The Letters of Robert Burns
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Robert Burns >> The Letters of Robert Burns
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[Footnote 143: Songs for his publication. Burns goes through the
whole; but only his remarks of any importance are presented here.]
[Footnote 144: It is believed to have been his own composition.]
* * * * *
XV.
_September_ 1793.
"Who shall decide when doctors disagree?" My ode[145] 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 scrutinised 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.
[Footnote 145: Scots wha hae.]
* * * * *
XVI.
_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-by. 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, (etc.)
* * * * *
XVII.
_Sept_. 1794.
I shall withdraw my "On the seas and far away" altogether; it is
unequal, and unworthy of 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 and try him.
For that reason I have sent 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 it ever saw the light. About seven years ago I was well
acquainted with a worthy little fellow of a clergyman, a Mr. Clunie, who
sung 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, (etc.)
I shall give you my opinion of your other newly adopted songs, my first
scribbling fit.
* * * * *
XVIII.
19_th 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, "Craigie-burn 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, a 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
clishmaclaiver 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 divine
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 on 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 enclosed stanzas of mine, altered a little from what they
were formerly when set to another air, may perhaps do instead of
worse stanzas.
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 if it were. It appeared first in the _Edinburgh
Herald_; and came to the editor of that paper with the Newcastle
post-mark on it[146]
"Whistle o'er the lave o't" is mine; the music is 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 redwud
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 lang 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 the room, and have arranged it anew, as you will find on the
other page.
Tune--_Cauld Kail in Aberdeen_.
How lang and dreary is the night, (etc.)
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.
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.
[Footnote 146:
"Keen blaws the wind o'er Donocht head,
The snaw drives snelly thro' the dale,
The Gaberlunzie tirls my sneck,
And, shivering, tells his waefu' tale.
"Cauld is the night, O let me in,
And dinna let your minstrel fa',
And dinna let his winding-sheet
Be naething but a wreath o' snaw."(etc.)]
* * * * *
XIX.
_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, etc., for
your work. I intend drawing it 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, etc., 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 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:--
My Chloris, mark how green the groves, (etc,)
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
chlre 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!
* * * * *
XX.
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 modernised 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 as follows.[147]
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 shew 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 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.
[Footnote 147: Our Bard remarks upon it, "I could easily throw this
into an English mould; but, to my taste, in the simple and the tender
of the pastoral song, a sprinkling of the old Scottish has an
inimitable effect."]
* * * * *
XXI.
19_th Nov_. 1794.
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 composed 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 up 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 ventiges on the upper side, and one back ventige,
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.
* * * * *
XXII.
_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, etc.,
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.
FOR A' THAT AND A' THAT.
Is there for honest poverty, (etc.)
* * * * *
XXIII.
Ecclefechan,[148] 7_th Feb_. 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 I 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.
[Footnote 148: The birthplace of Carlyle.]
* * * * *
XXIV.
You see how I answer your orders; your tailor could not be more
punctual. I am just now in a high fit of poetising, 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 frenzy 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.
* * * *
XXV.
_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 a 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 and married and 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 quite a
virago, if you take her stooping into the account, she is at least two
inches taller than her lover. Poor Cleghorn! I sincerely sympathise with
him! Happy am I to think that he yet has a well-grounded hope of health
and enjoyment in this world. As for me--but that is a damning subject!
* * * * *
XXVI.
[_Probably May_ 1796.]
My Dear Sir,--Inclosed is a certificate which (although little different
from the model) I suppose will amply answer the purpose, and I beg you
will prosecute the miscreants[149] without mercy. When your publication
is finished, I intend publishing a collection, on a cheap plan, of all
the songs I have written for you, The Museum, and others--at least, all
the songs of which I wish to be called the author. I do not propose this
so much in the way of emolument as to do justice to my muse, lest I
should be blamed for trash I never saw, or be defrauded by false
claimants of what is justly my own. The post is going.--I will write you
again to-morrow. Many thanks for the beautiful seal.
R. B.
[Footnote 149: For infringement of copyright.]
* * * * *
XXVII.
BROW-ON-SOLWAY, 4_th July_ 1796.
My Dear Sir,--I received your songs; but my health is so precarious,
nay, dangerously situated, that, as a last effort, I am here at
sea-bathing quarters. Besides an inveterate rheumatism, my appetite is
quite gone, and I am so emaciated as to be scarce able to support myself
on my own legs. Alas! Is this a time for me to woo the muses? However, I
am still anxiously willing to serve your work, and if possible shall
try. I would not like to see another employed--unless you could lay your
hand upon a poet whose productions would be equal to the rest. Farewell,
and God bless you.
R. BURNS.
* * * * *
XXVIII.
BROW, on the Solway Firth, 12_th 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
"Rothiemurchie" 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![150]
Fairest maid on Devon banks,
Crystal Devon, winding Devon,
Wilt thou lay that frown aside,
And smile as thou wert wont to do? (etc.)
[Footnote 150: These verses, and the letter inclosing them, are
written in a character that marks the very feeble state of
their author.]
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