O THE POET'S ASSIGNMENT OF HIS WORKS. [THE admirers of Burns are indebted to the kindness of Gilbert M'Nab, Esq. of Ayr, for the following important document, which throws light both on the actions and feelings of the poet during a period when " hungry ruin had him in the wind."] KNOW all men by these presents that I, Robert Burns of Mossgiel : whereas I intend to leave Scotland and go abroad, and having acknowledged myself the father of a child named Elizabeth, begot upon Elizabeth Paton in Largieside and whereas Gilbert Burns in Mossgiel, my brother, has become bound, and hereby binds and obliges himself to aliment, clothe and educate my said natural child in a suitable manner as if she were his own, in case her mother choose to part with her, and that until she arrive at the age of fifteen years. Therefore, and to enable the said Gilbert Burns to make good his said engagement, wit ye me to have assigned, disponed, conveyed, and made over to, and in favour of, the said Gilbert Burns, his heirs, executors, and assignees, who are always to be bound in like manner with himself, all and sundry goods, gear, corn, cattle, horses, nolt, sheep, household furniture, and all other moveable effects of whatever kind that I shall leave behind me on my departure from this Kingdom, after allowing for my part of the conjunct debts due by the said Gilbert Burns and me as joint tacksmen of the farm of Mossgiel. And particularly, without prejudice of the foresaid generality, the profits that may arise from the publication of my poems presently in the press. And also, I hereby dispone and convey to him in trust for behoof of my said natural daughter, the copyright of said poems in so far as I can dispose of the same by law, after she arrives at the above age of fifteen years complete. Surrogating and substituting the said Gilbert Burns my brother and his foresaids in my full right, title, room and place of the whole premises, with power to him to intromit with, and dispose upon the same at pleasure, and in general to do every other thing in the premises that I could have done myself before granting hereof, but always with and under the conditions before expressed. And I oblige myself to warrand this disposition and assignation from my own proper fact and deed allenarly. Consenting to the registration hereof in the books of Council and Session, or any other Judges' books competent, therein to remain for preservation, and constitute Proculars, &c. In witness whereof I have written and signed these presents, consisting of this and the preceding page, on stamped paper, with my own hand, at the Mossgiel, the twentysecond day of July, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-six years. Upon the twenty-fourth day of July, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-six years, I, William Chalmer, Notary Publick, past to the Mercat Cross of Ayr head Burgh of the Sheriffdome thereof, and thereat I made due ¦ and lawful intimation of the foregoing dis- | position and assignation to his Majesties lieges. that they might not pretend ignorance thereof. by reading the same over in presence of a number of people assembled. William Crooks, writer, in Ayr, as attorney Whereupon for the before designed Gilbert Burns, protested that the same was lawfully intimated, and asked and took instruments in my bands. These things were done betwixt the hours of ten and eleven forenoon, before and in presence of William McCubbin, and William Eaton, apprentices to the Sheriff Clerk of Ayr, witnesses to the premises. (Signed) WILLIAM CHALMER, N. P. WILLIAM McCUBBIN, Witness. WILLIAM EATON, Witness. 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 this town this day se'ennight, and, probably for a couple of twelvemonths; but must ever regret that I so lately got an acquaintance I shall 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 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 if they were worth house room; as there are scarcely or you, [This is generally printed as No. II. of the letters, while in fact it should be No. I. Its date must have been the 6th Dec. 1787. He was to have drunk tea that day, but was disappointed by the lady who afterwards asked him for Saturday, on which day the accident to his leg happened.-MOTHERWELL.] two people on earth by whom it would mortify me more to be forgotten, though at the distance of nine-score miles.-I am, Madam, with the highest respect, your very humble Servant, No. II.t Saturday Evening. I CAN say with truth, Madam, that I never et 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; 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 [The date of this letter must have been the 8th Dec. 1787. Burns met with his accident on that day. Vide his letter to Miss Chalmers, in which he alludes to that unlucky occurrence.-Ibid.] 3 C 2 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! No. III. Friday Evening, 22d Dec., 1787. I BEG your pardon, my dear "Clarinda," for the fragment scrawl I sent you yesterday.* I really do not know what I wrote. A gentleman, for whose character, abilities, and critical knowledge, I have the highest veneration, called in just as I had begun the second sentence, and I would not make the porter wait. I read to my much-respected friend several of my own bagatelles, and, among others, your lines, which I had copied out. He began some criticisms on them as on the other pieces, when I informed him they were the work of a young lady in this town, which, I assure you, made him stare. My learned friend seriously protested that he did not believe any young woman in Edinburgh was capable of such lines and if you know any thing of Professor Gregory, you will neither doubt of his abilities nor his sincerity. I do love you, if possible, still better for having so fine a taste and turn for poesy. I have again gone wrong in my usual unguarded way, but you may erase the word, and put esteem, respect, or any other tame Dutch expression you please in its place. I believe there is no holding converse, nor carrying on correspondence, with an amiable woman, much less a gloriously amiable fine woman, without some mixture of that delicious passion, whose most devoted slave I have more than once had the honour of being-But why be hurt or offended on that account? Can no honest man have a prepossession for a fine woman, but he must run his head against an intrigue? Take a little of the tender witchcraft of love, and add to it the generous, the honour able sentiments of manly friendship and I know but one more delightful morsel, which few, few in any rank ever taste. Such a composition is like adding cream to strawberries; it not only gives the fruit a more elegant richness, but has a peculiar deliciousness of its own. I enclose you a few lines I composed on a late melancholy occasion. I will not give above five or six copies of it at all, and I would be hurt if any friend should give any copies without my consent. You cannot imagine, Clarinda (I like the idea of Arcadian names in a commerce of this [This does not appear. It probably talked of love, and called forth the verses beginning, "Talk not of love," and kind), how much store I have set by the hopes of your future friendship. I do not know if you have a just idea of my character, but I wish you to see me as I am. I am, as most people of my trade are, a strange Will-o'-Wisp being; the victim, too frequently, of much imprudence and many follies. My great constituent elements are pride and passion. The first I have endeavoured to humanize into integrity and honour; the last makes me a devotee to the warmest degree of enthusiasm, in love, religion, or friendship-either of them, or all together, as I happen to be inspired. 'Tis true, I never saw you but once; but how much acquaintance did I form with you in that once! Do not think I flatter you, or have a design upon you, Clarinda; I have too much pride for the one, and too little cold contrivance for the other; but of all God's creatures I ever could approach in the beaten way of my ac quaintance, you struck me with the deepest, the strongest, the most permanent impression. I say, the most permanent, because I know myself well, and how far I can promise either in my prepossessions or powers. Why are you unhappy? And why are so many of our fellow-creatures, unworthy to belong to the same species with you, blest with all they can wish? You have a hand all benevolent to give-Why were you denied the pleasure? You have s heart formed-gloriously formed-for all the most refined luxuries of love: Why was that heart ever wrung? O Clarinda! shall we not meet in a state, some yet unknown state of being, where the lavish hand of plenty shall minister to the highest wish of benevolence: and where the chill north-wind of prudence shall never blow over the flowery fields of enjoyment? If we do not, man was made in vain! I deserved most of the unhappy hours that have¦ lingered over my head; they were the wages of my labour: but what unprovoked demon, malignant as hell, stole upon the confidence of unmistrusting busy Fate, and dashed your cup of life with undeserved sorrow? Let me know how long your stay will be out of town; I shall count the hours till you inform me of your return. Cursed etiquette forbids your seeing me just now; and so soon as I can walk I must bid Edinburgh adieu. Lord. why was I born to see misery which I cannot relieve, and to meet with friends whom I cannot enjoy? I look back with the pang of unavailing avarice on my loss in not knowing you sooner: all last winter, these three months past, what luxury of intercourse have I not lost! Perhaps, though, 'twas better for my peace. You see I am either above, or incapable of, dissimulation. I believe it is want of that particular genius. I despise design, because I want to which she must have signed Clarinda, from its being marked as a quotation.—MOTHERWELL.] LETTERS TO CLARINDA. either coolness or wisdom to be capable of it. I am interrupted.-Adieu! my dear Clarinda! SYLVANDER. No. IV.* You are right, my dear Clarinda: a friendly correspondence goes for nothing, except one writes his or her undisguised sentiments. Yours please me for their intrinsic merit, as well as because they are yours, which, I assure you, is to me a high recommendation. Your religious If you have, sentiments, Madam, 1 revere. on some suspicious evidence, from some lying oracle, learned that I despise or ridicule so sacredly important a matter as real religion, you have, my Clarinda, much misconstrued your friend."I am not mad, most noble Festus!" Have you ever met a perfect character? Do we not sometimes rather exchange faults than get rid of them? For instance, I am perhaps tired with, and shocked at, a life too much the prey of giddy inconsistencies and thoughtless follies; by degrees I grow sober, prudent, and statedly pious-I say statedly, because the most unaffected devotion is not at all inconsistent with my first character -I join the world in congratulating myself on the happy change. But let me pry more narnowly into this affair. Have I, at bottom, any thing of a secret pride in these endowments and emendations? Have I nothing of a presbyterian sourness, an hypocritical severity, when I In a word, survey my less regular neighbours? have I missed all those nameless and numberless modifications of indistinct selfishness, which are so near our own eyes that we can scarcely bring them within the sphere of our vision, and which the known spotless cambric of our character hides from the ordinary observer? My definition of worth is short; truth and humanity respecting our fellow-creatures; reverence and humility in the presence of that Being, my Creator and Preserver, and who, I have every reason to believe, will one day be my Judge. The first part of my definition is the creature of unbiassed instinct; the last is the child of after reflection. Where I found these two essentials, I would gently note, and slightly mention, any attendant flaws-flaws, the marks, the consequences, of human nature. I can easily enter into the sublime pleasures that your strong imagination and keen sensibility must derive from religion, particularly if a little in the shade of misfortune: but I own I cannot, without a marked grudge, see Heaven totally engross so amiable, so charming, a woman as my friend Clarinda; and should be very well pleased at a circumstance that would put it in the power of somebody (happy somebody!) to divide her attention, with all the delicacy and tenderness of an earthly attach ment. You will not easily persuade me that you have not a grammatical knowledge of the English language. So far from being inaccurate, you are elegant beyond any woman of my acquaintance, except one, whom I wish you knew. Your last verses to me have so delighted me that I have got an excellent old Scots air that suits the measure, and you shall see them in print in the Scots Musical Museum, a work publishing by a friend of mine in this town. I want four stanzas; you gave me but three, and one of them alluded to an expression in my former letter; so I have taken your first two verses. with a slight alteration in the second, and have added a third; but you must help me to a fourth. Here they are: the latter half of the first stanza would have been worthy of Sappho ; I am in raptures with it. Talk not of Love, it gives me pain, But Friendship's pure and lasting joys Your friendship much can make me blest, Why urge the odious one request, You know I must deny. The alteration in the second stanza is no improvement, but there was a slight inaccuracy in your rhyme. The third I only offer to your choice, and have left two words for your determination. The air is "The banks of Spey,' and is most beautiful. To-morrow evening I intend taking a chair, and paying a visit at Park Place to a muchvalued old friend. If I could be sure of finding you at home (and I will send one of the chairmen to call), I would spend from five to six o'clock with you, as I go past. I cannot do I propose giving more at this time, as I have something on my hand that hurries me much. Do not Miss you the first call, my old friend the second, and as I return home. break any engagement for me, as I will spend * [This letter appears to have been written about the another evening with you, at any rate, before I 1st of January 1788, and probably the order in which it is now inserted is correct.-MOTHERWELL.} leave town. The night is my departing night, I never, never can reca'; I hope ye're a' my friends as yet, Guid night, and joy be wi' you a'! Do not tell me that you are pleased when your friends inform you of your faults. I am ignorant what they are; but I am sure they must be such evanescent trifles, compared with your personal and mental accomplishments, that I would despise the ungenerous narrow soul who would notice any shadow of imperfections you may seem to have, any other way than in the most delicate agreeable raillery. Coarse minds are not aware how much they injure the keenly feeling tie of bosom-friendship, when, in their foolish officiousness, they mention what nobody cares for recollecting. People of nice sensibiI shall certainly be ashamed of thus scrawllity and generous minds have a certain intrinsic ing whole sheets of incoherence. The only dignity that fires at being trifled with, or lower-unity (a sad word with poets and critics!) in ed, or even too nearly approached. There my heart You need make no apology for long letters: I am even with you. Many happy new years to you, charming Clarinda! I can't dissemble, were it to shun perdition. He who sees you as I have done, and does not love you, deserves to be damn'd for his stupidity! He who loves you, and would injure you, deserves to be doubly damn'd for his villany! Adieu. SYLVANDER. P.S. What would you think of this for a fourth stanza? Your thought, if love must harbour there, Nor cause me from my bosom tear The very friend I sought. No. V. Monday Evening, 11 o'clock, 21st January. WHY have I not heard from you, Clarinda? To-day I expected it; and before supper, when a letter to me was announced, my heart danced with rapture: but behold, 'twas some fool who had taken it into his head to turn poet, and made me an offering of the first-fruits of his nonsense. "It is not poetry, but prose run mad." Did I ever repeat to you an epigram I made on a Mr. Elphinstone, who has given a translation of Martial, a famous Latin poet?— The poetry of Elphinstone can only equal his prose notes. I was sitting in the shop of a merchant of my acquaintance, waiting somebody; he put Elphinstone into my hand, and asked my opinion of it; I begged leave to write it on a blank leaf, which I did. TO MR. ELPHINSTONE, &c. O thou, whom poesy abhors! I am determined to see you, if at all possible, on Saturday evening. Next week I must sing If I could see you sooner, I would be so much the happier; but I would not purchase the dearest gratification on earth, if it must be at your expense in worldly censure, far less inward peace! my ideas is CLARINDA. "What art thou, Love? whence are those charms, And all those high resolves are broke !" I like to have quotations for every occasion. They give one's ideas so pat, and save one the trouble of finding expression adequate to one's feelings. I think it is one of the greatest pleasures, attending a poetic genius, that we can give our woes, cares, joys, loves, &c., an embodied form in verse, which to me is ever immediate ease. Goldsmith says finely of his Muse "Thou source of all my bliss and all my wo, Thou found'st me poor at first, and keep'st me so."* My limb has been so well to-day that I have gone up and down stairs often without my staff. To-morrow I hope to walk once again on my own legs to dinner. It is only next street—Adieu. SYLVANDER. No. VI. Saturday Noon, 26th January. SOME days, some nights, nay, some hours, like the "ten righteous persons in Sodom," save the rest of the vapid, tiresome, miserable months and years of life. One of these hours. my dear Clarinda blessed me with yesternight. 'One well spent hour, In such a tender circumstance for friends, My favourite feature in Milton's Satan is his manly fortitude in supporting what cannot be remedied—in short, the wild broken fragments of a noble exalted mind in ruins. I |