The Letters of Robert Burns

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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 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, etc.[116]

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.[116a] 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.

[Footnote 116: See Poems.]

[Footnote 116a: A Supervisor of Excise.]

* * * *

CLVIL.--To MR. WILLIAM DUNBAR, W.S.

ELLISLAND, 17_th January_ 1791.

I am not gone to Elysium, most noble Colonel,[117] 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 farther 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.

[Footnote 117: Colonel of Volunteers.]

* * * * *

CLVIIL.--To MR. PETER HILL.

ELLISLAND, 17_th January_ 1791.

Take these two guineas, and place them over against that damn'd 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 misery 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 or 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 contamely 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!...

* * * * *

Well! divines may say of it what they please; but execration is to the
mind, what phlebotomy is to the body; the overloaded sluices of both are
wonderfully relieved by their respective evacuations.

R. B.

* * * *

CLIX.--To DR. MOORE.

ELLISLAND, 28_th January_ 1791.

I do not know, Sir, whether you are a subscriber to Grose's _Antiquities
of Scotland_. If you are, the inclosed 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 patronise, are still employed in the way
you wish.

The _Elegy on Captain Henderson_ is a tribute to the memory of the 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 above the
rest; and one or two, 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, his _dramatis personae_ 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. T 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, etc.,

R. B.

Written on the blank leaf of a book which I presented to a very young
lady, whom I had formerly characterised under the denomination of _The
Rose Bud._[118]

[Footnote 118: See Poems---"Lines to Miss Cruikshank."]

* * * * *

CLX.--To MRS. DUNLOP.

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,[118a] he is, partiality apart, the finest boy I have of 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.

[Footnote 118a: The infant was Francis Wallace, the Poet's second
son.]

* * * * *

CLXI.--To THE REV. ARCH. ALISON.

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 Jews-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 inclose you some poetic bagatelles of my late composition. The one in
print is my first essay in the way of telling a tale.--I am, Sir, etc.

R. B.

* * * * *

CLXII.--TO THE REV. G. BAIRD.

ELLISLAND, 1791.

Reverend Sir,--Why did you, my dear Sir, write to me in such a
hesitating style on the business of poor Bruce?[119] 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[120] 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.

[Footnote 119: Michael Bruce, a young poet of Kinross-Shire.]

[Footnote 120: _Tam o' Shanter_ included! It was refused!!]

* * * * *

CLXIII.--TO MR. CUNNINGHAM, WRITER, EDINBURGH.

ELLISLAND, 2_th March_ 1791.

If the foregoing piece be worth your strictures, let me have them. For
my own part, a thing 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 my 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.

* * * * *

CLXIV.--TO MRS. DUNLOP.

ELLISLAND, 11_th 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 an 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.

* * * * *

CLXV.--TO MR. CUNNINGHAM.

11_th 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 every thing 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.[121] 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 unexceptionally always, 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 civilised 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 plague 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. Clarice, 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.

[Footnote 121: Dr. Robertson, uncle to Mr. Alexander Cunningham.]

* * * * *

CLXVL--To MR. THOMAS SLOAN.[122]

ELLISLAND, _Sept. 1st_, 1791.

My Dear Sloan,--Suspense is worse than disappointment; for that reason I
hurry to tell you that I just now learn that Mr. Ballantine 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.

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