What tho' they ca' me fornicator, Sweet fruit o' monie a merry dint, Which fools may scoff at; And if thou be what I wad hae thee, If thou be spar'd: Thro' a' thy childish years I'll e'e thee, Gude grant that thou may aye inherit Without his failin's, "Twill please me mair to hear and see't Than stockit mailens. [The Poet's welcome to an Illegitimate Child was composed on the same occasion [as the preceding]-a piece in which some very manly feelings are expressed, along with others which it can give no one pleasure to contemplate. There is a song in honour of the same occasion, or a similar one, about the same period, The rantin dog the Daddie o't, which exhibits the poet as glorying, and only glorying, in his shame. "When I consider his tender affection for the surviving members of his own family, and the reverence with which he ever regarded the memory of the father whom he had so recently buried, I cannot believe that Burns has thought fit to record in verse all the feelings which this exposure excited in his bosom. To wave (in his own language) the quantum of the sin,' he who, two years afterwards, wrote the Cotter's Saturday Night had not, we may be sure, hardened his heart to the thought of bringing additional sorrow and unexpected shame to the fire-side of a widowed mother. But his false pride recoiled from letting his jovial associates guess how little he was able to drown the whispers of the still small voice; and the fermenting bitterness of a mind ill at ease within itself escaped (as may be too often traced in the history VAR.-Our billie, Roв, has ta'en a jink.-M.S. Lament him a' ye rantin' core, For now he's taen anither shore, t The bonnie lasses weel may wiss him, For weel I wat they'll sairly miss him fortune, they hae room to grumble! Hadst thou ta'en aff some drowsy bummle Wha can do nought but fyke and fumble, "Twad been nae plea; But he was gleg as onie wumble, Auld, cantie Kyle may weepers wear, Our billie Roв has ta'en a jink. The poem must, therefore, have been written in 1786. An old man of the west of Scotland, who still lives to remember him with affection, says He was subject to great fluctuation of spirits--sometimes he was so depressed that he would shun his most intimate friends; and when observing any one he knew approaching him on the road, he hesitated not to leap over a hedge, or strike into another path, to avoid being disturbed.' He was at such periods as likely to be in a poetic reverie as in a melancholy one."]-CUNNINGHAM. Verses written under violent Grief. ACCEPT the gift a friend sincere Wad on thy worth be pressin' ; Remembrance oft may start a tear, But oh! that tenderness forbear, Though 'twad my sorrows lessen. * VAR.-Then fare-ye-weel, my rhyming billie !-M.S. The Bard's illegitimate daughter, My morning raise sae clear and fair, I thought sair storms wad never Bedew the scene; but grief and care In wildest fury hae made bare My peace, my hope, for ever! You think I'm glad; oh, I pay weel My deeply ranklin' sorrow. Farewell! within thy bosom free ["The above verses appear to have been written in the distressing summer of 1786, when the poet's prospects were at the dreariest, and the very wife of his fondest affection had forsaken him. From the time, and other circumstances, we may conjecture that the present alluded to was a copy of the Kilmarnock edition of the poems, then newly published."-CHAMBERS.] The Farewell. "The valiant in himself, what can he suffer? Thomson's EDWARD AND ELEANORA I. FAREWELL, old Scotia's bleak domains, Far dearer than the torrid plains Where rich ananas blow! Farewell, a mother's blessing dear! A brother's sigh! a sister's tear! My Jean's heart-rending throe! My Smith, my bosom frien'; II. What bursting anguish tears my heart! From thee, my Jeannie, must I part! Thou, weeping, answ'rest, "No!" James Smith, Merchant, in Mauchline--the same person to whom one of the Poet's best Epistles is addressed. Alas! misfortune stares my face, Wafts me from thee, dear shore! I'll never see thee more! [These very touching stanzas were composed in the Autumn of 1786, when the prospects of the poet darkened, and he looked towards the West-Indies as a place of refuge, and perhaps of hope. He alludes to every one who shared his affections:-his mother—his brother Gilbert -his illegitimate child Elizabeth,-whom he consigned to his brother's care, and for whose support he had appropriated the copyright of his Poems, and to his friends Smith, Hamilton, and Aiken; but in nothing he ever wrote was his affection for Jean Armour more tenderly or more naturally displayed. The verses were first published in the Rev. Hamilton Paul's edition of the works of Burns-their authenticity is unquestionable.] A Dedication to Gavin Hamilton, Esq. Then when I'm tir'd-and sae are ye, This may do-maun do, sir, wi' them wha Gavin Hamilton, Esq., and Robert Aiken, Esq. These gentlemen were at this period the chief advisers and patrons of the Poet. I readily and freely grant But then, nae thanks to him for a' that; Learn three-mile pray'rs, an' half-mile graces, O ye wha leave the springs o' Calvin, Your pardon, Sir, for this digression, So, Sir, ye see 'twas nae daft vapour, When a' my works I did review, I thought them something like yoursel'. Then patronize them wi' your favour, I'm baith dead-sweer, an' wretched ill o't; I will not wind a lang conclusion But if (which pow'rs above prevent) [In a copy of this "Dedication," in the Poet's hand-writing, the circumstance of riding on the sabbath-day is thus neatly introduced: : "He sometimes gallops on a Sunday, An' pricks the beast as if 't were Monday." [John Hamilton, Esquire, now residing in London-a worthy scion of a noble stock.] "I regard this poem as one of Burns's very best. There is a great deal of humour and good nature in it."-HOGG. "The epistles of Burns, in which may be included his Dedication to Gavin Hamilton, Esq., discover, like his other writings, the powers of a superior understanding. They display deep insight into human nature, a gay and happy strain of reflection, great independence of sentiment and generosity of heart."—CURRIE. Gavin Hamilton, the steady friend of the poet, was descended from the Hamiltons of Kype in Lanark-shire. "It is related of the laird of Kype, that he was once paying a visit to the Duke of Hamilton, when his Grace inquired in what degree he was related to the ducal house, and whereabouts in the family tree the race of Kype was to be found. It would be needless to seek the root among the branches,' answered the haughty laird, who perhaps had some pretensions to be of the principal stock of the Hamiltons, or knew, at least, that the claims of the ducal house to the chieftainship were by no means clear."-CHAMBERS. ELEGY ON The Death of Robert Ruisseaux. Nae mair shall fear him; Nor anxious fear, nor cankert care, E'er mair come near him. To tell the truth, they seldom fash't him, Except the moment that they crush't him : For sune as chance or fate had hush't 'em, Tho' e'er sae short, Then wi' a rhyme or song he lash't 'em, And thought it sport. Tho' he was bred to kintra wark, But tell him, he was learn'd and clark, [Cromek found this fragment among the papers of Burns, and printed it in the Reliques, with the intimation only that Ruisseaux was a play upon the Poet's own name. It is probably a portion of a poem in which he desired to dissect himself, and shew his evil and his good to the world; but, not having commenced so happily as he wished, he threw it aside, and resumed the subject in that noble and touching strain, “A Bard's Epitaph."-" He meets us in his compositions," says Campbell, “undisguised as a peasant; at the same time his observations go extensively into life, like those of a man who felt the proper dignity of human nature in the character of a peasant." Perhaps of all poets Burns poured most of himself into poetry. Byron appears in his verse as in a mask, and never comes fairly and unhesitatingly forward; of Scott, "Some saw an arm, and some a hand, And some the waving of a gown." Of Campbell personally we know nothing from his verse; nor has Southey shewn himself. Burns painted his own portrait, and did it so darkly that others have presumptuously increased the gloom in their delineations of his character. ALLAN CUNNINGHAM.] Letter to James Tait, OF GLENCONNER. AULD Comrade dear, and brither sinner, My heart-warm love to guid auld Glen,- My auld schoolfellow, preacher Willie, A good chiel wi' a pickle siller. ROB THE RANTER.* [Tait, of Glenconner, accompanied Burns to Nithsdale in 1788, and advised him respecting the farm of Ellisland." I am just returned," says the Poet to a correspondent, "from Miller's farm. My old friend, whom I took with me, was highly pleased with the bargain, and advised me to accept of it. He is the most intelligent, sensible farmer in the county, and his advice has staggered me a good deal." To a correspondent of another complexion and character, Burns wrote, regarding "Old Glenconner,"-" I am thinking my farming scheme will yet hold. A worthy, intelligent farmer, my father's friend and my own, has been with me on the spot: he thinks the bargain practicable. I am myself, on a more serious review of the lands, much better pleased with them. I won't trust this to any body in writing but you." The poem is one of those hasty and everyday-business-like effusions which Burns occasionally penned. Though not at all equal to some of his earlier epistles, yet it is well worth preserving, as a proof of the ease with which See a similar signature to the "Third Epistle to John Lapraik." |