the most heavenly of all his works.'1 To this paragon of female loveliness he makes special allusion in his Address to Edinburgh, as rating her among the wonders of the city: ADDRESS TO EDINBURGH. Edina! Scotia's darling seat! All hail thy palaces and towers, Here wealth still swells the golden tide, Bids elegance and splendour rise; Thy sons, Edina! social, kind, With open arms the stranger hail; Or modest merit's silent claim; Thy daughters bright thy walks adorn, And own his work indeed divine! There, watching high the least alarıns, Thy rough, rude fortress gleams afar; 1 Cunningham's Life of Burns. Notwithstanding the strong interest awakened in Burns so soon after his arrival in Edinburgh, and the high patronage exerted in his favour, it appears that he did not just at once overleap all the difficulties with respect to his proposed second edition which had obstructed his course in the country. The late Mr John Moir, printer, used to relate that he was then serving his apprenticeship with an eminent printer in the High Street. One day a plain-looking man, of rustic exterior, who afterwards proved to be Robert Burns, came to inquire about the printing of a volume of poems. Unluckily for the honest typographer, he looked upon his visitor as only some poor crackbrained versifier, who might give him a good deal of trouble, but was not likely to yield much solid return in the way of business. He therefore received the application with marked coldness, spoke of being a good deal engaged at present, and of his habit of requiring effective guarantees of payment from any strangers for whom he worked. The visitor, manifestly offended, went away, but not till he had taken occasion to pull out and shew a quantity of money sufficient to convince the printer that, if more favourably received, he might have proved a good customer in all desirable senses. This was not an end of the typographer's mortifications; for, being vexed at missing so good a job as the printing of Burns's poems, he resolved to lose no second customer of that sort who might come in his way, and he accordingly took the risk, soon after, of printing the productions of a rustic bard from Aberdeenshire, which, however, proving a complete failure, he lost fully as much by the one concern as he could have expected to gain by the other. TO MR WILLIAM CHALMERS, WRITER, AYR. EDINBURGH, December 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 forgot 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 Lessafter throwing him into a caldron 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 storytelling, 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 passed 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 good BURNS'S RECEPTION IN EDINBURGH. 25 ness 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. While spending his evenings with beauty, rank, and talent, Burns continued content with the share of John Richmond's room and bed.1 John helped him to transcribe his poems for the press, and, when he came in at night, jaded and excited, would read to him till he fell asleep. Richmond testified that he kept good hours, and observed the rules of sobriety. After a brief residence in town, his plain rustic garb gave way to a suit of blue and buff, the livery of Mr Fox, with buckskins and top-boots. He continued to wear his hair tied behind, and spread upon his forehead, but without the powder which was then nearly universal. On the whole, his appearance was modest and becoming. It was remarked that he shewed no sign of embarrassment in refined society, and that he took his part in conversation with freedom and energy, but without the least forwardness. The literati were surprised to find in what pure English and with how much eloquence he could express his ideas, and how glowing and brilliant these ideas often were. Principal Robertson declared that he had 'scarcely ever met with any man whose conversation displayed greater vigour than that of Burns.'2 His poems had, he acknowledged, surprised him; his prose compositions appeared even more wonderful; but the conversation was a marvel beyond all. We are thus left to understand that the best of Burns has not been, and was not of a nature to be, transmitted to posterity. Dr Currie mentions a fact as occurring at the close of 1787, which we must place a whole year earlier, for a reason which will, we trust, appear sufficient.3 'It appears,' he says, 'that on the 31st December he attended a meeting to celebrate the birthday 1 'In the first stair on the left hand, on entering the close [Baxter's Close, Lawnmarket], and on the first floor of the house, is the poet's lodging. The tradition of his residence there has passed through very few hands; the predecessor of the present tenant having learned it from Mrs Carfrae [Richmond's landlady], and the poet's room is pointed out with its window looking into Lady Stair's Close. The land is an ancient and very substantial building, with large and neatly-moulded windows, retaining the marks of having been finished with stone mullions. From this ancient dwelling Burns issued to dine or sup with the magnates of the land..... The poet's lodging is a large and well-proportioned room, neatly panelled with wood, according to a fashion then by no means antiquated.'— Wilson's Memorials of Edinburgh (4to, 1848), vol. i. p. 166. 2 Heron's Life of Burns. 3 The reason is, that, on the 31st December 1787, Burns was confined to his room with a bruised limb, therefore could not have attended any convivial meeting on that day. Before any subsequent 31st of December, Prince Charles Edward, whose birthday occasioned the meeting, was no more, and Burns had ceased to live in Edinburgh. of the lineal descendant of the Scottish race of kings, the late unfortunate Prince Charles Edward.' We have Burns's own authority for saying that Jacobitism was not a deep feeling in his mind. It was nevertheless a sentiment which he at this time took no pains to conceal. See a passage in the Address to Edinburgh composed during this very month, and soon after published. A romantic feeling regarding his country and its ancient independent condition, an antipathy towards the representatives of the old religious Whigs of Scotland, a sympathy springing from his own circumstances with all that was depressed by or in opposition to fortune-perhaps a shade of manly impatience with the cant of loyalty, as indulged in at that day—appear to have combined, with some notion about his own ancestral history, to throw Burns into this vain and insubstantial profession. Charles Edward was still alive, but lost in the sottishness which so sadly fell upon a mind once ardent and apparently capable of better things. A few generous souls, perhaps none of them of very high standing in society, kept his memory alive by an annual symposium on his birthday. On the present occasion, they were favoured with the attendance of Burns in the capacity of their poet-laureate, and he accordingly produced an ode of which Dr Currie has preserved a few stanzas: 1 * * Nor think to lure us as in days of yore; Ye honoured mighty dead! Who nobly perished in the glorious cause, Your king, your country, and her laws! From great Dundee who smiling victory led, And fell a martyr in her arms (What breast of northern ice but warms?) To bold Balmerino's undying name, Whose soul of fire, lighted at heaven's high flame, Deserves the proudest wreath departed heroes claim. Nor unavenged your fate shall be, It only lags the fatal hour; 1 To go no further, the magnanimity of the Prince in 1745 towards all of his enemies who fell in his power, forms a bright point in his character, and one to which full justice has never yet been done in public opinion. 2 In the first part of this ode there is some beautiful imagery, which the poet afterwards interwove in the Chevalier's Lament.'-CURRIE. |