LETTER TO DR MOORE. The tane is game, a bluidie devil, The tither's something dour o' treadin', Observe the very nowte and sheep, Oh Eighty-nine, thou's but a bairn, money cattle dull wept Nae hand-cuffed, muzzled, hap-shackled Regent,2 Be sure ye follow out the plan Nae waur than he did, honest man! As muckle better as you can. 307 A letter to Dr Moore acquaints us with the views of Burns at this time. Already fearful about his farm, he was using influence to obtain an Excise appointment for the district in which he resided. He develops to the amiable novelist his opinions as to literary labour, which are remarkably sound and judicious, and his desire to continue in the worship of the Muse, but not to be too eager for a reappearance before the public. TO DR MOORE. ELLISLAND, 4th Jan. 1789. SIR-As often as I think of writing to you, which has been three or four times every week these six months, it gives me something so like the idea of an ordinary-sized statue offering at a conversation with the Rhodian colossus, that my mind misgives me, and the affair always miscarries somewhere between purpose and resolve. I have at last got some business with you, and business letters are written 1 The Edinburgh newspapers of this period contain many references to a scarcity of water, in consequence of severe frost. 2 The king having shewn symptoms of unsound mind in November, the public was at this time agitated with discussions as to the choice of a regent. by the style-book. I say my business is with you, sir; for you never had any with me, except the business that benevolence has in the mansion of poverty. The character and employment of a poet were formerly my pleasure, but are now my pride. I know that a very great deal of my late éclat was owing to the singularity of my situation, and the honest prejudice of Scotsmen; but still, as I said in the preface to my first edition, I do look upon myself as having some pretensions from nature to the poetic character. I have not a doubt but the knack, the aptitude to learn the muses' trade, is a gift bestowed by Him who forms the secret bias of the soul; but I as firmly believe that excellence in the profession is the fruit of industry, labour, attention, and pains-at least I am resolved to try my doctrine by the test of experience. Another appearance from the press I put off to a very distant day-a day that may never arrive; but poesy I am determined to prosecute with all my vigour. Nature has given very few, if any, of the profession the talents of shining in every species of composition. I shall try (for until trial it is impossible to know) whether she has qualified me to shine in any one. The worst of it is, by the time one has finished a piece, it has been so often viewed and reviewed before the mental eye, that one loses in a good measure the powers of critical discrimination. Here the best criterion I know is a friend, not only of abilities to judge, but with good-nature enough, like a prudent teacher with a young learner, to praise perhaps a little more than is exactly just, lest the thin-skinned animal fall into that most deplorable of all poetic diseases-heart-breaking despondency of himself. Dare I, sir, already immensely indebted to your goodness, ask the additional obligation of your being that friend to me? I enclose you an essay of mine, in a walk of poesy to me entirely new ; I mean the Epistle addressed to R. G., Esq., or Robert Graham of Fintry, Esq., a gentleman of uncommon worth, to whom I lie under very great obligations. The story of the poem, like most of my poems, is connected with my own story; and to give you the one I must give you something of the other. I cannot boast of Mr Creech's ingenuous fair-dealing to me. He kept me hanging about Edinburgh from the 7th August 1787 until the 13th April 1788, before he would condescend to give me a statement of affairs; nor had I got it even then, but for an angry letter I wrote him, which irritated his pride. 'I could' not 'a tale,' but a detail 'unfold;' but what am I that should speak against the Lord's anointed Bailie of Edinburgh? I believe I shall in whole, £100 copyright included, clear about £400 some little odds; and even part of this depends upon what the gentleman has yet to settle with me. I give you this information, because you did me the honour to interest yourself much in my welfare. I give you this information, but I give it to yourself only; for I am still much in the gentleman's mercy. Perhaps I injure the man in the idea I am sometimes tempted to have of him: God forbid I should! A little time will try, for in a month I shall go to town to wind up the business, if possible. LETTER TO MR ROBERT AINSLIE. 309 To give the rest of my story in brief: I have married 'my Jean,' and taken a farm. With the first step, I have every day more and more reason to be satisfied; with the last, it is rather the reverse. I have a younger brother, who supports my aged mother; another still younger brother, and three sisters, in a farm. On my last return from Edinburgh, it cost me about £180 to save them from ruin. Not that I have lost so much: I only interposed between my brother and his impending fate by the loan of so much. I give myself no airs on this, for it was mere selfishness on my part: I was conscious that the wrong scale of the balance was pretty heavily charged, and I thought that throwing a little filial piety and fraternal affection into the scale in my favour, might help to smooth matters at the grand reckoning. There is still one thing would make my circumstances quite easy: I have an Excise-officer's commission, and I live in the midst of a country division. My request to Mr Graham, who is one of the commissioners of Excise, was, if in his power, to procure me that division. If I were very sanguine, I might hope that some of my great patrons might procure me a treasury-warrant for supervisor, surveyor-general, &c. Thus, secure of a livelihood, 'to thee, sweet Poetry, delightful maid,' I would consecrate my future days. R. B. TO MR ROBERT AINSLIE. ELLISLAND, January 6, 1789. Many happy returns of the season to you, my dear sir. May you be comparatively happy, up to your comparative worth, among the sons of men; which wish would, I am sure, make you one of the most blest of the human race. I do not know if passing a 'writer to the Signct' be a trial of scientific merit, or a mere business of friends and interest. However it be, let me quote you my two favourite passages, which, though I have repeated them ten thousand times, still they rouse my manhood, and steel my resolution like inspiration : -On Reason build resolve, That column of true majesty in man.-Young. Hear, Alfred, hero of the state, Thy genius heaven's high will declare; The triumph of the truly great, Is never, never to despair! Is never to despair.-Masque of Alfred. I grant you enter the lists of life to struggle for bread, business, notice, and distinction, in common with hundreds. But who are they? Men like yourself, and of that aggregate body your compeers, seven-tenths of them come short of your advantages, natural and accidental; while two of those that remain, either neglect their parts, as flowers blooming in a desert, or misspend their strength like a bull goring a bramble bush. But to change the theme: I am still catering for Johnson's publication; and among others, I have brushed up the following old favourite song a little, with a view to your worship. I have only altered a word here and there; but if you like the humour of it, we shall think of a stanza or two to add to it.1 R. B. 1 The name of the song here alluded to has not been ascertained. APPENDIX. No. 10 (p. 33).-ADDITIONAL STANZAS OF THE VISION, &C. A MANUSCRIPT of ten leaves, in Burns's handwriting, was till lately in possession of William Allason Cunninghame, Esq. of Logan House, grandson of Mrs General Stewart of Stair. It contains The Vision unabridged, as it stood in 1786-The Gloomy Night is Gathering Fast-The Lass of Ballochmyle-My Nanie O-Handsome_Nell— Song in the Character of a Ruined Farmer-Song, Though Cruel Fate should bid us Part-and Misgivings of Despondency on the Approach of the Gloomy Monarch of the Grave; all of them being poems which did not appear in the first edition, but most of which were inserted in the Edinburgh, or second edition. From allusions, the MS. was undoubtedly written after July 1786, and before the Edinburgh edition came out. It seems to be the MS. which Burns sent to Mrs Stewart of Stair, when contemplating his West-India voyage (see Vol. I. p. 298.) By the liberality of Mr Dick, bookseller, Ayr, present proprietor of the MS., we are enabled to present such portions of its contents as have not seen the light: ADDITIONAL STANZAS OF THE VISION.' After 18th stanza of printed copies: With secret throes I marked that earth, That cottage, witness of my birth; And near I saw, bold issuing forth A Lindsay, race of noble worth, Famed far and wide. 1 Sundrum.-B. Mr Hamilton of Sundrum was married to a sister of Colonel Montgomery of Coilsfield; consequently, Burns felt a great interest in the family. The female pair were Misses Lillias and Margaret Hamilton, the latter of whom still lives (1851.) |