No. CCXXXII. TO JOHN FRANCIS ERSKINE, Esq., OF MAR." Dumfries, 13th April, 1793. SIR: DEGENERATE as human nature is said to beand, in many instances, worthless and unprincipled it is-still there are bright examples to the contrary examples that, even in the eyes of superior beings, must shed a lustre on the name of Man. Such an example have I now before me, when you, Sir, came forward to patronise and befriend a distant obscure stranger, merely because poverty had made him helpless, and his British hardihood of mind had provoked the arbitrary wantonness of power. My much esteemed friend, Mr. Riddel of Glenriddel, has just read me a paragraph of a letter he had from you. Accept, Sir, of the silent throb of gratitude; for words would but mock the emotions of my soul. You have been misinformed as to my final dismission from the Excise; I am still in the service. Indeed, but for the exertions of a gentleman who must be known to you, Mr. Graham of Fintray-a gentleman who has ever been my warm and generous friend-I had, without so much as a hearing, or the slightest previous intimation, been turned adrift, with my helpless family, to all the horrors of want. -Had I had any other resource, probably I might have saved them the trouble of a dismission; but the little money I gained by my publication is almost every guinea embarked, to save from ruin an only brother, who, though one of the worthiest, is by no means one of the most fortunate, of men. Graham, which he laid before the Board at large; where, it seems, my last remark gave great offence; and one of our supervisors-general, a Mr. Corbet, was instructed to inquire on the spot, and to document me-"that my business was to act, not to think; and that, whatever might be men or measures, it was for me to be silent and obedient.” Mr. Corbet was likewise my steady friend; so between Mr. Graham and him, I have been partly forgiven; only I understand that all. hopes of my getting officially forward are blasted. Now, Sir, to the business in which I would more immediately interest you. The partiality of my COUNTRYMEN has brought me forward as a man of genius, and has given me a ciaracter to support. In the POET I have avowed manly and independent sentiments, which I trust will be found in the MAN. Reasons of no less weight than the support of a wife and f2mily, have pointed out as the eligible, and, situated as I was, the only eligible, line of life for me, my present occupation. Still my honest fame is my dearest concern; and a thousand times have I trembled at the idea of those degrading epithets that malice or misrepresentation may affix to my name. I have often, in blasted anticipation, listened to some future hackney scribbler, with the heavy malice of savage stupidity exulting in his hireling paragraphs-"BURNS, notwithstanding the fanfa ronude of independence to be found in his works, and after having been held forth to public view and to public estimation as a man of some genius, yet, quite destitute of resources within himself to support his borrowed dignity, he dwindled into a paltry exciseman, and slunk out the rest of his insignificant existence in the meanest of pursuits, and among the vilest of mankind." In my defence to their accusations, I said that whatever might be my sentiments of re- In your illustrious hands, Sir, permit me to publics, ancient or modern, as to Britain, I lodge my disavowal and defiance of these slanabjured the idea:-That a CONSTITUTION, derous falsehoods. BURNS was a poor man which, in its original principles, experience had from birth, and an exciseman by necessity: but proved to be in every way fitted for our hap--I will say it! the sterling of his honest piness in society, it would be insanity to sacrifice to an untried visionary theory :-That, in consideration of my being situated in a department, however humble, immediately in the hands of people in power, I had forborne taking any active part, either personally, or as an author, in the present business of REFORM. But that, where I must declare my sentiments, I would say there existed a system of corruption between the executive power and the representative part of the legislature, which boded no good to our glorious CONSTITUTION; and which every patriotic Briton must wish to see amended. Some such sentiments as these, I stated in a letter to my generous patron Mr. * [Mr. Erskine, of Mar, was at all times of his life a staunch Whig. He became Earl of Mar, in 1824, in conse worth no poverty could debase, and his independent British mind oppression might bend, but could not subdue.-Have not I, to me, a more precious stake in my Country's welfare. than the richest dukedom in it? I have a large family of children, and the prospect of many more. I have three sons, who, I see already, have brought into the world souls ill qualified to inhabit the bodies of SLAVES.-Can I look tamely on, and see any machination to wrest from them the birthright of my boys,-the little independent BRITONS in whose veins rar my own blood?-No! I will not! should my heart's blood stream around my attempt to defend it! quence of the reversal of his grandfather's attainder. He died August 20th, 1825, aged eighty-four.] Does any man tell me that my full efforts can be of no service; and that it does not belong to my humble station to meddle with the concern of a nation? I can tell him that it is on such individuals as I that a nation has to rest, both for the hand of support, and the eye of intelligence. The uninformed MOB may swell a nation's bulk; and the titled, tinsel, courtly throng may be its feathered ornament; but the number of those who are elevated enough in life to reason and to reflect, yet low enough to keep clear of the venal contagion of a Court-these are a nation's strength! I know not how to apologize for the impertinent length of this epistle; but one small request I must ask of you farther-When you have honoured this letter with a perusal, please to commit it to the flames. BURNS, in whose behalf you have so generously interested yourself, I have here, in his native colours, drawn as he is; but should any of the people in whose hands is the very bread he eats get the least knowledge of the picture, it would ruin the poor BARD for ever! My poems having just come out in another edition, I beg leave to present you with a copy as a small mark of that high esteem and ardent gratitude with which I have the honour to be, [Erskine of Mar gave a copy of the poet's letter to Cromek, who published it in the "Reliques. It was rumoured that Burns was not only admonished by the Board of Excise, but actually dismissed from his situation; this induced Erskine to propose a subscription in his favour, which was refused by the bard with that elevation of sentiment which characterized his mind. It was well that the future Earl of Mar heard the report, since it drew from Burns this truly manly and well considered letter-it was all but the latest act of his life to write it down from his memory among his memoranda. The late Mr. Findlater, his superior officer in Dumfries at the time, eulogized the conduct of the Board of Excise: averred that the bard received only a gentle-a courteous admonition and was never for a moment in danger of being dismissed. Burns informed Graham that Mitchell had confounded him with the information that he had received orders to inquire into his political conduct, for he was blamed as a person disaffected to the government. In the present letter the poet farther says that, but for the interposition of Graham of Fintray, he would have been turned adrift with his helpless family to all the horrors of want; and moreover that he was documented by the Board, that his business was to act, not to think, and that, whatever might be men and measures, it was his duty to be silent and obedient. I received your last, and was much entertained with it; but I will not at this time, nor at any other time, answer it.-Answer a letter ! I never could answer a letter in my life!—I have written many a letter in return for letters I have received; but then they were original matter-spurt away! zig, here; zag, there; as if the devil, that my grannie (an old woman indeed) often told me, rode on will-o'wisp, or, in her more classic phrase, SPUNKIE, were looking over my elbow.-Happy thought that idea has engendered in my head! SPUNKIE-thou shalt henceforth be my symbol, signature, and tutelary genius! Like thee, hap-step-and-lowp, here-awa-there-awa, higglety-pigglety, pell-mell, hither-and-yont, ramstam, happy-go-lucky, up tails-a'-by-the-lighto'-the-moon has been, is, and shall be, my progress through the mosses and moors of this vile, bleak, barren wilderness of a life of ours. - Come then, my guardian spirit! like thee, may I skip away, amusing myself by and at my own light: and if any opaque-souled lubber of mankind complain that my elfine, lambent, glimmerous wanderings have misled his stupid steps over precipices, or into bogs; let the thick-headed Blunderbuss recollect that he is not SPUNKIE :—that SPUNKIE'S wanderings could not copied be; I have no doubt but scholar-craft may be caught, as a Scotsman catches the itch,-by friction. How else can you account for it that born blockheads, by mere dint of handling books, grow so wise that even they themselves are equally convinced of and surprised at their own parts? I once carried this philosophy to that degree that in a knot of country folks who had a library amongst them, and who, to the honour of their good sense, made me factotum in the business; one of our members, a little, wise-looking, squat, upright, jabbering body of Those who contradict the testimony of Burns should do it on better authority than their own assertion; the poet's word will weigh down any other man's, so long as he speaks from his own knowledge. Findlater argued; Burns stated facts. The poet is supported by the testimony of Robert Ainslie, to whom all his affairs were known; in a letter dated 3rd September, 1834, without being aware that his illustrious friend's assertions were impeached, he says, "You know that the poet was a friend of the people' during the days of po litical ferment in his time: a circumstance which impeded his advancement in the excise-he never rose higher than the nicked stick,' the badge and implement of a common gauger. The Commissioners of Excise, irritated at his opinions, wrote him a formal official letter, sealing with the large seal of office, informing him that a petty officer' had 'no business with politics."" The proud heart of Burns did not like this humbling; after a few wrathful words in secret to one of his friends, he took a pencil and wrote these lines on the envelope: "In politics if you would mix, And low your station be, Keep this in mind-be deaf and blind, Let great folks hear and see." CUNNINGHAM.] them imagine you still nearer perfection than you really are. Poets, Madam, of all mankind, feel most forcibly the powers of BEAUTY; as, if they are really POETS of nature's making, their feelings must be finer, and their taste more delicate than most of the world. In the cheerful bloom of SPRING, or the pensive mildness of AUTUMN; the grandeur of SUMMER, or the hoary majesty of WINTER; the poet feels a charm unknown to the rest of his species. Even the sight of a a tailor, I advised him, instead of turning over the leaves, to bind the book on his back.Johnnie took the hint; and, as our meetings were every fourth Saturday, and Pricklouse having a good Scots mile to walk in coming, and, of course, another in returning, Bodkin was sure to lay his hand on some heavy quarto, or ponderous folio, with, and under which, wrapt up in his grey plaid, he grew wise, as he grew weary, all the way home. He carried this so far that an old musty Hebrew Concordance, which we had in a present from a neigh-fine flower, or the company of a fine womanbouring priest, by mere dint of applying it, as doctors do a blistering plaster, between his shoulders, Stitch, in a dozen pilgrimages, acquired as much rational theology as the said priest had done by forty years' perusal of the (by far the finest part of God's works below), have sensations for the poetic heart that the HERD of man are strangers to.-On this last account, Madam, I am, as in many other things, indebted to Mr. Hamilton's kindness in introducing me to you. Your lovers may view you with a wish, I look on you with pleasure: their hearts, in your presence, may glow with desire, mine rises with admiration. That the arrows of misfortune, however they should, as incident to humanity, glance a slight wound, may never reach your heart-that the snares of villany may never beset you in the road of life-that INNOCENCE may hand you by the path of HONOUR to the dwelling of PEACE, is the sincere wish of him who has the honour to be, &c. R. B.† MADAM: Permit me to present you with the enclosed song as a small, though grateful tribute, for the honour of your acquaintance. I have, in these verses, attempted some faint sketches of your portrait in the unembellished simple manner of descriptive TRUTH.-Flattery, I leave to your LOVERS, whose exaggerating fancies may make [What a strange hipperty-skipperty letter this is to AINSLIE that is to say, to AINSLIE as we know him now,the author of "The Father's Gift," and many beautiful little religious works, fitted for youth of both sexes. Ainslie, since ever I knew him, and that has been considerably upwards of twenty years, has been much the same,-a downright honest, sleepy-headed, kind-hearted gentleman, and his good humour never failing him, not even in his sleep, with which he generally favours the company once or twice in an evening. But even then, there is a benevolence in his countenance that beams more intensely than when he is awake. I have seen him fall fast asleep in the blue parlour at Ambrose's, with North in the chair, and myself croupier. Honest Ainslie! That is a constitutional failing which he cannot help; for a man of kinder or better intentions never was born. He is now, alas! the only relic that I know of, of the real intimate acquaintances of Burns.-HOGG, 1837. What havoc a few years have made among the friends and admirers of the Poet! Since the above note was penned, the kind-hearted shepherd of Ettrick-his able co-adjutor, Motherwell-and his friend Ainslie, have all paid the debt of nature. Hamilton of Mauchline, the eldest son of Gavin Hamilton-Mr. Alexander Findlater, and my old friend, George H. King, have also within these few months gone to that bourne whence no traveller returns."-J. C.] [The Poet has been called the flatterer of woman, but there is, perhaps, little flattery in saying that a beauteous creature is beautiful. The song addressed to the young lady has not been named. Miss Kennedy claimed relationship with the Hamiltons of Mossgiel.-CUNNINGHAM.] The above letter, which originally appeared in Cromek's Reliques, has been hitherto classed among those written in 1793, but from the following extract of an original letter to Gavin Hamilton, Esq., dated Edinburgh, March 8th, 1787, now published exclusively in the present Edition, a much earlier date is assigned to it. "My two songs on Miss W. Alexander, and Miss P. Kennedyt were tried yesterday by a jury of literati, and found defamatory libels against the fastidious powers of Poesy and Taste; and the Author forbid to print them under pan of forfeiture of character. I cannot help almost shedding a tear to the memory of two songs that had cost me some pains, and that I valued a good deal, but I must submit."— Again in the same letter, he adds: My poor unfortunate songs come again across my memory-D-n the pedant, frigid soul of Criticism for ever and ever!" [Miss Helen Craik, of Arbigland, had merit both as a poetess and novelist: her ballads may be compared with those of Macneil, and her novels, amid much graphie foren, had a seasoning of the satiric, which rendered them acceptable to all who understood their allusions. She died some years ago at Allonby: she was much of an enthusiast, and lived estranged from her family for a long period of her life. * [The Lass o' Ballochmyle. The Banks of Doon.] 1 second visit to Arbigland, as I was so hospitably invited, and so positively meant to have done. However, I still hope to have that pleasure before the busy months of harvest begin. I enclose you two of my late pieces, as some kind of return for the pleasure I have received in perusing a certain MS. volume of poems in the possession of Captain Riddel. To repay one with an old song, is a proverb, whose force, you, Madam, I know, will not allow. What is said of illustrious descent is, I believe, equally true of a talent for poetry, none ever despised it who had pretensions to it. The fates and characters of the rhyming tribe often employ my thoughts when I am disposed to be melancholy. There is not, among all the martyrologies that ever were penned, so rueful a narrative as the lives of the poets.-In the comparative view of wretches, the criterion is not what they are doomed to suffer, but how they are formed to bear. Take a being of our kind; give him a stronger imagination and a more delicate sensibility, which, between them, will ever engender a more ungovernable set of passions than are the usual lot of man; implant in him an irresistible impulse to some idle vagary, such as arranging wild flowers in fantastical nosegays, tracing the grasshopper to his haunt by his chirping song, watching the frisks of the little minnows in the sunny pool, or hunting after the intrigues of butterflies-in short, send him adrift after some pursuit which shall eternally mislead him from the paths of lucre, and yet curse him with a keener relish than any man living for the pleasures that lucre can purchase; lastly, fill up the measure of his woes by be stowing on him a spurning sense of his own dignity, and you have created a wight nearly as miserable as a poet. To you, Madam, I need not recount the fairy pleasures the muse bestows to counterbalance this catalogue of evils. Bewitching poetry is like bewitching woman; she has in all ages been accused of misleading mankind from the councils of wisdom and the paths of prudence, involving them in difficulties, baiting them with poverty, branding them with infamy, and plunging them in the whirling vortex of ruin; yet, where is the man but must own that all our happiness on earth is not worthy the name that even the holy hermit's solitary prospect of paradisiacal Miss Craik's father was one of the wisest gentlemen and most sensible improvers of property on the Scottish side of the Solway: his taste, too, in architecture, was of a pure kind; he lived to a good old age, and had the misfortune to witness with his own eyes the melancholy death of his only son. The heir of Arbigland, accompanied by some sixteen young men of the parish, set off one summer morning in his pleasure skiff, to pay a visit to the English shore; when more than halfway over the Solway, a whirlwind suddenly arose, seized the sails, whirled the skiff around, and down it went with all on board-though a vessel was near, not a soul was saved. The wretched father saw all this from a seat on the top of the house; after the skiff sank, he sat still for an hour, looking fixedly, it is said, on the sea. Arbigland is now the property of his grandson, Douglas Hamilton Craik, Esq. The situ bliss is but the glitter of a northern sun, rising over a frozen region, compared with the many pleasures, the nameless raptures that we owe to the lovely Queen of the heart of Man! R. B. No. CCXXXVI. TO LADY GLENCAIRN.* THE honour you have done your poor poet, in writing him so very obliging a letter, and the pleasure the enclosed beautiful verses have given him, came very seasonably to his aid amid the cheerless gloom and sinking despondency of diseased nerves and December weather. As to forgetting the family of Glencairn, Heaven is my witness with what sincerity I could use those old verses which please me more in their rude simplicity than the most elegant lines I ever saw : If thee, Jerusalem, I forget, Skill part from my right hand. My tongue to my mouth's roof let cleave, My chief joy do not set. When I am tempted to do anything improper, I dare not, because I look on myself as accountable to your ladyship and family. Now and then, when I have the honour to be called to the tables of the great, if I happen to meet with any mortification from the stately stupidity of self-sufficient squires, or the luxurious insolence of upstart nabobs, I get above the creatures by calling to remembrance that I am patronized by the Noble House of Glencairn; and at gala-times, such as New-year's day, a christening, or the Kirn-night, when my punchbowl is brought from its dusty corner and filled up in honour of the occasion, I begin with,The Countess of Glencairn! My good woman, with the enthusiasm of a grateful heart, next cries, My Lord! and so the toast goes on until I end with Lady Harriet's little angel, † whose epithalamium I have pledged myself to write. ation on the Solway side is beautiful: the house is a model of proportion and elegant workmanship; the woods, which partly enclose it, are very lofty, and some of the firs of the spruce tribe are of enormous girth. Burns was a frequent visiter here; nor has the ancient hospitality of the house of Craik declined, nor its love of literature.-CUNNINGHAM.] [Widow of William, thirteenth Earl of Glencairn, and mother of the patron of Burns.] [Lady Harriet Don was the daughter of Lady Glencairn. Her child was the late accomplished Sir Alexander Don, of Newton Don, Bart., whose widow is married to Sir James Maxwell Wallace, the only surviving brother of Robert Wallace, of Kelly, Esq., M. P. for Greenock. See note to Burns's Ode of "Scots wha hae wi' Wallace bled," p. 476.] When I received your ladyship's letter, I was just in the act of transcribing for you some verses I have lately composed; and meant to have sent them my first leisure hour, and acquainted you with my late change of life. I mentioned to my lord my fears concerning my farm. Those fears were indeed too true; it is a bargain would have ruined me, but for the lucky circumstance of my having an Excise commission. People may talk as they please of the ignominy of the Excise; fifty pounds a year will support my wife and children, and keep me independent of the world; and I would much rather have it said that my profession borrowed credit from me than that I borrowed credit from my profession. Another advantage I have in this business, is the knowledge it gives me of the various shades of human character, consequently assisting me vastly in my poetic pursuits. I had the most ardent enthusiasm for the muses when nobody knew me, but myself, and that ardour is by no means cooled now that my lord Glencairn's goodness has introduced me to all the world. Not that I am in haste for the press. I have no idea of publishing, else I certainly had consulted my noble generous patron; but after acting the part of an honest man, and supporting my family, my whole wishes and views are directed to poetic pursuits. I am aware that though I were to give performances to the world superior to my former works, still, if they were of the same kind with those, the comparative reception they would meet with would mortify me. I have turned my thoughts on the drama. I do not mean the stately buskin of the tragic muse. Does not your ladyship think that an Edinburgh theatre would be more amused with affectation, folly, and whim of true Scottish growth, than manners, which by far the greatest part of the audience can only know at second hand? very high compliment in the manner in which I am going to apply the remark. I have owed you money longer than ever I owed it to any man.-Here is Ker's account, and here are six guineas; and now, I don't owe a shilling to man-nor woman either. But for these damned dirty, dog's-ear'd little pages, I had done myself the honour to have waited on you long ago. Independent of the obligations your hospitality has laid me under; the consciousness of your superiority in the rank of man and gentleman, of itself was fully as much as I could ever make head against; but to owe you money, too, was more than I could face. I think I once mentioned something of a collection of Scots songs I have for some years been making: I send you a perusal of what I have got together. I could not conveniently spare them above five or six days, and five or six glances of them will probably more than suffice you. A very few of them are my own. When you are tired of them, please leave them with Mr. Clint, of the King's Arms. There is not another copy of the collection in the world; and I should be sorry that any unfortunate negligence should deprive me of what has cost me a good deal of pains.† No. CCXXXVIII. TO JOHN M'MURDO, Esq., DRUMLANRIG. R. B. Dumfries, 1793. WILL Mr. M'Murdo do me the favour to accept of these volumes; a trifling but sincere. mark of the very high respect I bear for his worth as a man, his manners as a gentleman, and his kindness as a friend. However inferior. now, or afterwards, I may rank as a poet; one honest virtue to which few poets can pretend, I trust I shall ever claim as mine:-to no man, whatever his station in life, or his power to serve me, have I ever paid a compliment at the expense of TRUTH. THE AUTHOR. they will do him the justice not to publish what he himself thought proper to suppress."'] [These words are written on the blank leaf of the poet's works, published in two small volumes in 1793: the handwriting is bold and free--the pen seems to have been conscious that it was making a declaration of independence.. -CUNNINGHAM.] |