The Letters of Robert Burns
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Robert Burns >> The Letters of Robert Burns
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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.
* * * * *
CXLIX.--To MR. CUNNINGHAM, WRITER, EDINBURGH.
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
foolscap 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 yokefellow of a foot-padding
exciseman--I make a vow to inclose 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
Queensberry 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, etc., etc.
_Sunday, 14th February 1790._
God help me! I am now obliged to join
Night to day, and Sunday to the week.
If there be any truth in the orthodox faith of these churches, I am
damn'd past redemption, and what is worse, damn'd to all eternity. I am
deeply read in Boston's _Four-fold State_, Marshal _On Sanctification_,
Guthrie's _Trial of a Saving Interest_, etc., 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 cares 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, etc., 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.
* * * * *
CL.--To MR. HILL, BOOKSELLER, EDINBURGH.
ELLISLAND, _2nd 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. Gib, 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 nor 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, Gibber'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 get together, etc.
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 sins 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.
* * * * *
CLI.--To MRS. DUNLOP.
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," etc., 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," etc.--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
wrong-headedness. 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 Stanhopian 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 ecstacy 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 for 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 you not 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,
Antony, 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 as I have got the most
hurried season of Excise business over, I hope to have more leisure to
transcribe any thing that may show how much I have the honour to be,
Madam, yours, etc.
R. B.
* * * * *
CLII.--To DR. JOHN MOORE, LONDON.
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
over-weening 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; but 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, etc., wherever I meet with an original thought, a nervous
remark on life and manners, a remarkably 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 Revelation--"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 idea of the comparative excellence of her pieces.[112] 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.
[Footnote 112: Sonnets of Charlotte Smith.]
* * * * *
CLIII.--To MR. MURDOCH,[113] TEACHER OF FRENCH, LONDON.
ELLISLAND, _July_ 16_th_, 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.
[Footnote 113: He had been Burns's schoolmaster at Mount Oliphant.]
* * * * *
CLIV.--To MR. CUNNINGHAM.
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.
* * * * *
CLV.--To MR. CRAUFORD TAIT,[114] W.S., EDINBURGH.
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, the 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.[115] 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.
[Footnote 114: Son of Mr. Tait of Harviestoun, where Burns was a
happy guest in the Autumn of 1787. He was also father of the late
Archbishop Tait.]
[Footnote 115: Miss Peggy Chalmers.]
* * * * *
CLVL.--To MRS. DUNLOP.
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.
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