * *
XII.
THE RANTIN' DOG, THE DADDIE O'T.
Tune--"_East nook o' Fife._"
[The heroine of this humorous ditty was the mother of "Sonsie,
smirking, dear-bought Bess," a person whom the poet regarded, as he
says, both for her form and her grace.]
I.
O wha my babie-clouts will buy?
O wha will tent me when I cry?
Wha will kiss me where I lie?--
The rantin' dog, the daddie o't.
II.
O wha will own he did the fau't?
O wha will buy the groanin' maut?
O wha will tell me how to ca't?
The rantin' dog, the daddie o't.
III.
When I mount the creepie chair,
Wha will sit beside me there?
Gie me Rob, I'll seek nae mair,
The rantin' dog, the daddie o't.
IV.
Wha will crack to me my lane?
Wha will make me fidgin' fain?
Wha will kiss me o'er again?--
The rantin' dog, the daddie o't.
* * * * *
XIII.
MY HEART WAS ANCE.
Tune--"_To the weavers gin ye go._"
["The chorus of this song," says Burns, in his note to the Museum, "is
old, the rest is mine." The "bonnie, westlin weaver lad" is said to
have been one of the rivals of the poet in the affection of a west
landlady.]
I.
My heart was ance as blythe and free
As simmer days were lang,
But a bonnie, westlin weaver lad
Has gart me change my sang.
To the weavers gin ye go, fair maids,
To the weavers gin ye go;
I rede you right gang ne'er at night,
To the weavers gin ye go.
II.
My mither sent me to the town,
To warp a plaiden wab;
But the weary, weary warpin o't
Has gart me sigh and sab.
III.
A bonnie westlin weaver lad,
Sat working at his loom;
He took my heart as wi' a net,
In every knot and thrum.
IV.
I sat beside my warpin-wheel,
And ay I ca'd it roun';
But every shot and every knock,
My heart it gae a stoun.
V.
The moon was sinking in the west
Wi' visage pale and wan,
As my bonnie westlin weaver lad
Convoy'd me thro' the glen.
VI.
But what was said, or what was done,
Shame fa' me gin I tell;
But, oh! I fear the kintra soon
Will ken as weel's mysel.
To the weavers gin ye go, fair maids,
To the weavers gin ye go;
I rede you right gang ne'er at night,
To the weavers gin ye go.
* * * * *
XIV.
NANNIE.
Tune--"_My Nannie, O._"
[Agnes Fleming, servant at Calcothill, inspired this fine song: she
died at an advanced age, and was more remarkable for the beauty of her
form than face. When questioned about the love of Burns, she smiled
and said, "Aye, atweel he made a great wark about me."]
I.
Behind yon hills, where Lugar flows,
'Mang moors an' mosses many, O,
The wintry sun the day has closed,
And I'll awa to Nannie, O.
II.
The westlin wind blaws loud an' shrill;
The night's baith mirk and rainy, O;
But I'll get my plaid, an' out I'll steal,
An' owre the hills to Nannie, O.
III.
My Nannie's charming, sweet, an' young;
Nae artfu' wiles to win ye, O:
May ill befa' the flattering tongue
That wad beguile my Nannie, O.
IV.
Her face is fair, her heart is true,
As spotless as she's bonnie, O:
The op'ning gowan, wat wi' dew,
Nae purer is than Nannie, O.
V.
A country lad is my degree,
An' few there be that ken me, O;
But what care I how few they be?
I'm welcome ay to Nannie, O.
VI.
My riches a's my penny-fee,
An' I maun guide it cannie, O;
But warl's gear ne'er troubles me,
My thoughts are a' my Nannie, O.
VII.
Our auld guidman delights to view
His sheep an' kye thrive bonnie, O;
But I'm as blythe that hauds his pleugh,
An' has nae care but Nannie, O.
VIII.
Come weel, come woe, I care na by,
I'll tak what Heav'n will sen' me, O:
Nae ither care in life have I,
But live, an' love my Nannie, O.
* * * * *
XV.
A FRAGMENT.
Tune--"_John Anderson my jo._"
[This verse, written early, and probably intended for the starting
verse of a song, was found among the papers of the poet.]
One night as I did wander,
When corn begins to shoot,
I sat me down to ponder,
Upon an auld tree root:
Auld Ayr ran by before me,
And bicker'd to the seas;
A cushat crooded o'er me,
That echoed thro' the braes.
* * * * *
XVI.
BONNIE PEGGY ALISON.
Tune--"_Braes o' Balquihidder._"
[On those whom Burns loved, he poured out songs without limit. Peggy
Alison is said, by a western tradition, to be Montgomery's Peggy, but
this seems doubtful.]
CHORUS.
I'll kiss thee yet, yet,
An' I'll kiss thee o'er again;
An' I'll kiss thee yet, yet,
My bonnie Peggy Alison!
I.
Ilk care and fear, when thou art near,
I ever mair defy them, O;
Young kings upon their hansel throne
Are no sae blest as I am, O!
II.
When in my arms, wi' a' thy charms,
I clasp my countless treasure, O,
I seek nae mair o' Heaven to share
Than sic a moment's pleasure, O!
III.
And by thy een, sae bonnie blue,
I swear, I'm thine for ever, O!--
And on thy lips I seal my vow,
And break it shall I never, O!
I'll kiss thee yet, yet,
An' I'll kiss thee o'er again;
An' I'll kiss thee yet, yet,
My bonnie Peggy Alison!
* * * * *
XVII.
THERE'S NOUGHT BUT CARE.
Tune--"_Green grow the rashes._"
["Man was made when nature was but an apprentice; but woman is the
last and most perfect work of nature," says an old writer, in a rare
old book: a passage which expresses the sentiment of Burns; yet it is
all but certain, that the Ploughman Bard was unacquainted with
"Cupid's Whirlygig," where these words are to be found.]
CHORUS.
Green grow the rashes, O!
Green grow the rashes, O!
The sweetest hours that e'er I spend
Are spent amang the lasses, O.
I.
There's nought but care on ev'ry han',
In every hour that passes, O:
What signifies the life o' man,
An' 'twere na for the lasses, O.
II.
The warly race may riches chase,
An' riches still may fly them, O;
An' tho' at last they catch them fast,
Their hearts can ne'er enjoy them, O.
III.
But gie me a canny hour at e'en,
My arms about my dearie, O;
An' warly cares, an' warly men,
May a' gae tapsalteerie, O.
IV.
For you sae douce, ye sneer at this,
Ye're nought but senseless asses, O:
The wisest man the warl' e'er saw,
He dearly lov'd the lasses, O.
V.
Auld Nature swears the lovely dears
Her noblest work she classes, O:
Her 'prentice han' she try'd on man,
An' then she made the lasses, O.
Green grow the rashes, O!
Green grow the rashes, O!
The sweetest hours that e'er I spend
Are spent amang the lasses, O.
* * * * *
XVIII.
MY JEAN!
Tune--"_The Northern Lass._"
[The lady on whom this passionate verse was written was Jean Armour.]
Though cruel fate should bid us part,
Far as the pole and line,
Her dear idea round my heart,
Should tenderly entwine.
Though mountains rise, and deserts howl,
And oceans roar between;
Yet, dearer than my deathless soul,
I still would love my Jean
* * * * *
XIX.
ROBIN.
Tune--"_Daintie Davie._"
[Stothard painted a clever little picture from this characteristic
ditty: the cannie wife, it was evident, saw in Robin's palm something
which tickled her, and a curious intelligence sparkled in the eyes of
her gossips.]
I.
There was a lad was born in Kyle,
But whatna day o' whatna style
I doubt it's hardly worth the while
To be sae nice wi' Robin.
Robin was a rovin' boy,
Rantin' rovin', rantin' rovin';
Robin was a rovin' boy,
Rantin' rovin' Robin!
II.
Our monarch's hindmost year but ane
Was five-and-twenty days begun,
Twas then a blast o' Janwar win'
Blew hansel in on Robin.
III.
The gossip keekit in his loof,
Quo' she, wha lives will see the proof.
This waly boy will be nae coof,
I think we'll ca' him Robin
IV.
He'll hae misfortunes great and sma',
But ay a heart aboon them a';
He'll be a credit to us a',
We'll a' be proud o' Robin.
V.
But sure as three times three mak nine,
I see by ilka score and line,
This chap will dearly like our kin',
So leeze me on thee, Robin.
VI.
Guid faith, quo' she, I doubt you gar,
The bonnie lasses lie aspar,
But twenty fauts ye may hae waur,
So blessin's on thee, Robin!
Robin was a rovin' boy,
Rantin' rovin', rantin' rovin';
Robin was a rovin' boy,
Rantin' rovin' Robin!
* * * * *
XX.
HER FLOWING LOCKS.
Tune--(unknown.)
[One day--it is tradition that speaks--Burns had his foot in the
stirrup to return from Ayr to Mauchline, when a young lady of great
beauty rode up to the inn, and ordered refreshments for her servants;
he made these lines at the moment, to keep, he said, so much beauty in
his memory.]
Her flowing locks, the raven's wing,
Adown her neck and bosom hing;
How sweet unto that breast to cling,
And round that neck entwine her!
Her lips are roses wat wi' dew,
O, what a feast her bonnie mou'!
Her cheeks a mair celestial hue,
A crimson still diviner.
* * * * *
XXI.
O LEAVE NOVELS.
Tune--"_ Mauchline belles._"
[Who these Mauchline belles were the bard in other verse informs us:--
"Miss Miller is fine, Miss Markland's divine,
Miss Smith, she has wit, and Miss Betty is braw;
There's beauty and fortune to get with Miss Morton,
But Armour's the jewel for me o' them a'."]
I.
O leave novels, ye Mauchline belles,
Ye're safer at your spinning-wheel;
Such witching books are baited hooks
For rakish rooks, like Rob Mossgiel.
II.
Your fine Tom Jones and Grandisons,
They make your youthful fancies reel;
They heat your brains, and fire your veins,
And then you're prey for Rob Mossgiel.
III.
Beware a tongue that's smoothly hung,
A heart that warmly seems to feel;
That feeling heart but acts a part--
'Tis rakish art in Rob Mossgiel.
IV.
The frank address, the soft caress,
Are worse than poison'd darts of steel;
The frank address and politesse
Are all finesse in Rob Mossgiel.
* * * * *
XXII.
YOUNG PEGGY.
Tune--"_Last time I cam o'er the muir._"
[In these verses Burns, it is said, bade farewell to one on whom he
had, according to his own account, wasted eights months of courtship.
We hear no more of Montgomery's Peggy.]
I.
Young Peggy blooms our bonniest lass,
Her blush is like the morning,
The rosy dawn, the springing grass,
With early gems adorning:
Her eyes outshone the radiant beams
That gild the passing shower,
And glitter o'er the crystal streams,
And cheer each fresh'ning flower.
II.
Her lips, more than the cherries bright,
A richer dye has graced them;
They charm th' admiring gazer's sight,
And sweetly tempt to taste them:
Her smile is, as the evening mild,
When feather'd tribes are courting,
And little lambkins wanton wild,
In playful bands disporting.
III.
Were fortune lovely Peggy's foe,
Such sweetness would relent her,
As blooming spring unbends the brow
Of surly, savage winter.
Detraction's eye no aim can gain,
Her winning powers to lessen;
And fretful envy grins in vain
The poison'd tooth to fasten.
IV.
Ye powers of honour, love, and truth,
From every ill defend her;
Inspire the highly-favour'd youth,
The destinies intend her:
Still fan the sweet connubial flame
Responsive in each bosom,
And bless the dear parental name
With many a filial blossom.
* * * * *
XXIII.
THE CURE FOR ALL CARE.
Tune--"_Prepare, my dear brethren, to the tavern_ _let's fly._"
[Tarbolton Lodge, of which the poet was a member, was noted for its
socialities. Masonic lyrics are all of a dark and mystic order; and
those of Burns are scarcely an exception.]
I.
No churchman am I for to rail and to write,
No statesman nor soldier to plot or to fight,
No sly man of business, contriving to snare--
For a big-bellied bottle's the whole of my care.
II.
The peer I don't envy, I give him his bow;
I scorn not the peasant, tho' ever so low;
But a club of good fellows, like those that are here,
And a bottle like this, are my glory and care.
III.
Here passes the squire on his brother--his horse;
There centum per centum, the cit with his purse;
But see you The Crown, how it waves in the air!
There a big-bellied bottle still eases my care.
IV.
The wife of my bosom, alas! she did die;
For sweet consolation to church I did fly;
I found that old Solomon proved it fair,
That a big-bellied bottle's a cure for all care.
V.
I once was persuaded a venture to make;
A letter inform'd me that all was to wreck;--
But the pursy old landlord just waddled up stairs,
With a glorious bottle that ended my cares.
VI.
"Life's cares they are comforts,"[136]--a maxim laid down
By the bard, what d'ye call him, that wore the black gown;
And faith I agree with th' old prig to a hair;
For a big-bellied bottle's a heav'n of care.
VII.
ADDED IN A MASON LODGE.
Then fill up a bumper and make it o'erflow.
The honours masonic prepare for to throw;
May every true brother of the compass and square
Have a big-bellied bottle when harass'd with care!
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 136: Young's Night Thoughts.]
* * * * *
XXIV.
ELIZA.
Tune--"_Gilderoy._"
[My late excellent friend, John Galt, informed me that the Eliza of
this song was his relative, and that her name was Elizabeth Barbour.]
I.
From thee, Eliza, I must go,
And from my native shore;
The cruel Fates between us throw
A boundless ocean's roar:
But boundless oceans roaring wide
Between my love and me,
They never, never can divide
My heart and soul from thee!
II.
Farewell, farewell, Eliza dear,
The maid that I adore!
A boding voice is in mine ear,
We part to meet no more!
The latest throb that leaves my heart,
While death stands victor by,
That throb, Eliza, is thy part,
And thine that latest sigh!
* * * * *
XXV.
THE SONS OF OLD KILLIE.
Tune--"_Shawnboy."_
["This song, wrote by Mr. Burns, was sung by him in the
Kilmarnock-Kilwinning Lodge, in 1786, and given by him to Mr. Parker,
who was Master of the Lodge." These interesting words are on the
original, in the poet's handwriting, in the possession of Mr. Gabriel
Neil, of Glasgow.]
I.
Ye sons of old Killie, assembled by Willie,
To follow the noble vocation;
Your thrifty old mother has scarce such another
To sit in that honoured station.
I've little to say, but only to pray,
As praying's the ton of your fashion;
A prayer from the muse you well may excuse,
'Tis seldom her favourite passion.
II.
Ye powers who preside o'er the wind and the tide,
Who marked each element's border;
Who formed this frame with beneficent aim,
Whose sovereign statute is order;
Within this dear mansion, may wayward contention
Or withered envy ne'er enter;
May secrecy round be the mystical bound,
And brotherly love be the centre.
* * * * *
XXVI.
MENIE.
Tune.--"_Johnny's grey breeks._"
[Of the lady who inspired this song no one has given any account: It
first appeared in the second edition of the poet's works, and as the
chorus was written by an Edinburgh gentleman, it has been surmised
that the song was a matter of friendship rather than of the heart.]
I.
Again rejoicing nature sees
Her robe assume its vernal hues,
Her leafy locks wave in the breeze,
All freshly steep'd in morning dews.
And maun I still on Menie doat,
And bear the scorn that's in her e'e?
For it's jet, jet black, an' it's like a hawk,
An' it winna let a body be.
II.
In vain to me the cowslips blaw,
In vain to me the vi'lets spring;
In vain to me, in glen or shaw,
The mavis and the lintwhite sing.
III.
The merry plough-boy cheers his team,
Wi' joy the tentie seedsman stalks;
But life to me's a weary dream,
A dream of ane that never wauks.
IV.
The wanton coot the water skims,
Amang the reeds the ducklings cry,
The stately swan majestic swims,
And every thing is blest but I.
V.
The sheep-herd steeks his faulding slap,
And owre the moorland whistles shrill;
Wi' wild, unequal, wand'ring step,
I meet him on the dewy hill.
VI.
And when the lark, 'tween light and dark,
Blythe waukens by the daisy's side,
And mounts and sings on flittering wings,
A woe-worn ghaist I hameward glide.
VII.
Come, Winter, with thine angry howl,
And raging bend the naked tree:
Thy gloom will sooth my cheerless soul,
When nature all is sad like me!
And maun I still on Menie doat,
And bear the scorn that's in her e'e?
For it's jet, jet black, an' it's like a hawk,
An' it winna let a body be.
* * * * *
XXVII.
THE FAREWELL
TO THE
BRETHREN OF ST. JAMES'S LODGE,
TARBOLTON.
Tune--"_Good-night, and joy be wi' you a'._"
[Burns, it is said, sung this song in the St. James's Lodge of
Tarbolton, when his chest was on the way to Greenock: men are yet
living who had the honour of hearing him--the concluding verse
affected the whole lodge.]
I.
Adieu! a heart-warm, fond adieu!
Dear brothers of the mystic tie!
Ye favour'd, ye enlighten'd few,
Companions of my social joy!
Tho' I to foreign lands must hie,
Pursuing Fortune's slidd'ry ba',
With melting heart, and brimful eye,
I'll mind you still, tho' far awa'.
II.
Oft have I met your social band,
And spent the cheerful, festive night;
Oft honour'd with supreme command,
Presided o'er the sons of light:
And by that hieroglyphic bright,
Which none but craftsmen ever saw!
Strong mem'ry on my heart shall write
Those happy scenes when far awa'.
III.
May freedom, harmony, and love
Unite you in the grand design,
Beneath th' Omniscient Eye above,
The glorious architect divine!
That you may keep th' unerring line,
Still rising by the plummet's law,
Till order bright completely shine,
Shall be my pray'r when far awa'.
IV.
And you farewell! whose merits claim,
Justly, that highest badge to wear!
Heav'n bless your honour'd, noble name,
To masonry and Scotia dear!
A last request permit me here,
When yearly ye assemble a',
One round--I ask it with a tear,--
To him, the Bard that's far awa'.
* * * * *
XXVIII.
ON CESSNOCK BANKS.
Tune--"_If he be a butcher neat and trim._"
[There are many variations of this song, which was first printed by
Cromek from the oral communication of a Glasgow Lady, on whose charms,
the poet, in early life, composed it.]
I.
On Cessnock banks a lassie dwells;
Could I describe her shape and mien;
Our lasses a' she far excels,
An she has twa sparkling roguish een.
II.
She's sweeter than the morning dawn
When rising Phoebus first is seen,
And dew-drops twinkle o'er the lawn;
An' she has twa sparkling roguish een
III.
She's stately like yon youthful ash,
That grows the cowslip braes between,
And drinks the stream with vigour fresh;
An' she has twa sparkling roguish een.
IV.
She's spotless like the flow'ring thorn,
With flow'rs so white and leaves so green,
When purest in the dewy morn;
An' she has twa sparkling roguish een.
V.
Her looks are like the vernal May,
When evening Phoebus shines serene,
While birds rejoice on every spray--
An' she has twa sparkling roguish een.
VI.
Her hair is like the curling mist
That climbs the mountain-sides at e'en,
When flow'r-reviving rains are past;
An' she has twa sparkling roguish een.
VII.
Her forehead's like the show'ry bow,
When gleaming sunbeams intervene,
And gild the distant mountain's brow;
An' she has twa sparkling roguish een.
VIII.
Her cheeks are like yon crimson gem,
The pride of all the flow'ry scene,
Just opening on its thorny stem;
An' she has twa sparkling roguish een.
IX.
Her teeth are like the nightly snow
When pale the morning rises keen,
While hid the murmuring streamlets flow;
An' she has twa sparkling roguish een
X.
Her lips are like yon cherries ripe,
That sunny walls from Boreas screen--
They tempt the taste and charm the sight;
An' she has twa, sparkling roguish een.
XI.
Her teeth are like a flock of sheep,
With fleeces newly washen clean,
That slowly mount the rising steep;
An' she has twa glancin' roguish een.
XII.
Her breath is like the fragrant breeze
That gently stirs the blossom'd bean,
When Phoebus sinks behind the seas;
An' she has twa sparkling roguish een.
XIII.
Her voice is like the ev'ning thrush
That sings on Cessnock banks unseen,
While his mate sits nestling in the bush;
An' she has twa sparkling roguish een.
XIV.
But it's not her air, her form, her face,
Tho' matching beauty's fabled queen,
'Tis the mind that shines in ev'ry grace,
An' chiefly in her roguish een.
* * * * *
XXIX.
MARY!
Tune--"_Blue Bonnets._"
[In the original manuscript Burns calls this song "A Prayer for Mary;"
his Highland Mary is supposed to be the inspirer.]
I.
Powers celestial! whose protection
Ever guards the virtuous fair,
While in distant climes I wander,
Let my Mary be your care:
Let her form sae fair and faultless,
Fair and faultless as your own,
Let my Mary's kindred spirit
Draw your choicest influence down.
II.
Make the gales you waft around her
Soft and peaceful as her breast;
Breathing in the breeze that fans her,
Soothe her bosom into rest:
Guardian angels! O protect her,
When in distant lands I roam;
To realms unknown while fate exiles me,
Make her bosom still my home.
* * * * *
XXX.
THE LASS OF BALLOCHMYLE.
Tune--"_Miss Forbes's Farewell to Banff._"
[Miss Alexander, of Ballochmyle, as the poet tells her in a letter,
dated November, 1786, inspired this popular song. He chanced to meet
her in one of his favourite walks on the banks of the Ayr, and the
fine scene and the lovely lady set the muse to work. Miss Alexander,
perhaps unaccustomed to this forward wooing of the muse, allowed the
offering to remain unnoticed for a time: it is now in a costly frame,
and hung in her chamber--as it deserves to be.]
I.
'Twas even--the dewy fields were green,
On every blade the pearls hang,
The zephyr wanton'd round the bean,
And bore its fragrant sweets alang:
In ev'ry glen the mavis sang,
All nature listening seem'd the while,
Except where greenwood echoes rang
Amang the braes o' Ballochmyle!
II.
With careless step I onward stray'd,
My heart rejoic'd in nature's joy,
When musing in a lonely glade,
A maiden fair I chanc'd to spy;
Her look was like the morning's eye,
Her air like nature's vernal smile,
Perfection whisper'd passing by,
Behold the lass o' Ballochmyle!
III.
Fair is the morn in flow'ry May,
And sweet is night in autumn mild
When roving thro' the garden gay,
Or wand'ring in the lonely wild;
But woman, nature's darling child!
There all her charms she does compile;
Even there her other works are foil'd
By the bonnie lass o' Ballochmyle.
IV.
O, had she been a country maid,
And I the happy country swain,
Tho' shelter'd in the lowest shed
That ever rose on Scotland's plain,
Thro' weary winter's wind and rain,
With joy, with rapture, I would toil;
And nightly to my bosom strain
The bonnie lass of Ballochmyle.
V.
Then pride might climb the slippery steep,
Where fame and honours lofty shine:
And thirst of gold might tempt the deep
Or downward seek the Indian mine;
Give me the cot below the pine,
To tend the flocks, or till the soil,
And ev'ry day have joys divine
With the bonnie lass o' Ballochmyle.
* * * * *
XXXI.
THE GLOOMY NIGHT.
Tune--"_Roslin Castle._"
["I had taken," says Burns, "the last farewell of my friends, my chest
was on the road to Greenock, and I had composed the last song I should
ever measure in Caledonia--
'The gloomy night is gathering fast.'"]
I.
The gloomy night is gath'ring fast,
Loud roars the wild inconstant blast;
Yon murky cloud is foul with rain,
I see it driving o'er the plain;
The hunter now has left the moor,
The scatter'd coveys meet secure;
While here I wander, prest with care,
Along the lonely banks of Ayr.
II.
The Autumn mourns her rip'ning corn,
By early Winter's ravage torn;
Across her placid, azure sky,
She sees the scowling tempest fly:
Chill runs my blood to hear it rave--
I think upon the stormy wave,
Where many a danger I must dare,
Far from the bonnie banks of Ayr.
III.
'Tis not the surging billow's roar,
'Tis not that fatal deadly shore;
Tho' death in ev'ry shape appear,
The wretched have no more to fear!
But round my heart the ties are bound,
That heart transpierc'd with many a wound;
These bleed afresh, those ties I tear,
To leave the bonnie banks of Ayr.
IV.
Farewell old Coila's hills and dales,
Her heathy moors and winding vales;
The scenes where wretched fancy roves,
Pursuing past, unhappy loves!
Farewell, my friends! farewell, my foes!
My peace with these, my love with those--
The bursting tears my heart declare;
Farewell, the bonnie banks of Ayr!
* * * * *
XXXII.
O WHAR DID YE GET
Tune--"_Bonnie Dundee._"
[This is one of the first songs which Burns communicated to Johnson's
Musical Museum: the starting verse is partly old and partly new: the
second is wholly by his hand.]
I.
O, whar did ye get that hauver meal bannock?
O silly blind body, O dinna ye see?
I gat it frae a young brisk sodger laddie,
Between Saint Johnston and bonnie Dundee.
O gin I saw the laddie that gae me't!
Aft has he doudl'd me up on his knee;
May Heaven protect my bonnie Scots laddie,
And send him safe hame to his babie and me!
II.
My blessin's upon thy sweet wee lippie,
My blessin's upon thy bonnie e'e brie!
Thy smiles are sae like my blythe sodger laddie,
Thou's ay the dearer and dearer to me!
But I'll big a bower on yon bonnie banks,
Where Tay rins wimplin' by sae clear;
And I'll cleed thee in the tartan sae fine,
And mak thee a man like thy daddie dear.
* * * * *
XXXIII.
THE JOYFUL WIDOWER.
Tune--"_Maggy Lauder._"
[Most of this song is by Burns: his fancy was fierce with images of
matrimonial joy or infelicity, and he had them ever ready at the call
of the muse. It was first printed in the Musical Museum.]
I.
I married with a scolding wife
The fourteenth of November;
She made me weary of my life,
By one unruly member.
Long did I bear the heavy yoke,
And many griefs attended;
But to my comfort be it spoke,
Now, now her life is ended.
II.
We liv'd full one-and-twenty years
A man and wife together;
At length from me her course she steer'd,
And gone I know not whither:
Would I could guess, I do profess,
I speak, and do not flatter,
Of all the woman in the world,
I never could come at her.
III.
Her body is bestowed well,
A handsome grave does hide her;
But sure her soul is not in hell,
The deil would ne'er abide her.
I rather think she is aloft,
And imitating thunder;
For why,--methinks I hear her voice
Tearing the clouds asunder.
* * * * *
XXXIV.
COME DOWN THE BACK STAIRS.
Tune--"_Whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad._"
[The air of this song was composed by John Bruce, a Dumfries fiddler.
Burns gave another and happier version to the work of Thomson: this
was written for the Museum of Johnson, where it was first published.]
CHORUS.
O whistle, and I'll come
To you, my lad;
O whistle, and I'll come
To you, my lad:
Tho' father and mither
Should baith gae mad,
O whistle, and I'll come
To you, my lad.
Come down the back stairs
When ye come to court me;
Come down the back stairs
When ye come to court me;
Come down the back stairs,
And let naebody see,
And come as ye were na
Coming to me.
* * * * *
XXXV.
I AM MY MAMMY'S AE BAIRN.
Tune--"_I'm o'er young to marry yet._"
[The title, and part of the chorus only of this song, are old; the
rest is by Burns, and was written for Johnson.]
I.
I am my mammy's ae bairn,
Wi' unco folk I weary, Sir;
And lying in a man's bed,
I'm fley'd it make me eerie, Sir.
I'm o'er young to marry yet;
I'm o'er young to marry yet;
I'm o'er young--'twad be a sin
To tak' me frae my mammy yet.
II.
Hallowmas is come and gane,
The nights are lang in winter, Sir;
And you an' I in ae bed,
In trouth, I dare na venture, Sir.
III.
Fu' loud and shrill the frosty wind,
Blaws through the leafless timmer, Sir;
But, if ye come this gate again,
I'll aulder be gin simmer, Sir.
I'm o'er young to marry yet;
I'm o'er young to marry yet;
I'm o'er young, 'twad be a sin
To tak me frae my mammy yet.
* * * * *
XXXVI.
BONNIE LASSIE, WILL YE GO.
Tune--"_The birks of Aberfeldy._"
[An old strain, called "The Birks of Abergeldie," was the forerunner
of this sweet song: it was written, the poet says, standing under the
Falls of Aberfeldy, near Moness, in Perthshire, during one of the
tours which he made to the north, in the year 1787.]
CHORUS.
Bonnie lassie, will ye go,
Will ye go, will ye go;
Bonnie lassie, will ye go
To the birks of Aberfeldy?
I.
Now simmer blinks on flowery braes,
And o'er the crystal streamlet plays;
Come let us spend the lightsome days
In the birks of Aberfeldy.
II.
The little birdies blithely sing,
While o'er their heads the hazels hing,
Or lightly flit on wanton wing
In the birks of Aberfeldy.
III.
The braes ascend, like lofty wa's,
The foamy stream deep-roaring fa's,
O'erhung wi' fragrant spreading shaws,
The birks of Aberfeldy.
IV.
The hoary cliffs are crown'd wi' flowers,
White o'er the linns the burnie pours,
And rising, weets wi' misty showers
The birks of Aberfeldy.
V.
Let Fortune's gifts at random flee,
They ne'er shall draw a wish frae me,
Supremely blest wi' love and thee,
In the birks of Aberfeldy.
Bonnie lassie, will ye go,
Will ye go, will ye go;
Bonnie lassie, will ye go
To the birks of Aberfeldy?
* * * * *
XXXVII.
MACPHERSON'S FAREWELL.
Tune--"_M'Pherson's Rant._"
[This vehement and daring song had its origin in an older and inferior
strain, recording the feelings of a noted freebooter when brought to
"justify his deeds on the gallows-tree" at Inverness.]
I.
Farewell, ye dungeons dark and strong,
The wretch's destinie!
Macpherson's time will not be long
On yonder gallows-tree.
Sae rantingly, sae wantonly,
Sae dauntingly gaed he;
He play'd a spring, and danc'd it round,
Below the gallows-tree.
II.
Oh, what is death but parting breath?
On many a bloody plain
I've dar'd his face, and in this place
I scorn him yet again!
III.
Untie these bands from off my hands,
And bring to me my sword;
And there's no a man in all Scotland,
But I'll brave him at a word.
IV.
I've liv'd a life of sturt and strife;
I die by treacherie:
It burns my heart I must depart,
And not avenged be.
V.
Now farewell light--thou sunshine bright,
And all beneath the sky!
May coward shame distain his name,
The wretch that dares not die!
Sae rantingly, sae wantonly,
Sae dauntingly gaed he;
He play'd a spring, and danc'd it round,
Below the gallows-tree.
* * * * *
XXXVIII.
BRAW LADS OF GALLA WATER.
Tune--"_Galla Water._"
[Burns found this song in the collection of Herd; added the first
verse, made other but not material emendations, and published it in
Johnson: in 1793 he wrote another version for Thomson.]
CHORUS.
Braw, braw lads of Galla Water;
O braw lads of Galla Water:
I'll kilt my coats aboon my knee,
And follow my love thro' the water.
I.
Sae fair her hair, sae brent her brow,
Sae bonny blue her een, my dearie;
Sae white her teeth, sae sweet her mou',
The mair I kiss she's ay my dearie.
II.
O'er yon bank and o'er yon brae,
O'er yon moss amang the heather;
I'll kilt my coats aboon my knee,
And follow my love thro' the water.
III.
Down amang the broom, the broom,
Down amang the broom, my dearie,
The lassie lost a silken snood,
That cost her mony a blirt and bleary.
Braw, braw lads of Galla Water;
O braw lads of Galla-Water:
I'll kilt my coats aboon my knee,
And follow my love thro' the water.
* * * * *
XXXIX.
STAY, MY CHARMER.
Tune-"_An Gille dubh ciar dhubh._"
[The air of this song was picked up by the poet in one of his northern
tours: his Highland excursions coloured many of his lyric
compositions.]
I.
Stay, my charmer, can you leave me?
Cruel, cruel, to deceive me!
Well you know how much you grieve me;
Cruel charmer, can you go?
Cruel charmer, can you go?
II.
By my love so ill requited;
By the faith you fondly plighted;
By the pangs of lovers slighted;
Do not, do not leave me so!
Do not, do not leave me so!
* * * * *
XL.
THICKEST NIGHT, O'ERHANG MY DWELLING.
Tune--"_Strathallan's Lament._"
[The Viscount Strathallan, whom this song commemorates, was William
Drummond: he was slain at the carnage of Culloden. It was long
believed that he escaped to France and died in exile.]
I.
Thickest night, surround my dwelling!
Howling tempests, o'er me rave!
Turbid torrents, wintry swelling,
Roaring by my lonely cave!
II.
Crystal streamlets gently flowing,
Busy haunts of base mankind,
Western breezes softly blowing,
Suit not my distracted mind.
III.
In the cause of Right engaged,
Wrongs injurious to redress,
Honour's war we strongly waged,
But the heavens denied success.
IV.
Ruin's wheel has driven o'er us,
Not a hope that dare attend,
The wild world is all before us--
But a world without a friend.
* * * * *
XLI.
MY HOGGIE.
Tune--"_What will I do gin my Hoggie die?_"
[Burns was struck with the pastoral wildness of this Liddesdale air,
and wrote these words to it for the Museum: the first line only is
old.]
What will I do gin my Hoggie die?
My joy, my pride, my Hoggie!
My only beast, I had nae mae,
And vow but I was vogie!
The lee-lang night we watch'd the fauld,
Me and my faithfu' doggie;
We heard nought but the roaring linn,
Amang the braes sae scroggie;
But the houlet cry'd frae the castle wa',
The blitter frae the boggie,
The tod reply'd upon the hill,
I trembled for my Hoggie.
When day did daw, and cocks did craw,
The morning it was foggie;
An' unco tyke lap o'er the dyke,
And maist has kill'd my Hoggie.
* * * * *
XLII.
HER DADDIE FORBAD.
Tune--"_Jumpin' John._"
[This is one of the old songs which Ritson accuses Burns of amending
for the Museum: little of it, however, is his, save a touch here and
there--but they are Burns's touches.]
I.
Her daddie forbad, her minnie forbad;
Forbidden she wadna be:
She wadna trow't, the browst she brew'd
Wad taste sae bitterlie.
The lang lad they ca' jumpin' John
Beguiled the bonnie lassie,
The lang lad they ca' Jumpin' John
Beguiled the bonnie lassie.
II.
A cow and a cauf, a yowe and a hauf,
And thretty gude shillin's and three;
A vera gude tocher, a cotter-man's dochter,
The lass wi' the bonnie black e'e.
The lang lad they ca' Jumpin' John
Beguiled the bonnie lassie,
The lang lad they ca' Jumpin' John
Beguiled the bonnie lassie.
* * * * *
XLIII
UP IN THE MORNING EARLY
Tune--"_Cold blows the wind._"
["The chorus of this song," says the poet, in his notes on the
Scottish Lyrics, "is old, the two stanzas are mine." The air is
ancient, and was a favourite of Mary Stuart, the queen of William the
Third.]
CHORUS.
Up in the morning's no for me,
Up in the morning early;
When a' the hills are cover'd wi' snaw,
I'm sure it's winter fairly.
I.
Cauld blaws the wind frae east to west,
The drift is driving sairly;
Sae loud and shill I hear the blast,
I'm sure it's winter fairly.
II.
The birds sit chittering in the thorn,
A' day they fare but sparely;
And lang's the night frae e'en to morn--
I'm sure it's winter fairly.
Up in the morning's no for me,
Up in the morning early;
When a' the hills are cover'd wi' snaw,
I'm sure it's winter fairly.
* * * * *
XLIV.
THE
YOUNG HIGHLAND ROVER.
Tune--"_Morag._"
[The Young Highland Rover of this strain is supposed by some to be the
Chevalier, and with more probability by others, to be a Gordon, as the
song was composed in consequence of the poet's visit to "bonnie
Castle-Gordon," in September, 1787.]
I.
Loud blaw the frosty breezes,
The snaws the mountains cover;
Like winter on me seizes,
Since my young Highland rover
Far wanders nations over.
Where'er he go, where'er he stray.
May Heaven be his warden:
Return him safe to fair Strathspey,
And bonnie Castle-Gordon!
II.
The trees now naked groaning,
Shall Soon wi' leaves be hinging.
The birdies dowie moaning,
Shall a' be blithely singing,
And every flower be springing.
Sae I'll rejoice the lee-lang day
When by his mighty Warden
My youth's returned to fair Strathspey,
And bonnie Castle-Gordon.
* * * * *
XLV.
HEY, THE DUSTY MILLER
Tune--"_The Dusty Miller._"
[The Dusty Miller is an old strain, modified for the Museum by Burns:
it is a happy specimen of his taste and skill in making the new look
like the old.]
I.
Hey, the dusty miller,
And his dusty coat;
He will win a shilling,
Or he spend a groat.
Dusty was the coat,
Dusty was the colour,
Dusty was the kiss
That I got frae the miller.
II.
Hey, the dusty miller,
And his dusty sack;
Leeze me on the calling
Fills the dusty peck.
Fills the dusty peck,
Brings the dusty siller;
I wad gie my coatie
For the dusty miller.
* * * * *
XLVI.
THERE WAS A LASS.
Tune--"_Duncan Davison._"
[There are several other versions of Duncan Davison, which it is more
delicate to allude to than to quote: this one is in the Museum.]
I.
There was a lass, they ca'd her Meg,
And she held o'er the moors to spin;
There was a lad that follow'd her,
They ca'd him Duncan Davison.
The moor was driegh, and Meg was skiegh,
Her favour Duncan could na win;
For wi' the roke she wad him knock.
And ay she shook the temper-pin.
II.
As o'er the moor they lightly foor,
A burn was clear, a glen was green,
Upon the banks they eas'd-their shanks,
And ay she set the wheel between:
But Duncan swore a haly aith,
That Meg should be a bride the morn,
Then Meg took up her spinnin' graith,
And flang them a' out o'er the burn.
III.
We'll big a house,--a wee, wee house,
And we will live like king and queen,
Sae blythe and merry we will be
When ye set by the wheel at e'en.
A man may drink and no be drunk;
A man may fight and no be slain;
A man may kiss a bonnie lass,
And ay be welcome back again.
* * * * *
XLVII.
THENIEL MENZIES' BONNIE MARY.
Tune.--"_The Ruffian's Rant._"
[Burns, it is believed, wrote this song during his first Highland
tour, when he danced among the northern dames, to the tune of "Bab at
the Bowster," till the morning sun rose and reproved them from the top
of Ben Lomond.]
I.
In coming by the brig o' Dye,
At Darlet we a blink did tarry;
As day was dawin in the sky,
We drank a health to bonnie Mary.
Theniel Menzies' bonnie Mary;
Theniel Menzies' bonnie Mary;
Charlie Gregor tint his plaidie,
Kissin' Theniel's bonnie Mary.
II.
Her een sae bright, her brow sae white,
Her haffet locks as brown's a berry;
And ay, they dimpl't wi' a smile,
The rosy checks o' bonnie Mary.
III.
We lap and danced the lee lang day,
Till piper lads were wae and weary;
But Charlie gat the spring to pay,
For kissin' Theniel's bonnie Mary.
Theniel Menzies' bonnie Mary;
Theniel Menzies' bonnie Mary;
Charlie Gregor tint his plaidie,
Kissin' Theniel's bonnie Mary.
* * * * *
XLVIII.
THE BANKS OF THE DEVON.
Tune.--"_Bhannerach dhon na chri._"
[These verses were composed on a charming young lady, Charlotte
Hamilton, sister to the poet's friend, Gavin Hamilton of Mauchline,
residing, when the song was written, at Harvieston, on the banks of
the Devon, in the county of Clackmannan.]
I.
How pleasant the banks of the clear winding Devon,
With green spreading bushes, and flowers blooming fair!
But the bonniest flower on the banks of the Devon
Was once a sweet bud on the braes of the Ayr.
Mild be the sun on this sweet blushing flower,
In the gay rosy morn, as it bathes in the dew;
And gentle the fall of the soft vernal shower,
That steals on the evening each leaf to renew.
II.
O spare the dear blossom, ye orient breezes,
With chill hoary wing, as ye usher the dawn;
And far be thou distant, thou reptile that seizes
The verdure and pride of the garden and lawn!
Let Bourbon exult in his gay gilded Lilies,
And England, triumphant, display her proud Rose:
A fairer than either adorns the green valleys,
Where Devon, sweet Devon, meandering flows.
* * * * *
XLIX.
WEARY FA' YOU, DUNCAN GRAY.
Tune--"_Duncan Gray._"
[The original Duncan Gray, out of which the present strain was
extracted for Johnson, had no right to be called a lad of grace:
another version, and in a happier mood, was written for Thomson.]
I.
Weary fa' you, Duncan Gray--
Ha, ha, the girdin o't!
Wae gae by you, Duncan Gray--
Ha, ha, the girdin o't!
When a' the lave gae to their play,
Then I maun sit the lee lang day,
And jog the cradle wi' my tae,
And a' for the girdin o't!
II.
Bonnie was the Lammas moon--
Ha, ha, the girdin o't!
Glowrin' a' the hills aboon--
Ha, ha, the girdin o't!
The girdin brak, the beast cam down,
I tint my curch, and baith my shoon;
Ah! Duncan, ye're an unco loon--
Wae on the bad girdin o't!
III.
But, Duncan, gin ye'll keep your aith--
Ha, ha, the girdin o't!
I'se bless you wi' my hindmost breath--
Ha, ha, the girdin o't!
Duncan, gin ye'll keep your aith,
The beast again can bear us baith,
And auld Mess John will mend the skaith,
And clout the bad girdin o't.
* * * * *
L.
THE PLOUGHMAN.
Tune--"_Up wi' the ploughman._"
[The old words, of which these in the Museum are an altered and
amended version, are in the collection of Herd.]
I.
The ploughman he's a bonnie lad,
His mind is ever true, jo,
His garters knit below his knee,
His bonnet it is blue, jo.
Then up wi' him my ploughman lad,
And hey my merry ploughman!
Of a' the trades that I do ken,
Commend me to the ploughman.
II.
My ploughman he comes hame at e'en,
He's aften wat and weary;
Cast off the wat, put on the dry,
And gae to bed, my dearie!
III.
I will wash my ploughman's hose,
And I will dress his o'erlay;
I will mak my ploughman's bed,
And cheer him late and early.
IV.
I hae been east, I hae been west,
I hae been at Saint Johnston;
The bonniest sight that e'er I saw
Was the ploughman laddie dancin'.
V.
Snaw-white stockins on his legs,
And siller buckles glancin';
A gude blue bonnet on his head--
And O, but he was handsome!
VI.
Commend me to the barn-yard,
And the corn-mou, man;
I never gat my coggie fou,
Till I met wi' the ploughman.
Up wi' him my ploughman lad,
And hey my merry ploughman!
Of a' the trades that I do ken,
Commend me to the ploughman.
* * * * *
LI.
LANDLADY, COUNT THE LAWIN.
Tune--"_Hey tutti, taiti._"
[Of this song, the first and second verses are by Burns: the closing
verse belongs to a strain threatening Britain with an invasion from
the iron-handed Charles XII. of Sweden, to avenge his own wrongs and
restore the line of the Stuarts.]
I.
Landlady, count the lawin,
The day is near the dawin;
Ye're a' blind drunk, boys,
And I'm but jolly fou,
Hey tutti, taiti,
How tutti, taiti--
Wha's fou now?
II.
Cog an' ye were ay fou,
Cog an' ye were ay fou,
I wad sit and sing to you
If ye were ay fou.
III.
Weel may ye a' be!
Ill may we never see!
God bless the king,
And the companie!
Hey tutti, taiti,
How tutti, taiti--
Wha's fou now?
* * * * *
LII.
RAVING WINDS AROUND HER BLOWING.
Tune--"_Macgregor of Rura's Lament._"
["I composed these verses," says Burns, "on Miss Isabella M'Leod, of
Raza, alluding to her feelings on the death of her sister, and the
still more melancholy death of her sister's husband, the late Earl of
Loudon, in 1796."]
I.
Raving winds around her blowing,
Yellow leaves the woodlands strowing,
By a river hoarsely roaring,
Isabella stray'd deploring--
"Farewell hours that late did measure
Sunshine days of joy and pleasure;
Hail, thou gloomy night of sorrow,
Cheerless night that knows no morrow!
II.
"O'er the past too fondly wandering,
On the hopeless future pondering;
Chilly grief my life-blood freezes,
Fell despair my fancy seizes.
Life, thou soul of every blessing,
Load to misery most distressing,
Gladly how would I resign thee,
And to dark oblivion join thee!"
* * * * *
LIII.
HOW LONG AND DREARY IS THE NIGHT.
_To a Gaelic air._
[Composed for the Museum: the air of this affecting strain is true
Highland: Burns, though not a musician, had a fine natural taste in
the matter of national melodies.]
I.
How long and dreary is the night
When I am frae my dearie!
I sleepless lie frae e'en to morn,
Tho' I were ne'er sae weary.
I sleepless lie frae e'en to morn,
Tho' I were ne'er sae weary.
II.
When I think on the happy days
I spent wi' you, my dearie,
And now what lands between us lie,
How can I but be eerie!
And now what lands between us lie,
How can I be but eerie!
III.
How slow ye move, ye heavy hours,
As ye were wae and weary!
It was na sae ye glinted by,
When I was wi' my dearie.
It was na sae ye glinted by,
When I was wi' my dearie.
* * * * *
LIV.
MUSING ON THE ROARING OCEAN.
Tune--"_Druimion dubh._"
[The air of this song is from the Highlands: the verses were written
in compliment to the feelings of Mrs. M'Lauchlan, whose husband was an
officer serving in the East Indies.]
I.
Musing on the roaring ocean,
Which divides my love and me;
Wearying heaven in warm devotion,
For his weal where'er he be.
II.
Hope and fear's alternate billow
Yielding late to nature's law,
Whisp'ring spirits round my pillow
Talk of him that's far awa.
III.
Ye whom sorrow never wounded,
Ye who never shed a tear,
Care-untroubled, joy-surrounded,
Gaudy day to you is dear.
IV.
Gentle night, do thou befriend me;
Downy sleep, the curtain draw;
Spirits kind, again attend me,
Talk of him that's far awa!
* * * * *
LV.
BLITHE WAS SHE.
Tune--"_Andro and his cutty gun._"
[The heroine of this song, Euphemia Murray, of Lintrose was justly
called the "Flower of Strathmore:" she is now widow of Lord Methven,
one of the Scottish judges, and mother of a fine family. The song was
written at Ochtertyre, in June 1787.]
CHORUS.
Blithe, blithe and merry was she,
Blithe was she but and ben:
Blithe by the banks of Ern,
And blithe in Glenturit glen.
I.
By Auchtertyre grows the aik,
On Yarrow banks the birken shaw;
But Phemie was a bonnier lass
Than braes of Yarrow ever saw.
II.
Her looks were like a flow'r in May,
Her smile was like a simmer morn;
She tripped by the banks of Ern,
As light's a bird upon a thorn.
III.
Her bonnie face it was as meek
As any lamb upon a lea;
The evening sun was ne'er sae sweet,
As was the blink o' Phemie's ee.
IV.
The Highland hills I've wander'd wide,
And o'er the Lowlands I hae been;
But Phemie was the blithest lass
That ever trod the dewy green.
Blithe, blithe and merry was she,
Blithe was she but and ben:
Blithe by the banks of Ern.
And blithe in Glenturit glen.
* * * * *
LVI.
THE BLUDE RED ROSE AT YULE MAY BLAW.
Tune--"_To daunton me._"
[The Jacobite strain of "To daunton me," must have been in the mind of
the poet when he wrote this pithy lyric for the Museum.]
I.
The blude red rose at Yule may blaw,
The simmer lilies bloom in snaw,
The frost may freeze the deepest sea;
But an auld man shall never daunton me.
To daunton me, and me so young,
Wi' his fause heart and flatt'ring tongue.
That is the thing you ne'er shall see;
For an auld man shall never daunton me.
II.
For a' his meal and a' his maut,
For a' his fresh beef and his saut,
For a' his gold and white monie,
An auld man shall never daunton me.
III.
His gear may buy him kye and yowes,
His gear may buy him glens and knowes;
But me he shall not buy nor fee,
For an auld man shall never daunton me.
IV.
He hirples twa fauld as he dow,
Wi' his teethless gab and Ma auld beld pow,
And the rain rains down frae his red bleer'd ee--
That auld man shall never daunton me.
To daunton me, and me sae young,
Wi' his fause heart and flatt'ring tongue,
That is the thing you ne'er shall see;
For an auld man shall never daunton me.
* * * * *
LVII.
COME BOAT ME O'ER TO CHARLIE.
Tune--"_O'er the water to Charlie._"
[The second stanza of this song, and nearly all the third, are by
Burns. Many songs, some of merit, on the same subject, and to the same
air, were in other days current in Scotland.]
I.
Come boat me o'er, come row me o'er,
Come boat me o'er to Charlie;
I'll gie John Ross another bawbee,
To boat me o'er to Charlie.
We'll o'er the water and o'er the sea,
We'll o'er the water to Charlie;
Come weal, come woe, we'll gather and go,
And live or die wi' Charlie.
II.
I lo'e weel my Charlie's name,
Tho' some there be abhor him:
But O, to see auld Nick gaun hame,
And Charlie's faes before him!
III.
I swear and vow by moon and stars,
And sun that shines so early,
If I had twenty thousand lives,
I'd die as aft for Charlie.
We'll o'er the water and o'er the sea,
We'll o'er the water to Charlie;
Come weal, come woe, we'll gather and go,
And live or die wi' Charlie!
* * * * *
LVIII.
A ROSE-BUD BY MY EARLY WALK.
Tune--"_The Rose-bud._"
[The "Rose-bud" of these sweet verses was Miss Jean Cruikshank,
afterwards Mrs. Henderson, daughter of William Cruikshank, of St.
James's Square, one of the masters of the High School of Edinburgh:
she is also the subject of a poem equally sweet.]
I.
A rose-bud by my early walk,
Adown a corn-enclosed bawk,
Sae gently bent its thorny stalk,
All on a dewy morning.
Ere twice the shades o' dawn are fled,
In a' its crimson glory spread,
And drooping rich the dewy head,
It scents the early morning.
II.
Within the bush, her covert nest
A little linnet fondly prest,
The dew sat chilly on her breast
Sae early in the morning.
She soon shall see her tender brood,
The pride, the pleasure o' the wood,
Amang the fresh green leaves bedew'd,
Awake the early morning.
III.
So thou, dear bird, young Jeany fair,
On trembling string or vocal air,
Shall sweetly pay the tender care
That tends thy early morning.
So thou, sweet rose-bud, young and gay,
Shalt beauteous blaze upon the day,
And bless the parent's evening ray
That watch'd thy early morning.
* * * * *
LIX.
RATTLIN', ROARIN' WILLIE.
Tune--"_Rattlin', roarin' Willie._"
["The hero of this chant," says Burns "was one of the worthiest
fellows in the world--William Dunbar, Esq., Write to the Signet,
Edinburgh, and Colonel of the Crochallan corps--a club of wits, who
took that title at the time of raising the fencible regiments."]
I.
O rattlin', roarin' Willie,
O, he held to the fair,
An' for to sell his fiddle,
An' buy some other ware;
But parting wi' his fiddle,
The saut tear blint his ee;
And rattlin', roarin' Willie,
Ye're welcome hame to me!
II.
O Willie, come sell your fiddle,
O sell your fiddle sae fine;
O Willie, come sell your fiddle,
And buy a pint o' wine!
If I should sell my fiddle,
The warl' would think I was mad;
For mony a rantin' day
My fiddle and I hae had.
III.
As I cam by Crochallan,
I cannily keekit ben--
Rattlin', roarin' Willie
Was sittin' at yon board en';
Sitting at yon board en',
And amang good companie;
Rattlin', roarin' Willie,
Ye're welcome hame to me I
* * * * *
LX.
BRAVING ANGRY WINTER'S STORMS.
Tune--"_Neil Gow's Lamentations for Abercairny._"
["This song," says the poet, "I composed on one of the most
accomplished of women, Miss Peggy Chalmers that was, now Mrs. Lewis
Hay, of Forbes and Co.'s bank, Edinburgh." She now lives at Pau, in
the south of France.]
I.
Where, braving angry winter's storms,
The lofty Ochels rise,
Far in their shade my Peggy's charms
First blest my wondering eyes;
As one who by some savage stream,
A lonely gem surveys,
Astonish'd, doubly marks its beam,
With art's most polish'd blaze.
II.
Blest be the wild, sequester'd shade,
And blest the day and hour,
Where Peggy's charms I first survey'd,
When first I felt their power!
The tyrant Death, with grim control,
May seize my fleeting breath;
But tearing Peggy from my soul
Must be a stronger death.
* * * * *
LXI.
TIBBIE DUNBAR.
Tune--"_Johnny M'Gill._"
[We owe the air of this song to one Johnny M'Gill, a fiddler of
Girvan, who bestowed his own name on it: and the song itself partly to
Burns and partly to some unknown minstrel. They are both in the
Museum.]
I.
O, Wilt thou go wi' me,
Sweet Tibbie Dunbar?
O, wilt thou go wi' me,
Sweet Tibbie Dunbar?
Wilt thou ride on a horse,
Or be drawn in a car,
Or walk by my side,
O, sweet Tibbie Dunbar?
II.
I care na thy daddie,
His lands and his money,
I care na thy kindred,
Sae high and sae lordly:
But say thou wilt hae me
For better for waur--
And come in thy coatie,
Sweet Tibbie Dunbar!
* * * * *
LXII.
STREAMS THAT GLIDE IN ORIENT PLAINS.
Tune--"_Morag._"
[We owe these verses to the too brief visit which the poet, in 1787,
made to Gordon Castle: he was hurried away, much against his will, by
his moody and obstinate friend William Nicol.]
I.
Streams that glide in orient plains,
Never bound by winter's chains;
Glowing here on golden sands,
There commix'd with foulest stains
From tyranny's empurpled bands;
These, their richly gleaming waves,
I leave to tyrants and their slaves;
Give me the stream that sweetly laves
The banks by Castle-Gordon.
II.
Spicy forests, ever gay,
Shading from the burning ray,
Hapless wretches sold to toil,
Or the ruthless native's way,
Bent on slaughter, blood, and spoil:
Woods that ever verdant wave,
I leave the tyrant and the slave,
Give me the groves that lofty brave
The storms by Castle-Gordon.
III.
Wildly here without control,
Nature reigns and rules the whole;
In that sober pensive mood,
Dearest to the feeling soul,
She plants the forest, pours the flood;
Life's poor day I'll musing rave,
And find at night a sheltering cave,
Where waters flow and wild woods wave,
By bonnie Castle-Gordon.
* * * * *
LXIII.
MY HARRY WAS A GALLANT GAY.
Tune--"_Highland's Lament._"
["The chorus," says Burns, "I picked up from an old woman in Dumblane:
the rest of the song is mine." He composed it for Johnson: the tone is
Jacobitical.]
I.
My Harry was a gallant gay,
Fu' stately strode he on the plain:
But now he's banish'd far away,
I'll never see him back again,
O for him back again!
O for him back again!
I wad gie a' Knockhaspie's land
For Highland Harry back again.
II.
When a' the lave gae to their bed,
I wander dowie up the glen;
I set me down and greet my fill,
And ay I wish him back again.
III.
O were some villains hangit high.
And ilka body had their ain!
Then I might see the joyfu' sight,
My Highland Harry back again.
O for him back again!
O for him back again!
I wad gie a' Knockhaspie's land
For Highland Harry back again.
* * * * *
LXIV.
THE TAILOR.
Tune--"_The Tailor fell thro' the bed, thimbles an' a'._"
[The second and fourth verses are by Burns, the rest is very old, the
air is also very old, and is played at trade festivals and processions
by the Corporation of Tailors.]
I.
The Tailor fell thro' the bed, thimbles an' a',
The Tailor fell thro' the bed, thimbles an' a';
The blankets were thin, and the sheets they were sma',
The Tailor fell thro' the bed, thimbles an' a'.
II.
The sleepy bit lassie, she dreaded nae ill,
The sleepy bit lassie, she dreaded nae ill;
The weather was cauld, and the lassie lay still,
She thought that a tailor could do her nae ill.
III.
Gie me the groat again, canny young man;
Gie me the groat again, canny young man;
The day it is short, and the night it is lang,
The dearest siller that ever I wan!
IV.
There's somebody weary wi' lying her lane;
There's somebody weary wi' lying her lane;
There's some that are dowie, I trow would be fain
To see the bit tailor come skippin' again.
* * * * *
LXV.
SIMMER'S A PLEASANT TIME.
Tune--"_Ay waukin o'._"
[Tytler and Ritson unite in considering the air of these words as one
of our most ancient melodies. The first verse of the song is from the
hand of Burns; the rest had the benefit of his emendations: it is to
be found in the Museum.]
I.
Simmer's a pleasant time,
Flow'rs of ev'ry colour;
The water rins o'er the heugh,
And I long for my true lover.
Ay waukin O,
Waukin still and wearie:
Sleep I can get nane
For thinking on my dearie.
II.
When I sleep I dream,
When I wauk I'm eerie;
Sleep I can get nane
For thinking on my dearie.
III.
Lanely night comes on,
A' the lave are sleeping;
I think on my bonnie lad
And I bleer my een with greetin'.
Ay waukin O,
Waukin still and wearie:
Sleep I can get nane
For thinking on my dearie.
* * * * *
LXVI.
BEWARE O' BONNIE ANN.
Tune--"_Ye gallants bright._"
[Burns wrote this song in honour of Ann Masterton, daughter of Allan
Masterton, author of the air of Strathallan's Lament: she is now Mrs.
Derbishire, and resides in London.]
I.
Ye gallants bright, I red ye right,
Beware o' bonnie Ann;
Her comely face sae fu' o' grace,
Your heart she will trepan.
Her een sae bright, like stars by night,
Her skin is like the swan;
Sae jimply lac'd her genty waist,
That sweetly ye might span.
II.
Youth, grace, and love attendant move,
And pleasure leads the van:
In a' their charms, and conquering arms,
They wait on bonnie Ann.
The captive bands may chain the hands,
But love enclaves the man;
Ye Gallants braw, I red you a',
Beware of bonnie Ann!
* * * * *
LXVII.
WHEN ROSY MAY.
Tune--"_The gardener wi' his paidle._"
[The air of this song is played annually at the precession of the
Gardeners: the title only is old; the rest is the work of Burns. Every
trade had, in other days, an air of its own, and songs to correspond;
but toil and sweat came in harder measures, and drove melodies out of
working-men's heads.]
I.
When rosy May comes in wi' flowers,
To deck her gay green-spreading bowers,
Then busy, busy are his hours--
The gard'ner wi' his paidle
The crystal waters gently fa';
The merry birds are lovers a';
The scented breezes round him blaw--
The gard'ner wi' his paidle.
II.
When purple morning starts the hare
To steal upon her early fare,
Then thro' the dews he maun repair--
The gard'ner wi' his paidle.
When day, expiring in the west,
The curtain draws of nature's rest,
He flies to her arms he lo'es best--
The gard'ner wi' his paidle.
* * * * *
LXVIII.
BLOOMING NELLY.
Tune--"_On a bank of flowers._"
[One of the lyrics of Allan Ramsay's collection seems to have been in
the mind of Burns when he wrote this: the words and air are in the
Museum.]
I.
On a bank of flowers, in a summer day,
For summer lightly drest,
The youthful blooming Nelly lay,
With love and sleep opprest;
When Willie wand'ring thro' the wood,
Who for her favour oft had sued,
He gaz'd, he wish'd, he fear'd, he blush'd,
And trembled where he stood.
II.
Her closed eyes like weapons sheath'd,
Were seal'd in soft repose;
Her lips still as she fragrant breath'd,
It richer dy'd the rose.
The springing lilies sweetly prest,
Wild--wanton, kiss'd her rival breast;
He gaz'd, he wish'd, he fear'd, he blush'd--
His bosom ill at rest.
III.
Her robes light waving in the breeze
Her tender limbs embrace;
Her lovely form, her native ease,
All harmony and grace:
Tumultuous tides his pulses roll,
A faltering, ardent kiss he stole;
He gaz'd, he wish'd, he fear'd, he blush'd,
And sigh'd his very soul.
IV.
As flies the partridge from the brake,
On fear-inspired wings,
So Nelly, starting, half awake,
Away affrighted springs:
But Willie follow'd, as he should,
He overtook her in a wood;
He vow'd, he pray'd, he found the maid
Forgiving all and good.
* * * * *
LXIX.
THE DAY RETURNS.
Tune--"_Seventh of November._"
[The seventh of November was the anniversary of the marriage of Mr.
and Mrs. Riddel, of Friars-Carse, and these verses were composed in
compliment to the day.]
I.
The day returns, my bosom burns,
The blissful day we twa did meet,
Tho' winter wild in tempest toil'd,
Ne'er summer-sun was half sae sweet.
Than a' the pride that loads the tide,
And crosses o'er the sultry line;
Than kingly robes, than crowns and globes,
Heaven gave me more--it made thee mine!
II.
While day and night can bring delight,
Or nature aught of pleasure give,
While joys above my mind can move,
For thee, and thee alone I live.
When that grim foe of life below,
Comes in between to make us part,
The iron hand that breaks our band,
It breaks my bliss--it breaks my heart.
* * * * *
LXX.
MY LOVE SHE'S BUT A LASSIE YET.
Tune--"_Lady Bandinscoth's Reel._"
[These verses had their origin in an olden strain, equally lively and
less delicate: some of the old lines keep their place: the title is
old. Both words and all are in the Musical Museum.]
I.
My love she's but a lassie yet,
My love she's but a lassie yet,
We'll let her stand a year or twa,
Shell no be half so saucy yet.
I rue the day I sought her, O;
I rue the day I sought her, O;
Wha gets her needs na say he's woo'd,
But he may say he's bought her, O!
II.
Come, draw a drap o' the best o't yet;
Come, draw a drap o' the best o't yet;
Gae seek for pleasure where ye will,
But here I never miss'd it yet.
We're a' dry wi' drinking o't;
We're a' dry wi' drinking o't;
The minister kiss'd the fiddler's wife,
An' could na preach for thinkin' o't.
* * * * *
LXXI.
JAMIE, COME TRY ME.
Tune--"_Jamy, come try me._"
[Burns in these verses caught up the starting note of an old song, of
which little more than the starting words deserve to be remembered:
the word and air are in the Musical Museum.]
CHORUS.
Jamie, come try me,
Jamie, come try me;
If thou would win my love,
Jamie, come try me.
I.
If thou should ask my love,
Could I deny thee?
If thou would win my love,
Jamie, come try me.
II.
If thou should kiss me, love,
Wha could espy thee?
If thou wad be my love,
Jamie, come try me.
Jamie, come try me,
Jamie, come try me;
If thou would win my love,
Jamie, come try me.
* * * * *
LXXII.
MY BONNIE MARY.
Tune--"_Go fetch to me a pint o' wine._"
[Concerning this fine song, Burns in his notes says, "This air is
Oswald's: the first half-stanza of the song is old, the rest is mine."
It is believed, however, that the whole of the song is from his hand:
in Hogg and Motherwell's edition of Burns, the starting lines are
supplied from an olden strain: but some of the old strains in that
work are to be regarded with suspicion.]
I.
Go fetch to me a pint o' wine,
An' fill it in a silver tassie;
That I may drink, before I go,
A service to my bonnie lassie;
The boat rocks at the pier o' Leith;
Fu' loud the wind blaws frae the ferry;
The ship rides by the Berwick-law,
And I maun leave my bonnie Mary.
II.
The trumpets sound, the banners fly,
The glittering spears are ranked ready;
The shouts o' war are heard afar,
The battle closes thick and bloody;
It's not the roar o' sea or shore
Wad make me langer wish to tarry;
Nor shouts o' war that's heard afar--
It's leaving thee, my bonnie Mary.
* * * * *
LXXIII.
THE LAZY MIST.
Tune--"_The lazy mist._"
[All that Burns says about the authorship of The Lazy Mist, is, "This
song is mine." The air, which is by Oswald, together with the words,
is in the Musical Museum.]
I.
The lazy mist hangs from the brow of the hill,
Concealing the course of the dark winding rill;
How languid the scenes, late so sprightly, appear!
As Autumn to Winter resigns the pale year.
The forests are leafless, the meadows are brown,
And all the gay foppery of summer is flown:
Apart let me wander, apart let me muse,
How quick Time is flying, how keen Fate pursues!
II.
How long have I liv'd, but how much liv'd in vain!
How little of life's scanty span may remain!
What aspects, old Time, in his progress, has worn!
What ties cruel Fate in my bosom has torn!
How foolish, or worse, till our summit is gain'd!
And downward, how weaken'd, how darken'd, how pain'd!
Life is not worth having with all it can give--
For something beyond it poor man sure must live.
* * * * *
LXXIV.
THE CAPTAIN'S LADY.
Tune--"_O mount and go._"
[Part of this song belongs to an old maritime strain, with the same
title: it was communicated, along with many other songs, made or
amended by Burns, to the Musical Museum.]
CHORUS.
O mount and go,
Mount and make you ready;
O mount and go,
And be the Captain's Lady.
I.
When the drums do beat,
And the cannons rattle,
Thou shall sit in state,
And see thy love in battle.
II.
When the vanquish'd foe
Sues for peace and quiet,
To the shades we'll go,
And in love enjoy it.
O mount and go,
Mount and make you ready;
O mount and go,
And be the Captain's Lady.
* * * * *
LXXV.
OF A' THE AIRTS THE WIND CAN BLAW
Tune--"_Miss Admiral Gordon's Strathspey._"
[Bums wrote this charming song in honour of Joan Armour: he archly
says in his notes, "P.S. it was during the honeymoon." Other
versions are abroad; this one is from the manuscripts of the poet.]
I.
Of a' the airts the wind can blaw,
I dearly like the west,
For there the bonnie lassie lives,
The lassie I lo'e best:
There wild-woods grow, and rivers row,
And mony a hill between;
But day and night my fancy's flight
Is ever wi' my Jean.
II.
I see her in the dewy flowers,
I see her sweet and fair:
I hear her in the tunefu' birds,
I hear her charm the air:
There's not a bonnie flower that springs
By fountain, shaw, or green,
There's not a bonnie bird that sings,
But minds me o' my Jean.
III.
O blaw, ye westlin winds, blaw saft
Among the leafy trees,
Wi' balmy gale, frae hill and dale
Bring hame the laden bees;
And bring the lassie back to me
That's aye sae neat and clean;
Ae smile o' her wad banish care,
Sae charming is my Jean.
IV.
What sighs and vows amang the knowes
Hae passed atween us twa!
How fond to meet, how wae to part,
That night she gaed awa!
The powers aboon can only ken,
To whom the heart is seen,
That nane can be sae dear to me
As my sweet lovely Jean!
* * * * *
LXXVI.
FIRST WHEN MAGGY WAS MY CARE.
Tune--"_Whistle o'er the lave o't."_
[The air of this song was composed by John Bruce, of Dumfries,
musician: the words, though originating in an olden strain, are wholly
by Burns, and right bitter ones they are. The words and air are in the
Museum.]
I.
First when Maggy was my care,
Heaven, I thought, was in her air;
Now we're married--spier nae mair--
Whistle o'er the lave o't.--
Meg was meek, and Meg was mild,
Bonnie Meg was nature's child;
Wiser men than me's beguil'd--
Whistle o'er the lave o't.
II.
How we live, my Meg and me,
How we love, and how we 'gree,
I care na by how few may see;
Whistle o'er the lave o't.--
Wha I wish were maggot's meat,
Dish'd up in her winding sheet,
I could write--but Meg maun see't--
Whistle o'er the lave o't.
* * * * *
LXXVII.
O WERE I ON PARNASSUS HILL.
Tune--"_My love is lost to me._"
[The poet welcomed with this exquisite song his wife to Nithsdale: the
air is one of Oswald's.]
I.
O, were I on Parnassus' hill!
Or had of Helicon my fill;
That I might catch poetic skill,
To sing how dear I love thee.
But Nith maun be my Muse's well;
My Muse maun be thy bonnie sel':
On Corsincon I'll glow'r and spell,
And write how dear I love thee.
II.
Then come, sweet Muse, inspire my lay!
For a' the lee-lang simmer's day
I coudna sing, I coudna say,
How much, how dear, I love thee.
I see thee dancing o'er the green,
Thy waist sae jimp, thy limbs sae clean,
Thy tempting lips, thy roguish een--
By heaven and earth I love thee!
III.
By night, by day, a-field, at hame,
The thoughts o' thee my breast inflame;
And aye I muse and sing thy name--
I only live to love thee.
Tho' I were doom'd to wander on
Beyond the sea, beyond the sun,
Till my last weary sand was run;
Till then--and then I love thee.
* * * * *
LXXVIII.
THERE'S A YOUTH IN THIS CITY.
_To a Gaelic Air._
["This air," says Burns, "is claimed by Neil Gow, who calls it a
Lament for his Brother. The first half-stanza of the song is old: the
rest is mine." They are both in the Museum.]
I.
There's a youth in this city,
It were a great pity
That he frae our lasses shou'd wander awa:
For he's bonnie an' braw,
Weel-favour'd an' a',
And his hair has a natural buckle an' a'.
His coat is the hue
Of his bonnet sae blue;
His feck it is white as the new-driven snaw;
His hose they are blae,
And his shoon like the slae.
And his clear siller buckles they dazzle us a'.
II.
For beauty and fortune
The laddie's been courtin';
Weel-featured, weel-tocher'd, weel-mounted and braw;
But chiefly the siller,
That gars him gang till her,
The pennie's the jewel that beautifies a'.
There's Meg wi' the mailen
That fain wad a haen him;
And Susie, whose daddy was laird o' the ha';
There's lang-tocher'd Nancy
Maist fetters his fancy--
But the laddie's dear sel' he lo'es dearest of a'.
* * * * *
LXXIX.
MY HEART'S IN THE HIGHLANDS.
Tune--"_Failte na Miosg._"
[The words and the air are in the Museum, to which they were
contributed by Burns. He says, in his notes on that collection, "The
first half-stanza of this song is old; the rest mine." Of the old
strain no one has recorded any remembrance.]
I.
My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here;
My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer;
A-chasing the wild deer, and following the roe--
My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go.
Farewell to the Highlands, farewell to the North,
The birth-place of valour, the country of worth;
Wherever I wander, wherever I rove,
The hills of the Highlands for ever I love.
II.
Farewell to the mountains high cover'd with snow;
Farewell to the straths and green valleys below:
Farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods;
Farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods.
My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here,
My heart's in the Highlands a-chasing the deer;
Chasing the wild deer, and following the roe--
My heart's in the Highlands wherever I go.
* * * * *
[Illustration:]
LXXX.
JOHN ANDERSON.
Tune--"_John Anderson, my jo._"
[Soon after the death of Burns, the very handsome Miscellanies of
Brash and Reid, of Glasgow, contained what was called an improved John
Anderson, from the pen of the Ayrshire bard; but, save the second
stanza, none of the new matter looked like his hand.
"John Anderson, my jo, John,
When nature first began
To try her cannie hand, John,
Her master-piece was man;
And you amang them a', John,
Sae trig frae tap to toe,
She proved to be nae journey-work,
John Anderson, my jo."]
I.
"John Anderson, my jo, John,
When we were first acquent,
Your locks were like the raven,
Your bonnie brow was brent;
But now your brow is beld, John,
Your locks are like the snaw;
But blessings on your frosty pow,
John Anderson, my jo.
II.
John Anderson, my jo, John,
We clamb the hill thegither;
And mony a canty day, John,
We've had wi' ane anither:
Now we maun totter down, John,
But hand in hand we'll go;
And sleep thegither at the foot,
John Anderson, my jo.
* * * * *
LXXXI.
OUR THRISSLES FLOURISHED FRESH AND FAIR.
Tune--"_Awa Whigs, awa._"
[Burns trimmed up this old Jacobite ditty for the Museum, and added
some of the bitterest bits: the second and fourth verses are wholly
his.]
CHORUS.
Awa Whigs, awa!
Awa Whigs, awa!
Ye're but a pack o' traitor louns,
Ye'll do nae good at a'.
I
Our thrissles flourish'd fresh and fair,
And bonnie bloom'd our roses;
But Whigs came like a frost in June,
And wither'd a' our posies.
II.
Our ancient crown's fa'n in the dust--
Deil blin' them wi' the stoure o't;
And write their names in his black beuk,
Wha gae the Whigs the power o't.
III.
Our sad decay in Church and State
Surpasses my descriving:
The Whigs came o'er us for a curse,
And we hae done wi' thriving.
IV.
Grim vengeance lang ha's taen a nap,
But we may see him wauken;
Gude help the day when royal heads
Are hunted like a maukin.
Awa Whigs, awa!
Awa Whigs, awa!
Ye're but a pack o' traitor louns,
Ye'll do nae gude at a'.
* * * * *
LXXXII.
CA' THE EWES.
Tune--"_Ca' the ewes to the knowes._"
[Most of this sweet pastoral is of other days: Burns made several
emendations, and added the concluding verse. He afterwards, it will be
observed, wrote for Thomson a second version of the subject and the
air.]
CHORUS
Ca' the ewes to the knowes,
Ca' them whare the heather grows,
Ca' them whare the burnie rowes,
My bonnie dearie!
I.
As I gaed down the water-side,
There I met my shepherd lad,
He row'd me sweetly in his plaid,
An' he ca'd me his dearie.
II.
Will ye gang down the water-side,
And see the waves sae sweetly glide,
Beneath the hazels spreading wide?
The moon it shines fu' clearly.
III.
I was bred up at nae sic school,
My shepherd lad, to play the fool,
And a' the day to sit in dool,
And naebody to see me.
IV.
Ye sall get gowns and ribbons meet,
Cauf-leather shoon upon your feet,
And in my arms ye'se lie and sleep,
And ye shall be my dearie.
V.
If ye'll but stand to what ye've said,
I'se gang wi' you, my shepherd lad,
And ye may rowe me in your plaid,
And I shall be your dearie.
VI.
While waters wimple to the sea;
While day blinks in the lift sae hie;
'Till clay-cauld death sall blin' my e'e,
Ye sall be my dearie.
Ca' the ewes to the knowes,
Ca' them whare the heather grows,
Ca' them whare the burnie rowes,
My bonnie dearie.
* * * * *
LXXXIII.
MERRY HAE I BEEN TEETHIN' A HECKLE.
Tune--"_Lord Breadalbone's March._"
[Part of this song is old: Sir Harris Nicolas says it does not appear
to be in the Museum: let him look again.]
I.
O merry hae I been teethin' a heckle,
And merry hae I been shapin' a spoon;
O merry hae I been cloutin a kettle,
And kissin' my Katie when a' was done.
O a' the lang day I ca' at my hammer,
An' a' the lang day I whistle and sing,
A' the lang night I cuddle my kimmer,
An' a' the lang night as happy's a king.
II.
Bitter in dool I lickit my winnins,
O' marrying Bess to gie her a slave:
Blest be the hour she cool'd in her linens,
And blythe be the bird that sings on her grave.
Come to my arms, my Katie, my Katie,
An' come to my arms and kiss me again!
Drunken or sober, here's to thee, Katie!
And blest be the day I did it again.
* * * * *
LXXXIV.
THE BRAES O' BALLOCHMYLE.
Tune--"_The Braes o' Ballochmyle._"
[Mary Whitefoord, eldest daughter of Sir John Whitefoord, was the
heroine of this song: it was written when that ancient family left
their ancient inheritance. It is in the Museum, with an air by Allan
Masterton.]
I.
The Catrine woods were yellow seen,
The flowers decay'd on Catrine lea,
Nae lav'rock sang on hillock green,
But nature sicken'd on the e'e.
Thro' faded groves Maria sang,
Hersel' in beauty's bloom the while,
And ay the wild-wood echoes rang,
Fareweel the Braes o' Ballochmyle!
II.
Low in your wintry beds, ye flowers,
Again ye'll nourish fresh and fair;
Ye birdies dumb, in withering bowers,
Again ye'll charm the vocal air.
But here, alas! for me nae mair
Shall birdie charm, or floweret smile;
Fareweel the bonnie banks of Ayr,
Fareweel, fareweel! sweet Ballochmyle!
* * * * *
LXXXV.
TO MARY IN HEAVEN.
Tune--"_Death of Captain Cook._"
[This sublime and affecting Ode was composed by Burns in one of his
fits of melancholy, on the anniversary of Highland Mary's death. All
the day he had been thoughtful, and at evening he went out, threw
himself down by the side of one of his corn-ricks, and with his eyes
fixed on "a bright, particular star," was found by his wife, who with
difficulty brought him in from the chill midnight air. The song was
already composed, and he had only to commit it to paper. It first
appeared in the Museum.]
I.
Thou lingering star, with less'ning ray,
That lov'st to greet the early morn,
Again thou usherest in the day
My Mary from my soul was torn.
O Mary! dear departed shade!
Where is thy place of blissful rest?
Seest thou thy lover lowly laid?
Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast?
II.
That sacred hour can I forget,
Can I forget the hallow'd grove,
Where by the winding Ayr we met,
To live one day of parting love!
Eternity cannot efface
Those records dear of transports past;
Thy image at our last embrace;
Ah! little thought we 'twas our last!
III.
Ayr, gurgling, kiss'd his pebbled shore,
O'erhung with wild woods, thick'ning green;
The fragrant birch, and hawthorn, hoar,
Twin'd am'rous round the raptured scene;
The flow'rs sprang wanton to be prest,
The birds sang love on every spray--
Till too, too soon, the glowing west
Proclaim'd the speed of winged day.
IV.
Still o'er these scenes my mem'ry wakes,
And fondly broods with miser care!
Time but th' impression stronger makes,
As streams their channels deeper wear.
My Mary, dear departed shade!
Where is thy place of blissful rest?
Seest thou thy lover lowly laid?
Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast?
* * * * *
LXXXVI.
EPPIE ADAIR.
Tune--"_My Eppie._"
["This song," says Sir Harris Nicolas, "which has been ascribed to
Burns by some of his editors, is in the Musical Museum without any
name." It is partly an old strain, corrected by Burns: he communicated
it to the Museum.]
I.
An' O! my Eppie,
My jewel, my Eppie!
Wha wadna be happy
Wi' Eppie Adair?
By love, and by beauty,
By law, and by duty,
I swear to be true to
My Eppie Adair!
II.
An' O! my Eppie,
My jewel, my Eppie!
Wha wadna be happy
Wi' Eppie Adair?
A' pleasure exile me,
Dishonour defile me,
If e'er I beguile thee,
My Eppie Adair!
* * * * *
LXXXVII.
THE BATTLE OF SHERIFF-MUIR.
Tune--"_Cameronian Rant._"
[One Barclay, a dissenting clergyman in Edinburgh, wrote a rhyming
dialogue between two rustics, on the battle of Sheriff-muir: Burns was
in nowise pleased with the way in which the reverend rhymer handled
the Highland clans, and wrote this modified and improved version.]
I.
"O cam ye here the fight to shun,
Or herd the sheep wi' me, man?
Or were ye at the Sherra-muir,
And did the battle see, man?"
I saw the battle, sair and tough,
And reekin' red ran mony a sheugh.
My heart, for fear, gaed sough for sough,
To hear the thuds, and see the cluds,
O' clans frae woods, in tartan duds,
Wha glaum'd at kingdoms three, man.
II.
The red-coat lads, wi' black cockades,
To meet them were na slaw, man;
They rush'd and push'd, and blude outgush'd,
And mony a bouk did fa', man:
The great Argyll led on his files,
I wat they glanc'd for twenty miles:
They hough'd the clans like nine-pin kyles,
They hack'd and hash'd, while broad-swords clash'd,
And thro' they dash'd, and hew'd, and smash'd,
'Till fey men died awa, man.
III.
But had you seen the philibegs,
And skyrin tartan trews, man;
When in the teeth they dar'd our Whigs
And covenant true blues, man;
In lines extended lang and large,
When bayonets opposed the targe,
And thousands hasten'd to the charge,
Wi' Highland wrath they frae the sheath,
Drew blades o' death, 'till, out o' breath,
They fled like frighted doos, man.
IV.
"O how deil, Tam, can that be true?
The chase gaed frae the north, man;
I saw myself, they did pursue
The horsemen back to Forth, man;
And at Dumblane, in my ain sight,
They took the brig wi' a' their might,
And straught to Stirling winged their flight;
But, cursed lot! the gates were shut;
And mony a huntit, poor red-coat,
For fear amaist did swarf, man!"
V.
My sister Kate cam up the gate
Wi' crowdie unto me, man;
She swore she saw some rebels run
Frae Perth unto Dundee, man:
Their left-hand general had nae skill,
The Angus lads had nae good-will
That day their neebors' blood to spill;
For fear, by foes, that they should lose
Their cogs o' brose--they scar'd at blows.
And so it goes, you see, man.
VI.
They've lost some gallant gentlemen,
Amang the Highland clans, man!
I fear my Lord Panmure is slain,
Or fallen in Whiggish hands, man:
Now wad ye sing this double fight,
Some fell for wrang, and some for right;
And mony bade the world guid-night;
Then ye may tell, how pell and mell,
By red claymores, and muskets' knell,
Wi' dying yell, the Tories fell,
And Whigs to hell did flee, man.
* * * * *
LXXXVIII.
YOUNG JOCKEY.
Tune--"_Young Jockey._"
[With the exception of three or four lines, this song, though marked
in the Museum as an old song with additions, is the work of Burns. He
often seems to have sat down to amend or modify old verses, and found
it easier to make verses wholly new.]
I.
Young Jockey was the blythest lad
In a' our town or here awa:
Fu' blythe he whistled at the gaud,
Fu' lightly danced he in the ha'.
He roosed my een, sae bonnie blue,
He roos'd my waist sae genty sma',
And ay my heart came to my mou'
When ne'er a body heard or saw.
II.
My Jockey toils upon the plain,
Thro' wind and weet, thro' frost and snaw;
And o'er the lea I leuk fu' fain,
When Jockey's owsen hameward ca'.
An' ay the night comes round again,
When in his arms he takes me a',
An' ay he vows he'll be my ain,
As lang's he has a breath to draw.
* * * * *
LXXXIX.
O WILLIE BREW'D.
Tune--"_Willie brew'd a peck o' maut._"
[The scene of this song is Laggan, in Nithsdale, a small estate which
Nicol bought by the advice of the poet. It was composed in memory of
the house-heating. "We had such a joyous meeting," says Burns, "that
Masterton and I agreed, each in our own way, to celebrate the
business." The Willie who made the browst was, therefore, William
Nicol; the Allan who composed the air, Allan Masterton; and he who
wrote this choicest of convivial songs, Robert Burns.]
I.
O, Willie brew'd a peck o' maut,
And Rob and Allan came to see:
Three blither hearts, that lee-lang night
Ye wad na find in Christendie.
We are na fou, we're no that fou,
But just a drappie in our e'e;
The cock may craw, the day may daw,
And aye we'll taste the barley bree.
II.
Here are we met, three merry boys,
Three merry boys, I trow, are we;
And mony a night we've merry been,
And mony mae we hope to be!
III.
It is the moon--I ken her horn,
That's blinkin in the lift sae hie;
She shines sae bright to wyle us hame,
But, by my sooth, she'll wait a wee!
IV.
Wha first shall rise to gang awa',
A cuckold, coward loon is he!
Wha last beside his chair shall fa',
He is the king amang us three!
We are na fou, we're no that fou,
But just a drappie in our e'e;
The cock may craw, the day may daw,
And aye we'll taste the barley bree.
* * * * *
XC.
WHARE HAE YE BEEN.
Tune--_"Killiecrankie._"
["This song," says Sir Harris Nicolas, "is in the Museum without
Burns's name." It was composed by Burns on the battle of
Killiecrankie, and sent in his own handwriting to Johnson; he puts it
in the mouth of a Whig.]
I.
Whare hae ye been sae braw, lad?
Whare hae ye been sae brankie, O?
O, whare hae ye been sae braw, lad?
Cam ye by Killiecrankie, O?
An' ye had been whare I hae been,
Ye wad na been so cantie, O;
An' ye had seen what I hae seen,
On the braes o' Killiecrankie, O.
II.
I fought at land, I fought at sea;
At hame I fought my auntie, O;
But I met the Devil an' Dundee,
On the braes o' Killiecrankie, O.
The bauld Pitcur fell in a furr,
An' Clavers got a clankie, O;
Or I had fed on Athole gled,
On the braes o' Killiecrankie, O.
* * * * *
XCI.
I GAED A WAEFU' GATE YESTREEN.
Air--"_The blue-eyed lass."_
[This blue-eyed lass was Jean Jeffry, daughter to the minister of
Lochmaben: she was then a rosy girl of seventeen, with winning manners
and laughing blue eyes. She is now Mrs. Renwick, and lives in New
York.]
I.
I gaed a waefu' gate yestreen,
A gate, I fear, I'll dearlie rue;
I gat my death frae twa sweet een,
Twa lovely een o' bonnie blue.
'Twas not her golden ringlets bright;
Her lips, like roses, wat wi' dew,
Her heaving bosom, lily-white--
It was her een sae bonnie blue.
II.
She talk'd, she smil'd, my heart she wyl'd;
She charm'd my soul--I wist na how:
And ay the stound, the deadly wound,
Cam frae her een sae bonnie blue.
But spare to speak, and spare to speed;
She'll aiblins listen to my vow:
Should she refuse, I'll lay my dead
To her twa een sae bonnie blue.
* * * * *
XCII.
THE BANKS OF NITH.
Tune--"_Robie donna Gorach._"
[The command which the Comyns held on the Nith was lost to the
Douglasses: the Nithsdale power, on the downfall of that proud name,
was divided; part went to the Charteris's and the better portion to
the Maxwells: the Johnstones afterwards came in for a share, and now
the Scots prevail.]
I.
The Thames flows proudly to the sea,
Where royal cities stately stand;
But sweeter flows the Nith, to me,
Where Comyns ance had high command:
When shall I see that honour'd land,
That winding stream I love so dear!
Must wayward Fortune's adverse hand
For ever, ever keep me here?
II.
How lovely, Nith, thy fruitful vales,
Where spreading hawthorns gaily bloom!
How sweetly wind thy sloping dales,
Where lambkins wanton thro' the broom!
Tho' wandering now, must be my doom,
Far from thy bonnie banks and braes,
May there my latest hours consume,
Amang the friends of early days!
* * * * *
XCIII.
MY HEART IS A-BREAKING, DEAR TITTIE.
Tune--"_Tam Glen._"
[Tam Glen is the title of an old Scottish song, and older air: of the
former all that remains is a portion of the chorus. Burns when he
wrote it sent it to the Museum.]
I.
My heart is a-breaking, dear Tittie!
Some counsel unto me come len',
To anger them a' is a pity,
But what will I do wi' Tam Glen?
II.
I'm thinking wi' sic a braw fellow,
In poortith I might make a fen';
What care I in riches to wallow,
If I maunna marry Tam Glen?
III.
There's Lowrie the laird o' Dumeller,
"Gude day to you, brute!" he comes ben:
He brags and he blaws o' his siller,
But when will he dance like Tam Glen?
IV.
My minnie does constantly deave me,
And bids me beware o' young men;
They flatter, she says, to deceive me,
But wha can think so o' Tam Glen?
V.
My daddie says, gin I'll forsake him,
He'll gie me guid hunder marks ten:
But, if it's ordain'd I maun take him,
O wha will I get but Tam Glen?
VI.
Yestreen at the Valentine's dealing,
My heart to my mou' gied a sten;
For thrice I drew ane without failing,
And thrice it was written--Tam Glen.
VII.
The last Halloween I was waukin
My droukit sark-sleeve, as ye ken;
His likeness cam up the house staukin,
And the very grey breeks o' Tam Glen!
VIII.
Come counsel, dear Tittie! don't tarry--
I'll gie you my bonnie black hen,
Gif ye will advise me to marry
The lad that I lo'e dearly, Tam Glen.
* * * * *
XCIV.
FRAE THE FRIENDS AND LAND I LOVE.
Air--"_Carron Side._"
[Burns says, "I added the four last lines, by way of giving a turn to
the theme of the poem, such as it is." The rest of the song is
supposed to be from the same hand: the lines are not to be found in
earlier collections.]
I.
Frae the friends and land I love,
Driv'n by fortune's felly spite,
Frae my best belov'd I rove,
Never mair to taste delight;
Never mair maun hope to find,
Ease frae toil, relief frae care:
When remembrance wracks the mind,
Pleasures but unveil despair.
II.
Brightest climes shall mirk appear,
Desert ilka blooming shore,
Till the Fates, nae mair severe,
Friendship, love, and peace restore;
Till Revenge, wi' laurell'd head,
Bring our banish'd hame again;
And ilka loyal bonnie lad
Cross the seas and win his ain.
* * * * *
XCV.
SWEET CLOSES THE EVENING.
Tune--"_Craigie-burn-wood._"
[This is one of several fine songs in honour of Jean Lorimer, of
Kemmis-hall, Kirkmahoe, who for some time lived on the banks of the
Craigie-burn, near Moffat. It was composed in aid of the eloquence of
a Mr. Gillespie, who was in love with her: but it did not prevail, for
she married an officer of the name of Whelpdale, lived with him for a
month or so: reasons arose on both sides which rendered separation
necessary; she then took up her residence in Dumfries, where she had
many opportunities of seeing the poet. She lived till lately.]
CHORUS.
Beyond thee, dearie, beyond thee, dearie,
And O, to be lying beyond thee;
O sweetly, soundly, weel may he sleep
That's laid in the bed beyond thee!
I.
Sweet closes the evening on Craigie-burn-wood,
And blithely awaukens the morrow;
But the pride of the spring in the Craigie-burn-wood
Can yield to me nothing but sorrow.
II.
I see the spreading leaves and flowers,
I hear the wild birds singing;
But pleasure they hae nane for me,
While care my heart is wringing.
III.
I canna tell, I maunna tell,
I darena for your anger;
But secret love will break my heart,
If I conceal it langer.
IV.
I see thee gracefu', straight, and tall,
I see thee sweet and bonnie;
But oh! what will my torments be,
If thou refuse thy Johnnie!
V.
To see thee in anither's arms,
In love to lie and languish,
'Twad be my dead, that will be seen,
My heart wad burst wi' anguish.
VI.
But, Jeanie, say thou wilt be mine,
Say, thou lo'es nane before me;
And a' my days o' life to come
I'll gratefully adore thee.
Beyond thee, dearie, beyond thee, dearie,
And O, to be lying beyond thee;
O sweetly, soundly, weel may he sleep
That's laid in the bed beyond thee!
* * * * *
XCVI.
COCK UP YOUR BEAVER.
Tune--"_Cock up your beaver._"
["Printed," says Sir Harris Nicolas, "in the Musical Museum, but not
with Burns's name." It is an old song, eked out and amended by the
poet: all the last verse, save the last line, is his; several of the
lines too of the first verse, have felt his amending hand: he
communicated it to the Museum.]
I.
When first my brave Johnnie lad
Came to this town,
He had a blue bonnet
That wanted the crown;
But now he has gotten
A hat and a feather,--
Hey, brave Johnnie lad,
Cock up your beaver!
II.
Cock up your beaver,
And cock it fu' sprush,
We'll over the border
And gie them a brush;
There's somebody there
We'll teach better behaviour--
Hey, brave Johnnie lad,
Cock up your beaver!
* * * * *
XCVII.
MEIKLE THINKS MY LUVE.
Tune--"_My tocher's the jewel._"
[These verses were written by Burns for the Museum, to an air by
Oswald: but he wished them to be sung to a tune called "Lord Elcho's
favourite," of which he was an admirer.]
I.
O Meikle thinks my luve o' my beauty,
And meikle thinks my luve o' my kin;
But little thinks my luve I ken brawlie
My tocher's the jewel has charms for him.
It's a' for the apple he'll nourish the tree;
It's a' for the hiney he'll cherish the bee;
My laddie's sae meikle in luve wi' the siller,
He canna hae lure to spare for me.
II.
Your proffer o' luve's an airl-penny,
My tocher's the bargain ye wad buy;
But an ye be crafty, I am cunnin',
Sae ye wi' anither your fortune maun try.
Ye're like to the timmer o' yon rotten tree,
Ye'll slip frae me like a knotless thread,
And ye'll crack your credit wi' mae nor me.
* * * * *
XCVIII.
GANE IS THE DAY.
Tune--"_Gudewife count the lawin._"
[The air as well as words of this song were furnished to the Museum by
Burns. "The chorus," he says, "is part of an old song."]
I.
Gane is the day, and mirk's the night,
But we'll ne'er stray for fau't o' light,
For ale and brandy's stars and moon,
And blude-red wine's the rising sun.
Then gudewife count the lawin,
The lawin, the lawin;
Then gudewife count the lawin,
And bring a coggie mair!
II.
There's wealth and ease for gentlemen,
And simple folk maun fight and fen;
But here we're a' in ae accord,
For ilka man that's drunk's a lord.
III.
My coggie is a haly pool,
That heals the wounds o' care and dool;
And pleasure is a wanton trout,
An' ye drink but deep ye'll find him out.
Then gudewife count the lawin;
The lawin, the lawin,
Then gudewife count the lawin,
And bring a coggie mair!
* * * * *
XCIX.
THERE'LL NEVER BE PEACE.
Tune--"_There art few gude fellows when Willie's awa._"
[The bard was in one of his Jacobitical moods when he wrote this song.
The air is a well known one, called "There's few gude fellows when
Willie's awa." But of the words none, it is supposed, are
preserved.]
I.
By yon castle wa', at the close of the day,
I heard a man sing, though his head it was gray;
And as he was singing the tears down came,
There'll never be peace till Jamie comes hame.
The church is in ruins, the state is in jars;
Delusions, oppressions, and murderous wars:
We darena weel say't, though we ken wha's to blame,
There'll never be peace till Jamie comes hame!
II.
My seven braw sons for Jamie drew sword,
And now I greet round their green beds in the yerd.
It brak the sweet heart of my faithfu' auld dame--
There'll never be peace till Jamie comes hame.
Now life is a burthen that bows me down,
Since I tint my bairns, and he tint his crown;
But till my last moments my words are the same--
There'll never be peace till Jamie comes hame!
* * * * *
C.
HOW CAN I BE BLYTHE AND GLAD?
Tune--"_The bonnie lad that's far awa._"
[This lamentation was written, it is said, in allusion to the
sufferings of Jean Armour, when her correspondence with Burns was
discovered by her family.]
I.
O how can I be blythe and glad,
Or how can I gang brisk and braw,
When the bonnie lad that I lo'e best
Is o'er the hills and far awa?
When the bonnie lad that I lo'e best
Is o'er the hills and far awa.
II.
It's no the frosty winter wind,
It's no the driving drift and snaw;
But ay the tear comes in my e'e,
To think on him that's far awa.
But ay the tear comes in my e'e,
To think on him that's far awa.
III.
My father pat me frae his door,
My friends they line disown'd me a',
But I hae ane will tak' my part,
The bonnie lad that's far awa.
But I hae ane will tak' my part,
The bonnie lad that's far awa.
IV.
A pair o' gloves he gae to me,
And silken snoods he gae me twa;
And I will wear them for his sake,
The bonnie lad that's far awa.
And I will wear them for his sake,
The bonnie lad that's far awa.
V.
O weary Winter soon will pass,
And spring will cleed the birken shaw;
And my young babie will be born,
And he'll be hame that's far awa.
And my young babie will be born,
And he'll be hame that's far awa.
* * * * *
CI.
I DO CONFESS THOU ART SAE FAIR.
Tune--"_I do confess thou art sae fair._"
["I do think," says Burns, in allusion to this song, "that I have
improved the simplicity of the sentiments by giving them a Scottish
dress." The original song is of great elegance and beauty: it was
written by Sir Robert Aytoun, secretary to Anne of Denmark, Queen of
James I.]
I.
I do confess thou art sae fair,
I wad been o'er the lugs in love,
Had I na found the slightest prayer
That lips could speak thy heart could muve.
I do confess thee sweet, but find
Thou art sae thriftless o' thy sweets,
Thy favours are the silly wind,
That kisses ilka thing it meets.
II.
See yonder rose-bud, rich in dew,
Amang its native briers sae coy;
How sune it tines its scent and hue
When pou'd and worn a common toy!
Sic fate, ere lang, shall thee betide,
Tho' thou may gaily bloom awhile;
Yet sune thou shalt be thrown aside
Like ony common weed and vile.
* * * * *
CII.
YON WILD MOSSY MOUNTAINS.
Tune--"_Yon wild mossy mountains._"
["This song alludes to a part of my private history, which is of no
consequence to the world to know." These are the words of Burns: he
sent the song to the Musical Museum; the heroine is supposed to be the
"Nannie," who dwelt near the Lugar.]
I.
Yon wild mossy mountains sae lofty and wide,
That nurse in their bosom the youth o' the Clyde,
Where the grouse lead their coveys thro' the heather to feed,
And the shepherd tents his flock as he pipes on his reed.
Where the grouse lead their coveys thro' the heather to feed,
And the shepherd tents his flock as he pipes on his reed.
II.
Not Gowrie's rich valleys, nor Forth's sunny shores,
To me hae the charms o' yon wild, mossy moors;
For there, by a lanely and sequester'd stream,
Resides a sweet lassie, my thought and my dream.
For there, by a lanely and sequester'd stream,
Resides a sweet lassie, my thought and my dream.
III.
Amang thae wild mountains shall still be my path,
Ilk stream foaming down its ain green, narrow strath;
For there, wi' my lassie, the day lang I rove,
While o'er us unheeded flee the swift hours o' love.
For there wi' my lassie, the day lang I rove,
While o'er us unheeded flee the swift hours o' love.
IV.
She is not the fairest, altho' she is fair;
O' nice education but sma' is her share;
Her parentage humble as humble can be;
But I lo'e the dear lassie because she lo'es me.
Her parentage humble as humble can be;
But I lo'e the dear lassie because she lo'es me.
V.
To beauty what man but maun yield him a prize,
In her armour of glances, and blushes, and sighs?
And when wit and refinement hae polish'd her darts,
They dazzle our een as they flee to our hearts.
And when wit and refinement hae polish'd her darts,
They dazzle our een, as they flee to our hearts.
VI.
But kindness, sweet kindness, in the fond sparkling e'e,
Has lustre outshining the diamond to me:
And the heart beating love as I'm clasp'd in her arms,
O, these are my lassie's all-conquering charms!
And the heart beating love as I'm clasp'd in her arms,
O, these are my lassie's all-conquering charms!
* * * * *
CIII.
IT IS NA, JEAN, THY BONNIE FACE.
Tune--"_The Maid's Complaint._"
[Burns found this song in English attire, bestowed a Scottish dress
upon it, and published it in the Museum, together with the air by
Oswald, which is one of his best.]
I.
It is na, Jean, thy bonnie face,
Nor shape that I admire,
Altho' thy beauty and thy grace
Might weel awake desire.
Something in ilka part o' thee,
To praise, to love, I find;
But dear as is thy form to me,
Still dearer is thy mind.
II.
Nae mair ungen'rous wish I hae,
Nor stronger in my breast,
Than, if I canna mak thee sae,
at least to see thee blest.
Content am I, if heaven shall give
But happiness to thee:
And as wi' thee I'd wish to live,
For thee I'd bear to die.
* * * * *
CIV.
WHEN I THINK ON THE HAPPY DAYS.
[These verses were in latter years expanded by Burns into a song, for
the collection of Thomson: the song will be found in its place: the
variations are worthy of preservation.]
I.
When I think on the happy days
I spent wi' you, my dearie;
And now what lands between us lie,
How can I be but eerie!
II.
How slow ye move, ye heavy hours,
As ye were wae and weary!
It was na sae ye glinted by,
When I was wi' my dearie.
* * * * *
CV.
WHAN I SLEEP I DREAM.
[This presents another version of song LXV. Variations are to a poet
what changes are in the thoughts of a painter, and speak of fertility
of sentiment in both.]
I.
Whan I sleep I dream,
Whan I wauk I'm eerie,
Sleep I canna get,
For thinkin' o' my dearie.
II.
Lanely night comes on,
A' the house are sleeping,
I think on the bonnie lad
That has my heart a keeping.
Ay waukin O, waukin ay and wearie,
Sleep I canna get, for thinkin' o' my dearie.
III.
Lanely nights come on,
A' the house are sleeping,
I think on my bonnie lad,
An' I blear my een wi' greetin'!
Ay waukin, &c.
* * * * *
CVI.
I MURDER HATE.
[These verses are to be found in a volume which may be alluded to
without being named, in which many of Burns's strains, some looser
than these, are to be found.]
I.
I murder hate by field or flood,
Tho' glory's name may screen us:
In wars at hame I'll spend my blood,
Life-giving wars of Venus.
II.
The deities that I adore
Are social Peace and Plenty,
I'm better pleas'd to make one more,
Than be the death of twenty.
* * * * *
CVII.
O GUDE ALE COMES.
[These verses are in the museum; the first two are old, the concluding
one is by Burns.]
I.
O gude ale comes, and gude ale goes,
Gude ale gars me sell my hose,
Sell my hose, and pawn my shoon,
Gude ale keeps my heart aboon.
II.
I had sax owsen in a pleugh,
They drew a' weel eneugh,
I sell'd them a' just ane by ane;
Gude ale keeps my heart aboon.
III.
Gude ale hands me bare and busy,
Gars me moop wi' the servant hizzie,
Stand i' the stool when I hae done,
Gude ale keeps my heart aboon.
O gude ale comes, &c.
* * * * *
CVIII.
ROBIN SHURE IN HAIRST.
[This is an old chaunt, out of which Burns brushed some loose
expressions, added the third and fourth verses, and sent it to the
Museum.]
I.
Robin shure in hairst,
I shure wi' him,
Fient a heuk had I,
Yet I stack by him.
II.
I gaed up to Dunse,
To warp a wab o' plaiden,
At his daddie's yett,
Wha met me but Robin.
III.
Was na Robin bauld,
Tho' I was a cotter,
Play'd me sic a trick,
And me the eller's dochter?
Robin share in hairst, &c.
IV.
Robin promis'd me
A' my winter vittle;
Fient haet he had but three
Goose feathers and a whittle.
Robin share in hairst, &c.
* * * * *
CIX.
BONNIE PEG.
[A fourth verse makes the moon a witness to the endearments of these
lovers; but that planet sees more indiscreet matters than it is right
to describe.]
I.
As I came in by our gate end,
As day was waxin' weary,
O wha came tripping down the street,
But Bonnie Peg my dearie!
II.
Her air sae sweet, and shape complete,
Wi' nae proportion wanting;
The Queen of Love did never move
Wi' motion mair enchanting.
III.
Wi' linked hands, we took the sands
A-down yon winding river;
And, oh! that hour and broomy bower,
Can I forget it ever?
* * * * *
CX.
GUDEEN TO YOU, KIMMER.
[This song in other days was a controversial one, and continued some
sarcastic allusions to Mother Rome and her brood of seven sacraments,
five of whom were illegitimate. Burns changed the meaning, and
published his altered version in the Museum.]
I.
Gudeen to you, Kimmer,
And how do ye do?
Hiccup, quo' Kimmer,
The better that I'm fou.
We're a' noddin, nid nid noddin,
We're a' noddin, at our house at hame.
II.
Kate sits i' the neuk,
Suppin hen broo;
Deil tak Kate
An' she be na noddin too!
We're a' noddin, &c.
III.
How's a' wi' you, Kimmer,
And how do ye fare?
A pint o' the best o't,
And twa pints mair.
We're a' noddin, &c.
IV.
How's a' wi' you, Kimmer,
And how do ye thrive;
How many bairns hae ye?
Quo' Kimmer, I hae five.
We're a' noddin, &c.
V.
Are they a' Johnie's?
Eh! atweel no:
Twa o' them were gotten
When Johnie was awa.
We're a noddin, &c.
VI.
Cats like milk,
And dogs like broo;
Lads like lasses weel,
And lasses lads too.
We're a' noddin, &c.
* * * * *
CXI.
AH, CHLORIS, SINCE IT MAY NA BE.
Tune--"_Major Graham._"
[Sir Harris Nicolas found these lines on Chloris among the papers of
Burns, and printed them in his late edition of the poet's works.]
I.
Ah, Chloris, since it may na be,
That thou of love wilt hear;
If from the lover thou maun flee,
Yet let the friend be dear.
II.
Altho' I love my Chloris mair
Than ever tongue could tell;
My passion I will ne'er declare,
I'll say, I wish thee well.
III.
Tho' a' my daily care thou art,
And a' my nightly dream,
I'll hide the struggle in my heart,
And say it is esteem.
* * * * *
CXII.
O SAW YE MY DEARIE.
Tune--"_Eppie Macnab._"
["Published in the Museum," says Sir Harris Nicolas, "without any
name." Burns corrected some lines in the old song, which had more wit,
he said, than decency, and added others, and sent his amended version
to Johnson.]
I.
O saw ye my dearie, my Eppie M'Nab?
O saw ye my dearie, my Eppie M'Nab?
She's down in the yard, she's kissin' the laird,
She winna come hame to her ain Jock Rab.
O come thy ways to me, my Eppie M'Nab!
O come thy ways to me, my Eppie M'Nab!
Whate'er thou hast done, be it late, be it soon,
Thou's welcome again to thy ain Jock Rab.
II.
What says she, my dearie, my Eppie M'Nab?
What says she, my dearie, my Eppie M'Nab?
She lets thee to wit, that she has thee forgot,
And for ever disowns thee, her ain Jock Rab.
O had I ne'er seen thee, my Eppie M'Nab!
O had I ne'er seen thee, my Eppie M'Nab!
As light as the air, and fause as thou's fair,
Thou's broken the heart o' thy ain Jock Rab.
* * * * *
CXIII.
WHA IS THAT AT MY BOWER-DOOR.
Tune--"_Lass an I come near thee._"
[The "Auld man and the Widow," in Ramsay's collection is said, by
Gilbert Burns, to have suggested this song to his brother: it first
appeared in the Museum.]
I.
Wha is that at my bower door?
O, wha is it but Findlay?
Then gae your gate, ye'se nae be here!--
Indeed, maun I, quo' Findlay.
What mak ye sae like a thief?
O come and see, quo' Findlay;
Before the morn ye'll work mischief;
Indeed will I, quo' Findlay.
II.
Gif I rise and let you in?
Let me in, quo' Findlay;
Ye'll keep me waukin wi' your din;
Indeed will I, quo' Findlay.
In my bower if you should stay?
Let me stay, quo' Findlay;
I fear ye'll bide till break o' day;
Indeed will I, quo' Findlay.
III.
Here this night if ye remain;--
I'll remain, quo' Findlay;
I dread ye'll learn the gate again;
Indeed will I, quo' Findlay.
What may pass within this bower,--
Let it pass, quo' Findlay;
Ye maun conceal till your last hour;
Indeed will I, quo' Findlay!
* * * * *
CXIV.
WHAT CAN A YOUNG LASSIE.
Tune--"_What can a young lassie do wi' an auld man._"
[In the old strain, which partly suggested this song, the heroine
threatens only to adorn her husband's brows: Burns proposes a system
of domestic annoyance to break his heart.]
I.
What can a young lassie, what shall a young lassie,
What can a young lassie do wi' an auld man?
Bad luck on the pennie that tempted my minnie
To sell her poor Jenny for siller an' lan'!
Bad luck on the pennie that tempted my minnie
To sell her poor Jenny for siller an' lan'!
II.
He's always compleenin' frae mornin' to e'enin',
He hosts and he hirples the weary day lang;
He's doyl't and he's dozin', his bluid it is frozen,
O, dreary's the night wi' a crazy auld man!
He's doyl't and he's dozin', his bluid it is frozen,
O, dreary's the night wi' a crazy auld man!
III.
He hums and he hankers, he frets and he cankers,
I never can please him, do a' that I can;
He's peevish and jealous of a' the young fellows:
O, dool on the day I met wi' an auld man!
He's peevish and jealous of a' the young fellows:
O, dool on the day I met wi' an auld man!
IV.
My auld auntie Katie upon me takes pity,
I'll do my endeavour to follow her plan;
I'll cross him, and wrack him, until I heart-break him,
And then his auld brass will buy me a new pan.
I'll cross him, and wrack him, until I heart-break him,
And then his auld brass will buy me a new pan.
* * * * *
CXV.
THE BONNIE WEE THING.
Tune--"_Bonnie wee thing._"
["Composed," says the poet, "on my little idol, the charming, lovely
Davies."]
I.
Bonnie wee thing, cannie wee thing,
Lovely wee thing, wert thou mine,
I wad wear thee in my bosom,
Lest my jewel I should tine.
Wishfully I look and languish
In that bonnie face o' thine;
And my heart it stounds wi' anguish,
Lest my wee thing be na mine.
II.
Wit, and grace, and love, and beauty
In ae constellation shine;
To adore thee is my duty,
Goddess o' this soul o' mine!
Bonnie wee thing, cannie wee thing.
Lovely wee thing, wert thou mine,
I wad wear thee in my bosom,
Lest my jewel I should tine!
* * * * *
CXVI.
THE TITHER MOON.
_To a Highland Air._
["The tune of this song," says Burns, "is originally from the
Highlands. I have heard a Gaelic song to it, which was not by any
means a lady's song." "It occurs," says Sir Harris Nicolas, "in the
Museum, without the name of Burns." It was sent in the poet's own
handwriting to Johnson, and is believed to be his composition.]
I.
The tither morn,
When I forlorn,
Aneath an oak sat moaning,
I did na trow
I'd see my Jo,
Beside me, gain the gloaming.
But he sae trig,
Lap o'er the rig.
And dawtingly did cheer me,
When I, what reck,
Did least expec',
To see my lad so near me.
II.
His bonnet he,
A thought ajee,
Cock'd sprush when first he clasp'd me;
And I, I wat,
Wi' fainness grat,
While in his grips be press'd me.
Deil tak' the war!
I late and air
Hae wish'd since Jock departed;
But now as glad
I'm wi' my lad,
As short syne broken-hearted.
III.
Fu' aft at e'en
Wi' dancing keen,
When a' were blythe and merry,
I car'd na by,
Sae sad was I
In absence o' my dearie.
But praise be blest,
My mind's at rest,
I'm happy wi' my Johnny:
At kirk and fair,
I'se ay be there,
And be as canty's ony.
* * * * *
CXVII.
AE FOND KISS.
Tune--"_Rory Dall's Port._"
[Believed to relate to the poet's parting with Clarinda. "These
exquisitely affecting stanzas," says Scott, "contain the essence of a
thousand love-tales." They are in the Museum.]
I.
Ae fond kiss, and then we sever;
Ae fareweel, and then for ever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee,
Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee.
Who shall say that fortune grieves him
While the star of hope she leaves him?
Me, nae cheerfu' twinkle lights me;
Dark despair around benights me.
II.
I'll ne'er blame my partial fancy,
Naething could resist my Nancy;
But to see her, was to love her;
Love but her, and love for ever.--
Had we never lov'd sae kindly,
Had we never lov'd sae blindly,
Never met--or never parted,
We had ne'er been broken hearted.
III.
Fare thee weel, thou first and fairest!
Fare thee weel, thou best and dearest!
Thine be ilka joy and treasure,
Peace, enjoyment, love, and pleasure!
Ae fond kiss, and then we sever;
Ae farewell, alas! for ever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee,
Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee!
* * * * *
CXVIII.
LOVELY DAVIES.
Tune--"_Miss Muir._"
[Written for the Museum, in honour of the witty, the handsome, the
lovely, and unfortunate Miss Davies.]
I.
O how shall I, unskilfu', try
The poet's occupation,
The tunefu' powers, in happy hours,
That whispers inspiration?
Even they maun dare an effort mair,
Than aught they ever gave us,
Or they rehearse, in equal verse,
The charms o' lovely Davies.
Each eye it cheers, when she appears,
Like Phoebus in the morning.
When past the shower, and ev'ry flower
The garden is adorning.
As the wretch looks o'er Siberia's shore,
When winter-bound the wave is;
Sae droops our heart when we maun part
Frae charming lovely Davies.
II.
Her smile's a gift, frae 'boon the lift,
That maks us mair than princes;
A scepter'd hand, a king's command,
Is in her darting glances:
The man in arms, 'gainst female charms,
Even he her willing slave is;
He hugs his chain, and owns the reign
Of conquering, lovely Davies.
My muse to dream of such a theme,
Her feeble pow'rs surrender:
The eagle's gaze alone surveys
The sun's meridian splendour:
I wad in vain essay the strain,
The deed too daring brave is!
I'll drap the lyre, and mute admire
The charms o' lovely Davies.
* * * * *
CXIX.
THE WEARY PUND O' TOW.
Tune--"_The weary Pund o' Tow._"
["This song," says Sir Harris Nicolas, "is in the Musical Museum; but
it is not attributed to Burns. Mr. Allan Cunningham does not state
upon what authority he has assigned it to Burns." The critical knight
might have, if he had pleased, stated similar objections to many songs
which he took without scruple from my edition, where they were claimed
for Burns, for the first time, and on good authority. I, however, as
it happens, did not claim the song wholly for the poet: I said "the
idea of the song is old, and perhaps some of the words." It was sent
by Burns to the Museum, and in his own handwriting.]
I.
The weary pund, the weary pund,
The weary pund o' tow:
I think my wife will end her life
Before she spin her tow.
I bought my wife a stane o' lint
As gude as e'er did grow;
And a' that she has made o' that,
Is ae poor pund o' tow.
II.
There sat a bottle in a bole,
Beyont the ingle low,
And ay she took the tither souk,
To drouk the stowrie tow.
III.
Quoth I, for shame, ye dirty dame,
Gae spin your tap o' tow!
She took the rock, and wi' a knock
She brak it o'er my pow.
IV.
At last her feet--I sang to see't--
Gaed foremost o'er the knowe;
And or I wad anither jad,
I'll wallop in a tow.
The weary pund, the weary pund,
The weary pund o' tow!
I think my wife will end her life
Before she spin her tow.
* * * * *
CXX.
NAEBODY.
Tune--"_Naebody._"
[Burns had built his house at Ellisland, sowed his first crop, the
woman he loved was at his side, and hope was high; no wonder that he
indulged in this independent strain.]
I.
I hae a wife o' my ain--
I'll partake wi' naebody;
I'll tak cuckold frae nane,
I'll gie cuckold to naebody.
I hae a penny to spend,
There--thanks to naebody;
I hae naething to lend,
I'll borrow frae naebody.
II.
I am naebody's lord--
I'll be slave to naebody;
I hae a guid braid sword,
I'll tak dunts frae naebody.
I'll be merry and free,
I'll be sad for naebody;
Naebody cares for me,
I'll care for naebody.
* * * * *
CXXI.
O, FOR ANE-AND-TWENTY, TAM!
Tune--"_The Moudiewort._"
[In his memoranda on this song in the Museum, Burns says simply, "This
song is mine." The air for a century before had to bear the burthen of
very ordinary words.]
CHORUS.
An O, for ane-and-twenty, Tam,
An' hey, sweet ane-and-twenty, Tam,
I'll learn my kin a rattlin' sang,
An I saw ane-and-twenty, Tam.
I.
They snool me sair, and haud me down,
And gar me look like bluntie, Tam!
But three short years will soon wheel roun'--
And then comes ane-and-twenty, Tam.
II.
A gleib o' lan', a claut o' gear,
Was left me by my auntie, Tam,
At kith or kin I need na spier,
An I saw ane-and-twenty, Tam.
III.
They'll hae me wed a wealthy coof,
Tho' I mysel' hae plenty, Tam;
But hear'st thou, laddie--there's my loof--
I'm thine at ane-and-twenty, Tam.
An O, for ane-and-twenty, Tam!
An hey, sweet ane-and-twenty, Tam!
I'll learn my kin a rattlin' song,
An I saw ane-and-twenty, Tam.
* * * * *
CXXII.
O KENMURE'S ON AND AWA.
Tune--"_O Kenmure's on and awa, Willie._"
[The second and third, and concluding verses of this Jacobite strain,
were written by Burns: the whole was sent in his own handwriting to
the Museum.]
I.
O Kenmure's on and awa, Willie!
O Kenmure's on and awa!
And Kenmure's lord's the bravest lord,
That ever Galloway saw.
II.
Success to Kenmure's band, Willie!
Success to Kenmure's band;
There's no a heart that fears a Whig,
That rides by Kenmure's hand.
III.
Here's Kenmure's health in wine, Willie!
Here's Kenmure's health in wine;
There ne'er was a coward o' Kenmure's blude,
Nor yet o' Gordon's line.
IV.
O Kenmure's lads are men, Willie!
O Kenmure's lads are men;
Their hearts and swords are metal true--
And that their faes shall ken.
V.
They'll live or die wi' fame, Willie!
They'll live or die wi' fame;
But soon wi' sounding victorie,
May Kenmure's lord come hame.
VI.
Here's him that's far awa, Willie,
Here's him that's far awa;
And here's the flower that I love best--
The rose that's like the snaw!
* * * * *
CXXIII.
MY COLLIER LADDIE.
Tune--"_The Collier Laddie._"
[The Collier Laddie was communicated by Burns, and in his handwriting,
to the Museum: it is chiefly his own composition, though coloured by
an older strain.]
I.
Where live ye, my bonnie lass?
An' tell me what they ca' ye;
My name, she says, is Mistress Jean,
And I follow the Collier Laddie.
My name she says, is Mistress Jean,
And I follow the Collier Laddie.
II.
See you not yon hills and dales,
The sun shines on sae brawlie!
They a' are mine, and they shall be thine,
Gin ye'll leave your Collier Laddie.
They a' are mine, and they shall be thine,
Gin ye'll leave your Collier Laddie.
III.
Ye shall gang in gay attire,
Weel buskit up sae gaudy;
And ane to wait on every hand,
Gin ye'll leave your Collier Laddie.
And ane to wait on every hand,
Gin ye'll leave your Collier Laddie.
IV.
Tho' ye had a' the sun shines on,
And the earth conceals sae lowly;
I wad turn my back on you and it a',
And embrace my Collier Laddie.
I wad turn my back on you and it a',
And embrace my Collier Laddie.
V.
I can win my five pennies a day,
And spen't at night fu' brawlie;
And make my bed in the Collier's neuk,
And lie down wi' my Collier Laddie.
And make my bed in the Collier's neuk,
And lie down wi' my Collier Laddie.
VI.
Luve for luve is the bargain for me,
Tho' the wee cot-house should haud me;
And the world before me to win my bread,
And fair fa' my Collier Laddie.
And the world before me to win my bread,
And fair fa' my Collier Laddie.
* * * * *
CXXIV.
NITHSDALE'S WELCOME HAME.
[These verses were written by Burns for the Museum: the Maxwells of
Terreagles are the lineal descendants of the Earls of Nithsdale.]
I.
The noble Maxwells and their powers
Are coming o'er the border,
And they'll gae bigg Terreagle's towers,
An' set them a' in order.
And they declare Terreagles fair,
For their abode they chuse it;
There's no a heart in a' the land,
But's lighter at the news o't.
II.
Tho' stars in skies may disappear,
And angry tempests gather;
The happy hour may soon be near
That brings us pleasant weather:
The weary night o' care and grief
May hae a joyful morrow;
So dawning day has brought relief--
Fareweel our night o' sorrow!
* * * * *
CXXV.
AS I WAS A-WAND'RING.
Tune--"_Rinn Meudial mo Mhealladh._"
[The original song in the Gaelic language was translated for Burns by
an Inverness-shire lady; he turned it into verse, and sent it to the
Museum.]
I.
As I was a-wand'ring ae midsummer e'enin',
The pipers and youngsters were making their game;
Amang them I spied my faithless fause lover,
Which bled a' the wound o' my dolour again.
Weel, since he has left me, may pleasure gae wi' him;
I may be distress'd, but I winna complain;
I flatter my fancy I may get anither,
My heart it shall never be broken for ane.
II.
I could na get sleeping till dawin for greetin',
The tears trickled down like the hail and the rain:
Had I na got greetin', my heart wad a broken,
For, oh! luve forsaken's a tormenting pain.
III.
Although he has left me for greed o' the siller,
I dinna envy him the gains he can win;
I rather wad bear a' the lade o' my sorrow
Than ever hae acted sae faithless to him.
Weel, since he has left me, may pleasure gae wi' him,
I may be distress'd, but I winna complain;
I flatter my fancy I may get anither,
My heart it shall never be broken for ane.
* * * * *
CXXVI.
BESS AND HER SPINNING-WHEEL.
Tune--"_The sweet lass that lo'es me._"
[There are several variations of this song, but they neither affect
the sentiment, nor afford matter for quotation.]
I.
O leeze me on my spinning-wheel,
O leeze me on the rock and reel;
Frae tap to tae that cleeds me bien,
And haps me fiel and warm at e'en!
I'll set me down and sing and spin,
While laigh descends the simmer sun,
Blest wi' content, and milk and meal--
O leeze me on my spinning-wheel!
II.
On ilka hand the burnies trot,
And meet below my theekit cot;
The scented birk and hawthorn white,
Across the pool their arms unite,
Alike to screen the birdie's nest,
And little fishes' caller rest:
The sun blinks kindly in the biel',
Where blithe I turn my spinning-wheel.
III.
On lofty aiks the cushats wail,
And Echo cons the doolfu' tale;
The lintwhites in the hazel braes,
Delighted, rival ither's lays:
The craik amang the clover hay,
The paitrick whirrin o'er the ley,
The swallow jinkin round my shiel,
Amuse me at my spinning-wheel.
IV.
Wi' sma' to sell, and less to buy,
Aboon distress, below envy,
O wha wad leave this humble state,
For a' the pride of a' the great?
Amid their flaring, idle toys,
Amid their cumbrous, dinsome joys,
Can they the peace and pleasure feel
Of Bessy at her spinning-wheel?
* * * * *
CXXVII.
O LUVE WILL VENTURE IN.
Tune--"_The Posie._"
["The Posie is my composition," says Burns, in a letter to Thomson.
"The air was taken down from Mrs. Burns's voice." It was first printed
in the Museum.]
I.
O luve will venture in
Where it daurna weel be seen;
O luve will venture in
Where wisdom ance has been.
But I will down yon river rove,
Among the wood sae green--
And a' to pu' a posie
To my ain dear May.
II.
The primrose I will pu',
The firstling o' the year,
And I will pu' the pink,
The emblem o' my dear,
For she's the pink o' womankind,
And blooms without a peer--
And a' to be a posie
To my ain dear May.
III.
I'll pu' the budding rose,
When Phoebus peeps in view,
For it's like a baumy kiss
O' her sweet bonnie mou';
The hyacinth's for constancy,
Wi' its unchanging blue--
And a' to be a posie
To my ain dear May.
IV.
The lily it is pure,
And the lily it is fair,
And in her lovely bosom
I'll place the lily there;
The daisy's for simplicity,
And unaffected air--
And a' to be a posie
To my ain dear May.
V.
The hawthorn I will pu'
Wi' its locks o' siller gray,
Where, like an aged man,
It stands at break of day.
But the songster's nest within the bush
I winna tak away--
And a' to be a posie
To my ain dear May.
VI.
The woodbine I will pu'
When the e'ening star is near,
And the diamond drops o' dew
Shall be her e'en sae clear;
The violet's for modesty,
Which weel she fa's to wear,
And a' to be a posie
To my ain dear May.
VII.
I'll tie the posie round,
Wi' the silken band o' luve,
And I'll place it in her breast,
And I'll swear by a' above,
That to my latest draught of life
The band shall ne'er remove,
And this will be a posie
To my ain dear May.
* * * * *
CXXVIII.
COUNTRY LASSIE.
Tune--"_The Country Lass._"
[A manuscript copy before me, in the poet's handwriting, presents two
or three immaterial variations of this dramatic song.]
I.
In simmer, when the hay was mawn,
And corn wav'd green in ilka field,
While claver blooms white o'er the lea,
And roses blaw in ilka bield;
Blithe Bessie in the milking shiel,
Says--I'll be wed, come o't what will;
Out spak a dame in wrinkled eild--
O' guid advisement comes nae ill.
II.
It's ye hae wooers mony ane,
And, lassie, ye're but young ye ken;
Then wait a wee, and cannie wale,
A routhie butt, a routhie ben:
There's Johnie o' the Buskie-glen,
Fu' is his burn, fu' is his byre;
Tak this frae me, my bonnie hen,
It's plenty beets the luver's fire.
III.
For Johnie o' the Buskie-glen,
I dinna care a single flie;
He lo'es sae weel his craps and kye,
He has nae luve to spare for me:
But blithe's the blink o' Robie's e'e,
And weel I wat he lo'es me dear:
Ae blink o' him I wad nae gie
For Buskie-glen and a' his gear.
IV.
O thoughtless lassie, life's a faught;
The canniest gate, the strife is sair;
But ay fu' han't is fechtin best,
An hungry care's an unco care:
But some will spend, and some will spare,
An' wilfu' folk maun hae their will;
Syne as ye brew, my maiden fair,
Keep mind that ye maun drink the yill.
V.
O, gear will buy me rigs o' land,
And gear will buy me sheep and kye;
But the tender heart o' leesome luve,
The gowd and siller canna buy;
We may be poor--Robie and I,
Light is the burden luve lays on;
Content and luve brings peace and joy--
What mair hae queens upon a throne?
* * * * *
CXXIX.
FAIR ELIZA.
_A Gaelic Air._
[The name of the heroine of this song was at first Rabina: but
Johnson, the publisher, alarmed at admitting something new into verse,
caused Eliza to be substituted; which was a positive fraud; for Rabina
was a real lady, and a lovely one, and Eliza one of air.]
I.
Turn again, thou fair Eliza,
Ae kind blink before we part,
Rue on thy despairing lover!
Canst thou break his faithfu' heart?
Turn again, thou fair Eliza;
If to love thy heart denies,
For pity hide the cruel sentence
Under friendship's kind disguise!
II.
Thee, dear maid, hae I offended?
The offence is loving thee:
Canst thou wreck his peace for ever,
Wha for time wad gladly die?
While the life beats in my bosom,
Thou shalt mix in ilka throe;
Turn again, thou lovely maiden.
Ae sweet smile on me bestow.
III.
Not the bee upon the blossom,
In the pride o' sunny noon;
Not the little sporting fairy,
All beneath the simmer moon;
Not the poet, in the moment
Fancy lightens in his e'e,
Kens the pleasure, feels the rapture,
That thy presence gies to me.
* * * * *
CXXX.
YE JACOBITES BY NAME.
Tune--"_Ye Jacobites by name._"
["Ye Jacobites by name," appeared for the first time in the Museum: it
was sent in the handwriting of Burns.]
I.
Ye Jacobites by name, give and ear, give an ear;
Ye Jacobites by name, give an ear;
Ye Jacobites by name,
Your fautes I will proclaim,
Your doctrines I maun blame--
You shall hear.
II.
What is right, and what is wrang, by the law, by the law?
What is right and what is wrang, by the law?
What is right and what is wrang?
A short sword, and a lang,
A weak arm, and a strang
For to draw.
III.
What makes heroic strife, fam'd afar, fam'd afar?
What makes heroic strife, fam'd afar?
What makes heroic strife?
To whet th' assassin's knife,
Or hunt a parent's life
Wi' bluidie war.
IV.
Then let your schemes alone, in the state, in the state;
Then let your schemes alone in the state;
Then let your schemes alone,
Adore the rising sun,
And leave a man undone
To his fate.
* * * * *
CXXXI.
THE BANKS OF DOON.
[FIRST VERSION.]
[An Ayrshire legend says the heroine of this affecting song was Miss
Kennedy, of Dalgarrock, a young creature, beautiful and accomplished,
who fell a victim to her love for her kinsman, McDoual, of Logan.]
I.
Ye flowery banks o' bonnie Doon,
How can ye bloom sae fair;
How can ye chant, ye little birds,
And I sae fu' o' care!
II.
Thou'll break my heart, thou bonnie bird,
That sings upon the bough;
Thou minds me o' the happy days
When my fause love was true.
III.
Thou'll break my heart, thou bonnie bird,
That sings beside thy mate;
For sae I sat, and sae I sang,
And wist na o' my fate.
IV.
Aft hae I rov'd by bonnie Doon,
To see the woodbine twine,
And ilka bird sang o' its love;
And sae did I o' mine.
V.
Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose,
Frae aff its thorny tree:
And my fause luver staw the rose,
But left the thorn wi' me.
* * * * *
CXXXII.
THE BANKS O' DOON.
[SECOND VERSION.]
Tune--"_Caledonian Hunt's Delight._"
[Burns injured somewhat the simplicity of the song by adapting it to a
new air, accidentally composed by an amateur who was directed, if he
desired to create a Scottish air, to keep his fingers to the black
keys of the harpsichord and preserve rhythm.]
I.
Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon,
How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair;
How can ye chant, ye little birds,
And I sae weary, fu' o' care!
Thou'lt break my heart, thou warbling bird,
That wantons thro' the flowering thorn:
Thou minds me o' departed joys,
Departed--never to return!
II.
Aft hae I rov'd by bonnie Doon,
To see the rose and woodbine twine;
And ilka bird sang o' its luve,
And fondly sae did I o' mine.
Wi' lightsome heart I pu'd a rose,
Fu' sweet upon its thorny tree;
And my fause luver stole my rose,
But, ah! he left the thorn wi' me.
* * * * *
CXXXIII.
WILLIE WASTLE.
Tune--"_The eight men of Moidart._"
[The person who is raised to the disagreeable elevation of heroine of
this song, was, it is said, a farmer's wife of the old school of
domestic care and uncleanness, who lived nigh the poet, at Ellisland.]
I.
Willie Wastle dwalt on Tweed,
The spot they call'd it Linkum-doddie.
Willie was a wabster guid,
Cou'd stown a clue wi' onie bodie;
He had a wife was dour and din,
O Tinkler Madgie was her mither;
Sic a wife as Willie had,
I wad nae gie a button for her.
II.
She has an e'e--she has but ane,
The cat has twa the very colour;
Five rusty teeth, forbye a stump,
A clapper-tongue wad deave a miller:
A whiskin' beard about her mou',
Her nose and chin they threaten ither--
Sic a wife as Willie had,
I wad nae gie a button for her.
III.
She's bow hough'd, she's hem shinn'd,
A limpin' leg, a hand-breed shorter;
She's twisted right, she's twisted left,
To balance fair in ilka quarter:
She has a hump upon her breast,
The twin o' that upon her shouther--
Sic a wife as Willie had,
I wad nae gie a button for her.
IV.
Auld baudrans by the ingle sits,
An' wi' her loof her face a-washin';
But Willie's wife is nae sae trig,
She dights her grunzie wi' a hushion.
Her walie nieves like midden-creels,
Her face wad fyle the Logan-Water--
Sic a wife as Willie had,
I wad nae gie a button for her.
* * * * *
CXXXIV.
LADY MARY ANN.
Tune--"_Craigtown's growing._"
[The poet sent this song to the Museum, in his own handwriting: yet
part of it is believed to be old; how much cannot be well known, with
such skill has he made his interpolations and changes.]
I.
O, Lady Mary Ann
Looks o'er the castle wa',
She saw three bonnie boys
Playing at the ba';
The youngest he was
The flower amang them a'--
My bonnie laddie's young,
But he's growin' yet.
II.
O father! O father!
An' ye think it fit,
We'll send him a year
To the college yet:
We'll sew a green ribbon
Round about his hat,
And that will let them ken
He's to marry yet.
III.
Lady Mary Ann
Was a flower i' the dew,
Sweet was its smell,
And bonnie was its hue;
And the langer it blossom'd
The sweeter it grew;
For the lily in the bud
Will be bonnier yet.
IV.
Young Charlie Cochran
Was the sprout of an aik;
Bonnie and bloomin'
And straught was its make:
The sun took delight
To shine for its sake,
And it will be the brag
O' the forest yet.
V.
The simmer is gane,
When the leaves they were green,
And the days are awa,
That we hae seen;
But far better days
I trust will come again,
For my bonnie laddie's young,
But he's growin' yet.
* * * * *
CXXXV.
SUCH A PARCEL OF ROGUES IN A NATION.
Tune.--"_A parcel of rogues in a nation._"
[This song was written by Burns in a moment of honest indignation at
the northern scoundrels who sold to those of the south the
independence of Scotland, at the time of the Union.]
I.
Fareweel to a' our Scottish fame,
Fareweel our ancient glory,
Fareweel even to the Scottish name,
Sae fam'd in martial story.
Now Sark rins o'er the Solway sands,
And Tweed rins to the ocean,
To mark where England's province stands--
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation.
II.
What force or guile could not subdue,
Thro' many warlike ages,
Is wrought now by a coward few
For hireling traitor's wages.
The English steel we could disdain;
Secure in valour's station;
But English gold has been our bane--
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation.
III.
O would, or I had seen the day
That treason thus could sell us,
My auld gray head had lien in clay,
Wi' Bruce and loyal Wallace!
But pith and power, till my last hour,
I'll mak' this declaration;
We've bought and sold for English gold--
Such a parcel of rogues in a nation.
* * * * *
CXXXVI.
THE CARLE OF KELLYBURN BRAES.
Tune--"_Kellyburn Braes._"
[Of this song Mrs. Burns said to Cromek, when running her finger over
the long list of lyrics which her husband had written or amended for
the Museum, "Robert gae this one a terrible brushing." A considerable
portion of the old still remains.]
I.
There lived a carle on Kellyburn braes,
(Hey, and the rue grows bonnie wi' thyme),
And he had a wife was the plague o' his days;
And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime.
II.
Ae day as the carle gaed up the lang glen,
(Hey, and the rue grows bonnie wi' thyme),
He met wi' the devil; says, "How do yow fen?"
And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime.
III.
"I've got a bad wife, sir; that's a' my complaint;
(Hey, and the rue grows bonnie wi' thyme),
For, saving your presence, to her ye're a saint;
And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime."
IV.
"It's neither your stot nor your staig I shall crave,
(Hey, and the rue grows bonnie wi' thyme),
But gie me your wife, man, for her I must have,
And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime."
V.
"O welcome, most kindly," the blythe carle said,
(Hey, and the rue grows bonnie wi' thyme),
"But if ye can match her, ye're waur nor ye're ca'd,
And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime."
VI.
The devil has got the auld wife on his back;
(Hey, and the rue grows bonnie wi' thyme),
And, like a poor pedlar, he's carried his pack;
And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime.
VII.
He's carried her hame to his ain hallan-door;
(Hey, and the rue grows bonnie wi' thyme).
Syne bade her gae in, for a b--h and a w--e,
And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime.
VIII.
Then straight he makes fifty, the pick o' his band,
(Hey, and the rue grows bonnie wi' thyme),
Turn out on her guard in the clap of a hand;
And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime.
IX.
The carlin gaed thro' them like ony wud bear,
(Hey, and the rue grows bonnie wi' thyme),
Whate'er she gat hands on cam near her nae mair;
And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime.
X.
A reekit wee devil looks over the wa';
(Hey, and the rue grows bonnie wi' thyme),
"O, help, master, help, or she'll ruin us a',
And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime."
XI.
The devil he swore by the edge o' his knife,
(Hey, and the rue grows bonnie wi' thyme),
He pitied the man that was tied to a wife;
And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime.
XII.
The devil he swore by the kirk and the bell,
(Hey, and the rue grows bonnie wi' thyme),
He was not in wedlock, thank heav'n, but in hell;
And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime.
XIII.
Then Satan has travelled again wi' his pack;
(Hey, and the rue grows bonnie wi' thyme),
And to her auld husband he's carried her back:
And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime.
XIV.
"I hae been a devil the feck o' my life;
(Hey, and the rue grows bonnie wi' thyme),
But ne'er was in hell, till I met wi' a wife;
And the thyme it is wither'd, and rue is in prime."
* * * * *
CXXXVII.
JOCKEY'S TA'EN THE PARTING KISS.
Tune--"_Jockey's ta'en the parting kiss._"
[Burns, when he sent this song to the Museum, said nothing of its
origin: and he is silent about it in his memoranda.]
I.
Jockey's ta'en the parting kiss,
O'er the mountains he is gane;
And with him is a' my bliss,
Nought but griefs with me remain.
Spare my luve, ye winds that blaw,
Plashy sleets and beating rain!
Spare my luve, thou feathery snaw,
Drifting o'er the frozen plain.
II.
When the shades of evening creep
O'er the day's fair, gladsome e'e,
Sound and safely may he sleep,
Sweetly blithe his waukening be!
He will think on her he loves,
Fondly he'll repeat her name;
For where'er he distant roves,
Jockey's heart is still at hame.
* * * * *
CXXXVIII.
LADY ONLIE.
Tune--"_The Ruffian's Rant._"
[Communicated to the Museum in the handwriting of Burns: part, but not
much, is believed to be old.]
I.
A' the lads o' Thornie-bank,
When they gae to the shore o' Bucky,
They'll step in an' tak' a pint
Wi' Lady Onlie, honest Lucky!
Lady Onlie, honest Lucky!
Brews good ale at shore o' Bucky;
I wish her sale for her gude ale,
The best on a' the shore o' Bucky.
II.
Her house sae bien, her curch sae clean,
I wat she is a dainty chucky;
And cheerlie blinks the ingle-gleed
Of Lady Onlie, honest Lucky!
Lady Onlie, honest Lucky,
Brews good ale at shore o' Bucky
I wish her sale for her gude ale,
The best on a' the shore o' Bucky.
* * * * *
CXXXIX.
THE CHEVALIER'S LAMENT.
Tune--"_Captain O'Kean._"
["Composed," says Burns to M'Murdo, "at the desire of a friend who had
an equal enthusiasm for the air and subject." The friend alluded to is
supposed to be Robert Cleghorn: he loved the air much, and he was much
of a Jacobite.]
I.
The small birds rejoice in the green leaves returning,
The murmuring streamlet winds clear thro' the vale;
The hawthorn trees blow in the dew of the morning,
And wild scatter'd cowslips bedeck the green dale:
But what can give pleasure, or what can seem fair,
While the lingering moments are number'd by care?
No flow'rs gaily springing, nor birds sweetly singing,
Can soothe the sad bosom of joyless despair.
II.
The deed that I dared, could it merit their malice,
A king and a father to place on his throne?
His right are these hills, and his right are these valleys,
Where the wild beasts find shelter, but I can find none;
But 'tis not my sufferings thus wretched, forlorn:
My brave gallant friends! 'tis your ruin I mourn;
Your deeds proved so loyal in hot-bloody trial--
Alas! I can make you no sweeter return!
* * * * *
CXL.
SONG OF DEATH.
Air--"_Oran an Aoig._"
["I have just finished the following song," says Burns to Mrs. Dunlop,
"which to a lady, the descendant of Wallace, and herself the mother of
several soldiers, needs neither preface nor apology."]
_Scene_--A field of battle. Time of the day, evening. The wounded and
dying of the victorious army are supposed to join in the following
song:
I.
Farewell, thou fair day, thou green earth, and ye skies,
Now gay with the bright setting sun;
Farewell loves and friendships, ye dear tender ties--
Our race of existence is run!
II.
Thou grim king of terrors, thou life's gloomy foe!
Go frighten the coward and slave;
Go, teach them to tremble, fell tyrant! but know,
No terrors hast thou to the brave!
III.
Thou strik'st the dull peasant--he sinks in the dark,
Nor saves e'en the wreck of a name;
Thou strik'st the young hero--a glorious mark!
He falls in the blaze of his fame!
IV.
In the field of proud honour--our swords in our hands,
Our king and our country to save--
While victory shines on life's last ebbing sands,
Oh! who would not die with the brave!
* * * * *
CXLI.
FLOW GENTLY, SWEET AFTON.
Tune--"_Afton Water._"
[The scenes on Afton Water are beautiful, and the poet felt them, as
well as the generous kindness of his earliest patroness, Mrs. General
Stewart, of Afton-lodge, when he wrote this sweet pastoral.]
I.
Flow gently, sweet Afton! among thy green braes,
Flow gently, I'll sing thee a song in thy praise;
My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream--
Flow gently, sweet Afton, disturb not her dream.
II.
Thou stock-dove, whose echo resounds thro' the glen;
Ye wild whistling blackbirds in yon thorny den;
Thou green-crested lapwing, thy screaming forbear--
I charge you disturb not my slumbering fair.
III.
How lofty, sweet Afton! thy neighbouring hills,
Far mark'd with the courses of clear, winding rills;
There daily I wander as noon rises high,
My flocks and my Mary's sweet cot in my eye.
IV.
How pleasant thy banks and green valleys below,
Where wild in the woodlands the primroses blow!
There, oft as mild evening weeps over the lea,
The sweet-scented birk shades my Mary and me.
V.
Thy crystal stream, Afton, how lovely it glides,
And winds by the cot where my Mary resides;
How wanton thy waters her snowy feet lave,
As gathering sweet flow'rets she stems thy clear wave.
VI.
Flow gently, sweet Afton! among thy green braes,
Flow gently, sweet river, the theme of my lays!
My Mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream--
Flow gently, sweet Afton! disturb not her dream.
* * * * *
CXLII.
THE SMILING SPRING.
Tune--"_The Bonnie Bell._"
["Bonnie Bell," was first printed in the Museum: who the heroine was
the poet has neglected to tell us, and it is a pity.]
I.
The smiling Spring comes in rejoicing,
And surly Winter grimly flies;
Now crystal clear are the falling waters,
And bonnie blue are the sunny skies;
Fresh o'er the mountains breaks forth the morning,
The ev'ning gilds the ocean's swell;
All creatures joy in the sun's returning,
And I rejoice in my bonnie Bell.
II.
The flowery Spring leads sunny Summer,
And yellow Autumn presses near,
Then in his turn comes gloomy Winter,
Till smiling Spring again appear.
Thus Seasons dancing, life advancing,
Old Time and Nature their changes tell,
But never ranging, still unchanging,
I adore my bonnie Bell.
* * * * *
CXLIII.
THE CARLES OF DYSART.
Tune--"_Hey ca' thro'._"
[Communicated to the Museum by Burns in his own handwriting: part of
it is his composition, and some believe the whole.]
I.
Up wi' the carles o' Dysart,
And the lads o' Buckhaven,
And the kimmers o' Largo,
And the lasses o' Leven.
Hey, ca' thro', ca' thro',
For we hae mickle ado;
Hey, ca' thro', ca' thro',
For we hae mickle ado.
II.
We hae tales to tell,
And we hae sangs to sing;
We hae pennies to spend,
And we hae pints to bring.
III.
We'll live a' our days,
And them that come behin',
Let them do the like,
And spend the gear they win.
Hey, ca' thro', ca' thro',
For we hae mickle ado,
Hey, ca' thro', ca' thro',
For we hae mickle ado.
* * * * *
CXLIV.
THE GALLANT WEAVER.
Tune--"_The Weavers' March._"
[Sent by the poet to the Museum. Neither tradition nor criticism has
noticed it, but the song is popular among the looms, in the west of
Scotland.]
I.
Where Cart rins rowin to the sea,
By mony a flow'r and spreading tree,
There lives a lad, the lad for me,
He is a gallant weaver.
Oh, I had wooers aught or nine,
They gied me rings and ribbons fine;
And I was fear'd my heart would tine,
And I gied it to the weaver.
II.
My daddie sign'd my tocher-band,
To gie the lad that has the land;
But to my heart I'll add my hand,
And gie it to the weaver.
While birds rejoice in leafy bowers;
While bees delight in op'ning flowers;
While corn grows green in simmer showers,
I'll love my gallant weaver.
* * * * *
CXLV.
THE BAIRNS GAT OUT.
Tune--"_The deuks dang o'er my daddie._"
[Burns found some of the sentiments and a few of the words of this
song in a strain, rather rough and home-spun, of Scotland's elder day.
He communicated it to the Museum.]
I.
The bairns gat out wi' an unco shout,
The deuks dang o'er my daddie, O!
The fien'-ma-care, quo' the feirrie auld wife,
He was but a paidlin body, O!
He paidles out, an' he paidles in,
An' he paidles late an' early, O!
This seven lang years I hae lien by his side,
An' he is but a fusionless carlie, O!
II.
O, hand your tongue, my feirrie auld wife,
O, haud your tongue, now Nansie, O!
I've seen the day, and sae hae ye,
Ye wadna been sae donsie, O!
I've seen the day ye butter'd my brose,
And cuddled me late and early, O!
But downa do's come o'er me now,
And, oh! I feel it sairly, O!
* * * * *
CXLVI.
SHE'S FAIR AND FAUSE.
Tune--"_She's fair and fause._"
[One of the happiest as well as the most sarcastic of the songs of the
North: the air is almost as happy as the words.]
I.
She's fair and fause that causes my smart,
I lo'ed her meikle and lang;
She's broken her vow, she's broken my heart,
And I may e'en gae hang.
A coof cam in wi' routh o' gear,
And I hae tint my dearest dear;
But woman is but warld's gear,
Sae let the bonnie lass gang.
II.
Whae'er ye be that woman love,
To this be never blind,
Nae ferlie 'tis tho' fickle she prove,
A woman has't by kind.
O woman, lovely woman fair!
An angel form's fa'n to thy share,
'Twad been o'er meikle to gien thee mair--
I mean an angel mind.
* * * * *
CXLVII.
THE EXCISEMAN.
Tune--"_The Deil cam' fiddling through the town._"
[Composed and sung by the poet at a festive meeting of the excisemen
of the Dumfries district.]
I.
The deil cam' fiddling through the town,
And danced awa wi' the Exciseman,
And ilka wife cries--"Auld Mahoun,
I wish you luck o' the prize, man!"
The deil's awa, the deil's awa,
The deil's awa wi' the Exciseman;
He's danc'd awa, he's danc'd awa,
He's danc'd awa wi' the Exciseman!
II.
We'll mak our maut, we'll brew our drink,
We'll dance, and sing, and rejoice, man;
And mony braw thanks to the meikle black deil
That danc'd awa wi' the Exciseman.
III.
There's threesome reels, there's foursome reels,
There's hornpipes and strathspeys, man;
But the ae best dance e'er cam to the land
Was--the deil's awa wi' the Exciseman.
The deil's awa, the deil's awa,
The deil's awa wi' the Exciseman:
He's danc'd awa, he's danc'd awa,
He's danc'd awa wi' the Exciseman.
* * * * *
CXLVIII.
THE LOVELY LASS OF INVERNESS.
Tune--"_Lass of Inverness._"
[As Burns passed slowly over the moor of Culloden, in one of his
Highland tours, the lament of the Lass of Inverness, it is said, rose
on his fancy: the first four lines are partly old.]
I.
The lovely lass o' Inverness,
Nae joy nor pleasure can she see;
For e'en and morn, she cries, alas!
And ay the saut tear blin's her e'e:
Drumossie moor--Drumossie day--
A waefu' day it was to me!
For there I lost my father dear,
My father dear, and brethren three.
II.
Their winding sheet the bluidy clay,
Their graves are growing green to see:
And by them lies the dearest lad
That ever blest a woman's e'e!
Now wae to thee, thou cruel lord,
A bluidy man I trow thou be;
For mony a heart thou host made sair,
That ne'er did wrong to thine or thee.
* * * * *
CXLIX.
A RED, RED ROSE.
Tune--"_Graham's Strathspey._"
[Some editors have pleased themselves with tracing the sentiments of
this song in certain street ballads: it resembles them as much as a
sour sloe resembles a drop-ripe damson.]
I.
O, my luve's like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June:
O, my luve's like the melodie,
That's sweetly play'd in tune.
II.
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I:
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
'Till a' the seas gang dry.
III.
'Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun:
I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.
IV.
And fare thee weel, my only luve!
And fare thee weel a-while!
And I will come again, my luve,
Tho' it were ten thousand mile.
* * * * *
CL.
LOUIS, WHAT RECK I BY THEE. Tune--"_Louis, what reck I by thee._"
[The Jeannie of this very short, but very clever song, is Mrs. Burns.
Her name has no chance of passing from the earth if impassioned verse
can preserve it.]
I.
Louis, what reck I by thee,
Or Geordie on his ocean?
Dyvor, beggar loons to me--
I reign in Jeannie's bosom.
II.
Let her crown my love her law,
And in her breast enthrone me.
Kings and nations--swith, awa!
Reif randies, I disown ye!
* * * * *
CLI.
HAD I THE WYTE.
Tune--"_Had I the wyte she bade me._"
[Burns in evoking this song out of the old verses did not cast wholly
out the spirit of ancient license in which our minstrels indulged. He
sent it to the Museum.]
I.
Had I the wyte, had I the wyte,
Had I the wyte she bade me;
She watch'd me by the hie-gate side.
And up the loan she shaw'd me;
And when I wadna venture in,
A coward loon she ca'd me;
Had kirk and state been in the gate,
I lighted when she bade me.
II.
Sae craftilie she took me ben,
And bade me make nae clatter;
"For our ramgunshoch glum gudeman
Is out and owre the water:"
Whae'er shall say I wanted grace
When I did kiss and dawte her,
Let him be planted in my place,
Syne say I was the fautor.
III.
Could I for shame, could I for shame,
Could I for shame refused her?
And wadna manhood been to blame,
Had I unkindly used her?
He claw'd her wi' the ripplin-kame,
And blue and bluidy bruised her;
When sic a husband was frae hame,
What wife but had excused her?
IV.
I dighted ay her een sae blue,
And bann'd the cruel randy;
And weel I wat her willing mou',
Was e'en like sugar-candy.
A gloamin-shot it was I wot,
I lighted on the Monday;
But I cam through the Tysday's dew,
To wanton Willie's brandy.
* * * * *
CLII.
COMING THROUGH THE RYE.
Tune--"_Coming through the rye._"
[The poet in this song removed some of the coarse chaff, from the old
chant, and fitted it for the Museum, when it was first printed.]
I.
Coming through the rye, poor body,
Coming through the rye,
She draiglet a' her petticoatie,
Coming through the rye.
Jenny's a' wat, poor body,
Jenny's seldom dry;
She draiglet a' her petticoatie,
Coming through the rye.
II.
Gin a body meet a body--
Coming through the rye,
Gin a body kiss a body--
Need a body cry?
III.
Gin a body meet a body
Coming through the glen,
Gin a body kiss a body--
Need the world ken?
Jenny's a' wat, poor body;
Jenny's seldom dry;
She draiglet a' her petticoatie,
Coming through the rye.
* * * * *
CLIII.
YOUNG JAMIE, PRIDE OF A' THE PLAIN.
Tune--"_The carlin o' the glen._"
[Sent to the Museum by Burns in his own handwriting: part only is
thought to be his]
I.
Young Jamie, pride of a' the plain,
Sae gallant and sae gay a swain;
Thro' a' our lasses he did rove,
And reign'd resistless king of love:
But now wi' sighs and starting tears,
He strays amang the woods and briers;
Or in the glens and rocky caves
His sad complaining dowie raves.
II.
I wha sae late did range and rove,
And chang'd with every moon my love,
I little thought the time was near,
Repentance I should buy sae dear:
The slighted maids my torment see,
And laugh at a' the pangs I dree;
While she, my cruel, scornfu' fair,
Forbids me e'er to see her mair!
* * * * *
CLIV.
OUT OVER THE FORTH.
Tune--"_Charlie Gordon's welcome hame._"
[In one of his letters to Cunningham, dated 11th March 1791, Burns
quoted the four last lines of this tender and gentle lyric, and
inquires how he likes them.]
I.
Out over the Forth I look to the north,
But what is the north and its Highlands to me?
The south nor the east gie ease to my breast,
The far foreign land, or the wild rolling sea.
II.
But I look to the west, when I gae to rest,
That happy my dreams and my slumbers may be;
For far in the west lives he I Io'e best,
The lad that is dear to my babie and me.
* * * * *
CLV.
THE LASS OF ECCLEFECHAN.
Tune--"_Jacky Latin._"
[Burns in one of his professional visits to Ecclefechan was amused
with a rough old district song, which some one sung: he rendered, at a
leisure moment, the language more delicate and the sentiments less
warm, and sent it to the Museum.]
I.
Gat ye me, O gat ye me,
O gat ye me wi' naething?
Rock and reel, and spinnin' wheel,
A mickle quarter basin.
Bye attour, my gutcher has
A hich house and a laigh ane,
A' for bye, my bonnie sel',
The toss of Ecclefechan.
II.
O haud your tongue now, Luckie Laing,
O hand your tongue and jauner;
I held the gate till you I met,
Syne I began to wander:
I tint my whistle and my sang,
I tint my peace and pleasure:
But your green graff, now, Luckie Laing,
Wad airt me to my treasure.
* * * * *
CLVI.
THE COOPER O' CUDDIE.
Tune--"_Bab at the bowster._"
[The wit of this song is better than its delicacy: it is printed in
the Museum, with the name of Burns attached.]
I.
The cooper o' Cuddie cam' here awa,
And ca'd the girrs out owre us a'--
And our gudewife has gotten a ca'
That anger'd the silly gude-man, O.
We'll hide the cooper behind the door;
Behind the door, behind the door;
We'll hide the cooper behind the door,
And cover him under a mawn, O.
II.
He sought them out, he sought them in,
Wi', deil hae her! and, deil hae him!
But the body was sae doited and blin',
He wist na where he was gaun, O.
III.
They cooper'd at e'en, they cooper'd at morn,
'Till our gude-man has gotten the scorn;
On ilka brow she's planted a horn,
And swears that they shall stan', O.
We'll hide the cooper behind the door,
Behind the door, behind the door;
We'll hide the cooper behind the door,
And cover him under a mawn, O.
* * * * *
CLVII.
SOMEBODY.
Tune--"_For the sake of somebody._"
[Burns seems to have borrowed two or three lines of this lyric from
Ramsay: he sent it to the Museum.]
I.
My heart is sair--I dare na tell--
My heart is sair for somebody;
I could wake a winter night
For the sake o' somebody.
Oh-hon! for somebody!
Oh-hey! for somebody!
I could range the world around,
For the sake o' somebody!
II.
Ye powers that smile on virtuous love,
O, sweetly smile on somebody!
Frae ilka danger keep him free,
And send me safe my somebody.
Oh-hon! for somebody!
Oh-hey! for somebody!
I wad do--what wad I not?
For the sake o' somebody!
* * * * *
CLVIII.
THE CARDIN' O'T.
Tune--"_Salt-fish and dumplings._"
["This song," says Sir Harris Nicolas, "is in the Musical Museum, but
not with Burns's name to it." It was given by Burns to Johnson in his
own handwriting.]
I.
I coft a stane o' haslock woo',
To make a wat to Johnny o't;
For Johnny is my only jo,
I lo'e him best of ony yet.
The cardin' o't, the spinnin' o't,
The warpin' o't, the winnin' o't;
When ilka ell cost me a groat,
The tailor staw the lynin o't.
II.
For though his locks be lyart gray,
And tho' his brow be beld aboon;
Yet I hae seen him on a day,
The pride of a' the parishen.
The cardin' o't, the spinnin' o't,
The warpin' o't, the winnin' o't;
When ilka ell cost me a groat,
The tailor staw the lynin o't.
* * * * *
CLIX.
WHEN JANUAR' WIND.
Tune--"_The lass that made the bed for me._"
[Burns found an old, clever, but not very decorous strain, recording
an adventure which Charles the Second, while under Presbyterian rule
in Scotland, had with a young lady of the house of Port Letham, and
exercising his taste and skill upon it, produced the present--still
too free song, for the Museum.]
I.
When Januar' wind was blawing cauld,
As to the north I took my way,
The mirksome night did me enfauld,
I knew na where to lodge till day.
II.
By my good luck a maid I met,
Just in the middle o' my care;
And kindly she did me invite
To walk into a chamber fair.
III.
I bow'd fu' low unto this maid,
And thank'd her for her courtesie;
I bow'd fu' low unto this maid,
And bade her mak a bed to me.
IV.
She made the bed baith large and wide,
Wi' twa white hands she spread it down;
She put the cup to her rosy lips,
And drank, "Young man, now sleep ye soun'."
V.
She snatch'd the candle in her hand,
And frae my chamber went wi' speed;
But I call'd her quickly back again
To lay some mair below my head.
VI.
A cod she laid below my head,
And served me wi' due respect;
And to salute her wi' a kiss,
I put my arms about her neck.
VII.
"Haud aff your hands, young man," she says,
"And dinna sae uncivil be:
If ye hae onto love for me,
O wrang na my virginitie!"
VIII.
Her hair was like the links o' gowd,
Her teeth were like the ivorie;
Her cheeks like lilies dipt in wine,
The lass that made the bed to me.
IX.
Her bosom was the driven snaw,
Twa drifted heaps sae fair to see;
Her limbs the polish'd marble stane,
The lass that made the bed to me.
X.
I kiss'd her owre and owre again,
And ay she wist na what to say;
I laid her between me and the wa'--
The lassie thought na lang till day.
XI.
Upon the morrow when we rose,
I thank'd her for her courtesie;
But aye she blush'd, and aye she sigh'd,
And said, "Alas! ye've ruin'd me."
XII.
I clasp'd her waist, and kiss'd her syne,
While the tear stood twinklin' in her e'e;
I said, "My lassie, dinna cry,
For ye ay shall mak the bed to me."
XIII.
She took her mither's Holland sheets,
And made them a' in sarks to me:
Blythe and merry may she be,
The lass that made the bed to me.
XIV.
The bonnie lass made the bed to me,
The braw lass made the bed to me:
I'll ne'er forget till the day I die,
The lass that made the bed to me!
* * * * *
CLX.
SAE FAR AWA.
Tune--"_Dalkeith Maiden Bridge._"
[This song was sent to the Museum by Burns, in his own handwriting.]
I.
O, sad and heavy should I part,
But for her sake sae far awa;
Unknowing what my way may thwart,
My native land sae far awa.
Thou that of a' things Maker art,
That form'd this fair sae far awa,
Gie body strength, then I'll ne'er start
At this my way sae far awa.
II.
How true is love to pure desert,
So love to her, sae far awa:
And nocht can heal my bosom's smart,
While, oh! she is sae far awa.
Nane other love, nane other dart,
I feel but hers, sae far awa;
But fairer never touch'd a heart
Than hers, the fair sae far awa.
* * * * *
CLXI.
I'LL AY CA' IN BY YON TOWN.
Tune--"_I'll gae nae mair to yon town._"
[Jean Armour inspired this very sweet song. Sir Harris Nicolas says it
is printed in Cromek's Reliques: it was first printed in the Museum.]
I.
I'll ay ca' in by yon town,
And by yon garden green, again;
I'll ay ca' in by yon town,
And see my bonnie Jean again.
There's nane sall ken, there's nane sall guess,
What brings me back the gate again;
But she my fairest faithfu' lass,
And stownlins we sall meet again.
II.
She'll wander by the aiken tree,
When trystin-time draws near again;
And when her lovely form I see,
O haith, she's doubly dear again!
I'll ay ca' in by yon town,
And by yon garden green, again;
I'll ay ca' in by yon town,
And see my bonnie Jean again.
* * * * *
CLXII.
O, WAT YE WHA'S IN YON TOWN.
Tune--"_I'll ay ca' in by yon town._"
[The beautiful Lucy Johnstone, married to Oswald, of Auchencruive, was
the heroine of this song: it was not, however, composed expressly in
honour of her charms. "As I was a good deal pleased," he says in a
letter to Syme, "with my performance, I, in my first fervour, thought
of sending it to Mrs. Oswald." He sent it to the Museum, perhaps also
to the lady.]
CHORUS.
O, wat ye wha's in yon town,
Ye see the e'enin sun upon?
The fairest dame's in yon town,
That e'enin sun is shining on.
I.
Now haply down yon gay green shaw,
She wanders by yon spreading tree;
How blest ye flow'rs that round her blaw,
Ye catch the glances o' her e'e!
II.
How blest ye birds that round her sing,
And welcome in the blooming year!
And doubly welcome be the spring,
The season to my Lucy dear.
III.
The sun blinks blithe on yon town,
And on yon bonnie braes of Ayr;
But my delight in yon town,
And dearest bliss, is Lucy fair.
IV.
Without my love, not a' the charms
O' Paradise could yield me joy;
But gie me Lucy in my arms,
And welcome Lapland's dreary sky!
V.
My cave wad be a lover's bower,
Tho' raging winter rent the air;
And she a lovely little flower,
That I wad tent and shelter there.
VI.
O sweet is she in yon town,
Yon sinkin sun's gane down upon;
A fairer than's in you town
His setting beam ne'er shone upon.
VII.
If angry fate is sworn my foe,
And suffering I am doom'd to bear;
I careless quit aught else below,
But spare me--spare me, Lucy dear!
VIII.
For while life's dearest blood is warm,
Ae thought frae her shall ne'er depart,
And she--as fairest is her form!
She has the truest, kindest heart!
O, wat ye wha's in yon town,
Ye see the e'enin sun upon?
The fairest dame's in yon town
That e'enin sun is shining on.
* * * * *
CLXIII.
O MAY, THY MORN.
Tune--_"May, thy morn."_
[Our lyrical legends assign the inspiration of this strain to the
accomplished Clarinda. It has been omitted by Chambers in his
"People's Edition" of Burns.]
I.
O May, thy morn was ne'er sae sweet
As the mirk night o' December;
For sparkling was the rosy wine,
And private was the chamber:
And dear was she I dare na name,
But I will ay remember.
And dear was she I dare na name,
But I will ay remember.
II.
And here's to them, that, like oursel,
Can push about the jorum;
And here's to them that wish us weel,
May a' that's guid watch o'er them,
And here's to them we dare na tell,
The dearest o' the quorum.
Ami here's to them we dare na tell,
The dearest o' the quorum!
* * * * *
CLXIV.
LOVELY POLLY STEWART.
Tune--_"Ye're welcome, Charlie Stewart."_
[The poet's eye was on Polly Stewart, but his mind seems to have been
with Charlie Stewart, and the Jacobite ballads, when he penned these
words;--they are in the Museum.]
I.
O lovely Polly Stewart!
O charming Polly Stewart!
There's not a flower that blooms in May
That's half so fair as thou art.
The flower it blaws, it fades and fa's,
And art can ne'er renew it;
But worth and truth eternal youth
Will give to Polly Stewart.
II.
May he whose arms shall fauld thy charms
Possess a leal and true heart;
To him be given to ken the heaven
He grasps in Polly Stewart.
O lovely Polly Stewart!
O charming Polly Stewart!
There's ne'er a flower that blooms in May
That's half so sweet as thou art.
* * * * *
CLXV.
THE HIGHLAND LADDIE.
Tune--_"If thou'lt play me fair play."_
[A long and wearisome ditty, called "The Highland Lad and Lowland
Lassie," which Burns compressed into these stanzas, for Johnson's
Museum.]
I.
The bonniest lad that e'er I saw,
Bonnie laddie, Highland laddie,
Wore a plaid, and was fu' braw,
Bonnie Highland laddie.
On his head a bonnet blue,
Bonnie laddie, Highland laddie;
His royal heart was firm and true,
Bonnie Highland laddie.
II.
Trumpets sound, and cannons roar,
Bonnie lassie; Lowland lassie;
And a' the hills wi' echoes roar,
Bonnie Lowland lassie.
Glory, honour, now invite,
Bonnie lassie, Lowland lassie,
For freedom and my king to fight,
Bonnie Lowland lassie.
III.
The sun a backward course shall take,
Bonnie laddie, Highland laddie,
Ere aught thy manly courage shake,
Bonnie Highland laddie.
Go, for yourself procure renown,
Bonnie laddie, Highland laddie;
And for your lawful king, his crown,
Bonnie Highland laddie.
* * * * *
CLXVI.
ANNA, THY CHARMS.
Tune--"_Bonnie Mary._"
[The heroine of this short, sweet song is unknown: it was inserted in
the third edition of his Poems.]
Anna, thy charms my bosom fire,
And waste my soul with care;
But ah! how bootless to admire,
When fated to despair!
Yet in thy presence, lovely fair,
To hope may be forgiv'n;
For sure 'twere impious to despair,
So much in sight of Heav'n.
* * * * *
CLXVII.
CASSILLIS' BANKS.
Tune--[unknown.]
[It is supposed that "Highland Mary," who lived sometime on
Cassillis's banks, is the heroine of these verses.]
I.
Now bank an' brae are claith'd in green,
An' scattered cowslips sweetly spring;
By Girvan's fairy-haunted stream,
The birdies flit on wanton wing.
To Cassillis' banks when e'ening fa's,
There wi' my Mary let me flee,
There catch her ilka glance of love,
The bonnie blink o' Mary's e'e!
II.
The chield wha boasts o' warld's walth
Is aften laird o' meikle care;
But Mary she is a' my ain--
Ah! fortune canna gie me mair.
Then let me range by Cassillis' banks,
Wi' her, the lassie dear to me,
And catch her ilka glance o' love,
The bonnie blink o' Mary's e'e!
* * * * *
CLXVIII.
TO THEE, LOVED NITH.
Tune--[unknown.]
[There are several variations extant of these verses, and among others
one which transfers the praise from the Nith to the Dee: but to the
Dee, if the poet spoke in his own person, no such influences could
belong.]
I.
To thee, lov'd Nith, thy gladsome plains,
Where late wi' careless thought I rang'd,
Though prest wi' care and sunk in woe,
To thee I bring a heart unchang'd.
II.
I love thee, Nith, thy banks and braes,
Tho' mem'ry there my bosom tear;
For there he rov'd that brake my heart,
Yet to that heart, ah! still how dear!
* * * * *
CLXIX.
BANNOCKS O' BARLEY.
Tune--"_The Killogie._"
["This song is in the Museum," says Sir Harris Nicolas, "but without
Burns's name." Burns took up an old song, and letting some of the old
words stand, infused a Jacobite spirit into it, wrote it out, and sent
it to the Museum.]
I.
Bannocks o' bear meal,
Bannocks o' barley;
Here's to the Highlandman's
Bannocks o' barley.
Wha in a brulzie
Will first cry a parley?
Never the lads wi'
The bannocks o' barley.
II.
Bannocks o' bear meal,
Bannocks o' barley;
Here's to the lads wi'
The bannocks o' barley.
Wha in his wae-days
Were loyal to Charlie?
Wha but the lads wi'
The bannocks o' barley?
* * * * *
CLXX.
HEE BALOU.
Tune--"_The Highland Balou._"
["Published in the Musical Museum," says Sir Harris Nicolas, "but
without the name of the author." It is an old strain, eked out and
amended by Burns, and sent to the Museum in his own handwriting.]
I.
Hee balou! my sweet wee Donald,
Picture o' the great Clanronald;
Brawlie kens our wanton chief
Wha got my young Highland thief.
II.
Leeze me on thy bonnie craigie,
An' thou live, thou'll steal a naigie:
Travel the country thro' and thro',
And bring hame a Carlisle cow.
III.
Thro' the Lawlands, o'er the border,
Weel, my babie, may thou furder:
Herry the louns o' the laigh countree,
Syne to the Highlands hame to me.
* * * * *
CLXXI.
WAE IS MY HEART.
Tune--"_Wae is my heart._"
[Composed, it is said, at the request of Clarke, the musician, who
felt, or imagined he felt, some pangs of heart for one of the
loveliest young ladies in Nithsdale, Phillis M'Murdo.]
I.
Wae is my heart, and the tear's in my e'e;
Lang, lang, joy's been a stranger to me;
Forsaken and friendless, my burden I bear,
And the sweet voice of pity ne'er sounds in my ear.
II.
Love, thou hast pleasures, and deep hae I loved;
Love, thou hast sorrows, and sair hae I proved;
But this bruised heart that now bleeds in my breast,
I can feel by its throbbings will soon be at rest.
III.
O, if I were happy, where happy I hae been,
Down by yon stream, and yon bonnie castle green;
For there he is wand'ring, and musing on me,
Wha wad soon dry the tear frae his Phillis's e'e.
* * * * *
CLXXII.
HERE'S HIS HEALTH IN WATER.
Tune--"_The job of journey-work._"
[Burns took the hint of this song from an older and less decorous
strain, and wrote these words, it has been said, in humorous allusion
to the condition in which Jean Armour found herself before marriage;
as if Burns could be capable of anything so insulting. The words are
in the Museum.]
Altho' my back be at the wa',
An' tho' he be the fautor;
Altho' my back be at the wa',
Yet here's his health in water!
O! wae gae by his wanton sides,
Sae brawlie he could flatter;
Till for his sake I'm slighted sair,
And dree the kintra clatter.
But tho' my back be at the wa',
And tho' he be the fautor;
But tho' my back be at the wa',
Yet here's his health in water!
* * * * *
CLXXIII.
MY PEGGY'S FACE.
Tune--"_My Peggy's Face._"
[Composed in honour of Miss Margaret Chalmers, afterwards Mrs. Lewis
Hay, one of the wisest, and, it is said, the wittiest of all the
poet's lady correspondents. Burns, in the note in which he
communicated it to Johnson, said he had a strong private reason for
wishing it to appear in the second volume of the Museum.]
I.
My Peggy's face, my Peggy's form,
The frost of hermit age might warm;
My Peggy's worth, my Peggy's mind,
Might charm the first of human kind.
I love my Peggy's angel air,
Her face so truly, heav'nly fair,
Her native grace so void of art,
But I adore my Peggy's heart.
II.
The lily's hue, the rose's dye,
The kindling lustre of an eye;
Who but owns their magic sway?
Who but knows they all decay!
The tender thrill, the pitying tear,
The gen'rous purpose, nobly dear,
The gentle look, that rage disarms--
These are all immortal charms.
* * * * *
CLXXIV.
GLOOMY DECEMBER.
Tune--"_Wandering Willie._"
[These verses were, it is said, inspired by Clarinda, and must be
taken as a record of his feelings at parting with one dear to him in
the last moment of existence--the Mrs. Mac of many a toast, both in
serious and festive hours.]
I.
Ance mair I hail thee, thou gloomy December!
Ance mair I hail thee wi' sorrow and care:
Sad was the parting thou makes me remember,
Parting wi' Nancy, oh! ne'er to meet mair.
Fond lovers' parting is sweet painful pleasure,
Hope beaming mild on the soft parting hour;
But the dire feeling, O farewell for ever!
Is anguish unmingled, and agony pure.
II.
Wild as the winter now tearing the forest,
'Till the last leaf o' the summer is flown,
Such is the tempest has shaken my bosom,
Since my last hope and last comfort is gone!
Still as I hail thee, thou gloomy December,
Still shall I hail thee wi' sorrow and care;
For sad was the parting thou makes me remember,
Parting wi' Nancy, oh! ne'er to meet mair.
* * * * *
CLXXV.
MY LADY'S GOWN, THERE'S GAIRS UPON'T.
Tune--"_Gregg's Pipes._"
[Most of this song is from the pen of Burns: he corrected the
improprieties, and infused some of his own lyric genius into the old
strain, and printed the result in the Museum.]
I.
My lady's gown, there's gairs upon't,
And gowden flowers sae rare upon't;
But Jenny's jimps and jirkinet,
My lord thinks meikle mair upon't.
My lord a-hunting he is gane,
But hounds or hawks wi' him are nane;
By Colin's cottage lies his game,
If Colin's Jenny be at hame.
II.
My lady's white, my lady's red,
And kith and kin o' Cassillis' blude;
But her ten-pund lands o' tocher guid
Were a' the charms his lordship lo'ed.
III.
Out o'er yon muir, out o'er yon moss,
Whare gor-cocks thro' the heather pass,
There wons auld Colin's bonnie lass,
A lily in a wilderness.
IV.
Sae sweetly move her genty limbs,
Like music notes o' lovers' hymns:
The diamond dew is her een sae blue,
Where laughing love sae wanton swims.
V.
My lady's dink, my lady's drest,
The flower and fancy o' the west;
But the lassie that a man lo'es best,
O that's the lass to make him blest.
My lady's gown, there's gairs upon't,
And gowden flowers sae rare upon't;
But Jenny's jimps and jirkinet,
My lord thinks meikle mair upon't.
* * * * *
CLXXVI.
AMANG THE TREES.
Tune--"_The King of France, he rade a race._"
[Burns wrote these verses in scorn of those, and they are many, who
prefer
"The capon craws and queer ha ha's!"
of emasculated Italy to the original and delicious airs, Highland and
Lowland, of old Caledonia: the song is a fragment--the more's the
pity.]
I.
Amang the trees, where humming bees
At buds and flowers were hinging, O,
Auld Caledon drew out her drone,
And to her pipe was singing, O;
'Twas pibroch, sang, strathspey, or reels,
She dirl'd them aff fu' clearly, O,
When there cam a yell o' foreign squeels,
That dang her tapsalteerie, O.
II.
Their capon craws and queer ha ha's,
They made our lugs grow eerie, O;
The hungry bike did scrape and pike,
'Till we were wae and weary, O;
But a royal ghaist wha ance was cas'd
A prisoner aughteen year awa,
He fir'd a fiddler in the north
That dang them tapsalteerie, O.
* * * * *
CLXXVII.
THE GOWDEN LOCKS OF ANNA.
Tune--"_Banks of Banna._"
["Anne with the golden locks," one of the attendant maidens in Burns's
Howff, in Dumfries, was very fair and very tractable, and, as may be
surmised from the song, had other pretty ways to render herself
agreeable to the customers than the serving of wine. Burns recommended
this song to Thomson; and one of his editors makes him say, "I think
this is one of the best love-songs I ever composed," but these are not
the words of Burns; this contradiction is made openly, lest it should
be thought that the bard had the bad taste to prefer this strain to
dozens of others more simple, more impassioned, and more natural.]
I.
Yestreen I had a pint o' wine,
A place where body saw na';
Yestreen lay on this breast o' mine
The gowden locks of Anna.
The hungry Jew in wilderness
Rejoicing o'er his manna,
Was naething to my hinny bliss
Upon the lips of Anna.
II.
Ye monarchs tak the east and west,
Frae Indus to Savannah!
Gie me within my straining grasp
The melting form of Anna.
There I'll despise imperial charms,
An empress or sultana,
While dying raptures in her arms
I give and take with Anna!
III.
Awa, thou flaunting god o' day!
Awa, thou pale Diana!
Ilk star gae hide thy twinkling ray,
When I'm to meet my Anna.
Come, in thy raven plumage, night!
Sun, moon, and stars withdrawn a';
And bring an angel pen to write
My transports wi' my Anna!
IV.
The kirk an' state may join and tell--
To do sic things I maunna:
The kirk and state may gang to hell,
And I'll gae to my Anna.
She is the sunshine of my e'e,
To live but her I canna:
Had I on earth but wishes three,
The first should be my Anna.
* * * * *
CLXXVIII.
MY AIN KIND DEARIE O.
[This is the first song composed by Burns for the national collection
of Thomson: it was written in October, 1792. "On reading over the
Lea-rig," he says, "I immediately set about trying my hand on it, and,
after all, I could make nothing more of it than the following." The
first and second verses were only sent: Burns added the third and last
verse in December.]
I.
When o'er the hill the eastern star
Tells bughtin-time is near, my jo;
And owsen frae the furrow'd field
Return sae dowf and weary, O!
Down by the burn, where scented birks[137]
Wi' dew are hanging clear, my jo;
I'll meet thee on the lea-rig,
My ain kind dearie O!
II.
In mirkest glen, at midnight hour,
I'd rove, and ne'er be eerie, O;
If thro' that glen I gaed to thee,
My ain kind dearie O!
Altho' the night were ne'er sae wild,
And I were ne'er sae wearie, O,
I'd meet thee on the lea-rig,
My ain kind dearie O!
III.
The hunter lo'es the morning sun,
To rouse the mountain deer, my jo;
At noon the fisher seeks the glen,
Alang the burn to steer, my jo;
Gie me the hour o' gloamin gray,
It maks my heart sae cheery, O,
To meet thee on the lea-ring,
My ain kind dearie O!
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 137: For "scented birks," in some copies, "birken buds."]
* * * * *
CLXXIX.
TO MARY CAMPBELL.
["In my very early years," says Burns to Thomson "when I was thinking
of going to the West Indies, I took the following farewell of a dear
girl. You must know that all my earlier love-songs were the breathings
of ardent passion, and though it might have been easy in after times
to have given them a polish, yet that polish, to me, would have
defaced the legend of my heart, so faithfully inscribed on them.
Their uncouth simplicity was, as they say of wines, their race." The
heroine of this early composition was Highland Mary.]
I.
Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary,
And leave old Scotia's shore?
Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary,
Across th' Atlantic's roar?
II.
O sweet grows the lime and the orange,
And the apple on the pine;
But a' the charms o' the Indies
Can never equal thine.
III.
I hae sworn by the Heavens to my Mary,
I hae sworn by the Heavens to be true;
And sae may the Heavens forget me
When I forget my vow!
IV.
O plight me your faith, my Mary,
And plight me your lily white hand;
O plight me your faith, my Mary,
Before I leave Scotia's strand.
V.
We hae plighted our troth, my Mary,
In mutual affection to join;
And curst be the cause that shall part us!
The hour and the moment o' time!
* * * * *
CLXXX.
THE WINSOME WEE THING.
[These words were written for Thomson: or rather made extempore. "I
might give you something more profound," says the poet, "yet it might
not suit the light-horse gallop of the air, so well as this random
clink."]
I.
She is a winsome wee thing,
She is a handsome wee thing,
She is a bonnie wee thing,
This sweet wee wife o' mine.
II.
I never saw a fairer,
I never lo'ed a dearer;
And niest my heart I'll wear her,
For fear my jewel tine.
III.
She is a winsome wee thing,
She is a handsome wee thing,
She is a bonnie wee thing,
This sweet wee wife o' mine.
IV.
The warld's wrack we share o't,
The warstle and the care o't;
Wi' her I'll blythely bear it,
And think my lot divine.
* * * * *
CLXXXI.
BONNIE LESLEY.
["I have just," says Burns to Thomson, "been looking over the
'Collier's bonnie Daughter,' and if the following rhapsody, which I
composed the other day, on a charming Ayrshire girl, Miss Leslie
Baillie, as she passed through this place to England, will suit your
taste better than the Collier Lassie, fall on and welcome." This lady
was soon afterwards married to Mr. Cuming, of Logie.]
I.
O saw ye bonnie Lesley
As she ga'ed o'er the border?
She's gane, like Alexander,
To spread her conquests farther.
II.
To see her is to love her,
And love but her for ever;
For Nature made her what she is,
And never made anither!
III.
Thou art a queen, fair Lesley,
Thy subjects we, before thee:
Thou art divine, fair Lesley,
The hearts o' men adore thee.
IV.
The deil he could na scaith thee,
Or aught that wad belang thee;
He'd look into thy bonnie face,
And say, "I canna wrang thee."
V.
The powers aboon will tent thee;
Misfortune sha' na steer thee:
Thou'rt like themselves so lovely,
That ill they'll ne'er let near thee.
VI.
Return again, fair Lesley,
Return to Caledonie;
That we may brag, we hae a lass
There's nane again sae bonnie.
* * * * *
CLXXXII.
HIGHLAND MARY.
Tune--"_Katherine Ogie._"
[Mary Campbell, of whose worth and beauty Burns has sung with such
deep feeling, was the daughter of a mariner, who lived in Greenock.
She became acquainted with the poet while on service at the castle of
Montgomery, and their strolls in the woods and their roaming trysts
only served to deepen and settle their affections. Their love had much
of the solemn as well as of the romantic: on the day of their
separation they plighted their mutual faith by the exchange of Bibles:
they stood with a running-stream between them, and lifting up water in
their hands vowed love while woods grew and waters ran. The Bible
which the poet gave was elegantly bound: 'Ye shall not swear by my
name falsely,' was written in the bold Mauchline hand of Burns, and
underneath was his name, and his mark as a freemason. They parted to
meet no more: Mary Campbell was carried off suddenly by a burning
fever, and the first intimation which the poet had of her fate, was
when, it is said, he visited her friends to meet her on her return
from Cowal, whither she had gone to make arrangements for her
marriage. The Bible is in the keeping of her relations: we have seen a
lock of her hair; it was very long and very bright, and of a hue
deeper than the flaxen. The song was written for Thomson's work.]
I.
Ye banks, and braes, and streams around
The castle o' Montgomery,
Green be your woods, and fair your flowers,
Your waters never drumlie!
There Simmer first unfauld her robes,
And there the langest tarry;
For there I took the last farewell
O' my sweet Highland Mary.
II.
How sweetly bloom'd the gay green birk,
How rich the hawthorn's blossom,
As underneath their fragrant shade
I clasp'd her to my bosom!
The golden hours, on angel wings,
Flew o'er me and my dearie;
For dear to me, as light and life,
Was my sweet Highland Mary!
III.
Wi' mony a vow, and lock'd embrace,
Our parting was fu' tender;
And, pledging aft to meet again,
We tore oursels asunder;
But oh! fell death's untimely frost,
That nipt my flower sae early!--
Now green's the sod, and cauld's the clay,
That wraps my Highland Mary!
IV.
O pale, pale now, those rosy lips
I aft hae kissed sae fondly!
And clos'd for ay the sparkling glance
That dwelt on me sae kindly!
And mouldering now in silent dust,
That heart that lo'ed me dearly--
But still within my bosom's core
Shall live my Highland Mary!
* * * * *
CLXXXIII.
AULD ROB MORRIS.
[The starting lines of this song are from one of no little merit in
Ramsey's collection: the old strain is sarcastic; the new strain is
tender: it was written for Thomson.]
I.
There's auld Rob Morris that wons in yon glen,
He's the king o' guid fellows and wale of auld men;
He has gowd in his coffers, he has owsen and kine,
And ae bonnie lassie, his darling and mine.
II.
She's fresh as the morning, the fairest in May;
She's sweet as the ev'ning amang the new hay;
As blythe and as artless as the lamb on the lea,
And dear to my heart as the light to my e'e.
III.
But oh! she's an heiress,--auld Robin's a laird,
And my daddie has nought but a cot-house and yard;
A wooer like me mamma hope to come speed;
The wounds I must hide that will soon be my dead.
IV.
The day comes to me, but delight brings me nane;
The night comes to me, but my rest it is gane:
I wander my lane like a night-troubled ghaist,
And I sigh as my heart it wad burst in my breast.
V.
O had she but been of a lower degree,
I then might hae hop'd she wad smil'd upon me!
O, how past descriving had then been my bliss,
As now my distraction no words can express!
* * * * *
CLXXXIV.
DUNCAN GRAY.
[This Duncan Gray of Burns, has nothing in common with the wild old
song of that name, save the first line, and a part of the third,
neither has it any share in the sentiments of an earlier strain, with
the same title, by the same hand. It was written for the work of
Thomson.]
I.
Duncan Gray cam here to woo,
Ha, ha, the wooing o't;
On blythe yule night when we were fou,
Ha, ha, the wooing o't.
Maggie coost her head fu' high,
Look'd asklent and unco skeigh,
Gart poor Duncan stand abeigh;
Ha, ha, the wooing o't.
II.
Duncan fleech'd, and Duncan pray'd,
Ha, ha, the wooing o't;
Meg was deaf as Ailsa Craig,
Ha, ha, the wooing o't.
Duncan sigh'd baith out and in,
Grat his een baith bleer't and blin',
Spak o' lowpin o'er a linn;
Ha, ha, the wooing o't.
III.
Time and chance are but a tide,
Ha, ha, the wooing o't;
Slighted love is sair to bide,
Ha, ha, the wooing o't.
Shall I, like a fool, quoth he,
For a haughty hizzie die?
She may gae to--France for me!
Ha, ha, the wooing o't.
IV.
How it comes let doctors tell,
Ha, ha, the wooing o't;
Meg grew sick--as he grew heal,
Ha, ha, the wooing o't.
Something in her bosom wrings,
For relief a sigh she brings:
And O, her een, they spak sic things!
Ha, ha, the wooing o't.
V.
Duncan was a lad o' grace.
Ha, ha, the wooing o't;
Maggie's was a piteous case,
Ha, ha, the wooing o't.
Duncan could na be her death,
Swelling pity smoor'd his wrath;
Now they're crouse and canty baith,
Ha, ha, the wooing o't.
* * * * *
CLXXXV.
O POORTITH CAULD.
Tune--"_I had a horse._"
[Jean Lorimer, the Chloris and the "Lassie with the lint-white locks"
of Burns, was the heroine of this exquisite lyric: she was at that
time very young; her shape was fine, and her "dimpled cheek and cherry
mou" will be long remembered in Nithsdale.]
I.
O poortith cauld, and restless love,
Ye wreck my peace between ye;
Yet poortith a' I could forgive,
An' twere na' for my Jeanie.
O why should fate sic pleasure have,
Life's dearest bands untwining?
Or why sae sweet a flower as love
Depend on fortune's shining?
II.
This warld's wealth when I think on,
It's pride, and a' the lave o't--
Fie, fie on silly coward man,
That he should be the slave o't!
III.
Her een sae bonnie blue betray
How she repays my passion;
But prudence is her o'erword ay,
She talks of rank and fashion.
IV.
O wha can prudence think upon,
And sic a lassie by him?
O wha can prudence think upon,
And sae in love as I am?
V.
How blest the humble cotter's fate![138]
He wooes his simple dearie;
The silly bogles, wealth and state,
Can never make them eerie.
O why should Fate sic pleasure have,
Life's dearest bands untwining?
Or why sae sweet a flower as love
Depend on Fortune's shining?
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 138: "The wild-wood Indian's Fate," in the original MS.]
* * * * *
CLXXXVI.
GALLA WATER.
["Galla Water" is an improved version of an earlier song by Burns: but
both songs owe some of their attractions to an older strain, which the
exquisite air has made popular over the world. It was written for
Thomson.]
I.
There's braw, braw lads on Yarrow braes,
That wander thro' the blooming heather;
But Yarrow braes nor Ettrick shaws
Can match the lads o' Galla Water.
II.
But there is ane, a secret ane,
Aboon them a' I lo'e him better;
And I'll be his, and he'll be mine,
The bonnie lad o' Galla Water.
III.
Altho' his daddie was nae laird,
And tho' I hae nae meikle tocher;
Yet rich in kindest, truest love,
We'll tent our flocks by Galla Water.
IV.
It ne'er was wealth, it ne'er was wealth,
That coft contentment, peace, or pleasure;
The bands and bliss o' mutual love,
O that's the chiefest warld's treasure!
* * * * *
CLXXXVII.
LORD GREGORY.
[Dr. Wolcot wrote a Lord Gregory for Thomson's collection, in
imitation of which Burns wrote his, and the Englishman complained,
with an oath, that the Scotchman sought to rob him of the merit of his
composition. Wolcot's song was, indeed, written first, but they are
both but imitations of that most exquisite old ballad, "Fair Annie of
Lochryan," which neither Wolcot nor Burns valued as it deserved: it
far surpasses both their songs.]
I.
O mirk, mirk is this midnight hour,
And loud the tempest's roar;
A waefu' wanderer seeks thy tow'r,
Lord Gregory, ope thy door!
II.
An exile frae her father's ha',
And a' for loving thee;
At least some pity on me shaw,
If love it may na be.
III.
Lord Gregory, mind'st thou not the grove
By bonnie Irwin-side,
Where first I own'd that virgin-love
I lang, lang had denied?
IV.
How often didst thou pledge and vow
Thou wad for ay be mine;
And my fond heart, itsel' sae true,
It ne'er mistrusted thine.
V.
Hard is thy heart, Lord Gregory,
And flinty is thy breast--
Thou dart of heaven that flashest by,
O wilt thou give me rest!
VI.
Ye mustering thunders from above,
Your willing victim see!
But spare and pardon my fause love,
His wrangs to heaven and me!
* * * * *
CLXXXVIII.
MARY MORISON.
Tune--"_Bide ye yet._"
["The song prefixed," observes Burns to Thomson, "is one of my
juvenile works. I leave it in your hands. I do not think it very
remarkable either for its merits or its demerits." "Of all the
productions of Burns," says Hazlitt, "the pathetic and serious
love-songs which he has left behind him, in the manner of the old
ballads, are, perhaps, those which take the deepest and most lasting
hold of the mind. Such are the lines to Mary Morison." The song is
supposed to have been written on one of a family of Morisons at
Mauchline.]
I.
O Mary, at thy window be,
It is the wish'd, the trysted hour!
Those smiles and glances let me see
That make the miser's treasure poor:
How blithely wad I bide the stoure,
A weary slave frae sun to sun;
Could I the rich reward secure,
The lovely Mary Morison!
II.
Yestreen, when to the trembling string
The dance gaed thro' the lighted ha',
To thee my fancy took its wing,
I sat, but neither heard or saw:
Tho' this was fair, and that was braw,
And yon the toast of a' the town,
I sigh'd, and said amang them a',
"Ye are na Mary Morison."
III.
O Mary, canst thou wreck his peace,
Wha for thy sake wad gladly die?
Or canst thou break that heart of his,
Whase only faut is loving thee?
If love for love thou wilt na gie,
At least be pity to me shown;
A thought ungentle canna be
The thought o' Mary Morison.
* * * * *
CLXXXIX.
WANDERING WILLIE.
[FIRST VERSION.]
[The idea of this song is taken from verses of the same name published
by Herd: the heroine is supposed to have been the accomplished Mrs.
Riddel. Erskine and Thomson sat in judgment upon it, and, like true
critics, squeezed much of the natural and original spirit out of it.
Burns approved of their alterations; but he approved, no doubt, in
bitterness of spirit.]
I.
Here awa, there awa, wandering Willie,
Now tired with wandering, haud awa hame;
Come to my bosom, my ae only dearie,
And tell me thou bring'st me my Willie the same.
II.
Loud blew the cauld winter winds at our parting;
It was na the blast brought the tear in my e'e;
Now welcome the simmer, and welcome my Willie,
The simmer to nature, my Willie to me.
III.
Ye hurricanes, rest in the cave o' your slumbers!
O how your wild horrors a lover alarms!
Awaken, ye breezes, row gently, ye billows,
And waft my dear laddie ance mair to my arms.
IV.
But if he's forgotten his faithfulest Nannie,
O still flow between us, thou wide roaring main;
May I never see it, may I never trow it,
But, dying, believe that my Willie's my ain.
* * * * *
CXC.
WANDERING WILLIE.
[LAST VERSION.]
[This is the "Wandering Willie" as altered by Erskine and Thomson, and
approved by Burns, after rejecting several of their emendations. The
changes were made chiefly with the view of harmonizing the words with
the music--an Italian mode of mending the harmony of the human voice.]
I.
Here awa, there awa, wandering Willie,
Here awa, there awa, haud awa hame;
Come to my bosom, my ain only dearie,
Tell me thou bring'st me my Willie the same.
II.
Winter winds blew loud and cauld at our parting,
Fears for my Willie brought tears in my e'e;
Welcome now simmer, and welcome my Willie,
The simmer to nature, my Willie to me.
III.
Rest, ye wild storms, in the cave of your slumbers,
How your dread howling a lover alarms!
Wauken, ye breezes, row gently, ye billows,
And waft my dear laddie ance mair to my arms.
IV.
But oh, if he's faithless, and minds na his Nannie,
Flow still between us, thou wide roaring main;
May I never see it, may I never trow it,
But, dying, believe that my Willie's my ain.
* * * * *
CXCI.
OPEN THE DOOR TO ME, OH!
[Written for Thomson's collection: the first version which he wrote
was not happy in its harmony: Burns altered and corrected it as it now
stands, and then said, "I do not know if this song be really mended."]
I.
Oh, open the door, some pity to show,
Oh, open the door to me, Oh![139]
Tho' thou has been false, I'll ever prove true,
Oh, open the door to me, Oh!
II.
Cauld is the blast upon my pale cheek,
But caulder thy love for me, Oh!
The frost that freezes the life at my heart,
Is nought to my pains frae thee, Oh!
III.
The wan moon is setting behind the white wave,
And time is setting with me, Oh!
False friends, false love, farewell! for mair
I'll ne'er trouble them, nor thee, Oh!
IV.
She has open'd the door, she has open'd it wide;
She sees his pale corse on the plain, Oh!
My true love! she cried, and sank down by his side,
Never to rise again, Oh!
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 139: This second line was originally--"If love it may na be,
Oh!"]
* * * * *
CXCII.
JESSIE.
Tune--"_Bonnie Dundee._"
[Jessie Staig, the eldest daughter of the provost of Dumfries, was
the heroine of this song. She became a wife and a mother, but died
early in life: she is still affectionately remembered in her native
place.]
I.
True hearted was he, the sad swain o' the Yarrow,
And fair are the maids on the banks o' the Ayr,
But by the sweet side o' the Nith's winding river,
Are lovers as faithful, and maidens as fair:
To equal young Jessie seek Scotland all over;
To equal young Jessie you seek it in vain;
Grace, beauty, and elegance fetter her lover,
And maidenly modesty fixes the chain.
II.
O, fresh is the rose in the gay, dewy morning,
And sweet is the lily at evening close;
But in the fair presence o' lovely young Jessie
Unseen is the lily, unheeded the rose.
Love sits in her smile, a wizard ensnaring;
Enthron'd in her een he delivers his law:
And still to her charms she alone is a stranger--
Her modest demeanour's the jewel of a'!
* * * * *
CXCIII.
THE POOR AND HONEST SODGER.
Air--"_The Mill, Mill, O._"
[Burns, it is said, composed this song, once very popular, on hearing
a maimed soldier relate his adventures, at Brownhill, in Nithsdale: it
was published by Thomson, after suggesting some alterations, which
were properly rejected.]
I.
When wild war's deadly blast was blawn
And gentle peace returning,
Wi' mony a sweet babe fatherless,
And mony a widow mourning;
I left the lines and tented field,
Where lang I'd been a lodger,
My humble knapsack a' my wealth,
A poor and honest sodger.
II.
A leal, light heart was in my breast,
My hand unstain'd wi' plunder;
And for fair Scotia, hame again,
I cheery on did wander.
I thought upon the banks o' Coil,
I thought upon my Nancy,
I thought upon the witching smile
That caught my youthful fancy.
III.
At length I reach'd the bonny glen,
Where early life I sported;
I pass'd the mill, and trysting thorn,
Where Nancy aft I courted:
Wha spied I but my ain dear maid,
Down by her mother's dwelling!
And turn'd me round to hide the flood
That in my een was swelling.
IV.
Wi' alter'd voice, quoth I, sweet lass,
Sweet as yon hawthorn's blossom,
O! happy, happy, may he be
That's dearest to thy bosom!
My purse is light, I've far to gang,
And fain wud be thy lodger;
I've serv'd my king and country lang--
Take pity on a sodger.
V.
Sae wistfully she gaz'd on me,
And lovelier was then ever;
Quo' she, a sodger ance I lo'd,
Forget him shall I never:
Our humble cot, and hamely fare,
Ye freely shall partake it,
That gallant badge--the dear cockade--
Ye're welcome for the sake o't.
VI.
She gaz'd--she redden'd like a rose--
Syne pale like onie lily;
She sank within my arms, and cried,
Art thou my ain dear Willie?
By him who made yon sun and sky--
By whom true love's regarded,
I am the man: and thus may still
True lovers be rewarded!
VII.
The wars are o'er, and I'm come hame,
And find thee still true-hearted;
Tho' poor in gear, we're rich in love,
And mair we'se ne'er be parted.
Quo' she, my grandsire left me gowd,
A mailen plenish'd fairly;
And come, my faithful sodger lad,
Thou'rt welcome to it dearly!
VIII.
For gold the merchant ploughs the main,
The farmer ploughs the manor;
But glory is the sodger's prize,
The sodger's wealth is honour;
The brave poor sodger ne'er despise,
Nor count him as a stranger;
Remember he's his country's stay,
In day and hour of danger.
* * * * *
CXCIV.
MEG O' THE MILL.
Air--"_Hey! bonnie lass, will you lie in a barrack?_"
["Do you know a fine air," Burns asks Thomson, April, 1973, "called
'Jackie Hume's Lament?' I have a song of considerable merit to that
air: I'll enclose you both song and tune, as I have them ready to send
to the Museum." It is probable that Thomson liked these verses too
well to let them go willingly from his hands: Burns touched up the old
song with the same starting line, but a less delicate conclusion, and
published it in the Museum.]
I.
O ken ye what Meg o' the Mill has gotten?
An' ken ye what Meg o' the Mill has gotten?
She has gotten a coof wi' a claute o' siller,
And broken the heart o' the barley Miller.
II.
The Miller was strappin, the Miller was ruddy;
A heart like a lord and a hue like a lady:
The Laird was a widdiefu', bleerit knurl;
She's left the guid-fellow and ta'en the churl.
III.
The Miller he hecht her a heart leal and loving;
The Laird did address her wi' matter mair moving,
A fine pacing horse wi' a clear chained bridle,
A whip by her side and a bonnie side-saddle.
IV.
O wae on the siller, it is sae prevailing;
And wae on the love that is fixed on a mailen'
A tocher's nae word in a true lover's parle,
But gie me my love, and a fig for the warl!
* * * * *
CXCV.
BLYTHE HAE I BEEN.
Tune--"_Liggeram Cosh._"
[Burns, who seldom praised his own compositions, told Thomson, for
whose work he wrote it, that "Blythe hae I been on yon hill," was one
of the finest songs he had ever made in his life, and composed on one
of the most lovely women in the world. The heroine was Miss Lesley
Baillie.]
I.
Blythe hae I been on yon hill
As the lambs before me;
Careless ilka thought and free
As the breeze flew o'er me.
Now nae langer sport and play,
Mirth or sang can please me;
Lesley is sae fair and coy,
Care and anguish seize me.
II.
Heavy, heavy is the task,
Hopeless love declaring:
Trembling, I dow nocht but glow'r,
Sighing, dumb, despairing!
If she winna ease the thraws
In my bosom swelling,
Underneath the grass-green sod
Soon maun be my dwelling.
* * * * *
[Illustration: "LOGAN BRAES."]
CXCVI.
LOGAN WATER.
["Have you ever, my dear sir," says Burns to Thomson, 25th June, 1793,
"felt your bosom ready to burst with indignation on reading of those
mighty villains who divide kingdom against kingdom, desolate
provinces, and lay nations waste, out of wantoness of ambition, or
often from still more ignoble passions? In a mood of this kind to-day
I recollected the air of Logan Water. If I have done anything at all
like justice to my feelings, the following song, composed in
three-quarters of an hour's meditation in my elbow-chair, ought to
have some merit." The poet had in mind, too, during this poetic fit,
the beautiful song of Logan-braes, by my friend John Mayne, a
Nithsdale poet.]
I.
O Logan, sweetly didst thou glide,
That day I was my Willie's bride!
And years synsyne hae o'er us run
Like Logan to the simmer sun.
But now thy flow'ry banks appear
Like drumlie winter, dark and drear,
While my dear lad maun face his faes,
Far, far frae me and Logan braes!
II.
Again the merry month o' May
Has made our hills and valleys gay;
The birds rejoice in leafy bowers,
The bees hum round the breathing flowers;
Blythe Morning lifts his rosy eye,
And Evening's tears are tears of joy:
My soul, delightless, a' surveys,
While Willie's far frae Logan braes.
III.
Within yon milk-white hawthorn bush,
Amang her nestlings sits the thrush;
Her faithfu' mate will share her toil,
Or wi' his song her cares beguile:
But I, wi' my sweet nurslings here,
Nae mate to help, nae mate to cheer,
Pass widow'd nights and joyless days,
While Willie's far frae Logan braes.
IV.
O wae upon you, men o' state,
That brethren rouse to deadly hate!
As ye make mony a fond heart mourn,
Sae may it on your heads return!
How can your flinty hearts enjoy
The widow's tears, the orphan's cry?[140]
But soon may peace bring happy days
And Willie hame to Logan braes!
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 140: Originally--
"Ye mind na, 'mid your cruel joys,
The widow's tears, the orphan's cries."]
* * * * *
CXCVII.
THE RED, RED ROSE.
Air--"_Hughie Graham._"
[There are snatches of old song so exquisitely fine that, like
fractured crystal, they cannot be mended or eked out, without showing
where the hand of the restorer has been. This seems the case with the
first verse of this song, which the poet found in Witherspoon, and
completed by the addition of the second verse, which he felt to be
inferior, by desiring Thomson to make his own the first verse, and let
the other follow, which would conclude the strain with a thought as
beautiful as it was original.]
I.
O were my love yon lilac fair,
Wi' purple blossoms to the spring;
And I, a bird to shelter there,
When wearied on my little wing!
How I wad mourn, when it was torn
By autumn wild, and winter rude!
But I wad sing on wanton wing,
When youthfu' May its bloom renewed.
II.
O gin my love were yon red rose,
That grows upon the castle wa';
And I mysel' a drap o' dew,
Into her bonnie breast to fa'!
Oh, there beyond expression blest,
I'd feast on beauty a' the night;
Seal'd on her silk-saft faulds to rest,
Till fley'd awa by Phoebus' light.
* * * * *
CXCVIII.
BONNIE JEAN.
[Jean M'Murdo, the heroine of this song, the eldest daughter of John
M'Murdo of Drumlanrig, was, both in merit and look, very worthy of so
sweet a strain, and justified the poet from the charge made against
him in the West, that his beauties were not other men's beauties. In
the M'Murdo manuscript, in Burns's handwriting, there is a
well-merited compliment which has slipt out of the printed copy in
Thomson:--
"Thy _handsome_ foot thou shalt na set
In barn or byre to trouble thee."]
I.
There was a lass, and she was fair,
At kirk and market to be seen,
When a' the fairest maids were met,
The fairest maid was bonnie Jean.
II.
And aye she wrought her mammie's wark,
And ay she sang so merrilie:
The blithest bird upon the bush
Had ne'er a lighter heart than she.
III.
But hawks will rob the tender joys
That bless the little lintwhite's nest;
And frost will blight the fairest flowers,
And love will break the soundest rest.
IV.
Young Robie was the brawest lad,
The flower and pride of a' the glen;
And he had owsen, sheep, and kye,
And wanton naigies nine or ten.
V.
He gaed wi' Jeanie to the tryste,
He danc'd wi' Jeanie on the down;
And, lang ere witless Jeanie wist,
Her heart was tint, her peace was stown.
VI.
As in the bosom o' the stream,
The moon-beam dwells at dewy e'en;
So trembling, pure, was tender love
Within the breast o' bonnie Jean.
VII.
And now she works her mammie's wark,
And ay she sighs wi' care and pain;
Yet wist na what her ail might be,
Or what wad mak her weel again.
VIII.
But did na Jeanie's heart loup light,
And did na joy blink in her e'e,
As Robie tauld a tale of love,
Ae e'enin' on the lily lea?
IX.
The sun was sinking in the west,
The birds sung sweet in ilka grove;
His cheek to hers he fondly prest,
And whisper'd thus his tale o' love:
X.
O Jeanie fair, I lo'e thee dear;
O canst thou think to fancy me!
Or wilt thou leave thy mammie's cot,
And learn to tent the farms wi' me?
XI.
At barn or byre thou shalt na drudge,
Or naething else to trouble thee;
But stray amang the heather-bells,
And tent the waving corn wi' me.
XII.
Now what could artless Jeanie do?
She had nae will to say him na:
At length she blush'd a sweet consent,
And love was ay between them twa.
* * * * *
CXCIX.
PHILLIS THE FAIR.
Tune--"Robin Adair."
[The ladies of the M'Murdo family were graceful and beautiful, and
lucky in finding a poet capable of recording their charms in lasting
strains. The heroine of this song was Phyllis M'Murdo; a favourite of
the poet. The verses were composed at the request of Clarke, the
musician, who believed himself in love with his "charming pupil." She
laughed at the presumptuous fiddler.]
I.
While larks with little wing
Fann'd the pure air,
Tasting the breathing spring,
Forth I did fare:
Gay the sun's golden eye
Peep'd o'er the mountains high;
Such thy morn! did I cry,
Phillis the fair.
II.
In each bird's careless song,
Glad I did share;
While yon wild flowers among,
Chance led me there:
Sweet to the opening day,
Rosebuds bent the dewy spray;
Such thy bloom! did I say,
Phillis the fair.
III.
Down in a shady walk
Doves cooing were,
I mark'd the cruel hawk,
Caught in a snare:
So kind may fortune be,
Such make his destiny!
He who would injure thee,
Phillis the fair.
* * * * *
CC.
HAD I A CAVE.
Tune--"Robin Adair."
[Alexander Cunningham, on whose unfortunate love-adventure Burns
composed this song for Thomson, was a jeweller in Edinburgh, well
connected, and of agreeable and polished manners. The story of his
faithless mistress was the talk of Edinburgh, in 1793, when these
words were written: the hero of the lay has been long dead; the
heroine resides, a widow, in Edinburgh.]
I.
Had I a cave on some wild, distant shore,
Where the winds howl to the waves' dashing roar;
There would I weep my woes,
There seek my lost repose,
Till grief my eyes should close,
Ne'er to wake more.
II.
Falsest of womankind, canst thou declare,
All thy fond plighted vows--fleeting as air!
To thy new lover hie,
Laugh o'er thy perjury,
Then in thy bosom try
What peace is there!
* * * * *
CCI.
BY ALLAN STREAM.
["Bravo! say I," exclaimed Burns, when he wrote these verses for
Thomson. "It is a good song. Should you think so too, not else, you
can set the music to it, and let the other follow as English verses.
Autumn is my propitious season; I make more verses in it than all the
year else." The old song of "O my love Annie's very bonnie," helped
the muse of Burns with this lyric.]
I.
By Allan stream I chanced to rove
While Phoebus sank beyond Benledi;
The winds were whispering through the grove,
The yellow corn was waving ready;
I listened to a lover's sang,
And thought on youthfu' pleasures mony:
And aye the wild wood echoes rang--
O dearly do I lo'e thee, Annie!
II.
O happy be the woodbine bower,
Nae nightly bogle make it eerie;
Nor ever sorrow stain the hour,
The place and time I met my dearie!
Her head upon my throbbing breast,
She, sinking, said, "I'm thine for ever?"
While mony a kiss the seal imprest,
The sacred vow,--we ne'er should sever.
III.
The haunt o' Spring's the primrose brae,
The Simmer joys the flocks to follow;
How cheery, thro' her shortening day,
Is Autumn, in her weeds o' yellow!
But can they melt the glowing heart,
Or chain the soul in speechless pleasure,
Or thro' each nerve the rapture dart,
Like meeting her, our bosom's treasure?
* * * * *
[Illustration: "O WHISTLE, AND I'LL COME TO YOU, MY LAD".]
CCII.
O WHISTLE, AND I'LL COME TO YOU.
[In one of the variations of this song the name of the heroine is
Jeanie: the song itself owes some of the sentiments as well as words
to an old favourite Nithsdale chant of the same name. "Is Whistle, and
I'll come to you, my lad," Burns inquires of Thomson, "one of your
airs? I admire it much, and yesterday I set the following verses to
it." The poet, two years afterwards, altered the fourth line thus:--
"Thy Jeany will venture wi' ye, my lad,"
and assigned this reason: "In fact, a fair dame at whose shrine I, the
priest of the Nine, offer up the incense of Parnassus; a dame whom the
Graces have attired in witchcraft, and whom the Loves have armed with
lightning; a fair one, herself the heroine of the song, insists on the
amendment, and dispute her commands if you dare."]
I.
O whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad,
O whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad:
Tho' father and mither and a' should gae mad,
O whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad.
But warily tent, when you come to court me,
And come na unless the back-yett be a-jee;
Syne up the back-stile and let naebody see,
And come as ye were na comin' to me.
And come as ye were na comin' to me.
II.
At kirk, or at market, whene'er ye meet me,
Gang by me as tho' that ye car'd na a flie;
But steal me a blink o' your bonnie black e'e,
Yet look as ye were na lookin' at me.
Yet look as ye were na lookin' at me.
III.
Ay vow and protest that ye care na for me,
And whiles ye may lightly my beauty a wee;
But court na anither, tho' jokin' ye be,
For fear that she wyle your fancy frae me.
For fear that she wyle your fancy frae me.
IV.
O whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad,
O whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad:
Tho' father and mither and a' should gae mad,
O whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad.
* * * * *
CCIII.
ADOWN WINDING NITH.
["Mr. Clarke," says Burns to Thompson, "begs you to give Miss Phillis
a corner in your book, as she is a particular flame of his. She is a
Miss Phillis M'Murdo, sister to 'Bonnie Jean;' they are both pupils of
his." This lady afterwards became Mrs. Norman Lockhart, of Carnwath.]
I.
Adown winding Nith I did wander,
To mark the sweet flowers as they spring;
Adown winding Nith I did wander,
Of Phillis to muse and to sing.
Awa wi' your belles and your beauties,
They never wi' her can compare:
Whaever has met wi' my Phillis,
Has met wi' the queen o' the fair.
II.
The daisy amus'd my fond fancy,
So artless, so simple, so wild;
Thou emblem, said I, o' my Phillis,
For she is simplicity's child.
III.
The rose-bud's the blush o' my charmer,
Her sweet balmy lip when 'tis prest:
How fair and how pure is the lily,
But fairer and purer her breast.
IV.
Yon knot of gay flowers in the arbour,
They ne'er wi' my Phillis can vie:
Her breath is the breath o' the woodbine,
Its dew-drop o' diamond, her eye.
V.
Her voice is the song of the morning,
That wakes thro' the green-spreading grove,
When Phoebus peeps over the mountains,
On music, and pleasure, and love.
VI.
But beauty how frail and how fleeting,
The bloom of a fine summer's day!
While worth in the mind o' my Phillis
Will flourish without a decay.
Awa wi' your belles and your beauties,
They never wi' her can compare:
Whaever has met wi' my Phillis
Has met wi' the queen o' the fair.
* * * * *
CCIV.
COME, LET ME TAKE THEE.
Air--"_Cauld Kail._"
[Burns composed this lyric in August, 1793, and tradition says it was
produced by the charms of Jean Lorimer. "That tune, Cauld Kail," he
says to Thomson, "is such a favorite of yours, that I once roved out
yesterday for a gloaming-shot at the Muses; when the Muse that
presides over the shores of Nith, or rather my old inspiring, dearest
nymph, Coila, whispered me the following."]
I.
Come, let me take thee to my breast,
And pledge we ne'er shall sunder;
And I shall spurn as vilest dust
The warld's wealth and grandeur:
And do I hear my Jeanie own
That equal transports move her?
I ask for dearest life alone,
That I may live to love her.
II.
Thus in my arms, wi' a' thy charms,
I clasp my countless treasure;
I'll seek nae mair o' heaven to share,
Than sic a moment's pleasure:
And by thy een, sae bonnie blue,
I swear I'm thine for ever!
And on thy lips I seal my vow,
And break it shall I never.
* * * * *
CCV.
DAINTY DAVIE.
[From the old song of "Daintie Davie" Burns has borrowed only the
title and the measure. The ancient strain records how the Rev. David
Williamson, to escape the pursuit of the dragoons, in the time of the
persecution, was hid, by the devout Lady of Cherrytrees, in the same
bed with her ailing daughter. The divine lived to have six wives
beside the daughter of the Lady of Cherrytrees, and other children
besides the one which his hiding from the dragoons produced. When
Charles the Second was told of the adventure and its upshot, he is
said to have exclaimed, "God's fish! that beats me and the oak: the
man ought to be made a bishop."]
I.
Now rosy May comes in wi' flowers,
To deck her gay, green-spreading bowers;
And now comes in my happy hours,
To wander wi' my Davie.
Meet me on the warlock knowe,
Dainty Davie, dainty Davie,
There I'll spend the day wi' you,
My ain dear dainty Davie.
II.
The crystal waters round us fa',
The merry birds are lovers a',
The scented breezes round us blaw,
A wandering wi' my Davie.
III.
When purple morning starts the hare,
To steal upon her early fare,
Then thro' the dews I will repair,
To meet my faithfu' Davie
IV.
When day, expiring in the west,
The curtain draws o' nature's rest,
I flee to his arms I lo'e best,
And that's my ain dear Davie.
Meet me on the warlock knowe,
Bonnie Davie, dainty Davie,
There I'll spend the day wi' you,
My ain dear dainty Davie.
* * * * *
CCVI.
BRUCE TO HIS MEN AT BANNOCKBURN.
[FIRST VERSION.]
Tune--"_Hey, tuttie taitie._"
[Syme of Ryedale states that this fine ode was composed during a storm
of rain and fire, among the wilds of Glenken in Galloway: the poet
himself gives an account much less romantic. In speaking of the air to
Thomson, he says, "There is a tradition which I have met with in many
places in Scotland, that it was Robert Bruce's march at the battle of
Bannockburn. This thought, in my solitary wanderings, warmed me to a
pitch of enthusiasm on the theme of liberty and independence, which I
threw into a kind of Scottish ode, fitted to the air, that one might
suppose to be the royal Scot's address to his heroic followers on that
eventful morning." It was written in September, 1793.]
I.
Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled,
Scots, wham Bruce has aften led;
Welcome to your gory bed,
Or to victorie!
II.
Now's the day, and now's the hour;
See the front o' battle lour:
See approach proud Edward's pow'r--
Chains and slaverie!
III.
Wha will be a traitor-knave?
Wha can fill a coward's grave?
Wha sae base as be a slave!
Let him turn and flee!
IV.
Wha for Scotland's king and law
Freedom's sword will strongly draw,
Freeman stand, or freeman fa',
Let him follow me!
V.
By oppression's woes and pains!
By our sons in servile chains!
We will drain our dearest veins,
But they shall be free!
VI.
Lay the proud usurpers low!
Tyrants fall in every foe!
Liberty's in every blow!--
Let us do or die!
* * * * *
CCVII.
BANNOCKBURN.
ROBERT BRUCE'S ADDRESS TO HIS ARMY.
[SECOND VERSION.]
[Thomson acknowledged the charm which this martial and national ode
had for him, but he disliked the air, and proposed to substitute that
of Lewis Gordon in its place. But Lewis Gordon required a couple of
syllables more in every fourth line, which loaded the verse with
expletives, and weakened the simple energy of the original: Burns
consented to the proper alterations, after a slight resistance; but
when Thomson, having succeeded in this, proposed a change in the
expression, no warrior of Bruce's day ever resisted more sternly the
march of a Southron over the border. "The only line," says the
musician, "which I dislike in the whole song is,
'Welcome to your gory bed:'
gory presents a disagreeable image to the mind, and a prudent general
would avoid saying anything to his soldiers which might tend to make
death more frightful than it is." "My ode," replied Burns, "pleases me
so much that I cannot alter it: your proposed alterations would, in my
opinion, make it tame." Thomson cries out, like the timid wife of
Coriolanus, "Oh, God, no blood!" while Burns exclaims, like that
Roman's heroic mother, "Yes, blood! it becomes a soldier more than
gilt his trophy." The ode as originally written was restored
afterwards in Thomson's collection.]
I.
Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled,
Scots, wham Bruce has aften led;
Welcome to your gory bed,
Or to glorious victorie!
II.
Now's the day, and now's the hour--
See the front o' battle lour;
See approach proud Edward's power--
Edward! chains and slaverie!
III.
Wha will be a traitor-knave?
Wha can fill a coward's grave?
Wha sae base as be a slave?
Traitor! coward! turn and flee!
IV.
Wha for Scotland's king and law
Freedom's sword will strongly draw,
Freeman stand, or freeman fa',
Caledonian! on wi' me!
V.
By oppression's woes and pains!
By our sons in servile chains!
We will drain our dearest veins,
But they shall be--shall be free!
VI.
Lay the proud usurpers low!
Tyrants fall in every foe!
Liberty's in every blow!
Forward! let us do, or die!
* * * * *
CCVIII.
BEHOLD THE HOUR.
Tune--"_Oran-gaoil._"
["The following song I have composed for the Highland air that you
tell me in your last you have resolved to give a place to in your
book. I have this moment finished the song, so you have it glowing
from the mint." These are the words of Burns to Thomson: he might have
added that the song was written on the meditated voyage of Clarinda to
the West Indies, to join her husband.]
I.
Behold the hour, the boat arrive;
Thou goest, thou darling of my heart!
Sever'd from thee can I survive?
But fate has will'd, and we must part.
I'll often greet this surging swell,
Yon distant isle will often hail:
"E'en here I took the last farewell;
There, latest mark'd her vanish'd sail."
II.
Along the solitary shore
While flitting sea-fowl round me cry,
Across the rolling, dashing roar,
I'll westward turn my wistful eye:
Happy, thou Indian grove, I'll say,
Where now my Nancy's path may be!
While thro' thy sweets she loves to stray,
O tell me, does she muse on me?
* * * * *
CCIX.
THOU HAST LEFT ME EVER.
Tune--"_Fee him, father._"
["I do not give these verses," says Burns to Thomson, "for any merit
they have. I composed them at the time in which 'Patie Allan's mither
died, about the back o' midnight,' and by the lee side of a bowl of
punch, which had overset every mortal in company, except the hautbois
and the muse." To the poet's intercourse with musicians we owe some
fine songs.]
I.
Thou hast left me ever, Jamie!
Thou hast left me ever;
Thou hast left me ever, Jamie!
Thou hast left me ever.
Aften hast thou vow'd that death
Only should us sever;
Now thou's left thy lass for ay--
I maun see thee never, Jamie,
I'll see thee never!
II.
Thou hast me forsaken, Jamie!
Thou hast me forsaken;
Thou hast me forsaken, Jamie!
Thou hast me forsaken.
Thou canst love anither jo,
While my heart is breaking:
Soon my weary een I'll close,
Never mair to waken, Jamie,
Ne'er mair to waken!
* * * * *
CCX.
AULD LANG SYNE.
["Is not the Scotch phrase," Burns writes to Mrs. Dunlop, "Auld lang
syne, exceedingly expressive? There is an old song and tune which has
often thrilled through my soul: I shall give you the verses on the
other sheet. Light be the turf on the breast of the heaven-inspired
poet who composed this glorious fragment." "The following song," says
the poet, when he communicated it to George Thomson, "an old song of
the olden times, and which has never been in print, nor even in
manuscript, until I took it down from an old man's singing, is enough
to recommend any air." These are strong words, but there can be no
doubt that, save for a line or two, we owe the song to no other
minstrel than "minstrel Burns."]
I.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And never brought to min'?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
And days o' lang syne?
For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne!
II.
We twa hae run about the braes,
And pu't the gowans fine;
But we've wander'd mony a weary foot,
Sin' auld lang syne.
III.
We twa hae paidl't i' the burn,
Frae mornin' sun till dine:
But seas between us braid hae roar'd,
Sin' auld lang syne.
IV.
And here's a hand, my trusty fiere,
And gie's a hand o' thine;
And we'll take a right guid willie-waught,
For auld lang syne.
V.
And surely ye'll be your pint-stowp,
And surely I'll be mine;
And we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.
For auld lang syne, my dear,
For auld lang syne,
We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet,
For auld lang syne!
* * * * *
CCXI.
FAIR JEANY.
Tune--"_Saw ye my father?_"
[In September, 1793, this song, as well as several others, was
communicated to Thomson by Burns. "Of the poetry," he says, "I speak
with confidence: but the music is a business where I hint my ideas
with the utmost diffidence."]
I.
Where are the joys I have met in the morning,
That danc'd to the lark's early song?
Where is the peace that awaited my wand'ring,
At evening the wild woods among?
II.
No more a-winding the course of yon river,
And marking sweet flow'rets so fair:
No more I trace the light footsteps of pleasure,
But sorrow and sad sighing care.
III.
Is it that summer's forsaken our valleys,
And grim, surly winter is near?
No, no, the bees' humming round the gay roses,
Proclaim it the pride of the year.
IV.
Fain would I hide, what I fear to discover,
Yet long, long too well have I known,
All that has caused this wreck in my bosom,
Is Jeany, fair Jeany alone.
V.
Time cannot aid me, my griefs are immortal,
Nor hope dare a comfort bestow:
Come then, enamour'd and fond of my anguish,
Enjoyment I'll seek in my woe.
* * * * *
CCXII.
DELUDED SWAIN, THE PLEASURE.
[To the air of the "Collier's dochter," Burns bids Thomson add the
following old Bacchanal: it is slightly altered from a rather stiff
original.]
I.
Deluded swain, the pleasure
The fickle fair can give thee,
Is but a fairy treasure--
Thy hopes will soon deceive thee.
II.
The billows on the ocean,
The breezes idly roaming,
The clouds uncertain motion--
They are but types of woman.
III.
O! art thou not ashamed
To doat upon a feature?
If man thou wouldst be named,
Despise the silly creature.
IV.
Go find an honest fellow;
Good claret set before thee:
Hold on till thou art mellow,
And then to bed in glory.
* * * * *
CCXIII.
NANCY.
[This song was inspired by the charms of Clarinda. In one of the
poet's manuscripts the song commences thus:
Thine am I, my lovely Kate,
Well thou mayest discover
Every pulse along my veins
Tell the ardent lover.
This change was tried out of compliment, it is believed, to Mrs.
Thomson; but Nancy ran more smoothly on the even road of lyrical verse
than Kate.]
I.
Thine am I, my faithful fair,
Thine, my lovely Nancy;
Ev'ry pulse along my veins,
Ev'ry roving fancy.
II.
To thy bosom lay my heart,
There to throb and languish:
Tho' despair had wrung its core,
That would heal its anguish.
III.
Take away those rosy lips,
Rich with balmy treasure:
Turn away thine eyes of love,
Lest I die with pleasure.
IV.
What is life when wanting love?
Night without a morning:
Love's the cloudless summer sun,
Nature gay adorning.
* * * * *
CCXIV.
HUSBAND, HUSBAND.
Tune--"_Jo Janet._"
["My Jo Janet," in the collection of Allan Ramsay, was in the poet's
eye when he composed this song, as surely as the matrimonial
bickerings recorded by the old minstrels were in his mind. He desires
Thomson briefly to tell him how he likes these verses: the response of
the musician was, "Inimitable."]
I.
Husband, husband, cease your strife,
Nor longer idly rave, sir;
Tho' I am your wedded wife,
Yet I am not your slave, sir.
"One of two must still obey,
Nancy, Nancy;
Is it man or woman, say,
My spouse, Nancy?"
II.
If 'tis still the lordly word,
Service and obedience;
I'll desert my sov'reign lord,
And so, good bye, allegiance!
"Sad will I be, so bereft,
Nancy, Nancy;
Yet I'll try to make a shift,
My spouse, Nancy."
III.
My poor heart then break it must,
My last hour I'm near it:
When you lay me in the dust,
Think, think, how you will bear it.
"I will hope and trust in heaven,
Nancy, Nancy;
Strength to bear it will be given,
My spouse, Nancy."
IV.
Well, sir, from the silent dead,
Still I'll try to daunt you;
Ever round your midnight bed
Horrid sprites shall haunt you.
"I'll wed another, like my dear
Nancy, Nancy;
Then all hell will fly for fear,
My spouse, Nancy."
* * * * *
CCXV.
WILT THOU BE MY DEARIE.
Air--"_The Sutor's Dochter._"
[Composed, it is said, in honour of Janet Miller, of Dalswinton,
mother to the present Earl of Marr, and then, and long after, one of
the loveliest women in the south of Scotland.]
I.
Wilt thou be my dearie?
When sorrow wrings thy gentle heart,
Wilt thou let me cheer thee?
By the treasure of my soul,
That's the love I bear thee!
I swear and vow that only thou
Shall ever be my dearie.
Only thou, I swear and vow,
Shall ever be my dearie.
II.
Lassie, say thou lo'es me;
Or if thou wilt no be my ain,
Say na thou'lt refuse me:
If it winna, canna be,
Thou, for thine may choose me,
Let me, lassie, quickly die,
Trusting that thou lo'es me.
Lassie, let me quickly die,
Trusting that thou lo'es me.
* * * * *
CCXVI.
BUT LATELY SEEN.
Tune--"_The winter of life._"
[This song was written for Johnson's Museum, in 1794: the air is East
Indian: it was brought from Hindostan by a particular friend of the
poet. Thomson set the words to the air of Gil Morrice: they are
elsewhere set to the tune of the Death of the Linnet.]
I.
But lately seen in gladsome green,
The woods rejoiced the day;
Thro' gentle showers and laughing flowers,
In double pride were gay:
But now our joys are fled
On winter blasts awa!
Yet maiden May, in rich array,
Again shall bring them a'.
II.
But my white pow, nae kindly thowe
Shall melt the snaws of age;
My trunk of eild, but buss or bield,
Sinks in Time's wintry rage.
Oh! age has weary days,
And nights o' sleepless pain!
Thou golden time o' youthfu' prime,
Why comes thou not again?
* * * * *
CCXVII.
TO MARY.
Tune--"_Could aught of song._"
[These verses, inspired partly by Hamilton's very tender and elegant
song,
"Ah! the poor shepherd's mournful fate,"
and some unrecorded "Mary" of the poet's heart, is in the latter
volumes of Johnson. "It is inserted in Johnson's Museum," says Sir
Harris Nicolas, "with the name of Burns attached." He might have added
that it was sent by Burns, written with his own hand.]
I.
Could aught of song declare my pains,
Could artful numbers move thee,
The muse should tell, in labour'd strains,
O Mary, how I love thee!
They who but feign a wounded heart
May teach the lyre to languish;
But what avails the pride of art,
When wastes the soul with anguish?
II.
Then let the sudden bursting sigh
The heart-felt pang discover;
And in the keen, yet tender eye,
O read th' imploring lover.
For well I know thy gentle mind
Disdains art's gay disguising;
Beyond what Fancy e'er refin'd,
The voice of nature prizing.
* * * * *
CCXVIII.
HERE'S TO THY HEALTH, MY BONNIE LASS.
Tune--"_Laggan Burn._"
["This song is in the Musical Museum, with Burns's name to it," says
Sir Harris Nicolas. It is a song of the poet's early days, which he
trimmed up, and sent to Johnson.]
I.
Here's to thy health, my bonnie lass,
Gude night, and joy be wi' thee;
I'll come na mair to thy bower-door,
To tell thee that I lo'e thee.
O dinna think, my pretty pink,
But I can live without thee:
I vow and swear I dinna care
How lang ye look about ye.
II.
Thou'rt ay sae free informing me
Thou hast na mind to marry;
I'll be as free informing thee
Nae time hae I to tarry.
I ken thy friends try ilka means,
Frae wedlock to delay thee;
Depending on some higher chance--
But fortune may betray thee.
III.
I ken they scorn my low estate,
But that does never grieve me;
But I'm as free as any he,
Sma' siller will relieve me.
I count my health my greatest wealth,
Sae long as I'll enjoy it:
I'll fear na scant, I'll bode nae want,
As lang's I get employment.
IV.
But far off fowls hae feathers fair,
And ay until ye try them:
Tho' they seem fair, still have a care,
They may prove waur than I am.
But at twal at night, when the moon shines bright,
My dear, I'll come and see thee;
For the man that lo'es his mistress weel,
Nae travel makes him weary.
* * * * *
CCXIX.
THE FAREWELL.
Tune--"_It was a' for our rightfu' king._"
["It seems very doubtful," says Sir Harris Nicolas, "how much, even if
any part of this song was written by Burns: it occurs in the Musical
Museum, but not with his name." Burns, it is believed, rather pruned
and beautified an old Scottish lyric, than composed this strain
entirely. Johnson received it from him in his own handwriting.]
I.
It was a' for our rightfu' king,
We left fair Scotland's strand;
It was a' for our rightfu' king
We e'er saw Irish land,
My dear;
We e'er saw Irish land.
II.
Now a' is done that men can do,
And a' is done in vain;
My love and native land farewell,
For I maun cross the main,
My dear;
For I maun cross the main.
III.
He turn'd him right, and round about
Upon the Irish shore;
And gae his bridle-reins a shake,
With adieu for evermore,
My dear;
With adieu for evermore.
IV.
The sodger from the wars returns,
The sailor frae the main;
But I hae parted frae my love,
Never to meet again,
My dear;
Never to meet again
V.
When day is gane, and night is come,
And a' folk bound to sleep;
I think on him that's far awa',
The lee-lang night, and weep,
My dear;
The lee-lang night, and weep.
* * * * *
CCXX.
O STEER HER UP.
Tune--"_O steer her up, and haud her gaun._"
[Burns, in composing these verses, took the introductory lines of an
older lyric, eked them out in his own way, and sent them to the
Museum.]
I.
O steer her up and haud her gaun--
Her mother's at the mill, jo;
And gin she winna take a man,
E'en let her take her will, jo:
First shore her wi' a kindly kiss,
And ca' another gill, jo,
And gin she take the thing amiss,
E'en let her flyte her fill, jo.
II.
O steer her up, and be na blate,
An' gin she take it ill, jo,
Then lea'e the lassie till her fate,
And time nae longer spill, jo:
Ne'er break your heart for ae rebute,
But think upon it still, jo,
That gin the lassie winna do't,
Ye'll fin' anither will, jo.
* * * * *
CCXXI.
O AY MY WIFE SHE DANG ME.
Tune--"_My wife she dang me._"
[Other verses to the same air, belonging to the olden times, are still
remembered in Scotland: but they are only sung when the wine is in,
and the sense of delicacy out. This song is in the Museum.]
I.
O ay my wife she dang me,
And aft my wife did bang me,
If ye gie a woman a' her will,
Gude faith, she'll soon o'er-gang ye.
On peace and rest my mind was bent,
And fool I was I married;
But never honest man's intent,
As cursedly miscarried.
II.
Some sairie comfort still at last,
When a' their days are done, man;
My pains o' hell on earth are past,
I'm sure o' bliss aboon, man.
O ay my wife she dang me,
And aft my wife did bang me,
If ye gie a woman a' her will,
Gude faith, she'll soon o'er-gang ye.
* * * * *
CCXXII.
OH, WERT THOU IN THE CAULD BLAST.
Tune--"_Lass o' Livistone._"
[Tradition says this song was composed in honour of Jessie Lewars, the
Jessie of the poet's death-bed strains. It is inserted in Thomson's
collection: variations occur in several manuscripts, but they are
neither important nor curious.]
I.
Oh, wert thou in the cauld blast,
On yonder lea, on yonder lea,
My plaidie to the angry airt,
I'd shelter thee, I'd shelter thee:
Or did misfortune's bitter storms
Around thee blaw, around thee blaw,
Thy bield should be my bosom,
To share it a', to share it a'.
II.
Or were I in the wildest waste,
Sae black and bare, sae black and bare,
The desert were a paradise,
If thou wert there, if thou wert there:
Or were I monarch o' the globe,
Wi' thee to reign, wi' thee to reign,
The brightest jewel in my crown
Wad be my queen, wad be my queen.
* * * * *
CCXXIII.
HERE IS THE GLEN.
Tune--"_Banks of Cree._"
[Of the origin of this song the poet gives the following account. "I
got an air, pretty enough, composed by Lady Elizabeth Heron, of Heron,
which she calls 'The Banks of Cree.' Cree is a beautiful romantic
stream: and as her ladyship is a particular friend of mine, I have
written the following song to it."]
I.
Here is the glen, and here the bower,
All underneath the birchen shade;
The village-bell has told the hour--
O what can stay my lovely maid?
II.
'Tis not Maria's whispering call;
'Tis but the balmy-breathing gale,
Mix'd with some warbler's dying fall,
The dewy star of eve to hail.
III.
It is Maria's voice I hear!
So calls the woodlark in the grove,
His little, faithful mate to cheer,
At once 'tis music--and 'tis love.
IV.
And art thou come? and art thou true?
O welcome, dear to love and me!
And let us all our vows renew
Along the flow'ry banks of Cree.
* * * * *
CCXXIV.
ON THE SEAS AND FAR AWAY.
Tune--"_O'er the hills," &c._
["The last evening," 29th of August, 1794, "as I was straying out,"
says Burns, "and thinking of 'O'er the hills and far away,' I spun the
following stanzas for it. I was pleased with several lines at first,
but I own now that it appears rather a flimsy business. I give you
leave to abuse this song, but do it in the spirit of Christian
meekness."]
I.
How can my poor heart be glad,
When absent from my sailor lad?
How can I the thought forego,
He's on the seas to meet the foe?
Let me wander, let me rove,
Still my heart is with my love:
Nightly dreams, and thoughts by day,
Are with him that's far away.
On the seas and far away,
On stormy seas and far away;
Nightly dreams, and thoughts by day,
Are ay with him that's far away.
II.
When in summer's noon I faint,
As weary flocks around me pant,
Haply in this scorching sun
My sailor's thund'ring at his gun:
Bullets, spare my only joy!
Bullets, spare my darling boy!
Fate, do with me what you may--
Spare but him that's far away!
III.
At the starless midnight hour,
When winter rules with boundless power:
As the storms the forests tear,
And thunders rend the howling air,
Listening to the doubling roar,
Surging on the rocky shore,
All I can--I weep and pray,
For his weal that's far away.
IV.
Peace, thy olive wand extend,
And bid wild war his ravage end,
Man with brother man to meet,
And as a brother kindly greet:
Then may heaven with prosp'rous gales,
Fill my sailor's welcome sails,
To my arms their charge convey--
My dear lad that's far away.
On the seas and far away
On stormy seas and far away;
Nightly dreams, and thoughts by day,
Are ay with him that's far away.
* * * * *
CCXXV.
CA' THE YOWES.
[Burns formed this song upon an old lyric, an amended version of which
he had previously communicated to the Museum: he was fond of musing in
the shadow of Lincluden towers, and on the banks of Cluden Water.]
I.
Ca' the yowes to the knowes,
Ca' them whare the heather growes,
Ca' them whare the burnie rowes--
My bonnie dearie!
Hark the mavis' evening sang
Sounding Cluden's woods amang!
Then a faulding let us gang,
My bonnie dearie.
II.
We'll gae down by Cluden side,
Thro' the hazels spreading wide,
O'er the waves that sweetly glide
To the moon sae clearly.
III.
Yonder Cluden's silent towers,
Where at moonshine midnight hours,
O'er the dewy bending flowers,
Fairies dance so cheery.
IV.
Ghaist nor bogle shalt thou fear;
Thou'rt to love and heaven sae dear,
Nocht of ill may come thee near,
My bonnie dearie.
V.
Fair and lovely as thou art,
Thou hast stown my very heart;
I can die--but canna part--
My bonnie dearie!
Ca' the yowes to the knowes,
Ca' them whare the heather growes;
Ca' them where the burnie rowes--
My bonnie dearie!
* * * * *
CCXXVI.
SHE SAYS SHE LOVES ME BEST OF A'.
Tune--"_Onagh's Waterfall._"
[The lady of the flaxen ringlets has already been noticed: she is
described in this song with the accuracy of a painter, and more than
the usual elegance of one: it is needless to add her name, or to say
how fine her form and how resistless her smiles.]
I.
Sae flaxen were her ringlets,
Her eyebrows of a darker hue,
Bewitchingly o'er-arching
Twa laughin' een o' bonnie blue.
Her smiling sae wyling,
Wad make a wretch forget his woe;
What pleasure, what treasure,
Unto these rosy lips to grow:
Such was my Chloris' bonnie face,
When first her bonnie face I saw;
And ay my Chloris' dearest charm,
She says she lo'es me best of a'.
II.
Like harmony her motion;
Her pretty ankle is a spy,
Betraying fair proportion,
Wad mak a saint forget the sky.
Sae warming, sae charming,
Her faultless form and gracefu' air;
Ilk feature--auld Nature
Declar'd that she could do nae mair:
Hers are the willing chains o' love,
By conquering beauty's sovereign law;
And ay my Chloris' dearest charm,
She says she lo'es me best of a'.
III.
Let others love the city,
And gaudy show at sunny noon;
Gie me the lonely valley,
The dewy eve, and rising moon;
Fair beaming, and streaming,
Her silver light the boughs amang;
While falling, recalling,
The amorous thrush concludes his sang;
There, dearest Chloris, wilt thou rove
By wimpling burn and leafy shaw,
And hear my vows o' truth and love,
And say thou lo'es me best of a'?
* * * * *
CCXXVII.
SAW YE MY PHELY.
[QUASI DICAT PHILLIS.]
Tune--"_When she came ben she bobbit._"
[The despairing swain in this song was Stephen Clarke, musician, and
the young lady whom he persuaded Burns to accuse of inconstancy and
coldness was Phillis M'Murdo.]
I.
O saw ye my dear, my Phely?
O saw ye my dear, my Phely?
She's down i' the grove, she's wi' a new love!
She winna come hame to her Willy.
II.
What says she, my dearest, my Phely?
What says she, my dearest, my Phely?
She lets thee to wit that she has thee forgot,
And for ever disowns thee, her Willy.
III.
O had I ne'er seen thee, my Phely!
O had I ne'er seen thee, my Phely!
As light as the air, and fause as thou's fair,
Thou's broken the heart o' thy Willy.
* * * * *
CCXXVIII.
HOW LANG AND DREARY IS THE NIGHT.
Tune--"_Cauld Kail in Aberdeen._"
[On comparing this lyric, corrected for Thomson, with that in the
Museum, it will be seen that the former has more of elegance and
order: the latter quite as much nature and truth: but there is less of
the new than of the old in both.]
I.
How lang and dreary is the night,
When I am frae my dearie;
I restless lie frae e'en to morn,
Though I were ne'er sae weary.
For oh! her lanely nights are lang;
And oh! her dreams are eerie;
And oh, her widow'd heart is sair,
That's absent frae her dearie.
II.
When I think on the lightsome days
I spent wi' thee my dearie;
And now what seas between us roar--
How can I be but eerie?
III.
How slow ye move, ye heavy hours;
The joyless day how dreary!
It was na sae ye glinted by,
When I was wi' my dearie.
For oh! her lanely nights are lang;
And oh, her dreams are eerie;
And oh, her widow'd heart is sair,
That's absent frae her dearie.
* * * * *
CCXXIX.
LET NOT WOMAN E'ER COMPLAIN.
Tune--"_Duncan Gray._"
["These English songs," thus complains the poet, in the letter which
conveyed this lyric to Thomson, "gravel me to death: I have not that
command of the language that I have of my native tongue. I have been
at 'Duncan Gray,' to dress it in English, but all I can do is
deplorably stupid. For instance:"]
I.
Let not woman e'er complain
Of inconstancy in love;
Let not woman e'er complain
Fickle man is apt to rove:
Look abroad through nature's range,
Nature's mighty law is change;
Ladies, would it not be strange,
Man should then a monster prove?
II.
Mark the winds, and mark the skies;
Ocean's ebb, and ocean's flow:
Sun find moon but set to rise,
Round and round the seasons go:
Why then ask of silly man
To oppose great nature's plan?
We'll be constant while we can--
You can be no more, you know.
* * * * *
CCXXX.
THE LOVER'S MORNING SALUTE TO HIS MISTRESS.
Tune--"_Deil tak the Wars._"
[Burns has, in one of his letters, partly intimated that this morning
salutation to Chloris was occasioned by sitting till the dawn at the
punch-bowl, and walking past her window on his way home.]
I.
Sleep'st thou, or wak'st thou, fairest creature?
Rosy Morn now lifts his eye,
Numbering ilka bud which nature
Waters wi' the tears o' joy:
Now through the leafy woods,
And by the reeking floods,
Wild nature's tenants freely, gladly stray;
The lintwhite in his bower
Chants o'er the breathing flower;
The lav'rock to the sky
Ascends wi' sangs o' joy,
While the sun and thou arise to bless the day.
II.
Phoebus gilding the brow o' morning,
Banishes ilk darksome shade,
Nature gladdening and adorning;
Such to me my lovely maid.
When absent frae my fair,
The murky shades o' care
With starless gloom o'ercast my sullen sky;
But when, in beauty's light,
She meets my ravish'd sight,
When thro' my very heart
Her beaming glories dart--
'Tis then I wake to life, to light, and joy.
* * * * *
CCXXXI.
CHLORIS.
Air--"_My lodging is on the cold ground._"
[The origin of this song is thus told by Burns to Thomson. "On my
visit the other day to my fair Chloris, that is the poetic name of the
lovely goddess of my inspiration, she suggested an idea which I, on my
return from the visit, wrought into the following song." The poetic
elevation of Chloris is great: she lived, when her charms faded, in
want, and died all but destitute.]
I.
My Chloris, mark how green the groves,
The primrose banks how fair:
The balmy gales awake the flowers,
And wave thy flaxen hair.
II.
The lav'rock shuns the palace gay,
And o'er the cottage sings;
For nature smiles as sweet, I ween,
To shepherds as to kings
III.
Let minstrels sweep the skilfu' string
In lordly lighted ha':
The shepherd stops his simple reed,
Blythe, in the birken shaw.
IV.
The princely revel may survey
Our rustic dance wi' scorn;
But are their hearts as light as ours,
Beneath the milk-white thorn?
V.
The shepherd, in the flow'ry glen,
In shepherd's phrase will woo:
The courtier tells a finer tale--
But is his heart as true?
VI.
These wild-wood flowers I've pu'd, to deck
That spotless breast o' thine:
The courtier's gems may witness love--
But 'tis na love like mine.
* * * * *
CCXXXII.
CHLOE.
Air--"_Daintie Davie._"
[Burns, despairing to fit some of the airs with such verses of
original manufacture as Thomson required, for the English part of his
collection, took the liberty of bestowing a Southron dress on some
genuine Caledonian lyrics. The origin of this song may be found in
Ramsay's miscellany: the bombast is abated, and the whole much
improved.]
I.
It was the charming month of May,
When all the flow'rs were fresh and gay,
One morning, by the break of day,
The youthful charming Chloe
From peaceful slumber she arose,
Girt on her mantle and her hose,
And o'er the flowery mead she goes,
The youthful charming Chloe.
Lovely was she by the dawn,
Youthful Chloe, charming Chloe,
Tripping o'er the pearly lawn,
The youthful charming Chloe.
II.
The feather'd people you might see,
Perch'd all around, on every tree,
In notes of sweetest melody
They hail the charming Chloe;
Till painting gay the eastern skies,
The glorious sun began to rise,
Out-rivall'd by the radiant eyes
Of youthful, charming Chloe.
Lovely was she by the dawn,
Youthful Chloe, charming Chloe,
Tripping o'er the pearly lawn,
The youthful, charming Chloe.
* * * * *
CCXXXIII.
LASSIE WI' THE LINT-WHITE LOCKS.
Tune--"_Rothemurche's Rant._"
["Conjugal love," says the poet, "is a passion which I deeply feel and
highly venerate: but somehow it does not make such a figure in poesie
as that other species of the passion, where love is liberty and nature
law. Musically speaking, the first is an instrument of which the gamut
is scanty and confined, but the tones inexpressibly sweet, while the
last has powers equal to all the intellectual modulations of the human
soul." It must be owned that the bard could render very pretty reasons
for his rapture about Jean Lorimer.]
I.
Lassie wi' the lint-white locks,
Bonnie lassie, artless lassie,
Wilt thou wi' me tent the flocks?
Wilt thou be my dearie, O?
Now nature cleeds the flowery lea,
And a' is young and sweet like thee;
O wilt thou share its joy wi' me,
And say thoul't be my dearie, O?
II.
And when the welcome simmer shower
Has cheer'd ilk drooping little flower,
We'll to the breathing woodbine bower
At sultry noon, my dearie, O.
III.
When Cynthia lights wi' silver ray,
The weary shearer's hameward way;
Thro' yellow waving fields we'll stray,
And talk o' love my dearie, O.
IV.
And when the howling wintry blast
Disturbs my lassie's midnight rest;
Enclasped to my faithfu' breast,
I'll comfort thee, my dearie, O.
Lassie wi' the lint-white locks,
Bonnie lassie, artless lassie,
Wilt thou wi' me tent the flocks?
Wilt thou be my dearie, O?
* * * * *
CCXXXIV.
FAREWELL, THOU STREAM.
Air--"_Nancy's to the greenwood gane._"
[This song was written in November, 1794: Thomson pronounced it
excellent.]
I.
Farewell, thou stream that winding flows
Around Eliza's dwelling!
O mem'ry! spare the cruel throes
Within my bosom swelling:
Condemn'd to drag a hopeless chain,
And yet in secret languish,
To feel a fire in ev'ry vein,
Nor dare disclose my anguish.
II.
Love's veriest wretch, unseen, unknown,
I fain my griefs would cover;
The bursting sigh, th' unweeting groan,
Betray the hapless lover.
I know thou doom'st me to despair,
Nor wilt, nor canst relieve me;
But oh, Eliza, hear one prayer--
For pity's sake forgive me!
III.
The music of thy voice I heard,
Nor wist while it enslav'd me;
I saw thine eyes, yet nothing fear'd,
'Till fears no more had sav'd me:
The unwary sailor thus aghast,
The wheeling torrent viewing;
'Mid circling horrors sinks at last
In overwhelming ruin.
* * * * *
CCXXXV.
O PHILLY, HAPPY BE THAT DAY.
Tune-"_The Sow's Tail._"
["This morning" (19th November, 1794), "though a keen blowing frost,"
Burns writes to Thomson, "in my walk before breakfast I finished my
duet: whether I have uniformly succeeded, I will not say: but here it
is for you, though it is not an hour old."]
HE.
O Philly, happy be that day,
When roving through the gather'd hay,
My youthfu' heart was stown away,
And by thy charms, my Philly.
SHE.
O Willy, ay I bless the grove
Where first I own'd my maiden love,
Whilst thou didst pledge the powers above,
To be my ain dear Willy.
HE.
As songsters of the early year
Are ilka day mair sweet to hear,
So ilka day to me mair dear
And charming is my Philly.
SHE.
As on the brier the budding rose
Still richer breathes and fairer blows,
So in my tender bosom grows
The love I bear my Willy.
HE.
The milder sun and bluer sky
That crown my harvest cares wi' joy,
Were ne'er sae welcome to my eye
As is a sight o' Philly.
SHE.
The little swallow's wanton wing,
Tho' wafting o'er the flowery spring,
Did ne'er to me sic tidings bring,
As meeting o' my Willy.
HE.
The bee that thro' the sunny hour
Sips nectar in the opening flower,
Compar'd wi' my delight is poor,
Upon the lips o' Philly.
SHE.
The woodbine in the dewy weet
When evening shades in silence meet,
Is nocht sae fragrant or sae sweet
As is a kiss o' Willy.
HE.
Let Fortune's wheel at random rin,
And fools may tyne, and knaves may win
My thoughts are a' bound up in ane,
And that's my ain dear Philly.
SHE.
What's a' joys that gowd can gie?
I care nae wealth a single flie;
The lad I love's the lad for me,
And that's my ain dear Willy.
* * * * *
CCXXXVI.
CONTENTED WI' LITTLE.
Tune--"_Lumps o' Pudding._"
[Burns was an admirer of many songs which the more critical and
fastidious regarded as rude and homely. "Todlin Hame" he called an
unequalled composition for wit and humour, and "Andro wi' his cutty
Gun," the work of a master. In the same letter, where he records
these sentiments, he writes his own inimitable song, "Contented wi'
Little."]
I.
Contented wi' little, and cantie wi' mair,
Whene'er I forgather wi' sorrow end care,
I gie them a skelp, as they're creepin alang,
Wi' a cog o' guid swats, and an auld Scottish sang.
II.
I whyles claw the elbow o' troublesome thought;
But man is a sodger, and life is a faught:
My mirth and guid humour are coin in my pouch,
And my freedom's my lairdship nae monarch dare touch.
III.
A towmond o' trouble, should that be my fa',
A night o' guid fellowship sowthers it a':
When at the blithe end o' our journey at last,
Wha the deil ever thinks o' the road he has past?
IV.
Blind chance, let her snapper and stoyte on her way;
Be't to me, be't frae me, e'en let the jade gae:
Come ease, or come travail; come pleasure or pain;
My warst word is--"Welcome, and welcome again!"
* * * * *
CCXXXVII.
CANST THOU LEAVE ME THUS.
Tune--"_Roy's Wife._"
[When Burns transcribed the following song for Thomson, on the 20th of
November, 1794, he added, "Well! I think this, to be done in two or
three turns across my room, and with two or three pinches of Irish
blackguard, is not so far amiss. You see I am resolved to have my
quantum of applause from somebody." The poet in this song complains of
the coldness of Mrs. Riddel: the lady replied in a strain equally
tender and forgiving.]
I.
Canst thou leave me thus, my Katy?
Canst thou leave me thus, my Katy?
Well thou know'st my aching heart--
And canst thou leave me thus for pity?
In this thy plighted, fond regard,
Thus cruelly to part, my Katy?
Is this thy faithful swain's reward--
An aching, broken heart, my Katy!
II.
Farewell! and ne'er such sorrows tear
That fickle heart of thine, my Katy!
Thou may'st find those will love thee dear--
But not a love like mine, my Katy!
Canst thou leave me thus, my Katy?
Canst thou leave me thus, my Katy?
Well thou know'st my aching heart--
And canst thou leave me thus for pity?
* * * * *
CCXXXVIII.
MY NANNIE'S AWA.
Tune--"_There'll never be peace._"
[Clarinda, tradition avers, was the inspirer of this song, which the
poet composed in December, 1794, for the work of Thomson. His thoughts
were often in Edinburgh: on festive occasions, when, as Campbell
beautifully says, "The wine-cup shines in light," he seldom forgot to
toast Mrs. Mac.]
I.
Now in her green mantle blythe nature arrays,
And listens the lambkins that bleat o'er the braes,
While birds warble welcome in ilka green shaw;
But to me it's delightless--my Nannie's awa!
II.
The snaw-drap and primrose our woodlands adorn,
And violets bathe in the weet o' the morn;
They pain my sad bosom, sae sweetly they blaw,
They mind me o' Nannie--and Nanny's awa!
III.
Thou lav'rock that springs frae the dews of the lawn,
The shepherd to warn o' the gray-breaking dawn,
And thou mellow mavis that hails the night fa',
Give over for pity--my Nannie's awa!
IV.
Come autumn sae pensive, in yellow and gray,
And soothe me with tidings o' nature's decay:
The dark dreary winter, and wild driving snaw,
Alane can delight me--now Nannie's awa!
* * * * *
CCXXXIX.
O WHA IS SHE THAT LOVES ME.
Tune--"_Morag._"
["This song," says Sir Harris Nicolas, "is said, in Thomson's
collection, to have been written for that work by Burns: but it is not
included in Mr. Cunningham's edition." If sir Harris would be so good
as to look at page 245; vol. V., of Cunningham's edition of Burns, he
will find the song; and if he will look at page 28, and page 193 of
vol. III., of his own edition, he will find that he has not committed
the error of which he accuses his fellow-editor, for he has inserted
the same song twice. The same may be said of the song to Chloris,
which Sir Harris has printed at page 312, vol. II,. and at page 189,
vol. III., and of "Ae day a braw wooer came down the lang glen," which
appears both at page 224 of vol. II., and at page 183 of vol, III.]
I.
O wha is she that lo'es me,
And has my heart a-keeping?
O sweet is she that lo'es me,
As dews of simmer weeping,
In tears the rosebuds steeping!
O that's the lassie of my heart,
My lassie ever dearer;
O that's the queen of womankind,
And ne'er a ane to peer her.
II.
If thou shalt meet a lassie
In grace and beauty charming,
That e'en thy chosen lassie,
Erewhile thy breast sae warming
Had ne'er sic powers alarming.
III.
If thou hadst heard her talking,
And thy attentions plighted,
That ilka body talking,
But her by thee is slighted,
And thou art all delighted.
IV.
If thou hast met this fair one;
When frae her thou hast parted,
If every other fair one,
But her, thou hast deserted,
And thou art broken-hearted;
O that's the lassie o' my heart,
My lassie ever dearer;
O that's the queen o' womankind,
And ne'er a ane to peer her.
* * * * *
CCXL.
CALEDONIA.
Tune--"_Caledonian Hunt's Delight._"
[There is both knowledge of history and elegance of allegory in this
singular lyric: it was first printed by Currie.]
I.
There was once a day--but old Time then was young--
That brave Caledonia, the chief of her line,
From some of your northern deities sprung,
(Who knows not that brave Caledonia's divine?)
From Tweed to the Orcades was her domain,
To hunt, or to pasture, or do what she would:
Her heav'nly relations there fixed her reign,
And pledg'd her their godheads to warrant it good.
II.
A lambkin in peace, but a lion in war,
The pride of her kindred the heroine grew;
Her grandsire, old Odin, triumphantly swore
"Whoe'er shall provoke thee, th' encounter shall rue!"
With tillage or pasture at times she would sport,
To feed her fair flocks by her green rustling corn;
But chiefly the woods were her fav'rite resort,
Her darling amusement, the hounds and the horn.
III.
Long quiet she reign'd; till thitherward steers
A flight of bold eagles from Adria's strand:
Repeated, successive, for many long years,
They darken'd the air, and they plunder'd the land:
Their pounces were murder, and terror their cry,
They'd conquer'd and ruin'd a world beside;
She took to her hills, and her arrows let fly--
The daring invaders they fled or they died.
IV.
The fell harpy-raven took wing from the north,
The scourge of the seas, and the dread of the shore;
The wild Scandinavian boar issu'd forth
To wanton in carnage, and wallow in gore;
O'er countries and kingdoms their fury prevail'd,
No arts could appease them, no arms could repel;
But brave Caledonia in vain they assail'd,
As Largs well can witness, and Loncartie tell.
V.
The Cameleon-savage disturbed her repose,
With tumult, disquiet, rebellion, and strife;
Provok'd beyond bearing, at last she arose,
And robb'd him at once of his hope and his life:
The Anglian lion, the terror of France,
Oft prowling, ensanguin'd the Tweed's silver flood:
But, taught by the bright Caledonian lance,
He learned to fear in his own native wood.
VI.
Thus bold, independent, unconquer'd, and free,
Her bright course of glory for ever shall run:
For brave Caledonia immortal must be;
I'll prove it from Euclid as clear as the sun:
Rectangle-triangle, the figure we'll choose,
The upright is Chance, and old Time is the base;
But brave Caledonia's the hypothenuse;
Then ergo, she'll match them, and match them always.
* * * * *
CCXLI.
O LAY THY LOOF IN MINE, LASS.
Tune--"_Cordwainer's March._"
[The air to which these verses were written, is commonly played at the
Saturnalia of the shoemakers on King Crispin's day. Burns sent it to
the Museum.]
I.
O lay thy loof in mine, lass,
In mine, lass, in mine, lass;
And swear on thy white hand, lass,
That thou wilt be my ain.
A slave to love's unbounded sway,
He aft has wrought me meikle wae;
But now he is my deadly fae,
Unless thou be my ain.
II.
There's monie a lass has broke my rest,
That for a blink I hae lo'ed best;
But thou art queen within my breast,
For ever to remain.
O lay thy loof in mine, lass,
In mine, lass, in mine, lass;
And swear on thy white hand, lass,
That thou wilt be my ain.
* * * * *
CCXLII.
THE FETE CHAMPETRE.
Tune--"_Killiecrankie._"
[Written to introduce the name of Cunninghame, of Enterkin, to the
public. Tents were erected on the banks of Ayr, decorated with shrubs,
and strewn with flowers, most of the names of note in the district
were invited, and a splendid entertainment took place; but no
dissolution of parliament followed as was expected, and the Lord of
Enterkin, who was desirous of a seat among the "Commons," poured out
his wine in vain.]
I.
O wha will to Saint Stephen's house,
To do our errands there, man?
O wha will to Saint Stephen's house,
O' th' merry lads of Ayr, man?
Or will we send a man-o'-law?
Or will we send a sodger?
Or him wha led o'er Scotland a'
The meikle Ursa-Major?
II.
Come, will ye court a noble lord,
Or buy a score o' lairds, man?
For worth and honour pawn their word,
Their vote shall be Glencaird's, man?
Ane gies them coin, ane gies them wine,
Anither gies them clatter;
Anbank, wha guess'd the ladies' taste,
He gies a Fête Champêtre.
III.
When Love and Beauty heard the news,
The gay green-woods amang, man;
Where gathering flowers and busking bowers,
They heard the blackbird's sang, man;
A vow, they seal'd it with a kiss,
Sir Politicks to fetter,
As theirs alone, the patent-bliss
To hold a Fête Champêtre.
IV.
Then mounted Mirth, on gleesome wing,
O'er hill and dale she flew, man;
Ilk wimpling burn, ilk crystal spring,
Ilk glen and shaw she knew, man:
She summon'd every social sprite
That sports by wood or water,
On th' bonny banks of Ayr to meet,
And keep this Fête Champêtre.
V.
Cauld Boreas, wi' his boisterous crew,
Were bound to stakes like kye, man;
And Cynthia's car, o' silver fu',
Clamb up the starry sky, man:
Reflected beams dwell in the streams,
Or down the current shatter;
The western breeze steals thro' the trees,
To view this Fête Champêtre.
VI.
How many a robe sae gaily floats!
What sparkling jewels glance, man!
To Harmony's enchanting notes,
As moves the mazy dance, man.
The echoing wood, the winding flood,
Like Paradise did glitter,
When angels met, at Adam's yett,
To hold their Fête Champêtre.
VII.
When Politics came there, to mix
And make his ether-stane, man!
He circled round the magic ground,
But entrance found he nane, man:
He blush'd for shame, he quat his name,
Forswore it, every letter,
Wi' humble prayer to join and share
This festive Fête Champêtre.
* * * * *
CCXLIII.
HERE'S A HEALTH.
Tune--"_Here's a health to them that's awa._"
[The Charlie of this song was Charles Fox; Tammie was Lord Erskine;
and M'Leod, the maiden name of the Countess of Loudon, was then, as
now, a name of influence both in the Highlands and Lowlands. The buff
and blue of the Whigs had triumphed over the white rose of Jacobitism
in the heart of Burns, when he wrote these verses.]
I.
Here's a health to them that's awa,
Here's a health to them that's awa;
And wha winna wish guid luck to our cause,
May never guid luck be their fa'!
It's guid to be merry and wise,
It's guid to be honest and true,
It's good to support Caldonia's cause,
And bide by the buff and the blue.
II.
Here's a health to them that's awa,
Here's a health to them that's awa,
Here's a health to Charlie the chief of the clan,
Altho' that his band be sma'.
May liberty meet wi' success!
May prudence protect her frae evil!
May tyrants and tyranny tine in the mist,
And wander their way to the devil!
III.
Here's a health to them that's awa,
Here's a health to them that's awa;
Here's a health to Tammie, the Norland laddie,
That lives at the lug o' the law!
Here's freedom to him that wad read,
Here's freedom to him that wad write!
There's nane ever fear'd that the truth should be heard,
But they wham the truth wad indite.
IV.
Here's a health to them that's awa,
Here's a health to them that's awa,
Here's Chieftain M'Leod, a chieftain worth gowd,
Tho' bred amang mountains o' snaw!
Here's a health to them that's awa,
Here's a health to them that's awa;
And wha winna wish guid luck to our cause,
May never guid luck be their fa'!
* * * * *
CCXLIV.
IS THERE, FOR HONEST POVERTY.
Tune--"_For a' that, and a' that._"
[In this noble lyric Burns has vindicated the natural right of his
species. He modestly says to Thomson, "I do not give you this song for
your book, but merely by way of _vive la bagatelle_; for the piece is
really not poetry, but will be allowed to be two or three pretty good
prose thoughts inverted into rhyme." Thomson took the song, but
hazarded no praise.]
I.
Is there, for honest poverty,
That hangs his head, and a' that?
The coward-slave, we pass him by,
We dare be poor for a' that!
For a' that, and a' that,
Our toils obscure, and a' that;
The rank is but the guinea's stamp,
The man's the gowd for a' that!
II.
What tho' on hamely fare we dine,
Wear hoddin gray, and a' that;
Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine,
A man's a man, for a' that!
For a' that, and a' that,
Their tinsel show, and a' that;
The honest man, though e'er sae poor,
Is king o' men for a' that!
III.
Ye see yon birkie, ca'd--a lord,
Wha struts, and stares, and a' that;
Though hundreds worship at his word,
He's but a coof for a' that:
For a' that, and a' that,
His riband, star, and a' that,
The man of independent mind,
He looks and laughs at a' that.
IV.
A king can make a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, and a' that,
But an honest man's aboon his might,
Guid faith, he maunna fa' that!
For a' that, and a' that,
Their dignities, and a' that,
The pith o' sense, and pride o' worth,
Are higher ranks than a' that.
V.
Then let us pray that come it may--
As come it will for a' that--
That sense and worth, o'er a' the earth,
May bear the gree, and a' that;
For a' that, and a' that,
It's comin' yet for a' that,
That man to man, the warld o'er,
Shall brothers be for a' that!
* * * * *
CCXLV.
CRAIGIE-BURN WOOD.
[Craigie-burn Wood was written for George Thomson: the heroine was
Jean Lorimer. How often the blooming looks and elegant forms of very
indifferent characters lend a lasting lustre to painting and poetry.]
I.
Sweet fa's the eve on Craigie-burn,
And blithe awakes the morrow;
But a' the pride o' spring's return
Can yield me nocht but sorrow.
II.
I see the flowers and spreading trees
I hear the wild birds singing;
But what a weary wight can please,
And care his bosom wringing?
III.
Fain, fain would I my griefs impart,
Yet dare na for your anger;
But secret love will break my heart,
If I conceal it langer.
IV.
If thou refuse to pity me,
If thou shall love anither,
When yon green leaves fade frae the tree,
Around my grave they'll wither.
* * * * *
CCXLVI.
O LASSIE, ART THOU SLEEPING YET.
Tune--"_Let me in this ae night._"
[The thoughts of Burns, it is said, wandered to the fair Mrs. Riddel,
of Woodleigh Park, while he composed this song for Thomson. The idea
is taken from an old lyric, of more spirit than decorum.]
I.
O Lassie, art thou sleeping yet,
Or art thou waking, I would wit?
For love has bound me hand and foot,
And I would fain be in, jo.
O let me in this ae night,
This ae, ae, ae night;
For pity's sake this ae night,
O rise and let me in, jo!
II.
Thou hear'st the winter wind and weet!
Nae star blinks thro' the driving sleet:
Tak pity on my weary feet,
And shield me frae the rain, jo.
III.
The bitter blast that round me blaws,
Unheeded howls, unheeded fa's;
The cauldness o' thy heart's the cause
Of a' my grief and pain, jo.
O let me in this ae night,
This ae, ae, ae night;
For pity's sake this ae night,
O rise and let me in, jo!
* * * * *
CCXLVII.
O TELL NA ME O' WIND AND RAIN.
[The poet's thoughts, as rendered in the lady's answer, are, at all
events, not borrowed from the sentiments expressed by Mrs. Riddel,
alluded to in song CCXXXVII.; there she is tender and forgiving: here
she in stern and cold.]
I.
O tell na me o' wind and rain,
Upbraid na me wi' cauld disdain!
Gae back the gate ye cam again,
I winna let you in, jo.
I tell you now this ae night,
This ae, ae, ae night,
And ance for a' this ae night,
I winna let you in, jo!
II.
The snellest blast, at mirkest hours,
That round the pathless wand'rer pours,
Is nocht to what poor she endures,
That's trusted faithless man, jo.
III.
The sweetest flower that deck'd the mead,
Now trodden like the vilest weed:
Let simple maid the lesson read,
The weird may be her ain, jo.
IV.
The bird that charm'd his summer-day,
Is now the cruel fowler's prey;
Let witless, trusting woman say
How aft her fate's the same, jo.
I tell you now this ae night,
This ae, ae, ae night;
And ance for a' this ae night,
I winna let you in jo!
* * * * *
CCXLVIII.
THE DUMFRIES VOLUNTEERS.
Tune--"_Push about the jorum._"
[This national song was composed in April, 1795. The poet had been at
a public meeting, where he was less joyous than usual: as something
had been expected from him, he made these verses, when he went home,
and sent them, with his compliments, to Mr. Jackson, editor of the
Dumfries Journal. The original, through the kindness of my friend,
James Milligan, Esq., is now before me.]
I.
Does haughty Gaul invasion threat,
Then let the loons beware, Sir,
There's wooden walls upon our seas,
And volunteers on shore, Sir.
The Nith shall run to Corsincon,
And Criffel sink in Solway,
Ere we permit a foreign foe
On British ground to rally!
II.
O let us not, like snarling tykes,
In wrangling be divided;
Till slap come in an unco loon
And wi' a rung decide it.
Be Britain still to Britain true,
Amang oursels united;
For never but by British hands
Maun British wrangs be righted!
III.
The kettle o' the kirk and state,
Perhaps a clout may fail in't;
But deil a foreign tinkler loon
Shall ever ca' a nail in't.
Our fathers' bluid the kettle bought,
And wha wad dare to spoil it;
By heaven! the sacrilegious dog
Shall fuel be to boil it.
IV.
The wretch that wad a tyrant own,
And the wretch his true-born brother,
Who would set the mob aboon the throne,
May they be damned together!
Who will not sing, "God save the King,"
Shall hang as high's the steeple;
But while we sing, "God save the King,"
We'll ne'er forget the people.
* * * * *
CCXLIX.
ADDRESS TO THE WOOD-LARK.
Tune--"_Where'll bonnie Ann lie._"
[The old song to the same air is yet remembered: but the humour is
richer than the delicacy; the same may be said of many of the fine
hearty lyrics of the elder days of Caledonia. These verses were
composed in May, 1795, for Thomson.]
I.
O stay, sweet warbling woodlark, stay!
Nor quit for me the trembling spray;
A hapless lover courts thy lay,
Thy soothing fond complaining.
II.
Again, again that tender part,
That I may catch thy melting art;
For surely that would touch her heart,
Wha kills me wi' disdaining.
III.
Say, was thy little mate unkind,
And heard thee as the careless wind?
Oh, nocht but love and sorrow join'd,
Sic notes o' woe could wauken.
IV.
Thou tells o' never-ending care;
O' speechless grief and dark despair:
For pity's sake, sweet bird, nae mair!
Or my poor heart is broken!
* * * * *
CCL.
ON CHLORIS BEING ILL.
Tune--"_Ay wakin', O._"
[An old and once popular lyric suggested this brief and happy song for
Thomson: some of the verses deserve to be held in remembrance.
Ay waking, oh,
Waking ay and weary;
Sleep I canna get
For thinking o' my dearie.]
I.
Long, long the night,
Heavy comes the morrow,
While my soul's delight
Is on her bed of sorrow.
Can I cease to care?
Can I cease to languish?
While my darling fair
Is on the couch of anguish?
II.
Every hope is fled,
Every fear is terror;
Slumber even I dread,
Every dream is horror.
III.
Hear me, Pow'rs divine!
Oh, in pity hear me!
Take aught else of mine,
But my Chloris spare me!
Long, long the night,
Heavy comes the morrow,
While my soul's delight
Is on her bed of sorrow.
* * * * *
CCLI.
CALEDONIA.
Tune--"_Humours of Glen._"
[Love of country often mingles in the lyric strains of Burns with his
personal attachments, and in few more beautifully than in the
following, written for Thomson the heroine was Mrs. Burns.]
I.
Their groves o' sweet myrtle let foreign lands reckon,
Where bright-beaming summers exalt the perfume;
Far dearer to me yon lone glen o' green brockan,
Wi' the burn stealing under the lang yellow broom:
Far dearer to me are yon humble broom bowers,
Where the blue-bell and gowan lurk lowly unseen;
For there, lightly tripping amang the wild flowers,
A listening the linnet, aft wanders my Jean.
II.
Tho' rich is the breeze in their gay sunny valleys,
And cauld CALEDONIA'S blast on the wave;
Their sweet-scented woodlands that skirt the proud palace,
What are they?--The haunt of the tyrant and slave!
The slave's spicy forests, and gold-bubbling fountains,
The brave Caledonian views wi' disdain;
He wanders as free as the winds of his mountains,
Save love's willing fetters, the chains o' his Jean.
* * * * *
CCLII.
'TWAS NA HER BONNIE BLUE EEN.
Tune--"_Laddie, lie near me._"
[Though the lady who inspired these verses is called Mary by the poet,
such, says tradition, was not her name: yet tradition, even in this,
wavers, when it avers one while that Mrs. Riddel, and at another time
that Jean Lorimer was the heroine.]
I.
'Twas na her bonnie blue een was my ruin;
Fair tho' she be, that was ne'er my undoing:
'Twas the dear smile when naebody did mind us,
'Twas the bewitching, sweet stown glance o' kindness.
II.
Sair do I fear that to hope is denied me,
Sair do I fear that despair maun abide me!
But tho' fell fortune should fate us to sever,
Queen shall she be in my bosom for ever.
III.
Mary, I'm thine wi' a passion sincerest,
And thou hast plighted me love o' the dearest!
And thou'rt the angel that never can alter--
Sooner the sun in his motion would falter.
* * * * *
CCLIII.
HOW CRUEL ARE THE PARENTS.
Tune--"_John Anderson, my jo._"
["I am at this moment," says Burns to Thomson, when he sent him this
song, "holding high converse with the Muses, and have not a word to
throw away on a prosaic dog, such as you are." Yet there is less than
the poet's usual inspiration in this lyric, for it is altered from an
English one.]
I.
How cruel are the parents
Who riches only prize,
And, to the wealthy booby,
Poor woman sacrifice!
Meanwhile the hapless daughter
Has but a choice of strife;
To shun a tyrant father's hate,
Become a wretched wife.
II.
The ravening hawk pursuing,
The trembling dove thus flies,
To shun impelling ruin
Awhile her pinions tries:
Till of escape despairing,
No shelter or retreat,
She trusts the ruthless falconer,
And drops beneath his feet!
* * * * *
CCLIV.
MARK YONDER POMP.
Tune--"_Deil tak the wars._"
[Burns tells Thomson, in the letter enclosing this song, that he is in
a high fit of poetizing, provided he is not cured by the
strait-waistcoat of criticism. "You see," said he, "how I answer your
orders; your tailor could not be more punctual." This strain in honour
of Chloris is original in conception, but wants the fine lyrical flow
of some of his other compositions.]
I.
Mark yonder pomp of costly fashion
Round the wealthy, titled bride:
But when compar'd with real passion,
Poor is all that princely pride.
What are the showy treasures?
What are the noisy pleasures?
The gay gaudy glare of vanity and art:
The polish'd jewel's blaze
May draw the wond'ring gaze,
And courtly grandeur bright
The fancy may delight,
But never, never can come near the heart.
II.
But did you see my dearest Chloris
In simplicity's array;
Lovely as yonder sweet opening flower is,
Shrinking from the gaze of day;
O then the heart alarming,
And all resistless charming,
In Love's delightful fetters she chains the willing soul!
Ambition would disown
The world's imperial crown,
Even Avarice would deny
His worship'd deity,
And feel thro' every vein Love's raptures roll.
* * * * *
CCLV.
THIS IS NO MY AIN LASSIE.
Tune--"_This is no my ain house._"
[Though composed to the order of Thomson, and therefore less likely to
be the offspring of unsolicited inspiration, this is one of the
happiest modern songs. When the poet wrote it, he seems to have been
beside the "fair dame at whose shrine," he said, "I, the priest of the
Nine, offer up the incense of Parnassus."]
I.
O this is no my ain lassie,
Fair tho' the lassie be;
O weel ken I my ain lassie,
Kind love is in her e'e.
I see a form, I see a face,
Ye weel may wi' the fairest place:
It wants, to me, the witching grace,
The kind love that's in her e'e.
II.
She's bonnie, blooming, straight, and tall,
And lang has had my heart in thrall;
And ay it charms my very saul,
The kind love that's in her e'e.
III.
A thief sae pawkie is my Jean,
To steal a blink, by a' unseen;
But gleg as light are lovers' een,
When kind love is in the e'e.
IV.
It may escape the courtly sparks,
It may escape the learned clerks;
But weel the watching lover marks
The kind love that's in her e'e.
O this is no my ain lassie,
Fair tho' the lassie be;
O weel ken I my ain lassie,
Kind love is in her e'e.
* * * * *
CCLVI.
NOW SPRING HAS CLAD THE
GROVE IN GREEN.
TO MR. CUNNINGHAM.
[Composed in reference to a love disappointment of the poet's friend,
Alexander Cunningham, which also occasioned the song beginning,
"Had I a cave on some wild distant shore."]
I.
Now spring has clad the grove in green,
And strew'd the lea wi' flowers:
The furrow'd waving corn is seen
Rejoice in fostering showers;
While ilka thing in nature join
Their sorrows to forego,
O why thus all alone are mine
The weary steps of woe?
II.
The trout within yon wimpling burn
Glides swift, a silver dart,
And safe beneath the shady thorn
Defies the angler's art:
My life was ance that careless stream,
That wanton trout was I;
But love, wi' unrelenting beam,
Has scorch'd my fountains dry.
III.
The little flow'ret's peaceful lot,
In yonder cliff that grows,
Which, save the linnet's flight, I wot,
Nae ruder visit knows,
Was mine; till love has o'er me past,
And blighted a' my bloom,
And now beneath the with'ring blast
My youth and joy consume.
IV.
The waken'd lav'rock warbling springs
And climbs the early sky,
Winnowing blythe her dewy wings
In morning's rosy eye;
As little reckt I sorrow's power,
Until the flow'ry snare
O' witching love, in luckless hour,
Made me the thrall o' care.
V.
O had my fate been Greenland snows,
Or Afric's burning zone,
Wi' man and nature leagu'd my foes,
So Peggy ne'er I'd known!
The wretch whase doom is, "hope nae mair."
What tongue his woes can tell!
Within whase bosom, save despair,
Nae kinder spirits dwell.
* * * * *
CCLVII.
O BONNIE WAS YON ROSY BRIER.
[To Jean Lorimer, the heroine of this song, Burns presented a copy of
the last edition of his poems, that of 1793, with a dedicatory
inscription, in which he moralizes upon her youth, her beauty, and
steadfast friendship, and signs himself Coila.]
I.
O Bonnie was yon rosy brier,
That blooms sae far frae haunt o' man,
And bonnie she, and ah, how dear!
It shaded frae the e'enin sun.
II.
Yon rosebuds in the morning dew
How pure, amang the leaves sae green:
But purer was the lover's vow
They witness'd in their shade yestreen.
III.
All in its rude and prickly bower,
That crimson rose, how sweet and fair!
But love is far a sweeter flower
Amid life's thorny path o' care.
IV.
The pathless wild, and wimpling burn,
Wi' Chloris in my arms, be mine;
And I the world, nor wish, nor scorn,
Its joys and griefs alike resign.
* * * * *
CCLVIII.
FORLORN, MY LOVE, NO COMFORT
NEAR.
Tune--"_Let me in this ae night._"
["How do you like the foregoing?" Burns asks Thomson, after having
copies this song for his collection. "I have written it within this
hour: so much for the speed of my Pegasus: but what say you to his
bottom?"]
I.
Forlorn, my love, no comfort near,
Far, far from thee, I wander here;
Far, far from thee, the fate severe
At which I most repine, love.
O wert thou, love, but near me;
But near, near, near me;
How kindly thou wouldst cheer me,
And mingle sighs with mine, love
II.
Around me scowls a wintry sky,
That blasts each bud of hope and joy;
And shelter, shade, nor home have I,
Save in those arms of thine, love.
III.
Cold, alter'd friendship's cruel part,
To poison Fortune's ruthless dart,
Let me not break thy faithful heart,
And say that fate is mine, love.
IV.
But dreary tho' the moments fleet,
O let me think we yet shall meet!
That only ray of solace sweet
Can on thy Chloris shine, love.
O wert thou, love, but near me;
But near, near, near me;
How kindly thou wouldst cheer me,
And mingle sighs with mine, love.
* * * * *
CCLIX.
LAST MAY A BRAW WOOER.
Tune--"_The Lothian Lassie._"
["Gateslack," says Burns to Thomson, "is the name of a particular
place, a kind of passage among the Lowther Hills, on the confines of
Dumfrieshire: Dalgarnock, is also the name of a romantic spot near the
Nith, where are still a ruined church and burial-ground." To this, it
may be added that Dalgarnock kirk-yard is the scene where the author
of Waverley finds Old Mortality repairing the Cameronian
grave-stones.]
I.
Last May a braw wooer cam down the lang glen,
And sair wi' his love he did deave me;
I said there was naething I hated like men,
The deuce gae wi'm, to believe, believe me,
The deuce gae wi'm, to believe me!
II.
He spak o' the darts in my bonnie black een,
And vow'd for my love, he was dying;
I said he might die when he liked for Jean,
The Lord forgie me for lying, for lying,
The Lord forgie me for lying!
III.
A weel-stocked mailen--himsel' for the laird--
And marriage aff-hand, were his proffers:
I never loot on that I kenn'd it, or car'd,
But thought I may hae waur offers, waur offers,
But thought I might hae waur offers.
IV.
But what wad ye think? In a fortnight or less--
The deil tak his taste to gae near her!
He up the Gateslack to my black cousin Bess,
Guess ye how, the jad! I could bear her, could bear her,
Guess ye how, the jad! I could bear her.
V.
But a' the niest week as I fretted wi' care,
I gaed to the tryste o' Dalgarnock,
And wha but my fine fickle lover was there!
I glowr'd as I'd seen a warlock, a warlock,
I glowr'd as I'd seen a warlock.
VI.
But owre my left shouther I gae him a blink,
Lest neebors might say I was saucy;
My wooer he caper'd as he'd been in drink,
And vow'd I was his dear lassie, dear lassie,
And vow'd I was his dear lassie.
VII.
I spier'd for my cousin fu' couthy and sweet,
Gin she had recovered her hearin',
And how my auld shoon suited her shauchled feet,
But, heavens! how he fell a swearin', a swearin',
But, heavens! how he fell a swearin'.
VIII.
He begged, for Gudesake, I wad be his wife,
Or else I wad kill him wi' sorrow;
So, e'en to preserve the poor body in life,
I think I maun wed him to-morrow, to-morrow,
I think I maun wed him to morrow.
* * * * *
CCLX.
CHLORIS.
Tune--"_Caledonian Hunt's Delight._"
["I am at present," says Burns to Thomson, when he communicated these
verses, "quite occupied with the charming sensations of the toothache,
so have not a word to spare--such is the peculiarity of the rhythm of
this air, that I find it impossible to make another stanza to suit
it." This is the last of his strains in honour of Chloris.]
I.
Why, why tell thy lover,
Bliss he never must enjoy:
Why, why undeceive him,
And give all his hopes the lie?
II.
O why, while fancy raptured, slumbers,
Chloris, Chloris all the theme,
Why, why wouldst thou, cruel,
Wake thy lover from his dream?
* * * * *
CCLXI.
THE HIGHLAND WIDOW'S LAMENT.
[This song is said to be Burns's version of a Gaelic lament for the
ruin which followed the rebellion of the year 1745: he sent it to the
Museum.]
I.
Oh! I am come to the low countrie,
Och-on, och-on, och-rie!
Without a penny in my purse,
To buy a meal to me.
II.
It was na sae in the Highland hills,
Och-on, och-on, och-rie!
Nae woman in the country wide
Sae happy was as me.
III.
For then I had a score o' kye,
Och-on, och-on, och-rie!
Feeding on yon hills so high,
And giving milk to me.
IV.
And there I had three score o' yowes,
Och-on, och-on, och-rie!
Skipping on yon bonnie knowes,
And casting woo' to me.
V.
I was the happiest of a' the clan,
Sair, sair, may I repine;
For Donald was the brawest lad,
And Donald he was mine.
VI.
Till Charlie Stewart cam' at last,
Sae far to set us free;
My Donald's arm was wanted then,
For Scotland and for me.
VII.
Their waefu' fate what need I tell,
Right to the wrang did yield:
My Donald and his country fell
Upon Culloden's field.
VIII.
Oh! I am come to the low countrie,
Och-on, och-on, och-rie!
Nae woman in the world wide
Sae wretched now as me.
* * * * *
CCLXII.
TO GENERAL DUMOURIER.
PARODY ON ROBIN ADAIR.
[Burns wrote this "Welcome" on the unexpected defection of General
Dumourier.]
I.
You're welcome to despots, Dumourier;
You're welcome to despots, Dumourier;
How does Dampiere do?
Aye, and Bournonville, too?
Why did they not come along with you, Dumourier?
II.
I will fight France with you, Dumourier;
I will fight France with you, Dumourier;
I will fight France with you,
I will take my chance with you;
By my soul I'll dance a dance with you, Dumourier.
III.
Then let us fight about, Dumourier;
Then let us fight about, Dumourier;
Then let us fight about,
Till freedom's spark is out,
Then we'll be damn'd, no doubt, Dumourier.
* * * * *
CCLXIII.
PEG-A-RAMSEY.
Tune--"_Cauld is the e'enin blast._"
[Most of this song is old: Burns gave it a brushing for the Museum.]
I.
Cauld is the e'enin' blast
O' Boreas o'er the pool,
And dawin' it is dreary
When birks are bare at Yule.
II.
O bitter blaws the e'enin' blast
When bitter bites the frost,
And in the mirk and dreary drift
The hills and glens are lost.
III.
Ne'er sae murky blew the night
That drifted o'er the hill,
But a bonnie Peg-a-Ramsey
Gat grist to her mill.
* * * * *
CCLXIV.
THERE WAS A BONNIE LASS.
[A snatch of an old strain, trimmed up a little for the Museum.]
I.
There was a bonnie lass,
And a bonnie, bonnie lass,
And she lo'ed her bonnie laddie dear;
Till war's loud alarms
Tore her laddie frae her arms,
Wi' mony a sigh and tear.
II.
Over sea, over shore,
Where the cannons loudly roar,
He still was a stranger to fear;
And nocht could him quell,
Or his bosom assail,
But the bonnie lass he lo'ed sae dear.
* * * * *
CCLXV.
O MALLY'S MEEK, MALLY'S SWEET.
[Burns, it is said, composed these verses, on meeting a country girl,
with her shoes and stockings in her lap, walking homewards from a
Dumfries fair. He was struck with her beauty, and as beautifully has
he recorded it. This was his last communication to the Museum.]
I.
O Mally's meek, Mally's sweet,
Mally's modest and discreet,
Mally's rare, Mally's fair,
Mally's every way complete.
As I was walking up the street,
A barefit maid I chanc'd to meet;
But O the road was very hard
For that fair maiden's tender feet.
II.
It were mair meet that those fine feet
Were weel lac'd up in silken shoon,
And 'twere more fit that she should sit,
Within yon chariot gilt aboon.
III.
Her yellow hair, beyond compare,
Comes trinkling down her swan-white neck;
And her two eyes, like stars in skies,
Would keep a sinking ship frae wreck.
O Mally's meek, Mally's sweet,
Mally's modest and discreet,
Mally's rare, Mally's fair,
Mally's every way complete.
* * * * *
CCLXVI.
HEY FOR A LASS WI' A TOCHER.
Tune--"_Balinamona Ora._"
[Communicated to Thomson, 17th of February, 1796, to be printed as
part of the poet's contribution to the Irish melodies: he calls it "a
kind of rhapsody."]
I.
Awa wi' your witchcraft o' beauty's alarms,
The slender bit beauty you grasp in your arms:
O, gie me the lass that has acres o' charms,
O, gie me the lass wi' the weel-stockit farms.
Then hey for a lass wi' a tocher,
Then hey for a lass wi' a tocher;
Then hey for a lass wi' a tocher,
The nice yellow guineas for me.
II.
Your beauty's a flower, in the morning that blows,
And withers the faster, the faster it grows;
But the rapturous charm o' the bonnie green knowes,
Ilk spring they're new deckit wi' bonnie white yowes.
III.
And e'en when this beauty your bosom has blest,
The brightest o' beauty may cloy when possest;
But the sweet yellow darlings wi' Geordie imprest,
The langer ye hae them--the mair they're carest.
Then hey for a lass wi' a tocher,
Then hey for a lass wi' a tocher;
Then hey for a lass wi' a tocher,
The nice yellow guineas for me.
* * * * *
CCLXVII.
JESSY.
Tune--"_Here's a health to them that's awa._"
[Written in honour of Miss Jessie Lewars, now Mrs. Thomson. Her tender
and daughter-like attentions soothed the last hours of the dying poet,
and if immortality can be considered a recompense, she has been
rewarded.]
I.
Here's a health to ane I lo'e dear;
Here's a health to ane I lo'e dear;
Thou art sweet as the smile when fond lovers meet,
And soft as their parting tear--Jessy!
II.
Altho' thou maun never be mine,
Altho' even hope is denied;
'Tis sweeter for thee despairing,
Then aught in the world beside--Jessy!
III.
I mourn through the gay, gaudy day,
As, hopeless, I muse on thy charms:
But welcome the dream o' sweet slumber,
For then I am lockt in thy arms--Jessy!
IV.
I guess by the dear angel smile,
I guess by the love rolling e'e;
But why urge the tender confession
'Gainst fortune's fell cruel decree?--Jessy!
Here's a health to ane I lo'e dear;
Here's a health to ane I lo'e dear;
Thou art sweet as the smile when fond lovers meet,
And soft as their parting tear--Jessy!
* * * * *
CCLXVIII.
FAIREST MAID ON DEVON BANKS.
Tune--"_Rothemurche._"
[On the 12th of July, 1796, as Burns lay dying at Brow, on the Solway,
his thoughts wandered to early days, and this song, the last he was to
measure in this world, was dedicated to Charlotte Hamilton, the maid
of the Devon.]
I.
Fairest maid on Devon banks,
Crystal Devon, winding Devon,
Wilt thou lay that frown aside,
And smile as thou were wont to do?
Full well thou know'st I love thee, dear!
Could'st thou to malice lend an ear!
O! did not love exclaim "Forbear,
Nor use a faithful lover so."
II.
Then come, thou fairest of the fair,
Those wonted smiles, O let me share;
And by thy beauteous self I swear,
No love but thine my heart shall know.
Fairest maid on Devon banks,
Crystal Devon, winding Devon,
Wilt thou lay that frown aside,
And smile as thou were wont to do?
* * * * *
GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE.
I.
TO WILLIAM BURNESS.
[This was written by Burns in his twenty-third year, when learning
flax-dressing in Irvine, and is the earliest of his letters which has
reached us. It has much of the scriptural deference to paternal
authority, and more of the Complete Letter Writer than we look for in
an original mind.]
_Irvine, Dec. 27, 1781._
HONOURED SIR,
I have purposely delayed writing in the hope that I should have the
pleasure of seeing you on New-Year's day; but work comes so hard upon
us, that I do not choose to be absent on that account, as well as for
some other little reasons which I shall tell you at meeting. My health
is nearly the same as when you were here, only my sleep is a little
sounder, and on the whole I am rather better than otherwise, though I
mend by very slow degrees. The weakness of my nerves has so
debilitated my mind, that I dare neither review past wants, nor look
forward into futurity; for the least anxiety or perturbation in my
breast produces most unhappy effects on my whole frame. Sometimes,
indeed, when for an hour or two my spirits are alightened, I glimmer a
little into futurity; but my principal, and indeed my only pleasurable
employment is looking backwards and forwards in a moral and religious
way; I am quite transported at the thought, that ere long, perhaps
very soon, I shall bid an eternal adieu to all the pains, and
uneasiness, and disquietudes of this weary life: for I assure you I am
heartily tired of it; and if I do not very much deceive myself, I
could contentedly and gladly resign it.
"The soul, uneasy, and confined at home,
Rests and expatiates in a life to come."[141]
It is for this reason I am more pleased with the 15th, 16th, and 17th
verses of the 7th chapter of Revelations, than with any ten times as
many verses in the whole Bible, and would not exchange the noble
enthusiasm with which they inspire me for all that this world has to
offer. As for this world, I despair of ever making a figure in it. I
am not formed for the bustle of the busy, nor the flutter of the gay.
I shall never again be capable of entering into such scenes. Indeed I
am altogether unconcerned at the thoughts of this life. I foresee that
poverty and obscurity probably await me, and I am in some measure
prepared, and daily preparing to meet them. I have but just time and
paper to return you my grateful thanks for the lessons of virtue and
piety you have given me, which were too much neglected at the time of
giving them, but which I hope have been remembered ere it is yet too
late. Present my dutiful respects to my mother, and my compliments to
Mr. and Mrs. Muir; and with wishing you a merry New-Year's day, I
shall conclude. I am, honoured sir, your dutiful son,
ROBERT BURNESS.
P.S. My meal is nearly out, but I am going to borrow till I get more.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 141: Pope. _Essay on Man_]
* * * * *
II.
TO MR. JOHN MURDOCH,
SCHOOLMASTER,
STABLES-INN BUILDINGS, LONDON.
[John Murdoch, one of the poet's early teachers, removed from the west
of Scotland to London, where he lived to a good old age, and loved to
talk of the pious William Burness and his eminent son.]
_Lochlea, 15th January, 1783._
DEAR SIR,
As I have an opportunity of sending you a letter without putting you
to that expense which any production of mine would but ill repay, I
embrace it with pleasure, to tell you that I have not forgotten, nor
ever will forget, the many obligations I lie under to your kindness
and friendship.
I do not doubt, Sir, but you will wish to know what has been the
result of all the pains of an indulgent father, and a masterly
teacher; and I wish I could gratify your curiosity with such a recital
as you would be pleased with; but that is what I am afraid will not be
the case. I have, indeed, kept pretty clear of vicious habits; and, in
this respect, I hope, my conduct will not disgrace the education I
have gotten; but, as a man of the world, I am most miserably
deficient. One would have thought that, bred as I have been, under a
father, who has figured pretty well as _un homme des affaires_, I
might have been, what the world calls, a pushing, active fellow; but
to tell you the truth, Sir, there is hardly anything more my reverse.
I seem to be one sent into the world to see and observe; and I very
easily compound with the knave who tricks me of my money, if there be
anything original about him, which shows me human nature in a
different light from anything I have seen before. In short, the joy of
my heart is to "study men, their manners, and their ways;" and for
this darling subject, I cheerfully sacrifice every other
consideration. I am quite indolent about those great concerns that set
the bustling, busy sons of care agog; and if I have to answer for the
present hour, I am very easy with regard to anything further. Even the
last, worst shift of the unfortunate and the wretched, does not much
terrify me: I know that even then, my talent for what country folks
call a "sensible crack," when once it is sanctified by a hoary head,
would procure me so much esteem, that even then--I would learn to be
happy.[142] However, I am under no apprehensions about that; for though
indolent, yet so far as an extremely delicate constitution permits, I
am not lazy; and in many things, expecially in tavern matters, I am a
strict economist; not, indeed, for the sake of the money; but one of
the principal parts in my composition is a kind of pride of stomach;
and I scorn to fear the face of any man living: above everything, I
abhor as hell, the idea of sneaking in a corner to avoid a
dun--possibly some pitiful, sordid wretch, who in my heart I despise
and detest. 'Tis this, and this alone, that endears economy to me. In
the matter of books, indeed, I am very profuse. My favourite authors
are of the sentimental kind, such as Shenstone, particularly his
"Elegies;" Thomson; "Man of Feeling"--a book I prize next to the
Bible; "Man of the World;" Sterne, especially his "Sentimental
Journey;" Macpherson's "Ossian," &c.; these are the glorious models
after which I endeavour to form my conduct, and 'tis incongruous, 'tis
absurd to suppose that the man whose mind glows with sentiments
lighted up at their sacred flame--the man whose heart distends with
benevolence to all the human race--he "who can soar above this little
scene of things"--can he descend to mind the paltry concerns about
which the terræfilial race fret, and fume, and vex themselves! O how
the glorious triumph swells my heart! I forget that I am a poor,
insignificant devil, unnoticed and unknown, stalking up and down fairs
and markets, when I happen to be in them, reading a page or two of
mankind, and "catching the manners living as they rise," whilst the
men of business jostle me on every side, as an idle encumbrance in
their way.--But I dare say I have by this time tired your patience; so
I shall conclude with begging you to give Mrs. Murdoch--not my
compliments, for that is a mere common-place story; but my warmest,
kindest wishes for her welfare; and accept of the same for yourself,
from,
Dear Sir, yours.--R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 142: The last shift alluded to here must be the condition of
an itinerant beggar.--CURRIE]
* * * * *
III.
TO MR. JAMES BURNESS,
WRITER, MONTROSE.[143]
[James Burness, son of the poet's uncle, lives at Montrose, and, as
may be surmised, is now very old: fame has come to his house through
his eminent cousin Robert, and dearer still through his own grandson,
Sir Alexander Burnes, with whose talents and intrepidity the world is
well acquainted.]
_Lochlea_, 21_st June_, 1783.
DEAR SIR,
My father received your favour of the 10th current, and as he has been
for some months very poorly in health, and is in his own opinion (and
indeed, in almost everybody's else) in a dying condition, he has only,
with great difficulty, written a few farewell lines to each of his
brothers-in-law. For this melancholy reason, I now hold the pen for
him to thank you for your kind letter, and to assure you, Sir, that it
shall not be my fault if my father's correspondence in the north die
with him. My brother writes to John Caird, and to him I must refer you
for the news of our family.
I shall only trouble you with a few particulars relative to the
wretched state of this country. Our markets are exceedingly high;
oatmeal 17d. and 18d. per peck, and not to be gotten even at that
price. We have indeed been pretty well supplied with quantities of
white peas from England and elsewhere, but that resource is likely to
fail us, and what will become of us then, particularly the very
poorest sort, Heaven only knows. This country, till of late, was
flourishing incredibly in the manufacture of silk, lawn, and
carpet-weaving; and we are still carrying on a good deal in that way,
but much reduced from what it was. We had also a fine trade in the
shoe way, but now entirely ruined, and hundreds driven to a starving
condition on account of it. Farming is also at a very low ebb with us.
Our lands, generally speaking, are mountainous and barren; and our
landholders, full of ideas of farming gathered from the English and
the Lothians, and other rich soils in Scotland, make no allowance for
the odds of the quality of land, and consequently stretch us much
beyond what in the event we will be found able to pay. We are also
much at a loss for want of proper methods in our improvements of
farming. Necessity compels us to leave our old schemes, and few of us
have opportunities of being well informed in new ones. In short, my
dear Sir, since the unfortunate beginning of this American war, and
its as unfortunate conclusion, this country has been, and still is,
decaying very fast. Even in higher life, a couple of our Ayrshire
noblemen, and the major part of our knights and squires, are all
insolvent. A miserable job of a Douglas, Heron, and Co.'s bank, which
no doubt you heard of, has undone numbers of them; and imitating
English and French, and other foreign luxuries and fopperies, has
ruined as many more. There is a great trade of smuggling carried on
along our coasts, which, however destructive to the interests of the
kingdom at large, certainly enriches this corner of it, but too often
at the expense of our morals. However, it enables individuals to make,
at least for a time, a splendid appearance; but Fortune, as is usual
with her when she is uncommonly lavish of her favours, is generally
even with them at the last; and happy were it for numbers of them if
she would leave them no worse than when she found them.
My mother sends you a small present of a cheese, 'tis but a very
little one, as our last year's stock is sold off; but if you could fix
on any correspondent in Edinburgh or Glasgow, we would send you a
proper one in the season. Mrs. Black promises to take the cheese under
her care so far, and then to send it to you by the Stirling carrier.
I shall conclude this long letter with assuring you that I shall be
very happy to hear from you, or any of our friends in your country,
when opportunity serves.
My father sends you, probably for the last time in this world, his
warmest wishes for your welfare and happiness; and my mother and the
rest of the family desire to enclose their kind compliments to you,
Mrs. Burness, and the rest of your family, along with those of,
Dear Sir,
Your affectionate Cousin,
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 143: This gentleman (the son of an elder brother of my
father's), when he was very young, lost his father, and having
discovered in his father's repositories some of my father's letters, he
requested that the correspondence might be renewed. My father continued
till the last year of his life to correspond with his nephew, and it was
afterwards kept up by my brother. Extracts from some of my brother's
letters to his cousin are introduced, for the purpose of exhibiting the
poet before he had attracted the notice of the public, and in his
domestic family relations afterwards.--GILBERT BURNS.]
* * * * *
IV.
TO MISS E.
[The name of the lady to whom this and the three succeeding letters
were addressed, seems to have been known to Dr. Currie, who introduced
them in his first edition, but excluded them from his second. They
were restored by Gilbert Burns, without naming the lady.]
_Lochlea_, 1783.
I verily believe, my dear E., that the pure, genuine feelings of love
are as rare in the world as the pure genuine principles of virtue and
piety. This I hope will account for the uncommon style of all my
letters to you. By uncommon, I mean their being written in such a
serious manner, which, to tell you the truth, has made me often afraid
lest you should take me for some zealous bigot, who conversed with his
mistress as he would converse with his minister. I don't know how it
is, my dear, for though, except your company, there is nothing on
earth gives me much pleasure as writing to you, yet it never gives me
those giddy raptures so much talked of among lovers. I have often
thought that if a well-grounded affection be not really a part of
virtue, 'tis something extremely akin to it. Whenever the thought of
my E. warms my heart, every feeling of humanity, every principle of
generosity kindles in my breast. It extinguishes every dirty spark of
malice and envy which are but too apt to infest me. I grasp every
creature in the arms of universal benevolence, and equally participate
in the pleasures of the happy, and sympathize with the miseries of the
unfortunate. I assure you, my dear, I often look up to the Divine
Disposer of events with an eye of gratitude for the blessing which I
hope he intends to bestow on me in bestowing you. I sincerely wish
that he may bless my endeavors to make your life as comfortable and
happy as possible, both in sweetening the rougher parts of my natural
temper, and bettering the unkindly circumstances of my fortune. This,
my dear, is a passion, at least in my view, worthy of a man, and I
will add worthy of a Christian. The sordid earth-worm may profess love
to a woman's person, whilst in reality his affection is centred in her
pocket; and the slavish drudge may go a-wooing as he goes to the
horse-market to choose one who is stout and firm, and as we may say of
an old horse, one who will be a good drudge and draw kindly. I disdain
their dirty, puny ideas. I would be heartily out of humour with myself
if I thought I were capable of having so poor a notion of the sex,
which were designed to crown the pleasures of society. Poor devils! I
don't envy them their happiness who have such notions. For my part, I
propose quite other pleasures with my dear partner.
R. B.
* * * * *
V.
TO MISS E.
_Lochlea_, 1783.
MY DEAR E.:
I do not remember, in the course of your acquaintance and mine, ever
to have heard your opinion on the ordinary way of falling in love,
amongst people of our station of life: I do not mean the persons who
proceed in the way of bargain, but those whose affection is really
placed on the person.
Though I be, as you know very well, but a very awkward lover myself,
yet as I have some opportunities of observing the conduct of others
who are much better skilled in the affair of courtship than I am, I
often think it is owing to lucky chance more than to good management,
that there are not more unhappy marriages than usually are.
It is natural for a young fellow to like the acquaintance of the
females, and customary for him to keep them company when occasion
serves: some one of them is more agreeable to him than the rest; there
is something, he knows not what, pleases him, he knows not how, in her
company. This I take to be what is called love with the greater part
of us; and I must own, dear E., it is a hard game, such a one as you
have to play when you meet with such a lover. You cannot refuse but he
is sincere, and yet though you use him ever so favourably, perhaps in
a few months, or at farthest in a year or two, the same unaccountable
fancy may make him as distractedly fond of another, whilst you are
quite forgot. I am aware that perhaps the next time I have the
pleasure of seeing you, you may bid me take my own lesson home, and
tell me that the passion I have professed for you is perhaps one of
those transient flashes I have been describing; but I hope, my dear
E., you will do me the justice to believe me, when I assure you that
the love I have for you is founded on the sacred principles of virtue
and honour, and by consequence so long as you continue possessed of
those amiable qualities which first inspired my passion for you, so
long must I continue to love you. Believe me, my dear, it is love like
this alone which can render the marriage state happy. People may talk
of flames and raptures as long as they please, and a warm fancy, with
a flow of youthful spirits, may make them feel something like what
they describe; but sure I am the nobler faculties of the mind, with
kindred feelings of the heart, can only be the foundation of
friendship, and it has always been my opinion that the married life
was only friendship in a more exalted degree. If you will be so good
as to grant my wishes, and it should please Providence to spare us to
the latest periods of life, I can look forward and see that even then,
though bent down with wrinkled age; even then, when all other worldly
circumstances will be indifferent to me, I will regard my E. with the
tenderest affection, and for this plain reason, because she is still
possessed of those noble qualities, improved to a much higher degree,
which first inspired my affection for her.
"O! happy state when souls each other draw,
When love is liberty and nature law."[144]
I know were I to speak in such a style to many a girl, who thinks
herself possessed of no small share of sense, she would think it
ridiculous; but the language of the heart is, my dear E., the only
courtship I shall ever use to you.
When I look over what I have written, I am sensible it is vastly
different from the ordinary style of courtship, but I shall make no
apology--I know your good nature will excuse what your goody sense may
see amiss.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 144: Pope. _Eloisa to Abelard._]
* * * * *
VI.
TO MISS E.
_Lochlea_, 1783.
I have often thought it a peculiarly unlucky circumstance in love,
that though in every other situation in life, telling the truth is not
only the safest, but actually by far the easiest way of proceeding, a
lover is never under greater difficulty in acting, or more puzzled for
expression, than when his passion is sincere, and his intentions are
honourable. I do not think that it is very difficult for a person of
ordinary capacity to talk of love and fondness, which are not felt,
and to make vows of constancy and fidelity, which are never intended
to be performed, if he be villain enough to practise such detestable
conduct: but to a man whose heart glows with the principles of
integrity and truth, and who sincerely loves a woman of amiable
person, uncommon refinement of sentiment and purity of manners--to
such an one, in such circumstances, I can assure you, my dear, from my
own feelings at this present moment, courtship is a task indeed. There
is such a number of foreboding fears and distrustful anxieties crowd
into my mind when I am in your company, or when I sit down to write to
you, that what to speak, or what to write, I am altogether at a loss.
There is one rule which I have hitherto practised, and which I shall
invariably keep with you, and that is honestly to tell you the plain
truth. There is something so mean and unmanly in the arts of
dissimulation and falsehood, that I am surprised they can be acted by
any one in so noble, so generous a passion, as virtuous love. No, my
dear E., I shall never endeavour to gain your favour by such
detestable practices. If you will be so good and so generous as to
admit me for your partner, your companion, your bosom friend through
life, there is nothing on this side of eternity shall give me greater
transport; but I shall never think of purchasing your hand by any arts
unworthy of a man, and I will add of a Christian. There is one thing,
my dear, which I earnestly request of you, and it is this; that you
would soon either put an end to my hopes by a peremptory refusal, or
cure me of my fears by a generous consent.
It would oblige me much if you would send me a line or two when
convenient. I shall only add further that, if a behaviour regulated
(though perhaps but very imperfectly) by the rules of honour and
virtue, if a heart devoted to love and esteem you, and an earnest
endeavour to promote your happiness; if these are qualities you would
wish in a friend, in a husband, I hope you shall ever find them in
your real friend, and sincere lover.
R. B.
* * * * *
VII.
TO MISS E.
_Lochlea_, 1783.
I ought, in good manners, to have acknowledged the receipt of your
letter before this time, but my heart was so shocked, with the
contents of it, that I can scarcely yet collect my thoughts so as to
write you on the subject. I will not attempt to describe what I felt
on receiving your letter. I read it over and over, again and again,
and though it was in the politest language of refusal, still it was
peremptory; "you were sorry you could not make me a return, but you
wish me," what without you I never can obtain, "you wish me all kind
of happiness." It would be weak and unmanly to say that, without you I
never can be happy; but sure I am, that sharing life with you would
have given it a relish, that, wanting you, I can never taste.
Your uncommon personal advantages, and your superior good sense, do
not so much strike me; these, possibly, in a few instances may be met
with in others; but that amiable goodness, that tender feminine
softness, that endearing sweetness of disposition, with all the
charming offspring of a warm feeling heart--these I never again expect
to meet with, in such a degree, in this world. All these charming
qualities, heightened by an education much beyond anything I have ever
met in any woman I ever dared to approach, have made an impression on
my heart that I do not think the world can ever efface. My imagination
had fondly flattered myself with a wish, I dare not say it ever
reached a hope, that possibly I might one day call you mine. I had
formed the most delightful images, and my fancy fondly brooded over
them; but now I am wretched for the loss of what I really had no right
to expect. I must now think no more of you as a mistress; still I
presume to ask to be admitted as a friend. As such I wish to be
allowed to wait on you, and as I expect to remove in a few days a
little further off, and you, I suppose, will perhaps soon leave this
place, I wish to see or hear from you soon; and if an expression
should perhaps escape me, rather too warm for friendship, I hope you
will pardon it in, my dear Miss--(pardon me the dear expression for
once) * * * *
R. B
* * * * *
VIII.
TO ROBERT RIDDEL, ESQ.
OF GLENRIDDEL
[These memoranda throw much light on the early days of Burns, and on
the history of his mind and compositions. Robert Riddel, of the
Friars-Carse, to whom these fragments were sent, was a good man as
well as a distinguished antiquary.]
MY DEAR SIR,
On rummaging over some old papers I lighted on a MS. of my early
years, in which I had determined to write myself out; as I was placed
by fortune among a class of men to whom my ideas would have been
nonsense. I had meant that the book should have lain by me, in the
fond hope that some time or other, even after I was no more, my
thoughts would fall into the hands of somebody capable of appreciating
their value. It sets off thus:--
"OBSERVATIONS, HINTS, SONGS, SCRAPS OF POETRY, &c., by
ROBERT BURNESS: a man who had little art in making money, and
still less in keeping it; but was, however, a man of some sense, a
great deal of honesty, and unbounded good-will to every creature,
rational and irrational.--As he was but little indebted to scholastic
education, and bred at a plough-tail, his performances must be
strongly tinctured with his unpolished, rustic way of life; but as I
believe they are really his own, it may be some entertainment to a
curious observer of human nature to see how a ploughman thinks, and
feels, under the pressure of love, ambition, anxiety, grief, with the
like cares and passions, which, however diversified by the modes and
manners of life, operate pretty much alike, I believe, on all the
species."
"There are numbers in the world who do not want sense to
make a figure, so much as an opinion of their own abilities
to put them upon recording their observations, and allowing
them the same importance which they do to those which appear
in print."--SHENSTONE.
"Pleasing, when youth is long expired, to trace
The forms our pencil, or our pen designed!
Such was our youthful air, and shape, and face,
Such the soft image of our youthful mind."--_Ibid._
* * * * *
_April_, 1783.
Notwithstanding all that has been said against love, respecting the
folly and weakness it lends a young inexperienced mind into; still I
think it in a great measure deserves the highest encomiums that have
been passed upon it. If anything on earth deserves the name of rapture
or transport, it is the feelings of green eighteen in the company of
the mistress of his heart, when she repays him with an equal return of
affection.
* * * * *
_August._
There is certainly some connexion between love and music, and poetry;
and therefore, I have always thought it a fine touch of nature, that
passage in a modern love-composition:
"As towards her cot she jogged along,
Her name was frequent in his song."
For my own part I never had the least thought or inclination of
turning poet till I got once heartily in love, and then rhyme and song
were in a manner the spontaneous language of my heart. The following
composition was the first of my performances, and done at an early
period of life, when my heart glowed with honest warm simplicity;
unacquainted and uncorrupted with the ways of a wicked world. The
performance is indeed, very puerile and silly; but I am always pleased
with it, as it recalls to my mind those happy days when my heart was
yet honest, and my tongue was sincere. The subject of it was a young
girl who really deserved all the praises I have bestowed on her. I not
only had this opinion of her then--but I actually think so still, now
that the spell is long since broken, and the enchantment at an end.
O once I lov'd a bonnie lass.[145]
Lest my works should be thought below criticism: or meet with a
critic, who, perhaps, will not look on them with so candid and
favourable an eye, I am determined to criticise them myself.
The first distich of the first stanza is quite too much in the flimsy
strain of our ordinary street ballads: and, on the other hand, the
second distich is too much in the other extreme. The expression is a
little awkward, and the sentiment too serious. Stanza the second I am
well pleased with; and I think it conveys a fine idea of that amiable
part of the sex--the agreeables; or what in our Scotch dialect we call
a sweet sonsie lass. The third stanza has a little of the flimsy turn
in it; and the third line has rather too serious a cast. The fourth
stanza is a very indifferent one; the first line, is, indeed, all in
the strain of the second stanza, but the rest is most expletive. The
thoughts in the fifth stanza come finely up to my favourite idea--a
sweet sonsie lass: the last line, however, halts a little. The same
sentiments are kept up with equal spirit and tenderness in the sixth
stanza, but the second and fourth lines ending with short syllables
hurt the whole. The seventh stanza has several minute faults; but I
remember I composed it in a wild enthusiasm of passion, and to this
hour I never recollect it but my heart melts, my blood sallies, at the
remembrance.
* * * * *
_September._
I entirely agree with that judicious philosopher, Mr. Smith, in his
excellent Theory of Moral Sentiments, that remorse is the most painful
sentiment that can embitter the human bosom. Any ordinary pitch of
fortitude may bear up tolerably well under those calamities, in the
procurement of which we ourselves have had no hand; but when our own
follies, or crimes, have made us miserable and wretched, to bear up
with manly firmness, and at the same time have a proper penitent sense
of our misconduct, is a glorious effort of self-command.
Of all the numerous ills that hurt our peace,
That press the soul, or wring the mind with anguish,
Beyond comparison the worst are those
That to our folly or our guilt we owe.
In every other circumstance, the mind
Has this to say, 'It was no deed of mine;'
But when to all the evil of misfortune
This sting is added--'Blame thy foolish self!'
Or worser far, the pangs of keen remorse;
The torturing, gnawing consciousness of guilt--
Of guilt, perhaps, where we've involved others;
The young, the innocent, who fondly lov'd us,
Nay, more, that every love their cause of ruin!
O burning hell; in all thy store of torments,
There's not a keener lash!
Lives there a man so firm, who, while his heart
Feels all the bitter horrors of his crime,
Can reason down its agonizing throbs;
And, after proper purpose of amendment,
Can firmly force his jarring thoughts to peace?
O, happy! happy! enviable man!
O glorious magnanimity of soul!
* * * * *
_March_, 1784.
I have often observed, in the course of my experience of human life,
that every man, even the worst, has something good about him; though
very often nothing else than a happy temperament of constitution
inclining him to this or that virtue. For this reason no man can say
in what degree any other person, besides himself, can be, with strict
justice, called wicked. Let any, of the strictest character for
regularity of conduct among us, examine impartially how many vices he
has never been guilty of, not from any care or vigilance, but for want
of opportunity, or some accidental circumstance intervening; how many
of the weaknesses of mankind he has escaped, because he was out of the
line of such temptation; and, what often, if not always, weighs more
than all the rest, how much he is indebted to the world's good
opinion, because the world does not know all: I say, any man who can
thus think, will scan the failings, nay, the faults and crimes, of
mankind around him, with a brother's eye.
I have often courted the acquaintance of that part of mankind,
commonly known by the ordinary phrase of blackguards, sometimes
farther than was consistent with the safety of my character; those who
by thoughtless prodigality or headstrong passions, have been driven to
ruin. Though disgraced by follies, nay sometimes, stained with guilt,
I have yet found among them, in not a few instances, some of the
noblest virtues, magnanimity, generosity, disinterested friendship,
and even modesty.
* * * * *
_April._
As I am what the men of the world, if they knew such a man, would call
a whimsical mortal, I have various sources of pleasure and enjoyment,
which are, in a manner, peculiar to myself, or some here and there
such other out-of-the-way person. Such is the peculiar pleasure I take
in the season of winter, more than the rest of the year. This, I
believe, may be partly owing to my misfortunes giving my mind a
melancholy cast: but there is something even in the--
"Mighty tempest, and the hoary waste
Abrupt and deep, stretch'd o'er the buried earth,"--
which raises the mind to a serious sublimity, favourable to everything
great and noble. There is scarcely any earthly object gives me more--I
do not know if I should call it pleasure--but something which exalts
me, something which enraptures me--than to walk in the sheltered side
of a wood, or high plantation, in a cloudy winter-day, and hear the
stormy wind howling among the trees, and raving over the plain. It is
my best season for devotion: my mind is wrapt up in a kind of
enthusiasm to Him, who, in the pompous language of the Hebrew bard,
"walks on the wings of the wind." In one of these seasons, just after
a train of misfortunes, I composed the following:--
The wintry west extends his blast.[146]
Shenstone finely observes, that love-verses, writ without any real
passion, are the most nauseous of all conceits; and I have often
thought that no man can be a proper critic of love-composition, except
he himself, in one or more instances, have been a warm votary of this
passion. As I have been all along a miserable dupe to love, and have
been led into a thousand weaknesses and follies by it, for that reason
I put the more confidence in my critical skill, in distinguishing
foppery and conceit from real passion and nature. Whether the
following song will stand the test, I will not pretend to say, because
it is my own; only I can say it was, at the time, genuine from the heart:--
Behind yon hills, where Lugar flows.[147]
* * * * *
_March_, 1784.
There was a certain period of my life that my spirit was broke by
repeated losses and disasters which threatened, and indeed effected,
the utter ruin of my fortune. My body, too, was attacked by that most
dreadful distemper, a hypochondria, or confirmed melancholy. In this
wretched state, the recollection of which makes me shudder, I hung my
harp on the willow trees, except in some lucid intervals, in one of
which I composed the following:--
O thou Great Being! what Thou art.[148]
* * * * *
_April._
The following song is a wild rhapsody, miserably deficient in
versification; but as the sentiments are the genuine feelings of my
heart, for that reason I have a particular pleasure in conning it
over.
My father was a farmer
Upon the Carrick border, O.[149]
* * * * *
_April._
I think the whole species of young men may be naturally enough divided
into two grand classes, which I shall call the _grave_ and the
_merry_; though, by the by, these terms do not with propriety enough
express my ideas. The grave I shall cast into the usual division of
those who are goaded on by the love of money, and those whose darling
wish is to make a figure in the world. The merry are the men of
pleasure of all denominations; the jovial lads, who have too much fire
and spirit to have any settled rule of action; but, without much
deliberation, follow the strong impulses of nature: the thoughtless,
the careless, the indolent--in particular _he_ who, with a happy
sweetness of natural temper, and a cheerful vacancy of thought, steals
through life--generally, indeed, in poverty and obscurity; but poverty
and obscurity are only evils to him who can sit gravely down and make
a repining comparison between his own situation and that of others;
and lastly, to grace the quorum, such are, generally, those whose
heads are capable of all the towerings of genius, and whose hearts are
warmed with all the delicacy of feeling.
* * * * *
_August._
The foregoing was to have been an elaborate dissertation on the
various species of men; but as I cannot please myself in the
arrangement of my ideas, I must wait till farther experience and nicer
observation throw more light on the subject.--In the mean time I shall
set down the following fragment, which, as it is the genuine language
of my heart, will enable anybody to determine which of the classes I
belong to:
There's nought but care on ev'ry han',
In ev'ry hour that passes, O.[150]
As the grand end of human life is to cultivate an intercourse with
that BEING to whom we owe life, with every enjoyment that
renders life delightful; and to maintain an integritive conduct
towards our fellow-creatures; that so, by forming piety and virtue
into habit, we may be fit members for that society of the pious and
the good, which reason and revelation teach us to expect beyond the
grave, I do not see that the turn of mind, and pursuits of such a one
as the above verses describe--one who spends the hours and thoughts
which the vocations of the day can spare with Ossian, Shakspeare,
Thomson, Shenstone, Sterne, &c.; or, as the maggot takes him, a gun, a
fiddle, or a song to make or mend; and at all times some heart's-dear
bonnie lass in view--I say I do not see that the turn of mind and
pursuits of such an one are in the least more inimical to the sacred
interests of piety and virtue, than the even lawful, bustling and
straining after the world's riches and honours: and I do not see but
he may gain heaven as well--which, by the by, is no mean
consideration--who steals through the vale of life, amusing himself
with every little flower that fortune throws in his way, as he, who
straining straight forward, and perhaps spattering all about him,
gains some of life's little eminencies, where, after all, he can only
see and be seen a little more conspicuously than what, in the pride of
his heart, he is apt to term the poor, indolent devil he has left
behind him.
* * * * *
_August._
A Prayer, when fainting fits, and other alarming symptoms of a
pleurisy or some other dangerous disorder, which indeed still
threatens me, first put nature on the alarm:--
O thou unknown, Almighty Cause
Of all my hope and fear![151]
* * * * *
_August._
Misgivings in the hour of _despondency_ and prospect of death:--
Why am I loth to leave this earthly scene.[152]
* * * * *
EGOTISMS FROM MY OWN SENSATIONS.
_May._
I don't well know what is the reason of it, but somehow or other,
though I am when I have a mind pretty generally beloved, yet I never
could get the art of commanding respect.--I imagine it is owing to my
being deficient in what Sterne calls "that understrapping virtue of
discretion."--I am so apt to a _lapsus linguæ_, that I sometimes think
the character of a certain great man I have read of somewhere is very
much _apropos_ to myself--that he was a compound of great talents and
great folly.--N.B. To try if I can discover the causes of this
wretched infirmity, and, if possible, to mend it.
* * * * *
_August._
However I am pleased with the works of our Scotch poets, particularly
the excellent Ramsay, and the still more excellent Fergusson, yet I am
hurt to see other places of Scotland, their towns, rivers, woods,
haughs, &c., immortalized in such celebrated performances, while my dear
native country, the ancient bailieries of Carrick, Kyle, and Cunningham,
famous both in ancient and modern times for a gallant and warlike race
of inhabitants; a country where civil, and particularly religious
liberty have ever found their first support, and their last asylum; a
country, the birth-place of many famous philosophers, soldiers,
statesman, and the scene of many important events recorded in Scottish
history, particularly a great many of the actions of the glorious
WALLACE, the SAVIOUR of his country; yet, we have never had one Scotch
poet of any eminence, to make the fertile banks of Irvine, the romantic
woodlands and sequestered scenes on Ayr, and the healthy mountainous
source and winding sweep of DOON, emulate Tay, Forth, Ettrick, Tweed,
&c. This is a complaint I would gladly remedy, but, alas! I am far
unequal to the task, both in native genius and education. Obscure I am,
and obscure I must be, though no young poet, nor young soldier's heart,
ever beat more fondly for fame than mine--
"And if there is no other scene of being
Where my insatiate wish may have its fill,--
This something at my heart that heaves for room,
My best, my dearest part, was made in vain."
* * * * *
_September._
There is a great irregularity in the old Scotch songs, a redundancy of
syllables with respect to that exactness of accent and measure that
the English poetry requires, but which glides in, most melodiously,
with the respective tunes to which they are set. For instance, the
fine old song of "The Mill, Mill, O,"[153] to give it a plain prosaic
reading, it halts prodigiously out of measure; on the other hand, the
song set to the same tune in Bremner's collection of Scotch songs,
which begins "To Fanny fair could I impart," &c., it is most exact
measure, and yet, let them both be sung before a real critic, one
above the biases of prejudice, but a thorough judge of nature,--how
flat and spiritless will the last appear, how trite, and lamely
methodical, compared with the wild warbling cadence, the heart-moving
melody of the first!--This is particularly the case with all those
airs which end with a hypermetrical syllable. There is a degree of
wild irregularity in many of the compositions and fragments which are
daily sung to them by my compeers, the common people--a certain happy
arrangement of old Scotch syllables, and yet, very frequently,
nothing, not even like rhyme or sameness of jingle, at the ends of the
lines. This has made me sometimes imagine that perhaps it might be
possible for a Scotch poet, with a nice judicious ear, to set
compositions to many of our most favourite airs, particularly that
class of them mentioned above, independent of rhyme altogether.
* * * * *
There is a noble sublimity, a heart-melting tenderness, in some of our
ancient ballads, which show them to be the work of a masterly hand:
and it has often given me many a heart-ache to reflect that such
glorious old bards--bards who very probably owed all their talents to
native genius, yet have described the exploits of heroes, the pangs of
disappointment, and the meltings of love, with such fine strokes of
nature--that their very names (O how mortifying to a bard's vanity!)
are now "buried among the wreck of things which were."
O ye illustrious names unknown! who could feel so strongly and
describe so well: the last, the meanest of the muses' train--one who,
though far inferior to your flights, yet eyes your path, and with
trembling wing would sometimes soar after you--a poor rustic bard
unknown, pays this sympathetic pang to your memory! Some of you tell
us, with all the charms of verse, that you have been unfortunate in
the world--unfortunate in love: he, too, has felt the loss of his
little fortune, the loss of friends, and, worse than all, the loss of
the woman he adored. Like you, all his consolation was his muse: she
taught him in rustic measures to complain. Happy could he have done it
with your strength of imagination and flow of verse! May the turf lie
lightly on your bones! and may you now enjoy that solace and rest
which this world rarely gives to the heart tuned to all the feelings
of poesy and love!
* * * * *
_September._
The following fragment is done something in imitation of the manner of
a noble old Scottish piece, called M'Millan's Peggy, and sings to the
tune of Galla Water.--My Montgomery's Peggy was my deity for six or
eight months. She had been bred (though, as the world says, without
any just pretence for it) in a style of life rather elegant; but, as
Vanbrugh says in one of his comedies, my "d----d star found me out"
there too: for though I began the affair merely in a _gaitié de
coeur_, or, to tell the truth, which will scarcely be believed, a
vanity of showing my parts in courtship, particularly my abilities at
a _billet-doux_, which I always piqued myself upon, made me lay siege
to her; and when, as I always do in my foolish gallantries, I had
fettered myself into a very warm affection for her, she told me one
day, in a flag of truce, that her fortress had been for some time
before the rightful property of another; but, with the greatest
friendship and politeness, she offered me every allegiance except
actual possession. I found out afterwards that what she told me of a
pre-engagement was really true; but it cost me some heart-aches to get
rid of the affair.
I have even tried to imitate in this extempore thing that irregularity
in the rhymes, which, when judiciously done, has such a fine effect on
the ear.
"Altho' my bed were in yon muir."[154]
* * * * *
_September._
There is another fragment in imitation of an old Scotch song, well
known among the country ingle-sides.--I cannot tell the name, neither
of the song nor the tune, but they are in fine unison with one
another.--By the way, these old Scottish airs are so nobly
sentimental, that when one would compose to them, to "south the tune,"
as our Scotch phrase is, over and over, is the readiest way to catch
the inspiration, and raise the bard into that glorious enthusiasm so
strongly characteristic of our old Scotch poetry. I shall here set
down one verse of the piece mentioned above, both to mark the song and
tune I mean, and likewise as a debt I owe to the author, as the
repeating of that verse has lighted up my flame a thousand times:--
When clouds in skies do come together
To hide the brightness of the sun,
There will surely be some pleasant weather
When a' their storms are past and gone.[155]
Though fickle fortune has deceived me,
She promis'd fair and perform'd but ill;
Of mistress, friends, and wealth bereav'd me,
Yet I bear a heart shall support me still.
I'll act with prudence as far as I'm able,
But if success I must never find,
Then come misfortune, I bid thee welcome,
I'll meet thee with an undaunted mind.
The above was an extempore, under the pressure of a heavy train of
misfortunes, which, indeed, threatened to undo me altogether. It was
just at the close of that dreadful period mentioned already, and
though the weather has brightened up a little with me, yet there has
always been since a tempest brewing round me in the grim sky of
futurity, which I pretty plainly see will some time or other, perhaps
ere long, overwhelm me, and drive me into some doleful dell, to pine
in solitary, squalid wretchedness.--However, as I hope my poor country
muse, who, all rustic, awkward, and unpolished as she is, has more
charms for me than any other of the pleasures of life beside--as I
hope she will not then desert me, I may even then learn to be, if not
happy, at least easy, and south a sang to soothe my misery.
'Twas at the same time I set about composing an air in the old Scotch
style.--I am not musical scholar enough to prick down my tune
properly, so it can never see the light, and perhaps 'tis no great
matter; but the following were the verses I composed to suit it:--
O raging fortune's withering blast
Has laid my leaf full low, O![156]
The tune consisted of three parts, so that the above verses just went
through the whole air.
* * * * *
_October_, 1785.
If ever any young man, in the vestibule of the world, chance to throw
his eye over these pages, let him pay a warm attention to the
following observations, as I assure him they are the fruit of a poor
devil's dear-bought experience.--I have literally, like that great
poet and great gallant, and by consequence, that great fool, Solomon,
"turned my eyes to behold madness and folly." Nay, I have, with all
the ardour of a lively, fanciful, and whimsical imagination,
accompanied with a warm, feeling, poetic heart, shaken hands with
their intoxicating friendship.
In the first place, let my pupil, as he tenders his own peace, keep up
a regular, warm intercourse with the Deity. * * * *
This is all worth quoting in my MSS., and more than all.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 145: See Songs and Ballads, No. I.]
[Footnote 146: See Winter. A Dirge. Poem I.]
[Footnote 147: Song XIV.]
[Footnote 148: Poem IX.]
[Footnote 149: Song V]
[Footnote 150: Song XVII.]
[Footnote 151: Poem X.]
[Footnote 152: Poem XI.]
[Footnote 153: "The Mill, Mill, O," is by Allan Ramsay.]
[Footnote 154: Song VIII.]
[Footnote 155: Alluding to the misfortunes he feelingly laments before
this verse. (This is the author's note.)]
[Footnote 156: Song II.]
* * * * *
IX.
TO MR. JAMES BURNESS,
MONTROSE.
[The elder Burns, whose death this letter intimates, lies buried in
the kirk-yard of Alloway, with a tombstone recording his worth.]
_Lochlea_, 17_th Feb._ 1784.
DEAR COUSIN,
I would have returned you my thanks for your kind favour of the 13th
of December sooner, had it not been that I waited to give you an
account of that melancholy event, which, for some time past, we have
from day to day expected.
On the 13th current I lost the best of fathers. Though, to be sure, we
have had long warning of the impending stroke; still the feelings of
nature claim their part, and I cannot recollect the tender endearments
and parental lessons of the best of friends and ablest of instructors,
without feeling what perhaps the calmer dictates of reason would
partly condemn.
I hope my father's friends in your country will not let their
connexion in this place die with him. For my part I shall ever with
pleasure--with pride, acknowledge my connexion with those who were
allied by the ties of blood and friendship to a man whose memory I
shall ever honour and revere.
I expect, therefore, my dear Sir, you will not neglect any opportunity
of letting me hear from you, which will very much oblige,
My dear Cousin, yours sincerely,
R. B.
* * * * *
X.
TO JAMES BURNESS,
MONTROSE.
[Mrs. Buchan, the forerunner in extravagance and absurdity of Joanna
Southcote, after attempting to fix her tent among the hills of the
west and the vales of the Nith, finally set up her staff at
Auchengibbert-Hill, in Galloway, where she lectured her followers, and
held out hopes of their reaching the stars, even in this life. She
died early: one or two of her people, as she called them, survived
till within these half-dozen years.]
_Mossgiel, August_, 1784.
We have been surprised with one of the most extraordinary phenomena in
the moral world which, I dare say, had happened in the course of this
half century. We have had a party of Presbytery relief, as they call
themselves, for some time in this country. A pretty thriving society
of them has been in the burgh of Irvine for some years past, till
about two years ago, a Mrs. Buchan from Glasgow came among them, and
began to spread some fanatical notions of religion among them, and, in
a short time, made many converts; and, among others, their preacher,
Mr. Whyte, who, upon that account, has been suspended and formally
deposed by his brethren. He continued, however, to preach in private
to his party, and was supported, both he and their spiritual mother,
as they affect to call old Buchan, by the contributions of the rest,
several of whom were in good circumstances; till, in spring last, the
populace rose and mobbed Mrs. Buchan, and put her out of the town; on
which all her followers voluntarily quitted the place likewise, and
with such precipitation, that many of them never shut their doors
behind them; one left a washing on the green, another a cow bellowing
at the crib without food, or anybody to mind her, and after several
stages, they are fixed at present in the neighbourhood of Dumfries.
Their tenets are a strange jumble of enthusiastic jargon; among
others, she pretends to give them the Holy Ghost by breathing on them,
which she does with postures and practices that are scandalously
indecent; they have likewise disposed of all their effects, and hold a
community of goods, and live nearly an idle life, carrying on a great
farce of pretended devotion in barns and woods, where they lodge and
lie all together, and hold likewise a community of women, as it is
another of their tenets that they can commit no mortal sin. I am
personally acquainted with most of them, and I can assure you the
above mentioned are facts.
This, my dear Sir, is one of the many instances of the folly of
leaving the guidance of sound reason and common sense in matters of
religion.
Whenever we neglect or despise these sacred monitors, the whimsical
notions of a perturbated brain are taken for the immediate influences
of the Deity, and the wildest fanaticism, and the most inconstant
absurdities, will meet with abettors and converts. Nay, I have often
thought, that the more out-of-the-way and ridiculous the fancies are,
if once they are sanctified under the sacred name of religion, the
unhappy mistaken votaries are the more firmly glued to them.
R. B.
* * * * *
XI.
TO MISS ----.
[This has generally been printed among the early letters of Burns.
Cromek thinks that the person addressed was the "Peggy" of the
Common-place Book. This is questioned by Robert Chambers, who,
however, leaves both name and date unsettled.]
MY DEAR COUNTRYWOMAN,
I am so impatient to show you that I am once more at peace with you,
that I send you the book I mentioned directly, rather than wait the
uncertain time of my seeing you. I am afraid I have mislaid or lost
Collins' Poems, which I promised to Miss Irvin. If I can find them, I
will forward them by you; if not, you must apologize for me.
I know you will laugh at it when I tell you that your piano and you
together have played the deuce somehow about my heart. My breast has
been widowed these many months, and I thought myself proof against the
fascinating witchcraft; but I am afraid you will "feelingly convince
me what I am." I say, I am afraid, because I am not sure what is the
matter with me. I have one miserable bad symptom; when you whisper, or
look kindly to another, it gives me a draught of damnation. I have a
kind of wayward wish to be with you ten minutes by yourself, though
what I would say, Heaven above knows, for I am sure I know not. I have
no formed design in all this; but just, in the nakedness of my heart,
write you down a mere matter-of-fact story. You may perhaps give
yourself airs of distance on this, and that will completely cure me;
but I wish you would not: just let us meet, if you please, in the old
beaten way of friendship.
I will not subscribe myself your humble servant, for that is a phrase,
I think at least fifty miles off from the heart; but I will conclude
with sincerely wishing that the Great Protector of innocence may
shield you from the barbed dart of calumny, and hand you by the covert
snare of deceit.
R. B.
* * * * *
XII.
TO MR. JOHN RICHMOND,
OF EDINBURGH.
[John Richmond, writer, one of the poet's Mauchline friends, to whom
we are indebted for much valuable information concerning Burns and his
productions--Connel was the Mauchline carrier.]
_Mossgiel, Feb._ 17, 1786.
MY DEAR SIR,
I have not time at present to upbraid you for your silence and
neglect; I shall only say I received yours with great pleasure. I have
enclosed you a piece of rhyming ware for your perusal. I have been
very busy with the muses since I saw you, and have composed, among
several others, "The Ordination," a poem on Mr. M'Kinlay's being
called to Kilmarnock; "Scotch Drink," a poem; "The Cotter's Saturday
Night;" "An Address to the Devil," &c. I have likewise completed my
poem on the "Dogs," but have not shown it to the world. My chief
patron now is Mr. Aiken, in Ayr, who is pleased to express great
approbation of my works. Be so good as send me Fergusson, by Connel,
and I will remit you the money. I have no news to acquaint you with
about Mauchline, they are just going on in the old way. I have some
very important news with respect to myself, not the most
agreeable--news that I am sure you cannot guess, but I shall give you
the particulars another time. I am extremely happy with Smith; he is
the only friend I have now in Mauchline. I can scarcely forgive your
long neglect of me, and I beg you will let me hear from you regularly
by Connel. If you would act your part as a friend, I am sure neither
good nor bad fortune should strange of alter me. Excuse haste, as I
got yours but yesterday.
I am, my dear Sir,
Yours,
R. B.
* * * * *
XIII.
TO MR. JOHN KENNEDY,
DUMFRIES HOUSE.
[Who the John Kennedy was to whom Burns addressed this note, enclosing
"The Cotter's Saturday night," it is now, perhaps, vain to inquire:
the Kennedy to whom Mr. Cobbett introduces us was a Thomas--perhaps a
relation.]
_Mossgiel, 3d March_, 1786.
SIR,
I have done myself the pleasure of complying with your request in
sending you my Cottager.--If you have a leisure minute, I should be
glad you would copy it, and return me either the original or the
transcript, as I have not a copy of it by me, and I have a friend who
wishes to see it.
"Now, Kennedy, if foot or horse."[157]
ROBT. BURNESS.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 157: Poem LXXV.]
* * * * *
XIV.
TO MR. ROBERT MUIR,
KILMARNOCK.
[The Muirs--there were two brothers--were kind and generous patrons of
the poet. They subscribed for half-a-hundred copies of the Kilmarnock
edition of his works, and befriended him when friends were few.]
_Mossgiel_, 20_th March_, 1786.
DEAR SIR,
I am heartily sorry I had not the pleasure of seeing you as you
returned through Mauchline; but as I was engaged, I could not be in
town before the evening.
I here enclose you my "Scotch Drink," and "may the ---- follow with a
blessing for your edification." I hope, some time before we hear the
gowk, to have the pleasure of seeing you at Kilmarnock, when I intend
we shall have a gill between us, in a mutchkin-stoup; which will be a
great comfort and consolation to,
Dear Sir,
Your humble servant,
ROBT. BURNESS.
* * * * *
XV.
TO MR. AIKEN.
[Robert Aiken, the gentleman to whom the "Cotter's Saturday Night" is
inscribed, is also introduced in the "Brigs of Ayr." This is the last
letter to which Burns seems to have subscribed his name in the
spelling of his ancestors.]
_Mossgiel, 3d April_, 1786.
DEAR SIR,
I received your kind letter with double pleasure, on account of the
second flattering instance of Mrs. C.'s notice and approbation, I
assure you I
"Turn out the burnt o' my shin,"
as the famous Ramsay, of jingling memory, says, at such a patroness.
Present her my most grateful acknowledgment in your very best manner
of telling truth. I have inscribed the following stanza on the blank
leaf of Miss More's Work:--[158]
My proposals for publishing I am just going to send to press. I expect
to hear from you by the first opportunity.
I am ever, dear Sir,
Yours,
ROBT. BURNESS.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 158: See Poem LXXVIII.]
* * * * *
XVI.
TO MR. M'WHINNIE,
WRITER, AYR.
[Mr. M'Whinnie obtained for Burns several subscriptions for the first
edition of his Poems, of which this note enclosed the proposals.]
_Mossgiel, 17th April, 1786._
It is injuring some hearts, those hearts that elegantly bear the
impression of the good Creator, to say to them you give them the
trouble of obliging a friend; for this reason, I only tell you that I
gratify my own feelings in requesting your friendly offices with
respect to the enclosed, because I know it will gratify yours to
assist me in it to the utmost of your power.
I have sent you four copies, as I have no less than eight dozen, which
is a great deal more than I shall ever need.
Be sure to remember a poor poet militant in your prayers. He looks
forward with fear and trembling to that, to him, important moment
which stamps the die with--with--with, perhaps, the eternal disgrace
of,
My dear Sir,
Your humble,
afflicted, tormented,
ROBERT BURNS.
* * * * *
XVII.
TO MR. JOHN KENNEDY.
["The small piece," the very last of his productions, which the poet
enclosed in this letter, was "The Mountain Daisy," called in the
manuscript more properly "The Gowan."]
_Mossgiel, 20th April, 1786._
SIR,
By some neglect in Mr. Hamilton, I did not hear of your kind request
for a subscription paper 'till this day. I will not attempt any
acknowledgment for this, nor the manner in which I see your name in
Mr. Hamilton's subscription list. Allow me only to say, Sir, I feel
the weight of the debt.
I have here likewise enclosed a small piece, the very latest of my
productions. I am a good deal pleased with some sentiments myself, as
they are just the native querulous feelings of a heart, which, as the
elegantly melting Gray says, "melancholy has marked for her own."
Our race comes on a-pace; that much-expected scene of revelry and
mirth; but to me it brings no joy equal to that meeting with which
your last flattered the expectation of,
Sir,
Your indebted humble servant,
R. B.
* * * * *
XVIII.
TO MON. JAMES SMITH,
MAUCHLINE.
[James Smith, of whom Burns said he was small of stature, but large of
soul, kept at that time a draper's shop in Mauchline, and was comrade
to the poet in many a wild adventure.]
_Monday Morning, Mossgiel, 1786._
MY DEAR SIR,
I went to Dr. Douglas yesterday, fully resolved to take the
opportunity of Captain Smith: but I found the Doctor with a Mr. and
Mrs. White, both Jamaicans, and they have deranged my plans
altogether. They assure him that to send me from Savannah la Mar to
Port Antonio will cost my master, Charles Douglas, upwards of fifty
pounds; besides running the risk of throwing myself into a pleuritic
fever, in consequence of hard travelling in the sun. On these
accounts, he refuses sending me with Smith, but a vessel sails from
Greenock the first of September, right for the place of my
destination. The Captain of her is an intimate friend of Mr. Gavin
Hamilton's, and as good a fellow as heart could wish: with him I am
destined to go. Where I shall shelter, I know not, but I hope to
weather the storm. Perish the drop of blood of mine that fears them! I
know their worst, and am prepared to meet it;--
"I'll laugh an' sing, an' shake my leg,
As lang's I dow."
On Thursday morning, if you can muster as much self-denial as to be
out of bed about seven o'clock, I shall see you, as I ride through to
Cumnock. After all, Heaven bless the sex! I feel there is still
happiness for me among them:
"O woman, lovely woman! Heaven design'd you
To temper man!--we had been brutes without you."[159]
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 159: Otway. Venice Preserved.]
* * * * *
XIX.
TO MR. JOHN KENNEDY.
[Burns was busy in a two-fold sense at present: he was seeking patrons
in every quarter for his contemplated volume, and was composing for it
some of his most exquisite poetry.]
_Mossgiel, 16 May, 1796._
DEAR SIR,
I have sent you the above hasty copy as I promised. In about three or
four weeks I shall probably set the press a-going. I am much hurried
at present, otherwise your diligence, so very friendly in my
subscription, should have a more lengthened acknowledgment from,
Dear Sir,
Your obliged servant,
R. B.
* * * * *
XX.
TO MR. DAVID BRICE.
[David Brice was a shoemaker, and shared with Smith the confidence of
the poet in his love affairs. He was working in Glasgow when this
letter was written.]
_Mossgiel, June_ 12, 1786.
DEAR BRICE,
I received your message by G. Patterson, and as I am not very throng
at present, I just write to let you know that there is such a
worthless, rhyming reprobate, as your humble servant, still in the
land of the living, though I can scarcely say, in the place of hope. I
have no news to tell you that will give me any pleasure to mention, or
you to hear.
Poor ill-advised ungrateful Armour came home on Friday last. You have
heard all the particulars of that affair, and a black affair it is.
What she thinks of her conduct now, I don't know; one thing I do
know--she has made me completely miserable. Never man loved, or rather
adored a woman more than I did her; and, to confess a truth between
you and me, I do still love her to distraction after all, though I
won't tell her so if I were to see her, which I don't want to do. My
poor dear unfortunate Jean! how happy have I been in thy arms! It is
not the losing her that makes me so unhappy, but for her sake I feel
most severely: I foresee she is in the road to, I am afraid, eternal
ruin. * * * *
May Almighty God forgive her ingratitude and perjury to me, as I from
my very soul forgive her: and may his grace be with her and bless her
in all her future life! I can have no nearer idea of the place of
eternal punishment than what I have felt in my own breast on her
account. I have tried often to forget her; I have run into all kinds
of dissipation and riots, mason-meetings, drinking matches, and other
mischief, to drive her out of my head, but all in vain. And now for a
grand cure; the ship is on her way home that is to take me out to
Jamaica; and then, farewell dear old Scotland! and farewell dear
ungrateful Jean! for never never will I see you more.
You will have heard that I am going to commence poet in print; and to
morrow my works go to the press. I expect it will be a volume of about
two hundred pages--it is just the last foolish action I intend to do;
and then turn a wise man as fast as possible.
Believe me to be, dear Brice,
Your friend and well-wisher,
R. B.
* * * * *
XXI.
TO MR. ROBERT AIKEN.
[This letter was written under great distress of mind. That separation
which Burns records in "The Lament," had, unhappily, taken place
between him and Jean Armour, and it would appear, that for a time at
least a coldness ensued between the poet and the patron, occasioned,
it is conjectured, by that fruitful subject of sorrow and disquiet.
The letter, I regret to say, is not wholly here.]
[_Ayrshire_, 1786.]
SIR,
I was with Wilson, my printer, t'other day, and settled all our
by-gone matters between us. After I had paid him all demands, I made
him the offer of the second edition, on the hazard of being paid out
of the first and readiest, which he declines. By his account, the
paper of a thousand copies would cost me about twenty-seven pounds,
and the printing about fifteen or sixteen: he offers to agree to this
for the printing, if I will advance for the paper, but this, you know,
is out of my power; so farewell hopes of a second edition till I grow
rich! an epoch which I think will arrive at the payment of the
British national debt.
There is scarcely anything hurts me so much in being disappointed of
my second edition, as not having it in my power to show my gratitude
to Mr. Ballantyne, by publishing my poem of "The Brigs of Ayr." I
would detest myself as a wretch, if I thought I were capable in a very
long life of forgetting the honest, warm, and tender delicacy with
which he enters into my interests. I am sometimes pleased with myself
in my greateful sensations; but I believe, on the whole, I have very
little merit in it, as my gratitude is not a virtue, the consequence
of reflection; but sheerly the instinctive emotion of my heart, too
inattentive to allow worldly maxims and views to settle into selfish
habits. I have been feeling all the various rotations and movements
within, respecting the excise. There are many things plead strongly
against it; the uncertainty of getting soon into business; the
consequences of my follies, which may perhaps make it impracticable
for me to stay at home; and besides I have for some time been pining
under secret wretchedness, from causes which you pretty well know--the
pang of disappointment, the sting of pride, with some wandering stabs
of remorse, which never fail to settle on my vitals like vultures,
when attention is not called away by the calls of society, or the
vagaries of the muse. Even in the hour of social mirth, my gayety is
the madness of an intoxicated criminal under the hands of the
executioner. All these reasons urge me to go abroad, and to all these
reasons I have only one answer--the feelings of a father. This, in the
present mood I am in, overbalances everything that can be laid in the
scale against it. * * * *
You may perhaps think it an extravagant fancy, but it is a sentiment
which strikes home to my very soul: though sceptical in some points of
our current belief, yet, I think, I have every evidence for the
reality of a life beyond the stinted bourne of our present existence;
if so, then, how should I, in the presence of that tremendous Being,
the Author of existence, how should I meet the reproaches of those who
stand to me in the dear relation of children, whom I deserted in the
smiling innocency of helpless infancy? O, thou great unknown
Power!--thou almighty God! who has lighted up reason in my breast, and
blessed me with immortality!--I have frequently wandered from that
order and regularity necessary for the perfection of thy works, yet
thou hast never left me nor forsaken me! * * * *
Since I wrote the foregoing sheet, I have seen something of the storm
of mischief thickening over my folly-devoted head. Should you, my
friends, my benefactors, be successful in your applications for me,
perhaps it may not be in my power, in that way, to reap the fruit of
your friendly efforts. What I have written in the preceding pages, is
the settled tenor of my present resolution; but should inimical
circumstances forbid me closing with your kind offer, or enjoying it
only threaten to entail farther misery-- * * * *
To tell the truth, I have little reason for complaint; as the world,
in general, has been kind to me fully up to my deserts. I was, for
some time past, fast getting into the pining, distrustful snarl of the
misanthrope. I saw myself alone, unlit for the struggle of life,
shrinking at every rising cloud in the chance-directed atmosphere of
fortune, while all defenceless I looked about in vain for a cover. It
never occurred to me, at least never with the force it deserved, that
this world is a busy scene, and man, a creature destined for a
progressive struggle; and that, however I might possess a warm heart
and inoffensive manners (which last, by the by, was rather more than I
could well boast); still, more than these passive qualities, there was
something to be done. When all my school-fellows and youthful compeers
(those misguided few excepted who joined, to use a Gentoo phrase, the
"hallachores" of the human race) were striking off with eager hope and
earnest intent, in some one or other of the many paths of busy life, I
was "standing idle in the market-place," or only left the chase of the
butterfly from flower to flower, to hunt fancy from whim to
whim. * * * *
You see, Sir, that if to know one's errors were a probability of
mending them, I stand a fair chance; but according to the reverend
Westminster divines, though conviction must precede conversion, it is
very far from always implying it. * * * *
R. B.
* * * * *
XXII.
TO JOHN RICHMOND,
EDINBURGH.
[The minister who took upon him to pronounce Burns a single man, as he
intimates in this letter, was the Rev. Mr. Auld, of Mauchline: that
the law of the land and the law of the church were at variance on the
subject no one can deny.]
_Mossgiel_, 9_th July_, 1786.
MY DEAR FRIEND,
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 anything: only godly Bryan was in the inquisition
yesterday, and half the country-side as witness against him. He still
stands out steady and denying: but proof was led yesternight 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."
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 show 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 sack-cloth 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 Connel. The Lord stand with the righteous: amen, amen.
R. B.
* * * * *
XXIII.
TO JOHN BALLANTYNE,
OF AYR.
[There is a plain account in this letter of the destruction of the
lines of marriage which united, as far as a civil contract in a manner
civil can, the poet and Jean Armour. Aiken was consulted, and in
consequence of his advice, the certificate of marriage was destroyed.]
HONOURED SIR,
My proposals came to hand last night, and knowing that you would wish
to have it in your power to do me a service as early as anybody, I
enclose you half a sheet of them. I must consult you, first
opportunity, on the propriety of sending my quondam friend, Mr. Aiken,
a copy. If he is now reconciled to my character as an honest man, I
would do it with all my soul; but I would not be beholden to the
noblest being ever God created, if he imagined me to be a rascal.
Apropos, old Mr. Armour prevailed with him to mutilate that unlucky
paper yesterday. Would you believe it? though I had not a hope, nor
even a wish, to make her mine after her conduct; yet, when he told me
the names were all out of the paper, my heart died within me, and he
cut my veins with the news. Perdition seize her falsehood!
R. B.
* * * * *
XXIV.
TO MR. DAVID BRICE.
SHOEMAKER, GLASGOW.
[The letters of Burns at the sad period of his life are full of his
private sorrows. Had Jean Armour been left to the guidance of her own
heart, the story of her early years would have been brighter.]
_Mossgiel, 17th July, 1786._
I have been so throng printing my Poems, that I could scarcely find as
much time as to write to you. Poor Armour is come back again to
Mauchline, and I went to call for her, and her mother forbade me the
house, nor did she herself express much sorrow for what she has done.
I have already appeared publicly in church, and was indulged in the
liberty of standing in my own seat. I do this to get a certificate as
a bachelor, which Mr. Auld has promised me. I am now fixed to go for
the West Indies in October. Jean and her friends insisted much that
she should stand along with me in the kirk, but the minister would not
allow it, which bred a great trouble I assure you, and I am blamed as
the cause of it, though I am sure I am innocent; but I am very much
pleased, for all that, not to have had her company. I have no news to
tell you that I remember. I am really happy to hear of your welfare,
and that you are so well in Glasgow. I must certainly see you before I
leave the country. I shall expect to hear from you soon, and am,
Dear Brice,
Yours,--R. B.
* * * * *
XXV.
TO MR. JOHN RICHMOND.
[When this letter was written the poet was skulking from place to
place: the merciless pack of the law had been uncoupled at his heels.
Mr. Armour did not wish to imprison, but to drive him from the
country.]
_Old Rome Forest, 30th July, 1786._
MY DEAR RICHMOND,
My hour is now come--you and I will never meet in Britain more. I have
orders within three weeks at farthest, to repair aboard the Nancy,
Captain Smith, from Clyde to Jamaica, and call at Antigua. This,
except to our friend Smith, whom God long preserve, is a secret about
Mauchline. Would you believe it? Armour has got a warrant to throw me
in jail till I find security for an enormous sum. This they keep an
entire secret, but I got it by a channel they little dream of; and I
am wandering from one friend's house to another, and, like a true son
of the gospel, "have nowhere to lay my head." I know you will pour an
execration on her head, but spare the poor, ill-advised girl, for my
sake; though may all the furies that rend the injured, enraged lover's
bosom, await her mother until her latest hour! I write in a moment of
rage, reflecting on my miserable situation--exiled, abandoned,
forlorn. I can write no more--let me hear from you by the return of
coach. I will write you ere I go.
I am dear Sir,
Yours, here and hereafter,
R. B.
* * * * *
XXVI.
TO MR. ROBERT MUIR,
KILMARNOCK.
[Burns never tried to conceal either his joys or his sorrows: he sent
copies of his favorite pieces, and intimations of much that befel him
to his chief friends and comrades--this brief note was made to carry
double.]
_Mossgiel, Friday noon._
MY FRIEND, MY BROTHER,
Warm recollection of an absent friend presses so hard upon my heart,
that I send him the prefixed bagatelle (the Calf), pleased with the
thought that it will greet the man of my bosom, and be a kind of
distant language of friendship.
You will have heard that poor Armour has repaid me double. A very fine
boy and a girl have awakened a thought and feelings that thrill, some
with tender pressure and some with foreboding anguish, through my
soul.
The poem was nearly an extemporaneous production, on a wager with Mr.
Hamilton, that I would not produce a poem on the subject in a given
time.
If you think it worth while, read it to Charles and Mr. W. Parker, and
if they choose a copy of it, it is at their service, as they are men
whose friendship I shall be proud to claim, both in this world and
that which is to come.
I believe all hopes of staying at home will be abortive, but more of
this when, in the latter part of next week, you shall be troubled with
a visit from,
My dear Sir,
Your most devoted,
R. B.
* * * * *
XXVII.
TO MRS. DUNLOP,
OF DUNLOP.
[Mrs. Dunlop was a poetess, and had the blood of the Wallaces in her
veins: though she disliked the irregularities of the poet, she scorned
to got into a fine moral passion about follies which could not be
helped, and continued her friendship to the last of his life.]
_Ayrshire_, 1786.
MADAM,
I am truly sorry I was not at home yesterday, when I was so much
honoured with your order for my copies, and incomparably more by the
handsome compliments you are pleased to pay my poetic abilities. I am
fully persuaded that there is not any class of mankind so feelingly
alive to the titillations of applause as the sons of Parnassus: nor is
it easy to conceive how the heart of the poor bard dances with
rapture, when those, whose character in life gives them a right to be
polite judges, honour him with their approbation. Had you been
thoroughly acquainted with me, Madam, you could not have touched my
darling heart-chord more sweetly than by noticing my attempts to
celebrate your illustrious ancestor, the Saviour of his Country.
"Great patriot hero! ill-requited chief!"[160]
The first book I met with in my early years, which I perused with
pleasure, was, "The Life Of Hannibal;" the next was, "The History of
Sir William Wallace:" for several of my earlier years I had few other
authors; and many a solitary hour have I stole out, after the
laborious vocations of the day, to shed a tear over their glorious,
but unfortunate stories. In those boyish days I remember, in
particular, being struck with that part of Wallace's story where these
lines occur--
"Syne to the Leglen wood, when it was late,
To make a silent and safe retreat."
I chose a fine summer Sunday, the only day my line of life allowed,
and walked half a dozen of miles to pay my respects to the Leglen
wood, with as much devout enthusiasm as ever pilgrim did to Loretto;
and, as I explored every den and dell where I could suppose my heroic
countryman to have lodged, I recollect (for even then I was a rhymer)
that my heart glowed with a wish to be able to make a song on him in
some measure equal to his merits.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 160: Thomson.]
* * * * *
XXVIII.
TO MR. JOHN KENNEDY.
[It is a curious chapter in the life of Burns to count the number of
letters which he wrote, the number of fine poems he composed, and the
number of places which he visited in the unhappy summer and autumn of
1786.]
_Kilmarnock, August_, 1786.
MY DEAR SIR,
Your truly facetious epistle of the 3d inst. gave me much
entertainment. I was sorry I had not the pleasure of seeing you as I
passed your way, but we shall bring up all our lee way on Wednesday,
the 16th current, when I hope to have it in my power to call on you
and take a kind, very probably a last adieu, before I go for Jamaica;
and I expect orders to repair to Greenock every day.--I have at last
made my public appearance, and am solemnly inaugurated into the
numerous class.--Could I have got a carrier, you should have had a
score of vouchers for my authorship; but now you have them, let them
speak for themselves.--
Farewell, my dear friend! may guid luck hit you,
And 'mang her favourites admit you!
If e'er Detraction shore to smit you,
May nane believe him!
And ony de'il that thinks to get you,
Good Lord deceive him.
R. B.
* * * * *
XXIX.
TO MR. JAMES BURNESS,
MONTROSE.
[The good and generous James Burness, of Montrose, was ever ready to
rejoice with his cousin's success or sympathize with his sorrows, but
he did not like the change which came over the old northern surname of
Burness, when the bard modified it into Burns: the name now a rising
one in India, is spelt Burnes.]
_Mossgiel, Tuesday noon, Sept. 26, 1786._
MY DEAR SIR,
I this moment receive yours--receive it with the honest hospitable
warmth of a friend's welcome. Whatever comes from you wakens always up
the better blood about my heart, which your kind little recollections
of my parental friends carries as far as it will go. 'Tis there that
man is blest! 'Tis there, my friend, man feels a consciousness of
something within him above the trodden clod! The grateful reverence to
the hoary (earthly) author of his being--the burning glow when he
clasps the woman of his soul to his bosom--the tender yearnings of
heart for the little angels to whom he has given existence--these
nature has poured in milky streams about the human heart; and the man
who never rouses them to action, by the inspiring influences of their
proper objects, loses by far the most pleasurable part of his
existence.
My departure is uncertain, but I do not think it will be till after
harvest. I will be on very short allowance of time indeed, if I do not
comply with your friendly invitation. When it will be I don't know,
but if I can make my wish good, I will endeavour to drop you a line
some time before. My best compliments to Mrs. ----; I should [be]
equally mortified should I drop in when she is abroad, but of that I
suppose there is little chance.
What I have wrote heaven knows; I have not time to review it; so
accept of it in the beaten way of friendship. With the ordinary
phrase--perhaps rather more than the ordinary sincerity,
I am, dear Sir,
Ever yours,
R. B.
* * * * *
XXX.
TO MISS ALEXANDER.
[This letter, Robert Chambers says, concluded with requesting Miss
Alexander to allow the poet to print the song which it enclosed, in a
second edition of his Poems. Her neglect in not replying to this
request is a very good poetic reason for his wrath. Many of Burns's
letters have been printed, it is right to say, from the rough drafts
found among the poet's papers at his death. This is one.]
_Mossgiel, 18th Nov. 1786._
MADAM,
Poets are such outré beings, so much the children of wayward fancy and
capricious whim, that I believe the world generally allows them a
larger latitude in the laws of propriety, than the sober sons of
judgment and prudence. I mention this as an apology for the liberties
that a nameless stranger has taken with you in the enclosed poem,
which he begs leave to present you with. Whether it has poetical merit
any way worthy of the theme, I am not the proper judge; but it is the
best my abilities can produce; and what to a good heart will, perhaps,
be a superior grace, it is equally sincere as fervent.
The scenery was nearly taken from real life, though I dare say, Madam,
you do not recollect it, as I believe you scarcely noticed the poetic
reveur as he wandered by you. I had roved out as chance directed, in
the favourite haunts of my muse on the banks of the Ayr, to view
nature in all the gayety of the vernal year. The evening sun was
flaming over the distant western hills; not a breath stirred the
crimson opening blossom, or the verdant spreading leaf. It was a
golden moment for a poetic heart. I listened to the feathered
warblers, pouring their harmony on every hand, with a congenial
kindred regard, and frequently turned out of my path, lest I should
disturb their little songs, or frighten them to another station.
Surely, said I to myself, he must be a wretch indeed, who, regardless
of your harmonious endeavour to please him, can eye your elusive
flights to discover your secret recesses, and to rob you of all the
property nature gives you--your dearest comforts, your helpless
nestlings. Even the hoary hawthorn twig that shot across the way, what
heart at such a time but must have been interested in its welfare, and
wished it preserved from the rudely-browsing cattle, or the withering
eastern blast? Such was the scene,--and such the hour, when, in a
corner of my prospect, I spied one of the fairest pieces of nature's
workmanship that ever crowned a poetic landscape or met a poet's eye,
those visionary bards excepted, who hold commerce with aërial beings!
Had Calumny and Villany taken my walk, they had at that moment sworn
eternal peace with such an object.
What an hour of inspiration for a poet! It would have raised plain
dull historic prose into metaphor measure.
The enclosed song was the work of my return home: and perhaps it but
poorly answers what might have been expected from such a scene.
I have the honour to be,
Madam,
Your most obedient and very
humble Servant,
R. B.
* * * * *
XXXI.
TO MRS. STEWART,
OF STAIR AND AFTON.
[Mrs. Stewart, of Stair and Afton, was the first person of note in the
West who had the taste to see and feel the genius of Burns. He used to
relate how his heart fluttered when he first walked into the parlour
of the towers of Stair, to hear the lady's opinion of some of his
songs.]
[1786]
MADAM,
The hurry of my preparations for going abroad has hindered me from
performing my promise so soon as I intended. I have here sent you a
parcel of songs, &c., which never made their appearance, except to a
friend or two at most. Perhaps some of them may be no great
entertainment to you, but of that I am far from being an adequate
judge. The song to the tune of "Ettrick Banks" [The bonnie lass of
Ballochmyle] you will easily see the impropriety of exposing much,
even in manuscript. I think, myself, it has some merit: both as a
tolerable description of one of nature's sweetest scenes, a July
evening, and one of the finest pieces of nature's workmanship, the
finest indeed we know anything of, an amiable, beautiful young
woman;[161] but I have no common friend to procure me that permission,
without which I would not dare to spread the copy.
I am quite aware, Madam, what task the world would assign me in this
letter. The obscure bard, when any of the great condescend to take
notice of him, should heap the altar with the incense of flattery.
Their high ancestry, their own great and godlike qualities and
actions, should be recounted with the most exaggerated description.
This, Madam, is a task for which I am altogether unfit. Besides a
certain disqualifying pride of heart, I know nothing of your
connexions in life, and have no access to where your real character
is to be found--the company of your compeers: and more, I am afraid
that even the most refined adulation is by no means the road to your
good opinion.
One feature of your character I shall ever with grateful pleasure
remember;--the reception I got when I had the honour of waiting on you
at Stair. I am little acquainted with politeness, but I know a good
deal of benevolence of temper and goodness of heart. Surely did those
in exalted stations know how happy they could make some classes of
their inferiors by condescension and affability, they would never
stand so high, measuring out with every look the height of their
elevation, but condescend as sweetly as did Mrs. Stewart of Stair.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 161: Miss Alexander.]
* * * * *
XXXII.
IN THE NAME OF THE NINE. AMEN.
[The song or ballad which one of the "Deil's yeld Nowte" was commanded
to burn, was "Holy Willie's Prayer," it is believed. Currie interprets
the "Deil's yeld Nowte," to mean old bachelors, which, if right,
points to some other of his compositions, for purgation by fire.
Gilbert Burns says it is a scoffing appellation sometimes given to
sheriff's officers and other executors of the law.]
We, Robert Burns, by virtue of a warrant from Nature, bearing date the
twenty-fifth day of January, Anno Domini one thousand seven hundred
and fifty-nine,[162] Poet Laureat, and Bard in Chief, in and over the
districts and countries of Kyle, Cunningham, and Carrick, of old
extent, To our trusty and well-beloved William Chalmers and John
M'Adam, students and practitioners in the ancient and mysterious
science of confounding right and wrong.
RIGHT TRUSTY:
Be it known unto you that whereas in the course of our care and
watchings over the order and police of all and sundry the
manufacturers, retainers, and venders of poesy; bards, poets,
poetasters, rhymers, jinglers, songsters, ballad-singers, &c. &c. &c.
&c., male and female--We have discovered a certain nefarious,
abominable, and wicked song or ballad, a copy whereof We have here
enclosed; Our Will therefore is, that Ye pitch upon and appoint the
most execrable individual of that most execrable species, known by the
appellation, phrase, and nick-name of The Deil's Yeld Nowte: and after
having caused him to kindle a fire at the Cross of Ayr, ye shall, at
noontide of the day, put into the said wretch's merciless hands the
said copy of the said nefarious and wicked song, to be consumed by
fire in the presence of all beholders, in abhorrence of, and terrorem
to, all such compositions and composers. And this in nowise leave ye
undone, but have it executed in every point as this our mandate bears,
before the twenty-fourth current, when in person We hope to applaud
your faithfulness and zeal.
Given at Mauchline this twentieth day of November, Anno Domini one
thousand seven hundred and eighty-six.
God save the Bard!
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 162: His birth-day.]
* * * * *
XXXIII.
TO MR. ROBERT MUIR.
[The expedition to Edinburgh, to which this short letter alludes, was
undertaken, it is needless to say, in consequence of a warm and
generous commendation of the genius of Burns written by Dr. Blacklock,
to the Rev. Mr. Lawrie, and communicated by Gavin Hamilton to the
poet, when he was on the wing for the West Indies.]
_Mossgiel, 18th Nov., 1786._
MY DEAR SIR,
Enclosed you have "Tam Samson," as I intend to print him. I am
thinking for my Edinburgh expedition on Monday or Tuesday, come
se'ennight, for pos. I will see you on Tuesday first.
I am ever,
Your much indebted,
R. B.
* * * * *
XXXIV.
TO DR. MACKENZIE,
MAUCHLINE;
ENCLOSING THE VERSES ON DINING WITH LORD DAER.
[To the kind and venerable Dr. Mackenzie, the poet was indebted for
some valuable friendships, and his biographers for some valuable
information respecting the early days of Burns.]
_Wednesday Morning._
DEAR SIR,
I never spent an afternoon among great folks with half that pleasure
as when, in company with you, I had the honour of paying my devoirs to
the plain, honest, worthy man, the professor. [Dugald Stewart.] I
would be delighted to see him perform acts of kindness and friendship,
though I were not the object; he does it with such a grace. I think
his character, divided into ten parts, stands thus--four parts
Socrates--four parts Nathaniel--and two parts Shakspeare's Brutus.
The foregoing verses were really extempore, but a little corrected
since. They may entertain you a little with the help of that
partiality with which you are so good as to favour the performances
of,
Dear Sir,
Your very humble servant,
R. B.
* * * * *
XXXV.
TO GAVIN HAMILTON, ESQ.,
MAUCHLINE.
[From Gavin Hamilton Burns and his brother took the farm of Mossgiel:
the landlord was not slow in perceiving the genius of Robert: he had
him frequently at his table, and the poet repaid this notice by verse
not likely soon to die.]
Edinburgh, Dec. 7th, 1786.
HONOURED SIR,
I have paid every attention to your commands, but can only say what
perhaps you will have heard before this reach you, that Muirkirklands
were bought by a John Gordon, W.S., but for whom I know not;
Mauchlands, Haugh, Miln, &c., by a Frederick Fotheringham, supposed to
be for Ballochmyle Laird, and Adamhill and Shawood were bought for
Oswald's folks.--This is so imperfect an account, and will be so late
ere it reach you, that were it not to discharge my conscience I would
not trouble you with it; but after all my diligence I could make it no
sooner nor better.
For my own affairs, I am in a fair way of becoming as eminent as
Thomas à Kempis or John Bunyan; and you may expect henceforth to see
my birth-day inserted among the wonderful events, in the Poor Robin's
and Aberdeen Almanacks, along with the Black Monday, and the battle of
Bothwell bridge.--My Lord Glencairn and the Dean of Faculty, Mr. H.
Erskine, have taken me under their wing; and by all probability I
shall soon be the tenth worthy, and the eighth wise man in the world.
Through my lord's influence it is inserted in the records of the
Caledonian Hunt, that they universally, one and all, subscribe for the
second edition.--My subscription bills come out to-morrow, and you
shall have some of them next post.--I have met, in Mr. Dalrymple, of
Orangefield, what Solomon emphatically calls "a friend that sticketh
closer than a brother."--The warmth with which he interests himself in
my affairs is of the same enthusiastic kind which you, Mr. Aiken, and
the few patrons that took notice of my earlier poetic days, showed for
the poor unlucky devil of a poet.
I always remember Mrs. Hamilton and Miss Kennedy in my poetic prayers,
but you both in prose and verse.
May cauld ne'er catch you but a hap,
Nor hunger but in plenty's lap!
Amen!
R. B.
* * * * *
XXXVI.
TO JOHN BALLANTYNE, ESQ.,
BANKER, AYR.
[This is the second letter which Burns wrote, after his arrival in
Edinburgh, and it is remarkable because it distinctly imputes his
introduction to the Earl of Glencairn, to Dalrymple, of Orangefield;
though he elsewhere says this was done by Mr. Dalzell;--perhaps both
those gentlemen had a hand in this good deed.]
_Edinburgh, 13th Dec. 1786._
MY HONOURED FRIEND,
I would not write you till I could have it in my power to give you
some account of myself and my matters, which, by the by, is often no
easy task.--I arrived here on Tuesday was se'ennight, and have
suffered ever since I came to town with a miserable headache and
stomach complaint, but am now a good deal better.--I have found a
worthy warm friend in Mr. Dalrymple, of Orangefield, who introduced me
to Lord Glencairn, a man whose worth and brotherly kindness to me, I
shall remember when time shall be no more.--By his interest it is
passed in the "Caledonian Hunt," and entered in their books, that they
are to take each a copy of the second edition, for which they are to
pay one guinea.--I have been introduced to a good many of the
noblesse, but my avowed patrons and patronesses are the Duchess of
Gordon--the Countess of Glencairn, with my Lord, and Lady
Betty[163]--the Dean of Faculty--Sir John Whitefoord--I have likewise
warm friends among the literati; Professors Stewart, Blair, and Mr.
Mackenzie--the Man of Feeling.--An unknown hand left ten guineas for
the Ayrshire bard with Mr. Sibbald, which I got.--I since have
discovered my generous unknown friend to be Patrick Miller, Esq.,
brother to the Justice Clerk; and drank a glass of claret with him, by
invitation, at his own house, yesternight. I am nearly agreed with
Creech to print my book, and I suppose I will begin on Monday. I will
send a subscription bill or two, next post; when I intend writing my
first kind patron, Mr. Aiken. I saw his son to-day, and he is very
well.
Dugald Stewart, and some of my learned friends, put me in the
periodical paper, called The Lounger,[164] a copy of which I here
enclose you.--I was, Sir, when I was first honoured with your notice,
too obscure; now I tremble lest I should be ruined by being dragged
too suddenly into the glare of polite and learned observation.
I shall certainly, my ever honoured patron, write you an account of my
every step; and better health and more spirits may enable me to make
it something better than this stupid matter-of-fact epistle.
I have the honour to be,
Good Sir,
Your ever grateful humble servant,
R. B.
If any of my friends write me, my direction is, care of Mr. Creech,
bookseller.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 163: Lady Betty Cunningham.]
[Footnote 164: The paper here alluded to, was written by Mr. Mackenzie,
the celebrated author of "The Man of Feeling."]
* * * * *
XXXVII.
TO MR. ROBERT MUIR.
["Muir, thy weaknesses," says Burns, writing of this gentleman to Mrs.
Dunlop, "thy weaknesses were the aberrations of human nature; but thy
heart glowed with everything generous, manly, and noble: and if ever
emanation from the All-good Being animated a human form, it was
thine."]
_Edinburgh, Dec. 20th, 1786._
MY DEAR FRIEND,
I have just time for the carrier, to tell you that I received your
letter; of which I shall say no more but what a lass of my
acquaintance said of her bastard wean; she said she "did na ken wha
was the father exactly, but she suspected it was some o' the bonny
blackguard smugglers, for it was like them." So I only say your
obliging epistle was like you. I enclose you a parcel of subscription
bills. Your affair of sixty copies is also like you; but it would not
be like me to comply.
Your friend's notion of my life has put a crotchet in my head of
sketching it in some future epistle to you. My compliments to Charles
and Mr. Parker.
R. B.
* * * * *
XXXVIII.
TO MR. WILLIAM CHALMERS,
WRITER, AYR.
[William Chalmers drew out the assignment of the copyright of Burns's
Poems, in favour of his brother Gilbert, and for the maintenance of
his natural child, when engaged to go to the West Indies, in the
autumn of 1786.]
_Edinburgh, Dec. 27, 1786._
MY DEAR FRIEND,
I confess I have sinned the sin for which there is hardly any
forgiveness--ingratitude to friendship--in not writing you sooner; but
of all men living, I had intended to have sent you an entertaining
letter; and by all the plodding, stupid powers, that in nodding,
conceited majesty, preside over the dull routine of business--a
heavily solemn oath this!--I am, and have been, ever since I came to
Edinburgh, as unfit to write a letter of humour, as to write a
commentary on the Revelation of St. John the Divine, who was banished
to the Isle of Patmos, by the cruel and bloody Domitian, son to
Vespasian and brother to Titus, both emperors of Rome, and who was
himself an emperor, and raised the second or third persecution, I
forget which, against the Christians, and after throwing the said
Apostle John, brother to the Apostle James, commonly called James the
Greater, to distinguish him from another James, who was, on some
account or other, known by the name of James the Less--after throwing
him into a cauldron of boiling oil, from which he was miraculously
preserved, he banished the poor son of Zebedee to a desert island in
the Archipelago, where he was gifted with the second sight, and saw as
many wild beasts as I have seen since I came to Edinburgh; which, a
circumstance not very uncommon in story-telling, brings me back to
where I set out.
To make you some amends for what, before you reach this paragraph, you
will have suffered, I enclose you two poems I have carded and spun
since I past Glenbuck.
One blank in the address to Edinburgh--"Fair B----," is heavenly Miss
Burnet, daughter to Lord Monboddo, at whose house I have had the
honour to be more than once. There has not been anything nearly like
her in all the combinations of beauty, grace, and goodness the great
Creator has formed since Milton's Eve on the first day of her
existence.
My direction is--care of Andrew Bruce, merchant, Bridge-street.
R. B.
* * * * *
XXXIX.
TO THE EARL OF EGLINTOUN.
[Archibald Montgomery, eleventh Earl of Eglinton, and Colonel Hugh
Montgomery, of Coilsfield, who succeeded his brother in his titles and
estates, were patrons, and kind ones, of Burns.]
_Edinburgh, January_ 1787.
MY LORD,
As I have but slender pretensions to philosophy, I cannot rise to the
exalted ideas of a citizen of the world, but have all those national
prejudices, which I believe glow peculiarly strong in the breast of a
Scotchman. There is scarcely anything to which I am so feelingly alive
as the honour and welfare of my country: and, as a poet, I have no
higher enjoyment than singing her sons and daughters. Fate had cast my
station in the veriest shades of life; but never did a heart pant more
ardently than mine to be distinguished; though, till very lately, I
looked in vain on every side for a ray of light. It is easy then to
guess how much I was gratified with the countenance and approbation of
one of my country's most illustrious sons, when Mr. Wauchope called on
me yesterday on the part of your lordship. Your munificence, my lord,
certainly deserves my very grateful acknowledgments; but your
patronage is a bounty peculiarly suited to my feelings. I am not
master enough of the etiquette of life to know, whether there be not
some impropriety in troubling your lordship with my thanks, but my
heart whispered me to do it. From the emotions of my inmost soul I do
it. Selfish ingratitude I hope I am incapable of; and mercenary
servility, I trust, I shall ever have so much honest pride as to
detest.
R. B.
* * * * *
XL.
TO MR. GAVIN HAMILTON.
[This letter was first published by Hubert Chambers, who considered it
as closing the enquiry, "was Burns a married man?" No doubt Burns
thought himself unmarried, and the Rev. Mr. Auld was of the same
opinion, since he offered him a certificate that he was single: but no
opinion of priest or lawyer, including the disclamation of Jean
Armour, and the belief of Burns, could have, in my opinion, barred the
claim of the children to full legitimacy, according to the law of
Scotland.]
_Edinburgh, Jan._ 7, 1787.
To tell the truth among friends, I feel a miserable blank in my heart,
with the want of her, and I don't think I shall ever meet with so
delicious an armful again. She has her faults; and so have you and I;
and so has everybody:
Their tricks and craft hae put me daft;
They've ta'en me in and a' that;
But clear your decks, and here's the sex,
I like the jads for a' that.
For a' that and a' that,
And twice as muckle's a' that.
* * * * *
I have met with a very pretty girl, a Lothian farmer's daughter, whom
I have almost persuaded to accompany me to the west country, should I
ever return to settle there. By the bye, a Lothian farmer is about an
Ayrshire squire of the lower kind; and I had a most delicious ride
from Leith to her house yesternight, in a hackney-coach with her
brother and two sisters, and brother's wife. We had dined altogether
at a common friend's house in Leith, and danced, drank, and sang till
late enough. The night was dark, the claret had been good, and I
thirsty. * * * * *
R. B.
* * * * *
XLI.
TO JOHN BALLANTYNE, ESQ.
[This letter contains the first intimation that the poet desired to
resume the labours of the farmer. The old saw of "Willie Gaw's
Skate," he picked up from his mother, who had a vast collection of
such sayings.]
_Edinburgh, Jan. 14, 1787._
MY HONOURED FRIEND,
It gives me a secret comfort to observe in myself that I am not yet so
far gone as Willie Gaw's Skate, "past redemption;" for I have still
this favourable symptom of grace, that when my conscience, as in the
case of this letter, tells me I am leaving something undone that I
ought to do, it teases me eternally till I do it.
I am still "dark as was Chaos"[165] in respect to futurity. My generous
friend, Mr. Patrick Miller, has been talking with me about a lease of
some farm or other in an estate called Dalswinton, which he has lately
bought, near Dumfries. Some life-rented embittering recollections
whisper me that I will be happier anywhere than in my old
neighbourhood, but Mr. Miller is no judge of land; and though I dare
say he means to favour me, yet he may give me, in his opinion, an
advantageous bargain that may ruin me. I am to take a tour by Dumfries
as I return, and have promised to meet Mr. Miller on his lands some
time in May.
I went to a mason-lodge yesternight, where the most Worshipful Grand
Master Charters, and all the Grand Lodge of Scotland visited. The
meeting was numerous and elegant; all the different lodges about town
were present, in all their pomp. The Grand Master, who presided with
great solemnity and honour to himself as a gentleman and mason, among
other general toasts, gave "Caledonia, and Caledonia's Bard, Brother
Burns," which rung through the whole assembly with multiplied honours
and repeated acclamations. As I had no idea such a thing would happen,
I was downright thunderstruck, and, trembling in every nerve, made the
best return in my power. Just as I had finished, some of the grand
officers said, so loud that I could hear, with a most comforting
accent, "Very well indeed!" which set me something to rights again.
I have to-day corrected my 152d page. My best good wishes to Mr.
Aiken.
I am ever,
Dear Sir,
Your much indebted humble servant,
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 165: See Blair's Grave. This was a favourite quotation with
Burns.]
* * * * *
XLII.
TO JOHN BALLANTYNE.
[I have not hesitated to insert all letters which show what Burns was
musing on as a poet, or planning as a man.]
_January_ ----, 1787.
While here I sit, sad and solitary by the side of a fire in a little
country inn, and drying my wet clothes, in pops a poor fellow of
sodger, and tells me he is going to Ayr. By heavens! say I to myself,
with a tide of good spirits which the magic of that sound, Auld Toon
o' Ayr, conjured up, I will sent my last song to Mr. Ballantyne. Here
it is--
Ye flowery banks o' bonnie Doon,
How can ye blume sae fair;
How can ye chant, ye little birds,
And I sae fu' o' care![166]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 166: Song CXXXI.]
* * * * *
XLIII.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[The friendship of Mrs. Dunlop purified, while it strengthened the
national prejudices of Burns.]
_Edinburgh, 15th January_, 1787.
MADAM,
Yours of the 9th current, which I am this moment honoured with, is a
deep reproach to me for ungrateful neglect. I will tell you the real
truth, for I am miserably awkward at a fib--I wished to have written
to Dr. Moore before I wrote to you; but though every day since I
received yours of December 30th, the idea, the wish to write to him
has constantly pressed on my thoughts, yet I could not for my soul set
about it. I know his fame and character, and I am one of "the sons of
little men." To write him a mere matter-of-fact affair, like a
merchant's order, would be disgracing the little character I have; and
to write the author of "The View of Society and Manners" a letter of
sentiment--I declare every artery runs cold at the thought. I shall
try, however, to write to him to-morrow or next day. His kind
interposition in my behalf I have already experienced, as a gentleman
waited on me the other day, on the part of Lord Eglintoun, with ten
guineas, by way of subscription for two copies of my next edition.
The word you object to in the mention I have made of my glorious
countryman and your immortal ancestor, is indeed borrowed from
Thomson; but it does not strike me us an improper epithet. I
distrusted my own judgment on your finding fault with it, and applied
for the opinion of some of the literati here, who honour me with their
critical strictures, and they all allow it to be proper. The song you
ask I cannot recollect, and I have not a copy of it. I have not
composed anything on the great Wallace, except what you have, seen in
print; and the enclosed, which I will print in this edition. You will
see I have mentioned some others of the name. When I composed my
"Vision" long ago, I had attempted a description of Koyle, of which
the additional stanzas are a part, as it originally stood. My heart
glows with a wish to be able to do justice to the merits of the
"Saviour of his Country," which sooner or later I shall at least
attempt.
You are afraid I shall grow intoxicated with my prosperity as a poet;
alas! Madam, I know myself and the world too well. I do not mean any
airs of affected modesty; I am willing to believe that my abilities
deserve some notice; but in a most enlightened, informed age and
nation, when poetry is and has been the study of man of the first
natural genius, aided with all the powers of polite learning, polite
books, and polite company--to be dragged forth to the full glare of
learned and polite observation, with all my imperfections of awkward
rusticity and crude unpolished ideas on my head--I assure you, Madam,
I do not dissemble when I tell you I tremble for the consequences. The
novelty of a poet in my obscure situation, without any of those
advantages which are reckoned necessary for that character, at least
at this time of day, has raised a partial tide of public notice which
has borne me to a height, where I am absolutely, feelingly certain, my
abilities are inadequate to support me; and too surely do I see that
time when the same tide will leave me, and recede, perhaps, as far
below the mark of truth. I do not say this in the ridiculous
affectation of self-abasement and modesty. I have studied myself, and
know what ground I occupy; and, however a friend or the world may
differ from me in that particular, I stand for my own opinion, in
silent resolve, with all the tenaciousness of property. I mention this
to you once for all to disburthen my mind, and I do not wish to hear
or say more about it--But,
"When proud fortune's ebbing tide recedes,"
you will bear me witness, that when my bubble of fame was at the
highest, I stood unintoxicated with the inebriating cup in my hand,
looking forward with rueful resolve to the hastening time, when the
blow of Calumny should dash it to the ground with all the eagerness of
vengeful triumph.
Your patronizing me and interesting yourself in my fame and character
as a poet, I rejoice in; it exalts me in my own idea; and whether you
can or cannot aid me in my subscription is a trifle. Has a paltry
subscription-bill any charms to the heart of a bard, compared with the
patronage of the descendant of the immortal Wallace?
R. B.
* * * * *
XLIV.
TO DR. MOORE.
[Dr. Moore, the accomplished author of Zeluco and father of Sir John
Moore, interested himself in the fame and fortune of Burns, as soon as
the publication of his Poems made his name known to the world.]
_Edinburgh, Jan. 1787._
SIR,
Mrs. Dunlop has been so kind as to send me extracts of letters she has
had from you, where you do the rustic bard the honour of noticing him
and his works. Those who have felt the anxieties and solicitudes of
authorship, can only know what pleasure it gives to be noticed in such
a manner, by judges of the first character. Your criticism, Sir, I
receive with reverence; only I am sorry they mostly came too late: a
peccant passage or two that I would certainly have altered, were gone
to the press.
The hope to be admired for ages, is, in by far the greater part of
those even who are authors of repute, an unsubstantial dream. For my
part, my first ambition was, and still my strongest wish is, to please
my compeers, the rustic inmates of the hamlet, while ever-changing
language and manners shall allow me to be relished and understood. I
am very willing to admit that I have some poetical abilities; and as
few, if any, writers, either moral or poetical, are intimately
acquainted with the classes of mankind among whom I have chiefly
mingled, I may have seen men and manners in a different phasis from
what is common, which may assist originality of thought. Still I know
very well the novelty of my character has by far the greatest share in
the learned and polite notice I have lately had; and in a language
where Pope and Churchill have raised the laugh, and Shenstone and Gray
drawn the tear; where Thomson and Beattie have painted the landscape,
and Lyttelton and Collins described the heart, I am not vain enough to
hope for distinguished poetic fame.
R. B.
* * * * *
XLV.
TO THE REV. G. LAURIE,
NEWMILLS, NEAR KILMARNOCK.
[It has been said in the Life of Burns, that for some time after he
went to Edinburgh, he did not visit Dr. Blacklock, whose high opinion
of his genius induced him to try his fortune in that city: it will be
seen by this letter that he had neglected also, for a time, at least,
to write to Dr. Laurie, who introduced him to the Doctor.]
_Edinburgh, Feb. 5th, 1787._
REVEREND AND DEAR SIR,
When I look at the date of your kind letter, my heart reproaches me
severely with ingratitude in neglecting so long to answer it. I will
not trouble you with any account, by way of apology, of my hurried
life and distracted attention: do me the justice to believe that my
delay by no means proceeded from want of respect. I feel, and ever
shall feel for you the mingled sentiments of esteem for a friend and
reverence for a father.
I thank you, Sir, with all my soul for your friendly hints, though I
do not need them so much as my friends are apt to imagine. You are
dazzled with newspaper accounts and distant reports; but, in reality,
I have no great temptation to be intoxicated with the cup of
prosperity. Novelty may attract the attention of mankind awhile; to it
I owe my present éclat; but I see the time not far distant when the
popular tide which has borne me to a height of which I am, perhaps,
unworthy, shall recede with silent celerity, and leave me a barren
waste of sand, to descend at my leisure to my former station. I do not
say this in the affectation of modesty; I see the consequence is
unavoidable, and am prepared for it. I had been at a good deal of
pains to form a just, impartial estimate of my intellectual powers
before I came here; I have not added, since I came to Edinburgh,
anything to the account; and I trust I shall take every atom of it
back to my shades, the coverts of my unnoticed, early years.
In Dr. Blacklock, whom I see very often, I have found what I would
have expected in our friend, a clear head and an excellent heart.
By far the most agreeable hours I spend in Edinburgh must be placed to
the account of Miss Laurie and her piano-forte. I cannot help
repeating to you and Mrs. Laurie a compliment that Mr. Mackenzie, the
celebrated "Man of Feeling," paid to Miss Laurie, the other night, at
the concert. I had come in at the interlude, and sat down by him till
I saw Miss Laurie in a seat not very distant, and went up to pay my
respects to her. On my return to Mr. Mackenzie he asked me who she
was; I told him 'twas the daughter of a reverend friend of mine in the
west country. He returned, there was something very striking, to his
idea, in her appearance. On my desiring to know what it was, he was
pleased to say, "She has a great deal of the elegance of a well-bred
lady about her, with all the sweet simplicity of a country girl."
My compliments to all the happy inmates of St. Margaret's.
R. B.
* * * * *
XLVI.
TO DR. MOORE.
[In the answer to this letter, Dr. Moore says that the poet was a
great favourite in his family, and that his youngest son, at
Winchester school, had translated part of "Halloween" into Latin
verse, for the benefit of his comrades.]
_Edinburgh, 15th February, 1787._
SIR,
Pardon my seeming neglect in delaying so long to acknowledge the
honour you have done me, in your kind notice of me, January 23d. Not
many months ago I knew no other employment than following the plough,
nor could boast anything higher than a distant acquaintance with a
country clergyman. Mere greatness never embarrasses me; I have nothing
to ask from the great, and I do not fear their judgment: but genius,
polished by learning, and at its proper point of elevation in the eye
of the world, this of late I frequently meet with, and tremble at its
approach. I scorn the affectation of seeming modesty to cover
self-conceit. That I have some merit I do not deny; but I see with
frequent wringings of heart, that the novelty of my character, and the
honest national prejudice of my countrymen, have borne me to a height
altogether untenable to my abilities.
For the honour Miss Williams has done me, please, Sir, return her in
my name my most grateful thanks. I have more than once thought of
paying her in kind, but have hitherto quitted the idea in hopeless
despondency. I had never before heard of her; but the other day I got
her poems, which for several reasons, some belonging to the head, and
others the offspring of the heart, give me a great deal of pleasure. I
have little pretensions to critic lore; there are, I think, two
characteristic features in her poetry--the unfettered wild flight of
native genius, and the querulous sombre tenderness of "time-settled
sorrow."
I only know what pleases me, often without being able to tell why.
R. B.
* * * * *
XLVII.
TO JOHN BALLANTYNE, ESQ.
[The picture from which Beugo engraved the portrait alluded to in this
letter, was painted by the now venerable Alexander Nasmyth--the eldest
of living British artists:--it is, with the exception of a profile by
Miers, the only portrait for which we are quite sure that the poet
sat.]
_Edinburgh, Feb. 24th, 1787._
MY HONOURED FRIEND,
I will soon be with you now, in guid black prent;--in a week or ten
days at farthest. I am obliged, against my own wish, to print
subscribers' names; so if any of my Ayr friends have subscription
bills, they must be sent in to Creech directly. I am getting my phiz
done by an eminent engraver, and if it can be ready in time, I will
appear in my book, looking like all other _fools_ to my title-page.
R. B.
* * * * *
XLVIII.
TO THE EARL OF GLENCAIRN.
[The Earl of Glencairn seems to have refused, from motives of
delicacy, the request of the poet: the verses, long lost, were at last
found, and are now, through the kindness of my friend, Major James
Glencairn Burns, printed with the rest of his eminent father's works.]
_Edinburgh, 1787_
MY LORD,
I wanted to purchase a profile of your lordship, which I was told was
to be got in town; but I am truly sorry to see that a blundering
painter has spoiled a "human face divine." The enclosed stanzas I
intended to have written below a picture or profile of your lordship,
could I have been so happy as to procure one with anything of a
likeness.
As I will soon return to my shades, I wanted to have something like a
material object for my gratitude; I wanted to have it in my power to
say to a friend, there is my noble patron, my generous benefactor.
Allow me, my lord, to publish these verses. I conjure your lordship,
by the honest throe of gratitude, by the generous wish of benevolence,
by all the powers and feelings which compose the magnanimous mind, do
not deny me this petition. I owe much to your lordship: and, what has
not in some other instances always been the case with me, the weight
of the obligation is a pleasing load. I trust I have a heart as
independent as your lordship's, than which I can say nothing more; and
I would not be beholden to favours that would crucify my feelings.
Your dignified character in life, and manner of supporting that
character, are flattering to my pride; and I would be jealous of the
purity of my grateful attachment, where I was under the patronage of
one of the much favoured sons of fortune.
Almost every poet has celebrated his patrons, particularly when they
were names dear to fame, and illustrious in their country; allow me,
then, my lord, if you think the verses have intrinsic merit, to tell
the world how much I have the honour to be,
Your lordship's highly indebted,
And ever grateful humble servant,
R. B.
* * * * *
XLIX.
TO THE EARL OF BUCHAN.
[The Earl of Buchan, a man of talent, but more than tolerably vain,
advised Burns to visit the battle-fields and scenes celebrated in song
on the Scottish border, with the hope, perhaps, that he would drop a
few of his happy verses in Dryburgh Abbey, the residence of his
lordship.]
MY LORD,
The honour your lordship has done me, by your notice and advice in
yours of the 1st instant, I shall ever gratefully remember:--
"Praise from thy lips, 'tis mine with joy to boast,
They best can give it who deserve it most."[167]
Your lordship touches the darling chord of my heart when you advise me
to fire my muse at Scottish story and Scotch scenes. I wish for
nothing more than to make a leisurely pilgrimage through my native
country; to sit and muse on those once hard-contended fields, where
Caledonia, rejoicing, saw her bloody lion borne through broken ranks
to victory and fame; and, catching the inspiration, to pour the
deathless names in song. But, my lord, in the midst of these
enthusiastic reveries, a long-visaged, dry, moral-looking phantom
strides across my imagination, and pronounces these emphatic words:--
"I, Wisdom, dwell with Prudence. Friend, I do not come to open the
ill-closed wounds of your follies and misfortunes, merely to give you
pain: I wish through these wounds to imprint a lasting lesson on your
heart. I will not mention how many of my salutary advices you have
despised: I have given you line upon line and precept upon precept;
and while I was chalking out to you the straight way to wealth and
character, with audacious effrontery you have zigzagged across the
path, contemning me to my face: you know the consequences. It is not
yet three months since home was so hot for you that you were on the
wing for the western shore of the Atlantic, not to make a fortune, but
to hide your misfortune.
"Now that your dear-loved Scotia puts it in your power to return to
the situation of your forefathers, will you follow these will-o'-wisp
meteors of fancy and whim, till they bring you once more to the brink
of ruin? I grant that the utmost ground you can occupy is but half a
step from the veriest poverty; but still it is half a step from it. If
all that I can urge be ineffectual, let her who seldom calls to you in
vain, let the call of pride prevail with you. You know how you feel at
the iron gripe of ruthless oppression: you know how you bear the
galling sneer of contumelious greatness. I hold you out the
conveniences, the comforts of life, independence, and character, on
the one hand; I tender you civility, dependence, and wretchedness, on
the other. I will not insult your understanding by bidding you make a
choice."
This, my lord, is unanswerable. I must return to my humble station,
and woo my rustic muse in my wonted way at the plough-tail. Still, my
lord, while the drops of life warm my heart, gratitude to that
dear-loved country in which I boast my birth, and gratitude to those
her distinguished sons who have honoured me so much with their
patronage and approbation, shall, while stealing through my humble
shades; ever distend my bosom, and at times, as now, draw forth the
swelling tear.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 167: Imitated from Pope's Eloisa to Abelard.]
* * * * *
L.
TO MR. JAMES CANDLISH.
[James Candlish, a student of medicine, was well acquainted with the
poetry of Lowe, author of that sublime lyric, "Mary's Dream," and at
the request of Burns sent Lowe's classic song of "Pompey's Ghost," to
the Musical Museum.]
_Edinburgh, March 21, 1787._
MY EVER DEAR OLD ACQUAINTANCE,
I was equally surprised and pleased at your letter, though I dare say
you will think by my delaying so long to write to you that I am so
drowned in the intoxication of good fortune as to be indifferent to
old, and once dear connexions. The truth is, I was determined to write
a good letter, full of argument, amplification, erudition, and, as
Bayes says, _all that._ I thought of it, and thought of it, and, by my
soul, I could not; and, lest you should mistake the cause of my
silence, I just sit down to tell you so. Don't give yourself credit,
though, that the strength of your logic scares me: the truth is, I
never mean to meet you on that ground at all. You have shown me one
thing which was to be demonstrated: that strong pride of reasoning,
with a little affectation of singularity, may mislead the best of
hearts. I likewise, since you and I were first acquainted, in the
pride of despising old woman's stories, ventured in "the daring path
Spinosa trod;" but experience of the weakness, not the strength of
human powers, made me glad to grasp at revealed religion.
I am still, in the Apostle Paul's phrase, "The old man with his
deeds," as when we were sporting about the "Lady Thorn." I shall be
four weeks here yet at least; and so I shall expect to hear from you;
welcome sense, welcome nonsense.
I am, with the warmest sincerity,
R. B.
* * * * *
LI.
TO ----.
[The name of the friend to whom this letter was addressed is still
unknown, though known to Dr. Currie. The Esculapian Club of Edinburgh
have, since the death of Burns, added some iron-work, with an
inscription in honour of the Ayrshire poet to the original headstone.
The cost to the poet was £5 10s.]
_Edinburgh, March, 1787._
MY DEAR SIR,
You may think, and too justly, that I am a selfish, ungrateful fellow,
having received so many repeated instances of kindness from you, and
yet never putting pen to paper to say thank you; but if you knew what
a devil of a life my conscience has led me on that account, your good
heart would think yourself too much avenged. By the bye, there is
nothing in the whole frame of man which seems to be so unaccountable
as that thing called conscience. Had the troublesome yelping cur
powers efficient to prevent a mischief, he might be of use; but at the
beginning of the business, his feeble efforts are to the workings of
passion as the infant frosts of an autumnal morning to the unclouded
fervour of the rising sun: and no sooner are the tumultuous doings of
the wicked deed over, than, amidst the bitter native consequences of
folly, in the very vortex of our horrors, up starts conscience, and
harrows us with the feelings of the damned.
I have enclosed you, by way of expiation, some verse and prose, that,
if they merit a place in your truly entertaining miscellany, you are
welcome to. The prose extract is literally as Mr. Sprott sent it me.
The inscription on the stone is as follows:--
"HERE LIES ROBERT FERGUSSON, POET.
Born, September 5th, 1751--Died, 16th October 1774.
"No scuptur'd marble here, nor pompous lay,
'No storied urn or animated bust;'
This simple stone directs pale Scotia's way
To pour her sorrows o'er her poet's dust."
On the other side of the stone is as follows:
"By special grant of the managers to Robert Burns, who erected this
stone, this burial place is to remain for ever sacred to the memory of
Robert Fergusson."
* * * * *
_Session-house, within the Kirk of Canongate, the
twenty-second day of February, one thousand seven hundred
eighty-seven years._
Sederunt of the Managers of the Kirk and Kirk-Yard funds of Canongate.
Which day, the treasurer to the said funds produced a letter from Mr.
Robert Burns, of date the 6th current, which was read and appointed to
be engrossed in their sederunt book, and of which letter the tenor
follows:--
"To the honourable baillies of Canongate, Edinburgh.--Gentlemen, I am
sorry to be told that the remains of Robert Fergusson, the so justly
celebrated poet, a man whose talents for ages to come will do honour
to our Caledonian name, lie in your church-yard among the ignoble
dead, unnoticed and unknown.
"Some memorial to direct the steps of the lovers of Scottish song,
when they wish to shed a tear over the 'narrow house' of the bard who
is no more, is surely a tribute due to Fergusson's memory: a tribute I
wish to have the honour of paying.
"I petition you then, gentlemen, to permit me to lay a simple stone
over his revered ashes, to remain an unalienable property to his
deathless fame. I have the honour to be, gentlemen, your very humble
servant (_sic subscribitur_),
ROBERT BURNS."
Thereafter the said managers, in consideration of the laudable and
disinterested motion of Mr. Burns, and the propriety of his request,
did, and hereby do, unanimously, grant power and liberty to the said
Robert Burns to erect a headstone at the grave of the said Robert
Fergusson, and to keep up and preserve the same to his memory in all
time coming. Extracted forth of the records of the managers, by
WILLIAM SPROTT, Clerk.
* * * * *
LII.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[The poet alludes in this letter to the profits of the Edinburgh
edition of his Poems: the exact sum is no where stated, but it could
not have been less than seven hundred pounds.]
_Edinburgh, March 22d, 1787._
MADAM,
I read your letter with watery eyes. A little, very little while ago,
I had scarce a friend but the stubborn pride of my own bosom: now I am
distinguished, patronized, befriended by you. Your friendly advices, I
will not give them the cold name of criticisms, I receive with
reverence. I have made some small alterations in what I before had
printed. I have the advice of some very judicious friends among the
literati here, but with them I sometimes find it necessary to claim
the privilege of thinking for myself. The noble Karl of Glencairn, to
whom I owe more than to any man, does me the honor of giving me his
strictures: his hints, with respect to impropriety or indelicacy, I
follow implicitly.
You kindly interest yourself in my future views and prospects; there I
can give you no light. It is all
"Dark as was Chaos ere the infant sun
Was roll'd together, or had tried his beams
Athwart the gloom profound."[168]
The appellation of a Scottish bard, is by far my highest pride; to
continue to deserve it is my most exalted ambition. Scottish scenes
and Scottish story are the themes I could wish to sing. I have no
dearer aim than to have it in my power, unplagued with the routine of
business, for which heaven knows I am unfit enough, to make leisurely
pilgrimages through Caledonia; to sit on the fields of her battles; to
wander on the romantic banks of her rivers; and to muse by the stately
towers or venerable ruins, once the honoured abodes of her heroes.
But these are all Utopian thoughts: I have dallied long enough with
life; 'tis time to be in earnest. I have a fond, an aged mother to care
for: and some other bosom ties perhaps equally tender. Where the
individual only suffers by the consequences of his own thoughtlessness,
indolence, or folly, he may be excusable; nay, shining abilities, and
some of the nobler virtues, may half sanctify a heedless character; but
where God and nature have intrusted the welfare of others to his care;
where the trust is sacred, and the ties are dear, that man must be far
gone in selfishness, or strangely lost to reflection, whom these
connexions will not rouse to exertion.
I guess that I shall clear between two and three hundred pounds by my
authorship; with that sum I intend, so far as I may be said to have
any intention, to return to my old acquaintance, the plough, and if I
can meet with a lease by which I can live, to commence farmer. I do
not intend to give up poetry; being bred to labour, secures me
independence, and the muses are my chief, sometimes have been my only
enjoyment. If my practice second my resolution, I shall have
principally at heart the serious business of life; but while following
my plough, or building up my shocks, I shall cast a leisure glance to
that dear, that only feature of my character, which gave me the notice
of my country, and the patronage of a Wallace.
Thus, honoured Madam, I have given you the bard, his situation, and
his views, native as they are in his own bosom.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 168: Blair's Grave.]
* * * * *
LIII.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[This seems to be a letter acknowledging the payment of Mrs. Dunlop's
subscription for his poems.]
_Edinburgh_, 15 _April, 1787._
MADAM,
There is an affectation of gratitude which I dislike. The periods of
Johnson and the pause of Sterne, may hide a selfish heart. For my
part, Madam, I trust I have too much pride for servility, and too
little prudence for selfishness. I have this moment broken open your
letter, but
"Rude am I in speech,
And therefore little can I grace my cause
In speaking for myself--"[169]
so I shall not trouble you with any fine speeches and hunted figures.
I shall just lay my hand on my heart and say, I hope I shall ever have
the truest, the warmest sense of your goodness.
I come abroad in print, for certain on Wednesday. Your orders I shall
punctually attend to; only, by the way, I must tell you that I was
paid before for Dr. Moore's and Miss Williams's copies, through the
medium of Commissioner Cochrane in this place, but that we can settle
when I have the honour of waiting on you.
Dr. Smith[170] was just gone to London the morning before I received
your letter to him.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 169: From Othello.]
[Footnote 170: Adam Smith.]
* * * * *
LIV.
TO MR. SIBBALD,
BOOKSELLER IN EDINBURGH.
[This letter first appeared in that very valuable work, Nicholl's
Illustrations of Literature.]
_Lawn Market._
SIR,
So little am I acquainted with the words and manners of the more
public and polished walks of life, that I often feel myself much
embarrassed how to express the feelings of my heart, particularly
gratitude:--
"Rude am I in my speech,
And little therefore shall I grace my cause
In speaking for myself--"
The warmth with which you have befriended an obscure man and a young
author in the last three magazines--I can only say, Sir, I feel the
weight of the obligation, I wish I could express my sense of it. In
the mean time accept of the conscious acknowledgment from,
Sir,
Your obliged servant,
R. B.
* * * * *
LV.
TO DR. MOORE.
[The book to which the poet alludes, was the well-known View of
Society by Dr. Moore, a work of spirit and observation.]
_Edinburgh, 23d April, 1787._
I received the books, and sent the one you mentioned to Mrs. Dunlop. I
am ill skilled in beating the coverts of imagination for metaphors of
gratitude. I thank you, Sir, for the honour you have done me; and to
my latest hour will warmly remember it. To be highly pleased with your
book is what I have in common with the world; but to regard these
volumes as a mark of the author's friendly esteem, is a still more
supreme gratification.
I leave Edinburgh in the course of ten days or a fortnight, and after
a few pilgrimages over some of the classic ground of Caledonia, Cowden
Knowes, Banks of Yarrow, Tweed, &c., I shall return to my rural
shades, in all likelihood never more to quit them. I have formed many
intimacies and friendships here, but I am afraid they are all of too
tender a construction to bear carriage a hundred and fifty miles. To
the rich, the great, the fashionable, the polite, I have no equivalent
to offer; and I am afraid my meteor appearance will by no means
entitle me to a settled correspondence with any of you, who are the
permanent lights of genius and literature.
My most respectful compliments to Miss Williams. If once this tangent
flight of mine were over, and I were returned to my wonted leisurely
motion in my old circle, I may probably endeavour to return her poetic
compliment in kind.
R. B.
* * * * *
LVI.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[This letter was in answer to one of criticism and remonstrance, from
Mrs. Dunlop, respecting "The Dream," which she had begged the poet to
omit, lest it should harm his fortunes with the world.]
_Edinburgh, 30th April, 1787._
---- Your criticisms, Madam, I understand very well, and could have
wished to have pleased you better. You are right in your guess that I
am not very amenable to counsel. Poets, much my superiors, have so
flattered those who possessed the adventitious qualities of wealth and
power, that I am determined to flatter no created being, either in
prose or verse.
I set as little by princes, lords, clergy, critics, &c., as all these
respective gentry do by my bardship. I know what I may expect from the
word, by and by--illiberal abuse, and perhaps contemptuous neglect.
I am happy, Madam, that some of my own favourite pieces are
distinguished by your particular approbation. For my "Dream," which
has unfortunately incurred your loyal displeasure, I hope in four
weeks, or less, to have the honour of appearing, at Dunlop, in its
defence in person.
R. B.
* * * * *
LVII.
TO THE REV. DR. HUGH BLAIR.
[The answer of Dr. Blair to this letter contains the following
passage: "Your situation, as you say, was indeed very singular: and in
being brought out all at once from the shades of deepest privacy to so
great a share of public notice and observation, you had to stand a
severe trial. I am happy you have stood it so well, and, as far as I
have known or heard, though in the midst of many temptations, without
reproach to your character or behaviour."]
_Lawn-market, Edinburgh, 3d May, 1787._
REVEREND AND MUCH-RESPECTED SIR,
I leave Edinburgh to-morrow morning, but could not go without
troubling you with half a line, sincerely to thank you for the
kindness, patronage, and friendship you have shown me. I often felt
the embarrassment of my singular situation; drawn forth from the
veriest shades of life to the glare of remark; and honoured by the
notice of those illustrious names of my country whose works, while
they are applauded to the end of time, will ever instruct and mend the
heart. However the meteor-like novelty of my appearance in the world
might attract notice, and honour me with the acquaintance of the
permanent lights of genius and literature, those who are truly
benefactors of the immortal nature of man, I knew very well that my
utmost merit was far unequal to the task of preserving that character
when once the novelty was over; I have made up my mind that abuse, or
almost even neglect, will not surprise me in my quarters.
I have sent you a proof impression of Beugo's work[171] for me, done on
Indian paper, as a trifling but sincere testimony with what heart-warm
gratitude I am, &c.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 171: The portrait of the poet after Nasmyth.]
* * * * *
LVIII.
TO THE EARL OF GLENCAIRN.
[The poet addressed the following letter to the Earl of Glencairn,
when he commenced his journey to the Border. It was first printed in
the third edition of Lockhart's Life of Burns; an eloquent and manly
work.]
MY LORD,
I go away to-morrow morning early, and allow me to vent the fulness of
my heart, in thanking your lordship for all that patronage, that
benevolence and that friendship with which you have honoured me. With
brimful eyes, I pray that you may find in that great Being, whose
image you so nobly bear, that friend which I have found in you. My
gratitude is not selfish design--that I disdain--it is not dodging
after the heels of greatness--that is an offering you disdain. It is a
feeling of the same kind with my devotion.
R. B.
* * * * *
LIX.
TO MR. WILLIAM DUNBAR.
[William Dunbar, Colonel of the Crochallan Fencibles. The name has a
martial sound, but the corps which he commanded was club of wits,
whose courage was exercised on "paitricks, teals, moorpowts, and
plovers."]
_Lawn-market, Monday morning._
DEAR SIR,
In justice to Spenser, I must acknowledge that there is scarcely a
poet in the language could have been a more agreeable present to me;
and in justice to you, allow me to say, Sir, that I have not met with
a man in Edinburgh to whom I would so willingly have been indebted for
the gift. The tattered rhymes I herewith present you, and the handsome
volumes of Spenser for which I am so much indebted to your goodness,
may perhaps be not in proportion to one another; but be that as it
may, my gift, though far less valuable, is as sincere a mark of esteem
as yours.
The time is approaching when I shall return to my shades; and I am
afraid my numerous Edinburgh friendships are of so tender a
construction, that they will not bear carriage with me. Yours is one
of the few that I could wish of a more robust constitution. It is
indeed very probable that when I leave this city, we part never more
to meet in this sublunary sphere; but I have a strong fancy that in
some future eccentric planet, the comet of happier systems than any
with which astronomy is yet acquainted, you and I, among the harum
scarum sons of imagination and whim, with a hearty shake of a hand, a
metaphor and a laugh, shall recognise old acquaintance:
"Where wit may sparkle all its rays,
Uncurs'd with caution's fears;
That pleasure, basking in the blaze,
Rejoice for endless years."
I have the honour to be, with the warmest sincerity, dear Sir, &c.
R. B.
* * * * *
LX.
TO JAMES JOHNSON.
[James Johnson was an engraver in Edinburgh, and proprietor of the
Musical Museum; a truly national work, for which Burns wrote or
amended many songs.]
_Lawn-market, Friday noon, 3 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 gives 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 the song till we meet again, whenever that may
be.
R. B.
* * * * *
LXI.
TO WILLIAM CREECH, ESQ.
EDINBURGH.
[This characteristic letter was written during the poet's border tour:
he narrowly escaped a soaking with whiskey, as well as with water; for
according to the Ettrick Shepherd, "a couple of Yarrow lads, lovers of
poesy and punch, awaited his coming to Selkirk, but would not believe
that the parson-looking, black-avised man, who rode up to the inn,
more like a drouket craw than a poet, could be Burns, and so went
disappointed away."]
_Selkirk, 13th May, 1787._
MY HONOURED FRIEND,
The enclosed I have just wrote, nearly extempore, in a solitary inn in
Selkirk, after a miserable wet day's riding. I have been over most of
East Lothian, Berwick, Roxburgh, and Selkirk-shires; and next week I
begin a tour through the north of England. Yesterday I dined with Lady
Harriet, sister to my noble patron,[172] _Quem Deus conservet_! I would
write till I would tire you as much with dull prose, as I dare say by
this time you are with wretched verse, but I am jaded to death; so,
with a grateful farewell,
I have the honour to be,
Good Sir, yours sincerely,
R. B.
Auld chuckie Reekie's sair distrest,
Down drops her ance weel burnish'd crest,
Nae joy her bonnie buskit nest
Can yield ava;
Her darling bird that she loves best,
Willie's awa.[173]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 172: James, Earl of Glencairn.]
[Footnote 173: See Poem LXXXIII.]
* * * * *
LXII.
TO MR. PATISON,
BOOKSELLER, PAISLEY.
[This letter has a business air about it: the name of Patison is
nowhere else to be found in the poet's correspondence.]
_Berrywell, near Dunse, May 17th, 1787._
DEAR SIR,
I am sorry I was out of Edinburgh, making a slight pilgrimage to the
classic scenes of this country, when I was favoured with yours of the
11th instant, enclosing an order of the Paisley banking company on the
royal bank, for twenty-two pounds seven shillings sterling, payment in
full, after carriage deducted, for ninety copies of my book I sent
you. According to your motions, I see you will have left Scotland
before this reaches you, otherwise I would send you "Holy Willie" with
all my heart. I was so hurried that I absolutely forgot several things
I ought to have minded, among the rest sending books to Mr. Cowan; but
any order of yours will be answered at Creech's shop. You will please
remember that non-subscribers pay six shillings, this is Creech's
profit; but those who have subscribed, though their names have been
neglected in the printed list, which is very incorrect, are supplied
at subscription price. I was not at Glasgow, nor do I intend for
London; and I think Mrs. Fame is very idle to tell so many lies on a
poor poet. When you or Mr. Cowan write for copies, if you should want
any direct to Mr. Hill, at Mr. Creech's shop, and I write to Mr. Hill
by this post, to answer either of your orders. Hill is Mr. Creech's
first clerk, and Creech himself is presently in London. I suppose I
shall have the pleasure, against your return to Paisley, of assuring
you how much I am, dear Sir, your obliged humble servant,
R. B.
* * * * *
LXIII.
TO W. NICOL, ESQ.,
MASTER OF THE HIGH SCHOOL, EDINBURGH.
[Jenny Geddes was a zealous old woman, who threw the stool on which
she sat, at the Dean of Edinburgh's head, when, in 1637, he attempted
to introduce a Scottish Liturgy, and cried as she threw, "Villain,
wilt thou say the mass at my lug!" The poet named his mare after this
virago.]
_Carlisle, June 1., 1787._
KIND, HONEST-HEARTED WILLIE,
I'm sitten down here after seven and forty miles ridin', e'en as
forjesket and forniaw'd as a forfoughten cock, to gie you some notion
o' my land lowper-like stravaguin sin the sorrowfu' hour that I sheuk
hands and parted wi' auld Reekie.
My auld, ga'd gleyde o' a meere has huch-yall'd up hill and down brae,
in Scotland and England, as teugh and birnie as a vera devil wi' me.
It's true, she's as poor's a sang-maker and as hard's a kirk, and
tipper-taipers when she taks the gate, first like a lady's gentlewoman
in a minuwae, or a hen on a het girdle; but she's a yauld, poutherie
Girran for a' that, and has a stomack like Willie Stalker's meere that
wad hae disgeested tumbler-wheels, for she'll whip me aff her five
stimparts o' the best aits at a down-sittin and ne'er fash her thumb.
When ance her ringbanes and spavies, her crucks and cramps, and fairly
soupl'd, she beets to, beets to, and ay the hindmost hour the
tightest. I could wager her price to a thretty pennies, that for twa
or three wooks ridin at fifty miles a day, the deil-stricket a five
gallopers acqueesh Clyde and Whithorn could cast saut on her tail.
I hae dander'd owre a' the kintra frae Dumbar to Selcraig, and hae
forgather'd wi' monie a guid fallow, and monie a weelfar'd huzzie. I
met wi' twa dink quines in particular, ane o' them a sonsie, fine,
fodgel lass, baith braw and bonnie; the tither was clean-shankit,
straught, tight, weelfar'd winch, as blythe's a lintwhite on a
flowerie thorn, and as sweet and modest's a new-blawn plumrose in a
hazle shaw. They were baith bred to mainers by the beuk, and onie ane
o' them had as muckle smeddum and rumblegumtion as the half o' some
presbytries that you and I baith ken. They play'd me sik a deevil o' a
shavie that I daur say if my harigals were turn'd out, ye wad see twa
nicks i' the heart o' me like the mark o' a kail-whittle in a castock.
I was gaun to write you a lang pystle, but, Gude forgie me, I gat
mysel sae noutouriously bitchify'd the day after kail-time, that I can
hardly stoiter but and ben.
My best respecks to the guidwife and a' our common friens, especiall
Mr. and Mrs. Cruikshank, and the honest guidman o' Jock's Lodge.
I'll be in Dumfries the morn gif the beast be to the fore, and the
branks bide hale.
Gude be wi' you, Willie! Amen!
R. B.
* * * * *
LXIV.
TO MR. JAMES SMITH,
AT MILLER AND SMITH'S OFFICE, LINLITHGOW.
[Burns, it seems by this letter, had still a belief that he would be
obliged to try his fortune in the West Indies: he soon saw how hollow
all the hopes were, which had been formed by his friends of "pension,
post or place," in his native land.]
_Mauchline, 11th June, 1787._
MY EVER DEAR SIR,
I date this from Mauchline, where I arrived on Friday even last. I
slept at John Dow's, and called for my daughter. Mr. Hamilton and your
family; your mother, sister, and brother; my quondam Eliza, &c., all
well. If anything had been wanting to disgust me completely at
Armour's family, their mean, servile compliance would have done it.
Give me a spirit like my favourite hero, Milton's Satan:
Hail, horrors! hail,
Infernal world! and thou proufoundest hell,
Receive thy new possessor! he who brings
A mind not be chang'd by _place_ or _time_!
I cannot settle to my mind.--Farming, the only thing of which I know
anything, and heaven above knows but little do I understand of that, I
cannot, dare not risk on farms as they are. If I do not fix I will go
for Jamaica. Should I stay in an unsettled state at home, I would
only dissipate my little fortune, and ruin what I intend shall
compensate my little ones, for the stigma I have brought on their
names.
I shall write you more at large soon; as this letter costs you no
postage, if it be worth reading you cannot complain of your
pennyworth.
I am ever, my dear Sir,
Yours,
R. B.
P.S. The cloot has unfortunately broke, but I have provided a fine
buffalo-horn, on which I am going to affix the same cipher which you
will remember was on the lid of the cloot.
* * * * *
LXV.
TO WILLIAM NICOL, ESQ.
[The charm which Dumfries threw over the poet, seems to have dissolved
like a spell, when he sat down in Ellisland: he spoke, for a time,
with little respect of either place or people.]
_Mauchline, June 18, 1787._
MY DEAR FRIEND,
I am now arrived safe in my native country, after a very agreeable
jaunt, and have the pleasure to find all my friends well. I
breakfasted with your gray-headed, reverend friend, Mr. Smith; and was
highly pleased both with the cordial welcome he gave me, and his most
excellent appearance and sterling good sense.
I have been with Mr. Miller at Dalswinton, and am to meet him again in
August. From my view of the lands, and his reception of my bardship,
my hopes in that business are rather mended; but still they are but
slender.
I am quite charmed with Dumfries folks--Mr. Burnside, the clergyman,
in particular, is a man whom I shall ever gratefully remember; and his
wife, Gude forgie me! I had almost broke the tenth commandment on her
account. Simplicity, elegance, good sense, sweetness of disposition,
good humour, kind hospitality are the constituents of her manner and
heart; in short--but if I say one word more about her, I shall be
directly in love with her.
I never, my friend, thought mankind very capable of anything generous;
but the stateliness of the patricians in Edinburgh, and the servility
of my plebeian brethren (who perhaps formerly eyed me askance) since I
returned home, have nearly put me out of conceit altogether with my
species. I have bought a pocket Milton, which I carry perpetually
about with me, in order to study the sentiments--the dauntless
magnanimity, the intrepid, unyielding independence, the desperate
daring, and noble defiance of hardship, in that great personage,
SATAN. 'Tis true, I have just now a little cash; but I am
afraid the star that hitherto has shed its malignant, purpose-blasting
rays full in my zenith; that noxious planet so baneful in its
influences to the rhyming tribe, I much dread it is not yet beneath my
horizon.--Misfortune dodges the path of human life; the poetic mind
finds itself miserably deranged in, and unfit for the walks of
business; add to all, that thoughtless follies and hare-brained whims,
like so many _ignes fatui_, eternally diverging from the right line of
sober discretion, sparkle with step-bewitching blaze in the
idly-gazing eyes of the poor heedless bard, till, pop, "he falls like
Lucifer, never to hope again." God grant this may be an unreal picture
with respect to me! but should it not, I have very little dependence
on mankind. I will close my letter with this tribute my heart bids me
pay you--the many ties of acquaintance and friendship which I have, or
think I have in life, I have felt along the lines, and, damn them,
they are almost all of them of such frail contexture, that I am sure
they would not stand the breath of the least adverse breeze of
fortune; but from you, my ever dear Sir, I look with confidence for
the apostolic love that shall wait on me "through good report and bad
report"--the love which Solomon emphatically says "is strong as
death." My compliments to Mrs. Nicol, and all the circle of our common
friends.
P.S. I shall be in Edinburgh about the latter end of July.
R. B.
* * * * *
LXVI.
TO MR. JAMES CANDLISH.
[Candlish was a classic scholar, but had a love for the songs of
Scotland, as well as for the poetry of Greece and Rome.]
_Edinburgh, 1787._
MY DEAR FRIEND,
If once I were gone from this scene of hurry and dissipation, I
promise myself the pleasure of that correspondence being renewed
which has been so long broken. At present I have time for nothing.
Dissipation and business engross every moment. I am engaged in
assisting an honest Scotch enthusiast,[174] a friend of mine, who is an
engraver, and has taken it into his head to publish a collection of
all our songs set to music, of which the words and music are done by
Scotsmen. This, you will easily guess, is an undertaking exactly to my
taste. I have collected, begged, borrowed, and stolen, all the songs I
could meet with. Pompey's Ghost, words and music, I beg from you
immediately, to go into his second number: the first is already
published. I shall show you the first number when I see you in
Glasgow, which will be in a fortnight or less. Do be so kind as to
send me the song in a day or two; you cannot imagine how much it will
oblige me.
Direct to me at Mr. W. Cruikshank's, St. James's Square, New Town,
Edinburgh.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 174: Johnson, the publisher and proprietor of the Musical
Museum.]
* * * * *
LXVII.
TO ROBERT AINSLIE, ESQ.
["Burns had a memory stored with the finest poetical passages, which
he was in the habit of quoting most aptly in his correspondence with
his friends: and he delighted also in repeating them in the company of
those friends who enjoyed them." These are the words of Ainslie, of
Berrywell, to whom this letter in addressed.]
_Arracher_, 28_th June_, 1787.
MY DEAR SIR,
I write on my tour through a country where savage streams tumble over
savage mountains, thinly overspread with savage flocks, which
sparingly support as savage inhabitants. My last stage was
Inverary--to-morrow night's stage Dumbarton. I ought sooner to have
answered your kind letter, but you know I am a man of many sins.
R. B.
* * * * *
LXVIII.
TO WILLIAM NICOL, ESQ.
[This visit to Auchtertyre produced that sweet lyric, beginning
"Blythe, blythe and merry was she;" and the lady who inspired it was
at his side, when he wrote this letter.]
_Auchtertyre, Monday, June, 1787._
MY DEAR SIR,
I find myself very comfortable here, neither oppressed by ceremony nor
mortified by neglect. Lady Augusta is a most engaging woman, and very
happy in her family, which makes one's outgoings and incomings very
agreeable. I called at Mr. Ramsay's of Auchtertyre as I came up the
country, and am so delighted with him that I shall certainly accept of
his invitation to spend a day or two with him as I return. I leave
this place on Wednesday or Thursday.
Make my kind compliments to Mr. and Mrs. Cruikshank and Mrs. Nicol, if
she is returned.
I am ever, dear Sir,
Your deeply indebted,
R. B.
* * * * *
LXIX.
TO WILLIAM CRUIKSHANK, ESQ.
ST. JAMES'S SQUARE, EDINBURGH.
[At the house of William Cruikshank, one of the masters of the High
School, in Edinburgh, Burns passed many agreeable hours.]
_Auchtertyre, Monday morning._
I have nothing, my dear Sir, to write to you but that I feel myself
exceedingly comfortably situated in this good family: just notice
enough to make me easy but not to embarrass me. I was storm-staid two
days at the foot of the Ochillhills, with Mr. Trait of Herveyston and
Mr. Johnston of Alva, but was so well pleased that I shall certainly
spend a day on the banks of the Devon as I return. I leave this place
I suppose on Wednesday, and shall devote a day to Mr. Ramsay at
Auchtertyre, near Stirling: a man to whose worth I cannot do justice.
My respectful kind compliments to Mrs. Cruikshank, and my dear little
Jeanie, and if you see Mr. Masterton, please remember me to him.
I am ever,
My dear Sir, &c.
R. B.
* * * * *
LXX.
TO MR. JAMES SMITH.
LINLITHGOW.
[The young lady to whom the poet alludes in this letter, was very
beautiful, and very proud: it is said she gave him a specimen of both
her temper and her pride, when he touched on the subject of love.]
_June 30, 1787._
MY DEAR FRIEND,
On our return, at a Highland gentleman's hospitable mansion, we fell
in with a merry party, and danced till the ladies left us, at three in
the morning. Our dancing was none of the French or English insipid
formal movements; the ladies sung Scotch songs like angels, at
intervals; then we flew at Bab at the Bowster, Tullochgorum, Loch
Erroch Side, &c., like midges sporting in the mottie sun, or craws
prognosticating a storm in a hairst day.--When the dear lasses left
us, we ranged round the bowl till the good-fellow hour of six; except
a few minutes that we went out to pay our devotions to the glorious
lamp of day peering over the towering top of Benlomond. We all
kneeled; our worthy landlord's son held the bowl; each man a full
glass in his hand; and I, as priest, repeated some rhyming nonsense,
like Thomas-a-Rhymer's prophecies I suppose.--After a small
refreshment of the gifts of Somnus, we proceeded to spend the day on
Lochlomond, and reach Dumbarton in the evening. We dined at another
good fellow's house, and consequently, pushed the bottle; when we went
out to mount our horses, we found ourselves "No vera fou but gaylie
yet." My two friends and I rode soberly down the Loch side, till by
came a Highlandman at the gallop, on a tolerably good horse, but which
had never known the ornaments of iron or leather. We scorned to be
out-galloped by a Highlandman, so off we started, whip and spur. My
companions, though seemingly gaily mounted, fell sadly astern; but my
old mare, Jenny Geddes, one of the Rosinante family, she strained past
the Highlandman in spite of all his efforts with the hair halter; just
as I was passing him, Donald wheeled his horse, as if to cross before
me to mar my progress, when down came his horse, and threw his rider's
breekless a----e in a clipt hedge; and down came Jenny Geddes over
all, and my bardship between her and the Highlandman's horse. Jenny
Geddes trode over me with such cautious reverence, that matters were
not so bad as might well have been expected; so I came off with a few
cuts and bruises, and a thorough resolution to be a pattern of
sobriety for the future.
I have yet fixed on nothing with respect to the serious business of
life. I am, just as usual, a rhyming, mason-making, raking, aimless,
idle fellow. However, I shall somewhere have a farm soon. I was going
to say, a wife too; but that must never be my blessed lot. I am but a
younger son of the house of Parnassus, and like other younger sons of
great families, I may intrigue, if I choose to run all risks, but must
not marry.
I am afraid I have almost ruined one source, the principal one,
indeed, of my former happiness; that eternal propensity I always had
to fall in love. My heart no more glows with feverish rapture. I have
no paradisaical evening interviews, stolen from the restless cares and
prying inhabitants of this weary world. I have only * * * *. This last
is one of your distant acquaintances, has a fine figure, and elegant
manners; and in the train of some great folks whom you know, has seen,
the politest quarters in Europe. I do like her a good deal; but what
piques me is her conduct at the commencement of our acquaintance. I
frequently visited her when I was in ----, and after passing regularly
the intermediate degrees between the distant formal bow and the
familiar grasp round the waist, I ventured, in my careless way, to
talk of friendship in rather ambiguous terms; and after her return
to ----, I wrote to her in the same style. Miss, construing my words
farther I suppose than even I intended, flew off in a tangent of
female dignity and reserve, like a mounting lark in an April morning;
and wrote me an answer which measured me out very completely what an
immense way I had to travel before I could reach the climate of her
favour. But I am an old hawk at the sport, and wrote her such a cool,
deliberate, prudent reply, as brought my bird from her aerial
towerings, pop, down at my foot, like Corporal Trim's hat.
As for the rest of my acts, and my wars, and all my wise sayings, and
why my mare was called Jenny Geddes, they shall be recorded in a few
weeks hence at Linlithgow, in the chronicles of your memory, by
R. B.
* * * * *
LXXI.
TO MR. JOHN RICHMOND.
[Mr. John Richmond, writer, was one of the poet's earliest and firmest
friends; he shared his room with him when they met in Edinburgh, and
did him many little offices of kindness and regard.]
_Mossgiel, 7th July, 1787._
MY DEAR RICHMOND,
I am all impatience to hear of your fate since the old confounder of
right and wrong has turned you out of place, by his journey to answer
his indictment at the bar of the other world. He will find the
practice of the court so different from the practice in which he has
for so many years been thoroughly hackneyed, that his friends, if he
had any connexions truly of that kind, which I rather doubt, may well
tremble for his sake. His chicane, his left-handed wisdom, which stood
so firmly by him, to such good purpose, here, like other accomplices
in robbery and plunder, will, now the piratical business is blown, in
all probability turn the king's evidences, and then the devil's
bagpiper will touch him off "Bundle and go!"
If he has left you any legacy, I beg your pardon for all this; if not,
I know you will swear to every word I said about him.
I have lately been rambling over by Dumbarton and Inverary, and
running a drunken race on the side of Loch Lomond with a wild
Highlandman; his horse, which had never known the ornaments of iron or
leather, zigzagged across before my old spavin'd hunter, whose name is
Jenny Geddes, and down came the Highlandman, horse and all, and down
came Jenny and my bardship; so I have got such a skinful of bruises
and wounds, that I shall be at least four weeks before I dare venture
on my journey to Edinburgh.
Not one new thing under the sun has happened in Mauchline since you
left it. I hope this will find you as comfortably situated as
formerly, or, if heaven pleases, more so; but, at all events, I trust
you will let me know of course how matters stand with you, well or
ill. 'Tis but poor consolation to tell the world when matters go
wrong; but you know very well your connexion and mine stands on a
different footing.
I am ever, my dear friend, yours,
R. B.
* * * * *
LXXII.
TO ROBERT AINSLIE, ESQ.
[This letter, were proof wanting, shows the friendly and familiar
footing on which Burns stood with the Ainslies, and more particularly
with the author of that popular work, the "Reasons for the Hope that
is in us."]
_Mauchline, 23d July, 1787._
MY DEAR AINSLIE,
There is one thing for which I set great store by you as a friend, and
it is this, that I have not a friend upon earth, besides yourself, to
whom I can talk nonsense without forfeiting some degree of his esteem.
Now, to one like me, who never cares for speaking anything else but
nonsense, such a friend as you is an invaluable treasure. I was never
a rogue, but have been a fool all my life; and, in spite of all my
endeavours, I see now plainly that I shall never be wise. Now it
rejoices my heart to have met with such a fellow as you, who, though
you are not just such a hopeless fool as I, yet I trust you will never
listen so much to the temptations of the devil as to grow so very wise
that you will in the least disrespect an honest follow because he is a
fool. In short, I have set you down as the staff of my old age, when
the whole list of my friends will, after a decent share of pity, have
forgot me.
Though in the morn comes sturt and strife,
Yet joy may come at noon;
And I hope to live a merry, merry life
When a' thir days are done.
Write me soon, were it but a few lines just to tell me how that good
sagacious man your father is--that kind dainty body your mother--that
strapping chiel your brother Douglas--and my friend Rachel, who is as
far before Rachel of old, as she was before her blear-eyed sister
Leah.
R. B.
* * * * *
LXXIII.
TO ROBERT AINSLIE, ESQ.
[The "savage hospitality," of which Burns complains in this letter,
was at that time an evil fashion in Scotland: the bottle was made to
circulate rapidly, and every glass was drunk "clean caup out."]
_Mauchline, July, 1787._
MY DEAR SIR,
My life, since I saw you last, has been one continued hurry; that
savage hospitality which knocks a man down with strong liquors, is
the devil. I have a sore warfare in this world; the devil, the world,
and the flesh are three formidable foes. The first I generally try to
fly from; the second, alas! generally flies from me; but the third is
my plague, worse than the ten plagues of Egypt.
I have been looking over several farms in this country; one in
particular, in Nithsdale, pleased me so well, that if my offer to the
proprietor is accepted, I shall commence farmer at Whit-Sunday. If
farming do not appear eligible, I shall have recourse to my other
shift: but this to a friend.
I set out for Edinburgh on Monday morning; how long I stay there is
uncertain, but you will know so soon as I can inform you myself.
However I determine, poesy must be laid aside for some time; my mind
has been vitiated with idleness, and it will take a good deal of
effort to habituate it to the routine of business.
I am, my dear Sir,
Yours sincerely,
R. B.
* * * * *
LXXIV.
TO DR. MOORE.
[Dr. Moore was one of the first to point out the beauty of the lyric
compositions of Burns. "'Green grow the Rashes,' and of the two
songs," says he, "which follow, beginning 'Again rejoicing nature
sees,' and 'The gloomy night is gathering fast;' the latter is
exquisite. By the way, I imagine you have a peculiar talent for such
compositions which you ought to indulge: no kind of poetry demands
more delicacy or higher polishing." On this letter to Moore all the
biographies of Burns are founded.]
_Mauchline, 2d August, 1787._
SIR,
For some months past I have been rambling over the country, but I am
now confined with some lingering complaints, originating, as I take
it, in the stomach. To divert my spirits a little in this miserable
fog of ennui, I have taken a whim to give you a history of myself. My
name has made some little noise in this country; you have done me the
honour to interest yourself very warmly in my behalf; and I think a
faithful account of what character of a man I am, and how I came by
that character, may perhaps amuse you in an idle moment. I will give
you an honest narrative, though I know it will be often at my own
expense; for I assure you, Sir, I have, like Solomon, whose character,
excepting in the trifling affair of wisdom, I sometimes think I
resemble,--I have, I say, like him turned my eyes to behold madness
and folly, and like him, too, frequently shaken hands with their
intoxicating friendship.--After you have perused these pages, should
you think them trifling and impertinent, I only beg leave to tell you,
that the poor author wrote them under some twitching qualms of
conscience, arising from a suspicion that he was doing what he ought
not to do; a predicament he has more than once been in before.
I have not the most distant pretensions to assume that character which
the pye-coated guardians of escutcheons call a gentleman. When at
Edinburgh last winter, I got acquainted in the herald's office; and,
looking through that granary of honours, I there found almost every
name in the kingdom; but for me,
"My ancient but ignoble blood
Has crept thro' scoundrels ever since the flood."
POPE.
Gules, purpure, argent, &c., quite disowned me.
My father was of the north of Scotland, the son of a farmer, and was
thrown by early misfortunes on the world at large; where, after many
years' wanderings and sojournings, he picked up a pretty large
quantity of observation and experience, to which I am indebted for
most of my little pretensions to wisdom--I have met with few who
understood men, their manners, and their ways, equal to him; but
stubborn, ungainly integrity, and headlong, ungovernable irascibility,
are disqualifying circumstances; consequently, I was born a very poor
man's son. For the first six or seven years of my life, my father was
gardener to a worthy gentleman of small estate in the neighbourhood of
Ayr. Had he continued in that station I must have marched off to be
one of the little underlings about a farm-house; but it was his
dearest wish and prayer to have it in his power to keep his children
under his own eye, till they could discern between good and evil; so,
with the assistance of his generous master, my father ventured on a
small farm on his estate. At those years, I was by no means a
favourite with anybody. I was a good deal noted for a retentive
memory, a stubborn sturdy something in my disposition, and an
enthusiastic idiot[175] piety. I say idiot piety, because I was then
but a child. Though it cost the schoolmaster some thrashings, I made
an excellent English, scholar; and by the time I was ten or eleven
years of age, I was a critic in substantives, verbs, and particles. In
my infant and boyish days, too, I owed much to an old woman who
resided in the family, remarkable for her ignorance, credulity, and
superstition. She had, I suppose, the largest collection in the
country of tales and songs concerning devils, ghosts, fairies,
brownies, witches, warlocks, spunkies, kelpies, elf-candles,
dead-lights, wraiths, apparitions, cantraips, giants, enchanted towers,
dragons, and other trumpery. This cultivated the latent seeds of
poetry; but had so strong an effect on my imagination, that to this
hour, in my nocturnal rambles, I sometimes keep a sharp look out in
suspicions places; and though nobody can be more sceptical than I am
in such matters, yet it often takes an effort of philosophy to shake
off these idle terrors. The earliest composition that I recollect
taking pleasure in, was The Vision of Mirza, and a hymn of Addison's
beginning, "How are thy servants blest, O Lord!" I particularly
remember one half-stanza which was music to my boyish ear--
"For though in dreadful whirls we hung
High on the broken wave--"
I met with these pieces in Mason's English Collection, one of my
school-books. The first two books I ever read in private, and which
gave me more pleasure than any two books I ever read since, were The
Life of Hannibal, and The History of Sir William Wallace. Hannibal
gave my young ideas such a turn, that I used to strut in raptures up
and down after the recruiting drum and bag-pipe, and wish myself tall
enough to be a soldier; while the story of Wallace poured a Scottish
prejudice into my veins, which will boil along there till the
flood-gates of life shut in eternal rest.
Polemical divinity about this time was putting the country half mad,
and I, ambitious of shining in conversation parties on Sundays,
between sermons, at funerals, &c., used a few years afterwards to
puzzle Calvinism with so much heat and indiscretion, that I raised a
hue and cry of heresy against me, which has not ceased to this hour.
My vicinity to Ayr was of some advantage to me. My social disposition,
when not checked by some modifications of spirited pride, was like our
catechism definition of infinitude, without bounds or limits. I formed
several connexions with other younkers, who possessed superior
advantages; the youngling actors who were busy in the rehearsal of
parts, in which they were shortly to appear on the stage of life,
where, alas! I was destined to drudge behind the scenes. It is not
commonly at this green age, that our young gentry have a just sense of
the immense distance between them and their ragged playfellows. It
takes a few dashes into the world, to give the young great man that
proper, decent, unnoticing disregard for the poor, insignificant
stupid devils, the mechanics and peasantry around him, who were,
perhaps, born in the same village. My young superiors never insulted
the clouterly appearance of my plough-boy carcase, the two extremes
of which were often exposed to all the inclemencies of all the
seasons. They would give me stray volumes of books; among them, even
then, I could pick up some observations, and one, whose heart, I am
sure, not even the "Munny Begum" scenes have tainted, helped me to a
little French. Parting with these my young friends and benefactors, as
they occasionally went off for the East or West Indies, was often to
me a sore affliction; but I was soon called to more serious evils. My
father's generous master died! the farm proved a ruinous bargain; and
to clench the misfortune, we fell into the hands of a factor, who sat
for the picture I have drawn of one in my tale of "The Twa Dogs." My
father was advanced in life when he married; I was the eldest of seven
children, and he, worn out by early hardships, was unfit for labour.
My father's spirit was soon irritated, but not easily broken. There
was a freedom in his lease in two years more, and to weather these two
years, we retrenched our expenses. We lived very poorly: I was a
dexterous ploughman for my age; and the next eldest to me was a
brother (Gilbert), who could drive the plough very well, and help me
to thrash the corn. A novel-writer might, perhaps, have viewed these
scenes with some satisfaction, but so did not I; my indignation yet
boils at the recollection of the scoundrel factor's insolent
threatening letters, which used to set us all in tears.
This kind of life--the cheerless gloom of a hermit, with the unceasing
moil of a galley-slave, brought me to my sixteenth year; a little
before which period I first committed the sin of rhyme. You know our
country custom of coupling a man and woman together as partners in
the labours of harvest. In my fifteenth autumn, my partner was a
bewitching creature, a year younger than myself. My scarcity of
English denies me the power of doing her justice in that language, but
you know the Scottish idiom: she was a "bonnie, sweet, sonsie lass."
In short, she, altogether unwittingly to herself, initiated me in that
delicious passion, which, in spite of acid disappointment, gin-horse
prudence, and bookworm philosophy, I hold to be the first of human
joys, our dearest blessing here below! How she caught the contagion I
cannot tell; you medical people talk much of infection from breathing
the same air, the touch, &c.; but I never expressly said I loved
her.--Indeed, I did not know myself why I liked so much to loiter
behind with her, when returning in the evening from our labours; why
the tones of her voice made my heart-strings thrill like an Æolian
harp; and particularly why my pulse beat such a furious ratan, when I
looked and fingered over her little hand to pick out the cruel
nettle-stings and thistles. Among her other love-inspiring qualities,
she sung sweetly; and it was her favourite reel to which I attempted
giving an embodied vehicle in ryhme. I was not so presumptuous as to
imagine that I could make verses like printed ones, composed by men
who had Greek and Latin; but my girl sung a song which was said to be
composed by a small country laird's son, on one of his father's maids,
with whom he was in love; and I saw no reason why I might not rhyme as
well as he; for excepting that he could smear sheep, and cast peats,
his father living in the moorlands, he had no more scholar-craft than
myself.
Thus with me began love and poetry; which at times have been my only,
and till within the last twelve months, have been my highest
enjoyment. My father struggled on till he reached the freedom in his
lease, when he entered on a larger farm, about ten miles farther in
the country. The nature of the bargain he made was such as to throw a
little ready money into his hands at the commencement of his lease,
otherwise the affair would have been impracticable. For four years we
lived comfortably here, but a difference commencing between him and
his landlord as to terms, after three years tossing and whirling in
the vortex of litigation, my father was just saved from the horrors of
a jail, by a consumption, which, after two years' promises, kindly
stepped in, and carried him away, to where the wicked cease from
troubling, and where the weary are at rest!
It is during the time that we lived on this farm that my little story
is most eventful. I was, at the beginning of this period, perhaps, the
most ungainly awkward boy in the parish--no _solitaire_ was less
acquainted with the ways of the world. What I knew of ancient story
was gathered from Salmon's and Guthrie's Geographical Grammars; and
the ideas I had formed of modern manners, of literature, and
criticism, I got from the Spectator. These, with Pope's Works, some
Plays of Shakspeare, Tull and Dickson on Agriculture, the Pantheon,
Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding, Stackhouse's History of the
Bible, Justice's British Gardener's Directory, Boyle's Lectures, Allan
Ramsay's Works, Taylor's Scripture Doctrine of Original Sin, A Select
Collection of English Songs, and Hervey's Meditations, had formed the
whole of my reading. The collection of Songs was my _vade mecum._ I
pored over them, driving my cart, or walking to labour, song by song,
verse by verse; carefully noting the true tender, or sublime, from
affectation and fustian. I am convinced I owe to this practice much of
my critic craft, such as it is.
In my seventeenth year, to give my manners a brush, I went to a country
dancing-school. My father had an unaccountable antipathy against these
meetings, and my going was, what to this moment I repent, in opposition
to his wishes. My father, as I said before, was subject to strong
passions; from that instance of disobedience in me, he took a sort of
dislike to me, which, I believe, was one cause of the dissipation which
marked my succeeding years. I say dissipation, comparatively with the
strictness, and sobriety, and regularity of Presbyterian country life;
for though the will-o'-wisp meteors of thoughtless whim were almost the
sole lights of my path, yet early ingrained piety and virtue kept me for
several years afterwards within the line of innocence. The great
misfortune of my life was to want an aim. I had felt early some
stirrings of ambition, but they were the blind gropings of Homer's
Cyclops round the walls of his cave. I saw my father's situation
entailed on me perpetual labour. The only two openings by which I could
enter the temple of fortune were the gate of niggardly economy, or the
path of little chicaning bargain-making. The first is so contracted an
aperture I never could squeeze myself into it--the last I always
hated--there was contamination in the very entrance! Thus abandoned of
aim or view in life, with a strong appetite for sociability, as well
from native hilarity as from a pride of observation and remark; a
constitutional melancholy or hypochondriasm that made me fly solitude;
add to these incentives to social life, my reputation for bookish
knowledge, a certain wild logical talent, and a strength of thought,
something like the rudiments of good sense; and it will not seem
surprising that I was generally a welcome guest where I visited, or any
great wonder that always, where two or three met together, there was I
among them. But far beyond all other impulses of my heart, was _un
penchant à l' adorable moitié du genre humain._ My heart was completely
tinder, and was eternally lighted up by some goddess or other; and, as
in every other warfare in this world, my fortune was various; sometimes
I was received with favour, and sometimes I was mortified with a
repulse. At the plough, scythe, or reap-hook, I feared no competitor,
and thus I set absolute want at defiance; and as I never cared farther
for my labours than while I was in actual exercise, I spent the evenings
in the way after my own heart. A country lad seldom carries on a love
adventure without an assisting confidant. I possessed a curiosity, zeal,
and intrepid dexterity that recommended me as a proper second on these
occasions; and I dare say, I felt as much pleasure in being in the
secret of half the loves of the parish of Tarbolton, as ever did
statesman in knowing the intrigues of half the courts of Europe. The
very goose feather in my hand seems to know instinctively the well-worn
path of my imagination, the favourite theme of my song; and is with
difficulty restrained from giving you a couple of paragraphs on the
love-adventures of my compeers, the humble inmates of the farm-house and
cottage; but the grave sons of science, ambition, or avarice baptize
these things by the name of follies. To the sons and daughters of labour
and poverty they are matters of the most serious nature: to them the
ardent hope, the stolen interview, the tender farewell, are the greatest
and most delicious parts of their enjoyments.
Another circumstance in my life which made some alteration in my mind
and manners, was, that I spent my nineteenth summer on a smuggling
coast, a good distance from home, at a noted school to learn
mensuration, surveying, dialling, &c., in which I made a pretty good
progress. But I made a greater progress in the knowledge of mankind.
The contraband trade was at that time very successful, and it
sometimes happened to me to fall in with those who carried it on.
Scenes of swaggering riot and roaring dissipation were, till this
time, new to me; but I was no enemy to social life. Here, though I
learnt to fill my glass, and to mix without fear in a drunken
squabble, yet I went on with a high hand with my geometry, till the
sun entered Virgo, a month which is always a carnival in my bosom,
when a charming fillette, who lived next door to the school, overset
my trigonometry, and set me off at a tangent from the spheres of my
studies. I, however, struggled on with my sines and co-sines for a few
days more; but stepping into the garden one charming noon to take the
sun's altitude, there I met my angel,
"Like Proserpine gathering flowers,
Herself a fairer flower--"[176]
It was in vain to think of doing any more good at school. The
remaining week I stayed I did nothing but craze the faculties of my
soul about her, or steal out to meet her; and the two last nights of
my stay in the country, had sleep been a mortal sin, the image of this
modest and innocent girl had kept me guiltless.
I returned home very considerably improved. My reading was enlarged
with the very important addition of Thomson's and Shenstone's works; I
had seen human nature in a new phasis; and I engaged several of my
school-fellows to keep up a literary correspondence with me. This
improved me in composition. I had met with a collection of letters by
the wits of Queen Anne's reign, and I pored over them most devoutly. I
kept copies of any of my own letters that pleased me, and a comparison
between them and the composition of most of my correspondents
flattered my vanity. I carried this whim so far, that though I hid not
three-farthings' worth of business in the world, yet almost every post
brought me as many letters as if I had been a broad plodding son of
the day-book and ledger.
My life flowed on much in the same course till my twenty-third year.
_Vive l'amour, et vive la bagatelle_, were my sole principles of
action. The addition of two more authors to my library gave me great
pleasure; Sterne and Mackenzie--Tristram Shandy and the Man of Feeling
were my bosom favourites. Poesy was still a darling walk for my mind,
but it was only indulged in according to the humour of the hour. I had
usually half a dozen or more pieces on hand; I took up one or other,
as it suited the momentary tone of the mind, and dismissed the work as
it bordered on fatigue. My passions, when once lighted up, raged like
so many devils, till they got vent in rhyme; and then the conning over
my verses, like a spell, soothed all into quiet! None of the rhymes of
those days are in print, except "Winter, a dirge," the eldest of my
printed pieces; "The Death of poor Maillie," "John Barleycorn," and
songs first, second, and third. Song second was the ebullition of that
passion which ended the forementioned school-business.
My twenty-third year was to me an important æra. Partly through whim,
and partly that I wished to set about doing something in life, I
joined a flax-dresser in a neighboring town (Irvine) to learn his
trade. This was an unlucky affair. My * * * and to finish the whole,
as we were giving a welcome carousal to the new year, the shop took
fire and burnt to ashes, and I was left, like a true poet, not worth a
sixpence.
I was obliged to give up this scheme; the clouds of misfortune were
gathering thick round my father's head; and, what was worst of all, he
was visibly far gone in a consumption; and to crown my distresses, a
_belle fille_, whom I adored, and who had pledged her soul to meet me
in the field of matrimony, jilted me, with peculiar circumstances of
mortification. The finishing evil that brought up the rear of this
infernal file, was my constitutional melancholy being increased to
such a degree, that for three months I was in a state of mind scarcely
to be envied by the hopeless wretches who have got their
mittimus--depart from me, ye cursed!
From this adventure I learned something of a town life; but the
principal thing which gave my mind a turn, was a friendship I formed
with a young fellow, a very noble character, but a hapless son of
misfortune. He was the son of a simple mechanic; but a great man in
the neighbourhood taking him under his patronage, gave him a genteel
education, with a view of bettering his situation in life. The patron
dying just as he was ready to launch out into the world, the poor
fellow in despair went to sea; where, after a variety of good and
ill-fortune, a little before I was acquainted with him he had been set
on shore by an American privateer, on the wild coast of Connaught,
stripped of everything. I cannot quit this poor fellow's story without
adding, that he is at this time master of a large West-Indiaman
belonging to the Thames.
His mind was fraught with independence, magnanimity, and every manly
virtue. I loved and admired him to a degree of enthusiasm, and of
course strove to imitate him. In some measure I succeeded; I had pride
before, but he taught it to flow in proper channels. His knowledge of
the world was vastly superior to mine, and I was all attention to
learn. He was the only man I ever saw who was a greater fool than
myself where woman was the presiding star; but he spoke of illicit
love with the levity of a sailor, which hitherto I had regarded with
horror. Here his friendship did me a mischief, and the consequence
was, that soon after I resumed the plough, I wrote the "Poet's
Welcome."[177] My reading only increased while in this town by two stray
volumes of Pamela, and one of Ferdinand Count Fathom, which gave me
some idea of novels. Rhyme, except some religious pieces that are in
print, I had given up; but meeting with Fergusson's Scottish Poems, I
strung anew my wildly-sounding lyre with emulating vigour. When my
father died, his all went among the hell-hounds that growl in the
kennel of justice; but we made a shift to collect a little money in
the family amongst us, with which, to keep us together, my brother and
I took a neighbouring farm. My brother wanted my hair-brained
imagination, as well as my social and amorous madness; but in good
sense, and every sober qualification, he was far my superior.
I entered on this farm with a full resolution, "come, go to, I will be
wise!" I read farming books, I calculated crops; I attended markets;
and in short, in spite of the devil, and the world, and the flesh, I
believe I should have been a wise man; but the first year, from
unfortunately buying bad seed, the second from a late harvest, we
lost half our crops. This overset all my wisdom, and I returned, "like
the dog to his vomit, and the sow that was washed, to her wallowing in
the mire."
I now began to be known in the neighbourhood as a maker of rhymes. The
first of my poetic offspring that saw the light, was a burlesque
lamentation on a quarrel between two reverend Calvinists, both of them
_dramatis personæ_ in "Holy Fair." I had a notion myself that the
piece had some merit; but, to prevent the worst, I gave a copy of it
to a friend, who was very fond of such things, and told him that I
could not guess who was the author of it, but that I thought it pretty
clever. With a certain description of the clergy, as well as laity, it
met with a roar of applause. "Holy Willie's Prayer" next made its
appearance, and alarmed the kirk-session so much, that they held
several meetings to look over their spiritual artillery, if haply any
of it might be pointed against profane rhymers. Unluckily for me, my
wanderings led me on another side, within point-blank shot of their
heaviest metal. This is the unfortunate story that gave rise to my
printed poem, "The Lament." This was a most melancholy affair, which I
cannot yet bear to reflect on, and had very nearly given me one or two
of the principal qualifications for a place among those who have lost
the chart, and mistaken the reckoning of rationality. I gave up my
part of the farm to my brother; in truth it was only nominally mine;
and made what little preparation was in my power for Jamaica. But,
before leaving my native country for ever, I resolved to publish my
poems. I weighed my productions as impartially as was in my power; I
thought they had merit; and it was a delicious idea that I should be
called a clever fellow, even though it should never reach my ears--a
poor negro-driver--or perhaps a victim to that inhospitable clime, and
gone to the world of spirits! I can truly say, that _pauvre inconnu_
as I then was, I had pretty nearly as high an idea of myself and of my
works as I have at this moment, when the public has decided in their
favour. It ever was my opinion that the mistakes and blunders, both in
a rational and religious point of view, of which we see thousands
daily guilty, are owing to their ignorance of themselves.--To know
myself had been all along my constant study. I weighed myself alone; I
balanced myself with others; I watched every means of information, to
see how much ground I occupied as a man and as a poet; I studied
assiduously Nature's design in my formation--where the lights and
shades in my character were intended. I was pretty confident my poems
would meet with some applause; but, at the worst, the roar of the
Atlantic would deafen the voice of censure, and the novelty of West
Indian scenes make me forget neglect. I threw off six hundred copies,
of which I had got subscriptions for about three hundred and
fifty.--My vanity was highly gratified by the reception I met with
from the public; and besides I pocketed, all expenses deducted, nearly
twenty pounds. This sum came very seasonably, as I was thinking of
indenting myself, for want of money to procure my passage. As soon as
I was master of nine guineas, the price of wafting me to the torrid
zone, I took a steerage passage in the first ship that was to sail
from the Clyde, for
"Hungry ruin had me in the wind."
I had been for some days skulking from covert to covert, under all the
terrors of a jail; as some ill-advised people had uncoupled the
merciless pack of the law at my heels. I had taken the last farewell
of my few friends; my chest was on the road to Greenock; I had
composed the last song I should ever measure in Caledonia--"The gloomy
night is gathering fast," when a letter from Dr. Blacklock to a friend
of mine, overthrew all my schemes, by opening new prospects to my
poetic ambition. The doctor belonged to a set of critics for whose
applause I had not dared to hope. His opinion, that I would meet with
encouragement in Edinburgh for a second edition, fired me so much,
that away I posted for that city, without a single acquaintance, or a
single letter of introduction. The baneful star that had so long shed
its blasting influence in my zenith, for once made a revolution to the
nadir; and a kind Providence placed me under the patronage of one of
the noblest of men, the Earl of Glencairn. _Oublie-moi, grand Dieu, si
jamais je l'oublie!_
I need relate no farther. At Edinburgh I was in a new world; I mingled
among many classes of men, but all of them new to me, and I was all
attention to "catch" the characters and "the manners living as they
rise." Whether I have profited, time will show.
* * * * *
My most respectful compliments to Miss Williams. Her very elegant and
friendly letter I cannot answer at present, as my presence is
requisite in Edinburgh, and I set out to-morrow.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 175: Idiot for idiotic.]
[Footnote 176: Paradise Lost, b. iv]
[Footnote 177: "Rob the Rhymer's Welcome to his Bastard Child."--See
Poem XXXIII.]
* * * * *
LXXV.
TO ROBERT AINSLIE, ESQ.,
BERRYWELL DUNSE.
[This characteristic letter was first published by Sir Harris Nichols;
others, still more characteristic, addressed to the same gentleman,
are abroad: how they escaped from private keeping is a sort of a
riddle.]
_Edinburgh, 23d August_, 1787.
"As I gaed up to Dunse
To warp a pickle yarn,
Robin, silly body,
He gat me wi' bairn."
From henceforth, my dear Sir, I am determined to set off with my
letters like the periodical writers, viz. prefix a kind of text,
quoted from some classic of undoubted authority, such as the author of
the immortal piece, of which my text is part. What I have to say on my
text is exhausted in a letter which I wrote you the other day, before
I had the pleasure of receiving yours from Inverkeithing; and sure
never was anything more lucky, as I have but the time to write this,
that Mr. Nicol, on the opposite side of the table, takes to correct a
proof-sheet of a thesis. They are gabbling Latin so loud that I cannot
hear what my own soul is saying in my own skull, so I must just give
you a matter-of-fact sentence or two, and end, if time permit, with a
verse de rei generatione. To-morrow I leave Edinburgh in a chaise;
Nicol thinks it more comfortable than horseback, to which I say, Amen;
so Jenny Geddes goes home to Ayrshire, to use a phrase of my mother's,
wi' her finger in her mouth.
Now for a modest verse of classical authority:
The cats like kitchen;
The dogs like broo;
The lasses like the lads weel,
And th' auld wives too.
CHORUS.
And we're a' noddin,
Nid, nid, noddin,
We're a' noddin fou at e'en.
If this does not please you, let me hear from you; if you write any
time before the 1st of September, direct to Inverness, to be left at
the post-office till called for; the next week at Aberdeen, the next
at Edinburgh.
The sheet is done, and I shall just conclude with assuring you that
I am, and ever with pride shall be,
My dear Sir, &c.
R. B.
Call your boy what you think proper, only interject Burns. What do you
say to a Scripture name? Zimri Burns Ainslie, or Architophel, &c.,
look your Bible for these two heroes, if you do this, I will repay the
compliment.
* * * * *
LXXVI.
TO MR. ROBERT MUIR.
[No Scotsman will ever read, without emotion, the poet's words in this
letter, and in "Scots wha hae wi Wallace bled," about Bannnockburn and
its glories.]
_Stirling, 26th August, 1787._
MY DEAR SIR,
I intended to have written you from Edinburgh, and now write you from
Stirling to make an excuse. Here am I, on my way to Inverness, with a
truly original, but very worthy man, a Mr. Nicol, one of the masters
of the High-school, in Edinburgh. I left Auld Reekie yesterday
morning, and have passed, besides by-excursions, Linlithgow,
Borrowstouness, Falkirk, and here am I undoubtedly. This morning I
knelt at the tomb of Sir John the Graham, the gallant friend of the
immortal Wallace; and two hours ago I said a fervent prayer, for Old
Caledonia, over the hole in a blue whinstone, where Robert de Bruce
fixed his royal standard on the banks of Bannockburn; and just now,
from Stirling Castle, I have seen by the setting sun the glorious
prospect of the windings of Forth through the rich carse of Stirling,
and skirting the equally rich carse of Falkirk. The crops are very
strong, but so very late, that there is no harvest, except a ridge or
two perhaps in ten miles, all the way I have travelled from Edinburgh.
I left Andrew Bruce and family all well. I will be at least three
weeks in making my tour, as I shall return by the coast, and have many
people to call for.
My best compliments to Charles, our dear kinsman and fellow-saint; and
Messrs. W. and H. Parkers. I hope Hughoc is going on and prospering
with God and Miss M'Causlin.
If I could think on anything sprightly, I should let you hear every
other post; but a dull, matter-of-fact business, like this scrawl, the
less and seldomer one writes, the better.
Among other matters-of-fact I shall add this, that I am and ever shall
be,
My dear Sir,
Your obliged,
R. B.
* * * * *
LXXVII.
TO GAVIN HAMILTON, ESQ.
[It is supposed that the warmth of the lover came in this letter to
the aid of the imagination of the poet, in his account of Charlotte
Hamilton.]
_Stirling, 28th August_, 1787.
MY DEAR SIR,
Here am I on my way to Inverness. I have rambled over the rich,
fertile carses of Falkirk and Sterling, and am delighted with their
appearance: richly waving crops of wheat, barley, &c., but no harvest
at all yet, except, in one or two places, an old wife's ridge.
Yesterday morning I rode from this town up the meandering Devon's
banks, to pay my respects to some Ayrshire folks at Harvieston. After
breakfast, we made a party to go and see the famous Caudron-linn, a
remarkable cascade in the Devon, about five miles above Harvieston;
and after spending one of the most pleasant days I ever had in my
life, I returned to Stirling in the evening. They are a family, Sir,
though I had not any prior tie; though they had not been the brother
and sisters of a certain generous friend of mine, I would never forget
them. I am told you have not seen them these several years, so you can
have very little idea of what these young folks are now. Your brother
is as tall as you are, but slender rather than otherwise; and I have
the satisfaction to inform you that he is getting the better of those
consumptive symptoms which I suppose you know were threatening him.
His make, and particularly his manner, resemble you, but he will still
have a finer face. (I put in the word _still_ to please Mrs.
Hamilton.) Good sense, modesty, and at the same time a just idea of
that respect that man owes to man, and has a right in his turn to
exact, are striking features in his character; and, what with me is
the Alpha and the Omega, he has a heart that might adorn the breast of
a poet! Grace has a good figure, and the look of health and
cheerfulness, but nothing else remarkable in her person. I scarcely
ever saw so striking a likeness as is between her and your little
Beenie; the mouth and chin particularly. She is reserved at first; but
as we grew better acquainted, I was delighted with the native
frankness of her manner, and the sterling sense of her observation. Of
Charlotte I cannot speak in common terms of admiration: she is not
only beautiful but lovely. Her form is elegant; her features not
regular, but they have the smile of sweetness and the settled
complacency of good nature in the highest degree: and her complexion,
now that she has happily recovered her wonted health, is equal to Miss
Burnet's. After the exercise of our riding to the Falls, Charlotte was
exactly Dr. Donne's mistress:--
--------------"Her pure and eloquent blood
Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought,
That one would almost say her body thought."
Her eyes are fascinating; at once expressive of good sense,
tenderness, and a noble mind.
I do not give you all this account, my good Sir, to flatter you. I
mean it to reproach you. Such relations the first peer in the realm
might own with pride; then why do you not keep up more correspondence
with these so amiable young folks? I had a thousand questions to
answer about you. I had to describe the little ones with the
minuteness of anatomy. They were highly delighted when I told them
that John was so good a boy, and so fine a scholar, and that Willie
was going on still very pretty; but I have it in commission to tell
her from them that beauty is a poor silly bauble without she be good.
Miss Chalmers I had left in Edinburgh, but I had the pleasure of
meeting Mrs. Chalmers, only Lady Mackenzie being rather a little
alarmingly ill of a sore throat somewhat marred our enjoyment.
I shall not be in Ayrshire for four weeks. My most respectful
compliments to Mrs. Hamilton, Miss Kennedy, and Doctor Mackenzie. I
shall probably write him from some stage or other.
I am ever, Sir,
Yours most gratefully,
R. B.
* * * * *
LXXVIII.
TO MR. WALKER,
BLAIR OF ATHOLE.
[Professor Walker was a native of Ayrshire, and an accomplished
scholar; he saw Burns often in Edinburgh; he saw him at the Earl of
Athol's on the Bruar; he visited him too at Dumfries; and after the
copyright of Currie's edition of the poet's works expired, he wrote,
with much taste and feeling his life anew, and edited his works--what
passed under his own observation he related with truth and ease.]
_Inverness, 5th September_, 1787.
MY DEAR SIR,
I have just time to write the foregoing,[178] and to tell you that it
was (at least most part of it) the effusion of an half-hour I spent at
Bruar. I do not mean it was extempore, for I have endeavoured to brush
it up as well as Mr. Nicol's chat and the jogging of the chaise would
allow. It eases my heart a good deal, as rhyme is the coin with which
a poet pays his debts of honour or gratitude. What I owe to the noble
family of Athol, of the first kind, I shall ever proudly boast; what I
owe of the last, so help me God in my hour of need! I shall never
forget.
The "little angel-band!" I declare I prayed for them very sincerely
to-day at the Fall of Fyers. I shall never forget the fine
family-piece I saw at Blair; the amiable, the truly noble duchess,
with her smiling little seraph in her lap, at the head of the table;
the lovely "olive plants," as the Hebrew bard finely says, round the
happy mother: the beautiful Mrs. G----; the lovely sweet Miss C., &c.
I wish I had the powers of Guido to do them justice! My Lord Duke's
kind hospitality--markedly kind indeed. Mr. Graham of Fintray's charms
of conversation--Sir W. Murray's friendship. In short, the
recollection of all that polite, agreeable company raises an honest
glow in my bosom.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 178: The Humble Petition of Bruar-water]
* * * * *
LXXIX.
TO MR. GILBERT BURNS.
[The letters of Robert to Gilbert are neither many nor important: the
latter was a calm, considerate, sensible man, with nothing poetic in
his composition: he died lately, much and widely respected.]
_Edinburgh, 17th September, 1787._
MY DEAR BROTHER,
I arrived here safe yesterday evening, after a tour of twenty-two
days, and travelling near six hundred miles, windings included. My
farthest stretch was about ten miles beyond Inverness. I went through
the heart of the Highlands by Crieff, Taymouth, the famous seat of
Lord Breadalbane, down the Tay, among cascades and druidical circles
of stones, to Dunkeld, a seat of the Duke of Athol; thence across the
Tay, and up one of his tributary streams to Blair of Athole, another
of the duke's seats, where I had the honour of spending nearly two
days with his grace and family; thence many miles through a wild
country, among cliffs gray with eternal snows and gloomy savage glens,
till I crossed Spey and went down the stream through Strathspey, so
famous in Scottish music; Badenoch, &c., till I reached Grant Castle,
where I spent half a day with Sir James Grant and family; and then
crossed the country for Fort George, but called by the way at Cawdor,
the ancient seat of Macbeth; there I saw the identical bed, in which
tradition says king Duncan was murdered: lastly, from Fort George to
Inverness.
I returned by the coast, through Nairn, Forres, and so on, to Aberdeen,
thence to Stonehive, where James Burness, from Montrose, met me by
appointment. I spent two days among our relations, and found our aunts,
Jean and Isabel, still alive, and hale old women. John Cairn, though
born the same year with our father, walks as vigorously as I can: they
have had several letters from his son in New York. William Brand is
likewise a stout old fellow; but further particulars I delay till I see
you, which will be in two or three weeks. The rest of my stages are not
worth rehearsing: warm as I was from Ossian's country, where I had seen
his very grave, what cared I for fishing-towns or fertile carses? I
slept at the famous Brodie of Brodie's one night, and dined at Gordon
Castle next day, with the duke, duchess and family. I am thinking to
cause my old mare to meet me, by means of John Ronald, at Glasgow; but
you shall hear farther from me before I leave Edinburgh. My duty and
many compliments from the north to my mother; and my brotherly
compliments to the rest. I have been trying for a berth for William, but
am not likely to be successful. Farewell.
R. B.
* * * * *
LXXX.
TO MISS MARGARET CHALMERS.
(NOW MRS. HAY.)
[To Margaret Chalmers, the youngest daughter of James Chalmers, Esq.,
of Fingland, it is said that Burns confided his affection to Charlotte
Hamilton: his letters to Miss Chalmers, like those to Mrs. Dunlop, are
distinguished for their good sense and delicacy as well as freedom.]
_Sept. 26, 1787._
I send Charlotte the first number of the songs; I would not wait for
the second number; I hate delays in little marks of friendship, as I
hate dissimulation in the language of the heart. I am determined to
pay Charlotte a poetic compliment, if I could hit on some glorious old
Scotch air, in number second.[179] You will see a small attempt on a
shred of paper in the book: but though Dr. Blacklock commended it very
highly, I am not just satisfied with it myself. I intend to make it a
description of some kind: the whining cant of love, except in real
passion, and by a masterly hand, is to me as insufferable as the
preaching cant of old Father Smeaton, whig-minister at Kilmaurs.
Darts, flames, cupids, loves, graces, and all that farrago, are just a
Mauchline * * * * a senseless rabble.
I got an excellent poetic epistle yesternight from the old, venerable
author of "Tullochgorum," "John of Badenyon," &c. I suppose you know
he is a clergyman. It is by far the finest poetic compliment I ever
got. I will send you a copy of it.
I go on Thursday or Friday to Dumfries, to wait on Mr. Miller about
his farms.--Do tell that to Lady Mackenzie, that she may give me
credit for a little wisdom. "I Wisdom dwell with Prudence." What a
blessed fire-side! How happy should I be to pass a winter evening
under their venerable roof! and smoke a pipe of tobacco, or drink
water-gruel with them! What solemn, lengthened, laughter-quashing
gravity of phiz! What sage remarks on the good-for-nothing sons and
daughters of indiscretion and folly! And what frugal lessons, as we
straitened the fire-side circle, on the uses of the poker and tongs!
Miss N. is very well, and begs to be remembered in the old way to you.
I used all my eloquence, all the persuasive flourishes of the hand,
and heart-melting modulation of periods in my power, to urge her out
to Harvieston, but all in vain. My rhetoric seems quite to have lost
its effect on the lovely half of mankind. I have seen the day--but
that is a "tale of other years."--In my conscience I believe that my
heart has been so oft on fire that it is absolutely vitrified. I look
on the sex with something like the admiration with which I regard the
starry sky in a frosty December night. I admire the beauty of the
Creator's workmanship; I am charmed with the wild but graceful
eccentricity of their motions, and--wish them good night. I mean this
with respect to a certain passion _dont j'ai eu l'honneur d'être un
miserable esclave_: as for friendship, you and Charlotte have given me
pleasure, permanent pleasure, "which the world cannot give, nor take
away," I hope; and which will outlast the heavens and the earth.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 179: Of the Scots Musical Museum]
* * * * *
LXXXI.
TO MISS MARGARET CHALMERS.
[That fine song, "The Banks of the Devon," dedicated to the charms of
Charlotte Hamilton, was enclosed in the following letter.]
_Without date._
I have been at Dumfries, and at one visit more shall be decided about
a farm in that country. I am rather hopeless in it; but as my brother
is an excellent farmer, and is, besides, an exceedingly prudent, sober
man (qualities which are only a younger brother's fortune in our
family), I am determined, if my Dumfries business fail me, to return
into partnership with him, and at our leisure take another farm in the
neighbourhood.
I assure you I look for high compliments from you and Charlotte on
this very sage instance of my unfathomable, incomprehensible wisdom.
Talking of Charlotte, I must tell her that I have, to the best of my
power, paid her a poetic compliment, now completed. The air is
admirable: true old Highland. It was the tune of a Gaelic song, which
an Inverness lady sung me when I was there; and I was so charmed with
it that I begged her to write me a set of it from her singing; for it
had never been set before. I am fixed that it shall go in Johnson's
next number; so Charlotte and you need not spend your precious time in
contradicting me. I won't say the poetry is first-rate; though I am
convinced it is very well; and, what is not always the case with
compliments to ladies, it is not only sincere, but just.
R. B.
* * * * *
LXXXII.
TO JAMES HOY, ESQ.
GORDON CASTLE
[James Hoy, librarian of Gordon Castle, was, it is said, the gentleman
whom his grace of Gordon sent with a message inviting in vain that
"obstinate son of Latin prose," Nicol, to stop and enjoy himself.]
_Edinburgh, 20th October_, 1787.
SIR,
I will defend my conduct in giving you this trouble, on the best of
Christian principles--"Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto
you, do ye even so unto them."--I shall certainly, among my legacies,
leave my latest curse to that unlucky predicament which hurried--tore
me away from Castle Gordon. May that obstinate son of Latin prose
[Nicol] be curst to Scotch mile periods, and damned to seven league
paragraphs; while Declension and Conjugation, Gender, Number, and
Time, under the ragged banners of Dissonance and Disarrangement,
eternally rank against him in hostile array.
Allow me, Sir, to strengthen the small claim I have to your
acquaintance, by the following request. An engraver, James Johnson, in
Edinburgh, has, not from mercenary views, but from an honest, Scotch
enthusiasm, set about collecting all our native songs and setting them
to music; particularly those that have never been set before. Clarke,
the well known musician, presides over the musical arrangement, and
Drs. Beattie and Blacklock, Mr. Tytler, of Woodhouselee, and your
humble servant to the utmost of his small power, assist in collecting
the old poetry, or sometimes for a fine air make a stanza, when it has
no words. The brats, too tedious to mention, claim a parental pang
from my bardship. I suppose it will appear in Johnson's second
number--the first was published before my acquaintance with him. My
request is--"Cauld Kail in Aberdeen," is one intended for this number,
and I beg a copy of his Grace of Gordon's words to it, which you were
so kind as to repeat to me. You may be sure we won't prefix the
author's name, except you like, though I look on it as no small merit
to this work that the names of many of the authors of our old Scotch
songs, names almost forgotten, will be inserted.
I do not well know where to write to you--I rather write at you; but
if you will be so obliging, immediately on receipt of this, as to
write me a few lines, I shall perhaps pay you in kind, though not in
quality. Johnson's terms are:--each number a handsome pocket volume,
to consist at least of a hundred Scotch songs, with basses for the
harpsichord, &c. The price to subscribers 5s.; to non-subscribers 6s.
He will have three numbers I conjecture.
My direction for two or three weeks will be at Mr. William
Cruikshank's, St. James's-square, New-town, Edinburgh.
I am,
Sir,
Your's to command,
R. B.
* * * * *
LXXXIII.
TO REV. JOHN SKINNER.
[The songs of "Tullochgorum," and "John of Badenyon," have made the
name of Skinner dear to all lovers of Scottish verse: he was a man
cheerful and pious, nor did the family talent expire with him: his son
became Bishop of Aberdeen.]
_Edinburgh, October 25,_ 1787.
REVEREND AND VENERABLE SIR,
Accept, in plain dull prose, my most sincere thanks for the best
poetical compliment I ever received. I assure you, Sir, as a poet, you
have conjured up an airy demon of vanity in my fancy, which the best
abilities in your other capacity would be ill able to lay. I regret,
and while I live I shall regret, that when I was in the north, I had
not the pleasure of paying a younger brother's dutiful respect to the
author of the best Scotch song ever Scotland saw--"Tullochgorum's my
delight!" The world may think slightingly of the craft of song-making,
if they please, but, as Job says--"Oh! that mine adversary had written
a book!"--let them try. There is a certain something in the old Scotch
songs, a wild happiness of thought and expression, which peculiarly
marks them, not only from English songs, but also from the modern
efforts of song-wrights in our native manner and language. The only
remains of this enchantment, these spells of the imagination, rests
with you. Our true brother, Ross of Lochlee, was likewise "owre
cannie"--a "wild warlock"--but now he sings among the "sons of the
morning."
I have often wished, and will certainly endeavour to form a kind of
common acquaintance among all the genuine sons of Caledonian song. The
world, busy in low prosaic pursuits, may overlook most of us; but
"reverence thyself." The world is not our _peers_, so we challenge the
jury. We can lash that world, and find ourselves a very great source
of amusement and happiness independent of that world.
There is a work going on in Edinburgh, just now, which claims your
best assistance. An engraver in this town has set about collecting and
publishing all the Scotch songs, with the music, that can be found.
Songs in the English language, if by Scotchmen, are admitted, but the
music must all be Scotch. Drs. Beattie and Blacklock are lending a
hand, and the first musician in town presides over that department. I
have been absolutely crazed about it, collecting old stanzas, and
every information respecting their origin, authors, &c. &c. This last
is but a very fragment business; but at the end of his second
number--the first is already published--a small account will be given
of the authors, particularly to preserve those of latter times. Your
three songs, "Tullochgorum," "John of Badenyon," and "Ewie wi' the
crookit horn," go in this second number. I was determined, before I
got your letter, to write you, begging that you would let me know
where the editions of these pieces may be found, as you would wish
them to continue in future times: and if you would be so kind to this
undertaking as send any songs, of your own or others, that you would
think proper to publish, your name will be inserted among the other
authors,--"Nill ye, will ye." One half of Scotland already give your
songs to other authors. Paper is done. I beg to hear from you; the
sooner the better, as I leave Edinburgh in a fortnight or three
weeks.--
I am,
With the warmest sincerity, Sir,
Your obliged humble servant,--R. B.
* * * * *
LXXXIV.
TO JAMES HOY, ESQ.
AT GORDON CASTLE, FOCHABERS.
[In singleness of heart and simplicity of manners James Hoy is said,
by one who knew him well, to have rivalled Dominie Sampson: his love
of learning and his scorn of wealth are still remembered to his
honour.]
_Edinburgh, 6th November_, 1787.
DEAR SIR,
I would have wrote you immediately on receipt of your kind letter, but
a mixed impulse of gratitude and esteem whispered me that I ought to
send you something by way of return. When a poet owes anything,
particularly when he is indebted for good offices, the payment that
usually recurs to him--the only coin indeed in which he probably is
conversant--is rhyme. Johnson sends the books by the fly, as directed,
and begs me to enclose his most grateful thanks: my return I intended
should have been one or two poetic bagatelles which the world have not
seen, or, perhaps, for obvious reasons, cannot see. These I shall send
you before I leave Edinburgh. They may make you laugh a little, which,
on the whole, is no bad way of spending one's precious hours and still
more precious breath: at any rate, they will be, though a small, yet a
very sincere mark of my respectful esteem for a gentleman whose
further acquaintance I should look upon as a peculiar obligation.
The duke's song, independent totally of his dukeship, charms me. There
is I know not what of wild happiness of thought and expression
peculiarly beautiful in the old Scottish song style, of which his
Grace, old venerable Skinner, the author of "Tullochgorum," &c., and
the late Ross, at Lochlee, of true Scottish poetic memory, are the
only modern instances that I recollect, since Ramsay with his
contemporaries, and poor Bob Fergusson, went to the world of deathless
existence and truly immortal song. The mob of mankind, that
many-headed beast, would laugh at so serious a speech about an old
song; but as Job says, "O that mine adversary had written a book!"
Those who think that composing a Scotch song is a trifling
business--let them try.
I wish my Lord Duke would pay a proper attention to the Christian
admonition--"Hide not your candle under a bushel," but "let your light
shine before men." I could name half a dozen dukes that I guess are a
devilish deal worse employed: nay, I question if there are half a
dozen better: perhaps there are not half that scanty number whom
Heaven has favoured with the tuneful, happy, and, I will say, glorious
gift.
I am, dear Sir,
Your obliged humble servant,
R. B.
* * * * *
LXXXV.
TO MR. ROBERT AINSLIE,
EDINBURGH.
["I set you down," says Burns, elsewhere, to Ainslie, "as the staff of
my old age, when all my other friends, after a decent show of pity,
will have forgot me."]
_Edinburgh, Sunday Morning_,
_Nov._ 23, 1787.
I Beg, my dear Sir, you would not make any appointment to take us to
Mr. Ainslie's to-night. On looking over my engagements, constitution,
present state of my health, some little vexatious soul concerns, &c.,
I find I can't sup abroad to-night. I shall be in to-day till one
o'clock if you have a leisure hour.
You will think it romantic when I tell you, that I find the idea of
your friendship almost necessary to my existence.--You assume a proper
length of face in my bitter hours of blue-devilism, and you laugh
fully up to my highest wishes at my good things.--I don't know upon
the whole, if you are one of the first fellows in God's world, but you
are so to me. I tell you this just now in the conviction that some
inequalities in my temper and manner may perhaps sometimes make you
suspect that I am not so warmly as I ought to be your friend.
R. B.
* * * * *
LXXXVI.
TO THE EARL OF GLENCAIRN.
[The views of Burns were always humble: he regarded a place in the
excise as a thing worthy of paying court for, both in verse and
prose.]
_Edinburgh_, 1787.
MY LORD,
I know your lordship will disapprove of my ideas in a request I am
going to make to you; but I have weighed, long and seriously weighed,
my situation, my hopes and turn of mind, and am fully fixed to my
scheme if I can possibly effectuate it. I wish to get into the Excise;
I am told that your lordship's interest will easily procure me the
grant from the commissioners; and your lordship's patronage and
goodness, which have already rescued me from obscurity, wretchedness,
and exile, embolden me to ask that interest. You have likewise put it
in my power to save the little tie of home that sheltered an aged
mother, two brothers, and three sisters from destruction. There, my
lord, you have bound me over to the highest gratitude.
My brother's farm is but a wretched lease, but I think he will
probably weather out the remaining seven years of it; and after the
assistance which I have given and will give him, to keep the family
together, I think, by my guess, I shall have rather better than two
hundred pounds, and instead of seeking, what is almost impossible at
present to find, a farm that I can certainly live by, with so small a
stock, I shall lodge this sum in a banking-house, a sacred deposit,
expecting only the calls of uncommon distress or necessitous old age.
These, my lord, are my views: I have resolved from the maturest
deliberation; and now I am fixed, I shall leave no stone unturned to
carry my resolve into execution. Your lordship's patronage is the
strength of my hopes; nor have I yet applied to anybody else. Indeed
my heart sinks within me at the idea of applying to any other of the
great who have honoured me with their countenance. I am ill qualified
to dog the heels of greatness with the impertinence of solicitation,
and tremble nearly as much at the thought of the cold promise as the
cold denial; but to your lordship I have not only the honour, the
comfort, but the pleasure of being
Your lordship's much obliged
And deeply indebted humble servant,
R. B.
* * * * *
LXXXVII.
TO JAMES DALRYMPLE, ESQ.
ORANGEFIELD.
[James Dalrymple, Esq., of Orangefield, was a gentleman of birth and
poetic tastes--he interested himself in the fortunes of Burns.]
_Edinburgh_, 1787.
DEAR SIR,
I suppose the devil is so elated with his success with you that he is
determined by a _coup de main_ to complete his purposes on you all at
once, in making you a poet. I broke open the letter you sent me;
hummed over the rhymes; and, as I saw they were extempore, said to
myself, they were very well; but when I saw at the bottom a name that
I shall ever value with grateful respect, "I gapit wide, but naething
spak." I was nearly as much struck as the friends of Job, of
affliction-bearing memory, when they sat down with him seven days and
seven nights, and spake not a word.
I am naturally of a superstitious cast, and as soon as my
wonder-scared imagination regained its consciousness, and resumed its
functions, I cast about what this mania of yours might portend. My
foreboding ideas had the wide stretch of possibility; and several
events, great in their magnitude, and important in their consequences,
occurred to my fancy. The downfall of the conclave, or the crushing of
the Cork rumps; a ducal coronet to Lord George Gordon and the
Protestant interest; or St. Peter's keys to * * * * * *.
You want to know how I come on. I am just in _statu quo_, or, not to
insult a gentleman with my Latin, in "auld use and wont." The noble
Earl of Glencairn took me by the hand to-day, and interested himself
in my concerns, with a goodness like that benevolent Being, whose
image he so richly bears. He is a stronger proof of the immortality of
the soul, than any that philosophy ever produced. A mind like his can
never die. Let the worshipful squire H. L., or the reverend Mass J. M.
go into their primitive nothing. At best, they are but ill-digested
lumps of chaos, only one of them strongly tinged with bituminous
particles and sulphureous effluvia. But my noble patron, eternal as
the heroic swell of magnanimity, and the generous throb of
benevolence, shall look on with princely eye at "the war of elements,
the wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds."
R. B.
* * * * *
LXXXVIII.
TO CHARLES HAY. ESQ.,
ADVOCATE.
[The verses enclosed were written on the death of the Lord President
Dundas, at the suggestion of Charles Hay, Esq., advocate, afterwards a
judge, under the title of Lord Newton.]
SIR,
The enclosed poem was written in consequence of your suggestion, last
time I had the pleasure of seeing you. It cost me an hour or two of
next morning's sleep, but did not please me; so it lay by, an
ill-digested effort, till the other day that I gave it a critic brush.
These kind of subjects are much hackneyed; and, besides, the wailings
of the rhyming tribe over the ashes of the great are cursedly
suspicious, and out of all character for sincerity. These ideas damped
my muse's fire; however, I have done the best I could, and, at all
events, it gives me an opportunity of declaring that I have the honour
to be, Sir, your obliged humble servant,
R. B.
* * * * *
LXXXIX.
TO MISS M----N.
[This letter appeared for the first time in the "Letters to Clarinda,"
a little work which was speedily suppressed--it is, on the whole, a
sort of Corydon and Phillis affair, with here and there expressions
too graphic, and passages over-warm. Who the lady was is not known--or
known only to one.]
_Saturday Noon, No. 2, St. James's Square_,
_New Town, Edinburgh_
Here have I sat, my 'dear Madam, in the stony altitude of perplexed
study for fifteen vexatious minutes, my head askew, bending over the
intended card; my fixed eye insensible to the very light of day poured
around; my pendulous goose-feather, loaded with ink, hanging over the
future letter, all for the important purpose of writing a
complimentary card to accompany your trinket.
Compliment is such a miserable Greenland expression, lies at such a
chilly polar distance from the torrid zone of my constitution, that I
cannot, for the very soul of me, use it to any person for whom I have
the twentieth part of the esteem every one must have for you who knows
you.
As I leave town in three or four days, I can give myself the pleasure
of calling on you only for a minute. Tuesday evening, some time about
seven or after, I shall wait on you for your farewell commands.
The hinge of your box I put into the hands of the proper connoisseur.
The broken glass, likewise, went under review; but deliberative wisdom
thought it would too much endanger the whole fabric.
I am, dear Madam,
With all sincerity of enthusiasm,
Your very obedient servant,
R. B.
* * * * *
XC.
TO MISS CHALMERS.
[Some dozen or so, it is said, of the most beautiful letters that
Burns ever wrote, and dedicated to the beauty of Charlotte Hamilton,
were destroyed by that lady, in a moment when anger was too strong for
reflection.]
_Edinburgh, Nov._ 21, 1787.
I have one vexatious fault to the kindly-welcome, well-filled sheet
which I owe to your and Charlotte's goodness,--it contains too much
sense, sentiment, and good-spelling. It is impossible that even you
two, whom I declare to my God I will give credit for any degree of
excellence the sex are capable of attaining, it is impossible you can
go on to correspond at that rate; so like those who, Shenstone says,
retire because they make a good speech, I shall, after a few letters,
hear no more of you. I insist that you shall write whatever comes
first: what you see, what you read, what you hear, what you admire,
what you dislike, trifles, bagatelles, nonsense; or to fill up a
corner, e'en put down a laugh at full length. Now none of your polite
hints about flattery; I leave that to your lovers, if you have or
shall have any; though, thank heaven, I have found at last two girls
who can be luxuriantly happy in their own minds and with one another,
without that commonly necessary appendage to female bliss--A LOVER.
Charlotte and you are just two favourite resting-places for my soul in
her wanderings through the weary, thorny wilderness of this world. God
knows I am ill-fitted for the struggle: I glory in being a Poet, and I
want to be thought a wise man--I would fondly be generous, and I wish
to be rich. After all, I am afraid I am a lost subject. "Some folk hae
a hantle o' fauts, an' I'm but a ne'er-do-weel."
_Afternoon_--To close the melancholy reflections at the end of last
sheet, I shall just add a piece of devotion commonly known in Carrick
by the title of the "Wabster's grace:"--
"Some say we're thieves, and e'en sae are we,
Some say we lie, and e'en sae do we!
Gude forgie us, and I hope sae will he!
--Up and to your looms, lads."
R. B.
* * * * *
XCI.
TO MISS CHALMERS.
[The "Ochel-Hills," which the poet promises in this letter, is a song,
beginning,
"Where braving angry winter's storms
The lofty Ochels rise,"
written in honour of Margaret Chalmers, and published along with the
"Banks of the Devon," in Johnson's Musical Museum.]
_Edinburgh, Dec._ 12, 1787.
I am here under the care of a surgeon, with a bruised limb extended on
a cushion; and the tints of my mind vying with the livid horror
preceding a midnight thunder-storm. A drunken coachman was the cause
of the first, and incomparably the lightest evil; misfortune, bodily
constitution, hell, and myself have formed a "quadruple alliance" to
guaranty the other. I got my fall on Saturday, and am getting slowly
better.
I have taken tooth and nail to the Bible, and am got through the five
books of Moses, and half way in Joshua. It is really a glorious book.
I sent for my bookbinder to-day, and ordered him to get me an octavo
Bible in sheets, the best paper and print in town; and bind it with
all the elegance of his craft.
I would give my best song to my worst enemy, I mean the merit of
making it, to have you and Charlotte by me. You are angelic creatures,
and would pour oil and wine into my wounded spirit.
I enclose you a proof copy of the "Banks of the Devon," which present
with my best wishes to Charlotte. The "Ochel-hills" you shall probably
have next week for yourself. None of your fine speeches!
R. B.
* * * * *
XCII.
TO MISS CHALMERS.
[The eloquent hypochondriasm of the concluding paragraph of this
letter, called forth the commendation of Lord Jeffrey, when he
criticised Cromek's Reliques of Burns, in the Edinburgh Review.]
_Edinburgh, Dec._ 19, 1787.
I begin this letter in answer to yours of the 17th current, which is
not yet cold since I read it. The atmosphere of my soul is vastly
clearer than when I wrote you last. For the first time, yesterday I
crossed the room on crutches. It would do your heart good to see my
hardship, not on my poetic, but on my oaken stilts; throwing my best
leg with an air! and with as much hilarity in my gait and countenance,
as a May frog leaping across the newly harrowed ridge, enjoying the
fragrance of the refreshed earth, after the long-expected shower!
I can't say I am altogether at my ease when I see anywhere in my path
that meagre, squalid, famine-faced spectre, Poverty; attended as he
always is, by iron-fisted oppression, and leering contempt; but I have
sturdily withstood his buffetings many a hard-laboured day already,
and still my motto is--I DARE! My worst enemy is _moi-même._
I lie so miserably open to the inroads and incursions of a
mischievous, light-armed, well-mounted banditti, under the banners of
imagination, whim, caprice, and passion: and the heavy-armed veteran
regulars of wisdom, prudence, and forethought move so very, very slow,
that I am almost in a state of perpetual warfare, and, alas! frequent
defeat. There are just two creatures I would envy, a horse in his wild
state traversing the forests of Asia, or an oyster on some of the
desert shores of Europe. The one has not a wish without enjoyment, the
other has neither wish nor fear.
R. B.
* * * * *
XCIII.
TO SIR JOHN WHITEFOORD.
[The Whitefoords of Whitefoord, interested themselves in all matters
connected with literature: the power of the family, unluckily for
Burns, was not equal to their taste.]
_Edinburgh, December_, 1787.
SIR,
Mr. Mackenzie, in Mauchline, my very warm and worthy friend, has
informed me how much you are pleased to interest yourself in my fate
as a man, and (what to me is incomparably dearer) my fame as a poet.
I have, Sir, in one or two instances, been patronized by those of your
character in life, when I was introduced to their notice by * * * * *
friends to them and honoured acquaintances to me! but you are the
first gentleman in the country whose benevolence and goodness of heart
has interested himself for me, unsolicited and unknown. I am not
master enough of the etiquette of these matters to know, nor did I
stay to inquire, whether formal duty bade, or cold propriety
disallowed, my thanking you in this manner, as I am convinced, from
the light in which you kindly view me, that you will do me the justice
to believe this letter is not the manoeuvre of the needy, sharping
author, fastening on those in upper life, who honour him with a little
notice of him or his works. Indeed, the situation of poets is
generally such, to a proverb, as may, in some measure, palliate that
prostitution of heart and talents, they have at times been guilty of.
I do not think prodigality is, by any means, a necessary concomitant
of a poetic turn, but I believe a careless indolent attention to
economy, is almost inseparable from it; then there must be in the
heart of every bard of Nature's making, a certain modest sensibility,
mixed with a kind of pride, that will ever keep him out of the way of
those windfalls of fortune which frequently light on hardy impudence
and foot-licking servility. It is not easy to imagine a more helpless
state than his whose poetic fancy unfits him for the world, and whose
character as a scholar gives him some pretensions to the _politesse_
of life--yet is as poor as I am.
For my part, I thank Heaven my star has been kinder; learning never
elevated my ideas above the peasant's shed, and I have an independent
fortune at the plough-tail.
I was surprised to hear that any one who pretended in the least to the
manners of the gentleman, should be so foolish, or worse, as to stoop
to traduce the morals of such a one as I am, and so inhumanly cruel,
too, as to meddle with that late most unfortunate, unhappy part of my
story. With a tear of gratitude, I thank you, Sir, for the warmth with
which you interposed in behalf of my conduct. I am, I acknowledge, too
frequently the sport of whim, caprice, and passion, but reverence to
God, and integrity to my fellow-creatures, I hope I shall ever
preserve. I have no return, Sir, to make you for your goodness but
one--a return which, I am persuaded, will not be unacceptable--the
honest, warm wishes of a grateful heart for your happiness, and every
one of that lovely flock, who stand to you in a filial relation. If
ever calumny aim the poisoned shaft at them, may friendship be by to
ward the blow!
R. B.
* * * * *
XCIV.
TO MISS WILLIAMS,
ON READING HER POEM OF THE SLAVE-TRADE.
[The name and merits of Miss Williams are widely known; nor is it a
small honour to her muse that her tender song of "Evan Banks" was
imputed to Burns by Cromek: other editors since have continued to
include it in his works, though Sir Walter Scott named the true
author.]
_Edinburgh, Dec._ 1787.
I know very little of scientific criticism, so all I can pretend to in
that intricate art is merely to note, as I read along, what passages
strike me as being uncommonly beautiful, and where the expression
seems to be perplexed or faulty.
The poem opens finely. There are none of these idle prefatory lines
which one may skip over before one comes to the subject. Verses 9th
and 10th in particular,
"Where ocean's unseen bound
Leaves a drear world of waters round,"
are truly beautiful. The simile of the hurricane is likewise fine;
and, indeed, beautiful as the poem is, almost all the similes rise
decidedly above it. From verse 31st to verse 50th is a pretty eulogy
on Britain. Verse 36th, "That foul drama deep with wrong," is nobly
expressive. Verse 46th, I am afraid, is rather unworthy of the rest;
"to dare to feel" is an idea that I do not altogether like. The
contrast of valour and mercy, from the 36th verse to the 50th, is
admirable.
Either my apprehension is dull, or there is something a little
confused in the apostrophe to Mr. Pitt. Verse 55th is the antecedent
to verses 57th and 58th, but in verse 58th the connexion seems
ungrammatical:--
"Powers. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
With no gradation mark'd their flight,
But rose at once to glory's height."
Ris'n should be the word instead of rose. Try it in prose.
Powers,--their flight marked by no gradations, but [the same powers]
risen at once to the height of glory. Likewise, verse 53d, "For this,"
is evidently meant to lead on the sense of the verses 59th, 60th,
61st, and 62d: but let us try how the thread of connexion runs,--
"For this . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
The deeds of mercy, that embrace
A distant sphere, an alien race,
Shall virtue's lips record and claim
The fairest honours of thy name."
I beg pardon if I misapprehended the matter, but this appears to me
the only imperfect passage in the poem. The comparison of the sunbeam
is fine.
The compliment to the Duke of Richmond is, I hope, as just as it is
certainly elegant The thought,
"Virtue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Sends from her unsullied source,
The gems of thought their purest force,"
is exceeding beautiful. The idea, from verse 81st to the 85th, that
the "blest decree" is like the beams of morning ushering in the
glorious day of liberty, ought not to pass unnoticed or unapplauded.
From verse 85th to verse 108th, is an animated contrast between the
unfeeling selfishness of the oppressor on the one hand, and the misery
of the captive on the other. Verse 88th might perhaps be amended thus:
"Nor ever _quit_ her narrow maze." We are said to _pass_ a bound, but
we _quit_, a maze. Verse 100th is exquisitely beautiful:--
"They, whom wasted blessings tire."
Verse 110th is I doubt a clashing of metaphors: "to load a span" is, I
am afraid, an unwarrantable expression. In verse 114th, "Cast the
universe in shade," is a fine idea. From the 115th verse to the 142d
is a striking description of the wrongs of the poor African. Verse
120th, "The load of unremitted pain," is a remarkable, strong
expression. The address to the advocates for abolishing the
slave-trade, from verse 143d to verse 208th, is animated with the true
life of genius. The picture of oppression:--
"While she links her impious chain,
And calculates the price of pain;
Weighs agony in sordid scales,
And marks if death or life prevails,"--
is nobly executed.
What a tender idea is in verse 108th! Indeed, that whole description
of home may vie with Thomson's description of home, somewhere in the
beginning of his Autumn. I do not remember to have seen a stronger
expression of misery than is contained in these verses:--
"Condemned, severe extreme, to live
When all is fled that life can give"
The comparison of our distant joys to distant objects is equally
original and striking.
The character and manners of the dealer in the infernal traffic is a
well done though a horrid picture. I am not sure how far introducing
the sailor was right; for though the sailor's common characteristic is
generosity, yet, in this case, he is certainly not only an unconcerned
witness, but, in some degree, an efficient agent in the business.
Verse 224th is a nervous ... expressive--"The heart convulsive anguish
breaks." The description of the captive wretch when he arrives in the
West Indies, is carried on with equal spirit. The thought that the
oppressor's sorrow on seeing the slave pine, is like the butcher's
regret when his destined lamb dies a natural death, is exceedingly
fine.
I am got so much into the cant of criticism, that I begin to be afraid
lest I have nothing except the cant of it; and instead of elucidating
my author, am only benighting myself. For this reason, I will not
pretend to go through the whole poem. Some few remaining beautiful
lines, however, I cannot pass over. Verse 280th is the strongest
description of selfishness I ever saw. The comparison of verses 285th
and 286th is new and fine; and the line, "Your arms to penury you
lend," is excellent. In verse 317th, "like" should certainly be "as"
or "so;" for instance--
"His sway the hardened bosom leads
To cruelty's remorseless deeds:
As (or, so) the blue lightning when it springs
With fury on its livid wings,
Darts on the goal with rapid force,
Nor heeds that ruin marks its course."
If you insert the word "like" where I have placed "as," you must alter
"darts" to "darting," and "heeds" to "heeding" in order to make it
grammar. A tempest is a favourite subject with the poets, but I do not
remember anything even in Thomson's Winter superior to your verses
from the 347th to the 351st. Indeed, the last simile, beginning with
"Fancy may dress," &c., and ending with the 350th verse, is, in my
opinion, the most beautiful passage in the poem; it would do honour to
the greatest names that ever graced our profession.
I will not beg your pardon, Madam, for these strictures, as my
conscience tells me, that for once in my life I have acted up to the
duties of a Christian, in doing as I would be done by.
R. B.
* * * * *
XCV.
TO MR. RICHARD BROWN,
IRVINE.
[Richard Brown was the "hapless son of misfortune," alluded to by
Burns in his biographical letter to Dr. Moore: by fortitude and
prudence he retrieved his fortunes, and lived much respected in
Greenock, to a good old age. He said Burns had little to learn in
matters of levity, when he became acquainted with him.]
_Edinburgh, 30th Dec._ 1787.
MY DEAR SIR,
I have met with few things in life which have given me more pleasure
than Fortune's kindness to you since those days in which we met in the
vale of misery; as I can honestly say, that I never knew a man who
more truly deserved it, or to whom my heart more truly wished it. I
have been much indebted since that time to your story and sentiments
for steeling my mind against evils, of which I have had a pretty
decent share. My will-o'wisp fate you know: do you recollect a Sunday
we spent together in Eglinton woods! You told me, on my repeating some
verses to you, that you wondered I could resist the temptation of
sending verses of such merit to a magazine. It was from this remark I
derived that idea of my own pieces, which encouraged me to endeavour
at the character of a poet. I am happy to hear that you will be two or
three months at home. As soon as a bruised limb will permit me, I
shall return to Ayrshire, and we shall meet; "and faith, I hope we'll
not sit dumb, nor yet cast out!"
I have much to tell you "of men, their manners, and their ways,"
perhaps a little of the other sex. Apropos, I beg to be remembered to
Mrs. Brown. There I doubt not, my dear friend, but you have found
substantial happiness. I expect to find you something of an altered
but not a different man; the wild, bold, generous young fellow
composed into the steady affectionate husband, and the fond careful
parent. For me, I am just the same will-o'-wisp being I used to be.
About the first and fourth quarters of the moon, I generally set in
for the trade wind of wisdom: but about the full and change, I am the
luckless victim of mad tornadoes, which blow me into chaos. Almighty
love still reigns and revels in my bosom; and I am at this moment
ready to hang myself for a young Edinburgh widow, who has wit and
wisdom more murderously fatal than the assassinating stiletto of the
Sicilian banditti, or the poisoned arrow of the savage African. My
highland dirk, that used to hang beside my crutches, I have gravely
removed into a neighbouring closet, the key of which I cannot command
in case of spring-tide paroxysms. You may guess of her wit by
the following verses, which she sent me the other day:--
Talk not of love, it gives me pain,
For love has been my foe;
He bound me with an iron chain,
And plunged me deep in woe!
But friendship's pure and lasting joys.
My heart was formed to prove,--
There, welcome, win, and wear the prize,
But never talk of love!
Your friendship much can make me blest--
O why that bliss destroy?
Why urge the odious one request,
You know I must deny?[180]
My best compliments to our friend Allan.
Adieu!
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 180: See song 186, in Johnson's Musical Museum. Burns altered
the two last lines, and added a stanza:
Why urge the only one request
You know I will deny!
Your thought if love must harbour there,
Conceal it in that thought;
Nor cause me from my bosom tear
The very friend I sought.]
* * * * *
XCVI.
TO GAVIN HAMILTON.
[The Hamiltons of the West continue to love the memory of Burns: the
old arm-chair in which the bard sat, when he visited Nanse Tinnocks,
was lately presented to the mason Lodge of Mauchline, by Dr. Hamilton,
the "wee curly Johnie" of the Dedication.]
[_Edinburgh, Dec._ 1787.]
MY DEAR SIR,
It is indeed with the highest pleasure that I congratulate you on the
return of days of ease and nights of pleasure, after the horrid hours
of misery in which I saw you suffering existence when last in
Ayrshire; I seldom pray for any body, "I'm baith dead-sweer and
wretched ill o't;" but most fervently do I beseech the Power that
directs the world, that you may live long and be happy, but live no
longer than you are happy. It is needless for me to advise you to have
a reverend care of your health. I know you will make it a point never
at one time to drink more than a pint of wine (I mean an English
pint), and that you will never be witness to more than one bowl of
punch at a time, and that cold drams you will never more taste; and,
above all things, I am convinced, that after drinking perhaps boiling
punch, you will never mount your horse and gallop home in a chill late
hour. Above all things, as I understand you are in habits of intimacy
with that Boanerges of gospel powers, Father Auld, be earnest with him
that he will wrestle in prayer for you, that you may see the vanity of
vanities in trusting to, or even practising the casual moral works of
charity, humanity, generosity, and forgiveness of things, which you
practised so flagrantly that it was evident you delighted in them,
neglecting, or perhaps profanely despising, the wholesome doctrine of
faith without works, the only anchor of salvation. A hymn of
thanksgiving would, in my opinion, be highly becoming from you at
present, and in my zeal for your well-being, I earnestly press on you
to be diligent in chanting over the two enclosed pieces of sacred
poesy. My best compliments to Mrs. Hamilton and Miss Kennedy.
Yours in the L--d,
R. B.
* * * * *
XCVII.
TO MISS CHALMERS.
[The blank which takes the place of the name of the "Gentleman in mind
and manners," of this letter, cannot now be filled up, nor is it much
matter: the acquaintance of such a man as the poet describes few or
none would desire.]
_Edinburgh, Dec._ 1787.
MY DEAR MADAM,
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 anything, wherever I am, will reach me.
I saw yours to ----; it is not too severe, nor did he take it amiss. 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 owns, 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 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 I came in by Glenap,
I met with an aged woman:
She bad me cheer up my heart,
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--
That hideous sight--a naked human heart."
Farewell! remember me to Charlotte.
R. B.
* * * * *
XCVIII.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[The poet alludes in this letter, as in some before, to a hurt which
he got in one of his excursions in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh.]
_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.
* * * * *
XCIX.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[The levity with which Burns sometimes spoke of things sacred, had
been obliquely touched upon by his good and anxious friend Mrs.
Dunlop: he pleads guilty of folly, but not of irreligion.]
_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 dependence, 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.
* * * * *
C.
TO THE REV. JOHN SKINNER.
[When Burns undertook to supply Johnson with songs for the Musical
Museum, he laid all the bards of Scotland under contribution, and
Skinner among the number, of whose talents, as well as those of Ross,
author of Helenore, he was a great admirer.]
_Edinburgh, 14th February, 1788._
REVEREND AND DEAR SIR,
I have been a cripple now near three months, though I am getting
vastly better, and have been very much hurried beside, or else I would
have wrote you sooner. I must beg your pardon for the epistle you sent
me appearing in the Magazine. I had given a copy or two to some of my
intimate friends, but did not know of the printing of it till the
publication of the Magazine. However, as it does great honour to us
both, you will forgive it.
The second volume of the songs I mentioned to you in my last is
published to-day. I send you a copy which I beg you will accept as a
mark of the veneration I have long had, and shall ever have, for your
character, and of the claim I make to your continued acquaintance.
Your songs appear in the third volume, with your name in the index;
as, I assure you, Sir, I have heard your "Tullochgorum," particularly
among our west-country folks, given to many different names, and most
commonly to the immortal author of "The Minstrel," who, indeed, never
wrote anything superior to "Gie's a sang, Montgomery cried." Your
brother has promised me your verses to the Marquis of Huntley's reel,
which certainly deserve a place in the collection. My kind host, Mr.
Cruikshank, of the High-school here, and said to be one of the best
Latins in this age, begs me to make you his grateful acknowledgments
for the entertainment he has got in a Latin publication of yours, that
I borrowed for him from your acquaintance and much respected friend in
this place, the Reverend Dr. Webster. Mr. Cruikshank maintains that
you write the best Latin since Buchanan. I leave Edinburgh to-morrow,
but shall return in three weeks. Your song you mentioned in your last,
to the tune of "Dumbarton Drums," and the other, which you say was
done by a brother by trade of mine, a ploughman, I shall thank you
much for a copy of each. I am ever, Reverend Sir, with the most
respectful esteem and sincere veneration, yours,
R. B.
* * * * *
CI.
TO RICHARD BROWN.
[The letters of Burns to Brown, and Smith, and Richmond, and others of
his west-country friends, written when he was in the first flush of
fame, show that he did not forget humble men, who anticipated the
public in perceiving his merit.]
_Edinburgh, February 15th_, 1788.
MY DEAR FRIEND,
I received yours with the greatest pleasure. I shall arrive at Glasgow
on Monday evening; and beg, if possible, you will meet me on Tuesday.
I shall wait you Tuesday all day. I shall be found at Davies', Black
Bull inn. I am hurried, as if hunted by fifty devils, else I should go
to Greenock: but if you cannot possibly come, write me, if possible,
to Glasgow, on Monday; or direct to me at Mossgiel by Mauchline; and
name a day and place in Ayrshire, within a fortnight from this date,
where I may meet you. I only stay a fortnight in Ayrshire, and return
to Edinburgh. I am ever, my dearest friend, yours,
R. B.
* * * * *
CII.
TO MRS. ROSE, OF KILRAVOCK.
[Mrs. Rose of Kilravock, a lady distinguished by the elegance of her
manners, as well as by her talents, was long remembered by Burns: she
procured for him snatches of old songs, and copies of northern
melodies; to her we owe the preservation of some fine airs as well as
the inspiration of some fine lyrics.]
_Edinburgh, February 17th, 1788._
MADAM,
You are much indebted to some indispensable business I have had on my
hands, otherwise my gratitude threatened such a return for your
obliging favour as would have tired your patience. It but poorly
expresses my feelings to say, that I am sensible of your kindness: it
may be said of hearts such as yours is, and such, I hope, mine is,
much more justly than Addison applies it,--
"Some souls by instinct to each other turn."
There was something in my reception at Kilravock so different from the
cold, obsequious, dancing-school bow of politeness, that it almost got
into my head that friendship had occupied her ground without the
intermediate march of acquaintance. I wish I could transcribe, or
rather transfuse into language, the glow of my heart when I read your
letter. My ready fancy, with colours more mellow than life itself,
painted the beautifully wild scenery of Kilravock--the venerable
grandeur of the castle--the spreading woods--the winding river, gladly
leaving his unsightly, heathy source, and lingering with apparent
delight as he passes the fairy walk at the bottom of the garden;--your
late distressful anxieties--your present enjoyments--your dear little
angel, the pride of your hopes;--my aged friend, venerable in worth
and years, whose loyalty and other virtues will strongly entitle her
to the support of the Almighty Spirit here, and his peculiar favour in
a happier state of existence. You cannot imagine, Madam, how much such
feelings delight me; they are my dearest proofs of my own immortality.
Should I never revisit the north, as probably I never will, nor again
see your hospitable mansion, were I, some twenty years hence, to see
your little fellow's name making a proper figure in a newspaper
paragraph, my heart would bound with pleasure.
I am assisting a friend in a collection of Scottish songs, set to
their proper tunes; every air worth preserving is to be included:
among others I have given "Morag," and some few Highland airs which
pleased me most, a dress which will be more generally known, though
far, far inferior in real merit. As a small mark of my grateful
esteem, I beg leave to present you with a copy of the work, as far as
it is printed; the Man of Feeling, that first of men, has promised to
transmit it by the first opportunity.
I beg to be remembered most respectfully to my venerable friend, and
to your little Highland chieftain. When you see the "two fair spirits
of the hill," at Kildrummie,[181] tell them that I have done myself the
honour of setting myself down as one of their admirers for at least
twenty years to come, consequently they must look upon me as an
acquaintance for the same period; but, as the apostle Paul says, "this
I ask of grace, not of debt."
I have the honour to be, Madam, &c.,
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 181: Miss Sophia Brodie, of L----, and Miss Rose of Kilravock.]
* * * * *
CIII.
TO RICHARD BROWN.
[While Burns was confined to his lodgings by his maimed limb, he
beguiled the time and eased the pain by composing the Clarinda
epistles, writing songs for Johnson, and letters to his companions.]
_Mossgiel, 24th February, 1788._
MY DEAR SIR,
I cannot get the proper direction for my friend in Jamaica, but the
following will do:--To Mr. Jo. Hutchinson, at Jo. Brownrigg's, Esq.,
care of Mr. Benjamin Henriquez, merchant, 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 worth 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 look-out 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!"[182]
How like you my philosophy? Give my best compliments to Mrs. B., and
believe me to be,
My dear Sir,
Yours most truly,
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 182: Mickle.]
* * * * *
CIV.
TO MR. WILLIAM CRUIKSHANK.
[The excise and farming alternately occupied the poet's thoughts in
Edinburgh: he studied books of husbandry and took lessons in gauging,
and in the latter he became expert.]
_Mauchline, March 3d, 1788._
MY DEAR SIR,
Apologies for not writing are frequently like apologies for not
singing--the apology better than the song. I have fought my way
severely 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 utmost overpowered fighting
with prosaic wickednesses 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,
R. B.
* * * * *
CV.
TO ROBERT AINSLIE, ESQ.
[The sensible and intelligent farmer on whose judgment Burns depended
in the choice of his farm, was Mr. Tait, of Glenconner.]
_Mauchline, 3d 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 judgement, 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 buffeting 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 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.
R. B.
* * * * *
CVI.
TO RICHARD BROWN.
[Richard Brown, it is said, fell off in his liking for Burns when he
found that he had made free with his name in his epistle to Moore.]
_Mauchline, 7th March_, 1788.
I have been out of the country, my dear friend, and have not had an
opportunity of writing till 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 save 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.
* * * * *
CVII.
TO MR. MUIR.
[The change which Burns says in this letter took place in his ideas,
refers, it is said, to his West India voyage, on which, it appears by
one of his letters to Smith, he meditated for some time after his
debut in Edinburgh.]
_Mossgiel, 7th March_, 1788.
DEAR SIR,
I have partly changed my ideas, my dear friend, since I saw you. I
took old Glenconner with mo 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 eye, is,
"Dark as was chaos, ere the infant sun
Was roll'd together, or had try'd his beams
Athwart their gloom profound."[183]
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, care, woes,
and wants: if that part of us called mind does survive the apparent
destruction of the man--away with old-wife 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 are equally in the dark.
Adieu, my dear Sir; God send us a cheerful meeting!
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 183: Blair's Grave.]
* * * * *
CVIII.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[One of the daughters of Mrs. Dunlop painted a sketch of Coila from
Burns's poem of the Vision: it is still in existence, and is said to
have merit.]
_Mossgiel, 17th March, 1788._
MADAM,
The last paragraph in yours of the 30th 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 described 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 respectable--you 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 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 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 heads, but o' my fegs,
Ye've sat auld Scota on her legs:
Lang had she lien wi' beffs and flegs,
Bumbaz'd and dizzie,
Her fiddle wanted strings and pegs.
Wae's me, poor hizzie."
R. B.
* * * * *
CIX.
TO MISS CHALMERS.
[The uncouth cares of which the poet complains in this letter were the
construction of a common farmhouse, with barn, byre, and stable to
suit.]
_Edinburgh, March 14, 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 lifeguard. 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 indeed 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.
* * * * *
CX.
TO RICHARD BROWN.
[The excitement referred to in this letter arose from the dilatory and
reluctant movements of Creech, who was so slow in settling his
accounts that the poet suspected his solvency.]
_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,
Yours,--R. B.
* * * * *
CXI.
TO MR. ROBERT CLEGHORN.
[Cleghorn was a farmer, a social man, and much of a musician. The poet
wrote the Chevalier's Lament to please the jacobitical taste of his
friend; and the musician gave him advice in farming which he neglected
to follow:--"Farmer Attention," says Cleghorn, "is a good farmer
everywhere."]
_Mauchline, 31st March, 1788._
Yesterday, my dear Sir, as I was riding through a track of melancholy,
joyless muirs, between Galloway and Ayrshire, it being Sunday, I
turned my thoughts to psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs; and your
favourite air, "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.
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 prose-wench 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.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXII.
TO MR. WILLIAM DUNBAR,
EDINBURGH.
[This letter was printed for the first time by Robert Chambers, in his
"People's Edition" of Burns.]
_Mauchline, 7th April, 1788._
I have not delayed so long to write you, my much respected friend,
because I thought no farther of my promise. I have long since give 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 10 guineas, my knowledge of business 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 esprit_ 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 reward, 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 old 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,
R. B.
* * * * *
CXIII.
TO MISS CHALMERS.
[The sacrifice referred to by the poet, was his resolution to unite
his fortune with Jean Armour.]
_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
characters--because 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 biased 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
_vivâ voce_ with you to paint the situation and recount the
circumstances, you should applaud me.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXIV.
TO MISS CHALMERS.
[The hint alluded to, was a whisper of the insolvency of Creech; but
the bailie was firm as the Bass.]
_No date._
Now for that wayward, unfortunate thing, myself. I have broke measures
with Creech, and last week I wrote him a frosty, keen letter. He
replied in terms of chastisement, and promised me upon his honour that
I should have the account on Monday; but this is Tuesday, and yet I
have not heard a word from him. God have mercy on me! a poor d--mned,
incautious, duped, unfortunate fool! The sport, the miserable victim
of rebellious pride, hypochondriac imagination, agonizing sensibility,
and bedlam passions?
"I wish that I were dead, but I'm no like to die!" I had lately "a
hair-breadth 'scape in th' imminent deadly breach" of love too. Thank my
stars, I got off heart-whole, "waur fleyd than hurt."--Interruption.
I have this moment got a hint: I fear I am something like--undone--but
I hope for the best. Come, stubborn pride and unshrinking resolution;
accompany me through this, to me, miserable world! You must not desert
me! Your friendship I think I can count on, though I should date my
letters from a marching regiment. Early in life, and all my life I
reckoned on a recruiting drum as my forlorn hope. Seriously though,
life at present presents me with but a melancholy path: but--my limb
will soon be sound, and I shall struggle on.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXV.
TO MISS CHALMERS.
[Although Burns gladly grasped at a situation in the Excise, he wrote
many apologies to his friends, for the acceptance of a place, which,
though humble enough, was the only one that offered.]
_Edinburgh, Sunday._
To-morrow, my dear madam, I leave Edinburgh. I have altered all my
plans of future life. A farm that I could live in, I could not find;
and, indeed, after the necessary support my brother and the rest of
the family required, I could not venture on farming in that style
suitable to my feelings. You will condemn me for the next step I have
taken. I have entered into the Excise. I stay in the west about three
weeks, and then return to Edinburgh, for six weeks' instructions:
afterwards, for I get employ instantly, I go _où il plait à
Dieu_,--_et mon Roi._ I have chosen this, my dear friend, after mature
deliberation. The question is not at what door of fortune's palace
shall we enter in; but what doors does she open to us? I was not
likely to get anything to do. I wanted _un bût_, which is a dangerous,
an unhappy situation. I got this without any hanging on, or mortifying
solicitation; it is immediate bread, and though poor in comparison of
the last eighteen months of my existence, 'tis luxury in comparison
of all my preceding life: besides, the commissioners are some of them
my acquaintances, and all of them my firm friends.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXVI.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[The Tasso, with the perusal of which Mrs. Dunlop indulged the poet,
was not the line version of Fairfax, but the translation of Hoole--a
far inferior performance.]
_Mauchline, 28th April, 1788._
MADAM,
Your powers of reprehension must be great indeed, as I assure you they
made my heart ache with penitential pangs, even though I was really
not guilty. As I commence farmer at Whit-Sunday, you will easily guess
I must be pretty busy; but that is not all. As I got the offer of the
Excise business without solicitation, and as it costs me only six
months' attendance for instructions, to entitle me to a
commission--which commission lies by me, and at any future period, on
my simple petition, ca be resumed--I thought five-and-thirty pounds
a-year was no bad _dernier ressort_ for a poor poet, if fortune in her
jade tricks should kick him down from the little eminence to which she
has lately helped him up.
For this reason, I am at present attending these instructions, to have
them completed before Whit-sunday. Still, Madam, I prepared with the
sincerest pleasure to meet you at the Mount, and came to my brother's
on Saturday night, to set out on Sunday; but for some nights preceding
I had slept in an apartment, where the force of the winds and rains
was only mitigated by being sifted through numberless apertures in the
windows, walls, &c. In consequence I was on Sunday, Monday, and part
of Tuesday, unable to stir out of bed, with all the miserable effects
of a violent cold.
You see, Madam, the truth of the French maxim, _le vrai n'est pas
toujours le vraisemblable_; your last was so full of expostulation,
and was something so like the language of an offended friend, that I
began to tremble for a correspondence, which I had with grateful
pleasure set down as one of the greatest enjoyments of my future life.
Your books have delighted me: Virgil, Dryden, and Tasso were all
equally strangers to me; but of this more at large in my next.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXVII.
TO MR. JAMES SMITH,
AVON PRINTFIELD, LINLITHGOW.
[James Smith, as this letter intimates, had moved from Mauchline to
try to mend his fortunes at Avon Printfield, near Linlithgow.]
_Mauchline, April 28, 1788._
Beware of your Strasburgh, my good Sir! Look on this as the opening of
a correspondence, like the opening of a twenty-four gun battery!
There is no understanding a man properly, without knowing something of
his previous ideas (that is to say, if the man has any ideas; for I
know many who, in the animal-muster, pass for men, that are the scanty
masters of only one idea on any given subject, and by far the greatest
part of your acquaintances and mine can barely boast of ideas,
1.25--1.5--1.75 or some such fractional matter;) so to let you a
little into the secrets of my pericranium, there is, you must know, a
certain clean-limbed, handsome, bewitching young hussy of your
acquaintance, to whom I have lately and privately given a matrimonial
title to my corpus.
"Bode a robe and wear it,
Bode a pock and bear it,"
says the wise old Scots adage! I hate to presage ill-luck; and as my
girl has been doubly kinder to me than even the best of women usually
are to their partners of our sex, in similar circumstances, I reckon
on twelve times a brace of children against I celebrate my twelfth
wedding-day: these twenty-four will give me twenty-four gossipings,
twenty-four christenings (I mean one equal to two), and I hope, by the
blessing of the God of my fathers, to make them twenty-four dutiful
children to their parents, twenty-four useful members of society, and
twenty-four approved services of their God! * * *
"Light's heartsome," quo' the wife when she was stealing sheep. You
see what a lamp I have hung up to lighten your paths, when you are
idle enough to explore the combinations and relations of my ideas.
'Tis now as plain as a pike-staff, why a twenty-four gun battery was a
metaphor I could readily employ.
Now for business.--I intend to present Mrs. Burns with a printed
shawl, an article of which I dare say you have variety: 'tis my first
present to her since I have irrevocably called her mine, and I have a
kind of whimsical wish to get her the first said present from an old
and much-valued friend of hers and mine, a trusty Trojan, on whose
friendship I count myself possessed of as a life-rent lease.
Look on this letter as a "beginning of sorrows;" I will write you till
your eyes ache reading nonsense.
Mrs. Burns ('tis only her private designation) begs her best
compliments to you.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXVIII.
TO PROFESSOR DUGALD STEWART.
[Dugald Stewart loved the poet, admired his works, and enriched the
biography of Currie with some genuine reminiscences of his earlier
days.]
_Mauchline, 3d May, 1788._
SIR,
I enclose you one or two more of my bagatelles. If the fervent wishes
of honest gratitude have any influence with that great unknown being
who frames the chain of causes and events, prosperity and happiness
will attend your visits to the continent, and return you safe to your
native shore.
Wherever I am, allow me, Sir, to claim it as my privilege to acquaint
you with my progress in my trade of rhymes; as I am sure I could say
it with truth, that next to my little fame, and the having it in my
power to make life more comfortable to those whom nature has made dear
to me, I shall ever regard your countenance, your patronage, your
friendly good offices, as the most valued consequence of my late
success in life.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXIX.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[A poem, something after the fashion of the Georgics, was long present
to the mind of Burns: had fortune been more friendly he might have, in
due time, produced it.]
_Mauchline, 4th May, 1788._
MADAM,
Dryden's Virgil has delighted me. I do not know whether the critics
will agree with me, but the Georgics are to me by far the best of
Virgil. It is indeed a species of writing entirely new to me; and has
filled my head with a thousand fancies of emulation: but, alas! when I
read the Georgics, and then survey my own powers, 'tis like the idea
of a Shetland pony, drawn up by the side of a thorough-bred hunter to
start for the plate. I own I am disappointed in the Æneid. Faultless
correctness may please, and does highly please, the lettered critic:
but to that awful character I have not the most distant pretensions. I
do not know whether I do not hazard my pretensions to be a critic of
any kind, when I say that I think Virgil, in many instances, a servile
copier of Homer. If I had the Odyssey by me, I could parallel many
passages where Virgil has evidently copied, but by no means improved,
Homer. Nor can I think there is anything of this owing to the
translators; for, from everything I have seen of Dryden, I think him
in genius and fluency of language, Pope's master. I have not perused
Tasso enough to form an opinion: in some future letter, you shall have
my ideas of him; though I am conscious my criticisms must be very
inaccurate and imperfect, as there I have ever felt and lamented my
want of learning most.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXX.
TO MR. ROBERT AINSLIE.
[I have heard the gentleman say, to whom this brief letter is
addressed, how much he was pleased with the intimation, that the poet
had reunited himself with Jean Armour, for he know his heart was with
her.]
_Mauchline, May 26, 1788._
MY DEAR FRIEND,
I am two kind letters in your debt, but I have been from home, and
horribly busy, buying and preparing for my farming business, over and
above the plague of my Excise instructions, which this week will
finish.
As I flatter my wishes that I foresee many future years'
correspondence between us, 'tis foolish to talk of excusing dull
epistles; a dull letter may be a very kind one. I have the pleasure to
tell you that I have been extremely fortunate in all my buyings, and
bargainings hitherto; Mrs. Burns not excepted; which title I now avow
to the world. I am truly pleased with this last affair: it has indeed
added to my anxieties for futurity, but it has given a stability to my
mind, and resolutions unknown before; and the poor girl has the most
sacred enthusiasm of attachment to me, and has not a wish but to
gratify my every idea of her deportment. I am interrupted.--Farewell!
my dear Sir.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXXI.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[This letter, on the hiring season, is well worth the consideration of
all masters, and all servants. In England, servants are engaged by the
month; in Scotland by the half-year, and therefore less at the mercy
of the changeable and capricious.]
27_th May, 1788._
MADAM,
I have been torturing my philosophy to no purpose, to account for that
kind partiality of yours, which has followed me, in my return to the
shade of life, with assiduous benevolence. Often did I regret, in the
fleeting hours of my late will-o'-wisp appearance, that "here I had no
continuing city;" and but for the consolation of a few solid guineas,
could almost lament the time that a momentary acquaintance with wealth
and splendour put me so much out of conceit with the sworn companions
of my road through life--insignificance and poverty.
There are few circumstances relating to the unequal distribution of
the good things of this life that give me more vexation (I mean in
what I see around me) than the importance the opulent bestow on their
trifling family affairs, compared with the very same things on the
contracted scale of a cottage. Last afternoon I had the honour to
spend an hour or two at a good woman's fireside, where the planks that
composed the floor were decorated with a splendid carpet, and the gay
table sparkled with silver and china. 'Tis now about term-day, and
there has been a revolution among those creatures, who though in
appearance partakers, and equally noble partakers, of the same nature
with Madame, are from time to time--their nerves, their sinews, their
health, strength, wisdom, experience, genius, time, nay a good part of
their very thoughts--sold for months and years, not only to the
necessities, the conveniences, but, the caprices of the important few.
We talked of the insignificant creatures, nay notwithstanding their
general stupidity and rascality, did some of the poor devils the
honour to commend them. But light be the turf upon his breast who
taught "Reverence thyself!" We looked down on the unpolished wretches,
their impertinent wives and clouterly brats, as the lordly bull does
on the little dirty ant-hill, whose puny inhabitants he crushes in the
carelessness of his ramble, or tosses in the air in the wantonness of
his pride.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXXII.
TO MRS. DUNLOP,
AT MR DUNLOP'S, HADDINGTON.
[In this, the poet's first letter from Ellisland, he lays down his
whole system of in-door and out-door economy: while his wife took care
of the household, he was to manage the farm, and "pen a stanza" during
his hours of leisure.]
_Ellisland, 13th June, 1788._
"Where'er I roam, whatever realms I see,
My heart, untravell'd, fondly turns to thee;
Still to my _friend_ it turns with ceaseless pain,
and drags at each remove a lengthening chain."
GOLDSMITH.
This is the second day, my honoured friend, that I have been on my
farm. A solitary inmate of an old smoky spense; far from every object
I love, or by whom I am beloved; nor any acquaintance older than
yesterday, except Jenny Geddes, the old mare I ride on; while uncouth
cares and novel plans hourly insult my awkward ignorance and bashful
inexperience. There is a foggy atmosphere native to my soul in the
hour of care; consequently the dreary objects seem larger than life.
Extreme sensibility, irritated and prejudiced on the gloomy side by a
series of misfortunes and disappointments, at that period of my
existence when the soul is laying in her cargo of ideas for the voyage
of life, is, I believe, the principal cause of this unhappy frame of
mind.
"The valiant, in himself, what can he suffer?
Or what need he regard his _single_ woes?" &c.
Your surmise, Madam, is just; I am indeed a husband.
* * * * *
To jealousy or infidelity I am an equal stranger. My preservative from
the first is the most thorough consciousness of her sentiments of
honour, and her attachment to me: my antidote against the last is my
long and deep-rooted affection for her.
In housewife matters, of aptness to learn and activity to execute, she
is eminently mistress; and during my absence in Nithsdale, she is
regularly and constantly apprentice to my mother and sisters in their
dairy and other rural business.
The muses must not be offended when I tell them, the concerns of my
wife and family will, in my mind, always take the _pas_; but I assure
them their ladyships will ever come next in place.
You are right that a bachelor state would have insured me more
friends; but from a cause you will easily guess, conscious peace in
the enjoyment of my own mind, and unmistrusting confidence in
approaching my God, would seldom have been of the number.
I found a once much-loved and still much-loved female, literally and
truly cast out to the mercy of the naked elements; but I enabled her to
_purchase_ a shelter;--there is no sporting with a fellow-creature's
happiness or misery.
The most placid good-nature and sweetness of disposition; a warm
heart, gratefully devoted with all its powers to love me; vigorous
health and sprightly cheerfulness, set off to the best advantage by a
more than commonly handsome figure; these, I think, in a woman, may
make a good wife, though she should never have read a page but the
Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, nor have danced in a brighter
assembly than a penny pay-wedding.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXXIII.
TO ROBERT AINSLIE, ESQ.
[Had Burns written his fine song, beginning "Contented wi' little and
cantie wi' mair," when he penned this letter, the prose might have
followed as a note to the verse; he calls the Excise a luxury.]
_Ellisland, June 14th, 1788._
This is now the third day, my dearest Sir, that I have sojourned in
these regions; and during these three days you have occupied more of
my thoughts than in three weeks preceding: in Ayrshire I have several
variations of friendship's compass, here it points invariably to the
pole. My farm gives me a good many uncouth cares and anxieties, but I
hate the language of complaint. Job, or some one of his friends, says
well--"why should a living man complain?"
I have lately been much mortified with contemplating an unlucky
imperfection in the very framing and construction of my soul; namely,
a blundering inaccuracy of her olfactory organs in hitting the scent
of craft or design in my fellow-creatures. I do not mean any
compliment to my ingenuousness, or to hint that the defect is in
consequence of the unsuspicious simplicity of conscious truth or
honour: I take it to be, in some, why or other, an imperfection in the
mental sight; or, metaphor apart, some modification of dulness. In two
or three small instances lately, I have been most shamefully out.
I have all along hitherto, in the warfare of life, been bred to arms
among the light-horse--the piquet-guards of fancy: a kind of hussars
and Highlanders of the brain; but I am firmly resolved to sell out of
these giddy battalions, who have no ideas of a battle but fighting the
foe, or of a siege but storming the town. Cost what it will, I am
determined to buy in among the grave squadrons of heavy-armed thought,
or the artillery corps of plodding contrivance.
What books are you reading, or what is the subject of your thoughts,
besides the great studies of your profession? You said something about
religion in your last. I don't exactly remember what it was, as the
letter is in Ayrshire; but I thought it not only prettily said, but
nobly thought. You will make a noble fellow if once you were married.
I make no reservation of your being well-married: you have so much
sense, and knowledge of human nature, that though you may not realize
perhaps the ideas of romance, yet you will never be ill-married.
Were it not for the terrors of my ticklish situation respecting
provision for a family of children, I am decidedly of opinion that the
step I have taken is vastly for my happiness. As it is I look to the
Excise scheme as a certainty of maintenance!--luxury to what either
Mrs. Burns or I were born to.
Adieu.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXXIV.
TO ROBERT AINSLIE, ESQ.
[The kindness of Field, the profilist, has not only indulged me with a
look at the original, from which the profile alluded to in the letter
was taken, but has put me in possession of a capital copy.]
_Mauchline, 23d June, 1788._
This letter, my dear Sir, is only a business scrap. Mr. Miers, profile
painter in your town, has executed a profile of Dr. Blacklock for me:
do me the favour to call for it, and sit to him yourself for me, which
put in the same size as the doctor's. The account of both profiles
will be fifteen shillings, which I have given to James Connell, our
Mauchline carrier, to pay you when you give him the parcel. You must
not, my friend, refuse to sit. The time is short: when I sat to Mr.
Miers, I am sure he did not exceed two minutes. I propose hanging Lord
Glencairn, the Doctor, and you in trio over my new chimney-piece that
is to be.
Adieu.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXXV.
TO ROBERT AINSLIE, ESQ.
["There is a degree of folly," says Burns in this letter, "in talking
unnecessarily of one's private affairs." The folly is scarcely less to
write about them, and much did the poet and his friend write about
their own private affairs as well as those of others.]
_Ellisland, June 30th, 1788._
MY DEAR SIR,
I just now received your brief epistle; and, to take vengeance on your
laziness, I have, you see, taken a long sheet of writing-paper, and
have begun at the top of the page, intending to scribble on to the
very last corner.
I am vexed at that affair of the * * *, but dare not enlarge on the
subject until you send me your direction, as I suppose that will be
altered on your late master and friend's death. I am concerned for the
old fellow's exit, only as I fear it may be to your disadvantage in
any respect--for an old man's dying, except he has been a very
benevolent character, or in some particular situation of life that the
welfare of the poor or the helpless depended on him, I think it an
event of the most trifling moment in the world. Man is naturally a
kind, benevolent animal, but he is dropped into such a needy situation
here in this vexatious world, and has such a whoreson hungry,
growling, multiplying pack of necessities, appetites, passions, and
desires about him, ready to devour him for want of other food; that in
fact he must lay aside his cares for others that he may look properly
to himself. You have been imposed upon in paying Mr. Miers for the
profile of a Mr. H. I did not mention it in my letter to you, nor did
I ever give Mr. Miers any such order. I have no objection to lose the
money, but I will not have any such profile in my possession.
I desired the carrier to pay you, but as I mentioned only fifteen
shillings to him, I would rather enclose you a guinea note. I have it
not, indeed, to spare here, as I am only a sojourner in a strange land
in this place; but in a day or two I return to Mauchline, and there I
have the bank-notes through the house like salt permits.
There is a great degree of folly in talking unnecessarily of one's
private affairs. I have just now been interrupted by one of my new
neighbours, who has made himself absolutely contemptible in my eyes,
by his silly garrulous pruriency. I know it has been a fault of my
own, too; but from this moment I abjure it, as I would the service of
hell! Your poets, spend-thrifts, and other fools of that kidney,
pretend forsooth to crack their jokes on prudence; but 'tis a squalid
vagabond glorying in his rags. Still, imprudence respecting money
matters is much more pardonable than imprudence respecting character.
I have no objection to prefer prodigality to avarice, in some few
instances; but I appeal to your observation, if you have not met, and
often met, with the same disingenuousness, the same hollow-hearted
insincerity, and disintegritive depravity of principle, in the
hackneyed victims of profusion, as in the unfeeling children of
parsimony. I have every possible reverence for the much-talked-of
world beyond the grave, and I wish that which piety believes, and
virtue deserves, may be all matter of fact. But in things belonging
to, and terminating in this present scene of existence, man has
serious and interesting business on hand. Whether a man shall shake
hands with welcome in the distinguished elevation of respect, or
shrink from contempt in the abject corner of insignificance; whether
he shall wanton under the tropic of plenty, at least enjoy himself in
the comfortable latitudes of easy convenience, or starve in the arctic
circle of dreary poverty; whether he shall rise in the manly
consciousness of a self-approving mind, or sink beneath a galling load
of regret and remorse--these are alternatives of the last moment.
You see how I preach. You used occasionally to sermonize too; I wish
you would, in charity, favour me with a sheet full in your own way. I
admire the close of a letter Lord Bolingbroke writes to Dean
Swift:--"Adieu dear Swift! with all thy faults I love thee entirely:
make an effort to love me with all mine!" Humble servant, and all that
trumpery, is now such a prostituted business, that honest friendship,
in her sincere way, must have recourse to her primitive,
simple,--farewell!
R. B.
* * * * *
CXXVI.
TO MR. GEORGE LOCKHART,
MERCHANT, GLASGOW.
[Burns, more than any poet of the age, loved to write out copies of
his favourite poems, and present them to his friends: he sent "The
Falls of Bruar" to Mr. Lockhart.]
_Mauchline, 18th July, 1788._
MY DEAR SIR,
I am just going for Nithsdale, else I would certainly have transcribed
some of my rhyming things for you. The Miss Baillies I have seen in
Edinburgh. "Fair and lovely are thy works, Lord God Almighty! Who
would not praise thee for these thy gifts in thy goodness to the sons
of men!" It needed not your fine taste to admire them. I declare, one
day I had the honour of dining at Mr. Baillie's, I was almost in the
predicament of the children of Israel, when they could not look on
Moses' face for the glory that shone in it when he descended from
Mount Sinai.
I did once write a poetic address from the Falls of Bruar to his Grace
of Athole, when I was in the Highlands. When you return to Scotland,
let me know, and I will send such of my pieces as please myself best.
I return to Mauchline in about ten days.
My compliments to Mr. Purdon. I am in truth, but at present in haste,
Yours,--R. B.
* * * * *
CXXVII.
TO MR. PETER HILL.
[Peter Hill was a bookseller in Edinburgh: David Ramsay, printer of
the Evening Courant: William Dunbar, an advocate, and president of a
club of Edinburgh wits; and Alexander Cunningham, a jeweller, who
loved mirth and wine.]
MY DEAR HILL,
I shall say nothing to your mad present--you have so long and often
been of important service to me, and I suppose you mean to go on
conferring obligations until I shall not be able to lift up my face
before you. In the mean time, as Sir Roger de Coverley, because it
happened to be a cold day in which he made his will, ordered his
servants great coats for mourning, so, because I have been this week
plagued with an indigestion, I have sent you by the carrier a fine old
ewe-milk cheese.
Indigestion is the devil: nay, 'tis the devil and all. It besets a man
in every one of his senses. I lose my appetite at the sight of
successful knavery, and sicken to loathing at the noise and nonsense
of self-important folly. When the hollow-hearted wretch takes me by
the hand, the feeling spoils my dinner: the proud man's wine so
offends my palate that it chokes me in the gullet; and the
_pulvilised_, feathered, pert coxcomb is so disgustful in my nostril
that my stomach turns.
If ever you have any of these disagreeable sensations, let me
prescribe for you patience; and a bit of my cheese. I know that you
are no niggard of your good things among your friends, and some of
them are in much need of a slice. There, in my eye is our friend
Smellie; a man positively of the first abilities and greatest strength
of mind, as well as one of the best hearts and keenest wits that I
have ever met with; when you see him, as, alas! he too is smarting at
the pinch of distressful circumstances, aggravated by the sneer of
contumelious greatness--a bit of my cheese alone will not cure him,
but if you add a tankard of brown stout, and superadd a magnum of
right Oporto, you will see his sorrows vanish like the morning mist
before the summer sun.
Candlish, the earliest friend, except my only brother, that I have on
earth, and one of the worthiest fellows that ever any man called by
the name of friend, if a luncheon of my cheese would help to rid him
of some of his super-abundant modesty, you would do well to give it
him.
David,[184] with his _Courant_, comes, too, across my recollection, and
I beg you will help him largely from the said ewe-milk cheese, to
enable him to digest those bedaubing paragraphs with which he is
eternally larding the lean characters of certain great men in a
certain great town. I grant you the periods are very well turned; so,
a fresh egg is a very good thing, but when thrown at a man in a
pillory, it does not at all improve his figure, not to mention the
irreparable loss of the egg.
My facetious friend Dunbar I would wish also to be a partaker: not to
digest his spleen, for that he laughs off, but to digest his last
night's wine at the last field-day of the Crochallan corps.[185]
Among our common friends I must not forget one of the dearest of
them--Cunningham. The brutality, insolence, and selfishness of a world
unworthy of having such a fellow as he is in it, I know sticks in his
stomach, and if you can help him to anything that will make him a
little easier on that score, it will be very obliging.
As to honest J---- S----e, he is such a contented, happy man, that I
know not what can annoy him, except, perhaps, he may not have got the
better of a parcel of modest anecdotes which a certain poet gave him
one night at supper, the last time the said poet was in town.
Though I have mentioned so many men of law, I shall have nothing to do
with them professedly--the faculty are beyond my prescription. As to
their clients, that is another thing; God knows they have much to
digest!
The clergy I pass by; their profundity of erudition, and their
liberality of sentiment; their total want of pride, and their
detestation of hypocrisy, are so proverbially notorious as to place
them far, far above either my praise or censure.
I was going to mention a man of worth whom I have the honour to call
friend, the Laird of Craigdarroch; but I have spoken to the landlord
of the King's-Arms inn here, to have at the next county meeting a
large ewe-milk cheese on the table, for the benefit of the
Dumfries-shire Whigs, to enable them to digest the Duke of
Queensberry's late political conduct.
I have just this moment an opportunity of a private hand to Edinburgh,
as perhaps you would not digest double postage.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 184: Printer of the _Edinburgh Evening Courant._]
[Footnote 185: A club of choice spirits.]
* * * * *
CXXVIII.
TO ROBERT GRAHAM, ESQ.,
OF FINTRAY.
[The filial and fraternal claims alluded to in this letter were
satisfied with about three hundred pounds, two hundred of which went
to his brother Gilbert--a sum which made a sad inroad on the money
arising from the second edition of his Poems.]
SIR,
When I had the honour of being introduced to you at Athole-house, I
did not think so soon of asking a favour of you. When Lear, in
Shakspeare, asked Old Kent why he wished to be in his service, he
answers, "Because you have that in your face which I would fain call
master." For some such reason, Sir, do I now solicit your patronage.
You know, I dare say, of an application I lately made to your Board to
be admitted an officer of Excise. I have, according to form, been
examined by a supervisor, and to-day I gave in his certificate, with a
request for an order for instructions. In this affair, if I succeed, I
am afraid I shall but too much need a patronizing friend. Propriety of
conduct as a man, and fidelity and attention as an officer, I dare
engage for; but with anything like business, except manual labour, I
am totally unacquainted.
I had intended to have closed my late appearance on the stage of life,
in the character of a country farmer; but after discharging some
filial and fraternal claims, I find I could only fight for existence
in that miserable manner, which I have lived to see throw a venerable
parent into the jaws of a jail; whence death, the poor man's last and
often best friend, rescued him.
I know, Sir, that to need your goodness, is to have a claim on it; may
I, therefore, beg your patronage to forward me in this affair, till I
be appointed to a division; where, by the help of rigid economy, I
will try to support that independence so dear to my soul, but which
has been too often so distant from my situation.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXXIX.
TO WILLIAM CRUIKSHANK.
[The verses which this letter conveyed to Cruikshank were the lines
written in Friars-Carse Hermitage: "the first-fruits," says the poet,
elsewhere, "of my intercourse with the Nithsdale muse."]
_Ellisland, August, 1788._
I have not room, my dear friend, to answer all the particulars of your
last kind letter. I shall be in Edinburgh on some business very soon;
and as I shall be two days, or perhaps three, in town, we shall
discuss matters _vivâ voce._ My knee, I believe, will never be
entirely well; and an unlucky fall this winter has made it still
worse. I well remember the circumstance you allude to, respecting
Creech's opinion of Mr. Nicol; but, as the first gentleman owes me
still about fifty pounds, I dare not meddle in the affair.
It gave me a very heavy heart to read such accounts of the consequence
of your quarrel with that puritanic, rotten-hearted, hell-commissioned
scoundrel A----. If, notwithstanding your unprecedented industry in
public, and your irreproachable conduct in private life, he still has
you so much in his power, what ruin may he not bring on some others I
could name?
Many and happy returns of seasons to you, with your dearest and
worthiest friend, and the lovely little pledge of your happy union.
May the great Author of life, and of every enjoyment that can render
life delightful, make her that comfortable blessing to you both, which
you so ardently wish for, and which, allow me to say, you so well
deserve! Glance over the foregoing verses, and let me have your blots.
Adieu.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXXX.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[The lines on the Hermitage were presented by the poet to several of
his friends, and Mrs. Dunlop was among the number.]
_Mauchline, August 2, 1788._
HONOURED MADAM,
Your kind letter welcomed me, yesternight, to Ayrshire. I am, indeed,
seriously angry with you at the quantum of your luckpenny; but, vexed
and hurt as I was, I could not help laughing very heartily at the
noble lord's apology for the missed napkin.
I would write you from Nithsdale, and give you my direction there, but
I have scarce an opportunity of calling at a post-office once in a
fortnight. I am six miles from Dumfries, am scarcely ever in it
myself, and, as yet, have little acquaintance in the neighbourhood.
Besides, I am now very busy on my farm, building a dwelling-house; as
at present I am almost an evangelical man in Nithsdale, for I have
scarce "where to lay my head."
There are some passages in your last that brought tears in my eyes.
"The heart knoweth its own sorrows, and a stranger intermeddleth not
therewith." The repository of these "sorrows of the heart" is a kind
of _sanctum sanctorum:_ and 'tis only a chosen friend, and that, too,
at particular sacred times, who dares enter into them:--
"Heaven oft tears the bosom-chords
That nature finest strung."
You will excuse this quotation for the sake of the author. Instead of
entering on this subject farther, I shall transcribe you a few lines I
wrote in a hermitage, belonging to a gentleman in my Nithsdale
neighbourhood. They are almost the only favours the muses have
conferred on me in that country:--
Thou whom chance may hither lead.[186]
Since I am in the way of transcribing, the following were the
production of yesterday as I jogged through the wild hills of New
Cumnock. I intend inserting them, or something like them, in an
epistle I am going to write to the gentleman on whose friendship my
Excise hopes depend, Mr. Graham, of Fintray, one of the worthiest and
most accomplished gentlemen not only of this country, but, I will dare
to say it, of this age. The following are just the first crude
thoughts "unhousel'd, unanointed, unanneal'd:"--
* * * * *
Pity the tuneful muses' helpless train;
Weak, timid landsmen on life's stormy main:
The world were blest, did bliss on them depend;
Ah, that "the friendly e'er should want a friend!"
The little fate bestows they share as soon;
Unlike sage, proverb'd, wisdom's hard-wrung boon.
Let Prudence number o'er each sturdy son,
Who life and wisdom at one race begun;
Who feel by reason and who give by rule;
Instinct's a brute and sentiment a fool!
Who make poor _will do_ wait upon _I should_;
We own they're prudent, but who owns they're good?
Ye wise ones, hence! ye hurt the social eye;
God's image rudely etch'd on base alloy!
But come * * * * * *
Here the muse left me. I am astonished at what yon tell me of
Anthony's writing me. I never received it. Poor fellow! you vex me
much by telling me that he is unfortunate. I shall be in Ayrshire ten
days from this date. I have just room for an old Roman farewell.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 186: See Poems LXXXIX and XC]
* * * * *
CXXXI.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[This letter has been often cited, and very properly, as a proof of
the strong attachment of Burns to one who was, in many respects,
worthy.]
_Mauchline, August 10, 1788._
MY MUCH HONOURED FRIEND,
Yours of the 24th June is before me. I found it, as well as another
valued friend--my wife, waiting to welcome me to Ayrshire: I met both
with the sincerest pleasure.
When I write you, Madam, I do not sit down to answer every paragraph
of yours, by echoing every sentiment, like the faithful Commons of
Great Britain in Parliament assembled, answering a speech from the
best of kings! I express myself in the fulness of my heart, and may,
perhaps, be guilty of neglecting some of your kind inquiries; but not
from your very old reason, that I do not read your letters. All your
epistles for several months have cost me nothing, except a swelling
throb of gratitude, or a deep-felt sentiment of veneration.
When Mrs. Burns, Madam, first found herself "as women wish to be who
love their lords," as I loved her nearly to distraction, we took steps
for a private marriage. Her parents got the hint; and not only forbade
me her company and their house, but, on my rumoured West Indian
voyage, got a warrant to put me in jail, till I should find security
in my about-to-be paternal relation. You know my lucky reverse of
fortune. On my _éclatant_ return to Mauchline, I was made very welcome
to visit my girl. The usual consequences began to betray her; and, as
I was at that time laid up a cripple in Edinburgh, she was turned,
literally turned out of doors, and I wrote to a friend to shelter her
till my return, when our marriage was declared. Her happiness or
misery were in my hands, and who could trifle with such a deposit?
I can easily fancy a more agreeable companion for my journey of life;
but, upon my honour, I have never seen the individual instance.
Circumstanced as I am, I could never have got a female partner for
life, who could have entered into my favourite studies, relished my
favourite authors, &c., without probably entailing on me at the same
time expensive living, fantastic caprice, perhaps apish affectation,
with all the other blessed boarding-school acquirements, which
(_pardonnez moi, Madame_,) are sometimes to be found among females of
the upper ranks, but almost universally pervade the misses of the
would-be gentry.
I like your way in your church-yard lucubrations. Thoughts that are
the spontaneous result of accidental situations, either respecting
health, place, or company, have often a strength, and always an
originality, that would in vain be looked for in fancied circumstances
and studied paragraphs. For me, I have often thought of keeping a
letter, in progression by me, to send you when the sheet was written
out. Now I talk of sheets, I must tell you, my reason for writing to
you on paper of this kind is my pruriency of writing to you at large.
A page of post is on such a dissocial, narrow-minded scale, that I
cannot abide it; and double letters, at least in my miscellaneous
revery manner, are a monstrous tax in a close correspondence.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXXXII.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[Mrs. Miller, of Dalswinton, was a lady of beauty and talent: she
wrote verses with skill and taste. Her maiden name was Jean Lindsay.]
_Ellisland, 16th August, 1788._
I am in a fine disposition, my honoured friend, to send you an elegiac
epistle; and want only genius to make it quite Shenstonian:--
"Why droops my heart with fancied woes forlorn?
Why sinks my soul, beneath each wintry sky?"
My increasing cares in this, as yet strange country--gloomy
conjectures in the dark vista of futurity--consciousness of my own
inability for the struggle of the world--my broadened mark to
misfortune in a wife and children;--I could indulge these reflections
till my humour should ferment into the most acid chagrin, that would
corrode the very thread of life.
To counterwork these baneful feelings, I have sat down to write to
you; as I declare upon my soul I always find that the most sovereign
balm for my wounded spirit.
I was yesterday at Mr. Miller's to dinner for the first time. My
reception was quite to my mind: from the lady of the house quite
flattering. She sometimes hits on a couplet or two, _impromptu._ She
repeated one or two to the admiration of all present. My suffrage as a
professional man, was expected: I for once went agonizing over the
belly of my conscience. Pardon me, ye my adored household gods,
independence of spirit, and integrity of soul! In the course of
conversation, "Johnson's Musical Museum," a collection of Scottish
songs with the music, was talked of. We got a song on the harpsichord,
beginning,
"Raving winds around her blowing."[187]
The air was much admired: the lady of the house asked me whose were
the words. "Mine, Madam--they are indeed my very best verses;" she
took not the smallest notice of them! The old Scottish proverb says
well, "king's caff is better than ither folks' corn." I was going to
make a New Testament quotation about "casting pearls" but that would
be too virulent, for the lady is actually a woman of sense and taste.
After all that has been said on the other side of the question, man is
by no means a happy creature. I do not speak of the selected few,
favoured by partial heaven, whose souls are tuned to gladness amid
riches and honours, and prudence and wisdom. I speak of the neglected
many, whose nerves, whose sinews, whose days are sold to the minions
of fortune.
If I thought you had never seen it, I would transcribe for you a
stanza of an old Scottish ballad, called, "The Life and Age of Man;"
beginning thus:
"'Twas in the sixteenth hunder year
Of God and fifty-three,
Frae Christ was born, that bought us dear,
As writings testifie."
I had an old grand-uncle, with whom my mother lived awhile in her
girlish years; the good old man, for such he was, was long blind ere
he died, during which time his highest enjoyment was to sit down and
cry, while my mother would sing the simple old song of "the Life and
Age of Man."
It is this way of thinking; it is these melancholy truths, that make
religion so precious to the poor, miserable children of men.--If it is
a mere phantom, existing only in the heated imagination of enthusiasm,
"What truth on earth so precious as a lie."
My idle reasonings sometimes make me a little sceptical, but the
necessities of my heart always give the cold philosophisings the lie.
Who looks for the heart weaned from earth; the soul affianced to her
God; the correspondent devout thanksgiving, constant as the
vicissitudes of even and morn; who thinks to meet with these in the
court, the palace, in the glare of public life? No: to find them in
their precious importance and divine efficacy, we must search among
the obscure recesses of disappointment, affliction, poverty, and
distress.
I am sure, dear Madam, you are now more than pleased with the length
of my letters. I return to Ayrshire middle of next week: and it
quickens my pace to think that there will be a letter from you waiting
me there. I must be here again very soon for my harvest.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 187: See Song LII.]
* * * * *
CXXXIII.
TO MR. BEUGO,
ENGRAVER, EDINBURGH.
[Mr. Beugo was at well-known engraver in Edinburgh: he engraved
Nasmyth's portrait of Burns, for Creech's first edition of his Poems;
and as he could draw a little, he improved, as he called it, the
engraving from sittings of the poet, and made it a little more like,
and a little less poetic.]
_Ellisland, 9th Sept. 1788._
MY DEAR SIR,
There is not in Edinburgh above the number of the graces whose letters
would have given me so much pleasure as yours of the 3d instant, which
only reached me yesternight.
I am here on the farm, busy with my harvest; but for all that most
pleasurable part of life called SOCIAL COMMUNICATION, I am
here at the very elbow of existence. The only things that are to be
found in this country, in any degree of perfection, are stupidity and
canting. Prose they only know in graces, prayers, &c., and the value
of these they estimate as they do their plaiding webs--by the ell! As
for the muses, they have as much an idea of a rhinoceros as of a poet.
For my old capricious but good-natured huzzy of a muse--
"By banks of Nith I sat and wept
When Coila I thought on,
In midst thereof I hung my harp
The willow-trees upon."
I am generally about half my time in Ayrshire with my "darling Jean,"
and then I, at lucid intervals, throw my horny fist across my
becob-webbed lyre, much in the same manner as an old wife throws her
hand across the spokes of her spinning-wheel.
I will send you the "Fortunate Shepherdess" as soon as I return to
Ayrshire, for there I keep it with other precious treasure. I shall
send it by a careful hand, as I would not for anything it should be
mislaid or lost. I do not wish to serve you from any benevolence, or
other grave Christian virtue; 'tis purely a selfish gratification of
my own feelings whenever I think of you.
If your better functions would give you leisure to write me, I should
be extremely happy; that is to say if you neither keep nor look for a
regular correspondence. I hate the idea of being obliged to write a
letter. I sometimes write a friend twice a week, at other times once a
quarter.
I am exceedingly pleased with your fancy in making the author you
mention place a map of Iceland instead of his portrait before his
works: 'twas a glorious idea.
Could you conveniently do me one thing?--whenever you finish any head
I should like to have a proof copy of it. I might tell you a long
story about your fine genius; but as what everybody knows cannot have
escaped you, I shall not say one syllable about it.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXXXIV.
TO MISS CHALMERS,
EDINBURGH.
[To this fine letter all the biographer of Burns are largely
indebted.]
_Ellisland, near Dumfries, Sept. 16th, 1788._
Where are you? and how are you? and is Lady Mackenzie recovering her
health? for I have had but one solitary letter from you. I will not
think you have forgot me, Madam; and for my part--
"When thee, Jerusalem, I forget,
Skill part from my right hand!"
"My heart is not of that rock, nor my soul careless as that sea." I do
not make my progress among mankind as a bowl does among its
fellows--rolling through the crowd without bearing away any mark of
impression, except where they hit in hostile collision.
I am here, driven in with my harvest-folks by bad weather; and as you
and your sister once did me the honour of interesting yourselves much
_à l'égard de moi_, I sit down to beg the continuation of your
goodness. I can truly say that, all the exterior of life apart, I
never saw two, whose esteem flattered the nobler feelings of my
soul--I will not say more, but so much as Lady Mackenzie and Miss
Chalmers. When I think of you--hearts the best, minds the noblest of
human kind--unfortunate even in the shades of life--when I think I
have met with you, and have lived more of real life with you in eight
days than I can do with almost any body I meet with in eight
years--when I think on the improbability of meeting you in this world
again--I could sit down and cry like a child! If ever you honoured me
with a place in your esteem, I trust I can now plead more desert. I
am secure against that crushing grip of iron poverty, which, alas! is
less or more fatal to the native worth and purity of, I fear, the
noblest souls; and a late important step in my life has kindly taken
me out of the way of those ungrateful iniquities, which, however
overlooked in fashionable license, or varnished in fashionable phrase,
are indeed but lighter and deeper shades of VILLANY.
Shortly after my last return to Ayrshire, I married "my Jean." This
was not in consequence of the attachment of romance, perhaps; but I
had a long and much-loved fellow-creature's happiness or misery in my
determination, and I durst not trifle with so important a deposit. Nor
have I any cause to repent it. If I have not got polite tattle, modish
manners, and fashionable dress, I am not sickened and disgusted with
the multiform curse of boarding-school affectation: and I have got the
handsomest figure, the sweetest temper, the soundest constitution, and
the kindest heart in the county. Mrs. Burns believes, as firmly as her
creed, that I am _le plus bel esprit, et le plus honnête homme_ in the
universe; although she scarcely ever in her life, except the
Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, and the Psalms of David in
metre, spent five minutes together either on prose or verse. I must
except also from this last a certain late publication of Scots poems,
which she has perused very devoutly; and all the ballads in the
country, as she has (O the partial lover! you will cry) the finest
"wood-note wild" I ever heard. I am the more particular in this lady's
character, as I know she will henceforth have the honour of a share in
your best wishes. She is still at Mauchline, as I am building my
house; for this hovel that I shelter in, while occasionally here, is
pervious to every blast that blows, and every shower that falls; and I
am only preserved from being chilled to death by being suffocated with
smoke. I do not find my farm that pennyworth I was taught to expect,
but I believe, in time, it may be a saving bargain. You will be
pleased to hear that I have laid aside idle _éclat_, and bind every
day after my reapers.
To save me from that horrid situation of at any time going down in a
losing bargain of a farm, to misery, I have taken my Excise
instructions, and have my commission in my pocket for any emergency of
fortune. If I could set all before your view, whatever disrespect you,
in common with the world, have for this business, I know you would
approve of my idea.
I will make no apology, dear Madam, for this egotistic detail; I know
you and your sister will be interested in every circumstance of it.
What signify the silly, idle gewgaws of wealth, or the ideal trumpery
of greatness! When fellow-partakers of the same nature fear the same
God, have the same benevolence of heart, the same nobleness of soul,
the same detestation at everything dishonest, and the same scorn at
everything unworthy--if they are not in the dependence of absolute
beggary, in the name of common sense are they not EQUALS? And
if the bias, the instinctive bias, of their souls run the same way,
why may they not be FRIENDS?
When I may have an opportunity of sending you this, Heaven only knows.
Shenstone says, "When one is confined idle within doors by bad
weather, the best antidote against _ennui_ is to read the letters of
or write to, one's friends;" in that case then, if the weather
continues thus, I may scrawl you half a quire.
I very lately--to wit, since harvest began--wrote a poem, not in
imitation, but in the manner, of Pope's Moral Epistles. It is only a
short essay, just to try the strength of my muse's pinion in that way.
I will send you a copy of it, when once I have heard from you. I have
likewise been laying the foundation of some pretty large poetic works:
how the superstructure will come on, I leave to that great maker and
marrer of projects--TIME. Johnson's collection of Scots songs
is going on in the third volume; and, of consequence, finds me a
consumpt for a great deal of idle metre. One of the most tolerable
things I have done in that way is two stanzas I made to an air, a
musical gentleman of my acquaintance composed for the anniversary of
his wedding-day, which happens on the seventh of November. Take it as
follows:--
"The day returns--my bosom burns,
The blissful day we twa did meet," &c.[188]
I shall give over this letter for shame. If I should be seized with a
scribbling fit, before this goes away, I shall make it another letter;
and then you may allow your patience a week's respite between the two.
I have not room for more than the old, kind, hearty farewell.
* * * * *
To make some amends, _mes chères Mesdames_, for dragging you on to
this second sheet, and to relieve a little the tiresomeness of my
unstudied and uncorrectible prose, I shall transcribe you some of my
late poetic bagatelles; though I have, these eight or ten months, done
very little that way. One day in a hermitage on the banks of Nith,
belonging to a gentleman in my neighbourhood, who is so good as give
me a key at pleasure, I wrote as follows; supposing myself the
sequestered, venerable inhabitant of the lonely mansion.
LINES WRITTEN IN FRIARS-CARSE
HERMITAGE.
"Thou whom chance may hither lead,
Be thou clad in russet weed."[189]
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 188: Song LXIX.]
[Footnote 189: Poems LXXXIX. and XC.]
* * * * *
CXXXV.
TO MR. MORISON,
MAUCHLINE.
[Morison, of Mauchline, made most of the poet's furniture, for
Ellisland: from Mauchline, too, came that eight-day clock, which was
sold, at the death of the poet's widow, for thirty-eight pounds, to
one who would have paid one hundred, sooner than wanted it.]
_Ellisland, September 22, 1788._
MY DEAR SIR,
Necessity obliges me to go into my new house even before it be
plastered. I will inhabit the one end until the other is finished.
About three weeks more, I think, will at farthest be my time, beyond
which I cannot stay in this present house. If ever you wished to
deserve the blessing of him that was ready to perish; if ever you were
in a situation that a little kindness would have rescued you from many
evils; if ever you hope to find rest in future states of untried
being--get these matters of mine ready. My servant will be out in the
beginning of next week for the clock. My compliments to Mrs. Morison.
I am,
After all my tribulation,
Dear Sir, yours,
R. B.
* * * * *
CXXXVI.
TO MRS. DUNLOP,
OF DUNLOP.
[Burns had no great respect for critics who found blemishes without
perceiving beauties: he expresses his contempt for such in this
letter.]
_Mauchline, 27th Sept. 1788._
I have received twins, dear Madam, more than once; but scarcely ever
with more pleasure than when I received yours of the 12th instant. To
make myself understood; I had wrote to Mr. Graham, enclosing my poem
addressed to him, and the same post which favoured me with yours
brought me an answer from him. It was dated the very day he had
received mine; and I am quite at a loss to say whether it was most
polite or kind.
Your criticisms, my honoured benefactress, are truly the work of a
friend. They are not the blasting depredations of a canker-toothed,
caterpillar critic; nor are they the fair statement of cold
impartiality, balancing with unfeeling exactitude the _pro_ and _con_
of an author's merits; they are the judicious observations of animated
friendship, selecting the beauties of the piece. I have just arrived
from Nithsdale, and will be here a fortnight. I was on horseback this
morning by three o'clock; for between my wife and my farm is just
forty-six miles. As I jogged on in the dark, I was taken with a poetic
fit as follows:
"Mrs. Ferguson of Craigdarroch's lamentation for the death of her son;
an uncommonly promising youth of eighteen or nineteen years of age."
"Fate gave the word--the arrow sped,
And pierced my darling's heart."[190]
You will not send me your poetic rambles, but, you see I am no niggard
of mine. I am sure your impromptus give me double pleasure; what falls
from your pen can neither be unentertaining in itself, nor indifferent
to me.
The one fault you found, is just; but I cannot please myself in an
emendation.
What a life of solicitude is the life of a parent! You interested me
much in your young couple.
I would not take my folio paper for this epistle, and now I repent it.
I am so jaded with my dirty long journey that I was afraid to drawl
into the essence of dulness with anything larger than a quarto, and
so I must leave out another rhyme of this morning's manufacture.
I will pay the sapientipotent George, most cheerfully, to hear from
you ere I leave Ayrshire.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 190: Poem XCII.]
* * * * *
CXXXVII.
TO MR. PETER HILL.
["The 'Address to Lochlomond,' which this letter criticises," says
Currie in 1800, "was written by a gentleman, now one of the masters of
the High-school of Edinburgh, and the same who translated the
beautiful story of 'The Paria,' published in the Bee of Dr.
Anderson."]
_Mauchline, 1st October, 1788._
I have been here in this country about three days, and all that time
my chief reading has been the "Address to Lochlomond" you were so
obliging as to send to me. Were I impannelled one of the author's
jury, to determine his criminality respecting the sin of poesy, my
verdict should be "guilty! a poet of nature's making!". It is an
excellent method for improvement, and what I believe every poet does,
to place some favourite classic author in his own walks of study and
composition, before him as a model. Though your author had not
mentioned the name, I could have, at half a glance, guessed his model
to be Thomson. Will my brother-poet forgive me, if I venture to hint
that his imitation of that immortal bard is in two or three places
rather more servile than such a genius as his required:--_e.g._
"To soothe the maddening passions all to peace."
ADDRESS.
"To soothe the throbbing passions into peace."
THOMSON.
I think the "Address" is in simplicity, harmony, and elegance of
versification, fully equal to the "Seasons." Like Thomson, too, he has
looked into nature for himself: you meet with no copied description.
One particular criticism I made at first reading; in no one instance
has he said too much. He never flags in his progress, but, like a true
poet of nature's making kindles in his course. His beginning is simple
and modest, as if distrustful of the strength of his pinion; only, I
do not altogether like--
-------------------------------"Truth
The soul of every song that's nobly great."
Fiction is the soul of many a song that is nobly great. Perhaps I am
wrong: this may be but a prose criticism. Is not the phrase in line 7,
page 6, "Great lake," too much vulgarized by every-day language for so
sublime a poem?
"Great mass of waters, theme for nobler song,"
is perhaps no emendation. His enumeration of a comparison with other
lakes is at once harmonious and poetic. Every reader's ideas must
sweep the
"Winding margin of an hundred miles."
The perspective that follows mountains blue--the imprisoned billows
beating in vain--the wooded isles--the digression on the
yew-tree--"Ben-lomond's lofty, cloud-envelop'd head," &c. are
beautiful. A thunder-storm is a subject which has been often tried,
yet our poet in his grand picture has interjected a circumstance, so
far as I know, entirely original:--
-----------------------------"the gloom
Deep seam'd with frequent streaks of moving fire."
In his preface to the Storm, "the glens how dark between," is noble
highland landscape! The "rain ploughing the red mould," too, is
beautifully fancied. "Ben-lomond's lofty, pathless top," is a good
expression; and the surrounding view from it is truly great: the
-----------------"silver mist,
Beneath the beaming sun,"
is well described; and here he has contrived to enliven his poem with
a little of that passion which bids fair, I think, to usurp the modern
muses altogether. I know not how far this episode is a beauty upon the
whole, but the swain's wish to carry "some faint idea of the vision
bright," to entertain her "partial listening ear," is a pretty
thought. But in my opinion the most beautiful passages in the whole
poem are the fowls crowding, in wintry frosts, to Lochlomond's
"hospitable flood;" their wheeling round, their lighting, mixing,
diving, &c.; and the glorious description of the sportsman. This last
is equal to anything in the "Seasons." The idea of "the floating tribe
distant seen, far glistering to the moon," provoking his eye as he is
obliged to leave them, is a noble ray of poetic genius. "The howling
winds," the "hideous roar" of the white cascades, are all in the same
style.
I forget that while I am thus holding forth with the heedless warmth
of an enthusiast, I am perhaps tiring you with nonsense. I must,
however, mention that the last verse of the sixteenth page is one of
the most elegant compliments I have ever seen. I must likewise notice
that beautiful paragraph beginning, "The gleaming lake," &c. I dare
not go into the particular beauties of the last two paragraphs, but
they are admirably fine, and truly Ossianic.
I must beg your pardon for this lengthened scrawl. I had no idea of it
when I began--I should like to know who the author is; but, whoever he
be, please present him with my grateful thanks for the entertainment
he has afforded me.
A friend of mine desired me to commission for him two books, "Letters
on the Religion essential to Man," a book you sent me before; and "The
World unmasked, or the Philosopher the greatest Cheat." Send me them
by the first opportunity. The Bible you sent me is truly elegant; I
only wish it had been in two volumes.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXXXVIII.
TO THE EDITOR OF "THE STAR."
[The clergyman who preached the sermon which this letter condemns, was
a man equally worthy and stern--a divine of Scotland's elder day: he
received "a harmonious call" to a smaller stipend than that of
Dunscore--and accepted it.]
_November 8th, 1788._
SIR,
Notwithstanding the opprobrious epithets with which some of our
philosophers and gloomy sectarians have branded our nature--the
principle of universal selfishness, the proneness to all evil, they
have given us; still the detestation in which inhumanity to the
distressed, or insolence to the fallen, are held by all mankind, shows
that they are not natives of the human heart. Even the unhappy partner
of our kind, who is undone, the bitter consequence of his follies or
his crimes, who but sympathizes with the miseries of this ruined
profligate brother? We forget the injuries and feel for the man.
I went, last Wednesday, to my parish church, most cordially to join in
grateful acknowledgment to the AUTHOR OF ALL GOOD, for the
consequent blessings of the glorious revolution. To that auspicious
event we owe no less than our liberties, civil and religious; to it we
are likewise indebted for the present Royal Family, the ruling
features of whose administration have ever been mildness to the
subject, and tenderness of his rights.
Bred and educated in revolution principles, the principles of reason
and common sense, it could not be any silly political prejudice which
made my heart revolt at the harsh abusive manner in which the reverend
gentleman mentioned the House of Stewart, and which, I am afraid, was
too much the language of the day. We may rejoice sufficiently in our
deliverance from past evils, without cruelly raking up the ashes of
those whose misfortune it was, perhaps as much as their crime, to be
the authors of those evils; and we may bless God for all his goodness
to us as a nation, without at the same time cursing a few ruined,
powerless exiles, who only harboured ideas, and made attempts, that
most of us would have done, had we been in their situation.
"The bloody and tyrannical House of Stewart" may be said with
propriety and justice, when compared with the present royal family,
and the sentiments of our days; but is there no allowance to be made
for the manners of the times? Were the royal contemporaries of the
Stewarts more attentive to their subjects' rights? Might not the
epithets of "bloody and tyrannical" be, with at least equal justice,
applied to the House of Tudor, of York, or any other of their
predecessors?
The simple state of the case, Sir, seems to be this:--At that period,
the science of government, the knowledge of the true relation between
king and subject, was, like other sciences and other knowledge, just
in its infancy, emerging from dark ages of ignorance and barbarity.
The Stewarts only contended for prerogatives which they knew their
predecessors enjoyed, and which they saw their contemporaries
enjoying; but these prerogatives were inimical to the happiness of a
nation and the rights of subjects.
In the contest between prince and people, the consequence of that
light of science which had lately dawned over Europe, the monarch of
France, for example, was victorious over the struggling liberties of
his people: with us, luckily the monarch failed, and his unwarrantable
pretensions fell a sacrifice to our rights and happiness. Whether it
was owing to the wisdom of leading individuals, or to the justling
of parties, I cannot pretend to determine; but likewise happily for
us, the kingly power was shifted into another branch of the family,
who, as they owed the throne solely to the call of a free people,
could claim nothing inconsistent with the covenanted terms which
placed them there.
The Stewarts have been condemned and laughed at for the folly and
impracticability of their attempts in 1715 and 1745. That they failed,
I bless GOD; but cannot join in the ridicule against them.
Who does not know that the abilities or defects of leaders and
commanders are often hidden until put to the touchstone of exigency;
and that there is a caprice of fortune, an omnipotence in particular
accidents and conjunctures of circumstances, which exalt us as heroes,
or brand us as madmen, just as they are for or against us?
Man, Mr. Publisher, is a strange, weak, inconsistent being; who would
believe, Sir, that in this our Augustan age of liberality and
refinement, while we seem so justly sensible and jealous of our rights
and liberties, and animated with such indignation against the very
memory of those who would have subverted them--that a certain people
under our national protection should complain, not against our monarch
and a few favorite advisers, but against our WHOLE LEGISLATIVE
BODY, for similar oppression, and almost in the very same terms,
as our forefathers did of the house of Stewart! I will not, I cannot
enter into the merits of the cause; but I dare say the American
Congress, in 1776, will be allowed to be as able and as enlightened as
the English Convention was in 1688; and that their posterity will
celebrate the centenary of their deliverance from us, as duly and
sincerely as we do ours from the oppressive measures of the
wrong-headed House of Stewart.
To conclude, Sir; let every man who has a tear for the many miseries
incident to humanity feel for a family illustrious as any in Europe,
and unfortunate beyond historic precedent; and let every Briton (and
particularly every Scotsman) who ever looked with reverential pity on
the dotage of a parent, cast a veil over the fatal mistakes of the
kings of his forefathers.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXXXIX.
TO MRS. DUNLOP,
AT MOREHAM MAINS.
[The heifer presented to the poet by the Dunlops was bought, at the
sale of Ellisland stock, by Miller of Dalswinton, and long grazed the
pastures in his "policies" by the name of "Burns."]
_Mauchline_, 13_th November_, 1788.
MADAM,
I had the very great pleasure of dining at Dunlop yesterday. Men are
said to flatter women because they are weak; if it is so, poets must
be weaker still; for Misses R. and K. and Miss G. M'K., with their
flattering attentions, and artful compliments, absolutely turned my
head. I own they did not lard me over as many a poet does his patron,
but they so intoxicated me with their sly insinuations and delicate
inuendos of compliment, that if it had not been for a lucky
recollection, how much additional weight and lustre your good opinion
and friendship must give me in that circle, I had certainly looked
upon myself as a person of no small consequence. I dare not say one
word how much I was charmed with the Major's friendly welcome, elegant
manner, and acute remark, lest I should be thought to overbalance my
orientalisms of applause over-against the finest quey[191] in Ayrshire,
which he made me a present of to help and adorn my farm-stock. As it
was on hallow-day, I am determined annually, as that day returns, to
decorate her horns with an ode of gratitude to the family of Dunlop.
So soon as I know of your arrival at Dunlop, I will take the first
conveniency to dedicate a day, or perhaps two, to you and friendship,
under the guarantee of the Major's hospitality. There will soon be
threescore and ten miles of permanent distance between us; and now
that your friendship and friendly correspondence is entwisted with the
heart-strings of my enjoyment of life, I must indulge myself in a
happy day of "The feast of reason and the flow of soul."
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 191: Heifer.]
* * * * *
CXL.
TO MR. JAMES JOHNSON,
ENGRAVER.
[James Johnson, though not an ungenerous man, meanly refused to give a
copy of the Musical Museum to Burns, who desired to bestow it on one
to whom his family was deeply indebted. This was in the last year of
the poet's life, and after the Museum had been brightened by so much
of his lyric verse.]
_Mauchline, November 15th, 1788._
MY DEAR SIR,
I have sent you two more songs. If you have got any tunes, or
anything to correct, please send them by return of the carrier.
I can easily see, my dear friend, that you will very probably have
four volumes. Perhaps you may not find your account lucratively in
this business; but you are a patriot for the music of your country;
and I am certain posterity will look on themselves as highly indebted
to your public spirit. Be not in a hurry; let us go on correctly, and
your name shall be immortal.
I am preparing a flaming preface for your third volume. I see every
day new musical publications advertised; but what are they? Gaudy,
hunted butterflies of a day, and then vanish for ever: but your work
will outlive the momentary neglects of idle fashion, and defy the
teeth of time.
Have you never a fair goddess that leads you a wild-goose chase of
amorous devotion? Let me know a few of her qualities, such as whether
she be rather black, or fair; plump, or thin; short, or tall, &c.; and
choose your air, and I shall task my muse to celebrate her.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXLI.
TO DR. BLACKLOCK.
[Blacklock, though blind, was a cheerful and good man. "There was,
perhaps, never one among all mankind," says Heron, "whom you might
more truly have called an angel upon earth."]
_Mauchline, November 15th, 1788._
REVEREND AND DEAR SIR,
As I hear nothing of your motions, but that you are, or were, out of
town, I do not know where this may find you, or whether it will find
you at all. I wrote you a long letter, dated from the land of
matrimony, in June; but either it had not found you, or, what I dread
more, it found you or Mrs. Blacklock in too precarious a state of
health and spirits to take notice of an idle packet.
I have done many little things for Johnson, since I had the pleasure
of seeing you; and I have finished one piece, in the way of Pope's
"Moral Epistles;" but, from your silence, I have everything to fear,
so I have only sent you two melancholy things, which I tremble lest
they should too well suit the tone of your present feelings.
In a fortnight I move, bag and baggage, to Nithsdale; till then, my
direction is at this place; after that period, it will be at
Ellisland, near Dumfries. It would extremely oblige me, were it but
half a line, to let me know how you are, and where you are. Can I be
indifferent to the fate of a man to whom I owe so much? A man whom I
not only esteem, but venerate.
My warmest good wishes and most respectful compliments to Mrs.
Blacklock, and Miss Johnston, if she is with you.
I cannot conclude without telling you that I am more and more pleased
with the step I took respecting "my Jean." Two things, from my happy
experience, I set down as apothegms in life. A wife's head is
immaterial, compared with her heart; and--"Virtue's (for wisdom what
poet pretends to it?) ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths
are peace."
Adieu!
R. B.
[Here follow "The Mother's Lament for the Loss of her Son," and the
song beginning "The lazy mist hangs from the brow of the hill."]
* * * * *
CXLII.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[The "Auld lang syne," which Burns here introduces to Mrs. Dunlop as a
strain of the olden time, is as surely his own as Tam-o-Shanter.]
_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
heart-workings than two old hacks worn out on the road. Apropos, is
not the Scotch phrase, "Auld lang syne," exceedingly expressive? There
is an old song and tune which has 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!"[192]
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."[193]
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 192: See Song CCX.]
[Footnote 193: See Song LXXII.]
* * * * *
CXLIII.
TO MISS DAVIES.
[The Laird of Glenriddel informed "the charming, lovely Davies" that
Burns was composing a song in her praise. The poet acted on this, and
sent the song, enclosed in this characteristic letter.]
_December, 1788._
MADAM,
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 or 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
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 Æolian 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 gray-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 inclosed stanzas have done such poor justice to such a
subject.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXLIV.
TO MR. JOHN TENNANT.
[The mill of John Currie stood on a small stream which fed the loch of
Friar's Carse--near the house of the dame of whom he sang, "Sic a wife
as Willie had."]
_December 22, 1788._
I 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 drank 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 mine, a John
Currie, miller in Carsemill--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
Glenconnel and Barquharrie.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXLV.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[The feeling mood of moral reflection exhibited in the following
letter, was common to the house of William Burns: in a letter
addressed by Gilbert to Robert of this date, the poet is reminded of
the early vicissitudes of their name, and desired to look up, and be
thankful.]
_Ellisland, New-year-day Morning, 1789._
This, dear Madam, is a morning of wishes, and would to God that I came
under the apostle James's description!--_the prayer of a righteous man
availeth much._ In that case, Madam, you should welcome in a year full
of blessings: everything 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 habitual 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, a 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 syllables: "On the 6th
day of the moon, which, according to the custom of my forefathers, I
always _keep holy_, after washing myself, and offering up my morning
devotions, I ascended the high hill of Bagdat, in order to pass 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 in spring, among which are
the mountain-daisy, the hare-bell, the fox-glove, the wild
brier-rose, the budding birch, and the hoary hawthorn, that I view and
hang over with particular delight. I never hear the loud solitary
whistle 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 Æolian harp, passive, takes the impression
of the passing accident? Or do these workings argue something within
us above the trodden clod? I own myself partial to such proofs of
those awful and important realities--a God that made all things--man's
immaterial and immortal nature--and a world of weal or woe beyond
death and the grave.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXLVI.
TO DR. MOORE.
[The poet seems, in this letter, to perceive that Ellisland was not
the bargain he had reckoned it: he intimated, as the reader will
remember, something of the same kind to Margaret Chalmers.]
_Ellisland, 4th Jan. 1789._
SIR,
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
stylebook. 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 poet 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 qualified me to shine in any one. The worst 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 to 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, 100_l._ copyright included, clear
about 400_l._ 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 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
commissioners 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.
* * * * *
CXLVII.
TO MR. ROBERT AINSLIE.
[The song which the poet says he brushed up a little is nowhere
mentioned: he wrote one hundred, and brushed up more, for the Museum
of Johnson.]
_Ellisland, Jan. 6, 1789._
Many happy returns of the season to you, my dear Sir! May you be
comparatively happy up to your comparative worth among the sons of
men; which wish would, I am sure, make you one of the most blest of
the human race.
I do not know if passing a "Writer to the signet," be a trial of
scientific merit, or a mere business of friends and interest. However
it be, let me quote you my two favourite passages, which, though I
have repeated them ten thousand times, still they rouse my manhood and
steel my resolution like inspiration.
------------------"On reason build resolve,
That column of true majesty in man."
YOUNG. NIGHT THOUGHTS.
"Hear, Alfred, hero of the state,
Thy genius heaven's high will declare;
The triumph of the truly great,
Is never, never to despair!
Is never to despair!"
THOMSON. MASQUE OF ALFRED.
I grant you enter the lists of life, to struggle for bread, business,
notice, and distinction, in common with hundreds.--But who are they?
Men, like yourself, and of that aggregate body your compeers,
seven-tenths of them 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.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXLVIII.
TO PROFESSOR DUGALD STEWART.
[The iron justice to which the poet alludes, in this letter, was
exercised by Dr. Gregory, on the poem of the "Wounded Hare."]
_Ellisland, 20th Jan, 1789._
SIR,
The enclosed sealed packet I sent to Edinburgh, a few days after I had
the happiness of meeting you in Ayrshire, 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 composition 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, if 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 shown 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.
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,
R. B.
* * * * *
CXLIX.
TO BISHOP GEDDES.
[Alexander Geddes was a controversialist and poet, and a bishop of the
broken remnant of the Catholic Church of Scotland: he is known as the
author of a very humorous ballad called "The Wee bit Wifickie," and as
the translator of one of the books of the Iliad, in opposition to
Cowper.]
_Ellisland, 3d Feb. 1789._
VENERABLE FATHER,
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 encumbrances, 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 me
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 anything
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 much-honoured friend, that my characteristical trade is
not forgotten. I am, if possible, more than over 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, those
self-important beings whose intrinsic * * * * [con]cealed under the
accidental advantages of their * * * * I cannot lose the patronizing
notice of the learned and good, without the bitterest regret.
R. B.
* * * * *
CL.
TO MR. JAMES BURNESS.
[Fanny Burns married Adam Armour, brother to bonnie Jean, went with
him to Mauchline, and bore him sons and daughters.]
_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 had 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,
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 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 3d 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 service. She is one of the
cleverest girls, and has one of the most amiable dispositions I have
ever seen.
All friends in this country and Ayrshire are well. Remember me to all
friends in the north. My wife joins me in compliments to Mrs. B. and
family.
I am ever, my dear Cousin,
Yours, sincerely,
R. B.
* * * * *
CLI.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[The beautiful lines with which this letter concludes, I have reason
to believe were the production of the lady to whom the epistle is
addressed.]
_Ellisland, 4th March, 1789._
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 Ptolemean 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 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 limb-sinews 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.
You are right, Madam, in your idea of poor 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 ill-spawned 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 present 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 a friend of mine * * * * *. 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
improvement.
"Like the fair plant that from our touch withdraws,
Shrink, mildly fearful, even from applause,
Be all a mother's fondest hope can dream,
And all you are, my charming ..., seem.
Straight as the fox-glove, ere her bells disclose,
Mild as the maiden-blushing hawthorn blows,
Fair as the fairest of each lovely kind,
Your form shall be the image of your mind;
Your manners shall so true your soul express,
That all shall long to know the worth they guess:
Congenial hearts shall greet with kindred love,
And even sick'ning envy must approve."
R. B.
* * * * *
CLII.
TO THE REV. PETER CARFRAE.
[Mylne was a worthy and a modest man: he died of an inflammatory fever
in the prime of life.]
1789.
REV. SIR,
I do not recollect that I have ever felt a severer pang of shame, than
on looking at the date of your obliging letter which accompanied Mr.
Mylne's poem.
I am much to blame: the honour Mr. Mylne has done me, greatly enhanced
in its value by the endearing, though melancholy circumstance, of its
being the last production of his muse, deserved a better return.
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 have so 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 himself 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 anything 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 poem 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.
* * * * *
CLIII.
TO DR. MOORE.
[Edward Nielson, whom Burns here introduces to Dr. Moore, was minister
of Kirkbean, on the Solway-side. He was a jovial man, and loved good
cheer, and merry company.]
_Ellisland, 23d March, 1789._
SIR,
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 heart-felt cordiality. However, in the
particular part of her conduct which roused my poetic wrath, she was
much less blameable. In January last, on my road to Ayrshire, I had
put up at Bailie Wigham'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
am forced to brave all the horrors of the tempestuous 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 Ayrshire, 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.
* * * * *
CLIV.
TO MR. WILLIAM BURNS.
[William Burns was the youngest brother of the poet: he was bred a
sadler; went to Longtown, and finally to London, where he died early.]
_Isle, March 25th, 1789._
I have stolen from my corn-sowing this minute to write a line to
accompany your shirt and hat, for I can no more. Your sister Maria
arrived yesternight, and begs to be remembered to you. Write me every
opportunity, never mind postage. My head, too, is as addle as an egg,
this morning, with dining abroad yesterday. I received yours by the
mason. Forgive me this foolish-looking scrawl of an epistle.
I am ever,
My dear William,
Yours,
R. B.
P.S. If you are not then gone from Longtown, I'll write you a long
letter, by this day se'ennight. If you should not succeed in your
tramps, don't be dejected, or take any rash step--return to us in that
case, and we will court fortune's better humour. Remember this, I
charge you.
R. B.
* * * * *
CLV.
TO MR. HILL.
[The Monkland Book Club existed only while Robert Riddel, of the
Friars-Carse, lived, or Burns had leisure to attend: such
institutions, when well conducted, are very beneficial, when not
oppressed by divinity and verse, as they sometimes are.]
_Ellisland, 2d April, 1789._
I will make no excuse, my dear Bibliopolus (God forgive me for
murdering language!) that I have sat down to write you on this vile
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.
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, all powerful 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!--Thou withered sibyl, my sage
conductress, usher me into thy refulgent, adored presence!--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 anything, be anything--but the horse-leech of private
oppression, or the vulture of public robbery!
But to descend from heroics.
I want a Shakspeare; I want likewise an English dictionary--Johnson's,
I suppose, is best. In these and all my prose commissions, the
cheapest is always best for me. There 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 anything you have to sell, and
place it to my account.
The library scheme that I mentioned to you, is already begun, under
the direction of Captain Riddel. There is another in emulation of it
going on at Closeburn, under the auspices of Mr. Monteith, of
Closeburn, which will be on a greater scale than ours. Capt. Riddel
gave his infant society a great many of his old books, else I had
written you on that subject; but one of these days, I shall trouble
you with a commission for "The Monkland Friendly Society"--a copy of
_The Spectator_, _Mirror_, and _Lounger_, _Man of Feeling, Man of the
World_, _Guthrie's Geographical Grammar_, with some religious pieces,
will likely be our first order.
When I grow richer, I will write to you on gilt post, to make amends
for this sheet. At present, every guinea has a five guinea errand
with,
My dear Sir,
Your faithful, poor, but honest, friend,
R. B.
* * * * *
CLVI.
TO MRS. DUNLOP
[Some lines which extend, but fail to finish the sketch contained in
this letter, will be found elsewhere in this publication.]
_Ellisland, 4th April, 1789._
I no sooner hit on any poetic plan or fancy, but I wish to send it to
you: and if knowing and reading these give half the pleasure to you,
that communicating them to you gives to me, I am satisfied.
I have a poetic whim in my head, which I at present dedicate, or
rather inscribe to the Right Hon. Charles James Fox; but how long that
fancy may hold, I cannot say. A few of the first lines, I have just
rough-sketched as follows:
SKETCH.
How wisdom and folly meet, mix, and unite;
How virtue and vice blend their black and their white;
How genius, the illustrious father of fiction,
Confounds rule and law, reconciles contradiction--
I sing: If these mortals, the critics, should bustle,
I care not, not I, let the critics go whistle.
But now for a patron, whose name and whose glory,
At once may illustrate and honour my story.
Thou first of our orators, first of our wits;
Yet whose parts and acquirements seem mere lucky hits;
With knowledge so vast, and with judgment so strong,
No man with the half of 'em e'er went far wrong;
With passion so potent, and fancies so bright,
No man with the half of 'em ere went quite right;
A sorry, poor misbegot son of the muses,
For using thy name offers many excuses.
On the 20th current I hope to have the honour of assuring you in
person, how sincerely I am--
R. B.
* * * * *
CLVII.
TO MR. WILLIAM BURNS,
SADLER,
CARE OF MR. WRIGHT, CARRIER, LONGTOWN.
["Never to despair" was a favourite saying with Burns: and "firm
resolve," he held, with Young, to be "the column of true majesty in
man."]
_Isle, 15th April, 1789._
MY DEAR WILLIAM,
I am extremely sorry at the misfortune of your legs; I beg you will
never let any worldly concern interfere with the more serious matter,
the safety of your life and limbs. I have not time in these hurried
days to write you anything other than a mere how d'ye letter. I will
only repeat my favourite quotation:--
"What proves the hero truly great
Is never, never to despair."
My house shall be your welcome home; and as I know your prudence
(would to God you had _resolution_ equal to your _prudence_!) if
anywhere at a distance from friends, you should need money, you know
my direction by post.
The enclosed is from Gilbert, brought by your sister Nanny. It was
unluckily forgot. Yours to Gilbert goes by post.--I heard from them
yesterday, they are all well.
Adieu.
R. B.
* * * * *
CLVIII.
TO MRS. M'MURDO,
DRUMLANRIG.
[Of this accomplished lady, Mrs. M'Murdo, of Drumlanrig, and her
daughters, something has been said in the notes on the songs: the poem
alluded to was the song of "Bonnie Jean."]
_Ellisland, 2d May, 1789._
MADAM,
I have finished the piece which had the happy fortune to be honoured
with your approbation; and never did little miss with more sparkling
pleasure show her applauded sampler to partial mamma, than I now send
my poem to you and Mr. M'Murdo if he is returned to Drumlanrig. You
cannot easily imagine what thin-skinned animals--what sensitive plants
poor poets are. How do we shrink into the embittered corner of
self-abasement, when neglected or condemned by those to whom we look
up! and how do we, in erect importance, add another cubit to our
stature on being noticed and applauded by those whom we honour and
respect! My late visit to Drumlanrig has, I can tell you, Madam, given
me a balloon waft up Parnassus, where on my fancied elevation I regard
my poetic self with no small degree of complacency. Surely with all
their sins, the rhyming tribe are not ungrateful creatures.--I
recollect your goodness to your humble guest--I see Mr. M'Murdo adding
to the politeness of the gentleman, the kindness of a friend, and my
heart swells as it would burst, with warm emotions and ardent wishes!
It may be it is not gratitude--it may be a mixed sensation. That
strange, shifting, doubling animal man is so generally, at best, but a
negative, often a worthless creature, that we cannot see real goodness
and native worth without feeling the bosom glow with sympathetic
approbation.
With every sentiment of grateful respect,
I have the honour to be,
Madam,
Your obliged and grateful humble servant,
R. B.
* * * * *
CLIX.
TO MR. CUNNINGHAM.
[Honest Jamie Thomson, who shot the hare because she browsed with her
companions on his father's "wheat-braird," had no idea he was pulling
down such a burst of indignation on his head as this letter with the
poem which it enclosed expresses.]
_Ellisland, 4th May, 1789._
MY DEAR SIR,
Your _duty-free_ favour of the 26th April I received two days ago; I
will not say I perused it with pleasure; that is the cold compliment
of ceremony; I perused it, Sir, with delicious satisfaction;--in
short, it is such a letter, that not you, nor your friend, but the
legislature, by express proviso in their postage laws, should frank.
A letter informed with the soul of friendship is such an honour to
human nature, that they should order it free ingress and egress to and
from their bags and mails, as an encouragement and mark of distinction
to supereminent virtue.
I have just put the last hand to a little poem which I think will be
something to your taste. One morning lately, as I was out pretty early
in the fields, sowing some grass seeds, I heard the burst of a shot
from a neighbouring plantation, and presently a poor little wounded
hare came crippling by me. You will guess my indignation at the
inhuman fellow who could shoot a hare at this season, when all of them
have young ones. Indeed there is something in that business of
destroying for our sport individuals in the animal creation that do
not injure us materially, which I could never reconcile to my ideas of
virtue.
Inhuman man! curse on thy barb'rous art,
And blasted be thy murder-aiming eye!
May never pity soothe thee with a sigh,
Nor ever pleasure glad thy cruel heart!
&c. &c.
Let me know how you like my poem. I am doubtful whether it would not
be an improvement to keep out the last stanza but one altogether.
Cruikshank is a glorious production of the author of man. You, he, and
the noble Colonel of the Crochallan Fencibles are to me
"Dear as the ruddy drops which warm my heart"
I have a good mind to make verses on you all, to the tune of "_Three
guid fellows ayont the glen._"
R. B.
* * * * *
CLX.
TO MR. SAMUEL BROWN.
[Samuel Brown was brother to the poet's mother: he seems to have been
a joyous sort of person, who loved a joke, and understood double
meanings.]
_Mossgiel, 4th May, 1789._
DEAR UNCLE,
This, I hope, will find you and your conjugal yoke-fellow in your good
old way; I am impatient to know if the Ailsa fowling be commenced for
this season yet, as I want three or four stones of feathers, and I
hope you will bespeak them for me. It would be a vain attempt for me
to enumerate the various transactions I have been engaged in since I
saw you last, but this know,--I am engaged in a _smuggling trade_, and
God knows if ever any poor man experienced better returns, two for
one, but as freight and delivery have turned out so dear, I am
thinking of taking out a license and beginning in fair trade. I have
taken a farm on the borders of the Nith, and in imitation of the old
Patriarchs, get men-servants and maid-servants, and flocks and herds,
and beget sons and daughters.
Your obedient nephew,
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXI.
TO RICHARD BROWN.
[Burns was much attached to Brown; and one regrets that an
inconsiderate word should have estranged the haughty sailor.]
_Mauchline, 21st May, 1789._
MY DEAR FRIEND,
I was in the country by accident, and hearing of your safe arrival, I
could not resist the temptation of wishing you joy on your return,
wishing you would write to me before you sail again, wishing you would
always set me down as your bosom friend, wishing you long life and
prosperity, and that every good thing may attend you, wishing Mrs.
Brown and your little ones as free of the evils of this world, as is
consistent with humanity, wishing you and she were to make two at the
ensuing lying-in, with which Mrs. B. threatens very soon to favour me,
wishing I had longer time to write to you at present; and, finally,
wishing that if there is to be another state of existence, Mr. B.,
Mrs. B., our little ones, and both families, and you and I, in some
snug retreat, may make a jovial party to all eternity!
My direction is at Ellisland, near Dumfries
Yours,
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXII.
TO MR. JAMES HAMILTON.
[James Hamilton, grocer, in Glasgow, interested himself early in the
fortunes of the poet.]
_Ellisland, 26th May, 1789._
DEAR SIR,
I send you by John Glover, carrier, the account for Mr. Turnbull, as I
suppose you know his address.
I would fain offer, my dear Sir, a word of sympathy with your
misfortunes; but it is a tender string, and I know not how to touch
it. It is easy to flourish a set of high-flown sentiments on the
subjects that would give great satisfaction to--a breast quite at
ease; but as ONE observes, who was very seldom mistaken in
the theory of life, "The heart knoweth its own sorrows, and a stranger
intermeddleth not therewith."
Among some distressful emergencies that I have experienced in life, I
ever laid this down as my foundation of comfort--_That he who has
lived the life of an honest man, has by no means lived in vain!_
With every wish for your welfare and future success,
I am, my dear Sir,
Sincerely yours,
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXIII.
TO WILLIAM CREECH, ESQ.
[The poetic address to the "venomed stang" of the toothache seems to
have come into existence about this time.]
_Ellisland, 30th May, 1789._
SIR,
I had intended to have troubled you with a long letter, but at present
the delightful sensations of an omnipotent toothache so engross all my
inner man, as to put it out of my power even to write nonsense.
However, as in duty bound, I approach my bookseller with an offering
in my hand--a few poetic clinches, and a song:--To expect any other
kind of offering from the Rhyming Tribe would be to know them much
less than you do. I do not pretend that there is much merit in these
_morceaux_, but I have two reasons for sending them; _primo_, they are
mostly ill-natured, so are in unison with my present feelings, while
fifty troops of infernal spirits are driving post from ear to ear
along my jaw-bones; and _secondly_, they are so short, that you cannot
leave off in the middle, and so hurt my pride in the idea that you
found any work of mine too heavy to get through.
I have a request to beg of you, and I not only beg of you, but conjure
you, by all your wishes and by all your hopes, that the muse will
spare the satiric wink in the moment of your foibles; that she will
warble the song of rapture round your hymeneal couch; and that she
will shed on your turf the honest tear of elegiac gratitude! Grant my
request as speedily as possible--send me by the very first fly or
coach for this place three copies of the last edition of my poems,
which place to my account.
Now may the good things of prose, and the good things of verse, come
among thy hands, until they be filled with the _good things of this
life_, prayeth
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXIV.
TO MR. M'AULEY.
[The poet made the acquaintance of Mr. M'Auley, of Dumbarton, in one
of his northern tours,--he was introduced by his friend Kennedy.]
_Ellisland, 4th June, 1789._
DEAR SIR,
Though I am not without my fears respecting my fate, at that grand,
universal inquest of right and wrong, commonly called _The Last Day_,
yet I trust there is one sin, which that arch-vagabond, Satan, who I
understand is to be king's evidence, cannot throw in my teeth, I mean
ingratitude. There is a certain pretty large quantum of kindness for
which I remain, and from inability, I fear, must still remain, your
debtor; but though unable to repay the debt, I assure you, Sir, I
shall ever warmly remember the obligation. It gives me the sincerest
pleasure to hear by my old acquaintance, Mr. Kennedy, that you are, in
immortal Allan's language, "Hale, and weel, and living;" and that your
charming family are well, and promising to be an amiable and
respectable addition to the company of performers, whom the Great
Manager of the Drama of Man is bringing into action for the succeeding
age.
With respect to my welfare, a subject in which you once warmly and
effectively interested yourself, I am here in my old way, holding my
plough, marking the growth of my corn, or the health of my dairy; and
at times sauntering by the delightful windings of the Nith, on the
margin of which I have built my humble domicile, praying for
seasonable weather, or holding an intrigue with the muses; the only
gipsies with whom I have now any intercourse. As I am entered into the
holy state of matrimony, I trust my face is turned completely
Zion-ward; and as it is a rule with all honest fellows to repeat no
grievances, I hope that the little poetic licenses of former days will
of course fall under the oblivious influence of some good-natured
statute of celestial prescription. In my family devotion, which, like
a good Presbyterian, I occasionally give to my household folks, I am
extremely fond of that psalm, "Let not the errors of my youth," &c.,
and that other, "Lo, children are God's heritage," &c., in which last
Mrs. Burns, who by the bye has a glorious "wood-note wild" at either
old song or psalmody, joins me with the pathos of Handel's Messiah.
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXV.
TO MR. ROBERT AINSLIE.
[The following high-minded letter may be regarded as a sermon on
domestic morality preached by one of the experienced.]
_Ellisland, 8th June, 1789._
MY DEAR FRIEND,
I am perfectly ashamed of myself when I look at the date of your last.
It is not that I forget the friend of my heart and the companion of my
peregrinations; but I have been condemned to drudgery beyond
sufferance, though not, thank God, beyond redemption. I have had a
collection of poems by a lady, put into my hands to prepare them for
the press; which horrid task, with sowing corn with my own hand, a
parcel of masons, wrights, plasterers, &c., to attend to, roaming on
business through Ayrshire--all this was against me, and the very first
dreadful article was of itself too much for me.
13th. I have not had a moment to spare from incessant toil since the 8th.
Life, my dear Sir, is a serious matter. You know by experience that a man's
individual self is a good deal, but believe me, a wife and family of
children, whenever you have the honour to be a husband and a father, will
show you that your present and most anxious hours of solitude are spent on
trifles. The welfare of those who are very dear to us, whose only support,
hope and stay we are--this, to a generous mind, is another sort of more
important object of care than any concerns whatever which centre merely in
the individual. On the other hand, let no young, unmarried, rakehelly dog
among you, make a song of his pretended liberty and freedom from care. If
the relations we stand in to king, country, kindred, and friends, be
anything but the visionary fancies of dreaming metaphysicians; if religion,
virtue, magnanimity, generosity, humanity and justice, be aught but empty
sounds; then the man who may be said to live only for others, for the
beloved, honourable female, whose tender faithful embrace endears life, and
for the helpless little innocents who are to be the men and women, the
worshippers of his God, the subjects of his king, and the support, nay the
vital existence of his COUNTRY in the ensuing age;--compare such a man with
any fellow whatever, who, whether he bustle and push in business among
labourers, clerks, statesmen; or whether he roar and rant, and drink and
sing in taverns--a fellow over whose grave no one will breathe a single
heigh-ho, except from the cobweb-tie of what is called good-fellowship--who
has no view nor aim but what terminates in himself--if there be any
grovelling earth-born wretch of our species, a renegado to common sense,
who would fain believe that the noble creature man, is no better than a
sort of fungus, generated out of nothing, nobody knows how, and soon
dissipated in nothing, nobody knows where; such a stupid beast, such a
crawling reptile, might balance the foregoing unexaggerated comparison, but
no one else would have the patience.
Forgive me, my dear Sir, for this long silence. _To make you amends_,
I shall send you soon, and more encouraging still, without any
postage, one or two rhymes of my later manufacture.
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXVI.
TO MR. M'MURDO.
[John M'Murdo has been already mentioned as one of Burns's firmest
friends: his table at Drumlanrig was always spread at the poet's
coming: nor was it uncheered by the presence of the lady of the house
and her daughters.]
_Ellisland, 19th June, 1789._
SIR,
A poet and a beggar are, in so many points of view, alike, that one
might take them for the same individual character under different
designations; were it not that though, with a trifling poetic license,
most poets may be styled beggars, yet the converse of the proposition
does not hold, that every beggar is a poet. In one particular,
however, they remarkably agree; if you help either the one or the
other to a mug of ale, or the picking of a bone, they will very
willingly repay you with a song. This occurs to me at present, as I
have just despatched a well-lined rib of John Kirkpatrick's
Highlander; a bargain for which I am indebted to you, in the style of
our ballad printers, "Five excellent new songs." The enclosed is
nearly my newest song, and one that has cost me some pains, though
that is but an equivocal mark of its excellence. Two or three others,
which I have by me, shall do themselves the honour to wait on your
after leisure: petitioners for admittance into favour must not harass
the condescension of their benefactor.
You see, Sir, what it is to patronize a poet. 'Tis like being a
magistrate in a petty borough; you do them the favour to preside in
their council for one year, and your name bears the prefatory stigma
of Bailie for life.
With, not the compliments, but the best wishes, the sincerest prayers
of the season for you, that you may see many and happy years with Mrs.
M'Murdo, and your family; two blessings by the bye, to which your rank
does not, by any means, entitle you; a loving wife and fine family
being almost the only good things of this life to which the farm-house
and cottage have an exclusive right,
I have the honour to be,
Sir,
Your much indebted and very humble servant,
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXVII.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[The devil, the pope, and the Pretender darkened the sermons, for more
than a century, of many sound divines in the north. As a Jacobite,
Burns disliked to hear Prince Charles called the Pretender, and as a
man of a tolerant nature, he disliked to hear the Pope treated unlike
a gentleman: his notions regarding Satan are recorded in his
inimitable address.]
_Ellisland, 21st June, 1789._
DEAR MADAM,
Will you take the effusions, the miserable effusions of low spirits,
just as they flow from their bitter spring? I know not of any
particular cause for this worst of all my foes besetting me; but for
some time my soul has been beclouded with a thickening atmosphere of
evil imaginations and gloomy presages.
_Monday Evening._
I have just heard Mr. Kirkpatrick preach a sermon. He is a man famous
for his benevolence, and I revere him; but from such ideas of my
Creator, good Lord deliver me! Religion, my honoured friend, is surely
a simple business, as it equally concerns the ignorant and the
learned, the poor and the rich. That there is an incomprehensible
Great Being, to whom I owe my existence, and that he must be
intimately acquainted with the operations and progress of the internal
machinery, and consequent outward deportment of this creature which he
has made; these are, I think, self-evident propositions. That there is
a real and eternal distinction between virtue and vice, and
consequently, that I am an accountable creature; that from the seeming
nature of the human mind, as well as from the evident imperfection,
nay, positive injustice, in the administration of affairs, both in the
natural and moral worlds, there must be a retributive scene of
existence beyond the grave; must, I think, be allowed by every one who
will give himself a moment's reflection. I will go farther, and affirm
that from the sublimity, excellence, and purity of his doctrine and
precepts, unparalleled by all the aggregated wisdom and learning of
many preceding ages, though, _to appearance_, he himself was the
obscurest and most illiterate of our species; therefore Jesus Christ
was from God.
Whatever mitigates the woes, or increases the happiness of others,
this is my criterion of goodness; and whatever injures society at
large, or any individual in it, this is my measure of iniquity.
What think you, madam, of my creed? I trust that I have said nothing
that will lessen me in the eye of one, whose good opinion I value
almost next to the approbation of my own mind.
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXVIII.
TO MR. ----.
[The name of the person to whom the following letter is addressed is
unknown: he seems, from his letter to Burns to have been intimate with
the unfortunate poet, Robert Fergusson, who, in richness of
conversation and plenitude of fancy, reminded him, he said, of Robert
Burns.]
1789.
MY DEAR SIR,
The hurry of a farmer in this particular season, and the indolence of
a poet at all times and seasons, will, I hope, plead my excuse for
neglecting so long to answer your obliging letter of the 5th of
August.
That you have done well in quitting your laborious concern in * * * *, I
do not doubt; the weighty reasons you mention, were, I hope, very, and
deservedly indeed, weighty ones, and your health is a matter of the
last importance; but whether the remaining proprietors of the paper
have also done well, is what I much doubt. The * * * *, so far as I was a
reader, exhibited such a brilliancy of point, such an elegance of
paragraph, and such a variety of intelligence, that I can hardly
conceive it possible to continue a daily paper in the same degree of
excellence: but if there was a man who had abilities equal to the
task, that man's assistance the proprietors have lost.
When I received your letter I was transcribing for * * * *, my letter to
the magistrates of the Canongate, Edinburgh, begging their permission
to place a tombstone over poor Fergusson, and their edict in
consequence of my petition, but now I shall send them to * * * * * *. Poor
Fergusson! If there be a life beyond the grave, which I trust there
is; and if there be a good God presiding over all nature, which I am
sure there is; thou art now enjoying existence in a glorious world,
where worth of the heart alone is distinction in the man; where
riches, deprived of all their pleasure-purchasing powers, return to
their native sordid matter; where titles and honours are the
disregarded reveries of an idle dream; and where that heavy virtue,
which is the negative consequence of steady dulness, and those
thoughtless, though often destructive follies which are unavoidable
aberrations of frail human nature, will be thrown into equal oblivion
as if they had never been!
Adieu my dear sir! So soon as your present views and schemes are
concentered in an aim, I shall be glad to hear from you; as your
welfare and happiness is by no means a subject indifferent to
Yours,
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXIX.
TO MISS WILLIAMS.
[Helen Maria Williams acknowledged this letter, with the critical
pencilling, on her poem on the Slave Trade, which it enclosed: she
agreed, she said, with all his objections, save one, but considered
his praise too high.]
_Ellisland, 1789._
MADAM,
Of the many problems in the nature of that wonderful creature, man,
this is one of the most extraordinary, that he shall go on from day to
day, from week to week, from month to month, or perhaps from year to
year, suffering a hundred times more in an hour from the impotent
consciousness of neglecting what he ought to do, than the very doing
of it would cost him. I am deeply indebted to you, first for a most
elegant poetic compliment; then for a polite, obliging letter; and,
lastly, for your excellent poem on the Slave Trade; and yet, wretch
that I am! though the debts were debts of honour, and the creditor a
lady, I have put off and put off even the very acknowledgment of the
obligation, until you must indeed be the very angel I take you for, if
you can forgive me.
Your poem I have read with the highest pleasure. I have a way whenever
I read a book, I mean a book in our own trade, Madam, a poetic one,
and when it is my own property, that I take a pencil and mark at the
ends of verses, or note on margins and odd paper, little criticisms of
approbation or disapprobation as I peruse along. I will make no
apology for presenting you with a few unconnected thoughts that
occurred to me in my repeated perusals of your poem. I want to show
you that I have honesty enough to tell you what I take to be truths,
even when they are not quite on the side of approbation; and I do it
in the firm faith that you have equal greatness of mind to hear them
with pleasure.
I had lately the honour of a letter from Dr. Moore, where he tells me
that he has sent me some books: they are not yet come to hand, but I
hear they are on the way.
Wishing you all success in your progress in the path of fame; and that
you may equally escape the danger of stumbling through incautious
speed, or losing ground through loitering neglect.
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXX.
TO MR. JOHN LOGAN.
[The Kirk's Alarm, to which this letter alludes, has little of the
spirit of malice and drollery, so rife in his earlier controversial
compositions.]
_Ellisland, near Dumfries, 7th Aug. 1789._
DEAR SIR,
I intended to have written you long ere now, and as I told you, I had
gotten three stanzas and a half on my way in a poetic epistle to you;
but that old enemy of all _good works_, the devil, threw me into a
prosaic mire, and for the soul of me I cannot get out of it. I dare
not write you a long letter, as I am going to intrude on your time
with a long ballad. I have, as you will shortly see, finished "The
Kirk's Alarm;" but now that it is done, and that I have laughed once
or twice at the conceits in some of the stanzas, I am determined not
to let it get into the public; so I send you this copy, the first that
I have sent to Ayrshire, except some few of the stanzas, which I wrote
off in embryo for Gavin Hamilton, under the express provision and
request that you will only read it to a few of us, and do not on any
account give, or permit to be taken, any copy of the ballad. If I
could be of any service to Dr. M'Gill, I would do it, though it should
be at a much greater expense than irritating a few bigoted priests,
but I am afraid serving him in his present _embarras_ is a task too
hard for me. I have enemies enow, God knows, though I do not wantonly
add to the number. Still as I think there is some merit in two or
three of the thoughts, I send it to you as a small, but sincere
testimony how much, and with what respectful esteem,
I am, dear Sir,
Your obliged humble servant,
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXXI.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[The poetic epistle of worthy Janet Little was of small account: nor
was the advice of Dr. Moore, to abandon the Scottish stanza and
dialect, and adopt the measure and language of modern English poetry,
better inspired than the strains of the milkmaid, for such was Jenny
Little.]
_Ellisland, 6th Sept., 1789._
DEAR MADAM,
I have mentioned in my last my appointment to the Excise, and the
birth of little Frank; who, by the bye, I trust will be no discredit
to the honourable name of Wallace, as he has a fine manly countenance,
and a figure that might do credit to a little fellow two months older;
and likewise an excellent good temper, though when he pleases he has a
pipe, only not quite so loud as the horn that his immortal namesake
blew as a signal to take out the pin of Stirling bridge.
I had some time ago an epistle, part poetic, and part prosaic, from
your poetess, Mrs. J. Little, a very ingenious, but modest
composition. I should have written her as she requested, but for the
hurry of this new business. I have heard of her and her compositions
in this country; and I am happy to add, always to the honour of her
character. The fact is, I know not well how to write to her: I should
sit down to a sheet of paper that I knew not how to stain. I am no dab
at fine-drawn letter-writing; and, except when prompted by friendship
or gratitude, or, which happens extremely rarely, inspired by the muse
(I know not her name) that presides over epistolary writing, I sit
down, when necessitated to write, as I would sit down, to beat hemp.
Some parts of your letter of the 20th August, struck me with the most
melancholy concern for the state of your mind at present.
Would I could write you a letter of comfort, I would sit down to it
with as much pleasure, as I would to write an epic poem of my own
composition that should equal the _Iliad._ Religion, my dear friend,
is the true comfort! A strong persuasion in a future state of
existence; a proposition so obviously probable, that, setting
revelation aside, every nation and people, so far as investigation has
reached, for at least near four thousand years, have, in some mode or
other, firmly believed it. In vain would we reason and pretend to
doubt. I have myself done so to a very daring pitch; but, when I
reflected, that I was opposing the most ardent wishes, and the most
darling hopes of good men, and flying in the face of all human belief,
in all ages, I was shocked at my own conduct.
I know not whether I have ever sent you the following lines, or if you
have ever seen them; but it is one of my favourite quotations, which I
keep constantly by me in my progress through life, in the language of
the book of Job,
"Against the day of battle and of war"--
spoken of religion:
"'Tis _this_, my friend, that streaks our morning bright,
'Tis _this_, that gilds the horror of our night.
When wealth forsakes us, and when friends are few,
When friends are faithless, or when foes pursue;
Tis this that wards the blow, or stills the smart,
Disarms affliction, or repels his dart;
Within the breast bids purest raptures rise,
Bids smiling conscience spread her cloudless skies."
I have been busy with _Zeluco._ The Doctor is so obliging as to
request my opinion of it; and I have been revolving in my mind some
kind of criticisms on novel-writing, but it is a depth beyond my
research. I shall however digest my thoughts on the subject as well as
I can. _Zeluco_ is a most sterling performance.
Farewell! _A Dieu, le bon Dieu, je vous commende._
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXXII.
TO CAPTAIN RIDDEL,
CARSE.
[The Whistle alluded to in this letter was contended for on the 16th
of October, 1790--the successful competitor, Fergusson, of
Craigdarroch, was killed by a fall from his horse, some time after the
"jovial contest."]
_Ellisland, 16th Oct., 1789._
SIR,
Big with the idea of this important day at Friars-Carse, I have
watched the elements and skies in the full persuasion that they would
announce it to the astonished world by some phenomena of terrific
portent.--Yesternight until a very late hour did I wait with anxious
horror, for the appearance of some comet firing half the sky; or
aerial armies of sanguinary Scandinavians, darting athwart the
startled heavens, rapid as the ragged lightning, and horrid as those
convulsions of nature that bury nations.
The elements, however, seem to take the matter very quietly: they did
not even usher in this morning with triple suns and a shower of blood,
symbolical of the three potent heroes, and the mighty claret-shed of
the day.--For me, as Thomson in his Winter says of the storm--I shall
"Hear astonished, and astonished sing"
The whistle and the man; I sing
The man that won the whistle, &c.
Here are we met, three merry boys,
Three merry boys I trow are we;
And mony a night we've merry been,
And mony mae we hope to be.
Wha first shall rise to gang awa,
A cuckold coward loun is he:
Wha _last_ beside his chair shall fa',
He is the king amang us three.
To leave the heights of Parnassus and come to the humble vale of
prose.--I have some misgivings that I take too much upon me, when I
request you to get your guest, Sir Robert Lowrie, to frank the two
enclosed covers for me, the one of them to Sir William Cunningham, of
Robertland, Bart. at Kilmarnock,--the other to Mr. Allan Masterton,
Writing-Master, Edinburgh. The first has a kindred claim on Sir
Robert, as being a brother Baronet, and likewise a keen Foxite; the
other is one of the worthiest men in the world, and a man of real
genius; so, allow me to say, he has a fraternal claim on you. I want
them franked for to-morrow, as I cannot get them to the post
to-night.--I shall send a servant again for them in the evening.
Wishing that your head may be crowned with laurels to-night, and free
from aches to-morrow,
I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your deeply indebted humble Servant,
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXXIII.
TO CAPTAIN RIDDEL.
[Robert Riddel kept one of those present pests of society--an
album--into which Burns copied the Lines on the Hermitage, and the
Wounded Hare.]
_Ellisland, 1789._
SIR,
I wish from my inmost soul it were in my power to give you a more
substantial gratification and return for all the goodness to the poet,
than transcribing a few of his idle rhymes.--However, "an old song,"
though to a proverb an instance of insignificance, is generally the
only coin a poet has to pay with.
If my poems which I have transcribed, and mean still to transcribe
into your book, were equal to the grateful respect and high esteem I
bear for the gentleman to whom I present them, they would be the
finest poems in the language.--As they are, they will at least be a
testimony with what sincerity I have the honour to be,
Sir,
Your devoted humble Servant,
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXXIV.
TO MR. ROBERT AINSLIE.
[The ignominy of a poet becoming a gauger seems ever to have been
present to the mind of Burns--but those moving things ca'd wives and
weans have a strong influence on the actions of man.]
_Ellisland, 1st Nov. 1789._
MY DEAR FRIEND,
I had written you long ere now, could I have guessed where to find
you, for I am sure you have more good sense than to waste the precious
days of vacation time in the dirt of business and Edinburgh.--Wherever
you are, God bless you, and lead you not into temptation, but deliver
you from evil!
I do not know if I have informed you that I am now appointed to an
excise division, in the middle of which my house and farm lie. In this
I was extremely lucky. Without ever having been an expectant, as they
call their journeymen excisemen, I was directly planted down to all
intents and purposes an officer of excise; there to flourish and bring
forth fruits--worthy of repentance.
I know not how the word exciseman, or still more opprobrious, gauger,
will sound in your ears. I too have seen the day when my auditory
nerves would have felt very delicately on this subject; but a wife and
children are things which have a wonderful power in blunting these
kind of sensations. Fifty pounds a year for life, and a provision for
widows and orphans, you will allow is no bad settlement for a _poet._
For the ignominy of the profession, I have the encouragement which I
once heard a recruiting sergeant give to a numerous, if not a
respectable audience, in the streets of Kilmarnock.--"Gentlemen, for
your further and better encouragement, I can assure you that our
regiment is the most blackguard corps under the crown, and
consequently with us an honest fellow has the surest chance for
preferment."
You need not doubt that I find several very unpleasant and
disagreeable circumstances in my business; but I am tired with and
disgusted at the language of complaint against the evils of life.
Human existence in the most favourable situations does not abound with
pleasures, and has its inconveniences and ills; capricious foolish man
mistakes these inconveniences and ills as if they were the peculiar
property of his particular situation; and hence that eternal
fickleness, that love of change, which has ruined, and daily does ruin
many a fine fellow, as well as many a blockhead, and is almost,
without exception, a constant source of disappointment and misery.
I long to hear from you how you go on--not so much in business as in
life. Are you pretty well satisfied with your own exertions, and
tolerably at ease in your internal reflections? 'Tis much to be a
great character as a lawyer, but beyond comparison more to be a great
character as a man. That you may be both the one and the other is the
earnest wish, and that you _will_ be both is the firm persuasion of,
My dear Sir, &c.
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXXV.
TO MR. RICHARD BROWN.
[With this letter closes the correspondence of Robert Burns and
Richard Brown.]
_Ellisland, 4th November, 1789._
I have been so hurried, my ever dear friend, that though I got both
your letters, I have not been able to command an hour to answer them
as I wished; and even now, you are to look on this as merely
confessing debt, and craving days. Few things could have given me so
much pleasure as the news that you were once more safe and sound on
terra firma, and happy in that place where happiness is alone to be
found, in the fireside circle. May the benevolent Director of all
things peculiarly bless you in all those endearing connexions
consequent on the tender and venerable names of husband and father! I
have indeed been extremely lucky in getting an additional income of
£50 a year, while, at the same time, the appointment will not cost me
above £10 or £12 per annum of expenses more than I must have
inevitably incurred. The worst circumstance is, that the excise
division which I have got is so extensive, no less than ten parishes
to ride over; and it abounds besides with so much business, that I can
scarcely steal a spare moment. However, labour endears rest, and both
together are absolutely necessary for the proper enjoyment of human
existence. I cannot meet you anywhere. No less than an order from the
Board of Excise, at Edinburgh, is necessary before I can have so much
time as to meet you in Ayrshire. But do you come, and see me. We must
have a social day, and perhaps lengthen it out with half the half the
night before you go again to sea. You are the earliest friend I now
have on earth, my brothers excepted; and is not that an endearing
circumstance? When you and I first met, we were at the green period of
human life. The twig would easily take a bent, but would as easily
return to its former state. You and I not only took a mutual bent, but
by the melancholy, though strong influence of being both of the family
of the unfortunate, we were entwined with one another in our growth
towards advanced age; and blasted be the sacrilegious hand that shall
attempt to undo the union! You and I must have one bumper to my
favourite toast, "May the companions of our youth be the friends of
our old age!" Come and see me one year; I shall see you at Port
Glasgow the next, and if we can contrive to have a gossiping between
our two bedfellows, it will be so much additional pleasure. Mrs.
Burns joins me in kind compliments to you and Mrs. Brown. Adieu!
I am ever, my dear Sir, yours,
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXXVI.
TO R. GRAHAM, ESQ.
[The poet enclosed in this letter to his patron in the Excise the
clever verses on Captain Grose, the Kirk's Alarm, and the first ballad
on Captain Miller's election.]
_9th December, 1789._
SIR,
I have a good while had a wish to trouble you with a letter, and had
certainly done it long ere now--but for a humiliating something that
throws cold water on the resolution, as if one should say, "You have
found Mr. Graham a very powerful and kind friend indeed, and that
interest he is so kindly taking in your concerns, you ought by
everything in your power to keep alive and cherish." Now though since
God has thought proper to make one powerful and another helpless, the
connexion of obliger and obliged is all fair; and though my being
under your patronage is to me highly honourable, yet, Sir, allow me to
flatter myself, that, as a poet and an honest man you first interested
yourself in my welfare, and principally as such, still you permit me
to approach you.
I have found the excise business go on a great deal smoother with me
than I expected; owing a good deal to the generous friendship of Mr.
Mitchel, my collector, and the kind assistance of Mr. Findlater, my
supervisor. I dare to be honest, and I fear no labour. Nor do I find
my hurried life greatly inimical to my correspondence with the muses.
Their visits to me, indeed, and I believe to most of their
acquaintance, like the visits of good angels, are short and far
between: but I meet them now and then as I jog through the hills of
Nithsdale, just as I used to do on the banks of Ayr. I take the
liberty to enclose you a few bagatelles, all of them the productions
of my leisure thoughts in my excise rides.
If you know or have ever seen Captain Grose, the antiquarian, you will
enter into any humour that is in the verses on him. Perhaps you have
seen them before, as I sent them to a London newspaper. Though I dare
say you have none of the solemn-league-and-covenant fire, which shone
so conspicuous in Lord George Gordon, and the Kilmarnock weavers, yet
I think you must have heard of Dr. M'Gill, one of the clergymen of
Ayr, and his heretical book. God help him, poor man! Though he is one
of the worthiest, as well as one of the ablest of the whole priesthood
of the Kirk of Scotland, in every sense of that ambiguous term, yet
the poor Doctor and his numerous family are in imminent danger of
being thrown out to the mercy of the winter-winds. The enclosed ballad
on that business is, I confess, too local, but I laughed myself at
some conceits in it, though I am convinced in my conscience that there
are a good many heavy stanzas in it too.
The election ballad, as you will see, alludes to the present canvass
in our string of boroughs. I do not believe there will be such a
hard-run match in the whole general election.
I am too little a man to have any political attachments; I am deeply
indebted to, and have the warmest veneration for, individuals of both
parties; but a man who has it in his power to be the father of his
country, and who * * * * *, is a character that one cannot speak of
with patience.
Sir J. J. does "what man can do," but yet I doubt his fate.
* * * * *
CLXXVII.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[Burns was often a prey to lowness of spirits: at this some dull men
have marvelled; but the dull have no misgivings: they go blindly and
stupidly on, like a horse in a mill, and have none of the sorrows or
joys which genius is heir to.]
_Ellisland, 13th December, 1789._
Many thanks, dear Madam, for your sheet-full of rhymes. Though at
present I am below the veriest prose, yet from you everything pleases.
I am groaning under the miseries of a diseased nervous system; a
system, the state of which is most conducive to our happiness--or the
most productive of our misery. For now near three weeks I have been so
ill with a nervous head-ache, that I have been obliged for a time to
give up my excise-books, being scarce able to lift my head, much less
to ride once a week over ten muir parishes. What is man?--To-day in
the luxuriance of health, exulting in the enjoyment of existence; in a
few days, perhaps in a few hours, loaded with conscious painful being,
counting the tardy pace of the lingering moments by the repercussions
of anguish, and refusing or denied a comforter. Day follows night, and
night comes after day, only to curse him with life which gives him no
pleasure; and yet the awful, dark termination of that life is
something at which he recoils.
"Tell us, ye dead; will none of you in pity
Disclose the secret -------------------
_What 'tis you are, and we must shortly be?_
------------------------ 'tis no matter:
A little time will make us learn'd as you are."[194]
Can it be possible, that when I resign this frail, feverish being, I
shall still find myself in conscious existence? When the last gasp of
agony has announced that I am no more to those that knew me, and the
few who loved me; when the cold, stiffened, unconscious, ghastly corse
is resigned into the earth, to be the prey of unsightly reptiles, and
to become in time a trodden clod, shall I be yet warm in life, seeing
and seen, enjoying and enjoyed? Ye venerable sages and holy flamens,
is there probability in your conjectures, truth in your stories, of
another world beyond death; or are they all alike, baseless visions,
and fabricated fables? If there is another life, it must be only for
the just, the benevolent, the amiable, and the humane; what a
flattering idea, then, is a world to come! Would to God I as firmly
believed it, as I ardently wish it! There I should meet an aged
parent, now at rest from the many buffetings of an evil world, against
which he so long and so bravely struggled. There should I meet the
friend, the disinterested friend of my early life; the man who
rejoiced to see me, because he loved me and could serve me.--Muir, thy
weaknesses were the aberrations of human nature, but thy heart glowed
with everything generous, manly and noble; and if ever emanation from
the All-good Being animated a human form, it was thine! There should
I, with speechless agony of rapture, again recognise my lost, my ever
dear Mary! whose bosom was fraught with truth, honour, constancy, and
love.
"My Mary, dear departed shade!
Where is thy place of heavenly rest?
Seest thou thy lover lowly laid?
Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast?"
Jesus Christ, thou amiablest of characters! I trust thou art no
impostor, and that thy revelation of blissful scenes of existence
beyond death and the grave, is not one of the many impositions which
time after time have been palmed on credulous mankind. I trust that in
thee "shall all the families of the earth be blessed," by being yet
connected together in a better world, where every tie that bound heart
to heart, in this state of existence, shall be, far beyond our present
conceptions, more endearing.
I am a good deal inclined to think with those who maintain, that what
are called nervous affections are in fact diseases of the mind. I
cannot reason, I cannot think; and but to you I would not venture to
write anything above an order to a cobbler. You have felt too much of
the ills of life not to sympathise with a diseased wretch, who has
impaired more than half of any faculties he possessed. Your goodness
will excuse this distracted scrawl, which the writer dare scarcely
read, and which he would throw into the fire, were he able to write
anything better, or indeed anything at all.
Rumour told me something of a son of yours, who was returned from the
East or West Indies. If you have gotten news from James or Anthony, it
was cruel in you not to let me know; as I promise you on the sincerity
of a man, who is weary of one world, and anxious about another, that
scarce anything could give me so much pleasure as to hear of any good
thing befalling my honoured friend.
If you have a minute's leisure, take up your pen in pity to _le pauvre
miserable._
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 194: Blair's Grave.]
* * * * *
CLXXVIII.
TO LADY W[INIFRED] M[AXWELL] CONSTABLE.
[The Lady Winifred Maxwell, the last of the old line of Nithsdale, was
granddaughter of that Earl who, in 1715, made an almost miraculous
escape from death, through the spirit and fortitude of his countess, a
lady of the noble family of Powis.]
_Ellisland, 16th December, 1789._
MY LADY,
In vain have I from day to day expected to hear from Mrs. Young, as
she promised me at Dalswinton that she would do me the honour to
introduce me at Tinwald; and it was impossible, not from your
ladyship's accessibility, but from my own feelings, that I could go
alone. Lately indeed, Mr. Maxwell of Carruchen, in his usual goodness,
offered to accompany me, when an unlucky indisposition on my part
hindered my embracing the opportunity. To court the notice or the
tables of the great, except where I sometimes have had a little matter
to ask of them, or more often the pleasanter task of witnessing my
gratitude to them, is what I never have done, and I trust never shall
do. But with your ladyship I have the honour to be connected by one of
the strongest and most endearing ties in the whole moral world. Common
sufferers, in a cause where even to be unfortunate is glorious, the
cause of heroic loyalty! Though my fathers had not illustrious honours
and vast properties to hazard in the contest, though they left their
humble cottages only to add so many units more to the unnoted crowd
that followed their leaders, yet what they could they did, and what
they had they lost; with unshaken firmness and unconcealed political
attachments, they shook hands with ruin for what they esteemed the
cause of their king and their country. The language and the enclosed
verses are for your ladyship's eye alone. Poets are not very famous
for their prudence; but as I can do nothing for a cause which is now
nearly no more, I do not wish to hurt myself.
I have the honour to be,
My lady,
Your ladyship's obliged and obedient
Humble servant,
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXXIX.
TO PROVOST MAXWELL,
OF LOCHMABEN.
[Of Lochmaben, the "Marjory of the mony Lochs" of the election
ballads, Maxwell was at this time provost, a post more of honour than
of labour.]
_Ellisland, 20th December, 1789._
DEAR PROVOST,
As my friend Mr. Graham goes for your good town to-morrow, I cannot
resist the temptation to send you a few lines, and as I have nothing
to say I have chosen this sheet of foolscap, and begun as you see at
the top of the first page, because I have ever observed, that when
once people have fairly set out they know not where to stop. Now that
my first sentence is concluded, I have nothing to do but to pray
heaven to help me on to another. Shall I write you on Politics or
Religion, two master subjects for your sayers of nothing. Of the first
I dare say by this time you are nearly surfeited: and for the last,
whatever they may talk of it, who make it a kind of company concern, I
never could endure it beyond a soliloquy. I might write you on
farming, on building, or marketing, but my poor distracted mind is so
torn, so jaded, so racked and bediveled with the task of the
superlative damned to make _one guinea do the business of three_, that
I detest, abhor, and swoon at the very word business, though no less
than four letters of my very short sirname are in it.
Well, to make the matter short, I shall betake myself to a subject
ever fruitful of themes; a subject the turtle-feast of the sons of
Satan, and the delicious secret sugar-plum of the babes of grace--a
subject sparkling with all the jewels that wit can find in the mines
of genius: and pregnant with all the stores of learning from Moses and
Confucius to Franklin and Priestley--in short, may it please your
Lordship, I intend to write * * *
[_Here the Poet inserted a song which can only be sung at times when
the punch-bowl has done its duty and wild wit is set free._]
If at any time you expect a field-day in your town, a day when Dukes,
Earls, and Knights pay their court to weavers, tailors, and cobblers,
I should like to know of it two or three days beforehand. It is not
that I care three skips of a cur dog for the politics, but I should
like to see such an exhibition of human nature. If you meet with that
worthy old veteran in religion and good-fellowship, Mr. Jeffrey, or
any of his amiable family, I beg you will give them my best
compliments.
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXXX.
TO SIR JOHN SINCLAIR.
[Of the Monkland Book-Club alluded to in this letter, the clergyman
had omitted all mention in his account of the Parish of Dunscore,
published in Sir John Sinclair's work: some of the books which the
poet introduced were stigmatized as vain and frivolous.]
1790.
SIR,
The following circumstance has, I believe, been committed in the
statistical account, transmitted to you of the parish of Dunscore, in
Nithsdale. I beg leave to send it to you because it is new, and may be
useful. How far it is deserving of a place in your patriotic
publication, you are the best judge.
To store the minds of the lower classes with useful knowledge, is
certainly of very great importance, both to them as individuals and to
society at large. Giving them a turn for reading and reflection, is
giving them a source of innocent and laudable amusement: and besides,
raises them to a more dignified degree in the scale of rationality.
Impressed with this idea, a gentleman in this parish, Robert Riddel,
Esq., of Glenriddel, set on foot a species of circulating library, on
a plan so simple as to be practicable in any corner of the country;
and so useful, as to deserve the notice of every country gentleman,
who thinks the improvement of that part of his own species, whom
chance has thrown into the humble walks of the peasant and the
artisan, a matter worthy of his attention.
Mr. Riddel got a number of his own tenants, and farming neighbors, to
form themselves into a society for the purpose of having a library
among themselves. They entered into a legal engagement to abide by it
for three years; with a saving clause or two in case of a removal to a
distance, or death. Each member, at his entry, paid five shillings;
and at each of their meetings, which were held every fourth Saturday,
sixpence more. With their entry-money, and the credit which they took
on the faith of their future funds, they laid in a tolerable stock of
books at the commencement. What authors they were to purchase, was
always decided by the majority. At every meeting, all the books, under
certain fines and forfeitures, by way of penalty, were to be produced;
and the members had their choice of the volumes in rotation. He whose
name stood for that night first on the list, had his choice of what
volume he pleased in the whole collection; the second had his choice
after the first; the third after the second, and so on to the last. At
next meeting, he who had been first on the list at the preceding
meeting, was last at this; he who had been second was first; and so on
through the whole three years. At the expiration of the engagement the
books were sold by auction, but only among the members themselves;
each man had his share of the common stock, in money or in books, as
he chose to be a purchaser or not.
At the breaking up of this little society, which was formed under Mr.
Riddel's patronage, what with benefactions of books from him, and what
with their own purchases, they had collected together upwards of one
hundred and fifty volumes. It will easily be guessed, that a good deal
of trash would be bought. Among the books, however, of this little
library, were, _Blair's Sermons_, _Robertson's History of Scotland_,
_Hume's History of the Stewarts_, _The Spectator_, _Idler_,
_Adventurer_, _Mirror_, _Lounger_, _Observer_, _Man of Feeling_, _Man
of the World_, _Chrysal_, _Don Quixote_, _Joseph Andrews_, &c. A
peasant who can read, and enjoy such books, is certainly a much
superior being to his neighbour, who perhaps stalks besides his team,
very little removed, except in shape, from the brutes he drives.
Wishing your patriotic exertions their so much merited success,
I am, Sir,
Your humble servant,
A PEASANT.
* * * * *
CLXXXI.
TO CHARLES SHARPE, ESQ.,
OF HODDAM.
[The family of Hoddam is of old standing in Nithsdale. It has mingled
blood with some of the noblest Scottish names; nor is it unknown
either in history or literature--the fierce knight of Closeburn, who
in the scuffle between Bruce and Comyne drew his sword and made
"sicker," and my friend Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe, are not the least
distinguished of its members.]
[1790.]
It is true, Sir, you are a gentleman of rank and fortune, and I am a
poor devil: you are a feather in the cap of society, and I am a very
hobnail in its shoes; yet I have the honour to belong to the same
family with you, and on that score I now address you. You will perhaps
suspect that I am going to claim affinity with the ancient and
honourable house of Kirkpatrick. No, no, Sir: I cannot indeed be
properly said to belong to any house, or even any province or kingdom;
as my mother, who, for many years was spouse to a marching regiment,
gave me into this bad world, aboard the packet-boat, somewhere between
Donaghadee and Portpatrick. By our common family, I mean, Sir, the
family of the muses. I am a fiddler and a poet; and you, I am told,
play an exquisite violin, and have a standard taste in the Belles
Lettres. The other day, a brother catgut gave me a charming Scots air
of your composition. If I was pleased with the tune, I was in raptures
with the title you have given it; and taking up the idea I have spun
it into the three stanzas enclosed. Will you allow me, Sir, to present
you them, as the dearest offering that a misbegotten son of poverty
and rhyme has to give? I have a longing to take you by the hand and
unburthen my heart by saying, "Sir, I honour you as a man who supports
the dignity of human nature, amid an age when frivolity and avarice
have, between them, debased us below the brutes that perish!" But,
alas, Sir! to me you are unapproachable. It is true, the muses
baptized me in Castalian streams, but the thoughtless gipsies forgot
to give me a name. As the sex have served many a good fellow, the Nine
have given me a great deal of pleasure, but, bewitching jades! they
have beggared me. Would they but spare me a little of their
cast-linen! Were it only in my power to say that I have a shirt on my
back! but the idle wenches, like Solomon's lilies, "they toil not,
neither do they spin;" so I must e'en continue to tie my remnant of a
cravat, like the hangman's rope, round my naked throat, and coax my
galligaskins to keep together their many-coloured fragments. As to the
affair of shoes, I have given that up. My pilgrimages in my
ballad-trade, from town to town, and on your stony-hearted turnpikes
too, are what not even the hide of Job's Behemoth could bear. The coat
on my back is no more: I shall not speak evil of the dead. It would be
equally unhandsome and ungrateful to find fault with my old surtout,
which so kindly supplies and conceals the want of that coat. My hat
indeed is a great favourite; and though I got it literally for an old
song, I would not exchange it for the best beaver in Britain. I was,
during several years, a kind of factotum servant to a country
clergyman, where I pickt up a good many scraps of learning,
particularly in some branches of the mathematics. Whenever I feel
inclined to rest myself on my way, I take my seat under a hedge,
laying my poetic wallet on the one side, and my fiddle-case on the
other, and placing my hat between my legs, I can, by means of its
brim, or rather brims, go through the whole doctrine of the conic
sections.
However, Sir, don't let me mislead you, as if I would interest your
pity. Fortune has so much forsaken me, that she has taught me to live
without her; and amid all my rags and poverty, I am as independent,
and much more happy, than a monarch of the world. According to the
hackneyed metaphor, I value the several actors in the great drama of
life, simply as they act their parts. I can look on a worthless fellow
of a duke with unqualified contempt, and can regard an honest
scavenger with sincere respect. As you, Sir, go through your role with
such distinguished merit, permit me to make one in the chorus of
universal applause, and assure you that with the highest respect,
I have the honour to be, &c.,
JOHNNY FAA.
* * * * *
CLXXXII.
TO MR. GILBERT BURNS.
[In the few fierce words of this letter the poet bids adieu to all
hopes of wealth from Ellisland.]
_Ellisland, 11th January, 1790._
DEAR BROTHER,
I mean to take advantage of the frank, though I have not, in my
present frame of mind, much appetite for exertion in writing. My
nerves are in a cursed state. I feel that horrid hypochondria
pervading every atom of both body and soul. This farm has undone my
enjoyment of myself. It is a ruinous affair on all hands But let it
go to bell! I'll fight it out and be off with it.
We have gotten a set of very decent players here just now. I have seen
them an evening or two. David Campbell, in Ayr, wrote to me by the
manager of the company, a Mr. Sutherland, who is a man of apparent
worth. On New-year-day evening I gave him the following prologue,
which he spouted to his audience with applause.
No song nor dance I bring from yon great city,
That queens it o'er our taste--the more's the pity:
Tho', by the bye, abroad why will you roam?
Good sense and taste are natives here at home.
I can no more.--If once I was clear of this cursed farm, I should
respire more at ease.
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXXXIII.
TO MR. SUTHERLAND,
PLAYER.
ENCLOSING A PROLOGUE.
[When the farm failed, the poet sought pleasure in the playhouse: he
tried to retire from his own harassing reflections, into a world
created by other minds.]
_Monday Morning._
I was much disappointed, my dear Sir, in wanting your most agreeable
company yesterday. However, I heartily pray for good weather next
Sunday; and whatever aërial Being has the guidance of the elements,
may take any other half-dozen of Sundays he pleases, and clothe them
with
"Vapours and clouds, and storms,
Until he terrify himself
At combustion of his own raising."
I shall see you on Wednesday forenoon. In the greatest hurry,
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXXXIV.
TO WILLIAM DUNBAR, W.S.
[This letter was first published by the Ettrick Shepherd, in his
edition of Burns: it is remarkable for this sentence, "I am resolved
never to breed up a son of mine to any of the learned professions: I
know the value of independence, and since I cannot give my sons an
independent fortune, I shall give them an independent line of life."
We may look round us and inquire which line of life the poet could
possibly mean.]
_Ellisland, 14th January, 1790._
Since we are here creatures of a day, since "a few summer days, and a
few winter nights, and the life of man is at an end," why, my dear
much-esteem Sir, should you and I let negligent indolence, for I know
it is nothing worse, step in between us and bar the enjoyment of a
mutual correspondence? We are not shapen out of the common, heavy,
methodical clod, the elemental stuff of the plodding selfish race, the
sons of Arithmetic and Prudence; our feelings and hearts are not
benumbed and poisoned by the cursed influence of riches, which,
whatever blessing they may be in other respects, are no friends to the
nobler qualities of the heart: in the name of random sensibility,
then, let never the moon change on our silence any more. I have had a
tract of had health most part of this winter, else you had heard from
me long ere now. Thank Heaven, I am now got so much better as to be
able to partake a little in the enjoyments of life.
Our friend Cunningham will, perhaps, have told you of my going into
the Excise. The truth is, I found it a very convenient business to
have £50 per annum, nor have I yet felt any of those mortifying
circumstances in it that I was led to fear.
_Feb. 2._
I have not, for sheer hurry of business, been able to spare five
minutes to finish my letter. Besides my farm business, I ride on my
Excise matters at least two hundred miles every week. I have not by
any means given up the muses. You will see in the 3d vol. of Johnson's
Scots songs that I have contributed my mite there.
But, my dear Sir, little ones that look up to you for paternal
protection are an important charge. I have already two fine, healthy,
stout little fellows, and I wish to throw some light upon them. I have
a thousand reveries and schemes about them, and their future destiny.
Not that I am a Utopian projector in these things. I am resolved never
to breed up a son of mine to any of the learned professions. I know
the value of independence; and since I cannot give my sons an
independent fortune, I shall give them an independent line of life.
What a chaos of hurry, chance, and changes is this world, when one
sits soberly down to reflect on it! To a father, who himself knows the
world, the thought that he shall have sons to usher into it must fill
him with dread; but if he have daughters, the prospect in a thoughtful
moment is apt to shock him.
I hope Mrs. Fordyce and the two young ladies are well. Do let me
forget that they are nieces of yours, and let me say that I never saw
a more interesting, sweeter pair of sisters in my life. I am the fool
of my feelings and attachments. I often take up a volume of my Spenser
to realize you to my imagination, and think over the social scenes we
have had together. God grant that there may be another world more
congenial to honest fellows beyond this. A world where these rubs and
plagues of absence, distance, misfortunes, ill-health, &c., shall no
more damp hilarity and divide friendship. This I know is your throng
season, but half a page will much oblige,
My dear Sir,
Yours sincerely,
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXXXV.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[Falconer, the poet, whom Burns mentions here, perished in the Aurora,
in which he acted as purser: he was a satirist of no mean power, and
wrote that useful work, the Marine Dictionary: but his fame depends
upon "The Shipwreck," one of the most original and mournful poems in
the language.]
_Ellisland, 25th January, 1790._
It has been owing to unremitting hurry of business that I have not
written to you, Madam, long ere now. My health is greatly better, and
I now begin once more to share in satisfaction and enjoyment with the
rest of my fellow-creatures.
Many thanks, my much-esteemed friend, for your kind letters; but why
will you make me run the risk of being contemptible and mercenary in
my own eyes? When I pique myself on my independent spirit, I hope it
is neither poetic license, nor poetic rant; and I am so flattered with
the honour you have done me, in making me your compeer in friendship
and friendly correspondence, that I cannot without pain, and a degree
of mortification, be reminded of the real inequality between our
situations.
Most sincerely do I rejoice with you, dear Madam, in the good news of
Anthony. Not only your anxiety about his fate, but my own esteem for
such a noble, warm-hearted, manly young fellow, in the little I had of
his acquaintance, has interested me deeply in his fortunes.
Falconer, the unfortunate author of the "Shipwreck," which you so much
admire, is no more. After witnessing the dreadful catastrophe he so
feelingly describes in his poem, and after weathering many hard gales
of fortune, he went to the bottom with the Aurora frigate!
I forget what part of Scotland had the honour of giving him birth; but
he was the son of obscurity and misfortune. He was one of those daring
adventurous spirits, which Scotland, beyond any other country, is
remarkable for producing. Little does the fond mother think, as she
hangs delighted over the sweet little leech at her bosom, where the
poor fellow may hereafter wander, and what may be his fate. I remember
a stanza in an old Scottish ballad, which, notwithstanding its rude
simplicity, speaks feelingly to the heart:
"Little did my mother think,
That day she cradled me,
What land I was to travel in,
Or what death I should die!"[195]
Old Scottish song are, you know, a favourite study and pursuit of
mine, and now I am on that subject, allow me to give you two stanzas
of another old simple ballad, which I am sure will please you. The
catastrophe of the piece is a poor ruined female, lamenting her fate.
She concludes with this pathetic wish:--
"O that my father had ne'er on me smil'd;
O that my mother had ne'er to me sung!
O that my cradle had never been rock'd;
But that I had died when I was young!
"O that the grave it were my bed;
My blankets were my winding sheet;
The clocks and the worms my bedfellows a';
And O sae sound as I should sleep!"
I do not remember in all my reading, to have met with anything more
truly the language of misery, than the exclamation in the last line.
Misery is like love; to speak its language truly, the author must have
felt it.
I am every day expecting the doctor to give your little godson[196]
the small-pox. They are _rife_ in the country, and I tremble for his
fate. By the way, I cannot help congratulating you on his looks and
spirit. Every person who sees him, acknowledges him to be the finest,
handsomest child he has ever seen. I am myself delighted with the
manly swell of his little chest, and a certain miniature dignity in
the carriage of his head, and the glance of his fine black eye, which
promise the undaunted gallantry of an independent mind.
I thought to have sent you some rhymes, but time forbids. I promise
you poetry until you are tired of it, next time I have the honour of
assuring you how truly I am, &c.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 195: The ballad is in the Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border,
ed. 1833, vol. iii. p. 304.]
[Footnote 196: The bard's second son, Francis.]
* * * * *
CLXXXVI.
TO MR. PETER HILL,
BOOKSELLER, EDINBURGH.
[The Mademoiselle Burns whom the poet inquires about, was one of the
"ladies of the Canongate," who desired to introduce free trade in her
profession into a close borough: this was refused by the magistrates
of Edinburgh, though advocated with much eloquence and humour in a
letter by her namesake--it is coloured too strongly with her calling
to be published.]
_Ellisland, 2d Feb., 1790._
No! I will not say one word about apologies or excuses for not
writing.--I am a poor, rascally gauger, condemned to gallop at least
200 miles every week to inspect dirty ponds and yeasty barrels, and
where can I find time to write to, or importance to interest anybody?
The upbraidings of my conscience, nay the upbraidings of my wife, have
persecuted me on your account these two or three months past.--I wish
to God I was a great man, that my correspondence might throw light
upon you, to let the world see what you really are: and then I would
make your fortune without putting my hand in my pocket for you, which,
like all other great men, I suppose I would avoid as much as possible.
What are you doing, and how are you doing? Have you lately seen any of
my few friends? What is become of the BOROUGH REFORM, or how
is the fate of my poor namesake, Mademoiselle Burns, decided? O man!
but for thee and thy selfish appetites, and dishonest artifices, that
beauteous form, and that once innocent and still ingenuous mind, might
have shone conspicuous and lovely in the faithful wife, and the
affectionate mother; and shall the unfortunate sacrifice to thy
pleasures have no claim on thy humanity!
I saw lately in a Review, some extracts from a new poem, called the
Village Curate; send it me. I want likewise a cheap copy of The World.
Mr. Armstrong, the young poet, who does me the honour to mention me so
kindly in his works, please give him my best thanks for the copy of
his book--I shall write him, my first leisure hour. I like his poetry
much, but I think his style in prose quite astonishing.
Your book came safe, and I am going to trouble you with further
commissions. I call it troubling you,--because I want only,
BOOKS; the cheapest way, the best; so you may have to hunt
for them in the evening auctions. I want Smollette's works, for the
sake of his incomparable humour. I have already Roderick Random, and
Humphrey Clinker.--Peregrine Pickle, Launcelot Greaves, and Ferdinand
Count Fathom, I still want; but as I said, the veriest ordinary copies
will serve me. I am nice only in the appearance of my poets. I forget
the price of Cowper's Poems, but, I believe, I must have them. I saw
the other day, proposals for a publication, entitled "Banks's new and
complete Christian's Family Bible," printed for C. Cooke,
Paternoster-row, London.--He promises at least, to give in the work, I
think it is three hundred and odd engravings, to which he has put the
names of the first artists in London.--You will know the character of
the performance, as some numbers of it are published; and if it is
really what it pretends to be, set me down as a subscriber, and send
me the published numbers.
Let me hear from you, your first leisure minute, and trust me you
shall in future have no reason to complain of my silence. The dazzling
perplexity of novelty will dissipate and leave me to pursue my course
in the quiet path of methodical routine.
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXXXVII.
TO MR. W. NICOL.
[The poet has recorded this unlooked-for death of the Dominie's mare
in some hasty verses, which are not much superior to the subject.]
_Ellisland, Feb. 9th, 1790._
MY DEAR SIR,
That d--mned mare of yours is dead. I would freely have given her
price to have saved her; she has vexed me beyond description. Indebted
as I was to your goodness beyond what I can ever repay, I eagerly
grasped at your offer to have the mare with me. That I might at least
show my readiness in wishing to be grateful, I took every care of her
in my power. She was never crossed for riding above half a score of
times by me or in my keeping. I drew her in the plough, one of three,
for one poor week. I refused fifty-five shillings for her, which was
the highest bode I could squeeze for her. I fed her up and had her in
fine order for Dumfries fair; when four or five days before the fair,
she was seized with an unaccountable disorder in the sinews, or
somewhere in the bones of the neck; with a weakness or total want of
power in her fillets, and in short the whole vertebrae of her spine
seemed to be diseased and unhinged, and in eight-and-forty hours, in
spite of the two best farriers in the country, she died and be d--mned
to her! The farriers said that she had been quite strained in the
fillets beyond cure before you had bought her; and that the poor
devil, though she might keep a little flesh, had been jaded and quite
worn out with fatigue and oppression. While she was with me, she was
under my own eye, and I assure you, my much valued friend, everything
was done for her that could be done; and the accident has vexed me to
the heart. In fact I could not pluck up spirits to write to you, on
account of the unfortunate business.
There is little new in this country. Our theatrical company, of which
you must have heard, leave us this week.--Their merit and character
are indeed very great, both on the stage and in private life; not a
worthless creature among them; and their encouragement has been
accordingly. Their usual run is from eighteen to twenty-five pounds a
night: seldom less than the one, and the house will hold no more than
the other. There have been repeated instances of sending away six, and
eight, and ten pounds a night for want of room. A new theatre is to be
built by subscription; the first stone is to be laid on Friday first
to come. Three hundred guineas have been raised by thirty subscribers,
and thirty more might have been got if wanted. The manager, Mr.
Sutherland, was introduced to me by a friend from Ayr; and a worthier
or cleverer fellow I have rarely met with. Some of our clergy have
slipt in by stealth now and then; but they have got up a farce of
their own. You must have heard how the Rev. Mr. Lawson of Kirkmahoe,
seconded by the Rev. Mr. Kirkpatrick of Dunscore, and the rest of that
faction, have accused in formal process, the unfortunate and Rev. Mr.
Heron, of Kirkgunzeon, that in ordaining Mr. Nielson to the cure of
souls in Kirkbean, he, the said Heron, feloniously and treasonably
bound the said Nielson to the confession of faith, _so far as it was
agreeable to reason and the word of God_!
Mrs. B. begs to be remembered most gratefully to you. Little Bobby and
Frank are charmingly well and healthy. I am jaded to death with
fatigue. For these two or three months, on an average, I have not
ridden less than two hundred miles per week. I have done little in the
poetic way. I have given Mr. Sutherland two Prologues; one of which
was delivered last week. I have likewise strung four or five barbarous
stanzas, to the tune of Chevy Chase, by way of Elegy on your poor
unfortunate mare, beginning (the name she got here was Peg Nicholson)
"Peg Nicholson was a good bay mare,
As ever trod on airn;
But now she's floating down the Nith,
And past the mouth o' Cairn."
My best compliments to Mrs. Nicol, and little Neddy, and all the
family; I hope Ned is a good scholar, and will come out to gather nuts
and apples with me next harvest.
R. B.
* * * * *
CLXXXVIII.
TO MR. CUNNINGHAM.
[Burns looks back with something of regret to the days of rich dinners
and flowing wine-cups which he experienced in Edinburgh. Alexander
Cunningham and his unhappy loves are recorded in that fine song, "Had
I a cave on some wild distant shore."]
_Ellisland, 13th February, 1790._
I beg your pardon, my dear and much valued friend, for writing to you
on this very unfashionable, unsightly sheet--
"My poverty but not my will consents."
But to make amends, since of modish post I have none, except one poor
widowed half-sheet of gilt, which lies in my drawer among my plebeian
fool's-cap pages, like the widow of a man of fashion, whom that
unpolite scoundrel, Necessity, has driven from Burgundy and Pineapple,
to a dish of Bohea, with the scandal-bearing help-mate of a
village-priest; or a glass of whisky-toddy, with a ruby-nosed
yoke-fellow of a foot-padding exciseman--I make a vow to enclose this
sheet-full of epistolary fragments in that my only scrap of gilt
paper.
I am indeed your unworthy debtor for three friendly letters. I ought
to have written to you long ere now, but it is a literal fact, I have
scarcely a spare moment. It is not that I _will not_ write to you;
Miss Burnet is not more dear to her guardian angel, nor his grace the
Duke of Queensbury to the powers of darkness, than my friend
Cunningham to me. It is not that I _cannot_ write to you; should you
doubt it, take the following fragment, which was intended for you some
time ago, and be convinced that I can _antithesize_ sentiment, and
_circumvolute_ periods, as well as any coiner of phrase in the regions
of philology.
_December, 1789._
MY DEAR CUNNINGHAM,
Where are you? And what are you doing? Can you be that son of levity,
who takes up a friendship as he takes up a fashion; or are you, like
some other of the worthiest fellows in the world, the victim of
indolence, laden with fetters of ever-increasing weight?
What strange beings we are! Since we have a portion of conscious
existence, equally capable of enjoying pleasure, happiness, and
rapture, or of suffering pain, wretchedness, and misery, it is surely
worthy of an inquiry, whether there be not such a thing as a science
of life; whether method, economy, and fertility of expedients be not
applicable to enjoyment, and whether there be not a want of dexterity
in pleasure, which renders our little scantling of happiness still
less; and a profuseness, an intoxication in bliss, which leads to
satiety, disgust, and self-abhorrence. There is not a doubt but that
health, talents, character, decent competency, respectable friends,
are real substantial blessings; and yet do we not daily see those who
enjoy many or all of these good things contrive notwithstanding to be
as unhappy as others to whose lot few of them have fallen? I believe
one great source of this mistake or misconduct is owing to a certain
stimulus, with us called ambition, which goads us up the hill of life,
not as we ascend other eminences, for the laudable curiosity of
viewing an extended landscape, but rather for the dishonest pride of
looking down on others of our fellow-creatures, seemingly diminutive
in humbler stations, &c &c.
_Sunday, 14th February, 1790._
God help me! I am now obliged to
"Join night to day, and Sunday to the week."[197]
If there be any truth in the orthodox faith of these churches, I am
d--mned past redemption, and what is worse, d--mned to all eternity. I
am deeply read in Boston's Four-fold State, Marshal on Sanctification,
Guthrie's Trial of a Saving Interest, &c.; but "there is no balm in
Gilead, there is no physician there," for me; so I shall e'en turn
Arminian, and trust to "sincere though imperfect obedience."
_Tuesday, 16th._
Luckily for me, I was prevented from the discussion of the knotty
point at which I had just made a full stop. All my fears and care are
of this world: if there is another, an honest man has nothing to fear
from it. I hate a man that wishes to be a Deist: but I fear, every
fair, unprejudiced inquirer must in some degree be a sceptic. It is
not that there are any very staggering arguments against the
immortality of man; but like electricity, phlogiston, &c., the subject
is so involved in darkness, that we want data to go upon. One thing
frightens me much: that we are to live for ever, seems _too good news
to be true._ That we are to enter into a new scene of existence,
where, exempt from want and pain, we shall enjoy ourselves and our
friends without satiety or separation--how much should I be indebted
to any one who could fully assure me that this was certain!
My time is once more expired. I will write to Mr. Cleghorn soon. God
bless him and all his concerns! And may all the powers that preside
over conviviality and friendship, be present with all their kindest
influence, when the bearer of this, Mr. Syme, and you meet! I wish I
could also make one.
Finally, brethren, farewell! Whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever
things are gentle, whatsoever things are charitable, whatsoever things
are kind, think on these things, and think on
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 197: Young. _Satire on Women._]
* * * * *
CLXXXIX.
TO MR. PETER HILL.
[That Burns turned at this time his thoughts on the drama, this order
to his bookseller for dramatic works, as well as his attendances at
the Dumfries theatre, afford proof.]
_Ellisland, 2d March, 1790._
At a late meeting of the Monkland Friendly Society, it was resolved to
augment their library by the following books, which you are to send us
as soon as possible:--The Mirror, The Lounger, Man of Feeling, Man of
the World, (these, for my own sake, I wish to have by the first
carrier), Knox's History of the Reformation; Rae's History of the
Rebellion in 1715; any good history of the rebellion in 1745; A
Display of the Secession Act and Testimony, by Mr. Gibb; Hervey's
Meditations; Beveridge's Thoughts; and another copy of Watson's Body
of Divinity.
I wrote to Mr. A. Masterton three or four months ago, to pay some
money he owed me into your hands, and lately I wrote to you to the
same purpose, but I have heard from neither one or other of you.
In addition to the books I commissioned in my last, I want very much
An Index to the Excise Laws, or an Abridgment of all the Statutes now
in force relative to the Excise, by Jellinger Symons; I want three
copies of this book: if it is now to be had, cheap or dear, get it for
me. An honest country neighbour of mine wants too a Family Bible, the
larger the better; but second-handed, for he does not choose to give
above ten shillings for the book. I want likewise for myself, as you
can pick them up, second-handed or cheap, copies of Otway's Dramatic
Works, Ben Jonson's, Dryden's, Congreve's, Wycherley's, Vanbrugh's,
Cibber's, or any dramatic works of the more modern, Macklin, Garrick,
Foote, Colman, or Sheridan. A good copy too of Moliere, in French, I
much want. Any other good dramatic authors in that language I want
also; but comic authors, chiefly, though I should wish to have Racine,
Corneille, and Voltaire too. I am in no hurry for all, or any of
these, but if you accidentally meet with them very cheap, get them for
me.
And now to quit the dry walk of business, how do you do, my dear
friend? and how is Mrs. Hill? I trust, if now and then not so
_elegantly_ handsome, at least as amiable, and sings as divinely as
ever. My good wife too has a charming "wood-note wild;" now could we
four ----.
I am out of all patience with this vile world, for one thing. Mankind
are by nature benevolent creatures, except in a few scoundrelly
instances. I do not think that avarice of the good things we chance to
have, is born with us; but we are placed here amid so much nakedness,
and hunger, and poverty, and want, that we are under a cursed
necessity of studying selfishness, in order that we may
EXIST! Still there are, in every age, a few souls, that all
the wants and woes of life cannot debase to selfishness, or even to
the necessary alloy of caution and prudence. If ever I am in danger of
vanity, it is when I contemplate myself on this side of my disposition
and character. God knows I am no saint; I have a whole host of follies
and sin, to answer for; but if I could, and I believe I do it as far
as I can, I would wipe away all tears from all eyes.
Adieu!
R. B.
* * * * *
CXC.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[It is not a little singular that Burns says, in this letter, he had
just met with the Mirror and Lounger for the first time: it will be
remembered that a few years before a generous article was dedicated by
Mackenzie, the editor, to the Poems of Burns, and to this the poet
often alludes in his correspondence.]
_Ellisland, 10th April, 1790._
I have just now, my ever honoured friend, enjoyed a very high luxury,
in reading a paper of the Lounger. You know my national prejudices. I
had often read and admired the Spectator, Adventurer, Rambler, and
World; but still with a certain regret, that they were so thoroughly
and entirely English. Alas! have I often said to myself, what are all
the boasted advantages which my country reaps from the union, that can
counterbalance the annihilation of her independence, and even her very
name! I often repeat that couplet of my favourite poet, Goldsmith--
"------ States of native liberty possest,
Tho' very poor, may yet be very blest."
Nothing can reconcile me to the common terms, "English ambassador,
English court," &c. And I am out of all patience to see that equivocal
character, Hastings, impeached by "the Commons of England." Tell me, my
friend, is this weak prejudice? I believe in my conscience such ideas as
"my country; her independence; her honour; the illustrious names that
mark the history of my native land;" &c.--I believe these, among your
_men of the world_, men who in fact guide for the most part and govern
our world, are looked on as so many modifications of wrongheadedness.
They know the use of bawling out such terms, to rouse or lead THE
RABBLE; but for their own private use, with almost all the _able
statesmen_ that ever existed, or now exist, when they talk of right and
wrong, they only mean proper and improper; and their measure of conduct
is, not what they OUGHT, but what they DARE. For the truth of this I
shall not ransack the history of nations, but appeal to one of the
ablest judges of men that ever lived--the celebrated Earl of
Chesterfield. In fact, a man who could thoroughly control his vices
whenever they interfered with his interests, and who could completely
put on the appearance of every virtue as often as it suited his
purposes, is, on the Stanhopean plan, the _perfect man_; a man to lead
nations. But are great abilities, complete without a flaw, and polished
without a blemish, the standard of human excellence? This is certainly
the staunch opinion of _men of the world_; but I call on honour, virtue,
and worth, to give the stygian doctrine a loud negative! However, this
must be allowed, that, if you abstract from man the idea of an existence
beyond the grave, _then_ the true measure of human conduct is, _proper_
and _improper_: virtue and vice, as dispositions of the heart, are, in
that case, of scarcely the same import and value to the world at large,
as harmony and discord in the modifications of sound; and a delicate
sense of honour, like a nice ear for music, though it may sometimes give
the possessor an ecstasy unknown to the coarser organs of the herd, yet,
considering the harsh gratings, and inharmonic jars, in this ill-tuned
state of being, it is odds but the individual would be as happy, and
certainly would be as much respected by the true judges of society as it
would then stand, without either a good ear or a good heart.
You must know I have just met with the Mirror and Lounger for the
first time, and I am quite in raptures with them; I should be glad to
have your opinion of some of the papers. The one I have just read,
Lounger, No. 61, has cost me more honest tears than anything I have
read of a long time. Mackenzie has been called the Addison of the
Scots, and in my opinion, Addison would not be hurt at the comparison.
If he has not Addison's exquisite humour, he as certainly outdoes him
in the tender and the pathetic. His Man of Feeling (but I am not
counsel learned in the laws of criticism) I estimate as the first
performance in its kind I ever saw. From what book, moral or even
pious, will the susceptible young mind receive impressions more
congenial to humanity and kindness, generosity and benevolence; in
short, more of all that ennobles the soul to herself, or endears her
to others--than from the simple affecting tale of poor Harley?
Still, with all my admiration of Mackenzie's writings, I do not know
if they are the fittest reading for a young man who is about to set
out, as the phrase is, to make his way into life. Do not you think,
Madam, that among the few favoured of heaven in the structure of their
minds (for such there certainly are) there may be a purity, a
tenderness, a dignity, an elegance of soul, which are of no use, nay,
in some degree, absolutely disqualifying for the truly important
business of making a man's way into life? If I am not much mistaken,
my gallant young friend, A * * * * * *, is very much under these
disqualifications; and for the young females of a family I could
mention, well may they excite parental solicitude, for I, a common
acquaintance, or as my vanity will have it, an humble friend, have
often trembled for a turn of mind which may render them eminently
happy--or peculiarly miserable!
I have been manufacturing some verses lately; but when I have got the
most hurried season of excise business over, I hope to have more
leisure to transcribe anything that may show how much I have the
honour to be, Madam,
Yours, &c.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXCI.
TO COLLECTOR MITCHELL.
[Collector Mitchell was a kind and considerate gentle man: to his
grandson, Mr. John Campbell, surgeon, in Aberdeen, I owe this
characteristic letter.]
_Ellisland, 1790._
SIR,
I shall not fail to wait on Captain Riddel to-night--I wish and pray
that the goddess of justice herself would appear to-morrow among our
hon. gentlemen, merely to give them a word in their ear that mercy to
the thief is injustice to the honest man. For my part I have galloped
over my ten parishes these four days, until this moment that I am just
alighted, or rather, that my poor jackass-skeleton of a horse has let
me down; for the miserable devil has been on his knees half a score of
times within the last twenty miles, telling me in his own way,
'Behold, am not I thy faithful jade of a horse, on which thou hast
ridden these many years!'
In short, Sir, I have broke my horse's wind, and almost broke my own
neck, besides some injuries in a part that shall be nameless, owing to
a hard-hearted stone for a saddle. I find that every offender has so
many great men to espouse his cause, that I shall not be surprised if
I am committed to the strong hold of the law to-morrow for insolence
to the dear friends of the gentlemen of the country.
I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your obliged and obedient humble
R. B.
* * * * *
CXCII.
TO DR. MOORE.
[The sonnets alluded to by Burns were those of Charlotte Smith: the
poet's copy is now before me, with a few marks of his pen on the
margins.]
_Dumfries, Excise-Office, 14th July, 1790._
SIR,
Coming into town this morning, to attend my duty in this office, it
being collection-day, I met with a gentleman who tells me he is on his
way to London; so I take the opportunity of writing to you, as
franking is at present under a temporary death. I shall have some
snatches of leisure through the day, amid our horrid business and
bustle, and I shall improve them as well as I can; but let my letter
be as stupid as * * * * * * * * *, as miscellaneous as a newspaper, as
short as a hungry grace-before-meat, or as long as a law-paper in the
Douglas cause; as ill-spelt as country John's billet-doux, or as
unsightly a scrawl as Betty Byre-Mucker's answer to it; I hope,
considering circumstances, you will forgive it; and as it will put you
to no expense of postage, I shall have the less reflection about it.
I am sadly ungrateful in not returning you my thanks for your most
valuable present, _Zeluco._ In fact, you are in some degree blameable
for my neglect. You were pleased to express a wish for my opinion of
the work, which so flattered me, that nothing less would serve my
overweening fancy, than a formal criticism on the book. In fact, I
have gravely planned a comparative view of you, Fielding, Richardson,
and Smollett, in your different qualities and merits as novel-writers.
This, I own, betrays my ridiculous vanity, and I may probably never
bring the business to bear; and I am fond of the spirit young Elihu
shows in the book of Job--"And I said, I will also declare my
opinion," I have quite disfigured my copy of the book with my
annotations. I never take it up without at the same time taking my
pencil, and marking with asterisms, parentheses, &c., wherever I meet
with an original thought, a nervous remark on life and manners, a
remarkable well-turned period, or a character sketched with uncommon
precision.
Though I should hardly think of fairly writing out my "Comparative
View," I shall certainly trouble you with my remarks, such as they
are.
I have just received from my gentleman that horrid summons in the book
of Revelations--"That time shall be no more!"
The little collection of sonnets have some charming poetry in them. If
_indeed_ I am indebted to the fair author for the book, and not, as I
rather suspect, to a celebrated author of the other sex, I should
certainly have written to the lady, with my grateful acknowledgments,
and my own ideas of the comparative excellence of her pieces. I would
do this last, not from any vanity of thinking that my remarks could be
of much consequence to Mrs. Smith, but merely from my own feelings as
an author, doing as I would be done by.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXCIII.
TO MR. MURDOCH,
TEACHER OF FRENCH, LONDON.
[The account of himself, promised to Murdoch by Burns, was never
written.]
_Ellisland, July 16, 1790._
MY DEAR SIR,
I received a letter from you a long time ago, but unfortunately, as
it was in the time of my peregrinations and journeyings through
Scotland, I mislaid or lost it, and by consequence your direction
along with it. Luckily my good star brought me acquainted with Mr.
Kennedy, who, I understand, is an acquaintance of yours: and by his
means and mediation I hope to replace that link which my unfortunate
negligence had so unluckily broke in the chain of our correspondence.
I was the more vexed at the vile accident, as my brother William, a
journeyman saddler, has been for some time in London; and wished above
all things for your direction, that he might have paid his respects to
his father's friend.
His last address he sent me was, "Wm. Burns, at Mr. Barber's, saddler,
No. 181, Strand." I writ him by Mr. Kennedy, but neglected to ask him
for your address; so, if you find a spare half-minute, please let my
brother know by a card where and when he will find you, and the poor
fellow will joyfully wait on you, as one of the few surviving friends
of the man whose name, and Christian name too, he has the honour to
bear.
The next letter I write you shall be a long one. I have much to tell
you of "hair-breadth 'scapes in th' imminent deadly breach," with all
the eventful history of a life, the early years of which owed so much
to your kind tutorage; but this at an hour of leisure. My kindest
compliments to Mrs. Murdoch and family.
I am ever, my dear Sir,
Your obliged friend,
R. B.
* * * * *
CXCIV.
TO MR. M'MURDO.
[This hasty note was accompanied by the splendid elegy on Matthew
Henderson, and no one could better feel than M'Murdo, to whom it is
addressed, the difference between the music of verse and the clangour
of politics.]
_Ellisland, 2d August, 1790._
SIR,
Now that you are over with the sirens of Flattery, the harpies of
Corruption, and the furies of Ambition, these infernal deities, that
on all sides, and in all parties, preside over the villanous business
of politics, permit a rustic muse of your acquaintance to do her best
to soothe you with a song.--
You knew Henderson--I have not flattered his memory.
I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your obliged humble servant,
R. B.
* * * * *
CXCV.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[Inquiries have been made in vain after the name of Burns's ci-devant
friend, who had so deeply wounded his feelings.]
_8th August, 1790._
DEAR MADAM,
After a long day's toil, plague, and care, I sit down to write to you.
Ask me not why I have delayed it so long! It was owing to hurry,
indolence, and fifty other things; in short to anything--but
forgetfulness of _la plus aimable de son sexe._ By the bye, you are
indebted your best courtesy to me for this last compliment; as I pay
it from my sincere conviction of its truth--a quality rather rare in
compliments of these grinning, bowing, scraping times.
Well, I hope writing to _you_ will ease a little my troubled soul.
Sorely has it been bruised to-day! A ci-devant friend of mine, and an
intimate acquaintance of yours, has given my feelings a wound that I
perceive will gangrene dangerously ere it cure. He has wounded my
pride!
R. B.
* * * * *
CXCVI.
TO MR. CUNNINGHAM.
["The strain of invective," says the judicious Currie, of this letter,
"goes on some time longer in the style in which our bard was too apt
to indulge, and of which the reader has already seen so much."]
_Ellisland, 8th August, 1790._
Forgive me, my once dear, and ever dear friend, my seeming negligence.
You cannot sit down and fancy the busy life I lead.
I laid down my goose-feather to beat my brains for an apt simile, and
had some thoughts of a country grannum at a family christening; a
bride on the market-day before her marriage; or a tavern-keeper at an
election-dinner; but the resemblance that hits my fancy best is, that
blackguard miscreant, Satan, who roams about like a roaring lion,
seeking, _searching_ whom he may devour. However, tossed about as I
am, if I choose (and who would not choose) to bind down with the
crampets of attention the brazen foundation of integrity, I may rear
up the superstructure of Independence, and from its daring turrets bid
defiance to the storms of fate. And is not this a "consummation
devoutly to be wished?"
"Thy spirit, Independence, let me share;
Lord of the lion-heart, and eagle-eye!
Thy steps I follow with my bosom bare,
Nor heed the storm that howls along the sky!"
Are not these noble verses? They are the introduction of Smollett's
Ode to Independence: if you have not seen the poem, I will send it to
you.--How wretched is the man that hangs on by the favours of the
great! To shrink from every dignity of man, at the approach of a
lordly piece of self-consequence, who, amid all his tinsel glitter,
and stately hauteur, is but a creature formed as thou art--and perhaps
not so well formed as thou art--came into the world a puling infant as
thou didst, and must go out of it, as all men must, a naked corse.
R. B.
* * * * *
CXCVII.
TO DR. ANDERSON.
[The gentleman to whom this imperfect note is addressed was Dr. James
Anderson, a well-known agricultural and miscellaneous writer, and the
editor of a weekly miscellany called the Bee.]
SIR,
I am much indebted to my worthy friend, Dr. Blacklock, for introducing
me to a gentleman of Dr. Anderson's celebrity; but when you do me the
honour to ask my assistance in your proposed publication, alas, Sir!
you might as well think to cheapen a little honesty at the sign of an
advocate's wig, or humility under the Geneva band. I am a miserable
hurried devil, worn to the marrow in the friction of holding the noses
of the poor publicans to the grindstone of the excise! and, like
Milton's Satan, for private reasons, am forced
"To do what yet though damn'd I would abhor."
--and, except a couplet or two of honest execration * * * *
R. B.
* * * * *
CXCVIII.
TO WILLIAM TYTLER, ESQ.,
OF WOODHOUSELEE.
[William Tytler was the "revered defender of the beauteous Stuart"--a
man of genius and a gentleman.]
_Lawn Market, August, 1790._
SIR,
Enclosed I have sent you a sample of the old pieces that are still to
be found among our peasantry in the west. I had once a great many of
these fragments, and some of these here, entire; but as I had no idea
then that anybody cared for them, I have forgotten them. I invariably
hold it sacrilege to add anything of my own to help out with the
shattered wrecks of these venerable old compositions; but they have
many various readings. If you have not seen these before, I know they
will flatter your true old-style Caledonian feelings; at any rate I am
truly happy to have an opportunity of assuring you how sincerely I am,
revered Sir,
Your gratefully indebted humble servant,
R. B.
* * * * *
CXCIX.
TO CRAUFORD TAIT, ESQ.,
EDINBURGH.
[Margaret Chalmers had now, it appears by this letter, become Mrs.
Lewis Hay: her friend, Charlotte Hamilton, had been for some time Mrs.
Adair, of Scarborough: Miss Nimmo was the lady who introduced Burns to
the far-famed Clarinda.]
_Ellisland_, 15th _October, 1790._
DEAR SIR,
Allow me to introduce to your acquaintance the bearer, Mr. Wm. Duncan,
a friend of mine, whom I have long known and long loved. His father,
whose only son he is, has a decent little property in Ayrshire, and
has bred the young man to the law, in which department he comes up an
adventurer to your good town. I shall give you my friend's character
in two words: as to his head, he has talents enough, and more than
enough for common life; as to his heart, when nature had kneaded the
kindly clay that composes it, she said, "I can no more."
You, my good Sir, were born under kinder stars; but your fraternal
sympathy, I well know can enter into the feelings of the young man,
who goes into life with the laudable ambition to _do_ something, and
to _be_ something among his fellow-creatures; but whom the
consciousness of friendless obscurity presses to the earth, and wounds
to the soul!
Even the fairest of his virtues are against him. That independent
spirit, and that ingenuous modesty, qualities inseparable from a noble
mind, are, with the million, circumstances not a little disqualifying.
What pleasure is in the power of the fortunate and the happy, by their
notice and patronage, to brighten the countenance and glad the heart
of such depressed youth! I am not so angry with mankind for their deaf
economy of the purse:--the goods of this world cannot be divided
without being lessened--but why be a niggard of that which bestows
bliss on a fellow-creature, yet takes nothing from our own means of
enjoyment? We wrap ourselves up in the cloak of our own better
fortune, and turn away our eyes, lest the wants and woes of our
brother-mortals should disturb the selfish apathy of our souls!
I am the worst hand in the world at asking a favour. That indirect
address, that insinuating implication, which, without any positive
request, plainly expresses your wish, is a talent not to be acquired
at a plough-tail. Tell me then, for you can, in what periphrasis of
language, in what circumvolution of phrase, I shall envelope, yet not
conceal this plain story.--"My dear Mr. Tait, my friend Mr. Duncan,
whom I have the pleasure of introducing to you, is a young lad of your
own profession, and a gentleman of much modesty, and great worth.
Perhaps it may be in your power to assist him in the, to him,
important consideration of getting a place; but at all events, your
notice and acquaintance will be a very great acquisition to him; and I
dare pledge myself that he will never disgrace your favour."
You may possibly be surprised, Sir, at such a letter from me; 'tis, I
own, in the usual way of calculating these matters, more than our
acquaintance entitles me to; but my answer is short:--Of all the men
at your time of life, whom I knew in Edinburgh, you are the most
accessible on the side on which I have assailed you. You are very much
altered indeed from what you were when I knew you, if generosity point
the path you will not tread, or humanity call to you in vain.
As to myself, a being to whose interest I believe you are still a
well-wisher; I am here, breathing at all times, thinking sometimes,
and rhyming now and then. Every situation has its share of the cares
and pains of life, and my situation I am persuaded has a full ordinary
allowance of its pleasures and enjoyments.
My best compliments to your father and Miss Tait. If you have an
opportunity, please remember me in the solemn league and covenant of
friendship to Mrs. Lewis Hay. I am a wretch for not writing her; but I
am so hackneyed with self-accusation in that way, that my conscience
lies in my bosom with scarce the sensibility of an oyster in its
shell. Where is Lady M'Kenzie? wherever she is, God bless her! I
likewise beg leave to trouble you with compliments to Mr. Wm.
Hamilton; Mrs. Hamilton and family; and Mrs. Chalmers, when you are in
that country. Should you meet with Miss Nimmo, please remember me
kindly to her.
R. B.
* * * * *
CC.
TO ----.
[This letter contained the Kirk's Alarm, a satire written to help the
cause of Dr. M'Gill, who recanted his heresy rather than be removed
from his kirk.]
_Ellisland, 1790._
DEAR SIR,
Whether in the way of my trade I can be of any service to the Rev.
Doctor, is I fear very doubtful. Ajax's shield consisted, I think, of
seven bull-hides and a plate of brass, which altogether set Hector's
utmost force at defiance. Alas! I am not a Hector, and the worthy
Doctor's foes are as securely armed as Ajax was. Ignorance,
superstition, bigotry, stupidity, malevolence, self-conceit, envy--all
strongly bound in a massy frame of brazen impudence. Good God, Sir! to
such a shield, humour is the peck of a sparrow, and satire the pop-gun
of a school-boy. Creation-disgracing scelerats such as they, God only
can mend, and the devil only can punish. In the comprehending way of
Caligula, I wish they all had but one neck. I feel impotent as a child
to the ardour of my wishes! O for a withering curse to blast the
germins of their wicked machinations! O for a poisonous tornado,
winged from the torrid zone of Tartarus, to sweep the spreading crop
of their villainous contrivances to the lowest hell!
R. B.
* * * * *
CCI.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[The poet wrote out several copies of Tam o' Shanter and sent them to
his friends, requesting their criticisms: he wrote few poems so
universally applauded.]
_Ellisland, November, 1790._
"As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far
country."
Fate has long owed me a letter of good news from you, in return for
the many tidings of sorrow which I have received. In this instance I
most cordially obey the apostle--"Rejoice with them that do
rejoice"--for me, _to sing_ for joy, is no new thing; but _to preach_
for joy, as I have done in the commencement of this epistle, is a
pitch of extravagant rapture to which I never rose before.
I read your letter--I literally jumped for joy--How could such a
mercurial creature as a poet lumpishly keep his seat on the receipt of
the best news from his best friend. I seized my gilt-headed Wangee
rod, an instrument indispensably necessary in my left hand, in the
moment of inspiration and rapture; and stride, stride--quick and
quicker--out skipt I among the broomy banks of Nith to muse over my
joy by retail. To keep within the bounds of prose was impossible. Mrs.
Little's is a more elegant, but not a more sincere compliment to the
sweet little fellow, than I, extempore almost, poured out to him in
the following verses:--
Sweet flow'ret, pledge o' meikle love
And ward o' mony a prayer,
What heart o' stane wad thou na move,
Sae helpless, sweet, an' fair.
November hirples o'er the lea
Chill on thy lovely form;
But gane, alas! the shelt'ring tree
Should shield thee frae the storm.
I am much flattered by your approbation of my _Tam o' Shanter_, which
you express in your former letter; though, by the bye, you load me in
that said letter with accusations heavy and many; to all which I
plead, _not guilty_! Your book is, I hear, on the road to reach me. As
to printing of poetry, when you prepare it for the press, you have
only to spell it right, and place the capital letters properly: as to
the punctuation, the printers do that themselves.
I have a copy of _Tam o' Shanter_ ready to send you by the first
opportunity: it is too heavy to send by post.
I heard of Mr. Corbet lately. He, in consequence of your
recommendation, is most zealous to serve me. Please favour me soon
with an account of your good folks; if Mrs. H. is recovering, and the
young gentleman doing well.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCII.
TO LADY W. M. CONSTABLE.
[The present alluded to was a gold snuff-box, with a portrait of Queen
Mary on the lid.]
_Ellisland, 11th January, 1791._
MY LADY,
Nothing less than the unlucky accident of having lately broken my
right arm, could have prevented me, the moment I received your
ladyship's elegant present by Mrs. Miller, from returning you my
warmest and most grateful acknowledgments. I assure your ladyship, I
shall set it apart--the symbols of religion shall only be more sacred.
In the moment of poetic composition, the box shall be my inspiring
genius. When I would breathe the comprehensive wish of benevolence for
the happiness of others, I shall recollect your ladyship; when I would
interest my fancy in the distresses incident to humanity, I shall
remember the unfortunate Mary.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCIII.
TO WILLIAM DUNBAR, W.S.
[This letter was in answer to one from Dunbar, in which the witty
colonel of the Crochallan Fencibles supposed the poet had been
translated to Elysium to sing to the immortals, as his voice had not
been beard of late on earth.]
_Ellisland, 17th January, 1791._
I am not gone to Elysium, most noble colonel, but am still here in
this sublunary world, serving my God, by propagating his image, and
honouring my king by begetting him loyal subjects.
Many happy returns of the season await my friend. May the thorns of
care never beset his path! May peace be an inmate of his bosom, and
rapture a frequent visitor of his soul! May the blood-hounds of
misfortune never track his steps, nor the screech-owl of sorrow alarm
his dwelling! May enjoyment tell thy hours, and pleasure number thy
days, thou friend of the bard! "Blessed be he that blesseth thee, and
cursed be he that curseth thee!!!"
As a further proof that I am still in the land of existence, I send
you a poem, the latest I have composed. I have a particular reason for
wishing you only to show it to select friends, should you think it
worthy a friend's perusal; but if, at your first leisure hour, you
will favour me with your opinion of, and strictures on the
performance, it will be an additional obligation on, dear Sir, your
deeply indebted humble servant,
R. B.
* * * * *
CCIV.
TO MR. PETER HILL.
[The poet's eloquent apostrophe to poverty has no little feeling in
it: he beheld the money which his poems brought melt silently away,
and he looked to the future with more fear than hope.]
_Ellisland, 17th January, 1791._
Take these two guineas, and place them over against that d--mned
account of yours! which has gagged my mouth these five or six months!
I can as little write good things as apologies to the man I owe money
to. O the supreme curse of making three guineas do the business of
five! Not all the labours of Hercules; not all the Hebrews' three
centuries of Egyptian bondage, were such an insuperable business, such
an infernal task!! Poverty! thou half-sister of death, thou
cousin-german of hell: where shall I find force of execration equal to
the amplitude of thy demerits? Oppressed by thee, the venerable
ancient, grown hoary in the practice of every virtue, laden with years
and wretchedness, implores a little--little aid to support his
existence, from a stony-hearted son of Mammon, whose sun of prosperity
never knew a cloud; and is by him denied and insulted. Oppressed by
thee, the man of sentiment, whose heart glows with independence, and
melts with sensibility, inly pines under the neglect, or writhes in
bitterness of soul, under the contumely of arrogant, unfeeling wealth.
Oppressed by thee, the son of genius, whose ill-starred ambition
plants him at the tables of the fashionable and polite, must see in
suffering silence, his remark neglected, and his person despised,
while shallow greatness in his idiot attempts at wit, shall meet with
countenance and applause. Nor is it only the family of worth that have
reason to complain of thee: the children of folly and vice, though in
common with thee the offspring of evil, smart equally under thy rod.
Owing to thee, the man of unfortunate disposition and neglected
education, is condemned as a fool for his dissipation, despised and
shunned as a needy wretch, when his follies as usual bring him to
want; and when his unprincipled necessities drive him to dishonest
practices, he is abhorred as a miscreant, and perishes by the justice
of his country. But far otherwise is the lot of the man of family and
fortune. _His_ early follies and extravagance, are spirit and fire;
_his_ consequent wants are the embarrassments of an honest fellow; and
when, to remedy the matter, he has gained a legal commission to
plunder distant provinces, or massacre peaceful nations, he returns,
perhaps, laden with the spoils of rapine and murder; lives wicked and
respected, and dies a scoundrel and a lord.--Nay, worst of all, alas
for helpless woman! the needy prostitute, who has shivered at the
corner of the street, waiting to earn the wages of casual
prostitution, is left neglected and insulted, ridden down by the
chariot wheels of the coroneted RIP, hurrying on to the
guilty assignation; she who without the same necessities to plead,
riots nightly in the same guilty trade.
Well! divines may say of it what they please; but execration is to the
mind what phlebotomy is to the body: the vital sluices of both are
wonderfully relieved by their respective evacuations.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCV.
TO MR. CUNNINGHAM.
[To Alexander Cunningham the poet generally communicated his favourite
compositions.]
_Ellisland, 23d January, 1791._
Many happy returns of the season to you, my dear friend! As many of
the good things of this life, as is consistent with the usual mixture
of good and evil in the cup of being!
I have just finished a poem (Tam o' Shanter) which you will receive
enclosed. It is my first essay in the way of tales.
I have these several months been hammering at an elegy on the amiable
and accomplished Miss Burnet. I have got, and can get, no farther than
the following fragment, on which please give me your strictures. In
all kinds of poetic composition, I set great store by your opinion;
but in sentimental verses, in the poetry of the heart, no Roman
Catholic ever set more value on the infallibility of the Holy Father
than I do on yours.
I mean the introductory couplets as text verses.
ELEGY
ON THE LATE MISS BURNET, OF MONBODDO.
Life ne'er exulted in so rich a prize
As Burnet lovely from her native skies;
Nor envious death so triumph'd in a blow,
As that which laid th' accomplish'd Burnet low.
Let me hear from you soon.
Adieu!
R. B.
* * * * *
CCVI.
TO A.F. TYTLER, ESQ.
["I have seldom in my life," says Lord Woodhouselee, "tasted a higher
enjoyment from any work of genius than I received from Tam o'
Shanter."]
_Ellisland, February, 1791._
SIR,
Nothing less than the unfortunate accident I have met with, could have
prevented my grateful acknowledgments for your letter. His own
favourite poem, and that an essay in the walk of the muses entirely
new to him, where consequently his hopes and fears were on the most
anxious alarm for his success in the attempt; to have that poem so
much applauded by one of the first judges, was the most delicious
vibration that ever thrilled along the heart-strings of a poor poet.
However, Providence, to keep up the proper proportion of evil with the
good, which it seems is necessary in this sublunary state, thought
proper to check my exultation by a very serious misfortune. A day or
two after I received your letter, my horse came down with me and broke
my right arm. As this is the first service my arm has done me since
its disaster, I find myself unable to do more than just in general
terms thank you for this additional instance of your patronage and
friendship. As to the faults you detected in the piece, they are truly
there: one of them, the hit at the lawyer and priest, I shall cut out;
as to the falling off in the catastrophe, for the reason you justly
adduce, it cannot easily be remedied. Your approbation, Sir, has given
me such additional spirits to persevere in this species of poetic
composition, that I am already revolving two or three stories in my
fancy. If I can bring these floating ideas to bear any kind of
embodied form, it will give me additional opportunity of assuring you
how much I have the honour to be, &c.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCVII.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[The elegy on the beautiful Miss Burnet, of Monboddo, was laboured
zealously by Burns, but it never reached the excellence of some of his
other compositions.]
_Ellisland, 7th Feb. 1791._
When I tell you, Madam, that by a fall, not from my horse, but with my
horse, I have been a cripple some time, and that this is the first day
my arm and hand have been able to serve me in writing; you will allow
that it is too good an apology for my seemingly ungrateful silence. I
am now getting better, and am able to rhyme a little, which implies
some tolerable ease, as I cannot think that the most poetic genius is
able to compose on the rack.
I do not remember if ever I mentioned to you my having an idea of
composing an elegy on the late Miss Burnet, of Monboddo. I had the
honour of being pretty well acquainted with her, and have seldom felt
so much at the loss of an acquaintance, as when I heard that so
amiable and accomplished a piece of God's work was no more. I have, as
yet, gone no farther than the following fragment, of which please let
me have your opinion. You know that elegy is a subject so much
exhausted, that any new idea on the business is not to be expected:
'tis well if we can place an old idea in a new light. How far I have
succeeded as to this last, you will judge from what follows. I have
proceeded no further.
Your kind letter, with your kind _remembrance_ of your godson, came
safe. This last, Madam, is scarcely what my pride can bear. As to the
little fellow, he is, partiality apart, the finest boy I have for a
long time seen. He is now seventeen months old, has the small-pox and
measles over, has cut several teeth, and never had a grain of doctor's
drugs in his bowels.
I am truly happy to hear that the "little floweret" is blooming so
fresh and fair, and that the "mother plant" is rather recovering her
drooping head. Soon and well may her "cruel wounds" be healed. I have
written thus far with a good deal of difficulty. When I get a little
abler you shall hear farther from,
Madam, yours,
R. B.
* * * * *
CCVIII.
TO THE REV. ARCH. ALISON.
[Alison was much gratified it is said, with this recognition of the
principles laid down in his ingenious and popular work.]
_Ellisland, near Dumfries, 14th Feb. 1791._
SIR,
You must by this time have set me down as one of the most ungrateful
of men. You did me the honour to present me with a book, which does
honour to science and the intellectual powers of man, and I have not
even so much as acknowledged the receipt of it. The fact is, you
yourself are to blame for it. Flattered as I was by your telling me
that you wished to have my opinion of the work, the old spiritual
enemy of mankind, who knows well that vanity is one of the sins that
most easily beset me, put it into my head to ponder over the
performance with the look-out of a critic, and to draw up forsooth a
deep learned digest of strictures on a composition, of which, in fact,
until I read the book, I did not even know the first principles. I
own, Sir, that at first glance, several of your propositions startled
me as paradoxical. That the martial clangour of a trumpet had
something in it vastly more grand, heroic, and sublime, than the
twingle twangle of a jew's-harp: that the delicate flexure of a
rose-twig, when the half-blown flower is heavy with the tears of the
dawn, was infinitely more beautiful and elegant than the upright stub
of a burdock; and that from something innate and independent of all
associations of ideas;--these I had set down as irrefragable, orthodox
truths, until perusing your book shook my faith.--In short, Sir,
except Euclid's Elements of Geometry, which I made a shift to unravel
by my father's fire-side, in the winter evening of the first season I
held the plough, I never read a book which gave me such a quantum of
information, and added so much to my stock of ideas, as your "Essays
on the Principles of Taste." One thing, Sir, you must forgive my
mentioning as an uncommon merit in the work, I mean the language. To
clothe abstract philosophy in elegance of style, sounds something like
a contradiction in terms; but you have convinced me that they are
quite compatible.
I enclose you some poetic bagatelles of my late composition. The one
in print[198] is my first essay in the way of telling a tale.
I am, Sir, &c.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 198: Tam O' Shanter]
* * * * *
[Illustration: A NAVAL BATTLE.]
CCIX.
TO DR. MOORE.
[Moore admired but moderately the beautiful ballad on Queen Mary, and
the Elegy on Captain Matthew Henderson: Tam o' Shanter he thought full
of poetical beauties.--He again regrets that he writes in the language
of Scotland.]
_Ellisland, 20th February, 1791._
I do not know, Sir, whether you are a subscriber to _Grose's
Antiquities of Scotland._ If you are, the enclosed poem will not be
altogether new to you. Captain Grose did me the favour to send me a
dozen copies of the proof sheet, of which this is one. Should you have
read the piece before, still this will answer the principal end I have
in view: it will give me another opportunity of thanking you for all
your goodness to the rustic bard; and also of showing you, that the
abilities you have been pleased to commend and patronize are still
employed in the way you wish.
The _Elegy on Captain Henderson_, is a tribute to the memory of a man
I loved much. Poets have in this the same advantage as Roman
Catholics; they can be of service to their friends after they have
passed that bourne where all other kindness ceases to be of avail.
Whether, after all, either the one or the other be of any real service
to the dead, is, I fear, very problematical; but I am sure they are
highly gratifying to the living: and as a very orthodox text, I forget
where in scripture, says, "whatsoever is not of faith is sin;" so say
I, whatsoever is not detrimental to society, and is of positive
enjoyment, is of God, the giver of all good things, and ought to be
received and enjoyed by his creatures with thankful delight. As almost
all my religious tenets originate from my heart, I am wonderfully
pleased with the idea, that I can still keep up a tender intercourse
with the dearly beloved friend, or still more dearly beloved mistress,
who is gone to the world of spirits.
The ballad on Queen Mary was begun while I was busy with _Percy's
Reliques of English Poetry._ By the way, how much is every honest
heart, which has a tincture of Caledonian prejudice, obliged to you
for your glorious story of Buchanan and Targe! 'Twas an unequivocal
proof of your loyal gallantry of soul, giving Targe the victory. I
should have been mortified to the ground if you had not.
I have just read over, once more of many times, your _Zeluco._ I
marked with my pencil, as I went along, every passage that pleased me
particularly above the rest; and one or two, I think, which with
humble deference, I am disposed to think unequal to the merits of the
book. I have sometimes thought to transcribe these marked passages, or
at least so much of them as to point where they are, and send them to
you. Original strokes that strongly depict the human heart, is your
and Fielding's province beyond any other novelist I have ever perused.
Richardson indeed might perhaps be excepted; but unhappily, _dramatis
personæ_ are beings of another world; and however they may captivate
the unexperienced, romantic fancy of a boy or a girl, they will ever,
in proportion as we have made human nature our study, dissatisfy our
riper years.
As to my private concerns, I am going on, a mighty tax-gatherer before
the Lord, and have lately had the interest to get myself ranked on the
list of excise as a supervisor. I am not yet employed as such, but in
a few years I shall fall into the file of supervisorship by seniority.
I have had an immense loss in the death of the Earl of Glencairn; the
patron from whom all my fame and fortune took its rise. Independent of
my grateful attachment to him, which was indeed so strong that it
pervaded my very soul, and was entwined with the thread of my
existence: so soon as the prince's friends had got in (and every dog
you know has his day), my getting forward in the excise would have
been an easier business than otherwise it will be. Though this was a
consummation devoutly to be wished, yet, thank Heaven, I can live and
rhyme as I am: and as to my boys, poor little fellows! if I cannot
place them on as high an elevation in life, as I could wish, I shall,
if I am favoured so much of the Disposer of events as to see that
period, fix them on as broad and independent a basis as possible.
Among the many wise adages which have been treasured up by our
Scottish ancestors, this is one of the best, _Better be the head o'
the commonalty, than the tail o' the gentry._
But I am got on a subject, which however interesting to me, is of no
manner of consequence to you; so I shall give you a short poem on the
other page, and close this with assuring you how sincerely I have the
honour to be,
Yours, &c.
R. B.
Written on the blank leaf of a book, which I presented to a very young
lady, whom I had formerly characterized under the denomination of _The
Rose Bud._ * * *
* * * * *
CCX.
TO MR. CUNNINGHAM.
[Cunningham could tell a merry story, and sing a humorous song; nor
was he without a feeling for the deep sensibilities of his friend's
verse.]
_Ellisland, 12th March, 1791._
If the foregoing piece be worth your strictures, let me have them. For
my own part, a thing that I have just composed always appears through
a double portion of that partial medium in which an author will ever
view his own works. I believe in general, novelty has something in it
that inebriates the fancy, and not unfrequently dissipates and fumes
away like other intoxication, and leaves the poor patient, as usual,
with an aching heart. A striking instance of this might be adduced,
in the revolution of many a hymeneal honeymoon. But lest I sink into
stupid prose, and so sacrilegiously intrude on the office of my
parish-priest, I shall fill up the page in my own way, and give you
another song of my late composition, which will appear perhaps in
Johnson's work, as well as the former.
You must know a beautiful Jacobite air, _There'll never be peace 'till
Jamie comes hame._ When political combustion ceases to be the object
of princes and patriots, it then you know becomes the lawful prey of
historians and poets.
By yon castle wa' at the close of the day,
I heard a man sing, tho' his head it was grey;
And as he was singing, the tears fast down came--
There'll never be peace till Jamie comes hame.
If you like the air, and if the stanzas hit your fancy, you cannot
imagine, my dear friend, how much you would oblige me, if by the
charms of your delightful voice, you would give my honest effusion to
"the memory of joys that are past," to the few friends whom you
indulge in that pleasure. But I have scribbled on 'till I hear the
clock has intimated the near approach of
That hour, o' night's black arch the key-stane.--
So good night to you! Sound be your sleep, and delectable your dreams!
Apropos, how do you like this thought in a ballad, I have just now on
the tapis?
I look to the west when I gae to rest,
That happy my dreams and my slumbers may be;
Far, far in the west is he I lo'e best,
The lad that is dear to my babie and me!
Good night, once more, and God bless you!
R. B.
* * * * *
CCXI.
TO MR. ALEXANDER DALZEL,
FACTOR, FINDLAYSTON.
[Cromek says that Alexander Dalzel introduced the poetry of Burns to
the notice of the Earl of Glencairn, who carried the Kilmarnock
edition with him to Edinburgh, and begged that the poet would let him
know what his views in the world were, that he might further them.]
_Ellisland, 19th March, 1791._
MY DEAR SIR,
I have taken the liberty to frank this letter to you, as it encloses
an idle poem of mine, which I send you; and God knows you may perhaps
pay dear enough for it if you read it through. Not that this is my own
opinion; but the author, by the time he has composed and corrected his
work, has quite pored away all his powers of critical discrimination.
I can easily guess from my own heart, what you have felt on a late
most melancholy event. God knows what I have suffered, at the loss of
my best friend, my first and dearest patron and benefactor; the man to
whom I owe all that I am and have! I am gone into mourning for him,
and with more sincerity of grief than I fear some will, who by
nature's ties ought to feel on the occasion.
I will be exceedingly obliged to you, indeed, to let me know the news
of the noble family, how the poor mother and the two sisters support
their loss. I had a packet of poetic bagatelles ready to send to Lady
Betty, when I saw the fatal tidings in the newspaper. I see by the
same channel that the honoured REMAINS of my noble patron, are
designed to be brought to the family burial-place. Dare I trouble you
to let me know privately before the day of interment, that I may cross
the country, and steal among the crowd, to pay a tear to the last
sight of my ever revered benefactor? It will oblige me beyond
expression.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCXII.
TO MRS. GRAHAM,
OF FINTRAY.
[Mrs. Graham, of Fintray, felt both as a lady and a Scottish one, the
tender Lament of the fair and unfortunate princess, which this letter
contained.]
_Ellisland, 1791._
MADAM,
Whether it is that the story of our Mary Queen of Scots has a peculiar
effect on the feelings of a poet, or whether I have, in the enclosed
ballad, succeeded beyond my usual poetic success, I know not; but it
has pleased me beyond any effort of my muse for a good while past; on
that account I enclose it particularly to you. It is true, the purity
of my motives may be suspected. I am already deeply indebted to Mr.
Graham's goodness; and what, _in the usual ways of men_, is of
infinitely greater importance, Mr. G. can do me service of the utmost
importance in time to come. I was born a poor dog; and however I may
occasionally pick a better bone than I used to do, I know I must live
and die poor: but I will indulge the flattering faith that my poetry
will considerably outlive my poverty; and without any fustian
affectation of spirit, I can promise and affirm, that it must be no
ordinary craving of the latter shall ever make me do anything
injurious to the honest fame of the former. Whatever may be my
failings, for failings are a part of human nature, may they ever be
those of a generous heart, and an independent mind! It is no fault of
mine that I was born to dependence; nor is it Mr. Graham's chiefest
praise that he can command influence; but it is his merit to bestow,
not only with the kindness of a brother, but with the politeness of a
gentleman; and I trust it shall be mine, to receive with thankfulness,
and remember with undiminished gratitude.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCXIII.
TO MRS. GRAHAM,
OF FINTRAY.
[The following letter was written on the blank leaf of a new edition
of his poems, presented by the poet, to one whom he regarded, and
justly, as a patroness.]
It is probable, Madam, that this page may be read, when the hand that
now writes it shall be mouldering in the dust: may it then bear
witness, that I present you these volumes as a tribute of gratitude,
on my part ardent and sincere, as your and Mr. Graham's goodness to me
has been generous and noble! May every child of yours, in the hour of
need, find such a friend as I shall teach every child of mine, that
their father found in you.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCXIV.
TO THE REV. G. BAIRD.
[It was proposed to publish a new edition of the poems of Michael
Bruce, by subscription, and give the profits to his mother, a woman
eighty years old, and poor and helpless, and Burns was asked for a
poem to give a new impulse to the publication.]
_Ellisland, 1791._
REVEREND SIR,
Why did you, my dear Sir, write to me in such a hesitating style on
the business of poor Bruce? Don't I know, and have I not felt, the
many ills, the peculiar ills that poetic flesh is heir to? You shall
have your choice of all the unpublished poems I have; and had your
letter had my direction, so as to have reached me sooner (it only came
to my hand this moment), I should have directly put you out of
suspense on the subject. I only ask, that some prefatory advertisement
in the book, as well as the subscription bills, may bear, that the
publication is solely for the benefit of Bruce's mother. I would not
put it in the power of ignorance to surmise, or malice to insinuate,
that I clubbed a share in the work from mercenary motives. Nor need
you give me credit for any remarkable generosity in my part of the
business. I have such a host of peccadilloes, failings, follies, and
backslidings (anybody but myself might perhaps give some of them a
worse appellation), that by way of some balance, however trifling, in
the account, I am fain to do any good that occurs in my very limited
power to a fellow-creature, just for the selfish purpose of clearing a
little the vista of retrospection.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCXV.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[Francis Wallace Burns, the godson of Mrs. Dunlop, to whom this letter
refers, died at the age of fourteen--he was a fine and a promising
youth.]
_Ellisland, 11th April, 1791._
I am once more able, my honoured friend, to return you, with my own
hand, thanks for the many instances of your friendship, and
particularly for your kind anxiety in this last disaster, that my evil
genius had in store for me. However, life is chequered--joy and
sorrow--for on Saturday morning last, Mrs. Burns made me a present of
a fine boy; rather stouter, but not so handsome as your godson was at
his time of life. Indeed I look on your little namesake to be my _chef
d'oeuvre_ in that species of manufacture, as I look on Tam o'
Shanter to be my standard performance in the poetical line. 'Tis
true, both the one and the other discover a spice of roguish waggery,
that might perhaps be as well spared; but then they also show, in my
opinion, a force of genius and a finishing polish that I despair of
ever excelling. Mrs. Burns is getting stout again, and laid as lustily
about her to-day at breakfast, as a reaper from the corn-ridge. That
is the peculiar privilege and blessing of our hale, sprightly damsels,
that are bred among the _hay and heather._ We cannot hope for that
highly polished mind, that charming delicacy of soul, which is found
among the female world in the more elevated stations of life, and
which is certainly by far the most bewitching charm in the famous
cestus of Venus. It is indeed such an inestimable treasure, that where
it can be had in its native heavenly purity, unstained by some one or
other of the many shades of affectation, and unalloyed by some one or
other of the many species of caprice, I declare to Heaven, I should
think it cheaply purchased at the expense of every other earthly good!
But as this angelic creature is, I am afraid, extremely rare in any
station and rank of life, and totally denied to such a humble one as
mine, we meaner mortals must put up with the next rank of female
excellence--as fine a figure and face we can produce as any rank of
life whatever; rustic, native grace; unaffected modesty, and unsullied
purity; nature's mother-wit, and the rudiments of taste; a simplicity
of soul, unsuspicious of, because unacquainted with, the crooked ways
of a selfish, interested, disingenuous world; and the dearest charm of
all the rest, a yielding sweetness of disposition, and a generous
warmth of heart, grateful for love on our part, and ardently glowing
with a more than equal return; these, with a healthy frame, a sound,
vigorous constitution, which your higher ranks can scarcely ever hope
to enjoy, are the charms of lovely woman in my humble walk of life.
This is the greatest effort my broken arm has yet made. Do let me
hear, by first post, how _cher petit Monsieur_ comes on with his
small-pox. May almighty goodness preserve and restore him!
R. B.
* * * * *
CCXVI.
TO ----.
[That his works found their way to the newspapers, need have
occasioned no surprise: the poet gave copies of his favorite pieces
freely to his friends, as soon as they were written: who, in their
turn, spread their fame among their acquaintances.]
_Ellisland, 1791._
DEAR SIR,
I am exceedingly to blame in not writing you long ago; but the truth
is, that I am the most indolent of all human beings; and when I
matriculate in the herald's office, I intend that my supporters shall
be two sloths, my crest a slow-worm, and the motto, "Deil tak the
foremost." So much by way of apology for not thanking you sooner for
your kind execution of my commission.
I would have sent you the poem; but somehow or other it found its way
into the public papers, where you must have seen it.
I am ever, dear Sir,
Yours sincerely,
R. B.
* * * * *
CCXVII.
TO ----.
[This singular letter was sent by Burns, it is believed, to a critic,
who had taken him to task about obscure language, and imperfect
grammar.]
_Ellisland, 1791._
Thou eunuch of language: thou Englishman, who never was south the
Tweed: thou servile echo of fashionable barbarisms: thou quack,
vending the nostrums of empirical elocution: thou marriage-maker
between vowels and consonants, on the Gretna-green of caprice: thou
cobler, botching the flimsy socks of bombast oratory: thou blacksmith,
hammering the rivets of absurdity: thou butcher, imbruing thy hands in
the bowels of orthography: thou arch-heretic in pronunciation: thou
pitch-pipe of affected emphasis: thou carpenter, mortising the awkward
joints of jarring sentences: thou squeaking dissonance of cadence:
thou pimp of gender: thou Lion Herald to silly etymology: thou
antipode of grammar: thou executioner of construction: thou brood of
the speech-distracting builders of the Tower of Babel; thou lingual
confusion worse confounded: thou scape-gallows from the land of
syntax: thou scavenger of mood and tense: thou murderous accoucheur of
infant learning; thou _ignis fatuus_, misleading the steps of
benighted ignorance: thou pickle-herring in the puppet-show of
nonsense: thou faithful recorder of barbarous idiom: thou persecutor
of syllabication: thou baleful meteor, foretelling and facilitating
the rapid approach of Nox and Erebus.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCXVIII.
TO MR. CUNNINGHAM.
[To Clarke, the Schoolmaster, Burns, it is said, addressed several
letters, which on his death were put into the fire by his widow,
because of their license of language.]
_11th June, 1791._
Let me interest you, my dear Cunningham, in behalf of the gentleman
who waits on you with this. He is a Mr. Clarke, of Moffat, principal
schoolmaster there, and is at present suffering severely under the
persecution of one or two powerful individuals of his employers. He is
accused of harshness to boys that were placed under his care. God help
the teacher, if a man of sensibility and genius, and such is my friend
Clarke, when a booby father presents him with his booby son, and
insists on lighting up the rays of science, in a fellow's head whose
skull is impervious and inaccessible by any other way than a positive
fracture with a cudgel: a fellow whom in fact it savours of impiety to
attempt making a scholar of, as he has been marked a blockhead in the
book of fate, at the almighty fiat of his Creator.
The patrons of Moffat-school are, the ministers, magistrates, and
town-council of Edinburgh, and as the business comes now before them,
let me beg my dearest friend to do everything in his power to serve
the interests of a man of genius and worth, and a man whom I
particularly respect and esteem. You know some good fellows among the
magistracy and council, but particularly you have much to say with a
reverend gentleman to whom you have the honour of being very nearly
related, and whom this country and age have had the honour to produce.
I need not name the historian of Charles V. I tell him through the
medium of his nephew's influence, that Mr. Clarke is a gentleman who
will not disgrace even his patronage. I know the merits of the cause
thoroughly, and say it, that my friend is falling a sacrifice to
prejudiced ignorance.
God help the children of dependence! Hated and persecuted by their
enemies, and too often, alas! almost unexceptionably, received by
their friends with disrespect and reproach, under the thin disguise of
cold civility and humiliating advice. O! to be a sturdy savage,
stalking in the pride of his independence, amid the solitary wilds of
his deserts; rather than in civilized life, helplessly to tremble for
a subsistence, precarious as the caprice of a fellow-creature! Every
man has his virtues, and no man is without his failings; and curse on
that privileged plain-dealing of friendship, which, in the hour of my
calamity, cannot reach forth the helping hand without at the same time
pointing out those failings, and apportioning them their share in
procuring my present distress. My friends, for such the world calls
ye, and such ye think yourselves to be, pass by my virtues if you
please, but do, also, spare my follies: the first will witness in my
breast for themselves, and the last will give pain enough to the
ingenuous mind without you. And since deviating more or less from the
paths of propriety and rectitude, must be incident to human nature, do
thou, Fortune, put it in my power, always from myself, and of myself,
to bear the consequence of those errors! I do not want to be
independent that I may sin, but I want to be independent in my
sinning.
To return in this rambling letter to the subject I set out with, let
me recommend my friend, Mr. Clarke, to your acquaintance and good
offices; his worth entitles him to the one, and his gratitude will
merit the other. I long much to hear from you.
Adieu!
R. B.
* * * * *
CCXIX.
TO THE EARL OF BUCHAN.
[Lord Buchan printed this letter in his Essay on the Life of Thomson,
in 1792. His lordship invited Burns to leave his corn unreaped, walk
from Ellisland to Dryburgh, and help him to crown Thomson's bust with
bays, on Ednam Hill, on the 22d of September.]
_Ellisland, August 29th, 1791._
MY LORD,
Language sinks under the ardour of my feelings when I would thank your
lordship for the honour you have done me in inviting me to make one at
the coronation of the bust of Thomson. In my first enthusiasm in
reading the card you did me the honour to write me, I overlooked
every obstacle, and determined to go; but I fear it will not be in my
power. A week or two's absence, in the very middle of my harvest, is
what I much doubt I dare not venture on. I once already made a
pilgrimage _up_ the whole course of the Tweed, and fondly would I take
the same delightful journey _down_ the windings of that delightful
stream.
Your lordship hints at an ode for the occasion: but who would write
after Collins? I read over his verses to the memory of Thomson, and
despaired.--I got indeed to the length of three or four stanzas, in
the way of address to the shade of the bard, on crowning his bust. I
shall trouble your lordship with the subjoined copy of them, which, I
am afraid, will be but too convincing a proof how unequal I am to the
task. However, it affords me an opportunity of approaching your
lordship, and declaring how sincerely and gratefully I have the honour
to be, &c.,
R. B.
* * * * *
CCXX.
TO MR. THOMAS SLOAN.
[Thomas Sloan was a west of Scotland man, and seems, though not much
in correspondence, to have been on intimate terms with Burns.]
_Ellisland, Sept. 1, 1791._
MY DEAR SLOAN,
Suspense is worse than disappointment, for that reason I hurry to tell
you that I just now learn that Mr. Ballantyne does not choose to
interfere more in the business. I am truly sorry for it, but cannot
help it.
You blame me for not writing you sooner, but you will please to
recollect that you omitted one little necessary piece of
information;--your address.
However, you know equally well, my hurried life, indolent temper, and
strength of attachment. It must be a longer period than the longest
life "in the world's hale and undegenerate days," that will make me
forget so dear a friend as Mr. Sloan. I am prodigal enough at times,
but I will not part with such a treasure as that.
I can easily enter into the _embarras_ of your present situation. You
know my favourite quotation from Young--
---------------"On reason build RESOLVE!
That column of true majesty in man;"
and that other favourite one from Thomson's Alfred--
"What proves the hero truly GREAT,
Is never, never to despair."
Or shall I quote you an author of your acquaintance?
"---- Whether DOING, SUFFERING, OR FORBEARING,
You may do miracles by--PERSEVERING."
I have nothing new to tell you. The few friends we have are going on
in the old way. I sold my crop on this day se'ennight, and sold it
very well. A guinea an acre, on an average, above value. But such a
scene of drunkenness was hardly ever seen in this country. After the
roup was over, about thirty people engaged in a battle, every man for
his own hand, and fought it out for three hours. Nor was the scene
much better in the house. No fighting, indeed, but folks lying drunk
on the floor, and decanting, until both my dogs got so drunk by
attending them, that they could not stand. You will easily guess how I
enjoyed the scene; as I was no farther over than you used to see me.
Mrs. B. and family have been in Ayrshire these many weeks.
Farewell; and God bless you, my dear friend!
R. B.
* * * * *
CCXXI.
TO LADY E. CUNNINGHAM.
[The poem enclosed was the Lament for James, Earl of Glencairn: it is
probable that the Earl's sister liked the verses, for they were
printed soon afterwards.]
MY LADY,
I would, as usual, have availed myself of the privilege your goodness
has allowed me, of sending you anything I compose in my poetical way;
but as I had resolved, so soon as the shock of my irreparable loss
would allow me, to pay a tribute to my late benefactor, I determined
to make that the first piece I should do myself the honour of sending
you. Had the wing of my fancy been equal to the ardour of my heart,
the enclosed had been much more worthy your perusal: as it is, I beg
leave to lay it at your ladyship's feet. As all the world knows my
obligations to the late Earl of Glencairn, I would wish to show as
openly that my heart glows, and will ever glow, with the most grateful
sense and remembrance of his lordship's goodness. The sables I did
myself the honour to wear to his lordship's memory, were not the
"mockery of woe." Nor shall my gratitude perish with me!--if among my
children I shall have a son that has a heart, he shall hand it down to
his child as a family honour, and a family debt, that my dearest
existence I owe to the noble house of Glencairn!
I was about to say, my lady, that if you think the poem may venture to
see the light, I would, in some way or other, give it to the world.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCXXII.
TO MR. AINSLIE.
[It has been said that the poet loved to aggravate his follies to his
friends: but that this tone of aggravation was often ironical, this
letter, as well as others, might be cited.]
_Ellisland, 1791._
MY DEAR AINSLIE,
Can you minister to a mind diseased? can you, amid the horrors of
penitence, remorse, head-ache, nausea, and all the rest of the d----d
hounds of hell, that beset a poor wretch, who has been guilty of the
sin of drunkenness--can you speak peace to a troubled soul?
_Miserable perdu_ that I am, I have tried everything that used to
amuse me, but in vain: here must I sit, a monument of the vengeance
laid up in store for the wicked, slowly counting every chick of the
clock as it slowly, slowly, numbers over these lazy scoundrels of
hours, who, d----n them, are ranked up before me, every one at his
neighbour's backside, and every one with a burthen of anguish on his
back, to pour on my devoted head--and there is none to pity me. My
wife scolds me! my business torments me, and my sins come staring me
in the face, every one telling a more bitter tale than his
fellow.--When I tell you even * * * has lost its power to please, you
will guess something of my hell within, and all around me--I begun
_Elibanks and Elibraes_, but the stanzas fell unenjoyed, and
unfinished from my listless tongue: at last I luckily thought of
reading over an old letter of yours, that lay by me in my book-case,
and I felt something for the first time since I opened my eyes, of
pleasurable existence. ---- Well--I begin to breathe a little, since I
began to write to you. How are you, and what are you doing? How goes
Law? Apropos, for connexion's sake, do not address to me supervisor,
for that is an honour I cannot pretend to--I am on the list, as we
call it, for a supervisor, and will be called out by and bye to act as
one; but at present, I am a simple gauger, tho' t'other day I got an
appointment to an excise division of 25_l. per annum_ better than the
rest. My present income, down money, is 70_l. per annum._
I have one or two good fellows here whom you would be glad to know.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCXXIII.
TO COL. FULLARTON.
OF FULLARTON.
[This letter was first published in the Edinburgh Chronicle.]
_Ellisland, 1791._
SIR,
I have just this minute got the frank, and next minute must send it to
post, else I purposed to have sent you two or three other bagatelles,
that might have amused a vacant hour about as well as "Six excellent
new songs," or, the Aberdeen 'Prognostication for the year to come.' I
shall probably trouble you soon with another packet. About the gloomy
month of November, when 'the people of England hang and drown
themselves,' anything generally is better than one's own thought.
Fond as I may be of my own productions, it is not for their sake that
I am so anxious to send you them. I am ambitious, covetously ambitious
of being known to a gentleman whom I am proud to call my countryman; a
gentleman who was a foreign ambassador as soon as he was a man, and a
leader of armies as soon as he was a soldier, and that with an eclat
unknown to the usual minions of a court, men who, with all the
adventitious advantages of princely connexions and princely fortune,
must yet, like the caterpillar, labour a whole lifetime before they
reach the wished height, there to roost a stupid chrysalis, and doze
out the remaining glimmering existence of old age.
If the gentleman who accompanied you when you did me the honour of
calling on me, is with you, I beg to be respectfully remembered to
him.
I have the honour to be,
Sir,
Your highly obliged, and most devoted
Humble servant,
R. B.
* * * * *
CCXXIV.
TO MISS DAVIES.
[This accomplished lady was the youngest daughter of Dr. Davies, of
Tenby, in Pembrokeshire: she was related to the Riddels of Friar's
Carse, and one of her sisters married Captain Adam Gordon, of the
noble family of Kenmure. She had both taste and skill in verse.]
It is impossible, Madam, that the generous warmth and angelic purity
of your youthful mind, can have any idea of that moral disease under
which I unhappily must rank us the chief of sinners; I mean a
torpitude of the moral powers, that may be called, a lethargy of
conscience. In vain Remorse rears her horrent crest, and rouses all
her snakes; beneath the deadly fixed eye and leaden hand of Indolence,
their wildest ire is charmed into the torpor of the bat, slumbering
out the rigours of winter, in the chink of a ruined wall. Nothing
less, Madam, could have made me so long neglect your obliging
commands. Indeed I had one apology--the bagatelle was not worth
presenting. Besides, so strongly am I interested in Miss Davies's fate
and welfare in the serious business of life, amid its chances and
changes, that to make her the subject of a silly ballad is downright
mockery of these ardent feelings; 'tis like an impertinent jest to a
dying friend.
Gracious Heaven! why this disparity between our wishes and our powers?
Why is the most generous wish to make others blest, impotent and
ineffectual--as the idle breeze that crosses the pathless desert! In
my walks of life I have met with a few people to whom how gladly would
I have said--"Go, be happy! I know that your hearts have been wounded
by the scorn of the proud, whom accident has placed above you--or
worse still, in whose hands are, perhaps, placed many of the comforts
of your life. But there! ascend that rock, Independence, and look
justly down on their littleness of soul. Make the worthless tremble
under your indignation, and the foolish sink before your contempt; and
largely impart that happiness to others, which, I am certain, will
give yourselves so much pleasure to bestow."
Why, dear Madam, must I wake from this delightful revery, and find it
all a dream? Why, amid my generous enthusiasm, must I, find myself
poor and powerless, incapable of wiping one tear from the eye of pity,
or of adding one comfort to the friend I love!--Out upon the world,
say I, that its affairs are administered so ill! They talk of
reform;--good Heaven! what a reform would I make among the sons and
even the daughters of men!--Down, immediately, should go fools from
the high places, where misbegotten chance has perked them up, and
through life should they skulk, ever haunted by their native
insignificance, as the body marches accompanied by its shadow.--As for
a much more formidable class, the knaves, I am at a loss what to do
with them: had I a world, there should not be a knave in it.
But the hand that could give, I would liberally fill: and I would pour
delight on the heart that could kindly forgive, and generously love.
Still the inequalities of life are, among men, comparatively
tolerable--but there is a delicacy, a tenderness, accompanying every
view in which we can place lovely Woman, that are grated and shocked
at the rude, capricious distinctions of fortune. Woman is the
blood-royal of life: let there be slight degrees of precedency among
them--but let them be ALL sacred.--Whether this last sentiment be
right or wrong, I am not accountable; it is an original component
feature of my mind.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCXXV.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[Burns, says Cromek, acknowledged that a refined and accomplished
woman was a being all but new to him till he went to Edinburgh, and
received letters from Mrs. Dunlop.]
_Ellisland, 17th December, 1791._
Many thanks to you, Madam, for your good news respecting the little
floweret and the mother-plant. I hope my poetic prayers have been
heard, and will be answered up to the warmest sincerity of their
fullest extent; and then Mrs. Henri will find her little darling the
representative of his late parent, in everything but his abridged
existence.
I have just finished the following song, which to a lady the
descendant of Wallace--and many heroes of his true illustrious
line--and herself the mother of several soldiers, needs neither
preface nor apology.
_Scene_--_a field of battle_--_time of the day, evening;
the wounded and dying of the victorious army are supposed to
join in the following_
SONG OF DEATH.
Farewell, thou fair day, thou green earth, and ye skies
Now gay with the bright setting sun;
Farewell, loves and friendships, ye dear tender ties--
Our race of existence is run!
The circumstance that gave rise to the foregoing verses was, looking
over with a musical friend M'Donald's collection of Highland airs, I
was struck with one, an Isle of Skye tune, entitled "Oran and Aoig,
or, The Song of Death," to the measure of which I have adapted my
stanzas. I have of late composed two or three other little pieces,
which, ere yon full-orbed moon, whose broad impudent face now stares
at old mother earth all night, shall have shrunk into a modest
crescent, just peeping forth at dewy dawn, I shall find an hour to
transcribe for you. _A Dieu je vous commende._
R. B.
* * * * *
CCXXVI.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[That the poet spoke mildly concerning the rebuke which he received
from the Excise, on what he calls his political delinquencies, his
letter to Erskine of Mar sufficiently proves.]
_5th January, 1792._
You see my hurried life, Madam: I can only command starts of time;
however, I am glad of one thing; since I finished the other sheet, the
political blast that threatened my welfare is overblown. I have
corresponded with Commissioner Graham, for the board had made me the
subject of their animadversions; and now I have the pleasure of
informing you, that all is set to rights in that quarter. Now as to
these informers, may the devil be let loose to ---- but, hold! I was
praying most fervently in my last sheet, and I must not so soon fall a
swearing in this.
Alas! how little do the wantonly or idly officious think what mischief
they do by their malicious insinuations, indirect impertinence, or
thoughtless blabbings. What a difference there is in intrinsic worth,
candour, benevolence, generosity, kindness,--in all the charities and
all the virtues, between one class of human beings and another! For
instance, the amiable circle I so lately mixed with in the hospitable
hall of Dunlop, their generous hearts--their uncontaminated dignified
minds--their informed and polished understandings--what a contrast,
when compared--if such comparing were not downright sacrilege--with
the soul of the miscreant who can deliberately plot the destruction of
an honest man that never offended him, and with a grin of satisfaction
see the unfortunate being, his faithful wife, and prattling innocents,
turned over to beggary and ruin!
Your cup, my dear Madam, arrived safe. I had two worthy fellows dining
with me the other day, when I, with great formality, produced my
whigmeeleerie cup, and told them that it had been a family-piece among
the descendants of William Wallace. This roused such an enthusiasm,
that they insisted on bumpering the punch round in it; and by and by,
never did your great ancestor lay a _Suthron_ more completely to rest,
than for a time did your cup my two friends. Apropos, this is the
season of wishing. My God bless you, my dear friend, and bless me, the
humblest and sincerest of your friends, by granting you yet many
returns of the season! May all good things attend you and yours
wherever they are scattered over the earth!
R. B.
* * * * *
CCXXVII.
TO MR. WILLIAM SMELLIE,
PRINTER.
[When Burns sends his warmest wishes to Smellie, and prays that
fortune may never place his subsistence at the mercy of a knave, or
set his character on the judgment of a fool, he had his political
enemies probably in his mind.]
_Dumfries, 22d January, 1792._
I sit down, my dear Sir, to introduce a young lady to you, and a lady
in the first ranks of fashion too. What a task! to you--who care no
more for the herd of animals called young ladies, than you do for the
herd of animals called young gentlemen. To you--who despise and detest
the groupings and combinations of fashion, as an idiot painter that
seems industrious to place staring fools and unprincipled knaves in
the foreground of his picture, while men of sense and honesty are too
often thrown in the dimmest shades. Mrs. Riddel, who will take this
letter to town with her, and send it to you, is a character that, even
in your own way, as a naturalist and a philosopher, would be an
acquisition to your acquaintance. The lady, too, is a votary to the
muses; and as I think myself somewhat of a judge in my own trade, I
assure you that her verses, always correct, and often elegant, are
much beyond the common run of the _lady-poetesses_ of the day. She is
a great admirer of your book; and, hearing me say that I was
acquainted with you, she begged to be known to you, as she is just
going to pay her first visit to our Caledonian capital. I told her
that her best way was, to desire her near relation, and your intimate
friend, Craigdarroch, to have you at his house while she was there;
and lest you might think of a lively West Indian girl, of eighteen, as
girls of eighteen too often deserve to be thought of, I should take
care to remove that prejudice. To be impartial, however, in
appreciating the lady's merits, she has one unlucky failing: a failing
which you will easily discover, as she seems rather pleased with
indulging in it; and a failing that you will easily pardon, as it is a
sin which very much besets yourself;--where she dislikes, or despises,
she is apt to make no more a secret of it, than where she esteems and
respects.
I will not present you with the unmeaning _compliments of the season_,
but I will send you my warmest wishes and most ardent prayers, that
Fortune may never throw your subsistence to the mercy of a Knave, or
set your character on the judgment of a Fool; but that, upright and
erect, you may walk to an honest grave, where men of letters shall
say, here lies a man who did honour to science, and men of worth shall
say, here lies a man who did honour to human nature.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCXXVIII.
TO MR. W. NICOL.
[This ironical letter was in answer to one from Nicol, containing
counsel and reproof.]
_20th February, 1792._
O thou, wisest among the wise, meridian blaze of prudence, full-moon
of discretion, and chief of many counsellors! How infinitely is thy
puddle-headed, rattle-headed, wrong-headed, round-headed slave
indebted to thy supereminent goodness, that from the luminous path of
thy own right-lined rectitude, thou lookest benignly down on an erring
wretch, of whom the zig-zag wanderings defy all the powers of
calculation, from the simple copulation of units, up to the hidden
mysteries of fluxions! May one feeble ray of that light of wisdom
which darts from thy sensorium, straight as the arrow of heaven, and
bright as the meteor of inspiration, may it be my portion, so that I
may be less unworthy of the face and favour of that father of proverbs
and master of maxims, that antipode of folly, and magnet among the
sages, the wise and witty Willie Nicol! Amen! Amen! Yea, so be it!
For me! I am a beast, a reptile, and know nothing! From the cave of my
ignorance, amid the fogs of my dulness, and pestilential fumes of my
political heresies, I look up to thee, as doth a toad through the
iron-barred lucerne of a pestiferous dungeon, to the cloudless glory
of a summer sun! Sorely sighing in bitterness of soul, I say, when
shall my name be the quotation of the wise, and my countenance be the
delight of the godly, like the illustrious lord of Laggan's many
hills? As for him, his works are perfect: never did the pen of calumny
blur the fair page of his reputation, nor the bolt of hatred fly at
his dwelling.
Thou mirror of purity, when shall the elfine lamp of my glimmerous
understanding, purged from sensual appetites and gross desires, shine
like the constellation of thy intellectual powers!--As for thee, thy
thoughts are pure, and thy lips are holy. Never did the unhallowed
breath of the powers of darkness, and the pleasures of darkness,
pollute the sacred flame of thy sky-descended and heaven-bound
desires: never did the vapours of impurity stain the unclouded serene
of thy cerulean imagination. O that like thine were the tenor of my
life, like thine the tenor of my conversation! then should no friend
fear for my strength, no enemy rejoice in my weakness! Then should I
lie down and rise up, and none to make me afraid.--May thy pity and
thy prayer be exercised for, O thou lamp of wisdom and mirror of
morality! thy devoted slave.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCXXIX.
TO FRANCIS GROSE, ESQ., F.S.A.
[Captain Grose was introduced to Burns, by his brother Antiquary, of
Friar's Carse: he was collecting materials for his work on the
Antiquities of Scotland.]
_Dumfries, 1792._
SIR,
I believe among all our Scots Literati you have not met with Professor
Dugald Stewart, who fills the moral philosophy chair in the University
of Edinburgh. To say that he is a man of the first parts, and what is
more, a man of the first worth, to a gentleman of your general
acquaintance, and who so much enjoys the luxury of unencumbered
freedom and undisturbed privacy, is not perhaps recommendation
enough:--but when I inform you that Mr. Stewart's principal
characteristic is your favourite feature; _that_ sterling independence
of mind, which, though every man's right, so few men have the courage
to claim, and fewer still, the magnanimity to support:--when I tell
you that, unseduced by splendour, and undisgusted by wretchedness, he
appreciates the merits of the various actors in the great drama of
life, merely as they perform their parts--in short, he is a man after
your own heart, and I comply with his earnest request in letting you
know that he wishes above all things to meet with you. His house,
Catrine, is within less than a mile of Sorn Castle, which you proposed
visiting; or if you could transmit him the enclosed, he would with the
greatest pleasure meet you anywhere in the neighbourhood. I write to
Ayrshire to inform Mr. Stewart that I have acquitted myself of my
promise. Should your time and spirits permit your meeting with Mr.
Stewart, 'tis well; if not, I hope you will forgive this liberty, and
I have at least an opportunity of assuring you with what truth and
respect,
I am, Sir,
Your great admirer,
And very humble servant,
R. B.
* * * * *
CCXXX.
TO FRANCIS GROSE, ESQ., F.S.A.
[This letter, interesting to all who desire to see how a poet works
beauty and regularity out of a vulgar tradition, was first printed by
Sir Egerton Brydges, in the "Censura Literaria."]
_Dumfries, 1792._
Among the many witch stories I have heard, relating to Alloway kirk, I
distinctly remember only two or three.
Upon a stormy night, amid whistling squalls of wind, and bitter blasts
of hail; in short, on such a night as the devil would choose to take
the air in; a farmer or farmer's servant was plodding and plashing
homeward with his plough-irons on his shoulder, having been getting
some repairs on them at a neighbouring smithy. His way lay by the kirk
of Alloway, and being rather on the anxious look-out in approaching a
place so well known to be a favourite haunt of the devil and the
devil's friends and emissaries, he was struck aghast by discovering
through the horrors of the storm and stormy night, a light, which on
his nearer approach plainly showed itself to proceed from the haunted
edifice. Whether he had been fortified from above, on his devout
supplication, as is customary with people when they suspect the
immediate presence of Satan; or whether, according to another custom,
he had got courageously drunk at the smithy, I will not pretend to
determine; but so it was that he ventured to go up to, nay, into, the
very kirk. As luck would have it, his temerity came off unpunished.
The members of the infernal junto were all out on some midnight
business or other, and he saw nothing but a kind of kettle or caldron,
depending from the roof, over the fire, simmering some heads of
unchristened children, limbs of executed malefactors, &c., for the
business of the night.--It was in for a penny in for a pound, with the
honest ploughman: so without ceremony he unhooked the caldron from off
the fire, and pouring out the damnable ingredients, inverted it on his
head, and carried it fairly home, where it remained long in the
family, a living evidence of the truth of the story.
Another story, which I can prove to be equally authentic, was as
follows:
On a market day in the town of Ayr, a farmer from Carrick, and
consequently whose way lay by the very gate of Alloway kirk-yard, in
order to cross the river Doon at the old bridge, which is about two or
three hundred yards farther on than the said gate, had been detained
by his business, till by the time he reached Alloway it was the wizard
hour, between night and morning.
Though he was terrified with a blaze streaming from the kirk, yet it
is a well-known fact that to turn back on these occasions is running
by far the greatest risk of mischief, he prudently advanced on his
road. When he had reached the gate of the kirk-yard, he was surprised
and entertained, through the ribs and arches of an old gothic window,
which still faces the highway, to see a dance of witches merrily
footing it round their old sooty blackguard master, who was keeping
them all alive with the power of his bag-pipe. The farmer stopping his
horse to observe them a little, could plainly descry the faces of many
old women of his acquaintance and neighbourhood. How the gentleman was
dressed tradition does not say; but that the ladies were all in their
smocks: and one of them happening unluckily to have a smock which was
considerably too short to answer all the purpose of that piece of
dress, our farmer was so tickled, that he involuntarily burst out,
with a loud laugh, "Weel luppen, Maggy wi' the short sark!" and
recollecting himself, instantly spurred his horse to the top of his
speed. I need not mention the universally known fact, that no
diabolical power can pursue you beyond the middle of a running stream.
Lucky it was for the poor farmer that the river Doon was so near, for
notwithstanding the speed of his horse, which was a good one, against
he reached the middle of the arch of the bridge, and consequently the
middle of the stream, the pursuing, vengeful hags, were so close at
big heels, that one of them actually sprung to seize him; but it was
too late, nothing was on her side of the stream, but the horse's tail,
which immediately gave way at her infernal grip, as if blasted by a
stroke of lightning; but the farmer was beyond her reach. However, the
unsightly, tailless condition of the vigorous steed was, to the last
hour of the noble creature's life, an awful warning to the Carrick
farmers, not to stay too late in Ayr markets.
The last relation I shall give, though equally true, is not so well
identified as the two former, with regard to the scene; but as the
best authorities give it for Alloway, I shall relate it.
On a summer's evening, about the time that nature puts on her sables
to mourn the expiry of the cheerful day, a shepherd boy, belonging to
a farmer in the immediate neighbourhood of Alloway kirk, had just
folded his charge, and was returning home. As he passed the kirk, in
the adjoining field, he fell in with a crew of men and women, who were
busy pulling stems of the plant Ragwort. He observed that as each
person pulled a Ragwort, he or she got astride of it, and called out,
"Up horsie!" on which the Ragwort flew off, like Pegasus, through the
air with its rider. The foolish boy likewise pulled his Ragwort, and
cried with the rest, "Up horsie!" and, strange to tell, away he flew
with the company. The first stage at which the cavalcade stopt, was a
merchant's wine-cellar in Bordeaux, where, without saying by your
leave, they quaffed away at the best the cellar could afford, until
the morning, foe to the imps and works of darkness, threatened to
throw light on the matter, and frightened them from their carousals.
The poor shepherd lad, being equally a stranger to the scene and the
liquor, heedlessly got himself drunk; and when the rest took horse, he
fell asleep, and was found so next day by some of the people belonging
to the merchant. Somebody that understood Scotch, asking him what he
was, he said such-a-one's herd in Alloway, and by some means or other
getting home again, he lived long to tell the world the wondrous tale.
I am, &c.,
R. B.
* * * * *
CCXXXI.
TO MR. S. CLARKE,
EDINBURGH.
[This introduction of Clarke, the musician, to the M'Murdo's of
Drumlanrig, brought to two of the ladies the choicest honours of the
muse.]
_July 1, 1792._
Mr. Burns begs leave to present his most respectful compliments to Mr.
Clarke.--Mr. B. some time ago did himself the honour of writing to Mr.
C. respecting coming out to the country, to give a little musical
instruction in a highly respectable family, where Mr. C. may have his
own terms, and may be as happy as indolence, the devil, and the gout
will permit him. Mr. B. knows well how Mr. C. is engaged with another
family; but cannot Mr. C. find two or three weeks to spare to each of
them? Mr. B. is deeply impressed with, and awfully conscious of, the
high importance of Mr. C.'s time, whether in the winged moments of
symphonious exhibition, at the keys of harmony, while listening
seraphs cease their own less delightful strains; or in the drowsy
arms of slumb'rous repose, in the arms of his dearly beloved
elbowchair, where the frowsy, but potent power of indolence,
circumfuses her vapours round, and sheds her dews on the head of her
darling son. But half a line conveying half a meaning from Mr. C.
would make Mr. B. the happiest of mortals.
* * * * *
CCXXXII.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[To enthusiastic fits of admiration for the young and the beautiful,
such as Burns has expressed in this letter, he loved to give way:--we
owe some of his best songs to these sallies.]
_Annan Water Foot, 22d August, 1792._
Do not blame me for it, Madam;--my own conscience, hackneyed and
weather-beaten as it is in watching and reproving my vagaries,
follies, indolence, &c., has continued to punish me sufficiently.
* * * * *
Do you think it possible, my dear and honoured friend, that I could be
so lost to gratitude for many favours; to esteem for much worth, and
to the honest, kind, pleasurably tie of, now old acquaintance, and I
hope and am sure of progressive, increasing friendship--as for a
single day, not to think of you--to ask the Fates what they are doing
and about to do with my much-loved friend and her wide-scattered
connexions, and to beg of them to be as kind to you and yours as they
possibly can?
Apropos! (though how it is apropos, I have not leisure to explain,) do
you not know that I am almost in love with an acquaintance of
yours?--Almost! said I--I am in love, souse! over head and ears, deep
as the most unfathomable abyss of the boundless ocean; but the word
Love, owing to the _intermingledoms_ of the good and the bad, the pure
and the impure, in this world, being rather an equivocal term for
expressing one's sentiments and sensations, I must do justice to the
sacred purity of my attachment. Know, then, that the heart-struck awe;
the distant humble approach; the delight we should have in gazing upon
and listening to a messenger of heaven, appearing in all the unspotted
purity of his celestial home, among the coarse, polluted, far inferior
sons of men, to deliver to them tidings that make their hearts swim in
joy, and their imaginations soar in transport--such, so delighting and
so pure, were the emotions of my soul on meeting the other day with
Miss Lesley Baillie, your neighbour, at M----. Mr. B. with his two
daughters, accompanied by Mr. H. of G. passing through Dumfries a few
days ago, on their way to England, did me the honour of calling on me;
on which I took my horse (though God knows I could ill spare the
time), and accompanied them fourteen or fifteen miles, and dined and
spent the day with them. 'Twas about nine, I think, when I left them,
and riding home, I composed the following ballad, of which you will
probably think you have a dear bargain, as it will cost you another
groat of postage. You must know that there is an old ballad beginning
with--
"My bonnie Lizzie Baillie
I'll rowe thee in my plaidie, &c."
So I parodied it as follows, which is literally the first copy,
"unanointed, unanneal'd;" as Hamlet says.--
O saw ye bonny Lesley
As she gaed o'er the border?
She's gane like Alexander,
To spread her conquests farther.
So much for ballads. I regret that you are gone to the east country,
as I am to be in Ayrshire in about a fortnight. This world of ours,
notwithstanding it has many good things in it, yet it has ever had
this curse, that two or three people, who would be the happier the
oftener they met together, are, almost without exception, always so
placed as never to meet but once or twice a-year, which, considering
the few years of a man's life, is a very great "evil under the sun,"
which I do not recollect that Solomon has mentioned in his catalogue
of the miseries of man. I hope and believe that there is a state of
existence beyond the grave, where the worthy of this life will renew
their former intimacies, with this endearing addition, that, "we meet
to part no more!"
. . . . . . . . . . . .
"Tell us, ye dead,
Will none of you in pity disclose the secret,
What 'tis you are, and we must shortly be?"
BLAIR
A thousand times have I made this apostrophe to the departed sons of
men, but not one of them has ever thought fit to answer the question.
"O that some courteous ghost would blab it out!" but it cannot be; you
and I, my friend, must make the experiment by ourselves and for
ourselves. However, I am so convinced that an unshaken faith in the
doctrines of religion is not only necessary, by making us better men,
but also by making us happier men, that I should take every care that
your little godson, and every little creature that shall call me
father, shall be taught them.
So ends this heterogeneous letter, written at this wild place of the
world, in the intervals of my labour of discharging a vessel of rum
from Antigua.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCXXXIII.
TO MR. CUNNINGHAM.
[There is both bitterness and humour in this letter: the poet
discourses on many matters, and woman is among them--but he places the
bottle at his elbow as an antidote against the discourtesy of
scandal.]
_Dumfries, 10th September, 1792._
No! I will not attempt an apology.--Amid all my hurry of business,
grinding the faces of the publican and the sinner on the merciless
wheels of the Excise; making ballads, and then drinking, and singing
them! and, over and above all, the correcting the press-work of two
different publications; still, still I might have stolen five minutes
to dedicate to one of the first of my friends and fellow-creatures. I
might have done as I do at present, snatched an hour near "witching
time of night," and scrawled a page or two. I might have congratulated
my friend on his marriage; or I might have thanked the Caledonian
archers for the honour they have done me (though, to do myself
justice, I intended to have done both in rhyme, else I had done both
long ere now). Well, then, here's to your good health! for you must
know, I have set a nipperkin of toddy by me, just by way of spell, to
keep away the meikle horned deil, or any of his subaltern imps who may
be on their nightly rounds.
But what shall I write to you?--"The voice said cry," and I said,
"what shall I cry?"--O, thou spirit! whatever thou art, or wherever
thou makest thyself visible! be thou a bogle by the eerie side of an
auld thorn, in the dreary glen through which the herd-callan maun
bicker in his gloamin route frae the faulde!--Be thou a brownie, set,
at dead of night, to thy task by the blazing ingle, or in the solitary
barn, where the repercussions of thy iron flail half affright thyself
as thou performest the work of twenty of the sons of men, ere the
cock-crowing summon thee to thy ample cog of substantial brose--Be
thou a kelpie, haunting the ford or ferry, in the starless night,
mixing thy laughing yell with the howling of the storm and the roaring
of the flood, as thou viewest the perils and miseries of man on the
foundering horse, or in the tumbling boat!--or, lastly, be thou a
ghost, paying thy nocturnal visits to the hoary ruins of decayed
grandeur; or performing thy mystic rites in the shadow of the
time-worn church, while the moon looks, without a cloud, on the silent
ghastly dwellings of the dead around thee! or taking thy stand by the
bedside of the villain, or the murderer, pourtraying on his dreaming
fancy, pictures, dreadful as the horrors of unveiled hell, and
terrible as the wrath of incensed Deity!--Come, thou spirit, but not
in these horrid forms; come with the milder, gentle, easy
inspirations, which thou breathest round the wig of a prating
advocate, or the tête of a tea-sipping gossip, while their tongues run
at the light-horse gallop of clishmaclaver for ever and ever--come
and assist a poor devil who is quite jaded in the attempt to share
half an idea among half a hundred words; to fill up four quarto pages,
while he has not got one single sentence of recollection, information,
or remark worth putting pen to paper for.
I feel, I feel the presence of supernatural assistance! circled in the
embrace of my elbowchair, my breast labours, like the bloated Sybil on
her three-footed stool, and like her, too, labours with
Nonsense.--Nonsense, suspicious name! Tutor, friend, and finger-post
in the mystic mazes of law; the cadaverous paths of physic; and
particularly in the sightless soarings of SCHOOL DIVINITY,
who, leaving Common Sense confounded at his strength of pinion,
Reason, delirious with eyeing his giddy flight; and Truth creeping
back into the bottom of her well, cursing the hour that ever she
offered her scorned alliance to the wizard power of Theologic
Vision--raves abroad on all the winds. "On earth Discord! a gloomy
Heaven above, opening her jealous gates to the nineteenth thousandth
part of the tithe of mankind; and below, an inescapable and inexorable
hell, expanding its leviathan jaws for the vast residue of
mortals!!!"--O doctrine! comfortable and healing to the weary,
wounded soul of man! Ye sons and daughters of affliction, ye _pauvres
miserables_, to whom day brings no pleasure, and night yields no rest,
be comforted! "'Tis but _one_ to nineteen hundred thousand that your
situation will mend in this world;" so, alas, the experience of the
poor and the needy too often affirms; and 'tis nineteen hundred
thousand sand to _one_, by the dogmas of * * * * * * * * that you will be
damned eternally in the world to come!
But of all nonsense, religious nonsense is the most nonsensical; so
enough, and more than enough of it. Only, by the by, will you or can
you tell me, my dear Cunningham, why a sectarian turn of mind has
always a tendency to narrow and illiberalize the heart? They are
orderly; they may be just; nay, I have known them merciful: but still
your children of sanctity move among their fellow-creatures with a
nostril-snuffing putrescence, and a foot-spurning filth, in short,
with a conceited dignity that your titled * * * * * * * * or any other
of your Scottish lordlings of seven centuries standing, display when
they accidentally mix among the many-aproned sons of mechanical life. I
remember, in my plough-boy days, I could not conceive it possible that a
noble lord could be a fool, or a godly man could be a knave--How
ignorant are plough-boys!--Nay, I have since discovered that a _godly
woman_ may be a *****!--But hold--Here's t'ye again--this rum is
generous Antigua, so a very unfit menstruum for scandal.
Apropos, how do you like, I mean _really_ like, the married life? Ah, my
friend! matrimony is quite a different thing from what your love-sick
youths and sighing girls take it to be! But marriage, we are told, is
appointed by God, and I shall never quarrel with any of his
institutions. I am a husband of older standing than you, and shall give
you _my_ ideas of the conjugal state, (_en passant_; you know I am no
Latinist, is not _conjugal_ derived from _jugum_, a yoke?) Well, then,
the scale of good wifeship I divide into ten parts:--good-nature, four;
good sense, two; wit, one; personal charms, viz. a sweet face, eloquent
eyes, fine limbs, graceful carriage (I would add a fine waist too, but
that is so soon spoilt you know), all these, one; as for the other
qualities belonging to, or attending on, a wife, such as fortune,
connexions, education (I mean education extraordinary) family, blood,
&c., divide the two remaining degrees among them as you please; only,
remember that all these minor properties must be expressed by
_fractions_, for there is not any one of them, in the aforesaid scale,
entitled to the dignity of an _integer._
As for the rest of my fancies and reveries--how I lately met with Miss
Lesley Baillie, the most beautiful, elegant woman in the world--how I
accompanied her and her father's family fifteen miles on their
journey, out of pure devotion, to admire the loveliness of the works
of God, in such an unequalled display of them--how, in galloping home
at night, I made a ballad on her, of which these two stanzas make a
part--
Thou, bonny Lesley, art a queen,
Thy subjects we before thee;
Thou, bonny Lesley, art divine,
The hearts o' men adore thee.
The very deil he could na scathe
Whatever wad belang thee!
He'd look into thy bonnie face
And say, "I canna wrang thee."
--behold all these things are written in the chronicles of my
imaginations, and shall be read by thee, my dear friend, and by thy
beloved spouse, my other dear friend, at a more convenient season.
Now, to thee, and to thy before-designed _bosom_-companion, be given
the precious things brought forth by the sun, and the precious things
brought forth by the moon, and the benignest influences of the stars,
and the living streams which flow from the fountains of life, and by
the tree of life, for ever and ever! Amen!
* * * * *
CCXXXIV.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[George Thomson, of Edinburgh, principal clerk to the trustees for the
encouraging the manufactures of Scotland, projected a work, entitled,
"A select Collection of Original Scottish Airs, for the Voice, to
which are added introductory and concluding Symphonies and
Accompaniments for the Pianoforte and Violin, by Pleyel and Kozeluch,
with select and characteristic Verses, by the most admired Scottish
Poets." To Burns he applied for help in the verse: he could not find a
truer poet, nor one to whom such a work was more congenial.]
_Dumfries, 16th Sept. 1792._
SIR,
I have just this moment got your letter. As the request you make to me
will positively add to my enjoyments in complying with it, I shall
enter into your undertaking with all the small portion of abilities I
have, strained to their utmost exertion by the impulse of enthusiasm.
Only, don't hurry me--"Deil tak the hindmost" is by no means the _cri
de guerre_ of my muse. Will you, as I am inferior to none of you in
enthusiastic attachment to the poetry and music of old Caledonia, and,
since you request it, have cheerfully promised my mite of
assistance--will you let me have a list of your airs with the first
line of the printed verses you intend for them, that I may have an
opportunity of suggesting any alteration that may occur to me? You
know 'tis in the way of my trade; still leaving you, gentlemen, the
undoubted right of publishers to approve or reject, at your pleasure,
for your own publication. Apropos, if you are for English verses,
there is, on my part, an end of the matter. Whether in the simplicity
of the Ballad, or the pathos of the song, I can only hope to please
myself in being allowed at least a sprinkling of our native tongue.
English verses, particularly the works of Scotsmen, that have merit,
are certainly very eligible. "Tweedside'" "Ah! the poor shepherd's
mournful fate!" "Ah! Chloris, could I now but sit," &c., you cannot
mend;[199] but such insipid stuff as "To Fanny fair could I impart,"
&c., usually set to "The Mill, Mill, O!" is a disgrace to the
collections in which it has already appeared, and would doubly
disgrace a collection that will have the very superior merit of yours.
But more of this in the further prosecution of the business, if I am
called on for my strictures and amendments--I say amendments, for I
will not alter except where I myself, at least, think that I amend.
As to any remuneration, you may think my songs either above or below
price; for they should absolutely be the one or the other. In the
honest enthusiasm with which I embark in your undertaking, to talk of
money, wages, fee, hire, &c., would be downright prostitution of soul!
a proof of each of the song that I compose or amend, I shall receive
as a favour. In the rustic phrase of the season, "Gude speed the
wark!"
I am, Sir,
Your very humble servant,
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 199: "Tweedside" is by Crawfurd; "Ah, the poor shepherd," &c.,
by Hamilton, of Bangour; "Ah! Chloris," &c., by Sir Charles
Sedley--Burns has attributed it to Sir Peter Halket, of Pitferran.]
* * * * *
CCXXXV.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[One of the daughters of Mrs. Dunlop was married to M. Henri, a French
gentleman, who died in 1790, at Loudon Castle, in Ayrshire. The widow
went with her orphan son to France, and lived for awhile amid the
dangers of the revolution.]
_Dumfries, 24th September, 1792._
I have this moment, my dear Madam, yours of the twenty-third. All your
other kind reproaches, your news, &c., are out of my head when I read
and think on Mrs. H----'s situation. Good God! a heart-wounded helpless
young woman--in a strange, foreign land, and that land convulsed with
every horror that can harrow the human feelings--sick--looking, longing
for a comforter, but finding none--a mother's feelings, too:--but it is
too much: he who wounded (he only can) may He heal!
* * * * *
I wish the farmer great joy of his new acquisition to his family.
* * * * * I cannot say that I give him joy of his life as a farmer. 'Tis,
as a farmer paying a dear, unconscionable rent, a _cursed life_! As to a
laird farming his own property; sowing his own corn in hope; and reaping
it, in spite of brittle weather, in gladness; knowing that none can say
unto him, 'what dost thou?'--fattening his herds; shearing his flocks;
rejoicing at Christmas; and begetting sons and daughters, until he be
the venerated, gray-haired leader of a little tribe--'tis a heavenly
life! but devil take the life of reaping the fruits that another must
eat.
Well, your kind wishes will be gratified, as to seeing me when I make
my Ayrshire visit. I cannot leave Mrs. B----, until her nine months'
race is run, which may perhaps be in three or four weeks. She, too,
seems determined to make me the patriarchal leader of a band. However,
if Heaven will be so obliging as to let me have them in the proportion
of three boys to one girl, I shall be so much the more pleased. I
hope, if I am spared with them, to show a set of boys that will do
honour to my cares and name; but I am not equal to the task of rearing
girls. Besides, I am too poor; a girl should always have a fortune.
Apropos, your little godson is thriving charmingly, but is a very
devil. He, though two years younger, has completely mastered his
brother. Robert is indeed the mildest, gentlest creature I ever saw.
He has a most surprising memory, and is quite the pride of his
schoolmaster.
You know how readily we get into prattle upon a subject dear to our
heart: you can excuse it. God bless you and yours!
R. B.
* * * * *
CCXXXVI.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[This letter has no date: it is supposed to have been written on the
death of her daughter, Mrs. Henri, whose orphan son, deprived of the
protection of all his relations, was preserved by the affectionate
kindness of Mademoiselle Susette, one of the family domestics, and
after the Revolution obtained the estate of his blood and name.]
I had been from home, and did not receive your letter until my return
the other day. What shall I say to comfort you, my much-valued,
much-afflicted friend! I can but grieve with you; consolation I have
none to offer, except that which religion holds out to the children of
affliction--_children of affliction!_--how just the expression! and
like every other family they have matters among them which they hear,
see, and feel in a serious, all-important manner, of which the world
has not, nor cares to have, any idea. The world looks indifferently
on, makes the passing remark, and proceeds to the next novel
occurrence.
Alas, Madam! who would wish for many years? What is it but to drag
existence until our joys gradually expire, and leave us in a night of
misery: like the gloom which blots out the stars one by one, from the
face of night, and leaves us, without a ray of comfort, in the howling
waste!
I am interrupted, and must leave off. You shall soon hear from me
again.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCXXXVII.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[Thomson had delivered judgment on some old Scottish songs, but the
poet murmured against George's decree.]
MY DEAR SIR,
Let me tell you, that you are too fastidious in your ideas of songs
and ballads. I own that your criticisms are just; the songs you
specify in your list have, all but one, the faults you remark in them;
but who shall mend the matter? Who shall rise up and say, "Go to! I
will make a better?" For instance, on reading over "The Lea-rig," I
immediately set about trying my hand on it, and, after all, I could
make nothing more of it than the following, which, Heaven knows, is
poor enough.
When o'er the hill the eastern star, &c.[200]
Your observation as to the aptitude of Dr. Percy's ballad to the air,
"Nannie, O!" is just. It is, besides, perhaps, the most beautiful
ballad in the English language. But let me remark to you, that in the
sentiment and style of our Scottish airs, there is a pastoral
simplicity, a something that one may call the Doric style and dialect
of vocal music, to which a dash of our native tongue and manners is
particularly, nay peculiarly, apposite. For this reason, and upon my
honour, for this reason alone, I am of opinion (but, as I told you
before, my opinion is yours, freely yours, to approve or reject, as
you please) that my ballad of "Nannie, O!" might perhaps do for one
set of verses to the tune. Now don't let it enter into your head, that
you are under any necessity of taking my verses. I have long ago made
up my mind as to my own reputation in the business of authorship, and
have nothing to be pleased or offended at, in your adoption or
rejection of my verses. Though you should reject one half of what I
give you, I shall be pleased with your adopting the other half, and
shall continue to serve you with the same assiduity.
In the printed copy of my "Nannie, O!" the name of the river is
horribly prosaic.[201] I will alter it:
Behind yon hills where Lugar flows.
Girvan is the name of the river that suits the idea of the stanza
best, but Lugar is the most agreeable modulation of syllables.
I will soon give you a great many more remarks on this business; but I
have just now an opportunity of conveying you this scrawl, free of
postage, an expense that it is ill able to pay: so, with my best
compliments to honest Allan, Gude be wi' ye, &c.
_Friday Night._
_Saturday Morning._
As I find I have still an hour to spare this morning before my
conveyance goes away, I will give you "Nannie, O!" at length.
Your remarks on "Ewe-bughts, Marion," are just; still it has obtained
a place among our more classical Scottish songs; and what with many
beauties in its composition, and more prejudices in its favour, you
will not find it easy to supplant it.
In my very early years, when I was thinking of going to the West
Indies, I took the following farewell of a dear girl. It is quite
trifling, and has nothing of the merits of "Ewe-bughts;" but it will
fill up this page. You must know that all my earlier love-songs were
the breathings of ardent passion, and though it might have been easy
in aftertimes to have given them a polish, yet that polish, to me,
whose they were, and who perhaps alone cared for them, would have
defaced the legend of my heart, which was so faithfully inscribed on
them. Their uncouth simplicity was, as they say of wines, their race.
Will ye go to the Indies, my Mary? &c.[202]
"Gala Water" and "Auld Rob Morris" I think, will most probably be the
next subject of my musings. However, even on my verses, speak out your
criticisms with equal frankness. My wish is not to stand aloof, the
uncomplying bigot of _opiniâtreté_, but cordially to join issue with
you in the furtherance of the work.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 200: Song CLXXVII]
[Footnote 201: It is something worse in the Edinburgh edition--"Behind
yon hills where Stinchar flows."--Poems, p 322.]
[Footnote 202: Song CLXXIX.]
* * * * *
CCXXXVIII.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[The poet loved to describe the influence which the charms of Miss
Lesley Baillie exercised over his imagination.]
_November 8th, 1792._
If you mean, my dear Sir, that all the songs in your collection shall
be poetry of the first merit, I am afraid you will find more
difficulty in the undertaking than you are aware of. There is a
peculiar rhythmus in many of our airs, and a necessity of adapting
syllables to the emphasis, or what I would call the feature-notes of
the tune, that cramp the poet, and lay him under almost insuperable
difficulties. For instance, in the air, "My wife's a wanton wee
thing," if a few lines smooth and pretty can be adapted to it, it is
all you can expect. The following were made extempore to it; and
though on further study I might give you something more profound, yet
it might not suit the light-horse gallop of the air so well as this
random clink:--
My wife's a winsome wee thing, &c.[203]
I have just been looking over the "Collier's bonny dochter;" and if
the following rhapsody, which I composed the other day, on a charming
Ayrshire girl, Miss Lesley Baillie, as she passed through this place
to England, will suit your taste better than the "Collier Lassie,"
fall on and welcome:--
O, saw ye bonny Lesley? &c.[204]
I have hitherto deferred the sublimer, more pathetic airs, until more
leisure, as they will take, and deserve, a greater effort. However,
they are all put into your hands, as clay into the hands of the
potter, to make one vessel to honour, and another to dishonour.
Farewell, &c.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 203: Song CLXXX.]
[Footnote 204: Song CLXXXI.]
* * * * *
CCXXXIX.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[The story of Mary Campbell's love is related in the notes on the
songs which the poet wrote in her honour. Thomson says, in his answer,
"I have heard the sad story of your Mary; you always seem inspired
when you write of her."]
_14th November, 1792._
MY DEAR SIR,
I agree with you that the song, "Katherine Ogie," is very poor stuff,
and unworthy, altogether unworthy of so beautiful an air. I tried to
mend it; but the awkward sound, Ogie, recurring so often in the rhyme,
spoils every attempt at introducing sentiment into the piece. The
foregoing song[205] pleases myself; I think it as in my happiest manner:
you will see at first glance that it suits the air. The subject of the
song is one of the most interesting passages of my youthful days, and I
own that I should be much flattered to see the verses set to an air
which would ensure celebrity. Perhaps, after all, 'tis the still glowing
prejudice of my heart that throws a borrowed lustre over the merits of
the composition.
I have partly taken your idea of "Auld Rob Morris." I have adopted the
two first verses, and am going on with the song on a new plan, which
promises pretty well. I take up one or another, just as the bee of the
moment buzzes in my bonnet-lug; and do you, _sans ceremonie_, make
what use you choose of the productions.
Adieu, &c.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 205:
Ye banks and braes and streams around
The castle o' Montgomery.
Song CLXXXII]
* * * * *
CCXL.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[The poet approved of several emendations proposed by Thomson, whose
wish was to make the words flow more readily with the music: he
refused, however, to adopt others, where he thought too much of the
sense was sacrificed.]
_Dumfries, 1st December, 1792._
Your alterations of my "Nannie, O!" are perfectly right. So are those
of "My wife's a winsome wee thing." Your alteration of the second
stanza is a positive improvement. Now, my dear Sir, with the freedom
which characterizes our correspondence, I must not, cannot alter
"Bonnie Lesley." You are right; the word "Alexander" makes the line a
little uncouth, but I think the thought is pretty. Of Alexander,
beyond all other heroes, it may be said, in the sublime language of
Scripture, that "he went forth conquering and to conquer."
For nature made her what she is,
And never made anither. (Such a person as she is.)
This is, in my opinion, more poetical than "Ne'er made sic anither."
However, it is immaterial: make it either way. "Caledonie," I agree
with you, is not so good a word as could be wished, though it is
sanctioned in three or four instances by Allan Ramsay; but I cannot
help it. In short, that species of stanza is the most difficult that I
have ever tried.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCXLI.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[Duncan Gray, which this letter contained, became a favourite as soon
as it was published, and the same may be said of Auld Rob Morris.]
_4th December, 1792._
The foregoing ["Auld Rob Morris," and "Duncan Gray,"[206]] I submit, my
dear Sir, to your better judgment. Acquit them or condemn them, as
seemeth good in your sight. "Duncan Gray" is that kind of light-horse
gallop of an air, which precludes sentiment. The ludicrous is its
ruling feature.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 206: Songs CLXXXIII. and CLXXXIV.]
* * * * *
CCXLII.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[Burns often discourses with Mrs. Dunlop on poetry and poets: the
dramas of Thomson, to which he alludes, are stiff, cold compositions.]
_Dumfries, 6th December, 1792._
I shall be in Ayrshire, I think, next week; and, if at all possible, I
shall certainly, my much-esteemed friend, have the pleasure of
visiting at Dunlop-house.
Alas, Madam! how seldom do we meet in this world, that we have reason
to congratulate ourselves on accessions of happiness! I have not
passed half the ordinary term of an old man's life, and yet I scarcely
look over the obituary of a newspaper, that I do not see some names
that I have known, and which I, and other acquaintances, little
thought to meet with there so soon. Every other instance of the
mortality of our kind, makes us cast an anxious look into the dreadful
abyss of uncertainty, and shudder with apprehension for our own fate.
But of how different an importance are the lives of different
individuals? Nay, of what importance is one period of the same life,
more than another? A few years ago, I could have laid down in the
dust, "careless of the voice of the morning;" and now not a few, and
these most helpless individuals, would, on losing me and my exertions,
lose both their "staff and shield." By the way, these helpless ones
have lately got an addition; Mrs. B---- having given me a fine girl
since I wrote you. There is a charming passage in Thomson's "Edward
and Eleonora:"
"The valiant _in himself_, what can he suffer?
Or what need he regard his _single_ woes?" &c.
As I am got in the way of quotations, I shall give you another from
the same piece, peculiarly, alas! too peculiarly apposite, my dear
Madam, to your present frame of mind:
"Who so unworthy but may proudly deck him
With his fair-weather virtue, that exults
Glad o'er the summer main! the tempest comes,
The rough winds rage aloud; when from the helm,
This virtue shrinks, and in a corner lies
Lamenting--Heavens! if privileged from trial,
How cheap a thing were virtue?"
I do not remember to have heard you mention Thomson's dramas. I pick
up favourite quotations, and store them in my mind as ready armour,
offensive or defensive, amid the struggle of this turbulent existence.
Of these is one, a very favourite one, from his "Alfred:"
"Attach thee firmly to the virtuous deeds
And offices of life; to life itself,
With all its vain and transient joys, sit loose."
Probably I have quoted some of these to you formerly, as indeed when I
write from the heart, I am apt to be guilty of such repetitions. The
compass of the heart, in the musical style of expression, is much more
bounded than that of the imagination; so the notes of the former are
extremely apt to run into one another; but in return for the paucity
of its compass, its few notes are much more sweet. I must still give
you another quotation, which I am almost sure I have given you before,
but I cannot resist the temptation. The subject is religion--speaking
of its importance to mankind, the author says,
"'Tis this, my friend, that streaks our morning bright."
I see you are in for double postage, so I shall e'en scribble out
t'other sheet. We, in this country here, have many alarms of the
reforming, or rather the republican spirit, of your part of the
kingdom. Indeed we are a good deal in commotion ourselves. For me, I
am a placeman, you know; a very humble one indeed, Heaven knows, but
still so much as to gag me. What my private sentiments are, you will
find out without an interpreter.
* * * * *
I have taken up the subject, and the other day, for a pretty actress's
benefit night, I wrote an address, which I will give on the other
page, called "The rights of woman:"
"While Europe's eye is fixed on mighty things."
I shall have the honour of receiving your criticisms in person at
Dunlop.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCXLIII.
TO R. GRAHAM, ESQ.,
FINTRAY.
[Graham stood by the bard in the hour of peril recorded in this
letter: and the Board of Excise had the generosity to permit him to
eat its "bitter bread" for the remainder of his life.]
_December, 1792._
SIR,
I have been surprised, confounded, and distracted by Mr. Mitchell, the
collector, telling me that he has received an order from your Board to
inquire into my political conduct, and blaming me as a person
disaffected to government.
Sir, you are a husband--and a father.--You know what you would feel,
to see the much-loved wife of your bosom, and your helpless, prattling
little ones, turned adrift into the world, degraded and disgraced from
a situation in which they had been respectable and respected, and left
almost without the necessary support of a miserable existence. Alas,
Sir! must I think that such, soon, will be my lot! and from the
d--mned, dark insinuations of hellish, groundless envy too! I believe,
Sir, I may aver it, and in the sight of Omniscience, that I would not
tell a deliberate falsehood, no, not though even worse horrors, if
worse can be, than those I have mentioned, hung over my head; and I
say, that the allegation, whatever villain has made it, is a lie! To
the British constitution on Revolution principles, next after my God,
I am most devoutly attached; you, Sir, have been much and generously
my friend.--Heaven knows how warmly I have felt the obligation, and
how gratefully I have thanked you.--Fortune, Sir, has made you
powerful, and me impotent; has given you patronage, and me
dependence.--I would not for my single self, call on your humanity;
were such my insular, unconnected situation, I would despise the tear
that now swells in my eye--I could brave misfortune, I could face
ruin; for at the worst, "Death's thousand doors stand open;" but, good
God! the tender concerns that I have mentioned, the claims and ties
that I see at this moment, and feel around me, how they unnerve
courage, and wither resolution! To your patronage, as a man of some
genius, you have allowed me a claim; and your esteem, as an honest
man, I know is my due: to these, Sir, permit me to appeal; by these
may I adjure you to save me from that misery which threatens to
overwhelm me, and which, with my latest breath I will say it, I have
not deserved.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCXLIV.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[Burns was ordered, he says, to mind his duties in the Excise, and to
hold his tongue about politics--the latter part of the injunction was
hard to obey, for at that time politics were in every mouth.]
_Dumfries, 31st December, 1792._
DEAR MADAM,
A hurry of business, thrown in heaps by my absence, has until now
prevented my returning my grateful acknowledgments to the good family
of Dunlop, and you in particular, for that hospitable kindness which
rendered the four days I spent under that genial roof, four of the
pleasantest I ever enjoyed.--Alas, my dearest friend! how few and
fleeting are those things we call pleasures! on my road to Ayrshire, I
spent a night with a friend whom I much valued; a man whose days
promised to be many; and on Saturday last we laid him in the dust!
_Jan. 2, 1793._
I have just received yours of the 30th, and feel much for your
situation. However, I heartily rejoice in your prospect of recovery
from that vile jaundice. As to myself, I am better, though not quite
free of my complaint.--You must not think, as you seem to insinuate,
that in my way of life I want exercise. Of that I have enough; but
occasional hard drinking is the devil to me. Against this I have again
and again bent my resolution, and have greatly succeeded. Taverns I
have totally abandoned: it is the private parties in the family way,
among the hard-drinking gentlemen of this country, that do me the
mischief--but even this I have more than half given over.
Mr. Corbet can be of little service to me at present; at least I
should be shy of applying. I cannot possibly be settled as a
supervisor, for several years. I must wait the rotation of the list,
and there are twenty names before mine. I might indeed get a job of
officiating, where a settled supervisor was ill, or aged; but that
hauls me from my family, as I could not remove them on such an
uncertainty. Besides, some envious, malicious devil, has raised a
little demur on my political principles, and I wish to let that matter
settle before I offer myself too much in the eye of my supervisors. I
have set, henceforth, a seal on my lips, as to these unlucky politics;
but to you I must breathe my sentiments. In this, as in everything
else, I shall show the undisguised emotions of my soul. War I
deprecate: misery and ruin to thousands are in the blast that
announces the destructive demon.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCXLV.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[The songs to which the poet alludes were "Poortith Cauld," and "Galla
Water."]
_Jan. 1793._
Many returns of the season to you, my dear Sir. How comes on your
publication?--will these two foregoing [Songs CLXXXV. and
CLXXXVI.] be of any service to you? I should like to know
what songs you print to each tune, besides the verses to which it is
set. In short, I would wish to give you my opinion on all the poetry
you publish. You know it is my trade, and a man in the way of his
trade may suggest useful hints that escape men of much superior parts
and endowments in other things.
If you meet with my dear and much-valued Cunningham, greet him, in my
name, with the compliments of the season.
Yours, &c.,
R. B.
* * * * *
CCXLVI.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[Thomson explained more fully than at first the plan of his
publication, and stated that Dr. Beattie had promised an essay on
Scottish music, by way of an introduction to the work.]
_26th January, 1793._
I approve greatly, my dear Sir, of your plans. Dr. Beattie's essay
will, of itself, be a treasure. On my part I mean to draw up an
appendix to the Doctor's essay, containing my stock of anecdotes, &c.,
of our Scots songs. All the late Mr. Tytler's anecdotes I have by me,
taken down in the course of my acquaintance with him, from his own
mouth. I am such an enthusiast, that in the course of my several
peregrinations through Scotland, I made a pilgrimage to the individual
spot from which every song took its rise, "Lochaber" and the "Braes of
Ballenden" excepted. So far as the locality, either from the title of
the air, or the tenor of the song, could be ascertained, I have paid
my devotions at the particular shrine of every Scots muse.
I do not doubt but you might make a very valuable collection of
Jacobite songs; but would it give no offence? In the meantime, do not
you think that some of them, particularly "The sow's tail to Geordie,"
as an air, with other words, might be well worth a place in your
collection of lively songs?
If it were possible to procure songs of merit, it would be proper to
have one set of Scots words to every air, and that the set of words to
which the notes ought to be set. There is a _navïeté_, a pastoral
simplicity, in a slight intermixture of Scots words and phraseology,
which is more in unison (at least to my taste, and, I will add, to
every genuine Caledonian taste) with the simple pathos, or rustic
sprightliness of our native music, than any English verses whatever.
The very name of Peter Pindar is an acquisition to your work. His
"Gregory" is beautiful. I have tried to give you a set of stanzas in
Scots, on the same subject, which are at your service. Not that I
intend to enter the lists with Peter--that would be presumption
indeed. My song, though much inferior in poetic merit, has, I think,
more of the ballad simplicity in it.
[Here follows "Lord Gregory." Song CLXXXVII.]
My most respectful compliments to the honourable gentleman who
favoured me with a postscript in your last. He shall hear from me and
receive his MSS. soon.
Yours,
R. B.
* * * * *
CCXLVII.
TO MR. CUNNINGHAM.
[The seal, with the coat-of-arms which the poet invented, is still in
the family, and regarded as a relique.]
_3d March, 1793._
Since I wrote to you the last lugubrious sheet, I have not had time to
write you further. When I say that I had not time, that as usual
means, that the three demons, indolence, business, and ennui, have so
completely shared my hours among them, as not to leave me a five
minutes' fragment to take up a pen in.
Thank heaven, I feel my spirits buoying upwards with the renovating
year. Now I shall in good earnest take up Thomson's songs. I dare say
he thinks I have used him unkindly, and I must own with too much
appearance of truth. Apropos, do you know the much admired old
Highland air called "The Sutor's Dochter?" It is a first-rate
favourite of mine, and I have written what I reckon one of my best
songs to it. I will send it to you as it was sung with great applause
in some fashionable circles by Major Roberston, of Lude, who was here
with his corps.
* * * * *
There is one commission that I must trouble you with. I lately lost a
valuable seal, a present from a departed friend which vexes me much.
I have gotten one of your Highland pebbles, which I fancy would make a
very decent one; and I want to cut my armorial bearing on it; will you
be so obliging as inquire what will be the expense of such a business?
I do not know that my name is matriculated, as the heralds call it, at
all; but I have invented arms for myself, so you know I shall be chief
of the name; and, by courtesy of Scotland, will likewise be entitled
to supporters. These, however, I do not intend having on my seal. I am
a bit of a herald, and shall give you, _secundum artem_, my arms. On a
field, azure, a holly-bush, seeded, proper, in base; a shepherd's pipe
and crook, saltier-wise, also proper in chief. On a wreath of the
colours, a wood lark perching on a sprig of bay-tree, proper, for
crest. Two mottos; round the top of the crest, _Wood-notes wild_: at
the bottom of the shield, in the usual place, _Better a wee bush than
nae bield._ By the shepherd's pipe and crook I do not mean the
nonsense of painters of Arcadia, but a _stock and horn_, and a _club_,
such as you see at the head of Allan Ramsay, in Allan's quarto edition
of the _Gentle Shepherd._ By the bye, do you know Allan? He must be a
man of very great genius--Why is he not more known?--Has he no
patrons? or do "Poverty's cold wind and crushing rain beat keen and
heavy" on him! I once, and but once, got a glance of that noble
edition of the noblest pastoral in the world; and dear as it was, I
mean dear as to my pocket, I would have bought it; but I was told
that it was printed and engraved for subscribers only. He is the
_only_ artist who has hit _genuine_ pastoral _costume._ What, my dear
Cunningham, is there in riches, that they narrow and harden the heart
so? I think, that were I as rich as the sun, I should be as generous
as the day; but as I have no reason to imagine my soul a nobler one
than any other man's, I must conclude that wealth imparts a bird-lime
quality to the possessor, at which the man, in his native poverty,
would have revolted. What has led me to this, is the idea, of such
merit as Mr. Allan possesses, and such riches us a nabob or government
contractor possesses, and why they do not form a mutual league. Let
wealth shelter and cherish unprotected merit, and the gratitude and
celebrity of that merit will richly repay it.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCXLVIII.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[Burns in these careless words makes us acquainted with one of his
sweetest songs.]
_20th March, 1793._
MY DEAR SIR,
The song prefixed ["Mary Morison"[207]] is one of my juvenile works. I
leave it in your hands. I do not think it very remarkable, either for
its merits or demerits. It is impossible (at least I feel it so in my
stinted powers) to be always original, entertaining, and witty.
What is become of the list, &c., of your songs? I shall be out of all
temper with you, by and bye. I have always looked on myself as the
prince of indolent correspondence, and valued myself accordingly; and
I will not, cannot, bear rivalship from you, nor anybody else.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 207: Song CLXXXVIII.]
* * * * *
CCXLIX.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[For the "Wandering Willie" of this communication Thomson offered
several corrections.]
_March, 1793._
Here awa, there awa, wandering Willie,
Now tired with wandering, haud awa hame;
Come to my bosom, my ae only dearie,
And tell me thou bring'st me my Willie the same.
Loud blew the cauld winter winds at our parting;
It was na the blast brought the tear in my e'e;
Now welcome the simmer, and welcome my Willie,
The simmer to nature, my Willie to me.
Ye hurricanes, rest in the cave o' your slumbers!
Oh how your wild horrors a lover alarms!
Awaken, ye breezes! blow gently, ye billows!
And waft my dear laddie ance mair to my arms.
But if he's forgotten his faithfulest Nannie,
O still flow between us, thou wide, roaring main;
May I never see it, may I never trow it,
But, dying, believe that my Willie's my ain!
I leave it to you, my dear Sir, to determine whether the above, or the
old "Thro' the lang muir I have followed my Willie," be the best.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCL.
TO MISS BENSON.
[Miss Benson, when this letter was written, was on a visit to
Arbigland, the beautiful seat of Captain Craik; she is now Mrs. Basil
Montagu.]
_Dumfries, 21st March, 1793._
MADAM,
Among many things for which I envy those hale, long-lived old fellows
before the flood, is this in particular, that when they met with
anybody after their own heart, they had a charming long prospect of
many, many happy meetings with them in after-life.
Now in this short, stormy, winter day of our fleeting existence, when
you now and then, in the Chapter of Accidents, meet an individual
whose acquaintance is a real acquisition, there are all the
probabilities against you, that you shall never meet with that valued
character more. On the other hand, brief as this miserable being is,
it is none of the least of the miseries belonging to it, that if there
is any miscreant whom you hate, or creature whom you despise, the
ill-run of the chances shall be so against you, that in the
overtakings, turnings, and jostlings of life, pop, at some unlucky
corner, eternally comes the wretch upon you, and will not allow your
indignation or contempt a moment's repose. As I am a sturdy believer
in the powers of darkness, I take these to be the doings of that old
author of mischief, the devil. It is well-known that he has some kind
of short-hand way of taking down our thoughts, and I make no doubt he
is perfectly acquainted with my sentiments respecting Miss Benson: how
much I admired her abilities and valued her worth, and how very
fortunate I thought myself in her acquaintance. For this last reason,
my dear Madam, I must entertain no hopes of the very great pleasure of
meeting with you again.
Miss Hamilton tells me that she is sending a packet to you, and I beg
leave to send you the enclosed sonnet, though, to tell you the real
truth, the sonnet is a mere pretence, that I may have the opportunity
of declaring with how much respectful esteem I have the honour to be,
&c.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCLI.
TO PATRICK MILLER, ESQ.,
OF DALSWINTON.
[The time to which Burns alludes was the period of his occupation of
Ellisland.]
_Dumfries, April, 1793._
SIR,
My poems having just come out in another edition, will you do me the
honour to accept of a copy? A mark of my gratitude to you, as a
gentleman to whose goodness I have been much indebted; of my respect
for you, as a patriot who, in a venal, sliding age, stands forth the
champion of the liberties of my country; and of my veneration for you,
as a man, whose benevolence of heart does honour to human nature.
There _was_ a time, Sir, when I was your dependent: this language
_then_ would have been like the vile incense of flattery--I could not
have used it. Now that connexion is at an end, do me the honour to
accept this _honest_ tribute of respect from, Sir,
Your much indebted humble servant,
R. B.
* * * * *
CCLII.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[This review of our Scottish lyrics is well worth the attention of all
who write songs, read songs, or sing songs.]
_7th April, 1793._
Thank you, my dear Sir, for your packet. You cannot imagine how much
this business of composing for your publication has added to my
enjoyments. What with my early attachment to ballads, your book, &c.,
ballad-making is now as completely my hobby-horse as ever
fortification was Uncle Toby's; so I'll e'en canter it away till I
come to the limit of my race--God grant that I may take the right side
of the winning post!--and then cheerfully looking back on the honest
folks with whom I have been happy, I shall say or sing, "Sae merry as
we a' hae been!" and, raising my last looks to the whole human race,
the last words of the voice of "Coila"[208] shall be, "Good night, and
joy be wi' you a'!" So much for my last words: now for a few present
remarks, as they have occurred at random, on looking over your list.
The first lines of "The last time I came o'er the moor," and several
other lines in it, are beautiful; but, in my opinion--pardon me,
revered shade of Ramsay!--the song is unworthy of the divine air. I
shall try to make or mend.
"For ever, Fortune, wilt thou prove,"[209] is a charming song; but "Logan
burn and Logan braes" is sweetly susceptible of rural imagery; I'll
try that likewise, and, if I succeed, the other song may class among
the English ones. I remember the two last lines of a verse in some of
the old songs of "Logan Water" (for I know a good many different ones)
which I think pretty:--
"Now my dear lad maun faces his faes,
Far, far frae me and Logan braes."[210]
"My Patie is a lover gay," is unequal. "His mind is never muddy," is a
muddy expression indeed.
"Then I'll resign and marry Pate,
And syne my cockernony--"
This is surely far unworthy of Ramsay or your book. My song, "Rigs of
barley," to the same tune, does not altogether please me; but if I can
mend it, and thrash a few loose sentiments out of it, I will submit
it to your consideration. "The lass o' Patie's mill" is one of
Ramsay's best songs; but there is one loose sentiment in it, which my
much-valued friend Mr. Erskine will take into his critical
consideration. In Sir John Sinclair's statistical volumes, are two
claims--one, I think from Aberdeenshire, and the other from
Ayrshire--for the honour of this song. The following anecdote, which I
had from the present Sir William Cunningham of Robertland, who had it
of the late John, Earl of Loudon, I can, on such authorities, believe:
Allan Ramsay was residing at Loudon-castle with the then Earl, father
to Earl John; and one forenoon, riding or walking, out together, his
lordship and Allan passed a sweet romantic spot on Irvine water, still
called "Patie's mill," where a bonnie lass was "tedding hay,
bare-headed on the green." My lord observed to Allan, that it would be
a fine theme for a song. Ramsay took the hint, and, lingering behind,
he composed the first sketch of it, which he produced at dinner.
"One day I heard Mary say,"[211] is a fine song; but, for consistency's
sake, alter the name "Adonis." Were there ever such banns published,
as a purpose of marriage between Adonis and Mary! I agree with you
that my song, "There's nought but care on every hand," is much
superior to "Poortith cauld." The original song, "The mill, mill,
O!"[212] though excellent, is, on account of delicacy, inadmissible;
still I like the title, and think a Scottish song would suit the notes
best; and let your chosen song, which is very pretty, follow as an
English set. "The Banks of the Dee" is, you know, literally
"Langolee," to slow time. The song is well enough, but has some false
imagery in it: for instance,
"And sweetly the nightingale sang from the tree."
In the first place, the nightingale sings in a low bush, but never
from a tree; and in the second place, there never was a nightingale
seen or heard on the banks of the Dee, or on the banks of any other
river in Scotland. Exotic rural imagery is always comparatively
flat.[213] If I could hit on another stanza, equal to "The small birds
rejoice," &c., I do myself honestly avow, that I think it a superior
song.[214] "John Anderson, my jo"--the song to this tune in Johnson's
Museum, is my composition, and I think it not my worst:[215] if it suit
you, take it, and welcome. Your collection of sentimental and pathetic
songs, is, in my opinion, very complete; but not so your comic ones.
Where are "Tullochgorum," "Lumps o' puddin," "Tibbie Fowler," and
several others, which, in my humble judgment, are well worthy of
preservation? There is also one sentimental song of mine in the
Museum, which never was known out of the immediate neighbourhood,
until I got it taken down from a country girl's singing. It is called
"Craigieburn wood," and, in the opinion of Mr. Clarke, is one of the
sweetest Scottish songs. He is quite an enthusiast about it; and I
would take his taste in Scottish music against the taste of most
connoisseurs.
You are quite right in inserting the last five in your list, though
they are certainly Irish. "Shepherds, I have lost my love!" is to me a
heavenly air--what would you think of a set of Scottish verses to it?
I have made one to it a good while ago, which I think * * *, but in
its original state it is not quite a lady's song. I enclose an
altered, not amended copy for you,[216] if you choose to set the tune to
it, and let the Irish verses follow.
Mr. Erskine's songs are all pretty, but his "Lone-vale"[217] is divine.
Yours, &c.
R. B.
Let me know just how you like these random hints.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 208: Burns here calls himself the "Voice of Coila," in
imitation of Ossian, who denominates himself the "Voice of
Cona."--CURRIE.]
[Footnote 209: By Thomson, not the musician, but the poet.]
[Footnote 210: This song is not old; its author, the late John Mayne,
long outlived Burns]
[Footnote 211: By Crawfurd.]
[Footnote 212: By Ramsay.]
[Footnote 213: The author, John Tait, a writer to the Signet and some
time Judge of the police-court in Edinburgh, assented to this, and
altered the line to,
"And sweetly the wood-pigeon cooed from the tree."]
[Footnote 214: Song CXXXIX.]
[Footnote 215: Song LXXX.]
[Footnote 216: Song CLXXVII.]
[Footnote 217:
"How sweet this lone vale, and how soothing to feeling,
Yon nightingale's notes which in melody meet."
The song has found its way into several collections.]
* * * * *
CCLIII.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[The letter to which this is in part an answer, Currie says, contains
many observations on Scottish songs, and on the manner of adapting the
words to the music, which at Mr. Thomson's desire are suppressed.]
_April, 1793._
I have yours, my dear Sir, this moment. I shall answer it and your
former letter, in my desultory way of saying whatever comes
uppermost.
The business of many of our tunes wanting, at the beginning, what
fiddlers call a starting-note, is often a rub to us poor rhymers.
"There's braw, braw lads on Yarrow braes,
That wander through the blooming heather,"
you may alter to
"Braw, braw lads on Yarrow braes,
Ye wander," &c.
My song, "Here awa, there awa," as amended by Mr. Erskine, I entirely
approve of, and return you.
Give me leave to criticise your taste in the only thing in which it
is, in my opinion, reprehensible. You know I ought to know something
of my own trade. Of pathos, sentiment, and point, you are a complete
judge; but there is a quality more necessary than either in a song,
and which is the very essence of a ballad--I mean simplicity: now, if
I mistake not, this last feature you are a little apt to sacrifice to
the foregoing.
Ramsay, as every other poet, has not been always equally happy in his
pieces; still I cannot approve of taking such liberties with an author
as Mr. Walker proposes doing with "The last time I came o'er the
moor." Let a poet, if he choose, take up the idea of another, and work
it into a piece of his own; but to mangle the works of the poor bard,
whose tuneful tongue is now mute for ever, in the dark and narrow
house--by Heaven, 'twould be sacrilege! I grant that Mr. W.'s version
is an improvement; but I know Mr. W. well, and esteem him much; let
him mend the song, as the Highlander mended his gun--he gave it a new
stock, a new lock, and a new barrel.
I do not, by this, object to leaving out improper stanzas, where that
can be done without spoiling the whole. One stanza in "The lass o'
Patie's mill" must be left out: the song will be nothing worse for it.
I am not sure if we can take the same liberty with "Corn rigs are
bonnie." Perhaps it might want the last stanza, and be the better for
it. "Cauld kail in Aberdeen," you must leave with me yet awhile. I
have vowed to have a song to that air, on the lady whom I attempted to
celebrate in the verses, "Poortith cauld and restless love." At any
rate, my other song, "Green grow the rashes," will never suit. That
song is current in Scotland under the old title, and to the merry old
tune of that name, which, of course, would mar the progress of your
song to celebrity. Your book will be the standard of Scots songs for
the future: let this idea ever keep your judgment on the alarm.
I send a song on a celebrated toast in this country, to suit "Bonnie
Dundee." I send you also a ballad to the "Mill, mill, O!"[218]
"The last time I came o'er the moor," I would fain attempt to make a
Scots song for, and let Ramsay's be the English set. You shall hear
from me soon. When you go to London on this business, can you come by
Dumfries? I have still several MS. Scots airs by me, which I have
picked up, mostly from the singing of country lasses. They please me
vastly; but your learned _lugs_ would perhaps be displeased with the
very feature for which I like them. I call them simple; you would
pronounce them silly. Do you know a fine air called "Jackie Hume's
Lament?" I have a song of considerable merit to that air. I'll enclose
you both the song and tune, as I had them ready to send to Johnson's
Museum.[219] I send you likewise, to me, a beautiful little air, which I
had taken down from _viva voce._[220]
Adieu.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 218: Songs CXCII. and CXCIII.]
[Footnote 219: Song CXCIV.]
[Footnote 220: Song CXCVIII.]
* * * * *
CCLIV.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[Thomson, it would appear by his answer to this letter, was at issue
with Burns on the subject-matter of simplicity: the former seems to
have desired a sort of diplomatic and varnished style: the latter felt
that elegance and simplicity were "sisters twin."]
_April, 1793._
MY DEAR SIR,
I had scarcely put my last letter into the post-office, when I took up
the subject of "The last time I came o'er the moor," and ere I slept
drew the outlines of the foregoing.[221] How I have succeeded, I leave
on this, as on every other occasion, to you to decide. I own my vanity
is flattered, when you give my songs a place in your elegant and superb
work; but to be of service to the work is my first wish. As I have often
told you, I do not in a single instance wish you, out of compliment to
me, to insert anything of mine. One hint let me give you--whatever Mr.
Pleyel does, let him not alter one iota of the original Scottish airs, I
mean in the song department, but let our national music preserve its
native features. They are, I own, frequently wild and irreducible to the
more modern rules; but on that very eccentricity, perhaps, depends a
great part of their effect.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 221: Song CCXXXIV.]
* * * * *
CCLV.
TO JOHN FRANCIS ERSKINE, ESQ.,
OF M A R.
[This remarkable letter has been of late the subject of some
controversy: Mr. Findlater, who happened then to be in the Excise, is
vehement in defence of the "honourable board," and is certain that
Burns has misrepresented the conduct of his very generous masters. In
answer to this it has been urged that the word of the poet has in no
other thing been questioned: that in the last moments of his life, he
solemnly wrote this letter into his memorandum-book, and that the
reproof of Mr. Corbet, is given by him either as a quotation from a
paper or an exact recollection of the words used: the expressions,
"_not to think_" and be "_silent_ and _obedient_" are underlined.]
_Dumfries, 13th April, 1793._
SIR,
Degenerate as human nature is said to be, and in many instances,
worthless and unprincipled it is, still there are bright examples to
the contrary; examples that even in the eyes of superior beings, must
shed a lustre on the name of man.
Such an example have I now before me, when you, Sir, came forward to
patronize and befriend a distant, obscure stranger, merely because
poverty had made him helpless, and his British hardihood of mind had
provoked the arbitrary wantonness of power. My much esteemed friend,
Mr. Riddel of Glenriddel, has just read me a paragraph of a letter he
had from you. Accept, Sir, of the silent throb of gratitude; for words
would but mock the emotions of my soul.
You have been misinformed as to my final dismission from the Excise; I
am still in the service.--Indeed, but for the exertions of a gentleman
who must be known to you, Mr. Graham of Fintray, a gentleman who has
ever been my warm and generous friend, I had, without so much us a
hearing, or the slightest previous intimation, been turned adrift,
with my helpless family, to all the horrors of want. Had I had any
other resource, probably I might have saved them the trouble of a
dismission; but the little money I gained by my publication, is almost
every guinea embarked, to save from ruin an only brother, who, though
one of the worthiest, is by no means one of the most fortunate of men.
In my defence to their accusations, I said, that whatever might be my
sentiments of republics, ancient or modern, as to Britain, I abjured the
idea!--That a CONSTITUTION, which, in its original principles,
experience had proved to be every way fitted for our happiness in
society, it would be insanity to sacrifice to an untried visionary
theory:--that, in consideration of my being situated in a department,
however humble, immediately in the hands of people in power, I had
forborne taking any active part, either personally, or as an author, in
the present business of Reform. But, that, where I must declare my
sentiments, I would say there existed a system of corruption between the
executive power and the representative part of the legislature, which
boded no good to our glorious CONSTITUTION; and which every patriotic
Briton must wish to see amended.--Some such sentiments as these, I
stated in a letter to my generous patron, Mr. Graham, which he laid
before the Board at large; where, it seems, my last remark gave great
offence; and one of our supervisors-general, a Mr. Corbet, was
instructed to inquire on the spot, and to document me--"that my business
was to act, _not to think;_ and that whatever might be men or measures,
it was for me to be _silent_ and _obedient._"
Mr. Corbet was likewise my steady friend; so between Mr. Graham and
him, I have been partly forgiven; only I understand that all hopes of
my getting officially forward, are blasted.
Now, Sir, to the business in which I would more immediately interest
you. The partiality of my COUNTRYMEN has brought me forward
as a man of genius, and has given me a character to support. In the
Poet I have avowed manly and independent sentiments, which I trust
will be found in the man. Reasons of no less weight than the support
of a wife and family, have pointed out as the eligible, and, situated
as I was, the only eligible line of life for me, my present
occupation. Still my honest fame is my dearest concern; and a
thousand times have I trembled at the idea of those _degrading_
epithets that malice or misrepresentation may affix to my name. I have
often, in blasting anticipation, listened to some future hackney
scribbler, with the heavy malice of savage stupidity, exulting in his
hireling paragraphs--"Burns, notwithstanding the _fanfaronade_ of
independence to be found in his works, and after having been held
forth to public view and to public estimation as a man of some genius,
yet quite destitute of resources within himself to support his
borrowed dignity, he dwindled into a paltry exciseman, and slunk out
the rest of his insignificant existence in the meanest of pursuits,
and among the vilest of mankind."
In your illustrious hands, Sir, permit me to lodge my disavowal and
defiance of these slanderous falsehoods. BURNS was a poor man
from birth, and an exciseman by necessity: but I _will_ say it! the
sterling of his honest worth, no poverty could debase, and his
independent British mind, oppression might bend, but could not subdue.
Have not I, to me, a more precious stake in my country's welfare than
the richest dukedom in it?--I have a large family of children, and the
prospect of many more. I have three sons, who, I see already, have
brought into the world souls ill qualified to inhabit the bodies of
SLAVES.--Can I look tamely on, and see any machination to
wrest from them the birthright of my boys,--the little independent
BRITONS, in whose veins runs my own blood?--No! I will not!
should my heart's blood stream around my attempt to defend it!
Does any man tell me, that my full efforts can be of no service; and
that it does not belong to my humble station to meddle with the
concern of a nation?
I can tell him, that it is on such individuals as I, that a nation has
to rest, both for the hand of support, and the eye of intelligence.
The uninformed mob may swell a nation's bulk; and the titled, tinsel,
courtly throng, may be its feathered ornament; but the number of those
who are elevated enough in life to reason and to reflect; yet low
enough to keep clear of the venal contagion of a court!--these are a
nation's strength.
I know not how to apologize for the impertinent length of this epistle;
but one small request I must ask of you further--when you have honoured
this letter with a perusal, please to commit it to the flames. BURNS, in
whose behalf you have so generously interested yourself, I have here in
his native colours drawn _as he is_, but should any of the people in
whose hands is the very bread he eats, get the least knowledge of the
picture, _it would ruin the poor_ BARD _for ever_!
My poems having just come out in another edition, I beg leave to
present you with a copy, as a small mark of that high esteem and
ardent gratitude, with which I have the honour to be,
Sir,
Your deeply indebted,
And ever devoted humble servant,
R. B.
* * * * *
CCLVI.
TO ROBERT AINSLIE, ESQ.
["Up tails a', by the light o' the moon," was the name of a Scottish
air, to which the devil danced with the witches of Fife, on Magus
Moor, as reported by a warlock, in that credible work, "Satan's
Invisible World discovered."]
_April 26, 1793._
I am d--mnably out of humour, my dear Ainslie, and that is the reason,
why I take up the pen to _you_: 'tis the nearest way (_probatum est_)
to recover my spirits again.
I received your last, and was much entertained with it; but I will not
at this time, nor at any other time, answer it.--Answer a letter? I
never could answer a letter in my life!--I have written many a letter
in return for letters I have received; but then--they were original
matter--spurt-away! zig here, zag there; as if the devil that, my
Grannie (an old woman indeed) often told me, rode on will-o'-wisp, or,
in her more classic phrase, SPUNKIE, were looking over my
elbow.--Happy thought that idea has engendered in my head!
SPUNKIE--thou shalt henceforth be my symbol signature, and
tutelary genius! Like thee, hap-step-and-lowp, here-awa-there-awa,
higglety-pigglety, pell-mell, hither-and-yon, ram-stam,
happy-go-lucky, up-tails-a'-by-the-light-o'-the-moon,--has been, is,
and shall be, my progress through the mosses and moors of this vile,
bleak, barren wilderness of a life of ours.
Come then, my guardian spirit, like thee may I skip away, amusing
myself by and at my own light: and if any opaque-souled lubber of
mankind complain that my elfine, lambent, glim merous wanderings have
misled his stupid steps over precipices, or into bogs, let the
thickheaded blunderbuss recollect, that he is not Spunkie:--that
"SPUNKIE'S wanderings could not copied be:
Amid these perils none durst walk but he."--
* * * * *
I have no doubt but scholar-craft may be caught, as a Scotchman catches
the itch,--by friction. How else can you account for it, that born
blockheads, by mere dint of _handling_ books, grow so wise that even
they themselves are equally convinced of and surprised at their own
parts? I once carried this philosophy to that degree that in a knot of
country folks who had a library amongst them, and who, to the honour
of their good sense, made me factotum in the business; one of our
members, a little, wise-looking, squat, upright, jabbering body of a
tailor, I advised him, instead of turning over the leaves, _to bind
the book on his back._--Johnnie took the hint; and as our meetings
were every fourth Saturday, and Pricklouse having a good Scots mile to
walk in coming, and, of course, another in returning, Bodkin was sure
to lay his hand on some heavy quarto, or ponderous folio, with, and
under which, wrapt up in his gray plaid, he grew wise, as he grew
weary, all the way home. He carried this so far, that an old musty
Hebrew concordance, which we had in a present from a neighbouring
priest, by mere dint of applying it, as doctors do a blistering
plaster, between his shoulders, Stitch, in a dozen pilgrimages,
acquired as much rational theology as the said priest had done by
forty years perusal of the pages.
Tell me, and tell me truly, what you think of this theory.
Yours,
SPUNKIE.
* * * * *
CCLVII.
TO MISS KENNEDY.
[Miss Kennedy was one of that numerous band of ladies who patronized
the poet in Edinburgh; she was related to the Hamiltons of Mossgiel.]
MADAM,
Permit me to present you with the enclosed song as a small though
grateful tribute for the honour of your acquaintance. I have, in these
verses, attempted some faint sketches of your portrait in the
unembellished simple manner of descriptive TRUTH.--Flattery,
I leave to your LOVERS, whose exaggerating fancies may make
them imagine you still nearer perfection than you really are.
Poets, Madam, of all mankind, feel most forcibly the powers of BEAUTY;
as, if they are really poets of nature's making, their feelings must be
finer, and their taste more delicate than most of the world. In the
cheerful bloom of SPRING, or the pensive mildness of AUTUMN; the
grandeur of SUMMER, or the hoary majesty of WINTER, the poet feels a
charm unknown to the rest of his species. Even the sight of a fine
flower, or the company of a fine woman (by far the finest part of God's
works below), have sensations for the poetic heart that the HERD of man
are strangers to.--On this last account, Madam, I am, as in many other
things, indebted to Mr. Hamilton's kindness in introducing me to you.
Your lovers may view you with a wish, I look on you with pleasure; their
hearts, in your presence, may glow with desire, mine rises with
admiration.
That the arrows of misfortune, however they should, as incident to
humanity, glance a slight wound, may never reach your _heart_--that
the snares of villany may never beset you in the road of life--that
INNOCENCE may hand you by the path of honour to the dwelling
of PEACE, is the sincere wish of him who has the honour to
be, &c.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCLVIII.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[The name of the friend who fell a sacrifice to those changeable
times, has not been mentioned: it is believed he was of the west
country.]
_June, 1793._
When I tell you, my dear Sir, that a friend of mine in whom I am much
interested, has fallen a sacrifice to these accursed times, you will
easily allow that it might unhinge me for doing any good among
ballads. My own loss as to pecuniary matters is trifling; but the
total ruin of a much-loved friend is a loss indeed. Pardon my seeming
inattention to your last commands.
I cannot alter the disputed lines in the "Mill Mill, O!"[222] What you
think a defect, I esteem as a positive beauty; so you see how doctors
differ. I shall now, with as much alacrity as I can muster, go on with
your commands.
You know Frazer, the hautboy-player in Edinburgh--he is here,
instructing a band of music for a fencible corps quartered in this
county. Among many of his airs that please me, there is one, well
known as a reel, by the name of "The Quaker's Wife;" and which, I
remember, a grand-aunt of mine used to sing, by the name of "Liggeram
Cosh, my bonnie wee lass." Mr. Frazer plays it slow, and with an
expression that quite charms me. I became such an enthusiast about it,
that I made a song for it, which I here subjoin, and enclose Frazer's
set of the tune. If they hit your fancy, they are at your service; if
not, return me the tune, and I will put it in Johnson's Museum. I
think the song is not in my worst manner.
Blythe hae I been on yon hill.[223]
I should wish to hear how this pleases you.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 222: "The lines were the third and fourth:
'Wi' mony a sweet babe fatherless,
And mony a widow mourning.'
As our poet had maintained a long silence, and the first number of Mr.
Thomson's musical work was in the press, this gentleman ventured, by
Mr. Erskine's advice, to substitute for them, in that publication.
'And eyes again with pleasure beam'd
That had been blear'd with mourning.'
Though better suited to the music, these lines are inferior to the
original."--CURRIE.]
[Footnote 223: Song CXV.]
* * * * *
CCLIX.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[Against the mighty oppressors of the earth the poet was ever ready to
set the sharpest shafts of his wrath: the times in which he wrote were
sadly out of sorts.]
_June 25th, 1793._
Have you ever, my dear Sir, felt your bosom ready to burst with
indignation, on reading of those mighty villains who divide kingdoms,
desolate provinces, and lay nations waste, out of the wantonness of
ambition, or often from still more ignoble passions? In a mood of this
kind to-day I recollected the air of "Logan Water," and it occurred to
me that its querulous melody probably had its origin from the
plaintive indignation of some swelling, suffering heart, fired at the
tyrannic strides of some public destroyer, and overwhelmed with
private distress, the consequence of a country's ruin. If I have done
anything at all like justice to my feelings, the following song,
composed in three-quarters of an hour's meditation in my elbow-chair,
ought to have some merit:--
O Logan, sweetly didst thou glide.[224]
Do you know the following beautiful little fragment, in Wotherspoon's
collection of Scots songs?[225]
Air--"_Hughie Graham._"
"Oh gin my love were yon red rose,
That grows upon the castle wa';
And I mysel' a drap o' dew,
Into her bonnie breast to fa'!
"Oh there, beyond expression blest,
I'd feast on beauty a' the night,
Seal'd on her silk-saft faulds to rest,
Till fley'd awa by Phoebus light!"
This thought is inexpressibly beautiful; and quite, so far as I know,
original. It is too short for a song, else I would forswear you
altogether unless you gave it a place. I have often tried to eke a
stanza to it, but in vain. After balancing myself for a musing five
minutes, on the hind legs of my elbow-chair, I produced the following.
The verses are far inferior to the foregoing, I frankly confess: but
if worthy of insertion at all, they might be first in place; as every
poet who knows anything of his trade, will husband his best thoughts
for a concluding stroke.
Oh were my love yon lilac fair,
Wi' purple blossoms to the spring;
And I a bird to shelter there,
When wearied on my little wing!
How I wad mourn, when it was torn
By autumn wild and winter rude!
But I wad sing on wanton wing,
When youthfu' May its bloom renewed.[226]
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 224: Song CXCVI.]
[Footnote 225: Better known as Herd's. Wotherspoon was one of the
publishers.]
[Footnote 226: See Song CXCVII.]
* * * * *
CCLX.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[Thomson, in his reply to the preceding letter, laments that anything
should untune the feelings of the poet, and begs his acceptance of
five pounds, as a small mark of his gratitude for his beautiful
songs.]
_July 2d, 1793._
MY DEAR SIR,
I have just finished the following ballad, and, as I do think it in my
best style, I send it you. Mr. Clarke, who wrote down the air from
Mrs. Burns's wood-note wild, is very fond of it, and has given it a
celebrity by teaching it to some young ladies of the first fashion
here. If you do not like the air enough to give it a place in your
collection, please return it. The song you may keep, as I remember it.
There was a lass, and she was fair.[227]
I have some thoughts of inserting in your index, or in my notes, the
names of the fair ones, the themes of my songs. I do not mean the name
at full; but dashes or asterisms, so as ingenuity may find them out.
The heroine of the foregoing is Miss M'Murdo, daughter to Mr. M'Murdo,
of Drumlanrig, one of your subscribers. I have not painted her in the
rank which she holds in life, but in the dress and character of a
cottager.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 227: Song CXCVIII.]
* * * * *
CCLXI.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[Burns in this letter speaks of the pecuniary present which Thomson
sent him, in a lofty and angry mood: he who published poems by
subscription might surely have accepted, without any impropriety,
payment for his songs.]
_July, 1793._
I assure you, my dear Sir, that you truly hurt me with your pecuniary
parcel. It degrades me in my own eyes. However, to return it would
savour of affectation; but, as to any more traffic of that debtor and
creditor kind, I swear by that HONOUR which crowns the upright statue of
ROBERT BURNS'S INTEGRITY--on the least motion of it, I will indignantly
spurn the by-past transaction, and from that moment commence entire
stranger to you! BURNS'S character for generosity of sentiment and
independence of mind, will, I trust, long outlive any of his wants which
the cold unfeeling ore can supply; at least, I will take care that such
a character he shall deserve.
Thank you for my copy of your publication. Never did my eyes behold in
any musical work such elegance and correctness. Your preface, too, is
admirably written, only your partiality to me has made you say too
much: however, it will bind me down to double every effort in the
future progress of the work. The following are a few remarks on the
songs in the list you sent me. I never copy what I write to you, so I
may be often tautological, or perhaps contradictory.
"The Flowers o' the Forest," is charming as a poem, and should be, and
must be, set to the notes; but, though out of your rule, the three
stanzas beginning,
"I've seen the smiling of fortune beguiling,"
are worthy of a place, were it but to immortalize the author of them,
who is an old lady of my acquaintance, and at this moment living in
Edinburgh. She is a Mrs. Cockburn, I forget of what place, but from
Roxburghshire.[228] What a charming apostrophe is
"O fickle fortune, why this cruel sporting,
Why thus perplex us, poor sons of a day?"
The old ballad, "I wish I were where Helen lies," is silly to
contemptibility. My alteration of it, in Johnson's, is not much
better. Mr. Pinkerton, in his, what he calls, ancient ballads (many of
them notorious, though beautiful enough, forgeries), has the best set.
It is full of his own interpolations--but no matter.
In my next I will suggest to your consideration a few songs which may
have escaped your hurried notice. In the meantime allow me to
congratulate you now, as a brother of the quill. You have committed
your character and fame, which will now be tried, for ages to come, by
the illustrious jury of the SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF TASTE--all
whom poesy can please or music charm.
Being a bard of nature, I have some pretensions to second sight; and I
am warranted by the spirit to foretell and affirm, that your
great-grand-child will hold up your volumes, and say, with honest
pride, "This so much admired selection was the work of my ancestor!"
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 228: Miss Rutherford, of Fernilee in Selkirkshire, by marriage
Mrs. Patrick Cockburn, of Ormiston. She died in 1794, at an advanced
age.]
* * * * *
CCLXII.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[Stephen Clarke, whose name is at this strange note, was a musician
and composer; he was a clever man, and had a high opinion of his own
powers.]
_August_, 1793.
MY DEAR THOMSON,
I hold the pen for our friend Clarke, who at present is studying the
music of the spheres at my elbow. The Georgium Sidus he thinks is
rather out of tune; so, until he rectify that matter, he cannot stoop
to terrestrial affairs.
He sends you six of the _rondeau_ subjects, and if more are wanted, he
says you shall have them.
* * * * *
Confound your long stairs!
S. CLARKE.
* * * * *
CCLXIII.
TO MR. THOMSON.
["Phillis the Fair" endured much at the hands of both Burns and
Clarke. The young lady had reason to complain, when the poet
volunteered to sing the imaginary love of that fantastic fiddler.]
_August_, 1793.
Your objection, my dear Sir, to the passages in my song of "Logan
Water," is right in one instance; but it is difficult to mend it: if I
can, I will. The other passage you object to does not appear in the
same light to me.
I have tried my hand on "Robin Adair," and, you will probably think,
with little success; but it is such a cursed, cramp, out-of-the-way
measure, that I despair of doing anything better to it.
While larks with little wing.[229]
So much for namby-pamby. I may, after all, try my hand on it in Scots
verse. There I always find myself most at home.
I have just put the last hand to the song I meant for "Cauld kail in
Aberdeen." If it suits you to insert it, I shall be pleased, as the
heroine is a favourite of mine; if not, I shall also be pleased;
because I wish, and will be glad, to see you act decidedly on the
business. 'Tis a tribute as a man of taste, and as an editor, which
you owe yourself.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 229: Song CXCIX.]
* * * * *
CCLXIV.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[The infusion of Highland airs and north country subjects into the
music and songs of Scotland, has invigorated both: Burns, who had a
fine ear as well as a fine taste, was familiar with all, either
Highland or Lowland.]
_August_, 1793.
That crinkum-crankum tune, "Robin Adair," has run so in my head, and I
succeeded so ill in my last attempt, that I have ventured, in this
morning's walk, one essay more. You, my dear Sir, will remember an
unfortunate part of our worthy friend Cunningham's story, which
happened about three years ago. That struck my fancy, and I
endeavoured to do the idea justice as follows:
Had I a cave on some wild distant shore.[230]
By the way, I have met with a musical Highlander in Breadalbane's
Fencibles, which are quartered here, who assures me that he well
remembers his mother singing Gaelic songs to both "Robin Adair," and
"Grammachree." They certainly have more of the Scotch than Irish taste
in them.
This man comes from the vicinity of Inverness: so it could not be any
intercourse with Ireland that could bring them; except, what I
shrewdly suspect to be the case, the wandering minstrels, harpers, and
pipers, used to go frequently errant through the wilds both of
Scotland and Ireland, and so some favourite airs might be common to
both. A case in point--they have lately, in Ireland, published an
Irish air, as they say, called "Caun du delish." The fact is, in a
publication of Corri's, a great while ago, you will find the same air,
called a Highland one, with a Gaelic song set to it. Its name there, I
think, is "Oran Gaoil," and a fine air it is. Do ask honest Allan or
the Rev. Gaelic parson, about these matters.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 230: Song CC.]
* * * * *
CCLXV.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[While Burns composed songs, Thomson got some of the happiest embodied
by David Allan, the painter, whose illustrations of the Gentle
Shepherd had been favourably received. But save when an old man was
admitted to the scene, his designs may be regarded as failures: his
maidens were coarse and his old wives rigwiddie carlins.]
_August_, 1793.
MY DEAR SIR,
"Let me in this ae night" I will reconsider. I am glad that you are
pleased with my song, "Had I a cave," &c., as I liked it myself.
I walked out yesterday evening with a volume of the Museum in my hand,
when turning up "Allan Water," "What numbers shall the muse repeat,"
&c., as the words appeared to me rather unworthy of so fine an air,
and recollecting that it is on your list, I sat and raved under the
shade of an old thorn, till I wrote one to suit the measure. I may be
wrong; but I think it not in my worst style. You must know, that in
Ramsay's Tea-table, where the modern song first appeared, the ancient
name of the tune, Allan says, is "Allan Water," or "My love Annie's
very bonnie." This last has certainly been a line of the original
song; so I took up the idea, and, as you will see, have introduced the
line in its place, which I presume it formerly occupied; though I
likewise give you a choosing line, if it should not hit the cut of
your fancy:
By Allan stream I chanced to rove.[231]
Bravo! say I; it is a good song. Should you think so too (not else)
you can set the music to it, and let the other follow as English
verses.
Autumn is my propitious season. I make more verses in it than all the
year else. God bless you!
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 231: Song CCI.]
* * * * *
CCLXVI.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[Phillis, or Philadelphia M'Murdo, in whose honour Burns composed the
song beginning "Adown winding Nith I did wander," and several others,
died September 5th, 1825.]
_August_, 1793.
Is "Whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad," one of your airs? I admire
it much; and yesterday I set the following verses to it. Urbani, whom
I have met with here, begged them of me, as he admires the air much;
but as I understand that he looks with rather an evil eye on your
work, I did not choose to comply. However, if the song does not suit
your taste I may possibly send it him. The set of the air which I had
in my eye, is in Johnson's Museum.
O whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad.[232]
Another favourite air of mine is, "The muckin' o' Geordie's byre."
When sung slow, with expression, I have wished that it had had better
poetry; that I have endeavoured to supply as follows:
Adown winding Nith I did wander.[233]
Mr. Clarke begs you to give Miss Phillis a corner in your book, as she
is a particular flame of his, and out of compliment to him I have made
the song. She is a Miss Phillis M'Murdo, sister to "Bonnie Jean." They
are both pupils of his. You shall hear from me, the very first grist I
get from my rhyming-mill.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 232: Song CCII.]
[Footnote 233: Song CCIII.]
* * * * *
CCLXVII.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[Burns was fond of expressive words: "Gloaming, the twilight," says
Currie, "is a beautiful poetic word, which ought to be adopted in
England." Burns and Scott have made the Scottish language popular over
the world.]
_August_, 1793.
That tune, "Cauld kail," is such a favourite of yours, that I once
more roved out yesterday for a gloamin-shot at the muses; when the
muse that presides o'er the shores of Nith, or rather my old inspiring
dearest nymph, Coila, whispered me the following. I have two reasons
for thinking that it was my early, sweet simple inspirer that was by
my elbow, "smooth gliding without step," and pouring the song on my
glowing fancy. In the first place, since I left Coila's native haunts,
not a fragment of a poet has arisen to cheer her solitary musings, by
catching inspiration from her, so I more than suspect that she has
followed me hither, or, at least, makes me occasional visits;
secondly, the last stanza of this song I send you, is the very words
that Coila taught me many years ago, and which I set to an old Scots
reel in Johnson's Museum.
Come, let me take thee to my breast.[234]
If you think the above will suit your idea of your favourite air, I
shall be highly pleased. "The last time I came o'er the moor" I cannot
meddle with, as to mending it; and the musical world have been so long
accustomed to Ramsay's words, that a different song, though positively
superior, would not be so well received. I am not fond of choruses to
songs, so I have not made one for the foregoing.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 234: Song CCIV.]
* * * * *
CCLXVIII.
TO MR. THOMSON.
["Cauld kail in Aberdeen, and castocks in Strabogie," are words which
have no connexion with the sentiment of the song which Burns wrote for
the air.]
_August_, 1793.
SONG.
Now rosy May comes in wi' flowers.[235]
So much for Davie. The chorus, you know, is to the low part of the
tune. See Clarke's set of it in the Museum.
N.B. In the Museum they have drawled out the tune to twelve lines of
poetry, which is ---- nonsense. Four lines of song, and four of chorus,
is the way.[236]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 235: Song CCV.]
[Footnote 236: See Song LXVII.]
* * * * *
CCLXIX.
TO MISS CRAIK.
[Miss Helen Craik of Arbigland, had merit both as a poetess and
novelist: her ballads may be compared with those of Hector M'Neil: her
novels had a seasoning of satire in them.]
_Dumfries, August_, 1793.
MADAM,
Some rather unlooked-for accidents have prevented my doing myself the
honour of a second visit to Arbigland, as I was so hospitably invited,
and so positively meant to have done.--However, I still hope to have
that pleasure before the busy months of harvest begin.
I enclose you two of my late pieces, as some kind of return for the
pleasure I have received in perusing a certain MS. volume of poems in
the possession of Captain Riddel. To repay one with an _old song_, is
a proverb, whose force, you, Madam, I know, will not allow. What is
said of illustrious descent is, I believe, equally true of a talent
for poetry, none ever despised it who had pretensions to it. The fates
and characters of the rhyming tribe often employ my thoughts when I am
disposed to be melancholy. There is not, among all the martyrologies
that ever were penned, so rueful a narrative as the lives of the
poets.--In the comparative view of wretches, the criterion is not what
they are doomed to suffer, but how they are formed to bear. Take a
being of our kind, give him a stronger imagination and a more delicate
sensibility, which between them will ever engender a more ungovernable
set of passions than are the usual lot of man; implant in him an
irresistible impulse to some idle vagary, such as arranging wild
flowers in fantastical nosegays, tracing the grasshopper to his haunt
by his chirping song, watching the frisks of the little minnows in the
sunny pool, or hunting after the intrigues of butterflies--in short,
send him adrift after some pursuit which shall eternally mislead him
from the paths of lucre, and yet curse him with a keener relish than
any man living for the pleasures that lucre can purchase; lastly, fill
up the measure of his woes by bestowing on him a spurning sense of his
own dignity, and you have created a wight nearly as miserable as a
poet. To you, Madam, I need not recount the fairy pleasures the muse
bestows to counterbalance this catalogue of evils. Bewitching poetry
is like bewitching woman; she has in all ages been accused of
misleading mankind from the councils of wisdom and the paths of
prudence, involving them in difficulties, baiting them with poverty,
branding them with infamy, and plunging them in the whirling vortex of
ruin; yet, where is the man but must own that all our happiness on
earth is not worthy the name--that even the holy hermit's solitary
prospect of paradisiacal bliss is but the glitter of a northern sun
rising over a frozen region, compared with the many pleasures, the
nameless raptures that we owe to the lovely queen of the heart of man!
R. B.
* * * * *
CCLXX.
TO LADY GLENCAIRN.
[Burns, as the concluding paragraph of this letter proves, continued
to the last years of his life to think of the composition of a
Scottish drama, which Sir Walter Scott laments he did not write,
instead of pouring out multitudes of lyrics for Johnson and Thomson.]
MY LADY,
The honour you have done your poor poet, in writing him so very
obliging a letter, and the pleasure the enclosed beautiful verses have
given him, came very seasonably to his aid, amid the cheerless gloom
and sinking despondency of diseased nerves and December weather. As to
forgetting the family of Glencairn, Heaven is my witness with what
sincerity I could use those old verses which please me more in their
rude simplicity than the most elegant lines I ever saw.
"If thee, Jerusalem, I forget,
Skill part from my right hand.
My tongue to my mouth's roof let cleave,
If I do thee forget,
Jerusalem, and thee above
My chief joy do not set."--
When I am tempted to do anything improper, I dare not, because I look
on myself as accountable to your ladyship and family. Now and then,
when I have the honour to be called to the tables of the great, if I
happen to meet with any mortification from the stately stupidity of
self-sufficient squires, or the luxurious insolence of upstart nabobs,
I get above the creatures by calling to remembrance that I am
patronized by the noble house of Glencairn; and at gala-times, such as
new-year's day, a christening, or the kirn-night, when my punch-bowl
is brought from its dusty corner and filled up in honour of the
occasion, I begin with,--_The Countess of Glencairn!_ My good woman
with the enthusiasm of a grateful heart, next cries, _My Lord!_ and so
the toast goes on until I end with _Lady Harriet's little angel!_
whose epithalamium I have pledged myself to write.
When I received your ladyship's letter, I was just in the act of
transcribing for you some verses I have lately composed; and meant to
have sent them my first leisure hour, and acquainted you with my late
change of life. I mentioned to my lord my fears concerning my farm.
Those fears were indeed too true; it is a bargain would have ruined
me, but for the lucky circumstance of my having an excise commission.
People may talk as they please, of the ignominy of the excise; 50_l._
a year will support my wife and children, and keep me independent of
the world; and I would much rather have it said that my profession
borrowed credit from me, than that I borrowed credit from my
profession. Another advantage I have in this business, is the
knowledge it gives me of the various shades of human character,
consequently assisting me vastly in my poetic pursuits. I had the most
ardent enthusiasm for the muses when nobody knew me, but myself, and
that ardour is by no means cooled now that my lord Glencairn's
goodness has introduced me to all the world. Not that I am in haste
for the press. I have no idea of publishing, else I certainly had
consulted my noble generous patron; but after acting the part of an
honest man, and supporting my family, my whole wishes and views are
directed to poetic pursuits. I am aware that though I were to give
performances to the world superior to my former works, still if they
were of the same kind with those, the comparative reception they would
meet with would mortify me. I have turned my thoughts on the drama. I
do not mean the stately buskin of the tragic muse.
* * * * *
Does not your ladyship think that an Edinburgh theatre would be more
amused with affectation, folly, and whim of true Scottish growth, than
manners which by far the greatest part of the audience can only know
at second hand?
I have the honour to be,
Your ladyship's ever devoted
And grateful humble servant,
R. B.
* * * * *
CCLXXI.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[Peter Pindar, the name under which it was the pleasure of that bitter
but vulgar satirist, Dr. Wolcot, to write, was a man of little lyrical
talent. He purchased a good annuity for the remainder of his life, by
the copyright of his works, and survived his popularity many year.]
_Sept._ 1793.
You may readily trust, my dear Sir, that any exertion in my power is
heartily at your service. But one thing I must hint to you; the very
name of Peter Pindar is of great service to your publication, so get a
verse from him now and then; though I have no objection, as well as I
can, to bear the burden of the business.
You know that my pretensions to musical taste are merely a few of
nature's instincts, untaught and untutored by art. For this reason,
many musical compositions, particularly where much of the merit lies
in counterpoint, however they may transport and ravish the ears of
your connoisseurs, affect my simple lug no otherwise than merely as
melodious din. On the other hand, by way of amends, I am delighted
with many little melodies, which the learned musician despises as
silly and insipid. I do not know whether the old air "Hey tuttie
taitie," may rank among this number; but well I know that, with
Frazer's haut-boy, it has often filled my eyes with tears. There is a
tradition, which I have met with in many places in Scotland, that it
was Robert Bruce's march at the battle of Bannockburn. This thought,
in yesternight's evening walk, warmed me to a pitch of enthusiasm on
the theme of liberty and independence, which I threw into a kind of
Scottish ode, fitted to the air, that one might suppose to be the
gallant Royal Scot's address to his heroic followers on the eventful
morning.
Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled.[237]
So may God ever defend the cause of truth and liberty, as he did that
day! Amen.
P.S. I showed the air to Urbani, who was highly pleased with it, and
begged me to make soft verses for it; but I had no idea of giving
myself any trouble on the subject, till the accidental recollection of
that glorious struggle for freedom, associated with the glowing ideas
of some other struggles of the same nature, not quite so ancient,
roused my rhyming mania. Clarke's set of the tune, with his bass, you
will find in the Museum, though I am afraid that the air is not what
will entitle it to a place in your elegant selection.[238]
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 237: Song CCVII.]
[Footnote 238: Song CCVIII.]
* * * * *
CCLXXII.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[This letter contains further proof of the love of Burns for the airs
of the Highlands.]
_Sept._ 1793.
I dare say, my dear Sir, that you will begin to think my
correspondence is persecution. No matter, I can't help it; a ballad is
my hobby-horse, which, though otherwise a simple sort of harmless
idiotical beast enough, has yet this blessed headstrong property, that
when once it has fairly made off with a hapless wight, it gets so
enamoured with the tinkle-gingle, tinkle-gingle of its own bells, that
it is sure to run poor pilgarlick, the bedlam jockey, quite beyond any
useful point or post in the common race of men.
The following song I have composed for "Oran-gaoil," the Highland air
that, you tell me in your last, you have resolved to give a place to
in your book. I have this moment finished the song, so you have it
glowing from the mint. If it suit you, well!--If not, 'tis also well!
Behold the hour, the boat arrive!
R. B.
* * * * *
CCLXXIII.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[This is another of the sagacious letters on Scottish song, which
poets and musicians would do well to read and consider.]
_Sept._ 1793.
I have received your list, my dear Sir, and here go my observations on
it.[239]
"Down the burn, Davie." I have this moment tried an alteration,
leaving out the last half of the third stanza, and the first half of
the last stanza, thus:
As down the burn they took their way,
And thro' the flowery dale;
His cheek to hers he aft did lay,
And love was aye the tale.
With "Mary, when shall we return,
Sic pleasure to renew?"
Quoth Mary, "Love, I like the burn,
And aye shall follow you."[240]
"Thro' the wood, laddie"--I am decidedly of opinion that both in this,
and "There'll never be peace till Jamie comes hame," the second or
high part of the tune being a repetition of the first part an octave
higher, is only for instrumental music, and would be much better
omitted in singing.
"Cowden-knowes." Remember in your index that the song in pure English
to this tune, beginning,
"When summer comes, the swains on Tweed,"
is the production of Crawfurd. Robert was his Christian name.[241]
"Laddie, lie near me," must lie by me for some time. I do not know the
air; and until I am complete master of a tune, in my own singing (such
as it is), I can never compose for it. My way is: I consider the
poetic sentiment correspondent to my idea of the musical expression;
then choose my theme; begin one stanza: when that is composed, which
is generally the most difficult part of the business, I walk out, sit
down now and then, look out for objects of nature around me that are
in unison and harmony with the cogitations of my fancy, and workings
of my bosom; humming every now and then the air with the verses I have
framed. When I feel my muse beginning to jade, I retire to the
solitary fire-side of my study, and there commit my effusions to
paper; swinging at intervals on the hind-legs of my elbow-chair, by
way of calling forth my own critical strictures as my pen goes on.
Seriously, this, at home, is almost invariably my way.
What cursed egotism!
"Gil Morice" I am for leaving out. It is a plaguy length; the air
itself is never sung; and its place can well be supplied by one or two
songs for fine airs that are not in your list--for instance
"Craigieburn-wood" and "Roy's wife." The first, beside its intrinsic
merit, has novelty, and the last has high merit as well as great
celebrity. I have the original words of a song for the last air, in
the handwriting of the lady who composed it; and they are superior to
any edition of the song which the public has yet seen.
"Highland laddie." The old set will please a mere Scotch ear best; and
the new an Italianised one. There is a third, and what Oswald calls
the old "Highland laddie," which pleases me more than either of them.
It is sometimes called "Ginglin Johnnie;" it being the air of an old
humorous tawdry song of that name. You will find it in the Museum, "I
hae been at Crookieden," &c. I would advise you, in the musical
quandary, to offer up your prayers to the muses for inspiring
direction; and in the meantime, waiting for this direction, bestow a
libation to Bacchus; and there is not a doubt but you will hit on a
judicious choice. _Probatum est._
"Auld Sir Simon" I must beg you to leave out, and put in its place
"The Quaker's wife."
"Blythe hae I been on yon hill,"[242] is one of the finest songs ever I
made in my life, and, besides, is composed on a young lady, positively
the most beautiful, lovely woman in the world. As I purpose giving you
the names and designations of all my heroines, to appear in some
future edition of your work, perhaps half a century hence, you must
certainly include "The bonniest lass in a' the warld," in your
collection.
"Dainty Davie" I have heard sung nineteen thousand nine hundred and
ninety-nine times, and always with the chorus to the low part of the
tune; and nothing has surprised me so much as your opinion on this
subject. If it will not suit as I proposed, we will lay two of the
stanzas together, and then make the chorus follow, exactly as Lucky
Nancy in the Museum.
"Fee him, father:" I enclose you Frazer's set of this tune when he
plays it slow: in fact he makes it the language of despair. I shall
here give you two stanzas, in that style, merely to try if it will be
any improvement. Were it possible, in singing, to give it half the
pathos which Frazer gives it in playing, it would make an admirably
pathetic song. I do not give these verses for any merit they have. I
composed them at the time in which "Patie Allan's mither died--that
was about the back o' midnight;" and by the lee-side of a bowl of
punch, which had overset every mortal in company except the hautbois
and the muse.
Thou hast left me ever, Jamie.[243]
"Jockie and Jenny" I would discard, and in its place would put
"There's nae luck about the house,"[244] which has a very pleasant air,
and which is positively the finest love-ballad in that style in the
Scottish, or perhaps in any other language. "When she came ben she
bobbit," as an air is more beautiful than either, and in the _andante_
way would unite with a charming sentimental ballad.
"Saw ye my father?" is one of my greatest favourites. The evening before
last, I wandered out, and began a tender song, in what I think is its
native style. I must premise that the old way, and the way to give most
effect, is to have no starting note, as the fiddlers call it, but to
burst at once into the pathos. Every country girl sings "Saw ye my
father?" &c.
My song is but just begun; and I should like, before I proceed, to
know your opinion of it. I have sprinkled it with the Scottish
dialect, but it may be easily turned into correct English.[245]
"Todlin hame." Urbani mentioned an idea of his, which has long been
mine, that this air is highly susceptible of pathos: accordingly, you
will soon hear him at your concert try it to a song of mine in the
Museum, "Ye banks and braes o' bonnie Doon." One song more and I have
done; "Auld lang syne." The air is but mediocre; but the following
song, the old song of the olden times, and which has never been in
print, nor even in manuscript, until I took it down from an old man's
singing, is enough to recommend any air.[246]
Now, I suppose, I have tried your patience fairly. You must, after all
is over, have a number of ballads, properly so called. "Gil Morice,"
"Tranent Muir," "Macpherson's farewell," "Battle of Sherriff-muir,"
or, "We ran, and they ran," (I know the author of this charming
ballad, and his history,) "Hardiknute," "Barbara Allan" (I can furnish
a finer set of this tune than any that has yet appeared;) and besides
do you know that I really have the old tune to which "The cherry and
the slae" was sung, and which is mentioned as a well-known air in
"Scotland's Complaint," a book published before poor Mary's days?[247]
It was then called "The banks of Helicon;" an old poem which Pinkerton
has brought to light. You will see all this in Tytler's history of
Scottish music. The tune, to a learned ear, may have no great merit;
but it is a great curiosity. I have a good many original things of
this kind.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 239: Mr. Thomson's list of songs for his publication.]
[Footnote 240: This is an alteration of one of Crawford's songs.]
[Footnote 241: His Christian name was William.]
[Footnote 242: Song CXCV.]
[Footnote 243: Song CCIX.]
[Footnote 244: By William Julius Mickle.]
[Footnote 245: The song here alluded to is one which the poet afterwards
sent in an entire form:--
"Where are the joys I hae met in the morning."]
[Footnote 246: Song CCX.]
[Footnote 247: A curious and rare book, which Leyden afterwards edited.]
* * * * *
CCLXXIV.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[Burns listened too readily to the suggestion of Thomson, to alter
"Bruce's Address to his troops at Bannockburn:" whatever may be the
merits of the air of "Louis Gordon," the sublime simplicity of the
words was injured by the alteration: it is now sung as originally
written, by all singers of taste.]
_September, 1793._
I am happy, my dear Sir, that my ode pleases you so much. Your idea,
"honour's bed," is, though a beautiful, a hackneyed idea; so, if you
please, we will let the line stand as it is. I have altered the song
as follows:--[248]
N. B. I have borrowed the last stanza from the common stall edition of
Wallace--
"A false usurper sinks in every foe,
And liberty returns with every blow."
A couplet worthy of Homer. Yesterday you had enough of my
correspondence. The post goes, and my head aches miserably. One
comfort! I suffer so much, just now, in this world, for last night's
joviality, that I shall escape scot-free for it in the world to come.
Amen.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 248: Song CCVII.]
* * * * *
CCLXXV.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[The poet's good sense rose at last in arms against the criticisms of
the musician, and he refused to lessen the dignity of his war-ode by
any more alterations.]
_September, 1793._
"Who shall decide when doctors disagree?" My ode pleases me so much
that I cannot alter it. Your proposed alterations would, in my
opinion, make it tame. I am exceedingly obliged to you for putting me
on reconsidering it, as I think I have much improved it. Instead of
"sodger! hero!" I will have it "Caledonian, on wi' me!"
I have scrutinized it over and over; and to the world, some way or
other, it shall go as it is. At the same time it will not in the least
hurt me, should you leave it out altogether, and adhere to your first
intention of adopting Logan's verses.
I have finished my song to "Saw ye my father?" and in English, as you
will see. That there is a syllable too much for the expression of the
air, is true; but, allow me to say, that the mere dividing of a dotted
crotchet into a crotchet and a quaver, is not a great matter: however,
in that I have no pretensions to cope in judgment with you. Of the
poetry I speak with confidence; but the music is a business where I hint
my ideas with the utmost diffidence.
The old verses have merit, though unequal, and are popular: my advice
is to set the air to the old words, and let mine follow as English
verses. Here they are:--
Where are the joys I have met in the morning?[249]
Adieu, my dear Sir! the post goes, so I shall defer some other remarks
until more leisure.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 249: Song CCXI.]
* * * * *
CCLXXVI.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[For "Fy! let us a' to the bridal," and "Fy! gie me my coggie, Sirs,"
and "There's nae luck about the house," Burns puts in a word of
praise, from a feeling that Thomson's taste would induce him to
exclude the first--one of our most original songs--from his
collection.]
_September, 1793._
I have been turning over some volumes of songs, to find verses whose
measures would suit the airs for which you have allotted me to find
English songs.
For "Muirland Willie," you have, in Ramsay's Tea-Table, an excellent
song beginning, "Ah, why those tears in Nelly's eyes?" As for "The
Collier's Dochter," take the following old bacchanal:--
"Deluded swain, the pleasure, &c."[250]
The faulty line in Logan-Water, I mend thus:
How can your flinty hearts enjoy
The widow's tears, the orphan's cry?
The song otherwise will pass. As to "M'Gregoira Rua-Ruth," you will
see a song of mine to it, with a set of the air superior to yours, in
the Museum, vol. ii. p. 181. The song begins,
Raving winds around her blowing.[251]
Your Irish airs are pretty, but they are rank Irish. If they were like
the "Banks of Banna," for instance, though really Irish, yet in the
Scottish taste, you might adopt them. Since you are so fond of Irish
music, what say you to twenty-five of them in an additional number? We
could easily find this quantity of charming airs; I will take care
that you shall not want songs; and I assure you that you would find it
the most saleable of the whole. If you do not approve of "Roy's wife,"
for the music's sake, we shall not insert it. "Deil tak the wars" is a
charming song; so is, "Saw ye my Peggy?" "There's nae luck about the
house" well deserves a place. I cannot say that "O'er the hills and
far awa" strikes me as equal to your selection. "This is no my ain
house," is a great favourite air of mine; and if you will send me your
set of it, I will task my muse to her highest effort. What is your
opinion of "I hae laid a herrin' in saut?" I like it much. Your
jacobite airs are pretty, and there are many others of the same kind
pretty; but you have not room for them. You cannot, I think, insert
"Fy! let's a' to the bridal," to any other words than its own.
What pleases me, as simple and _naive_, disgusts you as ludicrous and
low. For this reason, "Fy! gie me my coggie, Sirs," "Fy let's a' to
the bridal," with several others of that cast, are to me highly
pleasing; while "Saw ye my father, or saw ye my mother?" delights me
with its descriptive simple pathos. Thus my song, "Ken ye what Meg o'
the mill has gotten?" pleases myself so much, that I cannot try my
hand at another song to the air, so I shall not attempt it. I know you
will laugh at all this: but "ilka man wears his belt his ain gait."
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 250: Song CCXII.]
[Footnote 251: Song LII.]
* * * * *
CCLXXVII.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[Of the Hon. Andrew Erskine an account was communicated in a letter to
Burns by Thomson, which the writer has withheld. He was a gentleman of
talent, and joint projector of Thomson's now celebrated work.]
_October, 1793._
Your last letter, my dear Thomson, was indeed laden with heavy news.
Alas, poor Erskine![252] The recollection that he was a co-adjutator in
your publication, has till now scared me from writing to you, or
turning my thoughts on composing for you.
I am pleased that you are reconciled to the air of the "Quaker's
wife;" though, by the bye, an old Highland gentleman, and a deep
antiquarian, tells me it is a Gaelic air, and known by the name of
"Leiger m' choss." The following verses, I hope, will please you, as
an English song to the air.
Thine am I, my faithful fair:[253]
Your objection to the English song I proposed for "John Anderson my
jo," is certainly just. The following is by an old acquaintance of
mine, and I think has merit. The song was never in print, which I
think is so much in your favour. The more original good poetry your
collection contains, it certainly has so much the more merit.
SONG.--BY GAVIN TURNBULL.[254]
Oh, condescend, dear charming maid,
My wretched state to view;
A tender swain, to love betray'd,
And sad despair, by you.
While here, all melancholy,
My passion I deplore,
Yet, urg'd by stern, resistless fate,
I love thee more and more.
I heard of love, and with disdain
The urchin's power denied.
I laugh'd at every lover's pain,
And mock'd them when they sigh'd.
But how my state is alter'd!
Those happy days are o'er;
For all thy unrelenting hate,
I love thee more and more.
Oh, yield, illustrious beauty, yield!
No longer let me mourn;
And though victorious in the field,
Thy captive do not scorn.
Let generous pity warm thee,
My wonted peace restore;
And grateful I shall bless thee still,
And love thee more and more.
The following address of Turnbull's to the Nightingale will suit as an
English song to the air "There was a lass, and she was fair." By the
bye, Turnbull has a great many songs in MS., which I can command, if
you like his manner. Possibly, as he is an old friend of mine, I may
be prejudiced in his favour; but I like some of his pieces very much.
THE NIGHTINGALE.
Thou sweetest minstrel of the grove,
That ever tried the plaintive strain,
Awake thy tender tale of love,
And soothe a poor forsaken swain.
For though the muses deign to aid
And teach him smoothly to complain,
Yet Delia, charming, cruel maid,
Is deaf to her forsaken swain.
All day, with fashion's gaudy sons,
In sport she wanders o'er the plain:
Their tales approves, and still she shuns
The notes of her forsaken swain.
When evening shades obscure the sky,
And bring the solemn hours again,
Begin, sweet bird, thy melody,
And soothe a poor forsaken swain.
I shall just transcribe another of Turnbull's, which would go
charmingly to "Lewie Gordon."
LAURA.
Let me wander where I will,
By shady wood, or winding rill;
Where the sweetest May-born flowers
Paint the meadows, deck the bowers;
Where the linnet's early song
Echoes sweet the woods among:
Let me wander where I will,
Laura haunts my fancy still.
If at rosy dawn I choose
To indulge the smiling muse;
If I court some cool retreat,
To avoid the noontide heat;
If beneath the moon's pale ray,
Thro' unfrequented wilds I stray;
Let me wander where I will,
Laura haunts my fancy still.
When at night the drowsy god
Waves his sleep-compelling rod,
And to fancy's wakeful eyes
Bids celestial visions rise,
While with boundless joy I rove
Thro' the fairy land of love;
Let me wander where I will,
Laura haunts my fancy still.
The rest of your letter I shall answer at some other opportunity.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 252: "The honorable Andrew Erskine, whose melancholy death Mr.
Thomson had communicated in an excellent letter, which he has
suppressed."--CURRIE.]
[Footnote 253: Song CCXIII.]
[Footnote 254: Gavin Turnbull was author of a now forgotten volume,
published at Glasgow, in 1788, under the title of "Poetical Essays."]
* * * * *
CCLXXVIII.
TO JOHN M'MURDO, ESQ.,
WITH A PARCEL.
[The collection of songs alluded to in this letter, are only known to
the curious in loose lore: they were printed by an obscure
bookseller, but not before death had secured him from the indignation
of Burns.]
_Dumfries, [December, 1793.]_
SIR,
'Tis said that we take the greatest liberties with our greatest
friends, and I pay myself a very high compliment in the manner in
which I am going to apply the remark. I have owed you money longer
than ever I owed it to any man. Here is Kerr's account, and here are
the six guineas; and now I don't owe a shilling to man--or woman
either. But for these d----d dirty, dog's-ear'd little pages,[255] I
had done myself the honour to have waited on you long ago. Independent
of the obligations your hospitality has laid me under, the
consciousness of your superiority in the rank of man and gentleman, of
itself was fully as much as I could ever make head against; but to owe
you money too, was more than I could face.
I think I once mentioned something to you of a collection of Scots
songs I have for some years been making: I send you a perusal of what
I have got together. I could not conveniently spare them above five or
six days, and five or six glances of them will probably more than
suffice you. When you are tired of them, please leave them with Mr.
Clint, of the King's Arms. There is not another copy of the collection
in the world; and I should be sorry that any unfortunate negligence
should deprive me of what has cost me a good deal of pains.
I have the honour to be, &c.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 255: Scottish Bank notes.]
* * * * *
CCLXXIX.
TO JOHN M'MURDO, ESQ.,
DRUMLANRIG.
[These words, thrown into the form of a note, are copied from a blank
leaf of the poet's works, published in two volumes, small octavo, in
1793.]
_Dumfries, 1793._
Will Mr. M'Murdo do me the favour to accept of these volumes; a
trifling but sincere mark of the very high respect I bear for his
worth as a man, his manners as a gentleman, and his kindness as a
friend. However inferior now, or afterwards, I may rank as a poet; one
honest virtue to which few poets can pretend, I trust I shall ever
claim as mine:--to no man, whatever his station in life, or his power
to serve me, have I ever paid a compliment at the expense of
TRUTH.
THE AUTHOR.
* * * * *
CCLXXX.
TO CAPTAIN ----.
[This excellent letter, obtained from Stewart of Dalguise, is copied
from my kind friend Chambers's collection of Scottish songs.]
_Dumfries, 5th December, 1793._
SIR,
Heated as I was with wine yesternight, I was perhaps rather seemingly
impertinent in my anxious wish to be honoured with your acquaintance.
You will forgive it: it was the impulse of heart-felt respect. "He is
the father of the Scottish county reform, and is a man who does honour
to the business, at the same time that the business does honour to
him," said my worthy friend Glenriddel to somebody by me who was
talking of your coming to this county with your corps. "Then," I said,
"I have a woman's longing to take him by the hand, and say to him,
'Sir, I honour you as a man to whom the interests of humanity are
dear, and as a patriot to whom the rights of your country are
sacred.'"
In times like these, Sir, when our commoners are barely able by the
glimmer of their own twilight understandings to scrawl a frank, and
when lords are what gentlemen would be ashamed to be, to whom shall a
sinking country call for help? To the independent country gentleman.
To him who has too deep a stake in his country not to be in earnest
for her welfare; and who in the honest pride of a man can view with
equal contempt the insolence of office and the allurements of
corruption.
I mentioned to you a Scots ode or song I had lately composed, and
which I think has some merit. Allow me to enclose it. When I fall in
with you at the theatre, I shall be glad to have your opinion of it.
Accept it, Sir, as a very humble but most sincere tribute of respect
from a man, who, dear as he prizes poetic fame, yet holds dearer an
independent mind.
I have the honour to be,
R. B.
* * * * *
CCLXXXI.
TO MRS. RIDDEL,
_Who was about to bespeak a Play one evening at the Dumfries Theatre._
[This clever lady, whom Burns so happily applies the words of Thomson,
died in the year 1820, at Hampton Court.]
I am thinking to send my "Address" to some periodical publication, but
it has not yet got your sanction, so pray look at it.
As to the Tuesday's play, let me beg of you, my dear madam, to give
us, "The Wonder, a Woman keeps a Secret!" to which please add, "The
Spoilt Child"--you will highly oblige me by so doing.
Ah, what an enviable creature you are! There now, this cursed, gloomy,
blue-devil day, you are going to a party of choice spirits--
"To play the shapes
Of frolic fancy, and incessant form
Those rapid pictures, assembled train
Of fleet ideas, never join'd before,
Where lively _wit_ excites to gay surprise;
Or folly-painting _humour_, grave himself,
Calls laughter forth, deep-shaking every nerve."
THOMSON.
But as you rejoice with them that do rejoice, do also remember to weep
with them that weep, and pity your melancholy friend.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCLXXXII.
TO A LADY.
IN FAVOUR OF A PLAYER'S BENEFIT.
[The name of the lady to whom this letter is addressed, has not
transpired.]
_Dumfries, 1794._
MADAM,
You were so very good as to promise me to honour my friend with your
presence on his benefit night. That night is fixed for Friday first:
the play a most interesting one! "The Way to Keep Him." I have the
pleasure to know Mr. G. well. His merit as an actor is generally
acknowledged. He has genius and worth which would do honour to
patronage: he is a poor and modest man; claims which from their very
_silence_ have the more forcible power on the generous heart. Alas,
for pity! that from the indolence of those who have the good things of
this life in their gift, too often does brazen-fronted importunity
snatch that boon, the rightful due of retiring, humble want! Of all
the qualities we assign to the author and director of nature, by far
the most enviable is--to be able "to wipe away all tears from all
eyes." O what insignificant, sordid wretches are they, however chance
may have loaded them with wealth, who go to their graves, to their
magnificent _mausoleums_, with hardly the consciousness of having made
one poor honest heart happy!
But I crave your pardon, Madam; I came to beg, not to preach.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCLXXXIII.
TO THE EARL OF BUCHAN,
_With a Copy of Bruce's Address to his Troops at Bannockburn._
[This fantastic Earl of Buchan died a few years ago: when he was put
into the family burial-ground, at Dryburgh, his head was laid the
wrong way, which Sir Walter Scott said was little matter, as it had
never been quite right in his lifetime.]
_Dumfries, 12th January, 1794._
MY LORD,
Will your lordship allow me to present you with the enclosed little
composition of mine, as a small tribute of gratitude for the
acquaintance with which you have been pleased to honour me?
Independent of my enthusiasm as a Scotsman, I have rarely met with
anything in history which interests my feelings as a man, equal with
the story of Bannockburn. On the one hand, a cruel, but able usurper,
leading on the finest army in Europe to extinguish the last spark of
freedom among a greatly-daring and greatly-injured people; on the
other hand, the desperate relics of a gallant nation, devoting
themselves to rescue their bleeding country, or perish with her.
Liberty! thou art a prize truly and indeed invaluable! for never canst
thou be too dearly bought!
If my little ode has the honour of your lordship's approbation, it
will gratify my highest ambition.
I have the honour to be, &c.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCLXXXIV.
TO CAPTAIN MILLER,
DALSWINTON.
[Captain Miller, of Dalswinton, sat in the House of Commons for the
Dumfries district of boroughs. Dalswinton has passed from the family
to my friend James M'Alpine Leny, Esq.]
DEAR SIR,
The following ode is on a subject which I know you by no means regard
with indifference. Oh, Liberty,
"Thou mak'st the gloomy face of nature gay,
Giv'st beauty to the sun, and pleasure to the day."
ADDISON.
It does me so much good to meet with a man whose honest bosom glows
with the generous enthusiasm, the heroic daring of liberty, that I
could not forbear sending you a composition of my own on the subject,
which I really think is in my best manner.
I have the honour to be,
Dear Sir, &c.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCLXXXV.
TO MRS. RIDDEL.
[The dragon guarding the Hesperian fruit, was simply a military
officer, who, with the courtesy of those whose trade is arms, paid
attention to the lady.]
DEAR MADAM,
I meant to have called on you yesternight, but as I edged up to your
box-door, the first object which greeted my view, was one of those
lobster-coated puppies, sitting like another dragon, guarding the
Hesperian fruit. On the conditions and capitulations you so obligingly
offer, I shall certainly make my weather-beaten rustic phiz a part of
your box-furniture on Tuesday; when we may arrange the business of the
visit.
Among the profusion of idle compliments, which insidious craft, or
unmeaning folly, incessantly offer at your shrine--a shrine, how far
exalted above such adoration--permit me, were it but for rarity's
sake, to pay you the honest tribute of a warm heart and an independent
mind; and to assure you, that I am, thou most amiable and most
accomplished of thy sex, with the most respectful esteem, and fervent
regard, thine, &c.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCLXXXVI.
TO MRS. RIDDEL.
[The patient sons of order and prudence seem often to have stirred the
poet to such invectives as this letter exhibits.]
I will wait on you, my ever-valued friend, but whether in the morning
I am not sure. Sunday closes a period of our curst revenue business,
and may probably keep me employed with my pen until noon. Fine
employment for a poet's pen! There is a species of the human genus
that I call _the gin-horse class:_ what enviable dogs they are! Round,
and round, and round they go,--Mundell's ox that drives his
cotton-mill is their exact prototype--without an idea or wish beyond
their circle; fat, sleek, stupid, patient, quiet, and contented; while
here I sit, altogether Novemberish, a d--mn'd melange of fretfulness
and melancholy; not enough of the one to rouse me to passion, nor of
the other to repose me in torpor, my soul flouncing and fluttering
round her tenement, like a wild finch, caught amid the horrors of
winter, and newly thrust into a cage. Well, I am persuaded that it was
of me the Hebrew sage prophesied, when he foretold--"And behold, on
whatsoever this man doth set his heart, it shall not prosper!" If my
resentment is awaked, it is sure to be where it dare not squeak: and
if-- * * * * *
Pray that wisdom and bliss be more frequent visiters of
R. B.
* * * * *
CCLXXXVII.
TO MRS. RIDDEL.
[The bard often offended and often appeased this whimsical but very
clever lady.]
I have this moment got the song from Syme, and I am sorry to see that
he has spoilt it a good deal. It shall be a lesson to me how I lend
him anything again.
I have sent you "Werter," truly happy to have any the smallest
opportunity of obliging you.
'Tis true, Madam, I saw you once since I was at Woodlea; and that once
froze the very life-blood of my heart. Your reception of me was such,
that a wretch meeting the eye of his judge, about to pronounce
sentence of death on him could only have envied my feelings and
situation. But I hate the theme, and never more shall write or speak
on it.
One thing I shall proudly say, that I can pay Mrs. R. a higher tribute
of esteem, and appreciate her amiable worth more truly, than any man
whom I have seen approach her.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCLXXXVIII.
TO MRS. RIDDEL.
[Burns often complained in company, and sometimes in his letters, of
the caprice of Mrs. Riddel.]
I have often told you, my dear friend, that you had a spice of caprice
in your composition, and you have as often disavowed it; even perhaps
while your opinions were, at the moment, irrefragably proving it.
Could _anything_ estrange me from a friend such as you?--No! To-morrow
I shall have the honour of waiting on you.
Farewell, thou first of friends, and most accomplished of women; even
with all thy little caprices!
R. B.
* * * * *
CCLXXXIX.
TO MRS. RIDDEL.
[The offended lady was soothed by this submissive letter, and the bard
was re-established in her good graces.]
MADAM,
I return your common-place book. I have perused it with much pleasure,
and would have continued my criticisms, but as it seems the critic has
forfeited your esteem, his strictures must lose their value.
If it is true that "offences come only from the heart," before you I
am guiltless. To admire, esteem, and prize you as the most
accomplished of women, and the first of friends--if these are crimes,
I am the most offending thing alive.
In a face where I used to meet the kind complacency of friendly
confidence, _now_ to find cold neglect, and contemptuous scorn--is a
wrench that my heart can ill bear. It is, however, some kind of
miserable good luck, and while _de haut-en-bas_ rigour may depress an
unoffending wretch to the ground, it has a tendency to rouse a
stubborn something in his bosom, which, though it cannot heal the
wounds of his soul, is at least an opiate to blunt their poignancy.
With the profoundest respect for your abilities; the most sincere
esteem and ardent regard for your gentle heart and amiable manners;
and the most fervent wish and prayer for your welfare, peace, and
bliss, I have the honour to be,
Madam,
Your most devoted humble servant,
R. B.
* * * * *
CCXC.
TO JOHN SYME, ESQ.
[John Syme, of the stamp-office, was the companion as well as comrade
in arms, of Burns: he was a well-informed gentleman, loved witty
company, and sinned in rhyme now and then: his epigrams were often
happy.]
You know that among other high dignities, you have the honour to be my
supreme court of critical judicature, from which there is no appeal. I
enclose you a song which I composed since I saw you, and I am going to
give you the history of it. Do you know that among much that I admire
in the characters and manners of those great folks whom I have now the
honour to call my acquaintances, the Oswald family, there is nothing
charms me more than Mr. Oswald's unconcealable attachment to that
incomparable woman. Did you ever, my dear Syme, meet with a man who
owed more to the Divine Giver of all good things than Mr. O.? A fine
fortune; a pleasing exterior; self-evident amiable dispositions, and
an ingenuous upright mind, and that informed, too, much beyond the
usual run of young fellows of his rank and fortune: and to all this,
such a woman!--but of her I shall say nothing at all, in despair of
saying anything adequate: in my song I have endeavoured to do justice
to what would be his feelings, on seeing, in the scene I have drawn,
the habitation of his Lucy. As I am a good deal pleased with my
performance, I, in my first fervour, thought of sending it to Mrs.
Oswald, but on second thoughts, perhaps what I offer as the honest
incense of genuine respect, might, from the well-known character of
poverty and poetry, be construed into some modification or other of
that servility which my soul abhors.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCXCI.
TO MISS ----.
[Burns, on other occasions than this, recalled both his letters and
verses: it is to be regretted that he did not recall more of both.]
_Dumfries, 1794._
MADAM,
Nothing short of a kind of absolute necessity could have made me
trouble you with this letter. Except my ardent and just esteem for
your sense, taste, and worth, every sentiment arising in my breast, as
I put pen to paper to you, is painful. The scenes I have passed with
the friend of my soul and his amiable connexions! the wrench at my
heart to think that he is gone, for ever gone from me, never more to
meet in the wanderings of a weary world! and the cutting reflection of
all, that I had most unfortunately, though most undeservedly, lost the
confidence of that soul of worth, ere it took its flight!
These, Madam, are sensations of no ordinary anguish.--However, you
also may be offended with some _imputed_ improprieties of mine;
sensibility you know I possess, and sincerity none will deny me.
To oppose those prejudices which have been raised against me, is not
the business of this letter. Indeed it is a warfare I know not how to
wage. The powers of positive vice I can in some degree calculate, and
against direct malevolence I can be on my guard; but who can estimate
the fatuity of giddy caprice, or ward off the unthinking mischief of
precipitate folly?
I have a favour to request of you, Madam, and of your sister Mrs. ----,
through your means. You know that, at the wish of my late friend, I
made a collection of all my trifles in verse which I had ever written.
They are many of them local, some of them puerile and silly, and all
of them unfit for the public eye. As I have some little fame at stake,
a fame that I trust may live when the hate of those who "watch for my
halting," and the contumelious sneer of those whom accident has made
my superiors, will, with themselves, be gone to the regions of
oblivion; I am uneasy now for the fate of those manuscripts--Will
Mrs. ---- have the goodness to destroy them, or return them to me? As a
pledge of friendship they were bestowed; and that circumstance indeed
was all their merit. Most unhappily for me, that merit they no longer
possess; and I hope that Mrs. ---- 's goodness, which I well know, and
ever will revere, will not refuse this favour to a man whom she once
held in some degree of estimation.
With the sincerest esteem,
I have the honour to be,
Madam, &c.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCXCII.
TO MR. CUNNINGHAM.
[The religious feeling of Burns was sometimes blunted, but at times it
burst out, as in this letter, with eloquence and fervour, mingled with
fear.]
_25th February, 1794._
Canst thou minister to a mind diseased? Canst thou speak peace and
rest to a soul tost on a sea of troubles, without one friendly star to
guide her course, and dreading that the next surge may overwhelm her?
Canst thou give to a frame tremblingly alive as the tortures of
suspense, the stability and hardihood of the rock that braves the
blast? If thou canst not do the least of these, why wouldst thou
disturb me in my miseries, with thy inquiries after me?
* * * * *
For these two months I have not been able to lift a pen. My
constitution and frame were, _ab origine_, blasted with a deep
incurable taint of hypochondria, which poisons my existence. Of late a
number of domestic vexations, and some pecuniary share in the ruin of
these cursed times; losses which, though trifling, were yet what I
could ill bear, have so irritated me, that my feelings at times could
only be envied by a reprobate spirit listening to the sentence that
dooms it to perdition.
Are you deep in the language of consolation? I have exhausted in
reflection every topic of comfort. _A heart at ease_ would have been
charmed with my sentiments and reasonings; but as to myself I was like
Judas Iscariot preaching the gospel; he might melt and mould the
hearts of those around him, but his own kept its native
incorrigibility.
Still there are two great pillars that bear us up, amid the wreck of
misfortune and misery. The one is composed of the different
modifications of a certain noble stubborn something in man, known by
the names of courage, fortitude, magnanimity. The other is made up of
those feelings and sentiments, which, however the sceptic may deny
them, or the enthusiast disfigure them, are yet, I am convinced,
original and component parts of the human soul; those _senses of the
mind_, if I may be allowed the expression, which connect us with, and
link us to, those awful, obscure realities--an all-powerful, and
equally beneficent God; and a world to come, beyond death and the
grave. The first gives the nerve of combat, while a ray of hope beams
on the field: the last pours the balm of comfort into the wounds which
time can never cure.
I do not remember, my dear Cunningham, that you and I ever talked on
the subject of religion at all. I know some who laugh at it, as the
trick of the crafty few, to lead the undiscerning MANY; or at
most as an uncertain obscurity, which mankind can never know anything
of, and with which they are fools if they give themselves much to do.
Nor would I quarrel with a man for his irreligion, any more than I
would for his want of a musical ear. I would regret that he was shut
out from what, to me and to others, were such superlative sources of
enjoyment. It is in this point of view, and for this reason, that I
will deeply imbue the mind of every child of mine with religion. If my
son should happen to be a man of feeling, sentiment, and taste, I
shall thus add largely to his enjoyments. Let me flatter myself that
this sweet little fellow, who is just now running about my desk, will
be a man of a melting, ardent, glowing heart; and an imagination,
delighted with the painter, and rapt with the poet. Let me figure him
wandering out in a sweet evening, to inhale the balmy gales, and enjoy
the growing luxuriance of spring; himself the while in the blooming
youth of life. He looks abroad on all nature, and through nature up to
nature's God. His soul, by swift delighting degrees, is rapt above
this sublunary sphere, until he can be silent no longer, and bursts
out into the glorious enthusiasm of Thomson,
"These, as they change, Almighty Father, these
Are but the varied God.--The rolling year
Is full of thee."
And so on, in all the spirit and ardour of that charming hymn. These
are no ideal pleasures, they are real delights; and I ask what of the
delights among the sons of men are superior, not to say equal to them?
And they have this precious, vast addition, that conscious virtue
stamps them for her own; and lays hold on them to bring herself into
the presence of a witnessing, judging, and approving God.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCXCIII.
TO THE EARL OF GLENCAIRN.
[The original letter is in the possession of the Hon. Mrs. Halland, of
Poynings: it is undated, but from a memorandum on the back it appears
to have been written in May, 1794.]
_May, 1794._
MY LORD,
When you cast your eye on the name at the bottom of this letter, and
on the title-page of the book I do myself the honour to send your
lordship, a more pleasurable feeling than my vanity tells me that it
must be a name not entirely unknown to you. The generous patronage of
your late illustrious brother found me in the lowest obscurity: he
introduced my rustic muse to the partiality of my country; and to him
I owe all. My sense of his goodness, and the anguish of my soul at
losing my truly noble protector and friend, I have endeavoured to
express in a poem to his memory, which I have now published. This
edition is just from the press; and in my gratitude to the dead, and
my respect for the living (fame belies you, my lord, if you possess
not the same dignity of man, which was your noble brother's
characteristic feature), I had destined a copy for the Earl of
Glencairn. I learnt just now that you are in town:--allow me to
present it you.
I know, my lord, such is the vile, venal contagion which pervades the
world of letters, that professions of respect from an author,
particularly from a poet, to a lord, are more than suspicious. I claim
my by-past conduct, and my feelings at this moment, as exceptions to
the too just conclusion. Exalted as are the honours of your lordship's
name, and unnoted as is the obscurity of mine; with the uprightness of
an honest man, I come before your lordship with an offering, however
humble, 'tis all I have to give, of my grateful respect; and to beg of
you, my lord,--'tis all I have to ask of you,--that you will do me the
honour to accept of it.
I have the honour to be,
R. B.
* * * * *
CCXCIV.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[The correspondence between the poet and the musician was interrupted
in spring, but in summer and autumn the song-strains were renewed.]
_May, 1794._
MY DEAR SIR,
I return you the plates, with which I am highly pleased; I would
humbly propose, instead of the younker knitting stockings, to put a
stock and horn into his hands. A friend of mine, who is positively the
ablest judge on the subject I have ever met with, and, though an
unknown, is yet a superior artist with the burin, is quite charmed
with Allan's manner. I got him a peep of the "Gentle Shepherd;" and he
pronounces Allan a most original artist of great excellence.
For my part, I look on Mr. Allan's choosing my favourite poem for his
subject, to be one of the highest compliments I have ever received.
I am quite vexed at Pleyel's being cooped up in France, as it will put
an entire stop to our work. Now, and for six or seven months, I shall
be quite in song, as you shall see by and bye. I got an air, pretty
enough, composed by Lady Elizabeth Heron, of Heron, which she calls
"The Banks of Cree." Cree is a beautiful romantic stream; and, as her
ladyship is a particular friend of mine, I have written the following
song to it.
Here is the glen and here the bower.[256]
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 256: Song CCXXIII.]
* * * * *
CCXCV.
TO DAVID M'CULLOCH, ESQ.
[The endorsement on the back of the original letter shows in what far
lands it has travelled:--"Given by David M'Culloch, Penang, 1810. A.
Fraser." "Received 15th December, 1823, in Calcutta, from Captain
Frazer's widow, by me, Thomas Rankine." "Transmitted to Archibald
Hastie, Esq., London, March 27th, 1824, from Bombay."]
_Dumfries, 21st June, 1794._
MY DEAR SIR,
My long-projected journey through your country is at last fixed: and
on Wednesday next, if you have nothing of more importance to do, take
a saunter down to Gatehouse about two or three o'clock, I shall be
happy to take a draught of M'Kune's best with you. Collector Syme will
be at Glens about that time, and will meet us about dish-of-tea hour.
Syme goes also to Kerroughtree, and let me remind you of your kind
promise to accompany me there; I will need all the friends I can
muster, for I am indeed ill at ease whenever I approach your
honourables and right honourables.
Yours sincerely,
R. B.
* * * * *
CCXCVI.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[Castle Douglas is a thriving Galloway village: it was in other days
called "The Carlinwark," but accepted its present proud name from an
opulent family of mercantile Douglasses, well known in Scotland,
England, and America.]
_Castle Douglas, 25th June, 1794._
Here, in a solitary inn, in a solitary village, am I set by myself, to
amuse my brooding fancy as I may.--Solitary confinement, you know, is
Howard's favourite idea of reclaiming sinners; so let me consider by
what fatality it happens that I have so long been so exceeding sinful
as to neglect the correspondence of the most valued friend I have on
earth. To tell you that I have been in poor health will not be excuse
enough, though it is true. I am afraid that I am about to suffer for
the follies of my youth. My medical friends threaten me with a flying
gout; but I trust they are mistaken.
I am just going to trouble your critical patience with the first
sketch of a stanza I have been framing as I passed along the road. The
subject is Liberty: you know, my honoured friend, how dear the theme
is to me. I design it as an irregular ode for General Washington's
birth-day. After having mentioned the degeneracy of other kingdoms, I
come to Scotland thus:--
Thee, Caledonia, thy wild heaths among,
Thee, famed for martial deed, and sacred song,
To thee I turn with swimming eyes;
Where is that soul of freedom fled?
Immingled with the mighty dead!
Beneath the hallowed turf where Wallace lies!
Hear it not, Wallace, in thy bed of death!
Ye babbling winds in silence sweep,
Disturb not ye the hero's sleep.
with additions of
That arm which nerved with thundering fate,
Braved usurpation's boldest daring!
One quenched in darkness like the sinking star,
And one the palsied arm of tottering, powerless age.
You will probably have another scrawl from me in a stage or two.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCXCVII.
TO MR. JAMES JOHNSON.
[The anxiety of Burns about the accuracy of his poetry, while in the
press, was great: he found full employment for months in correcting a
new edition of his poems.]
_Dumfries, 1794._
MY DEAR FRIEND,
You should have heard from me long ago; but over and above some
vexatious share in the pecuniary losses of these accursed times, I
have all this winter been plagued with low spirits and blue devils, so
that _I have almost hung my harp on the willow-trees._
I am just now busy correcting a new edition of my poems, and this,
with my ordinary business, finds me in full employment.
I send you by my friend Mr. Wallace forty-one songs for your fifth
volume; if we cannot finish it in any other way, what would you think
of Scots words to some beautiful Irish airs? In the mean time, at your
leisure, give a copy of the Museum to my worthy friend, Sir. Peter
Hill, bookseller, to bind for me, interleaved with blank leaves,
exactly as he did the Laird of Glenriddel's, that I may insert every
anecdote I can learn, together with my own criticisms and remarks on
the songs. A copy of this kind I shall leave with you, the editor, to
publish at some after period, by way of making the Museum a book
famous to the end of time, and you renowned for ever.
I have got an Highland dirk, for which I have great veneration; as it
once was the dirk of _Lord Balmerino._ It fell into bad hands, who
stripped it of the silver mounting, as well as the knife and fork. I
have some thoughts of sending it to your care, to get it mounted anew.
Thank you for the copies of my Volunteer Ballad.--Our friend Clarke
has done _indeed_ well! 'tis chaste and beautiful. I have not met with
anything that has pleased me so much. You know I am no connoisseur:
but that I am an amateur--will be allowed me.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCXCVIII.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[The blank in this letter could be filled up without writing treason:
but nothing has been omitted of an original nature.]
_July, 1794._
Is there no news yet of Pleyel? Or is your work to be at a dead stop,
until the allies set our modern Orpheus at liberty from the savage
thraldom of democrat discords? Alas the day! And woe is me! That
auspicious period, pregnant with the happiness of millions. * * * *
I have presented a copy of your songs to the daughter of a much-valued
and much-honoured friend of mine, Mr. Graham of Fintray. I wrote on
the blank side of the title-page the following address to the young
lady:
Here, where the Scottish muse immortal lives, &c.[257]
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 257: Song CCXXIX.]
* * * * *
CCXCIX.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[Thomson says to Burns, "You have anticipated my opinion of 'O'er the
seas and far away.'" Yet some of the verses are original and
touching.]
_30th August, 1794._
The last evening, as I was straying out, and thinking of "O'er the
hills and far away," I spun the following stanza for it; but whether
my spinning will deserve to be laid up in store, like the precious
thread of the silk-worm, or brushed to the devil, like the vile
manufacture of the spider, I leave, my dear Sir, to your usual candid
criticism. I was pleased with several lines in it at first, but I own
that now it appears rather a flimsy business.
This is just a hasty sketch, until I see whether it be worth a
critique. We have many sailor songs, but as far as I at present
recollect, they are mostly the effusions of the jovial sailor, not the
wailings of his love-lorn mistress. I must here make one sweet
exception--"Sweet Annie frae the sea-beach came." Now for the song:--
How can my poor heart be glad.[258]
I give you leave to abuse this song, but do it in the spirit of
Christian meekness.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 258: Song CCXXIV.]
* * * * *
CCC.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[The stream on the banks of which this song is supposed to be sung, is
known by three names, Cairn, Dalgonar, and Cluden. It rises under the
name of Cairn, runs through a wild country, under the name of
Dalgonar, affording fine trout-fishing as well as fine scenes, and
under that of Cluden it all but washes the walls of Lincluden College,
and then unites with the Nith.]
_Sept. 1794._
I shall withdraw my "On the seas and far away" altogether: it is
unequal, and unworthy the work. Making a poem is like begetting a son:
you cannot know whether you have a wise man or a fool, until you
produce him to the world to try him.
For that reason I send you the offspring of my brain, abortions and
all; and, as such, pray look over them, and forgive them, and burn
them. I am flattered at your adopting "Ca' the yowes to the knowes,"
as it was owing to me that ever it saw the light. About seven years
ago I was well acquainted with a worthy little fellow of a clergyman,
a Mr. Clunie, who sang it charmingly; and, at my request, Mr. Clarke
took it down from his singing. When I gave it to Johnson, I added some
stanzas to the song, and mended others, but still it will not do for
you. In a solitary stroll which I took to-day, I tried my hand on a
few pastoral lines, following up the idea of the chorus, which I would
preserve. Here it is, with all its crudities and imperfections on its
head.
Ca' the yowes to the knowes, &c.[259]
I shall give you my opinion of your other newly adopted songs my first
scribbling fit.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 259: Song CCXXV.]
* * * * *
CCCI.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[Dr. Maxwell, whose skill called forth the praises of the poet, had
the honour of being named by Burke in the House of Commons: he shared
in the French revolution, and narrowly escaped the guillotine, like
many other true friends of liberty.]
_Sept. 1794._
Do you know a blackguard Irish song called "Onagh's Waterfall?" The
air is charming, and I have often regretted the want of decent verses
to it. It is too much, at least for my humble rustic muse, to expect
that every effort of hers shall have merit; still I think that it is
better to have mediocre verses to a favourite air, than none at all.
On this principle I have all along proceeded in the Scots Musical
Museum; and as that publication is at its last volume, I intend the
following song, to the air above mentioned, for that work.
If it does not suit you as an editor, you may be pleased to have
verses to it that you can sing in the company of ladies.
Sae flaxen were her ringlets.[260]
Not to compare small things with great, my taste in music is like the
mighty Frederick of Prussia's taste in painting: we are told that he
frequently admired what the connoisseurs decried, and always without
any hypocrisy confessed his admiration. I am sensible that my taste in
music must be inelegant and vulgar, because people of undisputed and
cultivated taste can find no merit in my favourite tunes. Still,
because I am cheaply pleased, is that any reason why I should deny
myself that pleasure? Many of our strathspeys, ancient and modern,
give me most exquisite enjoyment, where you and other judges would
probably be showing disgust. For instance, I am just now making verses
for "Rothemurche's rant," an air which puts me in raptures; and, in
fact, unless I be pleased with the tune, I never can make verses to
it. Here I have Clarke on my side, who is a judge that I will pit
against any of you. "Rothemurche," he says, "is an air both original
and beautiful;" and, on his recommendation, I have taken the first
part of the tune for a chorus, and the fourth or last part for the
song. I am but two stanzas deep in the work, and possibly you may
think, and justly, that the poetry is as little worth your attention
as the music.
[Here follow two stanzas of the song, beginning "Lassie wi' the
lint-white locks." Song CCXXXIII.]
I have begun anew, "Let me in this ae night." Do you think that we
ought to retain the old chorus? I think we must retain both the old
chorus and the first stanza of the old song. I do not altogether like
the third line of the first stanza, but cannot alter it to please
myself. I am just three stanzas deep in it. Would you have the
_denouement_ to be successful or otherwise?--should she "let him in"
or not?
Did you not once propose "The sow's tail to Geordie" as an air for
your work? I am quite delighted with it; but I acknowledge that is no
mark of its real excellence. I once set about verses for it, which I
meant to be in the alternate way of a lover and his mistress chanting
together. I have not the pleasure of knowing Mrs. Thomson's Christian
name, and yours, I am afraid, is rather burlesque for sentiment, else
I had meant to have made you the hero and heroine of the little piece.
How do you like the following epigram which I wrote the other day on a
lovely young girl's recovery from a fever? Doctor Maxwell was the
physician who seemingly saved her from the grave; and to him I address
the following:
TO DR. MAXWELL,
ON MISS JESSIE STAIG'S RECOVERY.
Maxwell, if merit here you crave,
That merit I deny:
You save fair Jessy from the grave?--
An angel could not die!
God grant you patience with this stupid epistle!
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 260: Song CCXXVI.]
* * * * *
CCCII.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[The poet relates the history of several of his best songs in this
letter: the true old strain of "Andro and his cutty gun" is the first
of its kind.]
_19th October, 1794._
MY DEAR FRIEND,
By this morning's post I have your list, and, in general, I highly
approve of it. I shall, at more leisure, give you a critique on the
whole. Clarke goes to your town by to-day's fly, and I wish you would
call on him and take his opinion in general: you know his taste is a
standard. He will return here again in a week or two, so please do not
miss asking for him. One thing I hope he will do--persuade you to
adopt my favourite "Craigieburn-wood," in your selection: it is as
great a favourite of his as of mine. The lady on whom it was made is
one of the finest women in Scotland; and in fact (_entre nous_) is in
a manner to me what Sterne's Eliza was to him--a mistress, or friend,
or what you will, in the guileless simplicity of Platonic love. (Now,
don't put any of your squinting constructions on this, or have any
clishmaclaver about it among our acquaintances.) I assure you that to
my lovely friend you are indebted for many of your best songs of mine.
Do you think that the sober, gin-horse routine of existence could
inspire a man with life, and love, and joy--could fire him with
enthusiasm, or melt him with pathos, equal to the genius of your book?
No! no! Whenever I want to be more than ordinary in song--to be in
some degree equal to your diviner airs--do you imagine I fast and pray
for the celestial emanation? _Tout au contraire!_ I have a glorious
recipe; the very one that for his own use was invented by the divinity
of healing and poetry, when erst he piped to the flocks of Admetus. I
put myself in a regimen of admiring a fine woman; and in proportion to
the adorability of her charms, in proportion you are delighted with my
verses. The lightning of her eye is the godhead of Parnassus, and the
witchery of her smile the divinity of Helicon!
To descend to business: if you like my idea of "When she cam ben she
bobbit," the following stanzas of mine, altered a little from what
they were formerly, when set to another air, may perhaps do instead of
worse stanzas:--
O saw ye my dear, my Phely.[261]
Now for a few miscellaneous remarks. "The Posie" (in the Museum) is my
composition; the air was taken down from Mrs. Burns's voice. It is
well known in the west country, but the old words are trash. By the
bye, take a look at the tune again, and tell me if you do not think it
is the original from which "Roslin Castle" is composed. The second
part in particular, for the first two or three bars, is exactly the
old air. "Strathallan's Lament" is mine; the music is by our right
trusty and deservedly well-beloved Allan Masterton. "Donocht-Head" is
not mine; I would give ten pounds it were. It appeared first in the
Edinburgh Herald, and came to the editor of that paper with the
Newcastle post-mark on it "Whistle o'er the lave o't" is mine: the
music said to be by a John Bruce, a celebrated violin-player in
Dumfries, about the beginning of this century. This I know, Bruce, who
was an honest man, though a red-wud Highlandman, constantly claimed
it; and by all the old musical people here is believed to be the
author of it.
"Andrew and his cutty gun." The song to which this is set in the
Museum is mine, and was composed on Miss Euphemia Murray, of Lintrose,
commonly and deservedly called the Flower of Strathmore.
"How long and dreary is the night!" I met with some such words in a
collection of songs somewhere, which I altered and enlarged; and to
please you, and to suit your favourite air, I have taken a stride or
two across my room, and have arranged it anew, as you will find on the
other page.
How long and dreary is the night, &c.[262]
Tell me how you like this. I differ from your idea of the expression
of the tune. There is, to me, a great deal of tenderness in it. You
cannot, in my opinion, dispense with a bass to your addenda airs. A
lady of my acquaintance, a noted performer, plays and sings at the
same time so charmingly, that I shall never bear to see any of her
songs sent into the world, as naked as Mr. What-d'ye-call-um has done
in his London collection.[263]
These English songs gravel me to death. I have not that command of the
language that I have of my native tongue. I have been at "Duncan
Gray," to dress it in English, but all I can do is deplorably stupid.
For instance:--
Let not woman e'er complain, &c.[264]
Since the above, I have been out in the country, taking a dinner with
a friend, where I met with a lady whom I mentioned in the second page
in this odds-and-ends of a letter. As usual, I got into song; and
returning home I composed the following:
Sleep'st thou, or wak'st thou, fairest creature
&c.[265]
If you honour my verses by setting the air to them, I will vamp up the
old song, and make it English enough to be understood.
I enclose you a musical curiosity, an East Indian air, which you would
swear was a Scottish one. I know the authenticity of it, as the
gentleman who brought it over is a particular acquaintance of mine. Do
preserve me the copy I send you, as it is the only one I have. Clarke
has set a bass to it, and I intend putting it into the Musical Museum.
Here follow the verses I intend for it.
But lately seen in gladsome green, &c.[266]
I would be obliged to you if you would procure me a sight of Ritson's
collection of English songs, which you mention in your letter. I will
thank you for another information, and that as speedily as you please:
whether this miserable drawling hotch-potch epistle has not completely
tired you of my correspondence?
VARIATION.
Now to the streaming fountain,
Or up the heathy mountain,
The hart, hind, and roe, freely, wildly-wanton stray;
In twining hazel bowers,
His lay the linnet pours;
The lav'rock to the sky
Ascends wi' sangs o' joy,
While the sun and thou arise to bless the day.
When frae my Chloris parted,
Sad, cheerless, broken-hearted,
The night's gloomy shades, cloudy, dark, o'ercast my sky.
But when she charms my sight,
In pride of beauty's light;
When through my very heart
Her beaming glories dart;
'Tis then, 'tis then I wake to life and joy!
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 261: Song CCXXVII.]
[Footnote 262: Song CCXXVIII.]
[Footnote 263: Mr. Ritson, whose collection of Scottish songs was
published this year.]
[Footnote 264: Song CCXXIX.]
[Footnote 265: Song CCXXX.]
[Footnote 266: Song CCXVI.]
* * * * *
CCCIII.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[The presents made to the poet were far from numerous: the book for
which he expresses his thanks, was the work of the waspish Ritson.]
_November, 1794._
Many thanks to you, my dear Sir, for your present; it is a book of the
utmost importance to me. I have yesterday begun my anecdotes, &c., for
your work. I intend drawing them up in the form of a letter to you,
which will save me from the tedious dull business of systematic
arrangement. Indeed, as all I have to say consists of unconnected
remarks, anecdotes, scraps of old songs, &c., it would be impossible
to give the work a beginning, a middle, and an end, which the critics
insist to be absolutely necessary in a work. In my last, I told you my
objections to the song you had selected for "My lodging is on the cold
ground." On my visit the other day to my friend Chloris (that is the
poetic name of the lovely goddess of my inspiration), she suggested an
idea, which I, on my return from the visit, wrought into the following
song.
My Chloris, mark how green the groves.[267]
How do you like the simplicity and tenderness of this pastoral? I
think it pretty well.
I like you for entering so candidly and so kindly into the story of
"_ma chere amie._" I assure you I was never more in earnest in my
life, than in the account of that affair which I sent you in my last.
Conjugal love is a passion which I deeply feel, and highly venerate;
but, somehow, it does not make such a figure in poesy as that other
species of the passion,
"Where love is liberty, and nature law."
Musically speaking, the first is an instrument of which the gamut is
scanty and confined, but the tones inexpressibly sweet, while the last
has powers equal to all the intellectual modulations of the human
soul. Still, I am a very poet in my enthusiasm of the passion. The
welfare and happiness of the beloved object is the first and inviolate
sentiment that pervades my soul; and whatever pleasures I might wish
for, or whatever might be the raptures they would give me, yet, if
they interfere with that first principle, it is having these pleasures
at a dishonest price; and justice forbids and generosity disdains the
purchase.
Despairing of my own powers to give you variety enough in English
songs, I have been turning over old collections, to pick out songs, of
which the measure is something similar to what I want; and, with a
little alteration, so as to suit the rhythm of the air exactly, to
give you them for your work. Where the songs have hitherto been but
little noticed, nor have ever been set to music, I think the shift a
fair one. A song, which, under the same first verse, you will find in
Ramsay's Tea-table Miscellany, I have cut down for an English dress to
your "Dainty Davie," as follows:--
It was the charming month of May.[268]
You may think meanly of this, but take a look at the bombast original,
and you will be surprised that I have made so much of it. I have
finished my song to "Rothemurche's rant," and you have Clarke to
consult as to the set of the air for singing.
Lassie wi' the lint-white locks, &c.[269]
This piece has at least the merit of being a regular pastoral: the
vernal morn, the summer noon, the autumnal evening, and the winter
night, are regularly rounded. If you like it, well; if not, I will
insert it in the Museum.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 267: Song CCXXXI.]
[Footnote 268: Song CCXXXII.]
[Footnote 269: Song CCXXXIII.]
* * * * *
CCCIV.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[Sir Walter Scott remarked, on the lyrics of Burns, "that at last the
writing a series of songs for large musical collections degenerated
into a slavish labour which no talents could support."]
I am out of temper that you should set so sweet, so tender an air, as
"Deil tak the wars," to the foolish old verses. You talk of the
silliness of "Saw ye my father?"--By heavens! the odds is gold to
brass! Besides, the old song, though now pretty well modernized into
the Scottish language, is originally, and in the early editions, a
bungling low imitation of the Scottish manner, by that genius Tom
D'Urfey, so has no pretensions to be a Scottish production. There is a
pretty English song by Sheridan, in the "Duenna," to this air, which
is out of sight superior to D'Urfey's. It begins,
"When sable night each drooping plant restoring."
The air, if I understand the expression of it properly, is the very
native language of simplicity, tenderness, and love. I have again gone
over my song to the tune.
Now for my English song to "Nancy's to the greenwood," &c.
Farewell thou stream that winding flows.[270]
There is an air, "The Caledonian Hunt's Delight," to which I wrote a
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
show 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 thank you for admitting "Craigieburn-wood;" and I shall take care to
furnish you with a new chorus. In fact, the chorus was not my work,
but a part of some old verses to the air. If I can catch myself in a
more than ordinarily propitious moment, I shall write a new
"Craigieburn-wood" altogether. My heart is much in the theme.
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.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 270: Song CCXXXIV.]
* * * * *
CCCV.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[Willy and Phely, in one of the lyrics which this letter contained,
carry on the pleasant bandying of praise till compliments grow scarce,
and the lovers are reduced to silence.]
_19th November, 1794._
You see, my dear Sir, what a punctual correspondent I am; though,
indeed, you may thank yourself for the _tedium_ of my letters, as you
have so flattered me on my horsemanship with my favourite hobby, and
have praised the grace of his ambling so much, that I am scarcely ever
off his back. For instance, this morning, though a keen blowing frost,
in my walk before breakfast, I finished my duet, which you were
pleased to praise so much. Whether I have uniformly succeeded, I will
not say; but here it is for you, though it is not an hour old.
O Philly, happy be the day.[271]
Tell me honestly how you like it, and point out whatever you think
faulty.
I am much pleased with your idea of singing our songs in alternate
stanzas, and regret that you did not hint it to me sooner. In those
that remain, I shall have it in my eye. I remember your objections to
the name Philly, but it is the common abbreviation of Phillis. Sally,
the only other name that suits, has to my ear a vulgarity about it,
which unfits it, for anything except burlesque. The legion of Scottish
poetasters of the day, whom your brother editor, Mr. Ritson, ranks
with me as my coevals, have always mistaken vulgarity for simplicity;
whereas, simplicity is as much _eloignée_ from vulgarity on the one
hand, as from affected point and puerile conceit on the other.
I agree with you as to the air, "Craigieburn-wood," that a chorus
would, in some degree, spoil the effect, and shall certainly have
none in my projected song to it. It is not, however, a case in point
with "Rothemurche;" there, as in "Roy's Wife of Aldivalloch," a chorus
goes, to my taste, well enough. As to the chorus going first, that is
the case with "Roy's Wife," as well as "Rothemurche." In fact, in the
first part of both tunes, the rhythm is so peculiar and irregular, and
on that irregularity depends so much of their beauty, that we must
e'en take them with all their wildness, and humour the verse
accordingly. Leaving out the starting note in both tunes, has, I
think, an effect that no regularity could counterbalance the want of.
Try, {Oh Roy's wife of Aldivalloch.
{O lassie wi' the lint-white locks.
and
compare with {Roy's wife of Aldivalloch.
{Lassie wi the lint-white locks.
Does not the lameness of the prefixed syllable strike you? In the last
case, with the true furor of genius, you strike at once into the wild
originality of the air; whereas, in the first insipid method, it is
like the grating screw of the pins before the fiddle is brought into
tune. This is my taste; if I am wrong, I beg pardon of the
_cognoscenti._
"The Caledonian Hunt" is so charming, that it would make any subject
in a song go down; but pathos is certainly its native tongue. Scottish
bacchanalians we certainly want, though the few we have are excellent.
For instance, "Todlin hame," is, for wit and humour, an unparalleled
composition; And "Andrew and his cutty gun" is the work of a master.
By the way, are you not quite vexed to think that those men of genius,
for such they certainly were, who composed our fine Scottish lyrics,
should be unknown? It has given me many a heart-ache. Apropos to
bacchanalian songs in Scottish, I composed one yesterday, for an air I
like much--"Lumps o' pudding."
Contented wi' little and cantie wi' mair.[272]
If you do not relish this air, I will send it to Johnson.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 271: Song CCXXXV.]
[Footnote 272: Song CCXXXVI.]
* * * * *
CCCVI.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[The instrument which the poet got from the braes of Athol, seems of
an order as rude and incapable of fine sounds as the whistles which
school-boys make in spring from the smaller boughs of the plane-tree.]
Since yesterday's penmanship, I have framed a couple of English
stanzas, by way of an English song to "Roy's Wife." You will allow me,
that in this instance my English corresponds in sentiment with the
Scottish.
Canst thou leave me thus, my Katy?[273]
Well! I think this, to be done in two or three turns across my room,
and with two or three pinches of Irish blackguard, is not so far
amiss. You see I am determined to have my quantum of applause from
somebody.
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 comprised 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 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 ventages on the upper
side, and one back-ventage, 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.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 273: Song CCXXXVII.]
* * * * *
CCCVII.
TO PETER MILLER, JUN., ESQ.,
OF DALSWINTON.
[In a conversation with James Perry, editor of the Morning Chronicle,
Mr. Miller, who was then member for the Dumfries boroughs, kindly
represented the poverty of the poet and the increasing number of his
family: Perry at once offered fifty pounds a year for any
contributions he might choose to make to his newspaper: the reasons
for his refusal are stated in this letter.]
_Dumfries, Nov. 1794._
DEAR SIR,
Your offer is indeed truly generous, and most sincerely do I thank you
for it; but in my present situation, I find that I dare not accept it.
You well know my political sentiments; and were I an insular
individual, unconnected with a wife and a family of children, with the
most fervid enthusiasm I would have volunteered my services: I then
could and would have despised all consequences that might have ensued.
My prospect in the Excise is something; at least it is, encumbered as
I am with the welfare, the very existence, of near half-a-score of
helpless individuals, what I dare not sport with.
In the mean time, they are most welcome to my Ode; only, let them
insert it as a thing they have met with by accident and unknown to
me.--Nay, if Mr. Perry, whose honour, after your character of him, I
cannot doubt; if he will give me an address and channel by which
anything will come safe from those spies with which he may be certain
that his correspondence is beset, I will now and then send him any
bagatelle that I may write. In the present hurry of Europe, nothing
but news and politics will be regarded; but against the days of peace,
which Heaven send soon, my little assistance may perhaps fill up an
idle column of a newspaper. I have long had it in my head to try my
hand in the way of little prose essays, which I propose sending into
the world though the medium of some newspaper; and should these be
worth his while, to these Mr. Perry shall be welcome; and all my
reward shall be, his treating me with his paper, which, by the bye, to
anybody who has the least relish for wit, is a high treat indeed.
With the most grateful esteem I am ever,
Dear Sir,
R. B.
* * * * *
CCCVIII.
TO MR. SAMUEL CLARKE, JUN.,
DUMFRIES.
[Political animosities troubled society during the days of Burns, as
much at least as they disturb it now--this letter is an instance of
it.]
_Sunday Morning._
DEAR SIR,
I was, I know, drunk last night, but I am sober this morning. From the
expressions Capt. ---- made use of to me, had I had no-body's welfare
to care for but my own, we should certainly have come, according to
the manners of the world, to the necessity of murdering one another
about the business. The words were such as, generally, I believe, end
in a brace of pistols; but I am still pleased to think that I did not
ruin the peace and welfare of a wife and a family of children in a
drunken squabble. Farther, you know that the report of certain
political opinions being mine, has already once before brought me to
the brink of destruction. I dread lest last night's business may be
misrepresented in the same way.--You, I beg, will take care to prevent
it. I tax your wish for Mr. Burns' welfare with the task of waiting as
soon as possible, on every gentleman who was present, and state this
to him, and, as you please, show him this letter. What, after all, was
the obnoxious toast? "May our success in the present war be equal to
the justice of our cause."--A toast that the most outrageous frenzy of
loyalty cannot object to. I request and beg that this morning you will
wait on the parties present at the foolish dispute. I shall only add,
that I am truly sorry that a man who stood so high in my estimation as
Mr. ----, should use me in the manner in which I conceive he has done.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCCIX.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[Burns allowed for the songs which Wolcot wrote for Thomson a degree
of lyric merit which the world has refused to sanction.]
_December, 1794._
It is, I assure you, the pride of my heart to do anything to forward
or add to the value of your book; and as I agree with you that the
jacobite song in the Museum to "There'll never be peace till Jamie
comes hame," would not so well consort with Peter Pindar's excellent
love-song to that air, I have just framed for you the following:--
Now in her green mantle, &c.[274]
How does this please you? As to the point of time for the expression,
in your proposed print from my "Sodger's Return," it must certainly be
at--"She gaz'd." The interesting dubiety and suspense taking
possession of her countenance, and the gushing fondness, with a
mixture of roguish playfulness, in his, strike me as things of which a
master will make a great deal. In great haste, but in great truth,
yours,
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 274: Song CCXXXVIII.]
* * * * *
CCCX.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[In this brief and off-hand way Burns bestows on Thompson one of the
finest songs ever dedicated to the cause of human freedom.]
_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, &c., 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.
Is there for honest poverty.[275]
I do not give you the foregoing song for your book, but merely by way
of _vive la bagatelle_; for the piece is not really poetry. How will
the following do for "Craigieburn-wood?"--
Sweet fa's the eve on Craigieburn.[276]
Farewell! God bless you!
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 275: Song CCLXIV.]
[Footnote 276: Song CCXLV.]
* * * * *
CCCXI.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[Of this letter, Dr. Currie writes "the poet must have been tipsy
indeed to abuse sweet Ecclefechan at this rate;" it is one of the
prettiest of our Annandale villages, and the birth-place of that
distinguished biographer.]
_Ecclefechan_, 7_th February_, 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 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.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCCXII.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[The song of Caledonia, in honour of Mrs. Burns, was accompanied by
two others in honour of the poet's mistress: the muse was high in
song, and used few words in the letter which enclosed them.]
_May, 1795._
O stay, sweet warbling woodlark, stay![277]
Let me know, your very first leisure, how you like this song.
Long, long the night.[278]
How do you like the foregoing? The Irish air, "Humours of Glen," is a
great favourite of mine, and as, except the silly stuff in the "Poor
Soldier," there are not any decent verses for it, I have written for
it as follows:--
Their groves o' sweet myrtle let foreign lands reckon.[279]
Let me hear from you.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 277: Song CCXLIX.]
[Footnote 278: Song CCL.]
[Footnote 279: Song CCLI.]
* * * * *
CCCXIII.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[The poet calls for praise in this letter, a species of coin which is
always ready.]
How cruel are the parents.[280]
Mark yonder pomp of costly fashion.[281]
Well, this is not amiss. You see how I answer your orders--your tailor
could not be more punctual. I am just now in a high fit for poetizing,
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 phrensy 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.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 280: Song CCLIII.]
[Footnote 281: Song CCLIV.]
* * * * *
CCCXIV.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[Thomson at this time sent the drawing to Burns in which David Allan
sought to embody the "Cotter's Saturday Night:" it displays at once
the talent and want of taste of the ingenious artist.]
_May, 1795._
Ten thousand thanks for your elegant present--though I am ashamed of
the value of it, being bestowed on a man who has not, by any means,
merited such an instance of kindness. I have shown it to two or three
judges of the first abilities here, and they all agree with me in
classing it as a first-rate production. My phiz is sae kenspeckle,
that the very joiner's apprentice, whom Mrs. Burns employed to break
up the parcel (I was out of town that day) knew it at once. My most
grateful compliments to Allan, who has honoured my rustic music so
much with his masterly pencil. One strange coincidence is, that the
little one who is making the felonious attempt on the cat's tail, is
the most striking likeness of an ill-deedie, d--n'd, wee,
rumblegairie urchin of mine, whom from that propensity to witty
wickedness, and man-fu' mischief, which, even at twa days auld, I
foresaw would form the striking features of his disposition, I named
Willie Nicol, after a certain friend of mine, who is one of the
masters of a grammar-school in a city which shall be nameless.
Give the enclosed epigram to my much-valued friend Cunningham, and
tell him, that on Wednesday I go to visit a friend of his, to whom his
friendly partiality in speaking of me in a manner introduced me--I
mean a well-known military and literary character, Colonel Dirom.
You do not tell me how you liked my two last songs. Are they
condemned?
R. B.
* * * * *
CCCXV.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[In allusion to the preceding letter, Thomson says to Burns, "You
really make me blush when you tell me you have not merited the drawing
from me." The "For a' that and a' that," which went with this letter,
was, it is believed, the composition of Mrs. Riddel.]
In "Whistle, and I'll come to ye, my lad," the iteration of that line
is tiresome to my ear. Here goes what I think is an improvement:--
Oh whistle, and I'll come to ye, my lad;
Oh whistle, and I'll come to ye, my lad;
Tho' father and mother and a' should gae mad,
Thy Jeanie will venture wi' ye, my lad.
In fact, a fair dame, at whose shrine I, the priest of the Nine, offer
up the incense of Parnassus--a dame whom the Graces have attired in
witchcraft, and whom the Loves have armed with lightning--a fair one,
herself the heroine of the song, insists on the amendment, and dispute
her commands if you dare?
This is no my ain lassie,[282] &c.
Do you know that you have roused the torpidity of Clarke at last? He
has requested me to write three or four songs for him, which he is to
set to music himself. The enclosed sheet contains two songs for him,
which please to present to my valued friend Cunningham.
I enclose the sheet open, both for your inspection, and that you may
copy the song "Oh bonnie was yon rosy brier." I do not know whether I
am right, but that song pleases me; and as it is extremely probable
that Clarke's newly-roused celestial spark will be soon smothered in
the fogs of indolence, if you like the song, it may go as Scottish
verses to the air of "I wish my love was in a mire;" and poor
Erskine's English lines may follow.
I enclose you a "For a' that and a' that," which was never in print:
it is a much superior song to mine. I have been told that it was
composed by a lady, and some lines written on the blank leaf of a copy
of the last edition of my poems, presented to the lady whom, in so
many fictitious reveries of passion, but with the most ardent
sentiments of real friendship, I have so often sung under the name of
Chloris:--
To Chloris.[283]
_Une bagatelle de l'amitié._
COILA.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 282: Song CCLV.]
[Footnote 283: Poems, No. CXLVI.]
* * * * *
CCCXVI.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[In the double service of poesy and music the poet had to sing of
pangs which he never endured, from beauties to whom he had never
spoken.]
FORLORN my love, no comfort near, &c.[284]
How do you like the foregoing? I have written it within this hour: so
much for the speed of my Pegasus; but what say you to his bottom?
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 284: Song CCLVIII.]
* * * * *
CCCXVII.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[The unexampled brevity of Burns's letters, and the extraordinary flow
and grace of his songs, towards the close of his life, have not now
for the first time been remarked.]
LAST May a braw wooer.[285]
Why, why tell thy lover.[286]
Such is the peculiarity of the rhythm of this air, that I find it
impossible to make another stanza to suit it.
I am at present quite occupied with the charming sensations of the
toothache, so have not a word to spare.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 285: Song CCLIX.]
[Footnote 286: Song CCLX.]
* * * * *
CCCXVIII.
TO MRS. RIDDEL.
_Supposes himself to be writing from the dead to the living._
[Ill health, poverty, a sense of dependence, with the much he had
deserved of his country, and the little he had obtained, were all at
this time pressing on the mind of Burns, and inducing him to forget
what was due to himself as well as to the courtesies of life.]
MADAM,
I dare say that this is the first epistle you ever received from this
nether world. I write you from the regions of Hell, amid the horrors
of the damned. The time and the manner of my leaving your earth I do
not exactly know, as I took my departure in the heat of a fever of
intoxication contracted at your too hospitable mansion; but, on my
arrival here, I was fairly tried, and sentenced to endure the
purgatorial tortures of this infernal confine for the space of
ninety-nine years, eleven months, and twenty-nine days, and all on
account of the impropriety of my conduct yesternight under your roof.
Here am I, laid on a bed of pitiless furze, with my aching head
reclined on a pillow of ever-piercing thorn, while an infernal
tormentor, wrinkled, and old, and cruel, his name I think is
_Recollection_, with a whip of scorpions, forbids peace or rest to
approach me, and keeps anguish eternally awake. Still, Madam, if I
could in any measure be reinstated in the good opinion of the fair
circle whom my conduct last night so much injured, I think it would
be an alleviation to my torments. For this reason I trouble you with
this letter. To the men of the company I will make no apology.--Your
husband, who insisted on my drinking more than I chose, has no right
to blame me; and the other gentlemen were partakers of my guilt. But
to you, Madam, I have much to apologize. Your good opinion I valued as
one of the greatest acquisitions I had made on earth, and I was truly
a beast to forfeit it. There was a Miss I----, too, a woman of fine
sense, gentle and unassuming manners--do make on my part, a miserable
d--mned wretch's best apology to her. A Mrs. G----, a charming woman,
did me the honour to be prejudiced in my favour; this makes me hope
that I have not outraged her beyond all forgiveness.--To all the other
ladies please present my humblest contrition for my conduct, and my
petition for their gracious pardon. O all ye powers of decency and
decorum! whisper to them that my errors, though great, were
involuntary--that an intoxicated man is the vilest of beasts--that it
was not in my nature to be brutal to any one--that to be rude to a
woman, when in my senses, was impossible with me--but--
* * * * *
Regret! Remorse! Shame! ye three hell-hounds that ever dog my steps
and bay at my heels, spare me! spare me!
Forgive the offences, and pity the perdition of, Madam, your humble
slave.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCCXIX.
TO MRS. RIDDEL.
[Mrs. Riddel, it is said, possessed many more of the poet's letters
than are printed--she sometimes read them to friends who could feel
their wit, and, like herself, make allowance for their freedom.]
_Dumfries, 1795._
Mr. Burns's compliments to Mrs. Riddel--is much obliged to her for her
polite attention in sending him the book. Owing to Mr. B.'s being at
present acting as supervisor of excise, a department that occupies his
every hour of the day, he has not that time to spare which is
necessary for any belle-lettre pursuit; but, as he will, in a week or
two, again return to his wonted leisure, he will then pay that
attention to Mrs. R.'s beautiful song, "To thee, loved Nith"--which it
so well deserves. When "Anacharsis' Travels" come to hand, which Mrs.
Riddel mentioned as her gift to the public library, Mr. B. will thank
her for a reading of it previous to her sending it to the library, as
it is a book Mr. B. has never seen: he wishes to have a longer perusal
of them than the regulations of the library allow.
_Friday Eve._
P.S. Mr. Burns will be much obliged to Mrs. Riddel if she will favour
him with a perusal of any of her poetical pieces which he may not have
seen.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCCXX.
TO MISS LOUISA FONTENELLE.
[That Miss Fontenelle, as an actress, did not deserve the high praise
which Burns bestows may be guessed: the lines to which he alludes were
recited by the lady on her benefit-night, and are printed among his
Poems.]
_Dumfries, December, 1795._
MADAM,
In such a bad world as ours, those who add to the scanty sum of our
pleasures, are positively our benefactors. To you, Madam, on our
humble Dumfries boards, I have been more indebted for entertainment
than ever I was in prouder theatres. Your charms as a woman would
insure applause to the most indifferent actress, and your theatrical
talents would insure admiration to the plainest figure. This, Madam,
is not the unmeaning or insidious compliment of the frivolous or
interested; I pay it from the same honest impulse that the sublime of
nature excites my admiration, or her beauties give me delight.
Will the foregoing lines be of any service to you in your approaching
benefit-night? If they will I shall be prouder of my muse than ever.
They are nearly extempore: I know they have no great merit; but though
they should add but little to the entertainment of the evening, they
give me the happiness of an opportunity to declare how much I have the
honour to be, &c.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCCXXI.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[Of the sweet girl to whom Burns alludes in this letter he was
deprived during this year: her death pressed sorely on him.]
_15th December, 1795._
MY DEAR FRIEND,
As I am in a complete Decemberish humour, gloomy, sullen, stupid as
even the Deity of Dulness herself could wish, I shall not drawl out a
heavy letter with a number of heavier apologies for my late silence.
Only one I shall mention, because I know you will sympathize in it:
these four months, a sweet little girl, my youngest child, has been so
ill, that every day, a week or less, threatened to terminate her
existence. There had much need be many pleasures annexed to the states
of husband and father, for, God knows, they have many peculiar cares.
I cannot describe to you the anxious, sleepless hours these ties
frequently give me. I see a train of helpless little folks; me and my
exertions all their stay: and on what a brittle thread does the life
of man hang! If I am nipt off at the command of fate! even in all the
vigour of manhood as I am--such things happen every day--gracious God!
what would become of my little flock! 'Tis here that I envy your
people of fortune.--A father on his death-bed, taking an everlasting
leave of his children, has indeed woe enough; but the man of competent
fortune leaves his sons and daughters independency and friends; while
I--but I shall run distracted if I think any longer on the subject!
To leave talking of the matter so gravely, I shall sing with the old
Scots ballad--
"O that I had ne'er been married,
I would never had nae care;
Now I've gotten wife and bairns,
They cry crowdie! evermair.
Crowdie! ance; crowdie! twice;
Crowdie! three times in a day;
An ye crowdie! ony mair,
Ye'll crowdie! a' my meal away."--
* * * * *
_December 24th._
We have had a brilliant theatre here this season; only, as all other
business does, it experiences a stagnation of trade from the
epidemical complaint of the country, _want of cash._ I mentioned our
theatre merely to lug in an occasional Address which I wrote for the
benefit-night of one of the actresses, and which is as follows:--
ADDRESS,
SPOKEN BY MISS FONTENELLE ON HER BENEFIT-NIGHT, DEC. 4, 1795, AT
THE THEATRE, DUMFRIES.
Still anxious to secure your partial favour, &c.
_25th, Christmas-Morning._
This, my much-loved friend, is a morning of wishes--accept mine--so
heaven hear me as they are sincere! that blessings may attend your
steps, and affliction know you not! In the charming words of my
favourite author, "The Man of Feeling," "May the Great Spirit bear up
the weight of thy gray hairs, and blunt the arrow that brings them
rest!"
Now that I talk of authors, how do you like Cowper? Is not the "Task"
a glorious poem? The religion of the "Task," bating a few scraps of
Calvinistic divinity, is the religion of God and nature; the religion
that exalts, that ennobles man. Were not you to send me your "Zeluco,"
in return for mine? Tell me how you like my marks and notes through
the book. I would not give a farthing for a book, unless I were at
liberty to blot it with my criticisms.
I have lately collected, for a friend's perusal, all my letters; I
mean those which I first sketched, in a rough draught, and afterwards
wrote out fair. On looking over some old musty papers, which, from
time to time, I had parcelled by, as trash that were scarce worth
preserving, and which yet at the same time I did not care to destroy;
I discovered many of these rude sketches, and have written, and am
writing them out, in a bound MS. for my friend's library. As I wrote
always to you the rhapsody of the moment, I cannot find a single
scroll to you, except one about the commencement of our acquaintance.
If there were any possible conveyance, I would send you a perusal of
my book.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCCXXII.
TO MR. ALEXANDER FINDLATER,
SUPERVISOR OF EXCISE, DUMFRIES.
[The person to whom this letter is addressed, is the same who lately
denied that Burns was harshly used by the Board of Excise: but those,
and they are many, who believe what the poet wrote to Erskine, of Mar,
cannot agree with Mr. Findlater.]
SIR,
Enclosed are the two schemes. I would not have troubled you with the
collector's one, but for suspicion lest it be not right. Mr. Erskine
promised me to make it right, if you will have the goodness to show him
how. As I have no copy of the scheme for myself, and the alterations
being very considerable from what it was formerly, I hope that I shall
have access to this scheme I send you, when I come to face up my new
books. _So much for schemes._--And that no scheme to betray a FRIEND, or
mislead a STRANGER; to seduce a YOUNG GIRL, or rob a HEN-ROOST; to
subvert LIBERTY, or bribe an EXCISEMAN; to disturb the GENERAL ASSEMBLY,
or annoy a GOSSIPPING; to overthrow the credit of ORTHODOXY, or the
authority of OLD SONGS; to oppose _your wishes_, or frustrate _my
hopes_--MAY PROSPER--is the sincere wish and prayer of
R. B.
* * * * *
CCCXXIII.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING CHRONICLE.
[Cromek says, when a neighbour complained that his copy of the Morning
Chronicle was not regularly delivered to him from the post-office, the
poet wrote the following indignant letter to Perry on a leaf of his
excise-book, but before it went to the post he reflected and recalled
it.]
_Dumfries, 1795._
SIR,
You will see by your subscribers' list, that I have been about nine
months of that number.
I am sorry to inform you, that in that time, seven or eight of your
papers either have never been sent to me, or else have never reached me.
To be deprived of any one number of the first newspaper in Great Britain
for information, ability, and independence, is what I can ill brook and
bear; but to be deprived of that most admirable oration of the Marquis
of Lansdowne, when he made the great though ineffectual attempt (in the
language of the poet, I fear too true), "to save a SINKING STATE"--this
was a loss that I neither can nor will forgive you.--That paper, Sir,
never reached me; but I demand it of you. I am a BRITON; and must be
interested in the cause of LIBERTY:--I am a MAN; and the RIGHTS of HUMAN
NATURE cannot be indifferent to me. However, do not let me mislead you:
I am not a man in that situation of life, which, as your subscriber, can
be of any consequence to you, in the eyes of those to whom SITUATION OF
LIFE ALONE is the criterion of MAN.--I am but a plain tradesman, in this
distant, obscure country town: but that humble domicile in which I
shelter my wife and children is the CASTELLUM of a BRITON; and that
scanty, hard-earned income which supports them is as truly my property,
as the most magnificent fortune, of the most PUISSANT MEMBER of your
HOUSE of NOBLES.
These, Sir, are my sentiments; and to them I subscribe my name: and
were I a man of ability and consequence enough to address the PUBLIC,
with that name should they appear.
I am, &c.
* * * * *
CCCXXIV.
TO MR. HERON,
OF HERON.
[Of Patrick Heron, of Kerroughtree, something has been said in the
notes on the Ballads which bear his name.]
_Dumfries, 1794,_ or _1795._
SIR,
I enclose you some copies of a couple of political ballads; one of
which, I believe, you have never seen. Would to Heaven I could make
you master of as many votes in the Stewartry--but--
"Who does the utmost that he can,
Does well, acts nobly, angels could no more."
In order to bring my humble efforts to bear with more effect on the
foe, I have privately printed a good many copies of both ballads, and
have sent them among friends all about the country.
To pillory on Parnassus the rank reprobation of character, the utter
dereliction of all principle, in a profligate junto which has not only
outraged virtue, but violated common decency; which, spurning even
hypocrisy as paltry iniquity below their daring;--to unmask their
flagitiousness to the broadest day--to deliver such over to their
merited fate, is surely not merely innocent, but laudable; is not only
propriety, but virtue. You have already, as your auxiliary, the sober
detestation of mankind on the heads or your opponents; and I swear by
the lyre of Thalia to muster on your side all the votaries of honest
laughter, and fair, candid ridicule!
I am extremely obliged to you for your kind mention of my interests in
a letter which Mr. Syme showed me. At present my situation in life
must be in a great measure stationary, at least for two or three
years. The statement is this--I am on the supervisors' list, and as we
come on there by precedency, in two or three years I shall be at the
head of that list, and be appointed _of course._ _Then_, a
FRIEND might be of service to me in getting me into a place
of the kingdom which I would like. A supervisor's income varies from
about a hundred and twenty to two hundred a year; but the business is
an incessant drudgery, and would be nearly a complete bar to every
species of literary pursuit. The moment I am appointed supervisor, in
the common routine, I may be nominated on the collector's list; and
this is always a business purely of political patronage. A
collector-ship varies much, from better than two hundred a year to
near a thousand. They also come forward by precedency on the list; and
have, besides a handsome income, a life of complete leisure. A life of
literary leisure with a decent competency, is the summit of my wishes.
It would be the prudish affectation of silly pride in me to say that I
do not need, or would not be indebted to a political friend; at the
same time, Sir, I by no means lay my affairs before you thus, to hook
my dependent situation on your benevolence. If, in my progress of
life, an opening should occur where the good offices of a gentleman of
your public character and political consequence might bring me
forward, I shall petition your goodness with the same frankness as I
now do myself the honour to subscribe myself
R. B.
* * * * *
CCCXXV.
TO MRS. DUNLOP,
IN LONDON.
[In the correspondence of the poet with Mrs. Dunlop he rarely mentions
Thomson's Collection of Songs, though his heart was set much upon it:
in the Dunlop library there are many letters from the poet, it is
said, which have not been published.]
_Dumfries, 20th December, 1795._
I have been prodigiously disappointed in this London journey of yours.
In the first place, when your last to me reached Dumfries, I was in
the country, and did not return until too late to answer your letter;
in the next place, I thought you would certainly take this route; and
now I know not what is become of you, or whether this may reach you at
all. God grant that it may find you and yours in prospering health and
good spirits! Do let me hear from you the soonest possible.
As I hope to get a frank from my friend Captain Miller, I shall every
leisure hour, take up the pen, and gossip away whatever comes first,
prose or poetry, sermon or song. In this last article I have abounded
of late. I have often mentioned to you a superb publication of
Scottish songs which is making its appearance in your great
metropolis, and where I have the honour to preside over the Scottish
verse, as no less a personage than Peter Pindar does over the English.
_December 29th._
Since I began this letter, I have been appointed to act in the
capacity of supervisor here, and I assure you, what with the load of
business, and what with that business being new to me, I could
scarcely have commanded ten minutes to have spoken to you, had you
been in town, much less to have written you an epistle. This
appointment is only temporary, and during the illness of the present
incumbent; but I look forward to an early period when I shall be
appointed in full form: a consummation devoutly to be wished! My
political sins seem to be forgiven me.
This is the season (New-year's-day is now my date) of wishing; and
mine are most fervently offered up for you! May life to you be a
positive blessing while it lasts, for your own sake; and that it may
yet be greatly prolonged, is my wish for my own sake, and for the sake
of the rest of your friends! What a transient business is life! Very
lately I was a boy; but t'other day I was a young man; and I already
begin to feel the rigid fibre and stiffening joints of old age coming
fast o'er my frame. With all my follies of youth, and I fear, a few
vices of manhood, still I congratulate myself on having had in early
days religion strongly impressed on my mind. I have nothing to say to
any one as to which sect he belongs to, or what creed he believes: but
I look on the man, who is firmly persuaded of infinite wisdom and
goodness, superintending and directing every circumstance that can
happen in his lot--I felicitate such a man as having a solid
foundation for his mental enjoyment; a firm prop and sure stay, in the
hour of difficulty, trouble, and distress; and a never-failing anchor
of hope, when he looks beyond the grave.
_January 12th._
You will have seen our worthy and ingenious friend, the Doctor, long
ere this. I hope he is well, and beg to be remembered to him. I have
just been reading over again, I dare say for the hundred and fiftieth
time, his _View of Society and Manners_; and still I read it with
delight. His humour is perfectly original--it is neither the humour of
Addison, nor Swift, nor Sterne, nor of anybody but Dr. Moore. By the
bye, you have deprived me of _Zeluco_, remember that, when you are
disposed to rake up the sins of my neglect from among the ashes of my
laziness.
He has paid me a pretty compliment, by quoting me in his last
publication.[287]
* * * * *
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 287: Edward.]
* * * * *
CCCXXVI.
ADDRESS OF THE SCOTCH DISTILLERS
TO THE RIGHT HON. WILLIAM PITT.
[This ironical letter to the prime minister was found among the papers
of Burns.]
SIR,
While pursy burgesses crowd your gate, sweating under the weight of
heavy addresses, permit us, the quondam distillers in that part of
Great Britain called Scotland, to approach you, not with venal
approbation, but with fraternal condolence; not as what you are just
now, or for some time have been; but as what, in all probability, you
will shortly be.--We shall have the merit of not deserting our friends
in the day of their calamity, and you will have the satisfaction of
perusing at least one honest address. You are well acquainted with the
dissection of human nature; nor do you need the assistance of a
fellow-creature's bosom to inform you, that man is always a selfish,
often a perfidious being.--This assertion, however the hasty
conclusions of superficial observation may doubt of it, or the raw
inexperience of youth may deny it, those who make the fatal experiment
we have done, will feel.--You are a statesman, and consequently are
not ignorant of the traffic of these corporation compliments--The
little great man who drives the borough to market, and the very great
man who buys the borough in that market, they two do the whole
business; and you well know they, likewise, have their price. With
that sullen disdain which you can so well assume, rise, illustrious
Sir, and spurn these hireling efforts of venal stupidity. At best they
are the compliments of a man's friends on the morning of his
execution: they take a decent farewell, resign you to your fate, and
hurry away from your approaching hour.
If fame say true, and omens be not very much mistaken, you are about
to make your exit from that world where the sun of gladness gilds the
paths of prosperous man: permit us, great Sir, with the sympathy of
fellow-feeling to hail your passage to the realms of ruin.
Whether the sentiment proceed from the selfishness or cowardice of
mankind is immaterial; but to point out to a child of misfortune those
who are still more unhappy, is to give him some degree of positive
enjoyment. In this light, Sir, our downfall may be again useful to
you:--though not exactly in the same way, it is not perhaps the first
time it has gratified your feelings. It is true, the triumph of your
evil star is exceedingly despiteful.--At an age when others are the
votaries of pleasure, or underlings in business, you had attained the
highest wish of a British statesman; and with the ordinary date of
human life, what a prospect was before you! Deeply rooted in _Royal
favour_, you overshadowed the land. The birds of passage, which follow
ministerial sunshine through every clime of political faith and
manners, flocked to your branches; and the beasts of the field (the
lordly possessors of hills and valleys) crowded under your shade. "But
behold a watcher, a holy one, came down from heaven, and cried aloud,
and said thus: Hew down the tree, and cut off his branches; shake off
his leaves, and scatter his fruit; let the beasts get away from under
it, and the fowls from his branches!" A blow from an unthought-of
quarter, one of those terrible accidents which peculiarly mark the
hand of Omnipotence, overset your career, and laid all your fancied
honours in the dust. But turn your eyes, Sir, to the tragic scenes of
our fate:--an ancient nation, that for many ages had gallantly
maintained the unequal struggle for independence with her much more
powerful neighbour, at last agrees to a union which should ever after
make them one people. In consideration of certain circumstances, it
was covenanted that the former should enjoy a stipulated alleviation
in her share of the public burdens, particularly in that branch of
the revenue called the Excise. This just privilege has of late given
great umbrage to some interested, powerful individuals of the more
potent part of the empire, and they have spared no wicked pains, under
insidious pretexts, to subvert what they dared not openly to attack,
from the dread which they yet entertained of the spirit of their
ancient enemies.
In this conspiracy we fell; nor did we alone suffer, our country was
deeply wounded. A number of (we will say) respectable individuals,
largely engaged in trade, where we were not only useful, but
absolutely necessary to our country in her dearest interests; we, with
all that was near and dear to us, were sacrificed without remorse, to
the infernal deity of political expediency! We fell to gratify the
wishes of dark envy, and the views of unprincipled ambition! Your
foes, Sir, were avowed; were too brave to take an ungenerous
advantage; _you_ fell in the face of day.--On the contrary, our
enemies, to complete our overthrow, contrived to make their guilt
appear the villany of a nation.--Your downfall only drags with you
your private friends and partisans: in our misery are more or less
involved the most numerous and most valuable part of the
community--all those who immediately depend on the cultivation of the
soil, from the landlord of a province, down to his lowest hind.
Allow us, Sir, yet further, just to hint at another rich vein of
comfort in the dreary regions of adversity;--the gratulations of an
approving conscience. In a certain great assembly, of which you are a
distinguished member, panegyrics on your private virtues have so often
wounded your delicacy, that we shall not distress you with anything on
the subject. There is, however, one part of your public conduct which
our feelings will not permit us to pass in silence: our gratitude must
trespass on your modesty; we mean, worthy Sir, your whole behaviour to
the Scots Distillers.--In evil hours, when obtrusive recollection
presses bitterly on the sense, let that, Sir, come like an healing
angel, and speak the peace to your soul which the world can neither
give nor take away.
We have the honour to be,
Sir,
Your sympathizing fellow-sufferers,
And grateful humble servants,
JOHN BARLEYCORN--Præses.
* * * * *
CCCXXVII.
TO THE HON. PROVOST, BAILIES, AND
TOWN COUNCIL OF DUMFRIES.
[The Provost and Bailies complied at once with the modest request of
the poet: both Jackson and Staig, who were heads of the town by turns,
were men of taste and feeling.]
GENTLEMEN,
The literary taste and liberal spirit of your good town has so ably
filled the various departments of your schools, as to make it a very
great object for a parent to have his children educated in them.
Still, to me, a stranger, with my large family, and very stinted
income, to give my young ones that education I wish, at the high fees
which a stranger pays, will bear hard upon me.
Some years ago your good town did me the honour of making me an
honorary burgess.--Will you allow me to request that this mark of
distinction may extend so far, as to put me on a footing of a real
freeman of the town, in the schools?
If you are so very kind as to grant my request, it will certainly be a
constant incentive to me to strain every nerve where I can officially
serve you; and will, if possible, increase that grateful respect with
which I have the honour to be,
Gentlemen,
Your devoted humble servant,
R. B.
* * * * *
CCCXXVIII.
TO MRS. RIDDEL.
[Mrs. Riddel was, like Burns, a well-wisher to the great cause of
human liberty, and lamented with him the excesses of the French
Revolution.]
_Dumfries, 20th January, 1796._
I cannot express my gratitude to you, for allowing me a longer perusal
of "Anacharsis." In fact, I never met with a book that bewitched me so
much; and I, as a member of the library, must warmly feel the
obligation you have laid us under. Indeed to me the obligation is
stronger than to any other individual of our society; as "Anacharsis"
is an indispensable desideratum to a son of the muses.
The health you wished me in your morning's card, is, I think, flown
from me for ever. I have not been able to leave my bed to-day till
about an hour ago. These wickedly unlucky advertisements I lent (I did
wrong) to a friend, and I am ill able to go in quest of him.
The muses have not quite forsaken me. The following detached stanza I
intend to interweave in some disastrous tale of a shepherd.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCCXXIX.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
[It seems that Mrs. Dunlop regarded the conduct of Burns, for some
months, with displeasure, and withheld or delayed her usual kind and
charming communications.]
_Dumfries, 31st January, 1796._
These many months you have been two packets in my debt--what sin of
ignorance I have committed against so highly-valued a friend I am
utterly at a loss to guess. Alas! Madam, ill can I afford, at this
time, to be deprived of any of the small remnant of my pleasures. I
have lately drunk deep in the cup of affliction. The autumn robbed me
of my only daughter and darling child, and that at a distance too, and
so rapidly, as to put it out of my power to pay the last duties to
her. I had scarcely begun to recover from that shock, when I became
myself the victim of a most severe rheumatic fever, and long the die
spun doubtful; until, after many weeks of a sick bed, it seems to have
turned up life, and I am beginning to crawl across my room, and once
indeed have been before my own door in the street.
"When pleasure fascinates the mental sight,
Affliction purifies the visual ray,
Religion hails the drear, the untried night,
And shuts, for ever shuts! life's doubtful day."
R. B.
* * * * *
CCCXXX.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[Cromek informed me, on the authority of Mrs. Burns, that the
"handsome, elegant present" mentioned in this letter, was a common
worsted shawl.]
_February, 1796._
Many thanks, my dear Sir, for your handsome, elegant present to Mrs.
Burns, and for my remaining volume of P. Pindar. Peter is a delightful
fellow, and a first favourite of mine. I am much pleased with your
idea of publishing a collection of our songs in octavo, with etchings.
I am extremely willing to lend every assistance in my power. The Irish
airs I shall cheerfully undertake the task of finding verses for.
I have already, you know, equipt three with words, and the other day I
strung up a kind of rhapsody to another Hibernian melody, which I
admire much.
Awa' wi' your witchcraft o' beauty's alarms.[288]
If this will do, you have now four of my Irish engagement. In my
by-past songs I dislike one thing, the name Chloris--I meant it as the
fictitious name of a certain lady: but, on second thoughts, it is a
high incongruity to have a Greek appellation to a Scottish pastoral
ballad. Of this, and some things else, in my next: I have more
amendments to propose. What you once mentioned of "flaxen locks" is
just: they cannot enter into an elegant description of beauty. Of this
also again--God bless you![289]
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 288: Song CCLXVI.]
[Footnote 289: Our poet never explained what name he would have
substituted for Chloris.--Mr. Thomson.]
* * * * *
CCCXXXI.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[It is seldom that painting speaks in the spirit of poetry Burns
perceived some of the blemishes of Allan's illustrations: but at that
time little nature and less elegance entered into the embellishments
of books.]
_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 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 an' married an' 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
* * * *, if you take her stooping into the account, she is at least two
inches taller than her lover. Poor Cleghorn! I sincerely sympathize
with him. Happy I am to think that he yet has a well-grounded hope of
health and enjoyment in this world. As for me--but that is a sad
subject.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCCXXXII.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[The genius of the poet triumphed over pain and want,--his last songs
are as tender and as true as any of his early compositions.]
MY DEAR SIR,
I once mentioned to you an air which I have long admired--"Here's a
health to them that's awa, hiney," but I forget if you took any notice
of it. I have just been trying to suit it with verses, and I beg leave
to recommend the air to your attention once more. I have only begun
it.
[Here follow the first three stanzas of the song, beginning,
Here's a health to ane I loe dear;[290]
the fourth was found among the poet's MSS. after his death.]
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 290: Song CCLXVII.]
* * * * *
CCCXXXIII.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[John Lewars, whom the poet introduces to Thomson, was a brother
gauger, and a kind, warm-hearted gentleman; Jessie Lewars was his
sister, and at this time but in her teens.]
This will be delivered by Mr. Lewars, a young fellow of uncommon
merit. As he will be a day or two in town, you will have leisure, if
you choose, to write me by him: and if you have a spare half-hour to
spend with him, I shall place your kindness to my account. I have no
copies of the songs I have sent you, and I have taken a fancy to
review them all, and possibly may mend some of them; so when you have
complete leisure, I will thank you for either the originals or
copies.[291] I had rather be the author of five well-written songs than
of ten otherwise. I have great hopes that the genial influence of the
approaching summer will set me to rights, but as yet I cannot boast of
returning health. I have now reason to believe that my complaint is a
flying gout--a sad business!
Do let me know how Cleghorn is, and remember me to him.
This should have been delivered to you a month ago. I am still very
poorly, but should like much to hear from you.
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 291: "It is needless to say that this revisal Burns did not
live to perform."--Currie.]
* * * * *
CCCXXXIV.
TO MRS. RIDDEL,
_Who had desired him to go to the Birth-Day Assembly on that day to
show his loyalty._
[This is the last letter which the poet wrote to this accomplished
lady.]
_Dumfries, 4th June, 1796._
I am in such miserable health as to be utterly incapable of showing my
loyalty in any way. Rackt as I am with rheumatisms, I meet every face
with a greeting like that of Balak to Balaam--"Come, curse me Jacob;
and come, defy me Israel!" So say I--Come, curse me that east wind;
and come, defy me the north! Would you have me in such circumstances
copy you out a love-song?
I may perhaps see you on Saturday, but I will not be at the ball.--Why
should I? "man delights not me, nor woman either!" Can you supply me
with the song, "Let us all be unhappy together?"--do if you can, and
oblige, _le pauvre miserable_
R. B.
* * * * *
CCCXXXV.
TO MR. CLARKE,
SCHOOLMASTER, FORFAR.
[Who will say, after reading the following distressing letter, lately
come to light, that Burns did not die in great poverty.]
_Dumfries, 26th June, 1796._
MY DEAR CLARKE,
Still, still the victim of affliction! Were you to see the emaciated
figure who now holds the pen to you, you would not know your old
friend. Whether I shall ever get about again, is only known to Him,
the Great Unknown, whose creature I am. Alas, Clarke! I begin to fear
the worst.
As to my individual self, I am tranquil, and would despise myself, if
I were not; but Burns's poor widow, and half-a-dozen of his dear
little ones--helpless orphans!--_there_ I am weak as a woman's tear.
Enough of this! 'Tis half of my disease.
I duly received your last, enclosing the note. It came extremely in
time, and I am much obliged by your punctuality. Again I must request
you to do me the same kindness. Be so very good, as, by return of
post, to enclose me _another_ note. I trust you can do it without
inconvenience, and it will seriously oblige me. If I must go, I shall
leave a few friends behind me, whom I shall regret while consciousness
remains. I know I shall live in their remembrance. Adieu, dear Clarke.
That I shall ever see you again, is, I am afraid, highly improbable.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCCXXXVI.
TO MR. JAMES JOHNSON,
EDINBURGH.
["In this humble and delicate manner did poor Burns ask for a copy of
a work of which he was principally the founder, and to which he had
contributed _gratuitously_ not less than one hundred and eighty-four
_original, altered, and collected_ songs! The editor has seen one
hundred and eighty transcribed by his own hand, for the
'Museum.'"--CROMEK. Will it be believed that this "humble
request" of Burns was not complied with! The work was intended as a
present to Jessie Lewars.]
_Dumfries, 4th July, 1796._
How are you, my dear friend, and how comes on your fifth volume? You
may probably think that for some time past I have neglected you and
your work; but, alas! the hand of pain, and sorrow, and care, has
these many months lain heavy on me! Personal and domestic affliction
have almost entirely banished that alacrity and life with which I used
to woo the rural muse of Scotia. In the meantime let us finish what we
have so well begun.
* * * * *
You are a good, worthy, honest fellow, and have a good right to live
in this world--because you deserve it. Many a merry meeting this
publication has given us, and possibly it may give us more, though,
alas! I fear it. This protracting, slow, consuming illness which hangs
over me, will, I doubt much, my ever dear friend, arrest my sun before
he has well reached his middle career, and will turn over the poet to
other and far more important concerns than studying the brilliancy of
wit, or the pathos of sentiment! However, _hope_ is the cordial of the
human heart, and I endeavour to cherish it as well as I can.
Let me hear from you as soon as convenient.--Your work is a great one;
and now that it is finished, I see, if we were to begin again, two or
three things that might be mended; yet I will venture to prophesy,
that to future ages your publication will be the text-book and
standard of Scottish song and music.
I am ashamed to ask another favour of you, because you have been so
very good already; but my wife has a very particular friend of hers, a
young lady who sings well, to whom she wishes to present the "Scots
Musical Museum." If you have a spare copy, will you be so obliging as
to send it by the very first _fly_, as I am anxious to have it soon.
The gentleman, Mr. Lewars, a particular friend of mine, will bring out
any proofs (if they are ready) or any message you may have. I am
extremely anxious for your work, as indeed I am for everything
concerning you, and your welfare.
Farewell,
R. B.
P. S. You should have had this when Mr. Lewars called on you, but his
saddle-bags miscarried.
* * * * *
CCCXXXVII.
TO MR. CUNNINGHAM.
[Few of the last requests of the poet were effectual: Clarke, it is
believed, did not send the second _note_ he wrote for: Johnson did not
send the copy of the Museum which he requested, and the Commissioners
of Excise refused the continuance of his full salary.]
_Brow, Sea-bathing quarters, 7th July, 1796._
MY DEAR CUNNINGHAM,
I received yours here this moment, and am indeed highly flattered with
the approbation of the literary circle you mention; a literary circle
inferior to none in the two kingdoms. Alas! my friend, I fear the
voice of the bard will soon be heard among you no more! For these
eight or ten months I have been ailing, sometimes bedfast and
sometimes not; but these last three months I have been tortured with
an excruciating rheumatism, which has reduced me to nearly the last
stage. You actually would not know me if you saw me--Pale, emaciated,
and so feeble, as occasionally to need help from my chair--my spirits
fled! fled! but I can no more on the subject--only the medical folks
tell me that my last only chance is bathing and country-quarters, and
riding.--The deuce of the matter is this; when an exciseman is off
duty, his salary is reduced to 35_l._ instead of 50_l._--What way, in
the name of thrift, shall I maintain myself, and keep a horse in
country quarters--with a wife and five children at home, on 35_l._? I
mention this, because I had intended to beg your utmost interest, and
that of all the friends you can muster, to move our commissioners of
excise to grant me the full salary; I dare say you know them all
personally. If they do not grant it me, I must lay my account with an
exit truly _en poëte_--if I die not of disease, I must perish with
hunger.
I have sent you one of the songs; the other my memory does not serve
me with, and I have no copy here; but I shall be at home soon, when I
will send it you.--Apropos to being at home, Mrs. Burns threatens, in
a week or two, to add one more to my paternal charge, which, if of the
right gender, I intend shall be introduced to the world by the
respectable designation of _Alexander Cunningham Burns._ My last was
_James Glencairn_, so you can have no objection to the company of
nobility. Farewell.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCCXXXVIII.
TO MR. GILBERT BURNS.
[This letter contained heavy news for Gilbert Burns: the loss of a
brother whom he dearly loved and admired, was not all, though the
worst.]
_10th July, 1796._
DEAR BROTHER,
It will be no very pleasing news to you to be told that I am
dangerously ill, and not likely to get better. An inveterate
rheumatism has reduced me to such a state of debility, and my appetite
is so totally gone, that I can scarcely stand on my legs. I have been
a week at sea-bathing, and I will continue there, or in a friend's
house in the country, all the summer. God keep my wife and children:
if I am taken from their head, they will be poor indeed. I have
contracted one or two serious debts, partly from my illness these many
months, partly from too much thoughtlessness as to expense, when I
came to town, that will cut in too much on the little I leave them in
your hands. Remember me to my mother.
Yours,
R. B.
* * * * *
CCCXXXIX.
TO MR. JAMES ARMOUR,
MASON, MAUCHLINE.
[The original letter is now in a safe sanctuary, the hands of the
poet's son, Major James Glencairn Burns.]
_July 10th_ [1796.]
For Heaven's sake, and as you value the we[l]fare of your daughter and
my wife, do, my dearest Sir, write to Fife, to Mrs. Armour to come if
possible. My wife thinks she can yet reckon upon a fortnight. The
medical people order me, _as I value my existence_, to fly to
sea-bathing and country-quarters, so it is ten thousand chances to one
that I shall not be within a dozen miles of her when her hour comes.
What a situation for her, poor girl, without a single friend by her on
such a serious moment.
I have now been a week at salt-water, and though I think I have got
some good by it, yet I have some secret fears that this business will
be dangerous if not fatal.
Your most affectionate son,
R. B.
* * * * *
CCCXL.
TO MRS. BURNS.
[Sea-bathing, I have heard skilful men say, was injudicious: but it
was felt that Burns was on his way to the grave, and as he desired to
try the influence of sea-water, as well as sea-air, his wishes were
not opposed.]
_Brow, Thursday._
MY DEAREST LOVE,
I delayed writing until I could tell you what effect sea-bathing was
likely to produce. It would be injustice to deny that it has eased my
pains, and I think has strengthened me; but my appetite is still
extremely bad. No flesh nor fish can I swallow: porridge and milk are
the only things I can taste. I am very happy to hear, by Miss Jess
Lewars, that you are all well. My very best and kindest compliments to
her, and to all the children. I will see you on Sunday.
Your affectionate husband,
R. B.
* * * * *
CCCXLI.
TO MRS. DUNLOP.
["The poet had the pleasure of receiving a satisfactory explanation of
this lady's silence," says Currie, "and an assurance of the
continuance of her friendship to his widow and children."]
_Brow, Saturday, 12th July, 1796._
MADAM,
I have written you so often, without receiving any answer, that I
would not trouble you again, but for the circumstances in which I am.
An illness which has long hung about me, in all probability will
speedily send me beyond that _bourn whence no traveller returns._ Your
friendship, with which for many years you honoured me, was a
friendship dearest to my soul. Your conversation, and especially your
correspondence, were at once highly entertaining and instructive. With
what pleasure did I use to break up the seal! The remembrance yet adds
one pulse more to my poor palpitating heart.
Farewell!!!
R. B.
* * * * *
CCCXLII.
TO MR. THOMSON.
[Thomson instantly complied with the dying poet's request, and
transmitted the exact sum which he requested, viz. five pounds, by
return of post: he was afraid of offending the pride of Burns,
otherwise he would, he says, have sent a larger sum. He has not,
however, told us how much he sent to the all but desolate widow and
children, when death had released him from all dread of the poet's
indignation.]
_Brow, on the Solway-firth, 12th 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
"Rothemurche" 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!
Fairest maid on Devon's banks.[292]
R. B.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 292: Song CCLXVIII.]
* * * * *
CCCXLIII.
TO MR. JAMES BURNESS,
WRITER, MONTROSE.
[The good, the warm-hearted James Burness sent his cousin ten pounds
on the 29th of July--he sent five pounds afterwards to the family, and
offered to take one of the boys, and educate him in his own profession
of a writer. All this was unknown to the world till lately.]
_Brow, 12th July._
MY DEAR COUSIN,
When you offered me money assistance, little did I think I should want
it so soon. A rascal of a haberdasher, to whom I owe a considerable
bill, taking it into his head that I am dying, has commenced process
against me, and will infallibly put my emaciated body into jail. Will
you be so good as to accommodate me, and that by return of post, with
ten pounds? O James! did you know the pride of my heart, you would
feel doubly for me! Alas! I am not used to beg! The worst of it is, my
health was coming about finely; you know, and my physician assured me,
that melancholy and low spirits are half my disease; guess then my
horrors since this business began. If I had it settled, I would be, I
think, quite well in a manner. How shall I use the language to you, O
do not disappoint me! but strong necessity's curst command.
I have been thinking over and over my brother's affairs, and I fear I
must cut him up; but on this I will correspond at another time,
particularly as I shall [require] your advice.
Forgive me for once more mentioning by return of post;--save me from
the horrors of a jail!
My compliments to my friend James, and to all the rest. I do not know
what I have written. The subject is so horrible I dare not look it
over again.
Farewell.
R. B.
* * * * *
CCCXLIV.
TO JAMES GRACIE, ESQ.
[James Gracie was, for some time, a banker in Dumfries: his eldest son,
a fine, high-spirited youth, fell by a rifle-ball in America, when
leading the troops to the attack on Washington.]
_Brow, Wednesday Morning, 16th July, 1796._
MY DEAR SIR,
It would [be] doing high injustice to this place not to acknowledge
that my rheumatisms have derived great benefits from it already; but
alas! my loss of appetite still continues. I shall not need your kind
offer _this week_, and I return to town the beginning of next week, it
not being a tide-week. I am detaining a man in a burning hurry.
So God bless you.
R. B.
* * * * *
REMARKS
ON
SCOTTISH SONGS AND BALLADS.
* * * * *
[The following Strictures on Scottish Song exist in the handwriting of
Burns, in the interleaved copy of Johnson's Musical Museum, which the
poet presented to Captain Riddel, of Friars Carse; on the death of
Mrs. Riddel, these precious volumes passed into the hands of her
niece, Eliza Bayley, of Manchester, who kindly permitted Mr. Cromek to
transcribe and publish them in the Reliques.]
* * * * *
THE HIGHLAND QUEEN.
This Highland Queen, music and poetry, was composed by Mr. M'Vicar,
purser of the Solebay man-of-war.--This I had from Dr. Blacklock.
* * * * *
BESS THE GAWKIE.
This song shows that the Scottish muses did not all leave us when we
lost Ramsay and Oswald, as I have good reason to believe that the
verses and music are both posterior to the days of these two
gentlemen. It is a beautiful song, and in the genuine Scots taste. We
have few pastoral compositions, I mean the pastoral of nature, that
are equal to this.
* * * * *
OH, OPEN THE DOOR, LORD GREGORY.
It is somewhat singular, that in Lanark, Renfrew, Ayr, Wigton,
Kirkudbright, and Dumfries-shires, there is scarcely an old song or
tune which, from the title, &c., can be guessed to belong to, or be
the production of these countries. This, I conjecture, is one of these
very few; as the ballad, which is a long one, is called, both by
tradition and in printed collections, "The Lass of Lochroyan," which I
take to be Lochroyan, in Galloway.
* * * * *
THE BANKS OF THE TWEED.
This song is one of the many attempts that English composers have made
to imitate the Scottish manner, and which I shall, in these
strictures, beg leave to distinguish by the appellation of
Anglo-Scottish productions. The music is pretty good, but the verses
are just above contempt.
* * * * *
THE BEDS OF SWEET ROSES.
This song, as far as I know, for the first time appears here in
print.--When I was a boy, it was a very popular song in Ayrshire. I
remember to have heard those fanatics, the Buchanites, sing some of
their nonsensical rhymes, which they dignify with the name of hymns,
to this air.
* * * * *
ROSLIN CASTLE.
These beautiful verses were the production of a Richard Hewit, a young
man that Dr. Blacklock, to whom I am indebted for the anecdote, kept
for some years as amanuensis. I do not know who is the author of
the second song to the tune. Tytler, in his amusing history of Scots
music, gives the air to Oswald; but in Oswald's own collection of
Scots tunes, where he affixes an asterisk to those he himself
composed, he does not make the least claim to the tune.
* * * * *
SAW YE JOHNNIE CUMMIN? QUO' SHE.
This song, for genuine humour in the verses, and lively originality in
the air, is unparalleled. I take it to be very old.
* * * * *
CLOUT THE CALDRON.
A tradition is mentioned in the "Bee," that the second Bishop
Chisholm, of Dunblane, used to say, that if he were going to be
hanged, nothing would soothe his mind so much by the way as to hear
"Clout the Caldron" played.
I have met with another tradition, that the old song to this tune,
"Hae ye onie pots or pans,
Or onie broken chanlers,"
was composed on one of the Kenmure family, in the cavalier times; and
alluded to an amour he had, while under hiding, in the disguise of an
itinerant tinker. The air is also known by the name of
"The blacksmith and his apron,"
which from the rhythm, seems to have been a line of some old song to
the tune.
* * * * *
SAW YE MY PEGGY.
This charming song is much older, and indeed superior to Ramsay's
verses, "The Toast," as he calls them. There is another set of the
words, much older still, and which I take to be the original one, but
though it has a very great deal of merit, it is not quite ladies'
reading.
The original words, for they can scarcely be called verses, seem to be
as follows; a song familiar from the cradle to every Scottish ear.
"Saw ye my Maggie,
Saw ye my Maggie,
Saw ye my Maggie
Linkin o'er the lea?
High kilted was she,
High kilted was she,
High kilted was she,
Her coat aboon her knee.
What mark has your Maggie,
What mark has your Maggie,
What mark has your Maggie,
That ane may ken her be?"
Though it by no means follows that the silliest verses to an air must,
for that reason, be the original song; yet I take this ballad, of
which I have quoted part, to be old verses. The two songs in Ramsay,
one of them evidently his own, are never to be met with in the
fire-side circle of our peasantry; while that which I take to be the
old song, is in every shepherd's mouth. Ramsay, I suppose, had thought
the old verses unworthy of a place in his collection.
* * * * *
THE FLOWERS OF EDINBURGH.
This song is one of the many effusions of Scots Jacobitism.--The title
"Flowers of Edinburgh," has no manner of connexion with the present
verses, so I suspect there has been an older set of words, of which
the title is all that remains.
By the bye, it is singular enough that the Scottish muses were all
Jacobites.--I have paid more attention to every description of Scots
songs than perhaps anybody living has done, and I do not recollect one
single stanza, or even the title of the most trifling Scots air, which
has the least panegyrical reference to the families of Nassau or
Brunswick; while there are hundreds satirizing them.--This may be
thought no panegyric on the Scots Poets, but I mean it as such. For
myself, I would always take it as a compliment to have it said, that
my heart ran before my head,--and surely the gallant though
unfortunate house of Stewart, the kings of our fathers for so many
heroic ages, is a theme * * * * * *
* * * * *
JAMIE GAY.
Jamie Gay is another and a tolerable Anglo-Scottish piece.
* * * * *
MY DEAR JOCKIE.
Another Anglo-Scottish production.
* * * * *
FYE, GAE RUB HER O'ER WI' STRAE.
It is self-evident that the first four lines of this song are part of
a song more ancient than Ramsay's beautiful verses which are annexed
to them. As music is the language of nature; and poetry, particularly
songs, are always less or more localized (if I may be allowed the
verb) by some of the modifications of time and place, this is the
reason why so many of our Scots airs have outlived their original, and
perhaps many subsequent sets of verses; except a single name or
phrase, or sometimes one or two lines, simply to distinguish the tunes
by.
To this day among people who know nothing of Ramsay's verses, the
following is the song, and all the song that ever I heard:
"Gin ye meet a bonnie lassie,
Gie her a kiss and let her gae;
But gin ye meet a dirty hizzie,
Fye, gae rub her o'er wi' strae.
Fye, gae rub her, rub her, rub her,
Fye, gae rub her o'er wi' strae:
An' gin ye meet dirty hizzie,
Fye, gae rub her o'er wi' strae."
* * * * *
THE LASS O' LIVISTON.
The old song, in three eight-line stanzas, is well known, and has
merit as to wit and humour; but it is rather unfit for insertion.--It
begins,
"The Bonnie lass o' Liviston,
Her name ye ken, her name ye ken,
And she has written in her contract
To lie her lane, to lie her lane."
&c. &c.
* * * * *
THE LAST TIME I CAME O'ER THE MOOR.
Ramsay found the first line of this song, which had been preserved as
the title of the charming air, and then composed the rest of the
verses to suit that line. This has always a finer effect than
composing English words, or words with an idea foreign to the spirit
of the old title. Where old titles of songs convey any idea at all, it
will generally be found to be quite in the spirit of the air.
* * * * *
JOCKIE'S GRAY BREEKS.
Though this has certainly every evidence of being a Scottish air, yet
there is a well-known tune and song in the north of Ireland, called
"The Weaver and his Shuttle O," which, though sung much quicker, is
every note the very tune.
* * * * *
THE HAPPY MARRIAGE.
Another, but very pretty Anglo-Scottish piece.
* * * * *
THE LASS OF PATIE'S MILL.
In Sinclair's Statistical Account of Scotland, this song is localized
(a verb I must use for want of another to express my idea) somewhere
in the north of Scotland, and likewise is claimed by Ayrshire.--The
following anecdote I had from the present Sir William Cunningham, of
Robertland, who had it from the last John, Earl of Loudon. The then
Earl of Loudon, and father to Earl John before mentioned, had Ramsay
at Loudon, and one day walking together by the banks of Irvine water,
near New-Mills, at a place called Patie's Mill, they were struck with
the appearance of a beautiful country girl. His lordship observed that
she would be a fine theme for a song.--Allan lagged behind in
returning to Loudon Castle, and at dinner produced this identical
song.
* * * * *
THE TURNIMSPIKE.
There is a stanza of this excellent song for local humour, omitted in
this set.--Where I have placed the asterisms.
"They tak the horse then by te head,
And tere tey mak her stan', man;
Me tell tem, me hae seen te day,
Tey no had sic comman', man."
* * * * *
HIGHLAND LADDIE.
As this was a favourite theme with our later Scottish muses, there are
several airs and songs of that name. That which I take to be the
oldest, is to be found in the "Musical Museum," beginning, "I hae been
at Crookieden." One reason for my thinking so is, that Oswald has it
in his collection, by the name of "The Auld Highland Laddie." It is
also known by the name of "Jinglan Johnie," which is a well-known song
of four or five stanzas, and seems to be an earlier song than Jacobite
times. As a proof of this, it is little known to the peasantry by the
name of "Highland Laddie;" while everybody knows "Jinglan Johnie." The
song begins
"Jinglan John, the meickle man,
He met wi' a lass was blythe and bonie."
Another "Highland Laddie" is also in the "Museum," vol. v., which I
take to be Ramsay's original, as he has borrowed the chorus--"O my
bonie Highland lad," &c. It consists of three stanzas, besides the
chorus; and has humour in its composition--it is an excellent, but
somewhat licentious song.--It begins
"As I cam o'er Cairney mount,
And down among the blooming heather."
This air, and the common "Highland Laddie," seem only to be different
sets.
Another "Highland Laddie," also in the "Museum," vol. v., is the tune
of several Jacobite fragments. One of these old songs to it, only
exists, as far as I know, in these four lines--
"Where hae ye been a' day,
Bonie laddie, Highland laddie?
Down the back o' Bell's brae,
Courtin Maggie, courtin Maggie."
Another of this name is Dr. Arne's beautiful air, called the new
"Highland Laddie."
* * * * *
THE GENTLE SWAIN.
To sing such a beautiful air to such execrable verses, is downright
prostitution of common sense! The Scots verses indeed are tolerable.
* * * * *
HE STOLE MY TENDER HEART AWAY.
This is an Anglo-Scottish production, but by no means a bad one.
* * * * *
FAIREST OF THE FAIR.
It is too barefaced to take Dr. Percy's charming song, and by means of
transposing a few English words into Scots, to offer to pass it for a
Scots song.--I was not acquainted with the editor until the first
volume was nearly finished, else, had I known in time, I would have
prevented such an impudent absurdity.
* * * * *
THE BLAITHRIE O'T.
The following is a set of this song, which was the earliest song I
remember to have got by heart. When a child, an old woman sung it to
me, and I picked it up, every word, at first hearing.
"O Willy, weel I mind, I lent you my hand
To sing you a song which you did me command;
But my memory's so bad I had almost forgot
That you called it the gear and the blaithrie o't.--
I'll not sing about confusion, delusion or pride,
I'll sing about a laddie was for a virtuous bride;
For virtue is an ornament that time will never rot,
And preferable to gear and the blaithrie o't.--
Tho' my lassie hae nae scarlets or silks to put on,
We envy not the greatest that sits upon the throne;
I wad rather hae my lassie, tho' she cam in her smock,
Than a princess wi' the gear and the blaithrie o't.--
Tho' we hae nae horses or menzies at command,
We will toil on our foot, and we'll work wi' our hand;
And when wearied without rest, we'll find it sweet in any spot,
And we'll value not the gear and the blaithrie o't.--
If we hae ony babies, we'll count them as lent;
Hae we less, hae we mair, we will ay be content;
For they say they hae mair pleasure that wins bu groat,
Than the miser wi' his gear and the blaithrie o't--
I'll not meddle wi' th' affairs of the kirk or the queen;
They're nae matters for a sang, let them sink, let them swim;
On your kirk I'll ne'er encroach, but I'll hold it stil remote,
Sae tak this for the gear and the blaithrie o't."
* * * * *
MAY EVE, OR KATE OF ABERDEEN.
"Kate of Aberdeen" is, I believe, the work of poor Cunningham the
player; of whom the following anecdote, though told before, deserves a
recital. A fat dignitary of the church coming past Cunningham one
_Sunday_, as the poor poet was busy plying a fishing-rod in some
stream near Durham, his native country, his reverence reprimanded
Cunningham very severely for such an occupation on such a day. The
poor poet, with that inoffensive gentleness of manners which was his
peculiar characteristic, replied, that he hoped God and his reverence
would forgive his seeming profanity of that sacred day, "_as he had no
dinner to eat, but what lay at the bottom of that pool_!" This, Mr.
Woods, the player, who knew Cunningham well, and esteemed him much,
assured me was true.
* * * * *
TWEED SIDE.
In Ramsay's Tea-table Miscellany, he tells us that about thirty of the
songs in that publication were the works of some young gentlemen of
his acquaintance; which songs are marked with the letters D. C.
&c.--Old Mr. Tytler of Woodhouselee, the worthy and able defender of
the beauteous Queen of Scots, told me that the songs marked C, in the
_Tea-table_, were the composition of a Mr. Crawfurd, of the house of
Achnames, who was afterwards unfortunately drowned coming from
France.--As Tytler was most intimately acquainted with Allan Ramsay, I
think the anecdote may be depended on. Of consequence, the beautiful
song of Tweed Side is Mr. Crawfurd's, and indeed does great honour to
his poetical talents. He was a Robert Crawfurd; the Mary he celebrates
was a Mary Stewart, of the Castle-Milk family, afterwards married to a
Mr. John Ritchie.
I have seen a song, calling itself the original Tweed Side, and said
to have been composed by a Lord Yester. It consisted of two stanzas,
of which I still recollect the first--
"When Maggy and I was acquaint,
I carried my noddle fu' hie;
Nae lintwhite on a' the green plain,
Nor gowdspink sae happy as me:
But I saw her sae fair and I lo'ed:
I woo'd, but I came nae great speed;
So now I maun wander abroad,
And lay my banes far frae the Tweed."--
* * * * *
THE POSY.
It appears evident to me that Oswald composed his _Roslin Castle_ on
the modulation of this air.--In the second part of Oswald's, in the
three first bars, he has either hit on a wonderful similarity to, or
else he has entirely borrowed the three first bars of the old air; and
the close of both tunes is almost exactly the same. The old verses to
which it was sung, when I took down the notes from a country girl's
voice, had no great merit.--The following is a specimen:
"There was a pretty May, and a milkin she went;
Wi' her red rosy cheeks, and her coal black hair;
And she has met a young man a comin o'er the bent,
With a double and adieu to thee, fair May.
O where are ye goin, my ain pretty May,
Wi' thy red rosy cheeks, and thy coal black hair?
Unto the yowes a milkin, kind sir, she says,
With a double and adieu to thee, fair May.
What if I gang alang with thee, my ain pretty May,
Wi' thy red rosy cheeks, any thy coal-black hair;
Wad I be aught the warse o' that, kind sir, she says,
With a double and adieu to thee, fair May."
* * * * *
MARY'S DREAM.
The Mary here alluded to is generally supposed to be Miss Mary
Macghie, daughter to the Laird of Airds, in Galloway. The poet was a
Mr. John Lowe, who likewise wrote another beautiful song, called
Pompey's Ghost.--I have seen a poetic epistle from him in North
America, where he now is, or lately was, to a lady in Scotland.--By
the strain of the verses, it appeared that they allude to some love
affair.
* * * * *
THE MAID THAT TENDS THE GOATS.
BY MR. DUDGEON.
This Dudgeon is a respectable farmer's son in Berwickshire.
* * * * *
I WISH MY LOVE WERE IN A MIRE.
I never heard more of the words of this old song than the title.
* * * * *
ALLAN WATER.
This Allan Water, which the composer of the music has honoured with
the name of the air, I have been told is Allan Water, in Strathallan.
* * * * *
THERE'S NAE LUCK ABOUT THE HOUSE.
This is one of the most beautiful songs in the Scots, or any other
language.--The two lines,
"And will I see his face again!
And will I hear him speak!"
as well as the two preceding ones, are unequalled almost by anything I
ever heard or read: and the lines,
"The present moment is our ain,
The neist we never saw,"--
are worthy of the first poet. It is long posterior to Ramsay's days.
About the year 1771, or 72, it came first on the streets as a ballad;
and I suppose the composition of the song was not much anterior to
that period.
* * * * *
TARRY WOO.
This is a very pretty song; but I fancy that the first half stanza, as
well as the tune itself, are much older than the rest of the words.
* * * * *
GRAMACHREE.
The song of Gramachree was composed by a Mr. Poe, a counsellor at law
in Dublin. This anecdote I had from a gentleman who knew the lady, the
"Molly," who is the subject of the song, and to whom Mr. Poe sent the
first manuscript of his most beautiful verses. I do not remember any
single line that has more true pathos than
"How can she break that honest heart that wears her in its core!"
But as the song is Irish, it had nothing to do in this collection.
* * * * *
THE COLLIER'S BONNIE LASSIE.
The first half stanza is much older than the days of Ramsay.--The old
words began thus:
"The collier has a dochter, and, O, she's wonder bonnie!
A laird he was that sought her, rich baith in lands and money.
She wad na hae a laird, nor wad she be a lady,
But she wad hae a collier, the colour o' her daddie."
* * * * *
MY AIN KIND DEARIE-O.
The old words of this song are omitted here, though much more
beautiful than these inserted; which were mostly composed by poor
Fergusson, in one of his merry humours. The old words began thus:
"I'll rowe thee o'er the lea-rig,
My ain kind dearie, O,
I'll rowe thee o'er the lea-rig,
My ain kind dearie, O,
Altho' the night were ne'er sae wat,
And I were ne'er sae weary, O;
I'll rowe thee o'er the lea-rig,
My ain kind dearie, O."--
* * * * *
MARY SCOTT, THE FLOWER OF YARROW.
Mr. Robertson, in his statistical account of the parish of Selkirk,
says, that Mary Scott, the Flower of Yarrow, was descended from the
Dryhope, and married into the Harden family. Her daughter was married
to a predecessor of the present Sir Francis Elliot, of Stobbs, and of
the late Lord Heathfield.
There is a circumstance in their contract of marriage that merits
attention, and it strongly marks the predatory spirit of the times.
The father-in-law agrees to keep his daughter for some time after the
marriage; for which the son-in-law binds himself to give him the
profits of the first Michaelmas moon!
* * * * *
DOWN THE BURN, DAVIE.
I have been informed, that the tune of "Down the burn, Davie," was the
composition of David Maigh, keeper of the blood slough hounds,
belonging to the Laird of Riddel, in Tweeddale.
* * * * *
BLINK O'ER THE BURN, SWEET BETTIE.
The old words, all that I remember, are,--
"Blink over the burn, sweet Betty,
It is a cauld winter night:
It rains, it hails, it thunders,
The moon, she gies nae light:
It's a' for the sake o' sweet Betty,
That ever I tint my way;
Sweet, let me lie beyond thee
Until it be break o' day.--
O, Betty will bake my bread,
And Betty will brew my ale,
And Betty will be my love,
When I come over the dale:
Blink over the burn, sweet Betty,
Blink over the burn to me,
And while I hae life, dear lassie,
My ain sweet Betty thou's be."
* * * * *
THE BLITHSOME BRIDAL.
I find the "Blithsome Bridal" in James Watson's collection of Scots
poems, printed at Edinburgh, in 1706. This collection, the publisher
says, is the first of its nature which has been published in our own
native Scots dialect--it is now extremely scarce.
* * * * *
JOHN HAY'S BONNIE LASSIE.
John Hay's "Bonnie Lassie" was daughter of John Hay, Earl or Marquis
of Tweeddale, and late Countess Dowager of Roxburgh.--She died at
Broomlands, near Kelso, some time between the years 1720 and 1740.
* * * * *
THE BONIE BRUCKET LASSIE.
The two first lines of this song are all of it that is old. The rest
of the song, as well as those songs in the Museum marked T., are the
works of an obscure, tippling, but extraordinary body of the name of
Tytler, commonly known by the name of Balloon Tytler, from his having
projected a balloon; a mortal, who, though he drudges about Edinburgh
as a common printer, with leaky shoes, a sky-lighted hat, and
knee-buckles as unlike as George-by-the-grace-of-God, and
Solomon-the-son-of-David; yet that same unknown drunken mortal is
author and compiler of three-fourths of Elliot's pompous Encyclopedia
Britannica, which he composed at half a guinea a week!
* * * * *
SAE MERRY AS WE TWA HA'E BEEN.
This song is beautiful.--The chorus in particular is truly pathetic. I
never could learn anything of its author.
CHORUS.
"Sae merry as we twa ha'e been,
Sae merry as we twa ha'e been;
My heart is like for to break,
When I think on the days we ha'e seen."
* * * * *
THE BANKS OF FORTH.
This air is Oswald's.
* * * * *
THE BUSH ABOON TRAQUAIR.
This is another beautiful song of Mr. Crawfurd's composition. In the
neighbourhood of Traquair, tradition still shows the old "Bush;"
which, when I saw it, in the year 1787, was composed of eight or nine
ragged birches. The Earl of Traquair has planted a clump of trees near
by, which he calls "The New Bush."
* * * * *
CROMLET'S LILT.
The following interesting account of this plaintive dirge was
communicated to Mr. Riddel by Alexander Fraser Tytler, Esq., of
Woodhouselee.
"In the latter end of the sixteenth century, the Chisolms were
proprietors of the estate of Cromlecks (now possessed by the
Drummonds). The eldest son of that family was very much attached to a
daughter of Sterling of Ardoch, commonly known by the name of Fair
Helen of Ardoch.
"At that time the opportunities of meeting betwixt the sexes were more
rare, consequently more sought after than now; and the Scottish
ladies, far from priding themselves on extensive literature, were
thought sufficiently book-learned if they could make out the
Scriptures in their mother-tongue. Writing was entirely out of the
line of female education. At that period the most of our young men of
family sought a fortune, or found a grave, in France. Cromlus, when he
went abroad to the war, was obliged to leave the management of his
correspondence with his mistress to a lay-brother of the monastery of
Dumblain, in the immediate neighbourhood of Cromleck, and near Ardoch.
This man, unfortunately, was deeply sensible of Helen's charms. He
artfully prepossessed her with stories to the disadvantage of Cromlus;
and, by misinterpreting or keeping up the letters and messages
intrusted to his care, he entirely irritated both. All connexion was
broken off betwixt them; Helen was inconsolable, and Cromlus has left
behind him, in the ballad called 'Cromlet's Lilt,' a proof of the
elegance of his genius, as well as the steadiness of his love.
"When the artful monk thought time had sufficiently softened Helen's
sorrow, he proposed himself as a lover: Helen was obdurate: but at
last, overcome by the persuasions of her brother, with whom she lived,
and who, having a family of thirty-one children, was probably very
well pleased to get her off his hands--she submitted, rather than
consented to the ceremony; but there her compliance ended; and, when
forcibly put into bed, she started quite frantic from it, screaming
out, that after three gentle taps on the wainscot, at the bed-head,
she heard Cromlus's voice, crying, 'Helen, Helen, mind me!' Cromlus
soon after coming home, the treachery of the confidant was
discovered,--her marriage disannulled,--and Helen became Lady
Cromlecks."
N. B. Marg. Murray, mother to these thirty-one children, was daughter
to Murray of Strewn, one of the seventeen sons of Tullybardine, and
whose youngest son, commonly called the Tutor of Ardoch, died in the
year 1715, aged 111 years.
* * * * *
MY DEARIE, IF THOU DIE.
Another beautiful song of Crawfurd's.
* * * * *
SHE ROSE AND LOOT ME IN.
The old set of this song, which is still to be found in printed
collections, is much prettier than this; but somebody, I believe it
was Ramsay, took it into his head to clear it of some seeming
indelicacies, and made it at once more chaste and more dull.
* * * * *
GO TO THE EWE-BUGHTS, MARION.
I am not sure if this old and charming air be of the South, as is
commonly said, or of the North of Scotland. There is a song,
apparently as ancient us "Ewe-bughts, Marion," which sings to the same
tune, and is evidently of the North.--It begins thus:
"The Lord o' Gordon had three dochters,
Mary, Marget, and Jean,
They wad na stay at bonie Castle Gordon,
But awa to Aberdeen."
* * * * *
LEWIS GORDON.
This air is a proof how one of our Scots tunes comes to be composed
out of another. I have one of the earliest copies of the song, and it
has prefixed,
"Tune of Tarry Woo."--
Of which tune a different set has insensibly varied into a different
air.--To a Scots critic, the pathos of the line,
"'Tho' his back be at the wa',"
--must be very striking. It needs not a Jacobite prejudice to be
affected with this song.
The supposed author of "Lewis Gordon" was a Mr. Geddes, priest, at
Shenval, in the Ainzie.
* * * * *
O HONE A RIE.
Dr. Blacklock informed me that this song was composed on the infamous
massacre of Glencoe.
* * * * *
I'LL NEVER LEAVE THEE.
This is another of Crawfurd's songs, but I do not think in his
happiest manner.--What an absurdity, to join such names as _Adonis_
and _Mary_ together!
* * * * *
CORN RIGS ARE BONIE.
All the old words that ever I could meet to this air were the
following, which seem to have been an old chorus:
"O corn rigs and rye rigs,
O corn rigs are bonie;
And where'er you meet a bonie lass,
Preen up her cockernony."
* * * * *
THE MUCKING OF GEORDIE'S BYRE.
The chorus of this song is old; the rest is the work of Balloon
Tytler.
* * * * *
BIDE YE YET.
There is a beautiful song to this tune, beginning,
"Alas, my son, you little know,"--
which is the composition of Miss Jenny Graham, of Dumfries.
* * * * *
WAUKIN O' THE FAULD.
There are two stanzas still sung to this tune, which I take to be the
original song whence Ramsay composed his beautiful song of that name
in the Gentle Shepherd.--It begins
"O will ye speak at our town,
As ye come frae the fauld."
I regret that, as in many of our old songs, the delicacy of this old
fragment is not equal to its wit and humour.
* * * * *
TRANENT-MUIR.
"Tranent-Muir," was composed by a Mr. Skirving, a very worthy
respectable farmer near Haddington. I have heard the anecdote often,
that Lieut. Smith, whom he mentions in the ninth stanza, came to
Haddington after the publication of the song, and sent a challenge to
Skirving to meet him at Haddington, and answer for the unworthy manner
in which he had noticed him in his song. "Gang away back," said the
honest farmer, "and tell Mr. Smith that I hae nae leisure to come to
Haddington; but tell him to come here, and I'll tak a look o' him, and
if I think I'm fit to fecht him, I'll fecht him; and if no, I'll do as
he did--_I'll rin awa."_--
* * * * *
TO THE WEAVERS GIN YE GO.
The chorus of this song is old, the rest of it is mine. Here, once for
all, let me apologize for many silly compositions of mine in this
work. Many beautiful airs wanted words; in the hurry of other
avocations, if I could string a parcel of rhymes together anything
near tolerable, I was fain to let them pass. He must be an excellent
poet indeed whose every performance is excellent.
* * * * *
POLWARTH ON THE GREEN.
The author of "Polwarth on the Green" is Capt. John Drummond M'Gregor,
of the family of Bochaldie.
* * * * *
STREPHON AND LYDIA.
The following account of this song I had from Dr. Blacklock.
The Strephon and Lydia mentioned in the song were perhaps the
loveliest couple of their time. The gentleman was commonly known by
the name of Beau Gibson. The lady was the "Gentle Jean," celebrated
somewhere in Hamilton of Bangour's poems.--Having frequently met at
public places, they had formed a reciprocal attachment, which their
friends thought dangerous, as their resources were by no means
adequate to their tastes and habits of life. To elude the bad
consequences of such a connexion, Strephon was sent abroad with a
commission, and perished in Admiral Vernon's expedition to Carthagena.
The author of this song was William Wallace, Esq. of Cairnhill, in
Ayrshire.
* * * * *
I'M O'ER YOUNG TO MARRY YET.
The chorus of this song is old. The rest of it, such as it is, is
mine.
* * * * *
M'PHERSON'S FAREWELL.
M'Pherson, a daring robber, in the beginning of this century, was
condemned to be hanged at the assizes of Inverness. He is said, when
under sentence of death, to have composed this tune, which he called
his own lament or farewell.
Gow has published a variation of this fine tune as his own
composition, which he calls "The Princess Augusta."
* * * * *
MY JO, JANET.
Johnson, the publisher, with a foolish delicacy, refused to insert the
last stanza of this humorous ballad.
* * * * *
THE SHEPHERD'S COMPLAINT.
The words by a Mr. R. Scott, from the town or neighbourhood of Biggar.
* * * * *
THE BIRKS OF ABERFELDY.
I composed these stanzas standing under the falls of Aberfeldy, at or
near Moness.
* * * * *
THE HIGHLAND LASSIE O.
This was a composition of mine in very early life, before I was known
at all in the world. My Highland lassie was a warm-hearted, charming
young creature as ever blessed a man with generous love. After a
pretty long tract of the most ardent reciprocal attachment, we met by
appointment on the second Sunday of May, in a sequestered spot by the
banks of Ayr, where we spent the day in taking a farewell before she
should embark for the West Highlands, to arrange matters among her
friends for our projected change of life. At the close of autumn
following she crossed the sea to meet me at Greenock, where she had
scarce landed when she was seized with a malignant fever, which
hurried my dear girl to the grave in a few days, before I could even
hear of her last illness.
* * * * *
FIFE, AND A' THE LANDS ABOUT IT.
This song is Dr. Blacklock's. He, as well as I, often gave Johnson
verses, trifling enough perhaps, but they served as a vehicle to the
music.
* * * * *
WERE NA MY HEART LIGHT I WAD DIE.
Lord Hailes, in the notes to his collection of ancient Scots poems,
says that this song was the composition of a Lady Grissel Baillie,
daughter of the first Earl of Marchmont, and wife of George Baillie,
of Jerviswood.
* * * * *
THE YOUNG MAN'S DREAM.
This song is the composition of Balloon Tytler.
* * * * *
STRATHALLAN'S LAMENT.
This air in the composition of one of the worthiest and best-hearted
men living--Allan Masterton, schoolmaster in Edinburgh. As he and I
were both sprouts of Jacobitism we agreed to dedicate the words and
air to that cause.
To tell the matter-of-fact, except when my passions were heated by
some accidental cause, my Jacobitism was merely by way of _vive la
bagatelle._
* * * * *
UP IN THE MORNING EARLY.
The chorus of this is old; the two stanzas are mine.
* * * * *
THE TEARS OF SCOTLAND.
Dr. Blacklock told me that Smollet, who was at the bottom a great
Jacobite, composed these beautiful and pathetic verses on the infamous
depredations of the Duke of Cumberland after the battle of Culloden.
* * * * *
WHAT WILL I DO GIN MY HOGGIE DIE.
Dr. Walker, who was minister at Moffat in 1772, and is now (1791)
Professor of Natural History in the University of Edinburgh, told the
following anecdote concerning this air.--He said, that some gentlemen,
riding a few years ago through Liddesdale, stopped at a hamlet
consisting of a few houses, called Moss Platt, when they were struck
with this tune, which an old woman, spinning on a rock at her door,
was singing. All she could tell concerning it was, that she was taught
it when a child, and it was called "What will I do gin my Hoggie die?"
No person, except a few females at Moss Platt, knew this fine old
tune, which in all probability would have been lost had not one of the
gentlemen, who happened to have a flute with him, taken it down.
* * * * *
I DREAM'D I LAY WHERE FLOWERS WERE SPRINGING.
These two stanzas I composed when I was seventeen, and are among the
oldest of my printed pieces.
* * * * *
AH! THE POOR SHEPHERD'S MOURNFUL FATE.
Tune--"Gallashiels."
The old title, "Sour Plums o' Gallashiels," probably was the beginning
of a song to this air, which is now lost.
The tune of Gallashiels was composed about the beginning of the
present century by the Laird of Gallashiel's piper.
* * * * *
THE BANKS OF THE DEVON.
These verses were composed on a charming girl, a Miss Charlotte
Hamilton, who is now married to James M'Kitrick Adair, Esq.,
physician. She is sister to my worthy friend Gavin Hamilton, of
Mauchline, and was born on the banks of the Ayr, but was, at the time
I wrote these lines, residing at Herveyston, in Clackmannanshire, on
the romantic banks of the little river Devon. I first heard the air
from a lady in Inverness, and got the notes taken down for this work.
* * * * *
MILL, MILL O.
The original, or at least a song evidently prior to Ramsay's is still
extant.--It runs thus,
CHORUS.
"The mill, mill O, and the kill, kill O,
And the coggin o' Peggy's wheel, O,
The sack and the sieve, and a' she did leave,
And danc'd the miller's reel O.--
As I came down yon waterside,
And by yon shellin-hill O,
There I spied a bonie bonie lass,
And a lass that I lov'd right well O."
* * * * *
WE RAN AND THEY RAN.
The author of "We ran and they ran"--was a Rev. Mr. Murdoch M'Lennan,
minister at Crathie, Dee-side.
* * * * *
WALY, WALY.
In the west country I have heard a different edition of the second
stanza.--Instead of the four lines, beginning with, "When
cockle-shells, &c.," the other way ran thus:--
"O wherefore need I busk my head,
Or wherefore need I kame my hair,
Sin my fause luve has me forsook,
And sys, he'll never luve me mair."
* * * * *
DUNCAN GRAY.
Dr. Blacklock informed me that he had often heard the tradition, that
this air was composed by a carman in Glasgow.
* * * * *
DUMBARTON DRUMS.
This is the last of the West-Highland airs; and from it over the whole
tract of country to the confines of Tweedside, there is hardly a tune
or song that one can say has taken its origin from any place or
transaction in that part of Scotland.--The oldest Ayrshire reel, is
Stewarton Lasses, which was made by the father of the present Sir
Walter Montgomery Cunningham, alias Lord Lysle; since which period
there has indeed been local music in that country in great
plenty.--Johnie Faa is the only old song which I could ever trace as
belonging to the extensive county of Ayr.
* * * * *
CAULD KAIL IN ABERDEEN.
This song is by the Duke of Gordon.--The old verses are,
"There's cauld kail in Aberdeen,
And castocks in Strathbogie;
When ilka lad maun hae his lass,
Then fye, gie me my coggie.
CHORUS.
My coggie, Sirs, my coggie, Sirs,
I cannot want my coggie;
I wadna gie my three-girr'd cap
For e'er a quene on Bogie.--
There's Johnie Smith has got a wife,
That scrimps him o' his coggie,
If she were mine, upon my life
I wad douk her in a bogie."
* * * * *
FOR LAKE OF GOLD.
The country girls in Ayrshire, instead of the line--
"She me forsook for a great duke,"
say
"For Athole's duke she me forsook;"
which I take to be the original reading.
These were composed by the late Dr. Austin, physician at
Edinburgh.--He had courted a lady, to whom he was shortly to have been
married; but the Duke of Athole having seen her, became so much in
love with her, that he made proposals of marriage, which were accepted
of, and she jilted the doctor.
* * * * *
HERE'S A HEALTH TO MY TRUE LOVE, &c.
This song is Dr. Blacklock's. He told me that tradition gives the air
to our James IV. of Scotland.
* * * * *
HEY TUTTI TAITI.
I Have met the tradition universally over Scotland, and particularly
about Stirling, in the neighbourhood of the scene, that this air was
Robert Bruce's march at the battle of Bannockburn.
* * * * *
RAVING WINDS AROUND HER BLOWING.
I Composed these verses on Miss Isabella M'Leod, of Raza, alluding to
her feelings on the death of her sister, and the still more melancholy
death of her sister's husband, the late Earl of Loudon; who shot
himself out of sheer heart-break at some mortifications he suffered,
owing to the deranged state of his finances.
* * * * *
TAK YOUR AULD CLOAK ABOUT YE.
A part of this old song, according to the English set of it, is quoted
in Shakspeare.
* * * * *
YE GODS, WAS STREPHON'S PICTURE BLEST?
Tune--"Fourteenth of October."
The title of this air shows that it alludes to the famous king
Crispian, the patron of the honourable corporation of shoemakers.--St.
Crispian's day falls on the fourteenth of October old style, as the
old proverb tells:
"On the fourteenth of October
Was ne'er a sutor sober."
* * * * *
SINCE ROBB'D OF ALL THAT CHARM'D MY VIEWS.
The old name of this air is, "the Blossom o' the Raspberry." The song
is Dr. Blacklock's.
* * * * *
YOUNG DAMON.
This air is by Oswald.
* * * * *
KIRK WAD LET ME BE.
Tradition in the western parts of Scotland tells that this old song,
of which there are still three stanzas extant, once saved a
covenanting clergyman out of a scrape. It was a little prior to the
revolution, a period when being a Scots covenanter was being a felon,
that one of their clergy, who was at that very time hunted by the
merciless soldiery, fell in, by accident, with a party of the
military. The soldiers were not exactly acquainted with the person of
the reverend gentleman of whom they were in search; but from
suspicious circumstances, they fancied that they had got one of that
cloth and opprobrious persuasion among them in the person of this
stranger. "Mass John" to extricate himself, assumed a freedom of
manners, very unlike the gloomy strictness of his sect; and among
other convivial exhibitions, sung (and some traditions say, composed
on the spur of the occasion) "Kirk wad let me be," with such effect,
that the soldiers swore he was a d----d honest fellow, and that it
was impossible _he_ could belong to those hellish conventicles; and so
gave him his liberty.
The first stanza of this song, a little altered, is a favourite kind
of dramatic interlude acted at country weddings, in the south-west
parts of the kingdom. A young fellow is dressed up like an old beggar;
a peruke, commonly made of carded tow, represents hoary locks; an old
bonnet; a ragged plaid, or surtout, bound with a straw rope for a
girdle; a pair of old shoes, with straw ropes twisted round his
ankles, as is done by shepherds in snowy weather: his face they
disguise as like wretched old age as they can: in this plight he is
brought into the wedding-house, frequently to the astonishment of
strangers, who are not in the secret, and begins to sing--
"O, I am a silly auld man,
My name it is auld Glenae," &c.
He is asked to drink, and by and bye to dance, which after some
uncouth excuses he is prevailed on to do, the fiddler playing the
tune, which here is commonly called "Auld Glenae;" in short he is all
the time so plied with liquor that he is understood to get
intoxicated, and with all the ridiculous gesticulations of an old
drunken beggar, he dances and staggers until he falls on the floor;
yet still in all his riot, nay, in his rolling and tumbling on the
floor, with some or other drunken motion of his body, he beats time to
the music, till at last he is supposed to be carried out dead drunk.
* * * * *
MUSING ON THE ROARING OCEAN.
I composed these verses out of compliment to a Mrs. M'Lachlan, whose
husband is an officer in the East Indies.
* * * * *
BLYTHE WAS SHE.
I composed these verses while I stayed at Ochtertyre with Sir William
Murray.--The lady, who was also at Ochtertyre at the same time, was
the well-known toast, Miss Euphemia Murray, of Lentrose; she was
called, and very justly, "The Flower of Strathmore."
* * * * *
JOHNNIE FAA, OR THE GYPSIE LADDIE.
The people in Ayrshire begin this song--
"The gypsies cam to my Lord Cassilis' yett."--
They have a great many more stanzas in this song than I ever yet saw
in any printed copy.--The castle is still remaining at Maybole, where
his lordship shut up his wayward spouse, and kept her for life.
* * * * *
TO DAUNTON ME.
The two following old stanzas to this tune have some merit:
"To daunton me, to daunton me,
O ken ye what it is that'll daunton me?--
There's eighty-eight and eighty-nine,
And a' that I hae borne sinsyne,
There's cess and press and Presbytrie,
I think it will do meikle for to daunton me.
But to wanton me, to wanton me,
O ken ye what it is that wad wanton me--
To see gude corn upon the rigs,
And banishment amang the Whigs,
And right restor'd where right sud be,
I think it would do meikle for to wanton me."
* * * * *
THE BONNIE LASS MADE THE BED TO ME.
"The Bonnie Lass made the Bed to me," was composed on an amour of
Charles II. when skulking in the North, about Aberdeen, in the time of
the usurpation. He formed _une petite affaire_ with a daughter of the
house of Portletham, who was the "lass that made the bed to him:"--two
verses of it are,
"I kiss'd her lips sae rosy red,
While the tear stood blinkin in her e'e;
I said, My lassie, dinna cry,
For ye ay shall make the bed to me.
She took her mither's holland sheets,
And made them a' in sarks to me;
Blythe and merry may she be,
The lass that made the bed to me."
* * * * *
ABSENCE.
A song in the manner of Shenstone.
This song and air are both by Dr. Blacklock.
* * * * *
I HAD A HORSE AND I HAD NAE MAIR.
This story is founded on fact. A John Hunter, ancestor to a very
respectable farming family, who live in a place in the parish, I
think, of Galston, called Bar-mill, was the luckless hero that "had a
horse and had nae mair."--For some little youthful follies he found it
necessary to make a retreat to the West-Highlands, where "he feed
himself to a _Highland_ Laird," for that is the expression of all the
oral editions of the song I ever heard.--The present Mr. Hunter, who
told me the anecdote, is the great-grandchild of our hero.
* * * * *
UP AND WARN A' WILLIE.
This edition of the song I got from Tom Niel, of facetious fame, in
Edinburgh. The expression "Up and warn a' Willie," alludes to the
Crantara, or warning of a Highland clan to arms. Not understanding
this, the Lowlanders in the west and south say, "Up and _waur_ them
a'," &c.
* * * * *
A ROSE-BUD BY MY EARLY WALK.
This song I composed on Miss Jenny Cruikshank, only child of my worthy
friend Mr. William Cruikshank, of the High-School, Edinburgh. This air
is by a David Sillar, quondam merchant, and now schoolmaster in
Irvine. He is the _Davie_ to whom I address my printed poetical
epistle in the measure of the Cherry and the Slae.
* * * * *
AULD ROB MORRIS.
It is remark-worthy that the song of "Holy and Fairly," in all the old
editions of it, is called "The Drunken Wife o' Galloway," which
localizes it to that country.
* * * * *
RATTLIN, ROARIN WILLIE.
The last stanza of this song is mine; it was composed out of
compliment to one of the worthiest fellows in the world, William
Dunbar, Esq., writer to the signet, Edinburgh, and Colonel of the
Crochallan Corps, a club of wits who took that title at the time of
raising the fencible regiments.
* * * * *
WHERE BRAVING ANGRY WINTER STORMS.
This song I composed on one of the most accomplished of women, Miss
Peggy Chalmers, that was, now Mrs. Lewis Hay, of Forbes and Co.'s
bank, Edinburgh.
* * * * *
TIBBIE, I HAE SEEN THE DAY.
This song I composed about the age of seventeen.
* * * * *
NANCY'S GHOST.
This song is by Dr. Blacklock.
* * * * *
TUNE YOUR FIDDLES, ETC.
This song was composed by the Rev. John Skinner, nonjuror clergyman at
Linshart, near Peterhead. He is likewise author of "Tullochgorum,"
"Ewie wi' the crooked Horn," "John o' Badenyond," &c., and what is of
still more consequence, he is one of the worthiest of mankind. He is
the author of an ecclesiastical history of Scotland. The air is by Mr.
Marshall, butler to the Duke of Gordon; the first composer of
strathspeys of the age. I have been told by somebody, who had it of
Marshall himself, that he took the idea of his three most celebrated
pieces, "The Marquis of Huntley's Reel," his "Farewell," and "Miss
Admiral Gordon's Reel," from the old air, "The German Lairdie."
* * * * *
GILL MORICE.
This plaintive ballad ought to have been called Child Maurice, and not
Gil Maurice. In its present dress, it has gained immortal honour from
Mr. Home's taking from it the ground-work of his fine tragedy of
Douglas. But I am of opinion that the present ballad is a modern
composition; perhaps not much above the age of the middle of the last
century; at least I should be glad to see or hear of a copy of the
present words prior to 1650. That it was taken from an old ballad,
called "Child Maurice," now lost, I am inclined to believe; but the
present one may be classed with "Hardyknute," "Kenneth," "Duncan, the
Laird of Woodhouselie," "Lord Livingston," "Binnorie," "The Death of
Monteith," and many other modern productions, which have been
swallowed by many readers as ancient fragments of old poems. This
beautiful plaintive tune was composed by Mr. M'Gibbon, the selector of
a collection of Scots tunes. R. B.
In addition to the observations on Gil Morice, I add, that of the songs
which Captain Riddel mentions, "Kenneth" and "Duncan" are juvenile
compositions of Mr. M'Kenzie, "The Man of Feeling."--M'Kenzie's father
showed them in MS. to Dr. Blacklock, as the productions of his son, from
which the Doctor rightly prognosticated that the young poet would make,
in his more advanced years, a respectable figure in the world of
letters.
This I had from Blacklock.
* * * * *
TIBBIE DUNBAR.
This tune is said to be the composition of John M'Gill, fiddler, in
Girvan. He called it after his own name.
* * * * *
WHEN I UPON THY BOSOM LEAN.
This song was the work of a very worthy facetious old fellow, John
Lapraik, late of Dalfram, near Muirkirk; which little property he was
obliged to sell in consequence of some connexion as security for some
persons concerned in that villanous bubble THE AYR BANK. He
has often told me that he composed this song one day when his wife had
been fretting o'er their misfortunes.
* * * * *
MY HARRY WAS A GALLANT GAY.
Tune--"Highlander's Lament."
The oldest title I ever heard to this air, was, "The Highland Watch's
Farewell to Ireland." The chorus I picked up from an old woman in
Dumblane; the rest of the song is mine.
* * * * *
THE HIGHLAND CHARACTER.
This tune was the composition of Gen. Reid, and called by him "The
Highland, or 42d Regiment's March." The words are by Sir Harry
Erskine.
* * * * *
LEADER-HAUGHS AND YARROW.
There is in several collections, the old song of "Leader-Haughs and
Yarrow." It seems to have been the work of one of our itinerant
minstrels, as he calls himself, at the conclusion of his song,
"Minstrel Burn."
* * * * *
THE TAILOR FELL THRO' THE BED, THIMBLE AN' A'.
This air is the march of the corporation of tailors. The second and
fourth stanzas are mine.
* * * * *
BEWARE O' BONNIE ANN.
I composed this song out of compliment to Miss Ann Masterton, the
daughter of my friend Allan Masterton, the author of the air of
Strathallan's Lament, and two or three others in this work.
* * * * *
THIS IS NO MINE AIN HOUSE.
The first half stanza is old, the rest is Ramsay's. The old words
are--
"This is no mine ain house,
My ain house, my ain house;
This is no mine ain house,
I ken by the biggin o't.
Bread and cheese are my door-cheeks,
My door-cheeks, my door-cheeks;
Bread and cheese are my door-cheeks,
And pancakes the riggin o't.
This is no my ain wean;
My ain wean, my ain wean;
This is no my ain wean,
I ken by the greetie o't.
I'll tak the curchie aff my head,
Aff my head, aff my head;
I'll tak the curchie aff my head,
And row't about the feetie o't."
The tune is an old Highland air, called "Shuan truish willighan."
* * * * *
LADDIE, LIE NEAR ME.
This song is by Blacklock.
* * * * *
THE GARDENER AND HIS PAIDLE.
This air is the "Gardener's March." The title of the song only is old;
the rest is mine.
* * * * *
THE DAY RETURNS, MY BOSOM BURNS.
Tune.--"Seventh of November."
I composed this song out of compliment to one of the happiest and
worthiest married couples in the world, Robert Riddel, Esq., of
Glenriddel, and his lady. At their fire-side I have enjoyed more
pleasant evenings than at all the houses of fashionable people in this
country put together; and to their kindness and hospitality I am
indebted for many of the happiest hours of my life.
* * * * *
THE GABERLUNZIE MAN.
The "Gaberlunzie Man" is supposed to commemorate an intrigue of James
the Fifth. Mr. Callander, of Craigforth, published some years ago an
edition of "Christ's Kirk on the Green," and the "Gaberlunzie Man,"
with notes critical and historical. James the Fifth is said to have
been fond of Gosford, in Aberlady parish, and that it was suspected by
his contemporaries, that in his frequent excursions to that part of
the country, he had other purposes in view besides golfing and
archery. Three favourite ladies, Sandilands, Weir, and Oliphant (one
of them resided at Gosford, and the others in the neighbourhood), were
occasionally visited by their royal and gallant admirer, which gave
rise to the following advice to his majesty, from Sir David Lindsay,
of the Mount, Lord Lyon.
"Sow not your seed on Sandylands,
spend not your strength in Weir,
And ride not on an Elephant,
For gawing o' your gear."
* * * * *
MY BONNIE MARY.
This air is Oswald's; the first half stanza of the song is old, the
rest mine.
* * * * *
THE BLACK EAGLE.
This song is by Dr. Fordyce, whose merits as a prose writer are well
known.
* * * * *
JAMIE, COME TRY ME.
This air is Oswald's; the song mine.
* * * * *
THE LAZY MIST.
This song is mine.
* * * * *
JOHNIE COPE.
This satirical song was composed to commemorate General Cope's defeat
at Preston Pans, in 1745, when he marched against the Clans.
The air was the tune of an old song, of which I have heard some
verses, but now only remember the title, which was,
"Will ye go the coals in the morning."
* * * * *
I LOVE MY JEAN.
This air is by Marshall; the song I composed out of compliment to Mrs.
Burns.
N.B. It was during the honeymoon.
* * * * *
CEASE, CEASE, MY DEAR FRIEND, TO EXPLORE.
The song is by Dr. Blacklock; I believe, but am not quite certain,
that the air is his too.
* * * * *
AULD ROBIN GRAY.
This air was formerly called, "The bridegroom greets when the sun
gangs down." The words are by Lady Ann Lindsay, of the Balcarras
family.
* * * * *
DONALD AND FLORA.
This is one of those fine Gaelic tunes, preserved from time immemorial
in the Hebrides; they seem to be the ground-work of many of our finest
Scots pastoral tunes. The words of this song were written to
commemorate the unfortunate expedition of General Burgoyne in America,
in 1777.
* * * * *
O WERE I ON PARNASSUS' HILL.
This air is Oswald's; the song I made out of compliment to Mrs. Burns.
* * * * *
THE CAPTIVE ROBIN.
This air is called "Robie donna Gorach."
* * * * *
THERE'S A YOUTH IN THIS CITY.
This air is claimed by Neil Gow, who calls it his lament for his
brother. The first half-stanza of the song is old; the rest mine.
* * * * *
MY HEART'S IN THE HIGHLANDS.
The first half-stanza of this song is old; the rest is mine.
* * * * *
CA' THE EWES AND THE KNOWES.
This beautiful song is in true old Scotch taste, yet I do not know
that either air or words were in print before.
* * * * *
THE BRIDAL O'T.
This song is the work of a Mr. Alexander Ross, late schoolmaster at
Lochlee; and author of a beautiful Scots poem, called "The Fortunate
Shepherdess."
"They say that Jockey 'll speed weel o't,
They say that Jockey 'll speed weel o't,
For he grows brawer ilka day,
I hope we'll hae a bridal o't:
For yesternight nae farder gane,
The backhouse at the side wa' o't,
He there wi' Meg was mirden seen,
I hope we'll hae a bridal o't.
An' we had but a bridal o't,
An' we had but a bridal o't,
We'd leave the rest unto gude luck,
Altho' there should betide ill o't:
For bridal days are merry times,
And young folks like the coming o't,
And scribblers they bang up their rhymes,
And pipers they the bumming o't.
The lasses like a bridal o't,
The lasses like a bridal o't,
Their braws maun be in rank and file,
Altho' that they should guide ill o't:
The boddom o' the kist is then
Turn'd up into the inmost o't,
The end that held the kecks sae clean,
Is now become the teemest o't.
The bangster at the threshing o't.
The bangster at the threshing o't,
Afore it comes is fidgin-fain,
And ilka day's a clashing o't:
He'll sell his jerkin for a groat,
His linder for anither o't,
And e'er he want to clear his shot,
His sark'll pay the tither o't
The pipers and the fiddlers o't,
The pipers and the fiddlers o't,
Can smell a bridal unco' far,
And like to be the middlers o't;
Fan[293] thick and threefold they convene,
Ilk ane envies the tither o't,
And wishes nane but him alane
May ever see anither o't.
Fan they hae done wi' eating o't,
Fan they hae done wi' eating o't,
For dancing they gae to the green,
And aiblins to the beating o't:
He dances best that dances fast,
And loups at ilka reesing o't,
And claps his hands frae hough to hough,
And furls about the feezings o't."
* * * * *
TODLEN HAME.
This is perhaps the first bottle song that ever was composed.
* * * * *
THE BRAES O' BALLOCHMYLE.
This air is the composition of my friend Allan Masterton, in
Edinburgh. I composed the verses on the amiable and excellent family
of Whitefoords leaving Ballochmyle, when Sir John's misfortunes had
obliged him to sell the estate.
* * * * *
THE RANTIN' DOG, THE DADDIE O'T.
I composed this song pretty early in life, and sent it to a young
girl, a very particular acquaintance of mine, who was at that time
under a cloud.
* * * * *
THE SHEPHERD'S PREFERENCE.
This song is Dr. Blacklock's.--I don't know how it came by the name,
but the oldest appellation of the air was, "Whistle and I'll come to
you, my lad."
It has little affinity to the tune commonly known by that name.
* * * * *
THE BONIE BANKS OF AYR.
I composed this song as I conveyed my chest so far on the road to
Greenock, where I was to embark in a few days for Jamaica.
I meant it as my farewell dirge to my native land.
* * * * *
JOHN O' BADENYON.
This excellent song is the composition of my worthy friend, old
Skinner, at Linshart.
"When first I cam to be a man
Of twenty years or so,
I thought myself a handsome youth,
And fain the world would know;
In best attire I stept abroad,
With spirits brisk and gay,
And here and there and everywhere,
Was like a morn in May;
No care had I nor fear of want,
But rambled up and down,
And for a beau I might have pass'd
In country or in town;
I still was pleas'd where'er I went,
And when I was alone,
I tun'd my pipe and pleas'd myself
Wi' John o' Badenyon.
Now in the days of youthful prime
A mistress I must find,
For _love_, I heard, gave one an air
And ev'n improved the mind:
On Phillis fair above the rest
Kind fortune fixt my eyes,
Her piercing beauty struck my heart,
And she became my choice;
To Cupid now with hearty prayer
I offer'd many a vow;
And danc'd, and sung, and sigh'd, and swore,
As other lovers do;
But, when at last I breath'd my flame,
I found her cold as stone;
I left the jilt, and tun'd my pipe
To John o' Badenyon.
When _love_ had thus my heart beguil'd
With foolish hopes and vain,
To _friendship's_ port I steer'd my course,
And laugh'd at lover's pain
A friend I got by lucky chance
'Twas something like divine,
An honest friend's a precious gift,
And such a gift was mine:
And now, whatever might betide,
A happy man was I,
In any strait I knew to whom
I freely might apply;
A strait soon came: my friend I try'd;
He heard, and spurn'd my moan;
I hy'd me home, and tun'd my pipe
To John o' Badenyon.
Methought I should be wiser next,
And would a _patriot_ turn,
Began to doat on Johnny Wilks,
And cry up Parson Horne.
Their manly spirit I admir'd,
And prais'd their noble zeal,
Who had with flaming tongue and pen
Maintain'd the public weal;
But e'er a month or two had past,
I found myself betray'd,
'Twas _self_ and _party_ after all,
For a' the stir they made;
At last I saw the factious knaves
Insult the very throne,
I curs'd them a', and tun'd my pipe
To John o' Badenyon."
* * * * *
A WAUKRIFE MINNIE.
I picked up this old song and tune from a country girl in
Nithsdale.--I never met with it elsewhere in Scotland.
"Whare are you gaun, my bonie lass,
Whare are you gaun, my hinnie,
She answer'd me right saucilie,
An errand for my minnie.
O whare live ye, my bonnie lass,
O whare live ye, my hinnie,
By yon burn-side, gin ye maun ken,
In a wee house wi' my minnie.
But I foor up the glen at e'en,
To see my bonie lassie;
And lang before the gray morn cam,
She was na hauf sa sacie.
O weary fa' the waukrife cock,
And the foumart lay his crawin!
He wauken'd the auld wife frae her sleep,
A wee blink or the dawin.
An angry wife I wat she raise,
And o'er the bed she brought her;
And wi' a mickle hazle rung
She made her a weel pay'd dochter.
O fare thee weel, my bonie lass!
O fare thee weel, my hinnie!
Thou art a gay and a bonie lass,
But thou hast a waukrife minnie."
* * * * *
TULLOCHGORUM.
This first of songs, is the master-piece of my old friend Skinner. He
was passing the day, at the town of Cullen, I think it was, in a
friend's house whose name was Montgomery. Mrs. Montgomery observing,
_en passant_, that the beautiful reel of Tullochgorum wanted words,
she begged them of Mr. Skinner, who gratified her wishes, and the
wishes of every Scottish song, in this most excellent ballad.
These particulars I had from the author's son, Bishop Skinner, at
Aberdeen.
* * * * *
FOR A' THAT AND A' THAT.
This song is mine, all except the chorus.
* * * * *
AULD LANG SYNE.
Ramsay here, as usual with him, has taken the idea of the song, and
the first line, from the old fragment which may be seen in the
"Museum," vol. v.
* * * * *
WILLIE BREW'D A PECK O' MAUT.
This air is Masterton's; the song mine.--The occasion of it was
this:--Mr. W. Nicol, of the High-School, Edinburgh, during the autumn
vacation being at Moffat, honest Allan, who was at that time on a
visit to Dalswinton, and I, went to pay Nicol a visit.--We had such a
joyous meeting that Mr. Masterton and I agreed, each in our own way,
that we should celebrate the business.
* * * * *
KILLIECRANKIE.
The battle of Killiecrankie was the last stand made by the clans for
James, after his abdication. Here the gallant Lord Dundee fell in the
moment of victory, and with him fell the hopes of the party. General
Mackay, when he found the Highlanders did not pursue his flying army,
said, "Dundee must be killed, or he never would have overlooked this
advantage." A great stone marks the spot where Dundee fell.
* * * * *
THE EWIE WI' THE CROOKED HORN.
Another excellent song of old Skinner's.
* * * * *
CRAIGIE-BURN WOOD.
It is remarkable of this air that it is the confine of that country
where the greatest part of our Lowland music (so far as from the
title, words, &c., we can localize it) has been composed. From
Craigie-burn, near Moffat, until one reaches the West Highlands, we
have scarcely one slow air of any antiquity.
The song was composed on a passion which a Mr. Gillespie, a particular
friend of mine, had for a Miss Lorimer, afterwards a Mrs. Whelpdale.
This young lady was born at Craigie-burn Wood.--The chorus is part of
an old foolish ballad.
* * * * *
FRAE THE FRIENDS AND LAND I LOVE.
I added the four last lines, by way of giving a turn to the theme of
the poem, such as it is.
* * * * *
HUGHIE GRAHAM
There are several editions of this ballad.--This, here inserted, is
from oral tradition in Ayrshire, where, when I was a boy, it was a
popular song.--It originally had a simple old tune, which I have
forgotten.
"Our lords are to the mountains gane,
A hunting o' the fallow deer,
And they have gripet Hughie Graham,
For stealing o' the bishop's mare.
And they have tied him hand and foot,
And led him up, thro' Stirling town;
The lads and lasses met him there,
Cried, Hughie Graham, thou art a loun.
O lowse my right hand free, he says,
And put my braid sword in the same;
He's no in Stirling town this day,
Dare tell the tale to Hughie Graham.
Up then bespake the brave Whitefoord,
As he sat by the bishop's knee,
Five hundred white stots I'll gie you,
If ye'll let Hughie Graham gae free.
O haud your tongue, the bishop says,
And wi' your pleading let me be;
For tho' ten Grahams were in his coat,
Hughie Graham this day shall die.
Up then bespake the fair Whitefoord,
As she sat by the bishop's knee;
Five hundred white pence I'll gie you,
If ye'll gie Hughie Graham to me.
O haud your tongue now, lady fair,
And wi' your pleading let it be;
Altho' ten Grahams were in his coat,
It's for my honour he maun die.
They've ta'en him to the gallows knowe,
He looked to the gallows tree,
Yet never colour left his cheek,
Nor ever did he blink his e'e
At length he looked around about,
To see whatever he could spy:
And there he saw his auld father,
And he was weeping bitterly.
O haud your tongue, my father dear,
And wi' your weeping let it be;
Thy weeping's sairer on my heart,
Than a' that they can do to me.
And ye may gie my brother John
My sword that's bent in the middle clear;
And let him come at twelve o'clock,
And see me pay the bishop's mare.
And ye may gie my brother James
My sword that's bent in the middle brown;
And bid him come at four o'clock,
And see his brother Hugh cut down.
Remember me to Maggy my wife,
The neist time ye gang o'er the moor,
Tell her she staw the bishop's mare,
Tell her she was the bishop's whore.
And ye may tell my kith and kin,
I never did disgrace their blood;
And when they meet the bishop's cloak,
To mak it shorter by the hood."
* * * * *
A SOUTHLAND JENNY.
This is a popular Ayrshire song, though the notes were never taken
down before. It, as well as many of the ballad tunes in this
collection, was written from Mrs. Burns's voice.
* * * * *
MY TOCHER'S THE JEWEL.
This tune is claimed by Nathaniel Gow.--It is notoriously taken from
"The muckin o' Gordie's byre."--It is also to be found long prior to
Nathaniel Gow's era, in Aird's Selection of Airs and Marches, the
first edition under the name of "The Highway to Edinburgh."
* * * * *
THEN, GUID WIFE, COUNT THE LAWIN'.
The chorus of this is part of an old song, no stanza of which I
recollect.
* * * * *
THERE'LL NEVER BE PEACE TILL JAMIE COMES HAME.
This tune is sometimes called "There's few gude fellows when Willie's
awa."--But I never have been able to meet with anything else of the
song than the title.
* * * * *
I DO CONFESS THOU ART SAE FAIR.
This song is altered from a poem by Sir Robert Ayton, private
secretary to Mary and Ann, Queens of Scotland.--The poem is to be
found in James Watson's Collection of Scots Poems, the earliest
collection printed in Scotland. I think that I have improved the
simplicity of the sentiments, by giving them a Scots dress.
* * * * *
THE SODGER LADDIE.
The first verse of this is old; the rest is by Ramsay. The tune seems
to be the same with a slow air, called "Jackey Hume's Lament"--or,
"The Hollin Buss"--or "Ken ye what Meg o' the Mill has gotten?"
* * * * *
WHERE WAD BONNIE ANNIE LIE.
The old name of this tune is,--
"Whare'll our gudeman lie."
A silly old stanza of it runs thus--
"O whare'll our gudeman lie,
Gudeman lie, gudeman lie,
O whare'll our gudeman lie,
Till he shute o'er the simmer?
Up amang the hen-bawks,
The hen-bawks, the hen-bawks,
Up amang the hen-bawks,
Amang the rotten timmer."
* * * * *
GALLOWAY TAM.
I have seen an interlude (acted at a wedding) to this tune, called
"The Wooing of the Maiden." These entertainments are now much worn out
in this part of Scotland. Two are still retained in Nithsdale, viz.
"Silly Pure Auld Glenae," and this one, "The Wooing of the Maiden."
* * * * *
AS I CAM DOWN BY YON CASTLE WA.
This is a very popular Ayrshire song.
* * * * *
LORD RONALD MY SON.
This air, a very favourite one in Ayrshire, is evidently the original
of Lochaber. In this manner most of our finest more modern airs have
had their origin. Some early minstrel, or musical shepherd, composed
the simple, artless original air; which being picked up by the more
learned musician, took the improved form it bears.
* * * * *
O'ER THE MOOR AMANG THE HEATHER.
This song is the composition of a Jean Glover, a girl who was not only
a whore, but also a thief; and in one or other character has visited
most of the Correction Houses in the West. She was born I believe in
Kilmarnock,--I took the song down from her singing, as she was
strolling through the country, with a sleight-of-hand blackguard.
* * * * *
TO THE ROSE-BUD.
This song is the composition of a ---- Johnson, a joiner in the
neighbourhood of Belfast. The tune is by Oswald, altered, evidently,
from "Jockie's Gray Breeks."
* * * * *
YON WILD MOSSY MOUNTAINS.
This tune is by Oswald. The song alludes to a part of my private
history, which it is of no consequence to the world to know.
* * * * *
IT IS NA, JEAN, THY BONNIE FACE.
These were originally English verses:--I gave them the Scots dress.
* * * * *
EPPIE M'NAB.
The old song with this title has more wit than decency.
* * * * *
WHA IS THAT AT MY BOWER DOOR.
This tune is also known by the name of "Lass an I come near thee." The
words are mine.
* * * * *
THOU ART GANE AWA.
This time is the same with "Haud awa frae me, Donald."
* * * * *
THE TEARS I SHED MUST EVER FALL.
This song of genius was composed by a Miss Cranston. It wanted four
lines, to make all the stanzas suit the music, which I added, and are
the four first of the last stanza.
"No cold approach, no alter'd mien,
Just what would make suspicion start;
No pause the dire extremes between,
He made me blest--and broke my heart!"
* * * * *
THE BONIE WEE THING.
Composed on my little idol "the charming, lovely Davies."
* * * * *
THE TITHER MORN.
This tune is originally from the Highlands. I have heard a Gaelic song
to it, which I was told was very clever, but not by any means a lady's
song.
* * * * *
A MOTHER'S LAMENT FOR THE DEATH OF HER SON.
This most beautiful tune is, I think, the happiest composition of that
bard-born genius, John Riddel, of the family of Glencarnock, at Ayr.
The words were composed to commemorate the much-lamented and premature
death of James Ferguson, Esq., jun. of Craigdarroch.
* * * * *
DAINTIE DAVIE.
This song, tradition says, and the composition itself confirms it, was
composed on the Rev. David Williamson's begetting the daughter of Lady
Cherrytrees with child, while a party of dragoons were searching her
house to apprehend him for being an adherent to the solemn league and
covenant. The pious woman had put a lady's night-cap on him, and had
laid him a-bed with her own daughter, and passed him to the soldiery
as a lady, her daughter's bed-fellow. A mutilated stanza or two are to
be found in Herd's collection, but the original song consists of five
or six stanzas, and were their _delicacy_ equal to their _wit_ and
_humour_, they would merit a place in any collection. The first stanza
is
"Being pursued by the dragoons,
Within my bed he was laid down;
And weel I wat he was worth his room,
For he was my Daintie Davie."
Ramsay's song, "Luckie Nansy," though he calls it an old song with
additions, seems to be all his own except the chorus:
"I was a telling you,
Luckie Nansy, Luckie Nansy
Auld springs wad ding the new,
But ye wad never trow me."
Which I should conjecture to be part of a song prior to the affair of
Williamson.
* * * * *
BOB O' DUMBLANE.
RAMSAY, as usual, has modernized this song. The original,
which I learned on the spot, from my old hostess in the principal inn
there, is--
"Lassie, lend me your braw hemp heckle,
And I'll lend you my thripplin-kame;
My heckle is broken, it canna be gotten,
And we'll gae dance the bob o' Dumblane.
Twa gaed to the wood, to the wood, to the wood.
Twa gaed to the wood--three came hame;
An' it be na weel bobbit, weel bobbit, weel bobbit
An' it be na weel bobbit, we'll bob it again."
I insert this song to introduce the following anecdote, which I have
heard well authenticated. In the evening of the day of the battle of
Dumblane, (Sheriff Muir,) when the action was over, a Scots officer in
Argyll's army, observed to His Grace, that he was afraid the rebels
would give out to the world that _they_ had gotten the victory.--"Weel,
weel," returned his Grace, alluding to the foregoing ballad, "if they
think it be nae weel bobbit, we'll bob it again."
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 293: _Fan_, when--the dialect of Angus.]
* * * * *
THE BORDER TOUR.
Left Edinburgh (May 6, 1787)--Lammermuir-hills miserably dreary, but
at times very picturesque. Lanton-edge, a glorious view of the
Merse--Reach Berrywell--old Mr. Ainslie an uncommon character;--his
hobbies, agriculture, natural philosophy, and politics.--In the first
he is unexceptionably the clearest-headed, best-informed man I ever
met with; in the other two, very intelligent:--As a man of business he
has uncommon merit, and by fairly deserving it has made a very decent
independence. Mrs. Ainslie, an excellent, sensible, cheerful, amiable
old woman--Miss Ainslie--her person a little _embonpoint_, but
handsome; her face, particularly her eyes, full of sweetness and good
humour--she unites three qualities rarely to be found together; keen,
solid penetration; sly, witty observation and remark; and the
gentlest, most unaffected female modesty--Douglas, a clever, fine,
promising young fellow.--The family-meeting with their brother; my
_compagnon de voyage_, very charming; particularly the sister. The
whole family remarkably attached to their menials--Mrs. A. full of
stories of the sagacity and sense of the little girl in the
kitchen.--Mr. A. high in the praises of an African, his
house-servant--all his people old in his service--Douglas's old nurse
came to Berrywell yesterday to remind them of its being his birthday.
A Mr. Dudgeon, a poet at times,[294] a worthy remarkable
character--natural penetration, a great deal of information, some
genius, and extreme modesty.
_Sunday._--Went to church at Dunse[295]--Dr. Howmaker a man of strong
lungs and pretty judicious remark; but ill skilled in propriety, and
altogether unconscious of his want of it.
_Monday._--Coldstream--went over to England--Cornhill--glorious river
Tweed--clear and majestic--fine bridge. Dine at Coldstream with Mr.
Ainslie and Mr. Foreman--beat Mr. F---- in a dispute about Voltaire. Tea
at Lenel House with Mr. Brydone--Mr. Brydone a most excellent heart,
kind, joyous, and benevolent; but a good deal of the French
indiscriminate complaisance--from his situation past and present, an
admirer of everything that bears a splendid title, or that possesses a
large estate--Mrs. Brydone a most elegant woman in her person and
manners; the tones of her voice remarkably sweet--my reception extremely
flattering--sleep at Coldstream.
_Tuesday._--Breakfast at Kelso--charming situation of Kelso--fine
bridge over the Tweed--enchanting views and prospects on both sides of
the river, particularly the Scotch side; introduced to Mr. Scott of
the Royal Bank--an excellent, modest fellow--fine situation of
it--ruins of Roxburgh Castle--a holly-bush, growing where James II. of
Scotland was accidentally killed by the bursting of a cannon. A small
old religious ruin, and a fine old garden planted by the religious,
rooted out and destroyed by an English hottentot, a _maitre d'hotel_
of the duke's, a Mr. Cole--climate and soil of Berwickshire, and even
Roxburghshire, superior to Ayrshire--bad roads. Turnip and sheep
husbandry, their great improvements--Mr. M'Dowal, at Caverton Mill, a
friend of Mr. Ainslie's, with whom I dined to-day, sold his sheep, ewe
and lamb together, at two guineas a piece--wash their sheep before
shearing--seven or eight pounds of washen wool in a fleece--low
markets, consequently low rents--fine lands not above sixteen
shillings a Scotch acre--magnificence of farmers and farm-houses--come
up Teviot and up Jed to Jedburgh to lie, and so wish myself a good
night.
_Wednesday._--Breakfast with Mr. ---- in Jedburgh--a squabble between
Mrs. ----, a crazed, talkative slattern, and a sister of hers, an old
maid, respecting a relief minister--Miss gives Madam the lie; and
Madam, by way of revenge, upbraids her that she laid snares to
entangle the said minister, then a widower, in the net of
matrimony--go about two miles out of Jedburgh to a roup of parks--meet
a polite, soldier-like gentleman, a Captain Rutherford, who had been
many years through the wilds of America, a prisoner among the
Indians--charming, romantic situation of Jedburgh, with gardens,
orchards, &c., intermingled among the houses--fine old ruins--a once
magnificent cathedral, and strong castle. All the towns here have the
appearance of old, rude grandeur, but the people extremely idle--Jed a
fine romantic little river.
Dine with Capt. Rutherford--the Captain a polite fellow, fond of money
in his farming way; showed a particular respect to my bardship--his
lady exactly a proper matrimonial second part for him. Miss Rutherford
a beautiful girl, but too far gone woman to expose so much of a fine
swelling bosom--her face very fine.
Return to Jedburgh--walk up Jed with some ladies to be shown Love-lane
and Blackburn, two fairy scenes. Introduced to Mr. Potts, writer, a
very clever fellow; and Mr. Somerville, the clergyman of the place, a
man and a gentleman, but sadly addicted to punning.--The walking party
of ladies, Mrs. ---- and Miss ---- her sister, before mentioned.--N.B.
These two appear still more comfortably ugly and stupid, and bore me
most shockingly. Two Miss ----, tolerably agreeable. Miss Hope, a
tolerably pretty girl, fond of laughing and fun. Miss Lindsay, a
good-humoured, amiable girl; rather short _et embonpoint_, but
handsome, and extremely graceful--beautiful hazel eyes, full of
spirit, and sparkling with delicious moisture--an engaging face--_un
tout ensemble_ that speaks her of the first order of female minds--her
sister, a bonnie, strappan, rosy, sonsie lass. Shake myself loose,
after several unsuccessful efforts, of Mrs. ---- and Miss ----, and
somehow or other, get hold of Miss Lindsay's arm. My heart is thawed
into melting pleasure after being so long frozen up in the Greenland
bay of indifference, amid the noise and nonsense of Edinburgh. Miss
seems very well pleased with my bardship's distinguishing her, and
after some slight qualms, which I could easily mark, she sets the
titter round at defiance, and kindly allows me to keep my hold; and
when parted by the ceremony of my introduction to Mr. Somerville, she
met me half, to resume my situation.--Nota Bene--The poet within a
point and a half of being d--mnably in love--I am afraid my bosom is
still nearly as much tinder as ever.
The old cross-grained, whiggish, ugly, slanderous Miss ----, with all
the poisonous spleen of a disappointed, ancient maid, stops me very
unseasonably to ease her bursting breast, by falling abusively foul
on the Miss Lindsays, particularly on my Dulcinea;--I hardly refrain
from cursing her to her face for daring to mouth her calumnious
slander on one of the finest pieces of the workmanship of Almighty
Excellence! Sup at Mr. ----'s; vexed that the Miss Lindsays are not of
the supper-party, as they only are wanting. Mrs. ---- and Miss ----still
improve infernally on my hands.
Set out next morning for Wauchope, the seat of my correspondent, Mrs.
Scott--breakfast by the way with Dr. Elliot, an agreeable,
good-hearted, climate-beaten old veteran, in the medical line; now
retired to a romantic, but rather moorish place, on the banks of the
Roole--he accompanies us almost to Wauchope--we traverse the country
to the top of Bochester, the scene of an old encampment, and Woolee
Hill.
Wauchope--Mr. Scott exactly the figure and face commonly given to
Sancho Panca--very shrewd in his farming matters, and not unfrequently
stumbles on what may be called a strong thing rather than a good
thing. Mrs. Scott all the sense, taste, intrepidity of face, and bold,
critical decision, which usually distinguish female authors.--Sup with
Mr. Potts--agreeable party.--Breakfast next morning with Mr.
Somerville--the _bruit_ of Miss Lindsay and my bardship, by means of
the invention and malice of Miss ----. Mr. Somerville sends to Dr.
Lindsay, begging him and family to breakfast if convenient, but at all
events to send Miss Lindsay; accordingly Miss Lindsay only comes.--I
find Miss Lindsay would soon play the devil with me--I met with some
little flattering attentions from her. Mrs. Somerville an excellent,
motherly, agreeable woman, and a fine family.--Mr. Ainslie, and Mrs.
S----, junrs., with Mr. ----, Miss Lindsay, and myself, go to see
_Esther_, a very remarkable woman for reciting poetry of all kinds,
and sometimes making Scotch doggerel herself--she can repeat by heart
almost everything she has ever read, particularly Pope's Homer from
end to end--has studied Euclid by herself, and in short, is a woman of
very extraordinary abilities.--On conversing with her I find her fully
equal to the character given of her.[296]--She is very much flattered
that I send for her, and that she sees a poet who has _put out a
book_, as she says.--She is, among other things, a great florist--and
is rather past the meridian of once celebrated beauty.
I walk in _Esther's_ garden with Miss Lindsay, and after some little
chit-chat of the tender kind, I presented her with a proof print of my
Nob, which she accepted with something more tinder than gratitude. She
told me many little stories which Miss ---- had retailed concerning her
and me, with prolonging pleasure--God bless her! Was waited on by the
magistrates, and presented with the freedom of the burgh.
Took farewell of Jedburgh, with some melancholy, disagreeable
sensations.--Jed, pure be thy crystal streams, and hallowed thy sylvan
banks! Sweet Isabella Lindsay, may peace dwell in thy bosom,
uninterrupted, except by the tumultuous throbbings of rapturous love!
That love-kindling eye must beam on another, not on me; that graceful
form must bless another's arms; not mine!
Kelso. Dine with the farmers' club--all gentlemen, talking of high
matters--each of them keeps a hunter from thirty to fifty pounds
value, and attends the fox-huntings in the country--go out with Mr.
Ker, one of the club, and a friend of Mr. Ainslie's, to lie--Mr. Ker a
most gentlemanly, clever, handsome fellow, a widower with some fine
children--his mind and manner astonishingly like my dear old friend
Robert Muir, in Kilmarnock--everything in Mr. Ker's most elegant--he
offers to accompany me in my English tour. Dine with Sir Alexander
Don--a pretty clever fellow, but far from being a match for his divine
lady.--A very wet day * * *--Sleep at Stodrig again; and set out for
Melrose--visit Dryburgh, a fine old ruined abbey--still bad
weather--cross Leader, and come up Tweed to Melrose--dine there, and
visit that far-famed, glorious ruin--come to Selkirk, up Ettrick; the
whole country hereabout, both on Tweed and Ettrick, remarkably stony.
_Monday._--Come to Inverleithing, a famous shaw, and in the vicinity
of the palace of Traquair, where having dined, and drank some
Galloway-whey, I hero remain till to-morrow--saw Elibanks and
Elibraes, on the other side of the Tweed.
_Tuesday._--Drank tea yesternight at Pirn, with Mr.
Horseburgh.--Breakfasted to-day with Mr. Ballantyne of
Hollowlee--Proposal for a four-horse team to consist of Mr. Scott of
Wauchope, Fittieland: Logan of Logan, Fittiefurr: Ballantyne of
Hollowlee, Forewynd: Horsburgh of Horsburgh.--Dine at a country inn,
kept by a miller, in Earlston, the birth-place and residence of the
celebrated Thomas a Rhymer--saw the ruins of his castle--come to
Berrywell.
_Wednesday._--Dine at Dunse with the farmers' club-company--impossible
to do them justice--Rev. Mr. Smith a famous punster, and Mr. Meikle a
celebrated mechanic, and inventor of the threshing-mills.
_Thursday_, breakfast at Berrywell, and walk into Dunse to see a
famous knife made by a cutler there, and to be presented to an Italian
prince.--A pleasant ride with my friend Mr. Robert Ainslie, and his
sister, to Mr. Thomson's, a man who has newly commenced farmer, and
has married a Miss Patty Grieve, formerly a flame of Mr. Robert
Ainslie's.--Company--Miss Jacky Grieve, an amiable sister of Mrs.
Thomson's, and Mr. Hood, an honest, worthy, facetious farmer, in the
neighbourhood.
_Friday._--Ride to Berwick--An idle town, rudely picturesque.--Meet
Lord Errol in walking round the walls.--His lordship's flattering
notice of me.--Dine with Mr. Clunzie, merchant--nothing particular in
company or conversation--Come up a bold shore, and over a wild country
to Eyemouth--sup and sleep at Mr. Grieve's.
_Saturday._--Spend the day at Mr. Grieve's--made a royal arch mason of
St. Abb's Lodge,[297]--Mr. William Grieve, the oldest brother, a joyous,
warm-hearted, jolly, clever fellow--takes a hearty glass, and sings a
good song.--Mr. Robert, his brother, and partner in trade, a good
fellow, but says little. Take a sail after dinner. Fishing of all
kinds pays tithes at Eyemouth.
_Sunday._--A Mr. Robinson, brewer at Ednam, sets out with us to
Dunbar.
The Miss Grieves very good girls.--My bardship's heart got a brush
from Miss Betsey.
Mr. William Grieve's attachment to the family-circle, so fond, that
when he is out, which by the bye is often the case, he cannot go to
bed till he see if all his sisters are sleeping well ---- Pass the
famous Abbey of Coldingham, and Pease-bridge.--Call at Mr. Sheriff's
where Mr. A. and I dine.--Mr. S. talkative and conceited. I talk of
love to Nancy the whole evening, while her brother escorts home some
companions like himself.--Sir James Hall of Dunglass, having heard of
my being in the neighbourhood, comes to Mr. Sheriff's to
breakfast--takes me to see his fine scenery on the stream of
Dunglass--Dunglass the most romantic, sweet place I over saw--Sir
James and his lady a pleasant happy couple.--He points out a walk for
which he has an uncommon respect, as it was made by an aunt of his, to
whom he owes much.
Miss ---- will accompany me to Dunbar, by way of making a parade of me as a
sweetheart of hers, among her relations. She mounts an old cart-horse, as
huge and as lean as a house; a rusty old side-saddle without girth, or
stirrup, but fastened on with an old pillion-girth--herself as fine as
hands could make her, in cream-coloured riding clothes, hat and feather,
&c.--I, ashamed of my situation, ride like the devil, and almost shake her
to pieces on old Jolly--get rid of her by refusing to call at her uncle's
with her.
Past through the most glorious corn-country I ever saw, till I reach
Dunbar, a neat little town.--Dine with Provost Fall, an eminent
merchant, and most respectable character, but undescribable, as he
exhibits no marked traits. Mrs. Fall, a genius in painting; fully more
clever in the fine arts and sciences than my friend Lady Wauchope,
without her consummate assurance of her own abilities.--Call with Mr.
Robinson (who, by the bye, I find to be a worthy, much respected man,
very modest; warm, social heart, which with less good sense than his
would be perhaps with the children of prim precision and pride, rather
inimical to that respect which is man's due from man) with him I call
on Miss Clarke, a maiden in the Scotch phrase, "_Guid enough, but no
brent new_:" a clever woman, with tolerable pretensions to remark and
wit; while time had blown the blushing bud of bashful modesty into the
flower of easy confidence. She wanted to see what sort of _raree show_
an author was; and to let him know, that though Dunbar was but a
little town, yet it was not destitute of people of parts.
Breakfast next morning at Skateraw, at Mr. Lee's, a farmer of great
note.--Mr. Lee, an excellent, hospitable, social fellow, rather
oldish; warm-hearted and chatty--a most judicious, sensible farmer.
Mr. Lee detains me till next morning.--Company at dinner.--My Rev.
acquaintance Dr. Bowmaker, a reverend, rattling old fellow.--Two sea
lieutenants; a cousin of the landlord's, a fellow whose looks are of
that kind which deceived me in a gentleman at Kelso, and has often
deceived me: a goodly handsome figure and face, which incline one to
give them credit for parts which they have not. Mr. Clarke, a much
cleverer fellow, but whose looks a little cloudy, and his appearance
rather ungainly, with an every-day observer may prejudice the opinion
against him.--Dr. Brown, a medical young gentleman from Dunbar, a
fellow whose face and manners are open and engaging.--Leave Skateraw
for Dunse next day, along with collector ----, a lad of slender
abilities and bashfully diffident to an extreme.
Found Miss Ainslie, the amiable, the sensible, the good-humoured, the
sweet Miss Ainslie, all alone at Berrywell.--Heavenly powers, who know
the weakness of human hearts, support mine! What happiness must I see
only to remind me that I cannot enjoy it!
Lammer-muir Hills, from East Lothian to Dunse, very wild.--Dine with
the farmer's club at Kelso. Sir John Hume and Mr. Lumsden there, but
nothing worth remembrance when the following circumstance is
considered--I walk into Dunse before dinner, and out to Berrywell in
the evening with Miss Ainslie--how well-bred, how frank, how good she
is! Charming Rachael! may thy bosom never be wrung by the evils of
this life of sorrows, or by the villany of this world's sons!
_Thursday._--Mr. Ker and I set out to dine at Mr. Hood's on our way to
England.
I am taken extremely ill with strong feverish symptoms, and take a
servant of Mr. Hood's to watch me all night--embittering remorse
scares my fancy at the gloomy forebodings of death.--I am determined
to live for the future in such a manner as not to be scared at the
approach of death--I am sure I could meet him with indifference, but
for "The something beyond the grave."--Mr. Hood agrees to accompany us
to England if we will wait till Sunday.
_Friday._--I go with Mr. Hood to see a roup of an unfortunate farmer's
stock--rigid economy, and decent industry, do you preserve me from
being the principal _dramatis persona_ in such a scene of horror.
Meet my good old friend Mr. Ainslie, who calls on Mr. Hood in the
evening to take farewell of my bardship. This day I feel myself warm
with sentiments of gratitude to the Great Preserver of men, who has
kindly restored me to health and strength once more.
A pleasant walk with my young friend Douglas Ainslie, a sweet, modest,
clever young fellow.
_Sunday_, 27_th May._--Cross Tweed, and traverse the moors through a
wild country till I reach Alnwick--Alnwick Castle a seat of the Duke
of Northumberland, furnished in a most princely manner.--A Mr. Wilkin,
agent of His Grace's, shows us the house and policies. Mr. Wilkin, a
discreet, sensible, ingenious man.
_Monday._--Come, still through by-ways, to Warkworth, where we
dine.--Hermitage and old castle. Warkworth situated very picturesque,
with Coquet Island, a small rocky spot, the seat of an old monastery,
facing it a little in the sea; and the small but romantic river
Coquet, running through it.--Sleep at Morpeth, a pleasant enough
little town, and on next day to Newcastle.--Meet with a very
agreeable, sensible fellow, a Mr. Chattox, who shows us a great many
civilities, and who dines and sups with us.
_Wednesday._--Left Newcastle early in the morning, and rode over a
fine country to Hexham to breakfast--from Hexham to Wardrue, the
celebrated Spa, where we slept.
_Thursday_--Reach Longtown to dine, and part there with my good
friends Messrs. Hood and Ker--A hiring day in Longtown--I am
uncommonly happy to see so many young folks enjoying life.--I come to
Carlisle.--(Meet a strange enough romantic adventure by the way, in
falling in with a girl and her married sister--the girl, after some
overtures of gallantry on my side, sees me a little cut with the
bottle, and offers to take me in for a Gretna-Green affair.--I, not
being such a gull, as she imagines, make an appointment with her, by
way of _vive la bagatelle_, to hold a conference on it when we reach
town.--I meet her in town and give her a brush of caressing, and a
bottle of cider; but finding herself _un peu trompé_ in her man she
sheers off.) Next day I meet my good friend, Mr. Mitchell, and walk
with him round the town and its environs, and through his
printing-works, &c.--four or five hundred people employed, many of
them women and children.--Dine with Mr. Mitchell, and leave
Carlisle.--Come by the coast to Annan.--Overtaken on the way by a
curious old fish of a shoemaker, and miner, from Cumberland mines.
[_Here the manuscript abruptly terminates._]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 294: The author of that fine song, "The Maid that tends the
Goats."]
[Footnote 295: "During the discourse Burns produced a neat impromptu,
conveying an elegant compliment to Miss Ainslie. Dr. B. had selected a
text of Scripture that contained a heavy denunciation against
obstinate sinners. In the course of the sermon Burns observed the
young lady turning over the leaves of her Bible, with much
earnestness, in search of the text. He took out a slip of paper, and
with a pencil wrote the following lines on it, which he immediately
presented to her.
"Fair maid, you need not take the hint,
Nor idle texts pursue:--
'Twas _guilty sinners_ that he meant,--
Not _angels_ such as you."
Cromek.]
[Footnote 296: "This extraordinary woman then moved in a very humble
walk of life:--the wife of a common working gardener. She is still
living, and, if I am rightly informed, her time is principally occupied
in her attentions to a little day-school, which not being sufficient for
her subsistence, she is obliged to solicit the charily of her benevolent
neighbours. 'Ah, who would love the lyre!'"--CROMEK.]
[Footnote 297: The entry made on this occasion in the Lodge-books of St
Abb's is honorable to
"The brethren of the mystic level."
"_Eyemouth_, 19_th May_, 1787.
"At a general encampment held this day, the following brethren were
made royal arch masons, viz. Robert Burns, from the Lodge of St.
James's, Tarbolton, Ayrshire, and Robert Ainslie, from the Lodge of
St. Luke's, Edinburgh by James Carmichael, Wm. Grieve, Daniel Dow,
John Clay, Robert Grieve, &c. &c. Robert Ainslie paid one guinea
admission dues; but on account of R. Burns's remarkable poetical
genius, the encampment unanimously agreed to admit him gratis, and
considered themselves honoured by having a man of such shining
abilities for one of their companions."
Extracted from the Minute Book of the Lodge by THOMAS
BOWBILL]
* * * * *
THE HIGHLAND TOUR.
25_th August_, 1787.
I leave Edinburgh for a northern tour, in company with my good friend
Mr. Nicol, whose originality of humour promises me much
entertainment.--Linlithgow--a fertile improved country--West Lothian.
The more elegance and luxury among the farmers, I always observe in
equal proportion, the rudeness and stupidity of the peasantry. This
remark I have made all over the Lothians, Merse, Roxburgh, &c. For
this, among other reasons, I think that a man of romantic taste, a
"Man of Feeling," will be better pleased with the poverty, but
intelligent minds of the peasantry in Ayrshire (peasantry they are all
below the justice of peace) than the opulence of a club of Merse
farmers, when at the same time, he considers the vandalism of their
plough-folks, &c. I carry this idea so far, that an unenclosed, half
improven country is to me actually more agreeable, and gives me more
pleasure as a prospect, than a country cultivated like a garden.--Soil
about Linlithgow light and thin.--The town carries the appearance of
rude, decayed grandeur--charmingly rural, retired situation. The old
royal palace a tolerably fine, but melancholy ruin--sweetly situated
on a small elevation, by the brink of a loch. Shown the room where the
beautiful, injured Mary Queen of Scots was born--a pretty good old
Gothic church. The infamous stool of repentance standing, in the old
Romish way, on a lofty situation.
What a poor pimping business is a Presbyterian place of worship;
dirty, narrow, and squalid; stuck in a corner of old popish grandeur
such as Linlithgow, and much more, Melrose! Ceremony and show, if
judiciously thrown in, absolutely necessary for the bulk of mankind,
both in religious and civil matters.--Dine.--Go to my friend
Smith's at Avon printfield--find nobody but Mrs. Miller, an agreeable,
sensible, modest, good body; as useful, but not so ornamental as
Fielding's Miss Western--not rigidly polite _à la Français_, but easy,
hospitable, and housewifely.
An old lady from Paisley, a Mrs. Lawson, whom I promised to call for
in Paisley--like old lady W----, and still more like Mrs. C----, her
conversation is pregnant with strong sense and just remark, but like
them, a certain air of self-importance and a _duresse_ in the eye,
seem to indicate, as the Ayrshire wife observed of her cow, that "she
had a mind o' her ain."
Pleasant view of Dunfermline and the rest of the fertile coast of
Fife, as we go down to that dirty, ugly place, Borrowstones--see a
horse-race and call on a friend of Mr. Nicol's, a Bailie Cowan, of
whom I know too little to attempt his portrait--Come through the rich
carse of Falkirk to pass the night. Falkirk nothing remarkable except
the tomb of Sir John the Graham, over which, in the succession of
time, four stones have been placed.--Camelon, the ancient metropolis
of the Picts, now a small village in the neighbourhood of
Falkirk.--Cross the grand canal to Carron.--Come past Larbert and
admire a fine monument of cast-iron erected by Mr. Bruce, the African
traveller, to his wife.
Pass Dunipace, a place laid out with fine taste--a charming
amphitheatre bounded by Denny village, and pleasant seats down the way
to Dunnipace.--The Carron running down the bosom of the whole makes it
one of the most charming little prospects I have seen.
Dine at Auchinbowie--Mr. Monro an excellent, worthy old man--Miss
Monro an amiable, sensible, sweet young woman, much resembling Mrs.
Grierson. Come to Bannockburn--Shown the old house where James III.
finished so tragically his unfortunate life. The field of
Bannockburn--the hole where glorious Bruce set his standard. Here no
Scot can pass uninterested.--I fancy to myself that I see my gallant,
heroic countrymen coming o'er the hill and down upon the plunderers of
their country, the murderers of their fathers; noble revenge, and just
hate, glowing in every vein, striding more and more eagerly as they
approach the oppressive, insulting, blood-thirsty foe! I see them meet
in gloriously triumphant congratulation on the victorious field,
exulting in their heroic royal leader, and rescued liberty and
independence! Come to Stirling.--_Monday_ go to Harvieston. Go to see
Caudron linn, and Rumbling brig, and Diel's mill. Return in the
evening. Supper--Messrs. Doig, the schoolmaster; Bell; and Captain
Forrester of the castle--Doig a queerish figure, and something of a
pedant--Bell a joyous fellow, who sings a good song.--Forrester a
merry, swearing kind of man, with a dash of the sodger.
_Tuesday Morning._--Breakfast with Captain Forrester--Ochel
Hills--Devon River--Forth and Tieth--Allan River--Strathallan, a fine
country, but little improved--Cross Earn to Crieff--Dine and go to
Arbruchil--cold reception at Arbruchil--a most romantically pleasant
ride up Earn, by Auchtertyre and Comrie to Arbruchil--Sup at Crieff.
_Wednesday Morning._--Leave Crieff--Glen Amond--Amond river--Ossian's
grave--Loch Fruoch--Glenquaich--Landlord and landlady remarkable
characters--Taymouth described in rhyme--Meet the Hon. Charles
Townshend.
_Thursday._--Come down Tay to Dunkeld--Glenlyon House--Lyon
River--Druid's Temple--three circles of stones--the outer-most
sunk--the second has thirteen stones remaining--the innermost has
eight--two large detached ones like a gate, to the south-east--Say
prayers in it--Pass Taybridge--Aberfeldy--described in rhyme--Castle
Menzies--Inver--Dr. Stewart--sup.
_Friday._--Walk with Mrs. Stewart and Beard to Birnam top--fine
prospect down Tay--Craigieburn hills--Hermitage on the Branwater, with
a picture of Ossian--Breakfast with Dr. Stewart--Neil Gow[298] plays--a
short, stout-built, honest Highland figure, with his grayish hair shed
on his honest social brow--an interesting face, marking strong sense,
kind openheartedness, mixed with unmistrusting simplicity--visit his
house--Marget Gow.
Ride up Tummel River to Blair--Fascally a beautiful romantic
nest--wild grandeur of the pass of Gilliecrankie--visit the gallant
Lord Dundee's stone.
Blair--Sup with the Duchess--easy and happy from the manners of the
family--confirmed in my good opinion of my friend Walker.
_Saturday._--Visit the scenes round Blair--fine, but spoiled with bad
taste--Tilt and Gairie rivers--Falls on the Tilt--Heather seat--Ride
in company with Sir William Murray and Mr. Walker, to Loch
Tummel--meanderings of the Rannach, which runs through quondam Struan
Robertson's estate from Loch Rannach to Loch Tummel--Dine at
Blair--Company--General Murray--Captain Murray, an honest tar--Sir
William Murray, an honest, worthy man, but tormented with the
hypochondria--Mrs. Graham, _belle et aimable_--Miss Catchcart--Mrs.
Murray, a painter--Mrs. King--Duchess and fine family, the Marquis,
Lords James, Edward, and Robert--Ladies Charlotte, Emilia, and
children dance--Sup--Mr. Graham of Fintray.
Come up the Garrie--Falls of
Bruar--Daldecairoch--Dalwhinnie--Dine--Snow on the hills 17 feet
deep--No corn from Loch-Gairie to Dalwhinnie--Cross the Spey, and come
down the stream to Pitnin--Straths rich--_les environs_
picturesque--Craigow hill--Ruthven of Badenoch--Barracks--wild and
magnificent--Rothemurche on the other side, and Glenmore--Grant of
Rothemurche's poetry--told me by the Duke of Gordon--Strathspey, rich
and romantic--Breakfast at Aviemore, a wild spot--dine at Sir James
Grant's--Lady Grant, a sweet, pleasant body--come through mist and
darkness to Dulsie, to lie.
_Tuesday._--Findhorn river--rocky banks--come on to Castle Cawdor,
where Macbeth murdered King Duncan--saw the bed in which King Duncan
was stabbed--dine at Kilravock--Mrs. Rose, sen., a true chieftain's
wife--Fort George--Inverness.
_Wednesday._--Loch Ness--Braes of Ness--General's hut--Falls of
Fyers--Urquhart Castle and Strath.
_Thursday._--Come over Culloden Muir--reflections on the field of
battle--breakfast at Kilravock--old Mrs. Rose, sterling sense, warm
heart, strong passions, and honest pride, all in an uncommon
degree--Mrs. Rose, jun., a little milder than the mother--this perhaps
owing to her being younger--Mr. Grant, minister at Calder, resembles
Mr. Scott at Inverleithing--Mrs. Rose and Mrs. Grant accompany us to
Kildrummie--two young ladies--Miss Rose, who sung two Gaelic songs,
beautiful and lovely--Miss Sophia Brodie, most agreeable and
amiable--both of them gentle, mild; the sweetest creatures on earth,
and happiness be with them!--Dine at Nairn--fall in with a pleasant
enough gentleman, Dr. Stewart, who had been long abroad with his
father in the forty-five; and Mr. Falconer, a spare, irascible,
warm-hearted Norland, and a nonjuror--Brodie-house to lie.
_Friday_--Forres--famous stone at Forres--Mr. Brodie tells me that the
muir where Shakspeare lays Macbeth's witch-meeting is still
haunted--that the country folks won't pass it by night.
* * * * *
Venerable ruins of Elgin Abbey--A grander effect at first glance than
Melrose, but not near so beautiful--Cross Spey to Fochabers--fine
palace, worthy of the generous proprietor--Dine--company, Duke and
Duchess, Ladies Charlotte and Magdeline, Col. Abercrombie, and Lady,
Mr. Gordon and Mr.----, a clergyman, a venerable, aged figure--the
Duke makes me happier than ever great man did--noble, princely; yet
mild, condescending, and affable; gay and kind--the Duchess witty and
sensible--God bless them!
Come to Cullen to lie--hitherto the country is sadly poor and
unimproven.
Come to Aberdeen--meet with Mr. Chalmers, printer, a facetious
fellow--Mr. Ross a fine fellow, like Professor Tytler,--Mr. Marshal one
of the _poetæ minores_--Mr. Sheriffs, author of "Jamie and Bess," a
little decrepid body with some abilities--Bishop Skinner, a nonjuror,
son of the author of "Tullochgorum," a man whose mild, venerable manner
is the most marked of any in so young a man--Professor Gordon, a
good-natured, jolly-looking professor--Aberdeen, a lazy town--near
Stonhive, the coast a good deal romantic--meet my relations--Robert
Burns, writer, in Stonhive, one of those who love fun, a gill, and a
punning joke, and have not a bad heart--his wife a sweet hospitable
body, without any affectation of what is called town-breeding.
_Tuesday._--Breakfast with Mr. Burns--lie at Lawrence Kirk--Album
library--Mrs. ---- a jolly, frank, sensible, love-inspiring widow--Howe
of the Mearns, a rich, cultivated, but still unenclosed country.
_Wednesday._--Cross North Esk river and a rich country to Craigow.
* * * * *
Go to Montrose, that finely-situated handsome town--breakfast at Muthie,
and sail along that wild rocky coast, and see the famous caverns,
particularly the Gariepot--land and dine at Arbroath--stately ruins of
Arbroath Abbey--come to Dundee through a fertile country--Dundee a
low-lying, but pleasant town--old Steeple--Tayfrith--Broughty Castle, a
finely situated ruin, jutting into the Tay.
_Friday._--Breakfast with the Miss Scotts--Miss Bess Scott like Mrs.
Greenfield--my bardship almost in love with her--come through the rich
harvests and fine hedge-rows of the Carse of Gowrie, along the
romantic margin of the Grampian hills, to Perth--fine, fruitful,
hilly, woody country round Perth.
_Saturday Morning._--Leave Perth--come up Strathearn to
Endermay--fine, fruitful, cultivated Strath--the scene of "Bessy Bell,
and Mary Gray," near Perth--fine scenery on the banks of the May--Mrs.
Belcher, gawcie, frank, affable, fond of rural sports, hunting,
&c.--Lie at Kinross--reflections in a fit of the colic.
_Sunday._--Pass through a cold, barren country to
Queensferry--dine--cross the ferry and on to Edinburgh.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 298: Another northern bard has sketched this eminent
musician--
"The blythe Strathspey springs up, reminding some
Of nights when Gow's old arm, (nor old the tale,)
Unceasing, save when reeking cans went round,
Made heart and heel leap light as bounding roe.
Alas! no more shall we behold that look
So venerable, yet so blent with mirth,
And festive joy sedate; that ancient garb
Unvaried,--tartan hose, and bonnet blue!
No more shall Beauty's partial eye draw forth
The full intoxication of his strain.
Mellifluous, strong, exuberantly rich!
No more, amid the pauses of the dance,
Shall he repeat those measures, that in days
Of other years, could soothe a falling prince,
And light his visage with a transient smile
Of melancholy joy,--like autumn sun
Gilding a sear tree with a passing beam!
Or play to sportive children on the green
Dancing at gloamin hour; or willing cheer
With strains unbought, the shepherd's bridal day."
_British Georgics, p._ 81]
* * * * *
THE POET'S ASSIGNMENT OF HIS WORKS.
Know all men by these presents that I Robert Burns of Mossgiel:
whereas I intend to leave Scotland and go abroad, and having
acknowledged myself the father of a child named Elizabeth, begot upon
Elizabeth Paton in Largieside: and whereas Gilbert Burns in Mossgiel,
my brother, has become bound, and hereby binds and obliges himself to
aliment, clothe, and educate my said natural child in a suitable
manner as if she was his own, in case her mother chuse to part with
her, and that until she arrive at the age of fifteen years. Therefore,
and to enable the said Gilbert Burns to make good his said engagement,
wit ye me to have assigned, disponed, conveyed and made over to, and
in favours of, the said Gilbert Burns, his heirs, executors, and
assignees, who are always to be bound in like manner, with, himself,
all and sundry goods, gear, corns, cattle, horses, nolt, sheep,
household furniture, and all other moveable effects of whatever kind
that I shall leave behind me on my departure from this Kingdom, after
allowing for my part of the conjunct debts due by the said Gilbert
Burns and me as joint tacksmen of the farm of Mossgiel. And
particularly without prejudice of the foresaid generality, the profits
that may arise from the publication of my poems presently in the
press. And also, I hereby dispone and convey to him in trust for
behoof of my said natural daughter, the copyright of said poems in so
far as I can dispose of the same by law, after she arrives at the
above age of fifteen years complete. Surrogating and substituting the
said Gilbert Burns my brother and his foresaids in my full right,
title, room and place of the whole premises, with power to him to
intromit with, and dispose upon the same at pleasure, and in general
to do every other thing in the premises that I could have done myself
before granting hereof, but always with and under the conditions
before expressed. And I oblige myself to warrant this disposition and
assignation from my own proper fact and deed allenarly. Consenting to
the registration hereof in the books of Council and Session, or any
other Judges books competent, therein to remain for preservation and
constitute.
Proculars, &c. In witness whereof I have wrote and signed these
presents, consisting of this and the preceding page, on stamped paper,
with my own hand, at the Mossgiel, the twenty-second day of July, one
thousand seven hundred and eighty-six years.
(Signed) ROBERT BURNS.
* * * * *
Upon the twenty-fourth day of July, one thousand seven hundred and
eighty-six years, I, William Chalmer, Notary Publick, past to the
Mercat Cross of Ayr head Burgh of the Sheriffdome thereof, and thereat
I made due and lawful intimation of the foregoing disposition and
assignation to his Majesties lieges, that they might not pretend
ignorance thereof by reading the same over in presence of a number of
people assembled. Whereupon William Crooks, writer, in Ayr, as
attorney for the before designed Gilbert Burns, protested that the
same was lawfully intimated, and asked and took instruments in my
hands. These things were done betwixt the hours of ten and eleven
forenoon, before and in presence of William M'Cubbin, and William
Eaton, apprentices to the Sheriff Clerk of Ayr, witnesses to the
premises.
(Signed)
WILLIAM CHALMER, N.P.
WILLIAM M'CUBBIN, Witness.
WILLIAM EATON, Witness.
* * * * *
GLOSSARY.
"The _ch_ and _gh_ have always the guttural sound. The sound of the
English diphthong _oo_ is commonly spelled _ou._ The French _u_, a
sound which often occurs in the Scottish language, is marked _oo_ or
_ui._ The _a_, in genuine Scottish words, except when forming a
diphthong, or followed by an _e_ mute after a single consonant, sounds
generally like the broad English _a_ in _wall._ The Scottish diphthong
_ae_ always, and _ea_ very often, sound like the French _e_ masculine.
The Scottish diphthong _ey_ sounds like the Latin _ei._"
A.
_A'_, all.
_Aback_, away, aloof, backwards.
_Abeigh_, at a shy distance.
_Aboon_, above, up.
_Abread_, abroad, in sight, to publish.
_Abreed_, in breadth.
_Ae_, one.
_Aff_, off.
_Aff-loof_, off-hand, extempore, without premeditation.
_Afore_, before.
_Aft_, oft.
_Aften_, often.
_Agley_, off the right line, wrong, awry.
_Aiblins_, perhaps.
_Ain_, own.
_Airn_, iron, a tool of that metal, a mason's chisel.
_Airles_, earnest money.
_Airl-penny_, a silver penny given as erles or hiring money.
_Airt_, quarter of the heaven, point of the compass.
_Agee_, on one side.
_Attour_, moreover, beyond, besides.
_Aith_, an oath.
_Aits_, oats.
_Aiver_, an old horse.
_Aizle_, a hot cinder, an ember of wood.
_Alake_, alas.
_Alane_, alone.
_Akwart_, awkward, athwart.
_Amaist_, almost.
_Amang_, among.
_An'_, and, if.
_Ance_, once
_Ane_, one.
_Anent_, over-against, concerning, about.
_Anither_, another.
_Ase_, ashes of wood, remains of a hearth fire.
_Asteer_, abroad, stirring in a lively manner.
_Aqueesh_, between.
_Aught_, possession, as "in a' my aught," in all my possession.
_Auld_, old.
_Auld-farran'_, auld farrant, sagacious, prudent, cunning.
_Ava_, at all.
_Awa_, away, begone.
_Awfu'_, awful.
_Auld-shoon_, old shoes literally, a discarded lover metaphorically.
_Aumos_, gift to a beggar.
_Aumos-dish_, a beggar's dish in which the aumos is received.
_Awn_, the beard of barley, oats, &c.
_Awnie_, bearded.
_Ayont_, beyond.
B.
_Ba'_, ball.
_Babie-clouts_, child's first clothes.
_Backets_, ash-boards, as pieces of backet for removing ashes.
_Backlins_, comin', coming back, returning.
_Back-yett_, private gate.
_Baide_, endured, did stay.
_Baggie_, the belly.
_Bairn_, a child.
_Bairn-time_, a family of children, a brood.
_Baith_, both.
_Ballets_, _Ballants_, ballads.
_Ban_, to swear.
_Bane_, bone.
_Bang_, to beat, to strive, to excel.
_Bannock_, flat, round, soft cake.
_Bardie_, diminutive of bard.
_Barefit_, barefooted.
_Barley-bree_, barley-broo, blood of barley, malt liquor.
_Barmie_, of, or like barm, yeasty.
_Batch_, a crew, a gang.
_Batts_, botts.
_Bauckie-bird_, the bat.
_Baudrons_, a cat.
_Bauld_, bold.
_Baws'nt_, having a white stripe down the face.
_Be_, to let be, to give over, to cease.
_Beets_, boots.
_Bear_, barley.
_Bearded-bear_, barley with its bristly head.
_Beastie_, diminutive of beast.
_Beet_, _beek_, to add fuel to a fire, to bask.
_Beld_, bald.
_Belyve_, by and by, presently, quickly.
_Ben_, into the spence or parlour.
_Benmost-bore_, the remotest hole, the innermost recess.
_Bethankit_, grace after meat.
_Beuk_, a book.
_Bicker_, a kind of wooden dish, a short rapid race.
_Bickering_, careering, hurrying with quarrelsome intent.
_Birnie_, birnie ground is where thick heath has been burnt, leaving
the birns, or unconsumed stalks, standing up sharp and stubley.
_Bie_, or _bield_, shelter, a sheltered place, the sunny nook of a wood.
_Bien_, wealthy, plentiful.
_Big_, to build.
_Biggin_, building, a house.
_Biggit_, built.
_Bill_, a bull.
_Billie_, a brother, a young fellow, a companion.
_Bing_, a heap of grain, potatoes, &c.
_Birdie-cocks_, young cocks, still belonging to the brood.
_Birk_, birch.
_Birkie_, a clever, a forward conceited fellow.
_Birring_, the noise of partridges when they rise.
_Birses_, bristles.
_Bit_, crisis, nick of time, place.
_Bizz_, a bustle, to buzz.
_Black's the grun'_, as black as the ground.
_Blastie_, a shrivelled dwarf, a term of contempt, full of mischief.
_Blastit_, blasted.
_Blate_, bashful, sheepish.
_Blather_, bladder.
_Blaud_, a flat piece of anything, to slap.
_Blaudin-shower_, a heavy driving rain; a blauding signifies a beating.
_Blaw_, to blow, to boast; "blaw i' my lug," to flatter.
_Bleerit_, bedimmed, eyes hurt with weeping.
_Bleer my een_, dim my eyes.
_Bleezing_, _bleeze_, blazing, flame.
_Blellum_, idle talking fellow.
_Blether_, to talk idly.
_Bleth'rin_, talking idly.
_Blink_, a little while, a smiling look, to look kindly, to shine by fits.
_Blinker_, a term of contempt: it means, too, a lively engaging girl.
_Blinkin'_, smirking, smiling with the eyes, looking lovingly.
_Blirt and blearie_, out-burst of grief, with wet eyes.
_Blue-gown_, one of those beggars who get annually, on the king's
birth-day, a blue cloak or gown with a badge.
_Bluid_, blood.
_Blype_, a shred, a large piece.
_Bobbit_, the obeisance made by a lady.
_Bock_, to vomit, to gush intermittently.
_Bocked_, gushed, vomited.
_Bodle_, a copper coin of the value of two pennies Scots.
_Bogie_, a small morass.
_Bonnie_, or _bonny_, handsome, beautiful.
_Bonnock_, a kind of thick cake of bread, a small jannock or loaf made
of oatmeal. See _Bannock._
_Boord_, a board.
_Bore_, a hole in the wall, a cranny.
_Boortree_, the shrub elder, planted much of old in hedges of barn-yards
and gardens.
_Boost_, behoved, must needs, wilfulness.
_Botch_, _blotch_, an angry tumour.
_Bousing_, drinking, making merry with liquor.
_Bowk_, body.
_Bow-kail_, cabbage.
_Bow-hought_, out-kneed, crooked at the knee joint.
_Bowt_, _bowlt_, bended, crooked.
_Brackens_, fern.
_Brae_, a declivity, a precipice, the slope of a hill.
_Braid_, broad.
_Braik_, an instrument for rough-dressing flax.
_Brainge_, to run rashly forward, to churn violently.
_Braing't_, "the horse braing't," plunged end fretted in the harness.
_Brak_, broke, became insolvent.
_Branks_, a kind of wooden curb for horses.
_Brankie_, gaudy.
_Brash_, a sudden illness.
_Brats_, coarse clothes, rags, &c.
_Brattle_, a short race, hurry, fury.
_Braw_, fine, handsome.
_Brawlys_, or _brawlie_, very well, finely, heartily, bravely.
_Braxies_, diseased sheep.
_Breastie_, diminutive of breast.
_Breastit_, did spring up or forward; the act of mounting a horse.
_Brechame_, a horse-collar.
_Breckens_, fern.
_Breef_, an invulnerable or irresistible spell.
_Breeks_, breeches.
_Brent_, bright, clear; "a brent brow," a brow high and smooth.
_Brewin'_, brewing, gathering.
_Bree_, juice, liquid.
_Brig_, a bridge.
_Brunstane_, brimstone.
_Brisket_, the breast, the bosom.
_Brither_, a brother.
_Brock_, a badger.
_Brogue_, a hum, a trick.
_Broo_, broth, liquid, water.
_Broose_, broth, a race at country weddings; he who first reaches the
bridegroom's house on returning from church wins the broose.
_Browst_, ale, as much malt liquor as is brewed at a time.
_Brugh_, a burgh.
_Bruilsie_, a broil, combustion.
_Brunt_, did burn, burnt.
_Brust_, to burst, burst.
_Buchan-bullers_, the boiling of the sea among the rocks on the coast
of Buchan.
_Buckskin_, an inhabitant of Virginia.
_Buff our beef_, thrash us soundly, give us a beating behind and before.
_Buff and blue_, the colours of the Whigs.
_Buirdly_, stout made, broad built.
_Bum-clock_, the humming beetle that flies in the summer evenings.
_Bummin_, humming as bees, buzzing.
_Bummle_, to blunder, a drone, an idle fellow.
_Bummler_, a blunderer, one whose noise is greater than his work.
_Bunker_, a window-seat.
_Bure_, did bear.
_Burn_, _burnie_, water, a rivulet, a small stream which is heard as it
runs.
_Burniewin'_, burn this wind, the blacksmith.
_Burr-thistle_, the thistle of Scotland.
_Buskit_, dressed.
_Buskit-nest_, an ornamented residence.
_Busle_, a bustle.
_But_, _bot_, without.
_But and ben_, the country kitchen and parlour.
_By himself_, lunatic, distracted, beside himself.
_Byke_, a bee-hive, a wild bee-nest.
_Byre_, a cow-house, a sheep-pen.
C.
_Ca'_, to call, to name, to drive.
_Ca't_, called, driven, calved.
_Cadger_, a carrier.
_Cadie_ or _caddie_, a person, a young fellow, a public messenger.
_Caff_, chaff.
_Caird_, a tinker, a maker of horn spoons and teller of fortunes.
_Cairn_, a loose heap of stones, a rustic monument.
_Calf-ward_, a small enclosure for calves.
_Calimanco_, a certain kind of cotton cloth worn by ladies.
_Callan_, a boy.
_Caller_, fresh.
_Callet_, a loose woman, a follower of a camp.
_Cannie_, gentle, mild, dexterous.
_Cannilie_, dexterously, gently.
_Cantie_, or _canty_, cheerful, merry.
_Cantraip_, a charm, a spell.
_Cap-stane_, cape-stone, topmost stone of the building.
_Car_, a rustic cart with or without wheels.
_Careerin'_, moving cheerfully.
_Castock_, the stalk of a cabbage.
_Carl_, an old man.
_Carl-hemp_, the male stalk of hemp, easily known by its superior strength
and stature, and being without seed.
_Carlin_, a stout old woman.
_Cartes_, cards.
_Caudron_, a cauldron.
_Cauk and keel_, chalk and red clay.
_Cauld_, cold.
_Caup_, a wooden drinking vessel, a cup.
_Cavie_, a hen-coop.
_Chanter_, drone of a bagpipe.
_Chap_, a person, a fellow.
_Chaup_, a stroke, a blow.
_Cheek for chow_, close and united, brotherly, side by side.
_Cheekit_, cheeked.
_Cheep_, a chirp, to chirp.
_Chiel_, or _cheal_, a young fellow.
_Chimla_, or _chimlie_, a fire-grate, fire-place.
_Chimla-lug_, the fire-side.
_Chirps_, cries of a young bird.
_Chittering_, shivering, trembling.
_Chockin_, choking.
_Chow_, to chew; a quid of tobacco.
_Chuckie_, a brood-hen.
_Chuffie_, fat-faced.
_Clachan_, a small village about a church, a hamlet.
_Claise_, or _claes_, clothes.
_Claith_, cloth.
_Claithing_, clothing.
_Clavers and havers_, agreeable nonsense, to talk foolishly.
_Clapper-claps_, the clapper of a mill; it is now silenced.
_Clap-clack_, clapper of a mill.
_Clartie_, dirty, filthy.
_Clarkit_, wrote.
_Clash_, an idle tale.
_Clatter_, to tell little idle stories, an idle story.
_Claught_, snatched at, laid hold of.
_Claut_, to clean, to scrape.
_Clauted_, scraped.
_Claw_, to scratch.
_Cleed_, to clothe.
_Cleek_, hook, snatch.
_Cleekin_, a brood of chickens, or ducks.
_Clegs_, the gad flies.
_Clinkin_, "clinking down," sitting down hastily.
_Clinkumbell_, the church bell; he who rings it; a sort of beadle.
_Clips_, wool-shears.
_Clishmaclaver_, idle conversation.
_Clock_, to hatch, a beetle.
_Clockin_, hatching.
_Cloot_, the hoof of a cow, sheep, &c.
_Clootie_, a familiar name for the devil.
_Clour_, a bump, or swelling, after a blow.
_Cloutin_, repairing with cloth.
_Cluds_, clouds.
_Clunk_, the sound in setting down an empty bottle.
_Coaxin_, wheedling.
_Coble_, a fishing-boat.
_Cod_, a pillow.
_Coft_, bought.
_Cog_, and _coggie_, a wooden dish.
_Coila_, from Kyle, a district in Ayrshire, so called, saith tradition,
from Coil, or Coilus, a Pictish monarch.
_Collie_, a general, and sometimes a particular name for country curs.
_Collie-shangie_, a quarrel among dogs, an Irish row.
_Commaun_, command.
_Convoyed_, accompanied lovingly.
_Cool'd in her linens_, cool'd in her death-shift.
_Cood_, the cud.
_Coof_, a blockhead, a ninny.
_Cookit_, appeared and disappeared by fits.
_Cooser_, a stallion.
_Coost_, did cast.
_Coot_, the ankle, a species of water-fowl.
_Corbies_, blood crows.
_Cootie_, a wooden dish, rough-legged.
_Core_, corps, party, clan.
_Corn't_, fed with oats.
_Cotter_, the inhabitant of a cot-house, or cottage.
_Couthie_, kind, loving.
_Cove_, a cave.
_Cowe_, to terrify, to keep under, to lop.
_Cowp_, to barter, to tumble over.
_Cowp the cran_, to tumble a full bucket or basket.
_Cowpit_, tumbled.
_Cowrin_, cowering.
_Cowte_, a colt.
_Cosie_, snug.
_Crabbit_, crabbed, fretful.
_Creuks_, a disease of horses.
_Crack_, conversation, to converse, to boast.
_Crackin'_, cracked, conversing, conversed.
_Craft_, or _croft_, a field near a house, in old husbandry.
_Craig_, _craigie_, neck.
_Craiks_, cries or calls incessantly, a bird, the corn-rail.
_Crambo-clink_, or _crambo-jingle_, rhymes, doggerel verses.
_Crank_, the noise of an ungreased wheel--metaphorically inharmonious
verse.
_Crankous_, fretful, captious.
_Cranreuch_, the hoar-frost, called in Nithsdale "frost-rhyme."
_Crap_, a crop, to crop.
_Craw_, a crow of a cock, a rook.
_Creel_, a basket, to have one's wits in a creel, to be crazed, to be
fascinated.
_Creshie_, greasy.
_Crood_, or _Croud_, to coo as a dove.
_Croon_, a hollow and continued moan; to make a noise like the low roar
of a bull; to hum a tune.
_Crooning_, humming.
_Crouchie_, crook-backed.
_Crouse_, cheerful, courageous.
_Crously_, cheerfully, courageously.
_Crowdie_, a composition of oatmeal, boiled water and butter; sometimes
made from the broth of beef, mutton, &c. &c.
_Crowdie time_, breakfast time.
_Crowlin_, crawling, a deformed creeping thing.
_Crummie's nicks_, marks on the horns of a cow.
_Crummock_, _Crummet_, a cow with crooked horns.
_Crummock driddle_, walk slowly, leaning on a staff with a crooked head.
_Crump-crumpin_, hard and brittle, spoken of bread; frozen snow yielding
to the foot.
_Crunt_, a blow on the head with a cudgel.
_Cuddle_, to clasp and caress.
_Cummock_, a short staff, with a crooked head.
_Curch_, a covering for the head, a kerchief.
_Curchie_, a curtesy, female obeisance.
_Curler_, a player at a game on the ice, practised in Scotland, called
curling.
_Curlie_, curled, whose hair falls naturally in ringlets.
_Curling_, a well-known game on the ice.
_Curmurring_, murmuring, a slight rumbling noise.
_Curpin_, the crupper, the rump.
_Curple_, the rear.
_Cushat_, the dove, or wood-pigeon.
_Cutty_, short, a spoon broken in the middle.
_Cutty Stool_, or, _Creepie Chair_, the seat of shame, stool of repentance.
D.
_Daddie_, a father.
_Daffin_, merriment, foolishness.
_Daft_, merry, giddy, foolish; _Daft-buckie_, mad fish.
_Daimen_, rare, now and then; _Daimen icker_, an ear of corn occasionally.
_Dainty_, pleasant, good-humored, agreeable, rare.
_Dandered_, wandered.
_Darklins_, darkling, without light.
_Daud_, to thrash, to abuse; _Daudin-showers_, rain urged by wind.
_Daur_, to dare; _Daurt_, dared.
_Daurg_, or _Daurk_, a day's labour.
_Daur_, _daurna_, dare, dare not.
_Davoc_, diminutive of Davie, as Davie is of David.
_Dawd_, a large piece.
_Dawin_, dawning of the day.
_Dawtit_, _dawtet_, fondled, caressed.
_Dearies_, diminutive of dears, sweethearts.
_Dearthfu'_, dear, expensive.
_Deave_, to deafen.
_Deil-ma-care_, no matter for all that.
_Deleerit_, delirious.
_Descrive_, to describe, to perceive.
_Deuks_, ducks.
_Dight_, to wipe, to clean corn from chaff.
_Ding_, to worst, to push, to surpass, to excel.
_Dink_, neat, lady-like.
_Dinna_, do not.
_Dirl_, a slight tremulous stroke or pain, a tremulous motion.
_Distain_, stain.
_Dizzen_, a dozen.
_Dochter_, daughter.
_Doited_, stupefied, silly from age.
_Dolt_, stupefied, crazed; also a fool.
_Donsie_, unlucky, affectedly neat and trim, pettish.
_Doodle_, to dandle.
_Dool_, sorrow, to lament, to mourn.
_Doos_, doves, pigeons.
_Dorty_, saucy, nice.
_Douse_, or _douce_, sober, wise, prudent.
_Doucely_, soberly, prudently.
_Dought_, was or were able.
_Doup_, backside.
_Doup-skelper_, one that strikes the tail.
_Dour and din_, sullen and sallow
_Douser_, more prudent.
_Dow_, am or are able, can.
_Dowff_, pithless, wanting force.
_Dowie_, worn with grief, fatigue, &c., half asleep.
_Downa_, am or are not able, cannot.
_Doylt_, wearied, exhausted.
_Dozen_, stupified, the effects of age, to dozen, to benumb.
_Drab_, a young female beggar; to spot, to stain.
_Drap_, a drop, to drop.
_Drapping_, dropping.
_Draunting_, drawling, speaking with a sectarian tone.
_Dreep_, to ooze, to drop.
_Dreigh_, tedious, long about it, lingering.
_Dribble_, drizzling, trickling.
_Driddle_, the motion of one who tries to dance but moves the middle only.
_Drift_, a drove, a flight of fowls, snow moved by the wind.
_Droddum_, the breech.
_Drone_, part of a bagpipe, the chanter.
_Droop rumpl't_, that droops at the crupper.
_Droukit_, wet.
_Drouth_, thirst, drought.
_Drucken_, drunken.
_Drumly_, muddy.
_Drummock_ or _Drammock_, meal and water mixed, raw.
_Drunt_, pet, sour humour.
_Dub_, a small pond, a hollow filled with rain water.
_Duds_, rags, clothes.
_Duddie_, ragged.
_Dung-dang_, worsted, pushed, stricken.
_Dunted_, throbbed, beaten.
_Dush-dunsh_, to push, or butt as a ram.
_Dusht_, overcome with superstitious fear, to drop down suddenly.
_Dyvor_, bankrupt, or about to become one.
E.
_E'e_, the eye.
_Een_, the eyes, the evening.
_Eebree_, the eyebrow.
_Eenin'_, the evening.
_Eerie_, frighted, haunted, dreading spirits.
_Eild_, old age.
_Elbuck_, the elbow.
_Eldritch_, ghastly, frightful, elvish.
_En'_, end.
_Enbrugh_, Edinburgh.
_Eneugh_, and _aneuch_, enough.
_Especial_, especially.
_Ether-stone_, stone formed by adders, an adder bead.
_Ettle_, to try, attempt, aim.
_Eydent_, diligent.
F.
_Fa'_, fall, lot, to fall, fate.
_Fa' that_, to enjoy, to try, to inherit.
_Faddom't_, fathomed, measured with the extended arms.
_Faes_, foes.
_Faem_, foam of the sea.
_Faiket_, forgiven or excused, abated, a demand.
_Fainness_, gladness, overcome with joy.
_Fairin'_, fairing, a present brought from a fair.
_Fallow_, fellow.
_Fand_, did find.
_Farl_, a cake of bread; third part of a cake.
_Fash_, trouble, care, to trouble, to care for.
_Fasheous_, troublesome.
_Fasht_, troubled.
_Fasten e'en_, Fasten's even.
_Faught_, fight.
_Faugh_, a single furrow, out of lea, fallow.
_Fauld_, and _Fald_, a fold for sheep, to fold.
_Faut_, fault.
_Fawsont_, decent, seemly.
_Feal_, loyal, steadfast.
_Fearfu'_, fearful, frightful.
_Fear't_, affrighted.
_Feat_, neat, spruce, clever.
_Fecht_, to fight.
_Fechtin'_, fighting.
_Feck_ and _fek_, number, quantity.
_Fecket_, an under-waistcoat.
_Feckfu'_, large, brawny, stout.
_Feckless_, puny, weak, silly.
_Feckly_, mostly.
_Feg_, a fig.
_Fegs_, faith, an exclamation.
_Feide_, feud, enmity.
_Fell_, keen, biting; the flesh immediately under the skin; level moor.
_Felly_, relentless.
_Fend_, _Fen_, to make a shift, contrive to live.
_Ferlie_ or _ferley_, to wonder, a wonder, a term of contempt.
_Fetch_, to pull by fits.
_Fetch't_, pull'd intermittently.
_Fey_, strange; one marked for death, predestined.
_Fidge_, to fidget, fidgeting.
_Fidgin-fain_, tickled with pleasure.
_Fient_, fiend, a petty oath.
_Fien ma care_, the devil may care.
_Fier_, sound, healthy; a brother, a friend.
_Fierrie_, bustle, activity.
_Fissle_, to make a rustling noise, to fidget, bustle, fuss.
_Fit_, foot.
_Fittie-lan_, the nearer horse of the hindmost pair in the plough.
_Fizz_, to make a hissing noise, fuss, disturbance.
_Flaffen_, the motion of rags in the wind; of wings.
_Flainen_, flannel.
_Flandrekins_, foreign generals, soldiers of Flanders.
_Flang_, threw with violence.
_Fleech_, to supplicate in a flattering manner.
_Fleechin_, supplicating.
_Fleesh_, a fleece.
_Fleg_, a kick, a random blow, a fight.
_Flether_, to decoy by fair words.
_Flethrin_, _flethers_, flattering--smooth wheedling words.
_Fley_, to scare, to frighten.
_Flichter_, _flichtering_, to flutter as young nestlings do when their
dam approaches.
_Flinders_, shreds, broken pieces.
_Flingin-tree_, a piece of timber hung by way of partition between
two horses in a stable; a flail.
_Flisk_, _flisky_, to fret at the yoke.
_Flisket_, fretted.
_Flitter_, to vibrate like the wings of small birds.
_Flittering_, fluttering, vibrating, moving tremulously from place to
place.
_Flunkie_, a servant in livery.
_Flyte_, _flyting_, scold: flyting, scolding.
_Foor_, hastened.
_Foord_, a ford.
_Forbears_, forefathers.
_Forbye_, besides.
_Forfairn_, distressed, worn out, jaded, forlorn, destitute.
_Forgather_, to meet, to encounter with.
_Forgie_, to forgive.
_Forinawed_, worn out.
_Forjesket_, jaded with fatigue.
_Fou'_, full, drunk.
_Foughten_, _forfoughten_, troubled, fatigued.
_Foul-thief_, the devil, the arch-fiend.
_Fouth_, plenty, enough, or more than enough.
_Fow_, a measure, a bushel: also a pitchfork.
_Frae_, from.
_Freath_, froth, the frothing of ale in the tankard.
_Frien'_, friend.
_Frosty-calker_, the heels and front of a horse-shoe, turned sharply up
for riding on an icy road.
_Fu'_, full.
_Fud_, the scut or tail of the hare, coney, &c.
_Fuff_, to blow intermittently.
_Fu-hant_, full-handed; said of one well to live in the world.
_Funnie_, full of merriment.
_Fur-ahin_, the hindmost horse on the right hand when ploughing.
_Furder_, further, succeed.
_Furm_, a form, a bench.
_Fusionless_, spiritless, without sap or soul.
_Fyke_, trifling cares, to be in a fuss about trifles.
_Fyte_, to soil, to dirty.
_Fylt_, soiled, dirtied.
G.
_Gab_, the mouth, to speak boldly or pertly.
_Gaberlunzie_, wallet-man, or tinker.
_Gae_, to go; _gaed_, went; _gane_ or _gaen_, gone; _gaun_, going.
_Gaet_ or _gate_, way, manner, road.
_Gairs_, parts of a lady's gown.
_Gang_, to go, to walk.
_Gangrel_, a wandering person.
_Gar_, to make, to force to; _gar't_, forced to.
_Garten_, a garter.
_Gash_, wise, sagacious, talkative, to converse.
_Gatty_, failing in body.
_Gaucy_, jolly, large, plump.
_Gaud_ and _gad_, a rod or goad.
_Gaudsman_, one who drives the horses at the plough.
_Gaun_, going.
_Gaunted_, yawned, longed.
_Gawkie_, a thoughtless person, and something weak.
_Gaylies_, _gylie_, pretty well.
_Gear_, riches, goods of any kind.
_Geck_, to toss the head in wantonness or scorn.
_Ged_, a pike.
_Gentles_, great folks.
_Genty_, elegant.
_Geordie_, George, a guinea, called Geordie from the head of King George.
_Get_ and _geat_, a child, a young one.
_Ghaist_, _ghaistis_, a ghost.
_Gie_, to give; _gied_, gave; _gien_, given.
_Giftie_, diminutive of gift.
_Giglets_, laughing maidens.
_Gillie_, _gillock_, diminutive of gill.
_Gilpey_, a half-grown, half-informed boy or girl, a romping lad, a hoyden.
_Gimmer_, an ewe two years old, a contemptuous term for a woman.
_Gin_, if, against.
_Gipsey_, a young girl.
_Girdle_, a round iron plate on which oat-cake is fired.
_Girn_, to grin, to twist the features in rage, agony, &c.; grinning.
_Gizz_, a periwig, the face.
_Glaikit_, inattentive, foolish.
_Glaive_, a sword.
_Glaizie_, glittering, smooth, like glass.
_Glaumed_, grasped, snatched at eagerly.
_Girran_, a poutherie girran, a little vigorous animal; a horse rather
old, but yet active when heated.
_Gled_, a hawk.
_Gleg_, sharp, ready.
_Gley_, a squint, to squint; _a-gley_, off at the side, wrong.
_Gleyde_, an old horse.
_Glib-gabbit_, that speaks smoothly and readily.
_Glieb o' lan'_, a portion of ground. The ground belonging to a manse is
called "the glieb," or portion.
_Glint_, _glintin'_, to peep.
_Glinted by_, went brightly past.
_Gloamin_, the twilight.
_Gloamin-shot_, twilight musing; a shot in the twilight.
_Glowr_, to stare, to look; a stare, a look.
_Glowran_, amazed, looking suspiciously, gazing.
_Glum_, displeased.
_Gor-cocks_, the red-game, red-cock, or moor-cock.
_Gowan_, the flower of the daisy, dandelion, hawkweed, &c.
_Gowany_, covered with daisies.
_Goavan_, walking as if blind, or without an aim.
_Gowd_, gold.
_Gowl_, to howl.
_Gowff_, a fool; the game of golf, to strike, as the bat does the ball
at golf.
_Gowk_, term of contempt, the cuckoo.
_Grane_ or _grain_, a groan, to groan; _graining_, groaning.
_Graip_, a pronged instrument for cleaning cowhouses.
_Graith_, accoutrements, furniture, dress.
_Grannie_, grandmother.
_Grape_, to grope; _grapet_, groped.
_Great_, _grit_, intimate, familiar.
_Gree_, to agree; _to bear the gree_, to be decidedly victor; _gree't_,
agreed.
_Green-graff_, green grave,
_Gruesome_, loathsomely, grim.
_Greet_, to shed tears, to weep; _greetin'_, weeping.
_Grey-neck-quill_, a quill unfit for a pen.
_Griens_, longs, desires.
_Grieves_, stewards.
_Grippit_, seized.
_Groanin-Maut_, drink for the cummers at a lying-in.
_Groat_, to get the whistle of one's groat; to play a losing game, to
feel the consequences of one's folly.
_Groset_, a gooseberry.
_Grumph_, a grunt, to grunt.
_Grumphie_, _Grumphin_, a sow; the snorting of an angry pig.
_Grun'_, ground.
_Grunstone_, a grindstone.
_Gruntle_, the phiz, the snout, a grunting noise.
_Grunzie_, a mouth which pokes out like that of a pig.
_Grushie_, thick, of thriving growth.
_Gude_, _guid_, _guids_, the Supreme Being, good, goods.
_Gude auld-has-been_, was once excellent.
_Guid-mornin'_, good-morrow.
_Guid-e'en_, good evening.
_Guidfather_ and _guidmother_, father-in-law, and mother-in-law.
_Guidman_ and _guidwife_, the master and mistress of the house;
_young guidman_, a man newly married.
_Gully_ or _Gullie_, a large knife.
_Gulravage_, joyous mischief.
_Gumlie_, muddy.
_Gumption_, discernment, knowledge, talent.
_Gusty_, _gustfu'_, tasteful.
_Gut-scraper_, a fiddler.
_Gutcher_, grandsire.
H.
_Ha'_, hall.
_Ha' Bible_, the great Bible that lies in the hall.
_Haddin'_, house, home, dwelling-place, a possession.
_Hae_, to have, to accept.
_Haen_, had, (the participle of hae); haven.
_Haet_, _fient haet_, a petty oath of negation; nothing.
_Haffet_, the temple, the side of the head.
_Hafflins_, nearly half, partly, not fully grown.
_Hag_, a gulf in mosses and moors, moss-ground.
_Haggis_, a kind of pudding, boiled in the stomach of a cow, or sheep.
_Hain_, to spare, to save, to lay out at interest.
_Hain'd_, spared; _hain'd gear_, hoarded money.
_Hairst_, harvest
_Haith_, petty oath.
_Haivers_, nonsense, speaking without thought.
_Hal'_, or _hald_, an abiding place.
_Hale_, or _haill_, whole, tight, healthy.
_Hallan_, a particular partition-wall in a cottage, or more properly a
seat of turf at the outside.
_Hallowmass_, Hallow-eve, 31st October.
_Haly_, holy; "haly-pool," holy well with healing properties.
_Hame_, home.
_Hammered_, the noise of feet like the din of hammers.
_Han's breed_, hand's breadth.
_Hanks_, thread as it comes from the measuring reel, quantities, &c.
_Hansel-throne_, throne when first occupied by a king.
_Hap_, an outer garment, mantle, plaid, &c.; to wrap, to cover, to hap.
_Harigals_, heart, liver, and lights of an animal.
_Hap-shackled_, when a fore and hind foot of a ram are fastened together
to prevent leaping he is said to be hap-shackled. A wife
is called "the kirk's hap-shackle."
_Happer_, a hopper, the hopper of a mill.
_Happing_, hopping.
_Hap-step-an'-loup_, hop, step, and leap.
_Harkit_, hearkened.
_Harn_, very coarse linen.
_Hash_, a fellow who knows not how to act with propriety.
_Hastit_, hastened.
_Haud_, to hold.
_Haughs_, low-lying, rich land, valleys.
_Haurl_, to drag, to pull violently.
_Haurlin_, tearing off, pulling roughly.
_Haver-meal_, oatmeal.
_Haveril_, a half-witted person, half-witted, one who habitually talks
in a foolish or incoherent manner.
_Havins_, good manners, decorum, good sense.
_Hawkie_, a cow, properly one with a white face.
_Heapit_, heaped.
_Healsome_ healthful, wholesome.
_Hearse_, hoarse.
_Heather_, heath.
_Hech_, oh strange! an exclamation during heavy work.
_Hecht_, promised, to foretell something that is to be got or given,
foretold, the thing foretold, offered.
_Heckle_, a board in which are fixed a number of sharp steel prongs
upright for dressing hemp, flax, &c.
_Hee balou_, words used to soothe a child.
_Heels-owre-gowdie_, topsy-turvy, turned the bottom upwards.
_Heeze_, to elevate, to rise, to lift.
_Hellim_, the rudder or helm.
_Herd_, to tend flocks, one who tends flocks.
_Herrin'_, a herring.
_Herry_, to plunder; most properly to plunder birds' nests.
_Herryment_, plundering, devastation.
_Hersel-hirsel_, a flock of sheep, also a herd of cattle of any sort.
_Het_, hot, heated.
_Heugh_, a crag, a ravine; _coal-heugh_, a coal-pit, _lowin heugh_,
a blazing pit.
_Hilch_, _hilchin'_, to halt, halting.
_Hiney_, honey.
_Hing_, to hang.
_Hirple_, to walk crazily, to walk lamely, to creep.
_Histie_, dry, chapt, barren.
_Hitcht_, a loop, made a knot.
_Hizzie_, huzzy, a young girl.
_Hoddin_, the motion of a husbandman riding on a cart-horse, humble.
_Hoddin-gray_, woollen cloth of a coarse quality, made by mingling one
black fleece with a dozen white ones.
_Hoggie_, a two-year-old sheep.
_Hog-score_, a distance line in curling drawn across the rink. When a
stone fails to cross it, a cry is raised of "A hog, a hog!"
and it is removed.
_Hog-shouther_, a kind of horse-play by justling with the shoulder; to
justle.
_Hoodie-craw_, a blood crow, corbie.
_Hool_, outer skin or case, a nutshell, a pea-husk.
_Hoolie_, slowly, leisurely.
_Hoord_, a hoard, to hoard.
_Hoordit_, hoarded.
_Horn_, a spoon made of horn.
_Hornie_, one of the many names of the devil.
_Host_, or _hoast_, to cough.
_Hostin_, coughing.
_Hotch'd_, turned topsy-turvy, blended, ruined, moved.
_Houghmagandie_, loose behaviour.
_Howlet_, an owl.
_Housie_, diminutive of house.
_Hove, hoved_, to heave, to swell.
_Howdie_, a midwife.
_Howe_, hollow, a hollow or dell.
_Howebackit_, sunk in the back, spoken of a horse.
_Howff_, a house of resort.
_Howk_, to dig.
_Howkit_, digged.
_Howkin'_, digging deep.
_Hoy, hoy't_, to urge, urged.
_Hoyse_, a pull upwards. "Hoyse a creel," to raise a basket; hence
"hoisting creels."
_Hoyte_, to amble crazily.
_Hughoc_, diminutive of Hughie, as Hughie is of Hugh.
_Hums and hankers_, mumbles and seeks to do what he cannot perform.
_Hunkers_, kneeling and falling back on the hams.
_Hurcheon_, a hedgehog.
_Hurdies_, the loins, the crupper.
_Hushion_, a cushion, also a stocking wanting the foot.
_Huchyalled_, to move with a hilch.
I.
_Icker_, an ear of corn.
_Ieroe_, a great grandchild.
_Ilk_, or _ilka_, each, every.
_Ill-deedie_, mischievous.
_Ill-willie_, ill-natured, malicious, niggardly.
_Ingine_, genius, ingenuity.
_Ingle_, fire, fire-place.
_Ingle-low_, light from the fire, flame from the hearth.
_I rede ye_, I advise ye, I warn ye.
_I'se_, I shall or will.
_Ither_, other, one another.
J.
_Jad_, jade; also a familiar term among country folks for a giddy young
girl.
_Jauk_, to dally, to trifle.
_Jaukin'_, trifling, dallying.
_Jauner_, talking, and not always to the purpose.
_Jaup_, a jerk of water; to jerk, as agitated water.
_Jaw_, coarse raillery, to pour out, to shut, to jerk as water.
_Jillet_, a jilt, a giddy girl.
_Jimp_, to jump, slender in the waist, handsome.
_Jink_, to dodge, to turn a corner; a sudden turning, a corner.
_Jink an' diddle_, moving to music, motion of a fiddler's elbow.
Starting here and there with a tremulous movement.
_Jinker_, that turns quickly, a gay sprightly girl.
_Jinkin'_, dodging, the quick motion of the bow on the fiddle.
_Jirt_, a jerk, the emission of water, to squirt.
_Jocteleg_, a kind of knife.
_Jouk_, to stoop, to bow the head, to conceal.
_Jow_, to _jow_, a verb, which includes both the swinging motion and
pealing sound of a large bell; also the undulation of
water.
_Jundie_, to justle, a push with the elbow.
K.
_Kae_, a daw.
_Kail_, colewort, a kind of broth.
_Kailrunt_, the stem of colewort.
_Kain_, fowls, &c., paid as rent by a farmer.
_Kebars_, rafters.
_Kebbuck_, a cheese.
_Keckle_, joyous cry; to cackle as a hen.
_Keek_, a keek, to peep.
_Kelpies_, a sort of mischievous water-spirit, said to haunt fords and
ferries at night, especially in storms.
_Ken_, to know; _ken'd_ or _ken't_, knew.
_Kennin_, a small matter.
_Ket-Ketty_, matted, a fleece of wool.
_Kiaught_, carking, anxiety, to be in a flutter.
_Kilt_, to truss up the clothes.
_Kimmer_, a young girl, a gossip.
_Kin'_, kindred.
_Kin'_, kind.
_King's-hood_, a certain part of the entrails of an ox.
_Kintra_, _kintrie_, country.
_Kirn_, the harvest supper, a churn.
_Kirsen_, to christen, to baptize.
_Kist_, a shop-counter.
_Kitchen_, anything that eats with bread, to serve for soup, gravy.
_Kittle_, to tickle, ticklish.
_Kittling_, a young cat. The ace of diamonds is called among rustics
the kittlin's e'e.
_Knaggie_, like knags, or points of rocks.
_Knappin-hammer_, a hammer for breaking stones; _knap_, to strike or break.
_Knurlin_, crooked but strong, knotty.
_Knowe_, a small, round hillock, a knoll.
_Kuittle_, to cuddle; _kuitlin_, cuddling, fondling.
_Kye_, cows.
_Kyle_, a district in Ayrshire.
_Kyte_, the belly.
_Kythe_, to discover, to show one's self.
L.
_Labour_, thrash.
_Laddie_, diminutive of lad.
_Laggen_, the angle between the side and the bottom of a wooden dish.
_Laigh_, low.
_Lairing, lairie_, wading, and sinking in snow, mud &c., miry.
_Laith_, loath, impure.
_Laithfu_', bashful, sheepish, abstemious.
_Lallans_, Scottish dialect, Lowlands.
_Lambie_, diminutive of lamb.
_Lammas moon_, harvest-moon.
_Lampit_, kind of shell-fish, a limpet.
_Lan_', land, estate.
_Lan'-afore_, foremost horse in the plough.
_Lan'-ahin_, hindmost horse in the plough.
_Lane_, lone; _my lane, thy tune, &c._, myself alone.
_Lanely_, lonely.
_Lang_, long; to _think lang_, to long, to weary.
_Lap_, did leap.
_Late and air_, late and early.
_Lave_, the rest, the remainder, the others.
_Laverock_, the lark.
_Lawlan'_, lowland.
_Lay my dead_, attribute my death.
_Leal_, loyal, true, faithful.
_Lear_, learning, lore.
_Lee-lang_, live-long.
_Leesome luve_, happy, gladsome love.
_Leeze me_, a phrase of congratulatory endearment; I am happy in thee or
proud of thee.
_Leister_, a three-pronged and barbed dart for striking fish.
_Leugh_, did laugh.
_Leuk_, a look, to look.
_Libbet_, castrated.
_Lick, licket_, beat, thrashen.
_Lift_, sky, firmament.
_Lightly_, sneeringly, to sneer at, to undervalue.
_Lilt_, a ballad, a tune, to sing.
_Limmer_, a kept mistress, a strumpet.
_Limp't_, limped, hobbled.
_Link_, to trip along; _linkin_, tripping along.
_Linn_, a waterfall, a cascade.
_Lint_, flax; _lint i' the bell_, flax in flower.
_Lint-white_, a linnet, flaxen.
_Loan_, the place of milking.
_Loaning_, lane.
_Loof_, the palm of the hand.
_Loot_, did let.
_Looves_, the plural of loof.
_Losh man_! rustic exclamation modified from Lord man.
_Loun_, a follow, a ragamuffin, a woman of easy virtue.
_Loup_, leap, startled with pain.
_Louper-like_, lan-louper, a stranger of a suspected character.
_Lowe_, a flame.
_Lowin_', flaming; _lowin-drouth_, burning desire for drink.
_Lowrie_, abbreviation of Lawrence.
_Lowse_, to loose.
_Lowsed_, unbound, loosed.
_Lug_, the ear.
_Lug of the law_, at the judgment-seat.
_Lugget_, having a handle.
_Luggie_, a small wooden dish with a handle.
_Lum_, the chimney; _lum-head_, chimney-top.
_Lunch_, a large piece of cheese, flesh, &c.
_Lunt_, a column of smoke, to smoke, to walk quickly.
_Lyart_, of a mixed colour, gray.
M.
_Mae_, and _mair_, more.
_Maggot's-meat_, food for the worms.
_Mahoun_, Satan.
_Mailen_, a farm.
_Maist_, most, almost.
_Maistly_, mostly, for the greater part.
_Mak_', to make; _makin_', making.
_Mally_, Molly, Mary.
_Mang_, among.
_Manse_, the house of the parish minister is called "the Manse."
_Manteele_, a mantle.
_Mark_, marks. This and several other nouns which in English require
an _s_ to form the plural, are in Scotch, like the words sheep,
deer, the same in both numbers.
_Mark, merk_, a Scottish coin, value thirteen shillings and four-pence.
_Marled_, party-coloured.
_Mar's year_, the year 1715. Called Mar's year from the rebellion of
Erskine, Earl of Mar.
_Martial chuck,_ the soldier's camp-comrade, female companion.
_Mashlum_, mixed corn.
_Mask_, to mash, as malt, &c., to infuse.
_Maskin-pot_, teapot.
_Maukin_, a hare.
_Maun, mauna_, must, must not.
_Maut_, malt.
_Mavis_, the thrush.
_Maw_, to mow.
_Mawin_, mowing; _maun_, mowed; _maw'd_, mowed.
_Mawn_, a small basket, without a handle.
_Meere_, a mare.
_Melancholious_, mournful.
_Melder_, a load of corn, &c., sent to the mill to be ground.
_Mell_, to be intimate, to meddle, also a mallet for pounding barley in
a stone trough.
_Melvie_, to soil with meal.
_Men_', to mend.
_Mense_, good manners, decorum.
_Menseless_, ill-bred, impudent.
_Merle_, the blackbird.
_Messin_, a small dog.
_Middin_, a dunghill.
_Middin-creels_, dung-baskets, panniers in which horses carry manure.
_Midden-hole_, a gutter at the bottom of a dunghill.
_Milkin-shiel_ a place where cows or ewes are brought to be milked.
_Mim_, prim, affectedly meek.
_Mim-mou'd_, gentle-mouthed.
_Min_', to remember.
_Minawae_, minuet.
_Mind't_, mind it, resolved, intending, remembered.
_Minnie_, mother, dam.
_Mirk_, dark.
_Misca_', to abuse, to call names; _misca'd_, abused.
_Mischanter_, accident.
_Misleard_, mischievous, unmannerly.
_Misteuk_, mistook.
_Mither,_ mother.
_Mixtie-maxtie_, confusedly mixed, mish-mash.
_Moistify_, _moistified_, to moisten, to soak; moistened, soaked.
_Mons-Meg,_ a large piece of ordnance, to be seen at the Castle of
Edinburgh, composed of iron bars welded together and then
hooped.
_Mools_, earth.
_Mony_, or _monie_, many.
_Moop,_ to nibble as a sheep.
_Moorlan_, of or belonging to moors.
_Morn_, the next day, to-morrow.
_Mou_, the mouth.
_Moudiwort_, a mole.
_Mousie_, diminutive of mouse.
_Muckle_, or _mickle_, great, big, much.
_Muses-stank_, muses-rill, a stank, slow-flowing water.
_Musie_, diminutive of muse.
_Muslin-kail_, broth, composed simply of water, shelled barley, and
greens; thin poor broth.
_Mutchkin_, an English pint.
_Mysel_, myself.
N.
_Na_', no, not, nor.
_Nae_, or _na_, no, not any.
_Naething_, or _naithing_, nothing.
_Naig_, a horse, a nag.
_Nane_, none.
_Nappy_, ale, to be tipsy.
_Negleckit_, neglected.
_Neebor_, a neighbour.
_Neuk_, nook.
_Neist_, next.
_Nieve, neif_, the fist
_Nievefu'_, handful.
_Niffer_, an exchange, to barter.
_Niger_, a negro.
_Nine-tailed cat_, a hangman's whip.
_Nit_, a nut.
_Norland_, of or belonging to the north.
_Notic't_, noticed.
_Nowte_, black cattle.
O.
_O'_, of.
_O'ergang_, overbearingness, to treat with indignity, literally to tread.
_O'erlay_, an upper cravat.
_Ony_, or _onie_, any.
_Or_, is often used for ere, before.
_Orra-duddies_, superfluous rags, old clothes.
_O't_, of it.
_Ourie_, drooping, shivering.
_Oursel, oursels_, ourselves.
_Outlers_, outliers; cattle unhoused.
_Ower, owre_, over.
_Owre-hip_, striking with a forehammer by bringing it with a swing over
the hip.
_Owsen_, oxen.
_Oxtered_, carried or supported under the arm.
P.
_Pack_, intimate, familiar: twelve stone of wool.
_Paidle, paidlen_, to walk with difficulty, as if in water.
_Painch_, paunch.
_Paitrick_, partridge.
_Pang_, to cram.
_Parle_, courtship.
_Parishen_, parish.
_Parritch_, oatmeal pudding, a well-known Scotch drink.
_Pat_, did put, a pot.
_Pattle_, or _pettle_, a small spades to clean the plough.
_Paughty_, proud, haughty.
_Pauky_, cunning, sly.
_Pay't_, paid, beat.
_Peat-reek_, the smoke of burning turf, a bitter exhalation, whisky.
_Pech_, to fetch the breath shortly, as in an asthma.
_Pechan_, the crop, the stomach.
_Pechin_, respiring with difficulty.
_Pennie_, riches.
_Pet_, a domesticated sheep, &c., a favourite.
_Pettle_, to cherish.
_Philabeg_, the kilt.
_Phraise_, fair speeches, flattery, to flatter.
_Phraisin_, flattering.
_Pibroch_, a martial air.
_Pickle_, a small quantity, one grain of corn.
_Pigmy-scraper_, little fiddler; a term of contempt for a bad player.
_Pint-stomp_, a two-quart measure.
_Pine_, pain, uneasiness.
_Pingle_, a small pan for warming children's sops.
_Plack_, an old Scotch coin, the third part of an English penny.
_Plackless_, pennyless, without money.
_Plaidie_, diminutive of plaid.
_Platie_, diminutive of plate.
_Plew_, or _pleugh_, a plough.
_Pliskie_, a trick.
_Plumrose_, primrose.
_Pock_, a meal-bag.
_Poind_, to seize on cattle, or take the goods as the laws of Scotland
allow, for rent, &c.
_Poorteth_, poverty.
_Posie_, a nosegay, a garland.
_Pou, pou'd_, to pull, pulled.
_Pouk_, to pluck.
_Poussie_, a hare or cat.
_Pouse_, to pluck with the hand.
_Pout_, a polt, a chick.
_Pou't_, did pull.
_Poutherey_, fiery, active.
_Pouthery_, like powder.
_Pow_, the head, the skull.
_Pownie_, a little horse, a pony.
_Powther_, or _pouther_, gunpowder.
_Preclair_, supereminent.
_Preen_, a pin.
_Prent_, printing, print.
_Prie_, to taste; _prie'd_, tasted.
_Prief_, proof.
_Prig_, to cheapen, to dispute; _priggin_, cheapening.
_Primsie_, demure, precise.
_Propone_, to lay down, to propose.
_Pund, pund o' tow_, pound, pound weight of the refuse of flax.
_Pyet_, a magpie.
_Pyle, a pyle, o' caff_, a single grain of chaff.
_Pystle_, epistle.
Q.
_Quat_, quit
_Quak_, the cry of a duck.
_Quech_, a drinking-cup made of wood with two handles.
_Quey_, a cow from one to two years old, a heifer.
_Quines_, queans.
_Quakin_, quaking.
R.
_Ragweed_, herb-ragwort.
_Raible_, to rattle, nonsense.
_Rair_, to roar.
_Raize_, to madden, to inflame.
_Ramfeezled_, fatigued, overpowered.
_Rampin'_, raging.
_Ramstam_, thoughtless, forward.
_Randie_, a scolding sturdy beggar, a shrew.
_Rantin_', joyous.
_Raploch_, properly a coarse cloth, but used for coarse.
_Rarely_, excellently, very well.
_Rash_, a rush; _rash-buss_, a bush of rushes.
_Ratton_, a rat.
_Raucle_, rash, stout, fearless, reckless.
_Raught_, reached.
_Raw_, a row.
_Rax_, to stretch.
_Ream_, cream, to cream.
_Reamin'_, brimful, frothing.
_Reave_, take by force.
_Rebute_, to repulse, rebuke.
_Reck_, to heed.
_Rede_, counsel, to counsel, to discourse.
_Red-peats_, burning turfs.
_Red-wat-shod_, walking in blood over the shoe-tops.
_Red-wud_, stark mad.
_Ree_, half drunk, fuddled; _a ree yaud_, a wild horse.
_Reek_, smoke.
_Reekin'_, smoking.
_Reekit_, smoked, smoky.
_Reestit_, stood restive; stunted, withered.
_Remead_, remedy.
_Requite_, requited.
_Restricked_, restricted.
_Rew_, to smile, look affectionately, tenderly.
_Rickles_, shocks of corn, stooks.
_Riddle_, instrument for purifying corn.
_Rief-randies_, men who take the property of others, accompanied by
violence and rude words.
_Rig_, a ridge.
_Rin_, to run, to melt; _rinnin'_, running.
_Rink_, the course of the stones, a term in curling on ice.
_Rip_, a handful of unthreshed corn.
_Ripples_, pains in the back and loins, sounds which usher in death.
_Ripplin-kame_, instrument for dressing flax.
_Riskit_, a noise like the tearing of roots.
_Rockin'_, a denomination for a friendly visit. In former times young
women met with their distaffs during the winter evenings, to
sing, and spin, and be merry; these were called "rockings."
_Roke_, distaff.
_Rood_, stands likewise for the plural, roods.
_Roon_, a shred, the selvage of woollen cloth.
_Roose_, to praise, to commend.
_Roun'_, round, in the circle of neighbourhood.
_Roupet_, hoarse, as with a cold.
_Row_, to roll, to rap, to roll as water.
_Row't_, rolled, wrapped.
_Rowte_, to low, to bellow.
_Rowth_, plenty.
_Rowtin'_, lowing.
_Rozet_, rosin.
_Rumble-gumption_, rough commonsense.
_Run-deils_, downright devils.
_Rung_, a cudgel.
_Runt_, the stem of colewort or cabbage.
_Runkled_, wrinkled.
_Ruth_, a woman's name, the book so called, sorrow.
_Ryke_, reach.
S.
_Sae_, so.
_Saft_, soft.
_Sair_, to serve, a sore; _sairie_, sorrowful.
_Sairly_, sorely.
_Sair't_, served.
_Sark_, a shirt.
_Sarkit_, provided in shirts.
_Saugh_, willow.
_Saugh-woodies_, withies, made of willows, now supplanted by ropes
and chains.
_Saul_, soul.
_Saumont_, salmon.
_Saunt, sauntet_, saint; to varnish.
_Saut_, salt.
_Saw_, to sow.
_Sawin'_, sowing.
_Sax_, six.
_Scaud_, to scald.
_Scauld_, to scold.
_Scaur_, apt to be scared; a precipitous bank of earth which the stream
has washed red.
_Scawl_, scold.
_Scone_, a kind of bread.
_Sconner_, a loathing, to loath.
_Scraich_ and _Scriegh_, to scream, as a hen or partridge.
_Screed_, to tear, a rent; _screeding_, tearing.
_Scrieve, scrieven,_ to glide softly, gleesomely along.
_Scrimp_, to scant.
_Scrimpet_, scant, scanty.
_Scroggie_, covered with underwood, bushy.
_Sculdudrey_, fornication.
_Seizin'_, seizing.
_Sel_, self; _a body's sel'_, one's self alone.
_Sell't_, did sell.
_Sen'_, to send.
_Servan'_, servant.
_Settlin'_, settling; _to get a settlin'_, to be frightened into quietness.
_Sets, sets off_, goes away.
_Shachlet-feet_, ill-shaped.
_Shair'd_, a shred, a shard.
_Shangan_, a stick cleft at one end for pulling the tail of a dog, &c.,
by way of mischief, or to frighten him away.
_Shank-it_, walk it; _shanks_, legs.
_Shaul_, shallow.
_Shaver_, a humorous wag, a barber.
_Shavie_, to do an ill turn.
_Shaw_, to show; a small wood in a hollow place.
_Sheep-shank, to think one's self nae sheep-shank_, to be conceited.
_Sherra-muir_, Sheriff-Muir, the famous battle of, 1715.
_Sheugh_, a ditch, a trench, a sluice.
_Shiel, shealing_, a shepherd's cottage.
_Shill_, shrill.
_Shog_, a shock, a push off at one side.
_Shoo_, ill to please, ill to fit.
_Shool_, a shovel.
_Shoon_, shoes.
_Shore_, to offer, to threaten.
_Shor'd_, half offered and threatened.
_Shouther_, the shoulder.
_Shot_, one traverse of the shuttle from side to side of the web.
_Sic_, such.
_Sicker_, sure, steady.
_Sidelins_, sideling, slanting.
_Silken-snood_, a fillet of silk, a token of virginity.
_Siller_, silver, money, white.
_Sin_, a son.
_Sinsyne_, since then.
_Skaith_, to damage, to injure, injury.
_Skeigh_, proud, nice, saucy, mettled.
_Skeigh_, shy, maiden coyness.
_Skellum_, to strike, to slap; to walk with a smart tripping step, a
smart stroke.
_Skelpi-limmer_, a technical term in female scolding.
_Skelpin, skelpit_, striking, walking rapidly, literally striking the
ground.
_Skinklin_, thin, gauzy, scaltery.
_Skirling_, shrieking, crying.
_Skirl_, to cry, to shriek shrilly.
_Skirl't_, shrieked.
_Sklent_, slant, to run aslant, to deviate from truth.
_Sklented_, ran, or hit, in an oblique direction.
_Skouth_, vent, free action.
_Skreigh_, a scream, to scream, the first cry uttered by a child.
_Skyte_, a worthless fellow, to slide rapidly off.
_Skyrin_, party-coloured, the checks of the tartan.
_Slae_, sloe.
_Slade_, did slide.
_Slap_, a gate, a breach in a fence.
_Slaw_, slow.
_Slee, sleest_, sly, slyest.
_Sleekit_, sleek, sly.
_Sliddery_, slippery.
_Slip-shod_, smooth shod.
_Sloken_, quench, slake.
_Slype_, to fall over, as a wet furrow from the plough.
_Slypet-o'er_, fell over with a slow reluctant motion.
_Sma'_, small.
_Smeddum_, dust, powder, mettle, sense, sagacity.
_Smiddy_, smithy.
_Smirking_, good-natured, winking.
_Smoor, smoored_, to smother, smothered.
_Smoutie_, smutty, obscene; _smoutie phiz_, sooty aspect.
_Smytrie_, a numerous collection of small individuals.
_Snapper_, mistake.
_Snash_, abuse, Billingsgate, impertinence.
_Snaw_, snow, to snow.
_Snaw-broo_, melted snow.
_Snawie_, snowy.
_Snap_, to lop, to cut off.
_Sned-besoms_, to cut brooms.
_Sneeshin_, snuff.
_Sneeshin-mill_, a snuff-box.
_Snell_ and _snelly_, bitter, biting; _snellest_, bitterest.
_Snick-drawing_, trick, contriving.
_Snick_, the latchet of a door.
_Snirt, snirtle_, concealed laughter, to breathe the nostrils in a
displeased manner.
_Snool_, one whose spirit is broken with oppressive slavery; to submit
tamely, to sneak.
_Snoove_, to go smoothly and constantly, to sneak.
_Snowk, snowkit_, to scent or snuff as a dog, scented, snuffed.
_Sodger_, a soldier.
_Sonsie_, having sweet engaging looks, lucky, jolly.
_Soom_, to swim.
_Souk_, to suck, to drink long and enduringly.
_Souple_, flexible, swift.
_Soupled_, suppled.
_Souther_, to solder.
_Souter_, a shoemaker.
_Sowens_, the fine flour remaining among the seeds, of oatmeal made
into an agreeable pudding.
_Sowp_, a spoonful, a small quantity of anything liquid.
_Sowth_, to try over a tune with a low whistle.
_Spae_, to prophesy, to divine.
_Spails_, chips, splinters.
_Spaul_, a limb.
_Spairge_, to clash, to soil, as with mire.
_Spates_, sudden floods.
_Spaviet_, having the spavin.
_Speat_, a sweeping torrent after rain or thaw.
_Speel_, to climb.
_Spence_, the parlour of a farmhouse or cottage.
_Spier_, to ask, to inquire; _spiert_, inquired.
_Spinnin-graith_, wheel and roke and lint.
_Splatter_, to splutter, a splutter.
_Spleughan_, a tobacco-pouch.
_Splore_, a frolic, noise, riot.
_Sprachled_, scrambled.
_Sprattle_, to scramble.
_Spreckled_, spotted, speckled.
_Spring_, a quick air in music, a Scottish reel.
_Sprit, spret_, a tough-rooted plant something like rushes, jointed-leaved
rush.
_Sprittie_, full of spirits.
_Spunk_, fire, mettle, wit, spark.
_Spunkie_, mettlesome, fiery; will o' the wisp, or ignis fatuus; the devil.
_Spurtle_, a stick used in making oatmeal pudding or porridge, a notable
Scottish dish.
_Squad_, a crew or party, a squadron.
_Squatter_, to flutter in water, as a wild-duck, &c.
_Squattle_, to sprawl in the act of hiding.
_Squeel_, a scream, a screech, to scream.
_Stacher_, to stagger.
_Stack_, a rick of corn, hay, peats.
_Staggie_, a stag.
_Staig_, a two year-old horse.
_Stalwart_, stately, strong.
_Stang_, sting, stung.
_Stan't_, to stand; _stan't_, did stand.
_Stane_, stone.
_Stank_, did stink, a pool of standing water, slow-moving water.
_Stap_, stop, stave.
_Stark_, stout, potent.
_Startle_, to run as cattle stung by the gadfly.
_Staukin_, stalking, walking disdainfully, walking without an aim.
_Staumrel_, a blockhead, half-witted.
_Staw_, did steal, to surfeit.
_Stech_, to cram the belly.
_Stechin_, cramming.
_Steek_, to shut, a stitch.
_Steer_, to molest, to stir.
_Steeve_, firm, compacted.
_Stell_, a still.
_Sten_, to rear as a horse, to leap suddenly.
_Stravagin_, wandering without an aim.
_Stents_, tribute, dues of any kind.
_Stey_, steep; _styest_, steepest.
_Stibble_, stubble; _stubble-rig_, the reaper in harvest who takes
the lead.
_Stick-an'-stow_, totally, altogether.
_Stilt-stilts_, a crutch; to limp, to halt; poles for crossing a river.
_Stimpart_, the eighth part of a Winchester bushel.
_Stirk_, a cow or bullock a year old.
_Stock_, a plant of colewort, cabbages.
_Stockin'_, stocking; _throwing the stockin'_, when the bride and
bridegroom are put into bed, the former throws a stocking
at random among the company, and the person whom it falls
on is the next that will be married.
_Stook, stooked_, a shock of corn, made into shocks.
_Stot_, a young bull or ox.
_Stound_, sudden pang of the heart.
_Stoup_, or _stowp_, a kind of high narrow jug or dish with a handle
for holding liquids.
_Stowre_, dust, more particularly dust in motion; _stowrie_, dusty.
_Stownlins_, by stealth.
_Stown_, stolen.
_Stoyte_, the walking of a drunken man.
_Straek_, did strike.
_Strae_, straw; _to die a fair strae death_, to die in bed.
_Straik_, to stroke; _straiket_, stroked.
_Strappen_, tall, handsome, vigorous.
_Strath_, low alluvial land, a holm.
_Straught_, straight.
_Streek_, stretched, to stretch.
_Striddle_, to straddle.
_Stroan_, to spout, to piss.
_Stroup_, the spout.
_Studdie_, the anvil.
_Stumpie_, diminutive of stump; a grub pen.
_Strunt_, spirituous liquor of any kind; to walk sturdily, to be affronted.
_Stuff_, corn or pulse of any kind.
_Sturt_, trouble; to molest.
_Startin_, frighted.
_Styme_, a glimmer.
_Sucker_, sugar.
_Sud_, should.
_Sugh_, the continued rushing noise of wind or water.
_Sumph_, a pluckless fellow, with little heart or soul.
_Suthron_, Southern, an old name of the English.
_Swaird_, sword.
_Swall'd_, swelled.
_Swank_, stately, jolly.
_Swankie_, or _swanker_, a tight strapping young fellow or girl.
_Swap_, an exchange, to barter.
_Swarfed_, swooned.
_Swat_, did sweat.
_Swatch_, a sample.
_Swats_, drink, good ale, new ale or wort.
_Sweer_, lazy, averse; _dead-sweer_, extremely averse.
_Swoor_, swore, did swear.
_Swinge_, beat, to whip.
_Swinke_, to labour hard.
_Swirlie_, knaggy, full of knots.
_Swirl_, a curve, an eddying blast or pool, a knot in the wood.
_Swith_, get away.
_Swither_, to hesitate in choice, an irresolute wavering in choice.
_Syebow_, a thick-necked onion.
_Syne_, since, ago, then.
T.
_Tackets_, broad-headed nails for the heels of shoes.
_Tae_, a toe, _three-taed_, having three prongs.
_Tak_, to take; _takin_, taking.
_Tangle_, a sea-weed used as salad.
_Tap_, the top.
_Tapetless_, heedless, foolish.
_Targe, targe them tightly_, cross-question them severely.
_Tarrow_, to murmur at one's allowance.
_Tarry-breeks_, a sailor.
_Tassie_, a small measure for liquor.
_Tauld_, or _tald_, told.
_Taupie_, a foolish, thoughtless young person.
_Tauted_, or _tautie_, matted together (spoken of hair and wool).
_Tawie_, that allows itself peaceably to be handled (spoken of a cow,
horse, &c.)
_Teat_, a small quantity.
_Teethless bawtie_, toothless cur.
_Teethless gab_, a mouth wanting the teeth, an expression of scorn.
_Ten-hours-bite_, a slight feed to the horse while in the yoke in the
forenoon.
_Tent_, a field pulpit, heed, caution; to take heed.
_Tentie_, heedful, cautious.
_Tentless_, heedless, careless.
_Teugh_, tough.
_Thack_, thatch; _thack an' rape_, clothing and necessaries.
_Thae_, these.
_Thairms_, small guts, fiddle-strings.
_Thankit_, thanked.
_Theekit_, thatched.
_Thegither_, together.
_Themsel'_, themselves.
_Thick_, intimate, familiar.
_Thigger_, crowding, make a noise; a seeker of alms.
_Thir_, these.
_Thirl_, to thrill.
_Thirled_, thrilled, vibrated.
_Thole_, to suffer, to endure.
_Thowe_, a thaw, to thaw.
_Thowless_, slack, lazy.
_Thrang_, throng, busy, a crowd.
_Thrapple_, throat, windpipe.
_Thraw_, to sprain, to twist, to contradict.
_Thrawin'_, twisting, &c.
_Thrawn_, sprained, twisted, contradicted, contradiction.
_Threap_, to maintain by dint of assertion.
_Threshin'_, threshing; _threshin'-tree_, a flail.
_Threteen_, thirteen.
_Thristle_, thistle.
_Through_, to go on with, to make out.
_Throuther_, pell-mell, confusedly (through-ither).
_Thrum_, sound of a spinning-wheel in motion, the thread remaining at the
end of a web.
_Thud_, to make a loud intermittent noise.
_Thummart_, foumart, polecat
_Thumpit_, thumped.
_Thysel'_, thyself.
_Till't_, to it.
_Timmer_, timber.
_Tine_, to lose; _tint_, lost.
_Tinkler_, a tinker.
_Tip_, a ram.
_Tippence_, twopence, money.
_Tirl_, to make a slight noise, to uncover.
_Tirlin'_, _tirlet_, uncovering.
_Tither_, the other.
_Tittle_, to whisper, to prate idly.
_Tittlin_, whispering.
_Tocher_, marriage portion; _tocher bands_, marriage bonds.
_Tod_, a fox. _"Tod i' the fauld,"_ fox in the fold.
_Toddle_, to totter, like the walk of a child; _todlen-dow_, toddling dove.
_Too-fa'_, "Too fa' o' the nicht," when twilight darkens into night; a
building added, a lean-to.
_Toom_, empty.
_Toomed_, emptied.
_Toop_, a ram.
_Toss_, a toast.
_Tosie_, warm and ruddy with warmth, good-looking, intoxicating.
_Toun_, a hamlet, a farmhouse.
_Tout_, the blast of a horn or trumpet, to blow a horn or trumpet.
_Touzles_, _touzling_, romping, ruffling the clothes.
_Tow_, a rope.
_Towmond_, a twelvemonth.
_Towzie_, rough, shaggy.
_Toy_, a very old fashion of female head-dress.
_Toyte_, to totter like old age.
_Trams_, _barrow-trams_, the handles of a barrow.
_Transmugrified_, transmigrated, metamorphosed.
_Trashtrie_, trash, rubbish.
_Trickie_, full of tricks.
_Trig_, spruce, neat.
_Trimly_, cleverly, excellently, in a seemly manner.
_Trinle_, _trintle_, the wheel of a barrow, to roll.
_Trinklin_, trickling.
_Troggers_, _troggin'_, wandering merchants, goods to truck or dispose of.
_Trow_, to believe, to trust to.
_Trowth_, truth, a petty oath.
_Trysts_, appointments, love meetings, cattle shows.
_Tumbler-wheels_, wheels of a kind of low cart.
_Tug_, raw hide, of which in old time plough-traces were frequently made.
_Tug_ or _tow_, either in leather or rope.
_Tulzie_, a quarrel, to quarrel, to fight.
_Twa_, two; _twa-fald_, twofold.
_Twa-three_, a few.
_Twad_, it would.
_Twal_, twelve; _twalpennie worth_, a small quantity, a pennyworth.
--N.B. One penny English is 12d. Scotch.
_Twa faul_, twofold.
_Twin_, to part.
_Twistle_, twisting, the art of making a rope.
_Tyke_, a dog.
_Tysday_, Tuesday.
U.
_Unback'd filly_, a young mare hitherto unsaddled.
_Unco_, strange, uncouth, very, very great, prodigious.
_Uncos_, news.
_Unfauld_, unfold.
_Unkenn'd_, unknown.
_Unsicker_, uncertain, wavering, insecure.
_Unskaithed_, undamaged, unhurt.
_Upo'_, upon.
V.
_Vap'rin_, vapouring.
_Vauntie_, joyous, delight which cannot contain itself.
_Vera_, very.
_Virl_, a ring round a column, &c.
_Vogie_, vain.
W.
_Wa'_, wall; _wa's_, walls.
_Wabster_, a weaver.
_Wad_, would, to bet, a bet, a pledge.
_Wadna_, would not.
_Wadset_, land on which money is lent, a mortgage.
_Wae_, woe; _waefu'_, sorrowful, wailing.
_Waefu'-woodie_, hangman's rope.
_Waesucks! Wae's me!_, Alas! O the pity!
_Wa' flower_, wall-flower.
_Waft_, woof; the cross thread that goes from the shuttle through the web.
_Waifs an' crocks_, stray sheep and old ewes past breeding.
_Wair_, to lay out, to expend.
_Wale_, choice, to choose.
_Wal'd_, chose, chosen.
_Walie_, ample, large, jolly, also an exclamation of distress.
_Wame_, the belly.
_Wamefu'_, a bellyful.
_Wanchansie_, unlucky.
_Wanrest_, _wanrestfu'_, restless, unrestful.
_Wark_, work.
_Wark-lume_, a tool to work with.
_Warld's-worm_, a miser.
_Warle_, or _warld_, world.
_Warlock_, a wizard; _warlock-knowe_, a knoll where warlocks once held
tryste.
_Warly_, worldly, eager in amassing wealth.
_Warran'_, a warrant, to warrant.
_Warsle_, wrestle.
_Warsl'd_, or _warst'led_, wrestled.
_Wastrie_, prodigality.
_Wat_, wet; _I wat_--_I wot_--I know.
_Wat_, a man's upper dress; a sort of mantle.
_Water-brose_, brose made of meal and water simply, without the addition
of milk, butter, &c.
_Wattle_, a twig, a wand.
_Wauble_, to swing, to reel.
_Waukin_, waking, watching.
_Waukit_, thickened as fullers do cloth.
_Waukrife_, not apt to sleep.
_Waur_, worse, to worst.
_Waur't_, worsted.
_Wean_, a child.
_Weary-widdle_, toilsome contest of life.
_Weason_, weasand, windpipe.
_Weaven' the stocking_, to knit stockings.
_Weeder-clips_, instrument for removing weeds.
_Wee_, little; _wee things_, little ones, _wee bits_, a small matter.
_Weel_, well; _weelfare_, welfare.
_Weet_, rain, wetness; to wet.
_We'se_, we shall.
_Wha_, who.
_Whaizle_, to wheeze.
_Whalpit_, whelped.
_Whang_, a leathorn thing, a piece of cheese, bread, &c.
_Whare_, where; _whare'er_, wherever.
_Wheep_, to fly nimbly, to jerk, penny-wheep, small-beer.
_Whase_, _wha's_, whose--who is.
_What reck_, nevertheless.
_Whid_, the motion of a hare running but not frightened.--a lie.
_Whidden_, running as a hare or coney.
_Whigmeleeries_, whims, fancies, crotchets.
_Whilk_, which.
_Whingin'_, crying, complaining, fretting.
_Whirligigums_, useless ornaments, trifling appendages.
_Whissle_, a whistle, to whistle.
_Whisht_, silence; _to hold one's whisht_, to be silent.
_Whisk_, _whisket_, to sweep, to lash.
_Whiskin' beard_, a beard like the whiskers of a cat.
_Whiskit_, lashed, the motion of a horse's tail removing flies.
_Whitter_, a hearty draught of liquor.
_Whittle_, a knife.
_Whunstane_, a whinstone.
_Wi'_, with.
_Wick_, to strike a stone in an oblique direction, a term in curling.
_Widdifu_, twisted like a withy, one who merits hanging.
_Wiel_, a small whirlpool.
_Wifie-wifikie_, a diminutive or endearing name for wife.
_Wight_, stout, enduring.
_Willyart-glower_, a bewildered dismayed stare.
_Wimple-womplet_, to meander, meandered, to enfold.
_Wimplin_, waving, meandering.
_Win_', to wind, to winnow.
_Winnin'-thread_, putting thread into hanks.
_Win't_, winded as a bottom of yarn.
_Win_', wind.
_Win_, live.
_Winna_, will not.
_Winnock_, a window.
_Winsome_, hearty, vaunted, gay.
_Wintle_, a staggering motion, to stagger, to reel.
_Wiss_, to wish.
_Withouten_, without.
_Wizened_, hide-bound, dried, shrunk.
_Winze_, a curse or imprecation.
_Wonner_, a wonder, a contemptuous appellation.
_Woo_', wool.
_Woo_, to court, to make love to.
_Widdie_, a rope, more properly one of withs or willows.
_Woer-bobs_, the garter knitted below the knee with a couple of loops.
_Wordy_, worthy.
_Worset_, worsted.
_Wrack_, to tease, to vex.
_Wud_, wild, mad; _wud-mad_, distracted.
_Wumble_, a wimble.
_Wraith_, a spirit, a ghost, an apparition exactly like a living person,
whose appearance is said to forbode the person's approaching
death; also wrath.
_Wrang_, wrong, to wrong.
_Wreeth_, a drifted heap of snow.
_Wyliecoat_, a flannel vest.
_Wyte_, blame, to blame.
Y.
_Ye_, this pronoun is frequently used for thou.
_Yearns_, longs much.
_Yealings_, born in the same year, coevals.
_Year_, is used both for singular and plural, years.
_Yell_, barren, that gives no milk.
_Yerk_, to lash, to jerk.
_Yerket_, jerked, lashed.
_Yestreen_, yesternight.
_Yett_, a gate.
_Yeuk's_, itches.
_Yill_, ale.
_Yird, yirded_, earth, earthed, buried.
_Yokin_', yoking.
_Yont_, ayont, beyond.
_Yirr_, lively.
_Yowe_, an ewe.
_Yowie_, diminutive of _yowe._
_Yule_, Christmas.
THE END.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. - With a New Life of the Poet, and Notices, Critical and Biographical by Allan Cunningham" ***
Copyright 2023 LibraryBlog. All rights reserved.