TO MISS MABANE.1 Saturday Noon, No. 2 St James's Square, 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. TO SIR JOHN WHITEFOORD. [Edinburgh, December 1787.] SIR-Mr Mackenzie, in Mauchline, my very warm and worthy friend,2 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 patronised 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, 1 This lady became Mrs Colonel Wright, and died in Edinburgh many years ago. The original of the letter is in the possession of Mr J. R. Forrest, upholsterer, Edinburgh. 2 This excellent man afterwards practised for many years as a surgeon in Irvine. After having attained the highest honours of the magistracy in that burgh, he retired in 1827 to Edinburgh, where he died, January 11, 1837, at an advanced age. It will be recollected that Burns was introduced by Mr Mackenzie to the notice of Mr Dugald Stewart. BURNS AND CREECH. 173 that you will do me the justice to believe this letter is not the manœuvre 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 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 unhumanly 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. This is an interesting and valuable letter, as shewing the sense which Burns had of his situation at the present crisis. He saw already the false position in which an unendowed man of genius stands in the worldly scene, if he will not or cannot condescend to some ordinary gainful employment. He rejoiced that the labours of the plough stood between him and dependence or want. We find here, too, that calumny had been busy with the name of the poet, pointing particularly to his assumed religious deficiencies, and apparently condemning him also on the score of probity. With the same warmth which caused him scornfully to repel reproach, we see him pour forth his gratitude to his defender. Burns had returned to Edinburgh after his summer visit to Ayrshire, mainly that he might obtain a settlement of accounts with Mr Creech. The autumn had worn into winter, and still this consummation so devoutly to be wished appeared as remote as ever. It was a great inconvenience, and even misfortune to the poet, to be thus held in idle suspense; for meanwhile he was at once spending his means, relaxing the spring of industrious occupation, and exposing himself to the depraving influences of an over-gay society. Burns, we know, felt at the time great indignation at the delays of Creech, and would not now have written to him in the same strain as from Selkirk in the preceding May. There is a great want of clear light as to the commercial relations of Burns with his publisher. One thing is notorious respecting the latter-that he never settled an account till it had become a kind of impossibility to withstand the energy of the creditor. He was one of those men whose foible it is to pay most of their accounts with some little addition of law expenses incurred in bringing them to open their purses, though the said purses may be all the time far from ill supplied with money. This might seem enough to explain the delay of settlement with Burns; but, on the other hand, the time which had elapsed since the publication of the volume was not such as to appear very long in the affairs of publishing—the ordinary practice of a bookseller who issues a book for an author being to render accounts annually, at June 30 or December 31, always upwards of six months from the day of publication, and pay only six months thereafter. If Creech had acted as publisher for Burns on this footing, there would have been nothing unusual in his still delaying payment; the money, indeed, for sales previous to June, would not have been due till the middle of the ensuing year. But we know that Burns's poems were published by subscription, Creech taking five hundred copies at the same rate as the other subscribers, with the view of selling them at one shilling of advance by way of profit. The publisher must have received the money due from a large proportion of the subscribers; and for this, as well as the price of his own copies (£125), it might be alleged that he was bound to pay immediately. He, on the other hand, would probably have to shew that much was still unpaid to him by the public; and, if there were even a doubt on this point in his favour, he would be sure to take advantage of it. However matters actually stood, it is clear that Burns was excited to great anger by the delay of the settlement. And we must all see reason to deplore, either that he expected a settlement so soon, or that Creech put it off. Perhaps it would have been the most advisable course for Burns to have lived quietly with his brother at Mossgiel, leaving the profits of his book to be realised by some legal deputy. The time might have been improved BURNS MEETS MRS M'LEHOSE. 175 by his writing fresh poems in the style of his Halloween, his Cotter, his Epistles, which would have been to him a fresh source of wealth. That he did not take this course, may we not set it down in part to the very absence of those temptations which we are now apt to deplore as making literary men mercenary? Had Burns been tempted to fresh labours, even say it were by no higher motive than the desire of increasing his capital with a view to farming, it would have at least saved him in some degree from the dissipation of these precious months, and the increased bondage of self-indulgent habits. The industrious, we may be well assured, would have been the moral as well as the profitable course. He had at length, early in December, resolved on leaving Edinburgh, at least temporarily, when an accident occurred to detain him. Let it first be mentioned that, at the same crisis, he made the acquaintance of his celebrated CLARINDA. This was a lady of exactly his own age, who, having been unhappily married to a man devoid of humanity and just moral feeling, was obliged to live separately from him, in obscurity, and almost indigence, while bringing up her young family. The grand-niece of Colin Maclaurin, the friend of Newton-the cousin-german of Lord Craig, who was associated with Mackenzie in the composition of The Mirror-Agnes Craig might well be a woman of intellect superior to the generality of her sex. Her husband, Mr James M'Lehose, was now pushing his fortune in the West Indies, reckless of what might befall his wife or children. Of a somewhat voluptuous style of beauty, of lively and easy manners, of a poetical fabric of mind, with some wit, and not too high a degree of refinement or delicacy, Mrs M'Lehose was exactly the kind of woman to fascinate Burns. She might indeed be described as the town-bred or lady analogue of the country maidens who had exercised the greatest power over him in his earlier days. He, on the other hand, overcoming by his bright intelligence and its éclatant fruits all the vulgarities of fortune, was calculated to make a deep impression on a heart so susceptible as hers. A Miss Nimmo, an elderly lady with whom Burns seems to have become acquainted through Miss Chalmers, was a friend also of Mrs M'Lehose; and in her house, in consequence of the special request of the lady, the two met at tea about the 4th of December. Their epistolary correspondence was immediately commenced. TO MRS M'LEHOSE. Thursday Evening [Dec. 6, 1787.] MADAM-I had set no small store by my tea-drinking to-night, and have not often been so disappointed. Saturday evening I shall embrace the opportunity with the greatest pleasure. I leave town this day se'ennight, and probably for a couple of twelvemonths; but must ever regret that I so lately got an acquaintance I shail ever highly esteem, and in whose welfare I shall ever be warmly interested. Our worthy common friend, in her usual pleasant way, rallied me a good deal on my new acquaintance, and in the humour of her ideas I wrote some lines, which I enclose you, as I think they have a good deal of poetic merit; and Miss [Nimmo] tells me you are not only a critic, but a poetess. Fiction, you know, is the native region of poetry; and I hope you will pardon my vanity in sending you the bagatelle as a tolerable off-hand jeu d'esprit. I have several poetic trifles, which I shall gladly leave with Miss [Nimmo] or you, if they were worth house-room; as there are scarcely two people on earth by whom it would mortify me more to be forgotten, though at the distance of ninescore miles. I am, madam, with the highest respect, your very humble servant, On Saturday the 8th, as implied in this letter, he was to have drunk tea at Mrs M'Lehose's house; but the night before he was overset by a drunken coachman, and sent home to Mr Cruikshank's with a severely bruised knee. The feelings with which the lady had inspired him at the first interview, and the interest with which he had looked forward to a second meeting, are expressed in his note of apology for non-appearance at her table: TO MRS M'LEHOSE. Saturday Even. [Dec. 8.] I can say with truth, madam, that I never met with a person in my life whom I more anxiously wished to meet again than yourself. To-night I was to have had that very great pleasure-I was intoxicated with the idea; but an unlucky fall from a coach has so bruised one of my knees, that I can't stir my leg off the cushion. So, if I don't see you again, I shall not rest in my grave for chagrin. I was vexed to the soul I had not seen you sooner. I determined to cultivate your friendship with the enthusiasm of religion; but thus has Fortune ever served me. I cannot bear the idea of leaving Edinburgh without seeing you. I know not how to account for it-I am strangely taken with some people, nor am I often mistaken. You are a stranger to me; but I am an odd being. Some yet unnamed feelings things, not principles, but better than whims-carry me farther than boasted reason ever did a philosopher. Farewell! every happiness be yours. ROBERT BURNS. Mrs M'Lehose answered on the spur of the moment in a frank, genial letter, offering her sympathy, her friendship, as an allevia |