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The Complete Works
CCXVII. TO –
[This singular letter was sent by Burns, it is believed, to a critic, who had taken him to task about obscure language, and imperfect grammar.]
Ellisland, 1791.
Thou eunuch of language: thou Englishman, who never was south the Tweed: thou servile echo of fashionable barbarisms: thou quack, vending the nostrums of empirical elocution: thou marriage-maker between vowels and consonants, on the Gretna-green of caprice: thou cobler, botching the flimsy socks of bombast oratory: thou blacksmith, hammering the rivets of absurdity: thou butcher, imbruing thy hands in the bowels of orthography: thou arch-heretic in pronunciation: thou pitch-pipe of affected emphasis: thou carpenter, mortising the awkward joints of jarring sentences: thou squeaking dissonance of cadence: thou pimp of gender: thou Lion Herald to silly etymology: thou antipode of grammar: thou executioner of construction: thou brood of the speech-distracting builders of the Tower of Babel; thou lingual confusion worse confounded: thou scape-gallows from the land of syntax: thou scavenger of mood and tense: thou murderous accoucheur of infant learning; thou ignis fatuus, misleading the steps of benighted ignorance: thou pickle-herring in the puppet-show of nonsense: thou faithful recorder of barbarous idiom: thou persecutor of syllabication: thou baleful meteor, foretelling and facilitating the rapid approach of Nox and Erebus.
R. B.
CCXVIII. TO MR. CUNNINGHAM
[To Clarke, the Schoolmaster, Burns, it is said, addressed several letters, which on his death were put into the fire by his widow, because of their license of language.]
11th June, 1791.
Let me interest you, my dear Cunningham, in behalf of the gentleman who waits on you with this. He is a Mr. Clarke, of Moffat, principal schoolmaster there, and is at present suffering severely under the persecution of one or two powerful individuals of his employers. He is accused of harshness to boys that were placed under his care. God help the teacher, if a man of sensibility and genius, and such is my friend Clarke, when a booby father presents him with his booby son, and insists on lighting up the rays of science, in a fellow’s head whose skull is impervious and inaccessible by any other way than a positive fracture with a cudgel: a fellow whom in fact it savours of impiety to attempt making a scholar of, as he has been marked a blockhead in the book of fate, at the almighty fiat of his Creator.
The patrons of Moffat-school are, the ministers, magistrates, and town-council of Edinburgh, and as the business comes now before them, let me beg my dearest friend to do everything in his power to serve the interests of a man of genius and worth, and a man whom I particularly respect and esteem. You know some good fellows among the magistracy and council, but particularly you have much to say with a reverend gentleman to whom you have the honour of being very nearly related, and whom this country and age have had the honour to produce. I need not name the historian of Charles V. I tell him through the medium of his nephew’s influence, that Mr. Clarke is a gentleman who will not disgrace even his patronage. I know the merits of the cause thoroughly, and say it, that my friend is falling a sacrifice to prejudiced ignorance.
God help the children of dependence! Hated and persecuted by their enemies, and too often, alas! almost unexceptionably, received by their friends with disrespect and reproach, under the thin disguise of cold civility and humiliating advice. O! to be a sturdy savage, stalking in the pride of his independence, amid the solitary wilds of his deserts; rather than in civilized life, helplessly to tremble for a subsistence, precarious as the caprice of a fellow-creature! Every man has his virtues, and no man is without his failings; and curse on that privileged plain-dealing of friendship, which, in the hour of my calamity, cannot reach forth the helping hand without at the same time pointing out those failings, and apportioning them their share in procuring my present distress. My friends, for such the world calls ye, and such ye think yourselves to be, pass by my virtues if you please, but do, also, spare my follies: the first will witness in my breast for themselves, and the last will give pain enough to the ingenuous mind without you. And since deviating more or less from the paths of propriety and rectitude, must be incident to human nature, do thou, Fortune, put it in my power, always from myself, and of myself, to bear the consequence of those errors! I do not want to be independent that I may sin, but I want to be independent in my sinning.
To return in this rambling letter to the subject I set out with, let me recommend my friend, Mr. Clarke, to your acquaintance and good offices; his worth entitles him to the one, and his gratitude will merit the other. I long much to hear from you.
Adieu!
R. B.
CCXIX. TO THE EARL OF BUCHAN
[Lord Buchan printed this letter in his Essay on the Life of Thomson, in 1792. His lordship invited Burns to leave his corn unreaped, walk from Ellisland to Dryburgh, and help him to crown Thomson’s bust with bays, on Ednam Hill, on the 22d of September.]
Ellisland, August 29th, 1791.
My Lord,
Language sinks under the ardour of my feelings when I would thank your lordship for the honour you have done me in inviting me to make one at the coronation of the bust of Thomson. In my first enthusiasm in reading the card you did me the honour to write me, I overlooked every obstacle, and determined to go; but I fear it will not be in my power. A week or two’s absence, in the very middle of my harvest, is what I much doubt I dare not venture on. I once already made a pilgrimage up the whole course of the Tweed, and fondly would I take the same delightful journey down the windings of that delightful stream.
Your lordship hints at an ode for the occasion: but who would write after Collins? I read over his verses to the memory of Thomson, and despaired.—I got indeed to the length of three or four stanzas, in the way of address to the shade of the bard, on crowning his bust. I shall trouble your lordship with the subjoined copy of them, which, I am afraid, will be but too convincing a proof how unequal I am to the task. However, it affords me an opportunity of approaching your lordship, and declaring how sincerely and gratefully I have the honour to be, &c.,
R. B.
CCXX. TO MR. THOMAS SLOAN
[Thomas Sloan was a west of Scotland man, and seems, though not much in correspondence, to have been on intimate terms with Burns.]
Ellisland, Sept. 1, 1791.
My dear Sloan,
Suspense is worse than disappointment, for that reason I hurry to tell you that I just now learn that Mr. Ballantyne does not choose to interfere more in the business. I am truly sorry for it, but cannot help it.
You blame me for not writing you sooner, but you will please to recollect that you omitted one little necessary piece of information;—your address.
However, you know equally well, my hurried life, indolent temper, and strength of attachment. It must be a longer period than the longest life “in the world’s hale and undegenerate days,” that will make me forget so dear a friend as Mr. Sloan. I am prodigal enough at times, but I will not part with such a treasure as that.
I can easily enter into the embarras of your present situation. You know my favourite quotation from Young—
–“On reason build Resolve!
That column of true majesty in man;”
and that other favourite one from Thomson’s Alfred—
“What proves the hero truly great,
Is never, never to despair.”
Or shall I quote you an author of your acquaintance?
“–Whether doing, suffering, or forbearing,
You may do miracles by—persevering.”
I have nothing new to tell you. The few friends we have are going on in the old way. I sold my crop on this day se’ennight, and sold it very well. A guinea an acre, on an average, above value. But such a scene of drunkenness was hardly ever seen in this country. After the roup was over, about thirty people engaged in a battle, every man for his own hand, and fought it out for three hours. Nor was the scene much better in the house. No fighting, indeed, but folks lying drunk on the floor, and decanting, until both my dogs got so drunk by attending them, that they could not stand. You will easily guess how I enjoyed the scene; as I was no farther over than you used to see me.
Mrs. B. and family have been in Ayrshire these many weeks.
Farewell; and God bless you, my dear friend!
R. B.
CCXXI. TO LADY E. CUNNINGHAM
[The poem enclosed was the Lament for James, Earl of Glencairn: it is probable that the Earl’s sister liked the verses, for they were printed soon afterwards.]
My Lady,
I would, as usual, have availed myself of the privilege your goodness has allowed me, of sending you anything I compose in my poetical way; but as I had resolved, so soon as the shock of my irreparable loss would allow me, to pay a tribute to my late benefactor, I determined to make that the first piece I should do myself the honour of sending you. Had the wing of my fancy been equal to the ardour of my heart, the enclosed had been much more worthy your perusal: as it is, I beg leave to lay it at your ladyship’s feet. As all the world knows my obligations to the late Earl of Glencairn, I would wish to show as openly that my heart glows, and will ever glow, with the most grateful sense and remembrance of his lordship’s goodness. The sables I did myself the honour to wear to his lordship’s memory, were not the “mockery of woe.” Nor shall my gratitude perish with me!—if among my children I shall have a son that has a heart, he shall hand it down to his child as a family honour, and a family debt, that my dearest existence I owe to the noble house of Glencairn!
I was about to say, my lady, that if you think the poem may venture to see the light, I would, in some way or other, give it to the world.
R. B.
CCXXII. TO MR. AINSLIE
[It has been said that the poet loved to aggravate his follies to his friends: but that this tone of aggravation was often ironical, this letter, as well as others, might be cited.]
Ellisland, 1791.
My dear Ainslie,
Can you minister to a mind diseased? can you, amid the horrors of penitence, remorse, head-ache, nausea, and all the rest of the d–d hounds of hell, that beset a poor wretch, who has been guilty of the sin of drunkenness—can you speak peace to a troubled soul?
Miserable perdu that I am, I have tried everything that used to amuse me, but in vain: here must I sit, a monument of the vengeance laid up in store for the wicked, slowly counting every chick of the clock as it slowly, slowly, numbers over these lazy scoundrels of hours, who, d–n them, are ranked up before me, every one at his neighbour’s backside, and every one with a burthen of anguish on his back, to pour on my devoted head—and there is none to pity me. My wife scolds me! my business torments me, and my sins come staring me in the face, every one telling a more bitter tale than his fellow.—When I tell you even * * * has lost its power to please, you will guess something of my hell within, and all around me—I begun Elibanks and Elibraes, but the stanzas fell unenjoyed, and unfinished from my listless tongue: at last I luckily thought of reading over an old letter of yours, that lay by me in my book-case, and I felt something for the first time since I opened my eyes, of pleasurable existence. – Well—I begin to breathe a little, since I began to write to you. How are you, and what are you doing? How goes Law? Apropos, for connexion’s sake, do not address to me supervisor, for that is an honour I cannot pretend to—I am on the list, as we call it, for a supervisor, and will be called out by and bye to act as one; but at present, I am a simple gauger, tho’ t’other day I got an appointment to an excise division of 25l. per annum better than the rest. My present income, down money, is 70l. per annum.
I have one or two good fellows here whom you would be glad to know.
R. B.
CCXXIII. TO COL. FULLARTON. OF FULLARTON
[This letter was first published in the Edinburgh Chronicle.]
Ellisland, 1791.
Sir,
I have just this minute got the frank, and next minute must send it to post, else I purposed to have sent you two or three other bagatelles, that might have amused a vacant hour about as well as “Six excellent new songs,” or, the Aberdeen ‘Prognostication for the year to come.’ I shall probably trouble you soon with another packet. About the gloomy month of November, when ‘the people of England hang and drown themselves,’ anything generally is better than one’s own thought.
Fond as I may be of my own productions, it is not for their sake that I am so anxious to send you them. I am ambitious, covetously ambitious of being known to a gentleman whom I am proud to call my countryman; a gentleman who was a foreign ambassador as soon as he was a man, and a leader of armies as soon as he was a soldier, and that with an eclat unknown to the usual minions of a court, men who, with all the adventitious advantages of princely connexions and princely fortune, must yet, like the caterpillar, labour a whole lifetime before they reach the wished height, there to roost a stupid chrysalis, and doze out the remaining glimmering existence of old age.
If the gentleman who accompanied you when you did me the honour of calling on me, is with you, I beg to be respectfully remembered to him.
I have the honour to be,
Sir,
Your highly obliged, and most devoted
Humble servant,
R. B.
CCXXIV. TO MISS DAVIES
[This accomplished lady was the youngest daughter of Dr. Davies, of Tenby, in Pembrokeshire: she was related to the Riddels of Friar’s Carse, and one of her sisters married Captain Adam Gordon, of the noble family of Kenmure. She had both taste and skill in verse.]
It is impossible, Madam, that the generous warmth and angelic purity of your youthful mind, can have any idea of that moral disease under which I unhappily must rank us the chief of sinners; I mean a torpitude of the moral powers, that may be called, a lethargy of conscience. In vain Remorse rears her horrent crest, and rouses all her snakes; beneath the deadly fixed eye and leaden hand of Indolence, their wildest ire is charmed into the torpor of the bat, slumbering out the rigours of winter, in the chink of a ruined wall. Nothing less, Madam, could have made me so long neglect your obliging commands. Indeed I had one apology—the bagatelle was not worth presenting. Besides, so strongly am I interested in Miss Davies’s fate and welfare in the serious business of life, amid its chances and changes, that to make her the subject of a silly ballad is downright mockery of these ardent feelings; ’tis like an impertinent jest to a dying friend.
Gracious Heaven! why this disparity between our wishes and our powers? Why is the most generous wish to make others blest, impotent and ineffectual—as the idle breeze that crosses the pathless desert! In my walks of life I have met with a few people to whom how gladly would I have said—“Go, be happy! I know that your hearts have been wounded by the scorn of the proud, whom accident has placed above you—or worse still, in whose hands are, perhaps, placed many of the comforts of your life. But there! ascend that rock, Independence, and look justly down on their littleness of soul. Make the worthless tremble under your indignation, and the foolish sink before your contempt; and largely impart that happiness to others, which, I am certain, will give yourselves so much pleasure to bestow.”
Why, dear Madam, must I wake from this delightful revery, and find it all a dream? Why, amid my generous enthusiasm, must I, find myself poor and powerless, incapable of wiping one tear from the eye of pity, or of adding one comfort to the friend I love!—Out upon the world, say I, that its affairs are administered so ill! They talk of reform;—good Heaven! what a reform would I make among the sons and even the daughters of men!—Down, immediately, should go fools from the high places, where misbegotten chance has perked them up, and through life should they skulk, ever haunted by their native insignificance, as the body marches accompanied by its shadow.—As for a much more formidable class, the knaves, I am at a loss what to do with them: had I a world, there should not be a knave in it.
But the hand that could give, I would liberally fill: and I would pour delight on the heart that could kindly forgive, and generously love.
Still the inequalities of life are, among men, comparatively tolerable—but there is a delicacy, a tenderness, accompanying every view in which we can place lovely Woman, that are grated and shocked at the rude, capricious distinctions of fortune. Woman is the blood-royal of life: let there be slight degrees of precedency among them—but let them be ALL sacred.—Whether this last sentiment be right or wrong, I am not accountable; it is an original component feature of my mind.
R. B.
CCXXV. TO MRS. DUNLOP
[Burns, says Cromek, acknowledged that a refined and accomplished woman was a being all but new to him till he went to Edinburgh, and received letters from Mrs. Dunlop.]
Ellisland, 17th December, 1791.
Many thanks to you, Madam, for your good news respecting the little floweret and the mother-plant. I hope my poetic prayers have been heard, and will be answered up to the warmest sincerity of their fullest extent; and then Mrs. Henri will find her little darling the representative of his late parent, in everything but his abridged existence.
I have just finished the following song, which to a lady the descendant of Wallace—and many heroes of his true illustrious line—and herself the mother of several soldiers, needs neither preface nor apology.
Scene—a field of battle—time of the day, evening; the wounded and dying of the victorious army are supposed to join in the following
SONG OF DEATH.
Farewell, thou fair day, thou green earth, and ye skies
Now gay with the bright setting sun;
Farewell, loves and friendships, ye dear tender ties—
Our race of existence is run!
The circumstance that gave rise to the foregoing verses was, looking over with a musical friend M’Donald’s collection of Highland airs, I was struck with one, an Isle of Skye tune, entitled “Oran and Aoig, or, The Song of Death,” to the measure of which I have adapted my stanzas. I have of late composed two or three other little pieces, which, ere yon full-orbed moon, whose broad impudent face now stares at old mother earth all night, shall have shrunk into a modest crescent, just peeping forth at dewy dawn, I shall find an hour to transcribe for you. A Dieu je vous commende.
R. B.
CCXXVI. TO MRS. DUNLOP
[That the poet spoke mildly concerning the rebuke which he received from the Excise, on what he calls his political delinquencies, his letter to Erskine of Mar sufficiently proves.]
5th January, 1792.
You see my hurried life, Madam: I can only command starts of time; however, I am glad of one thing; since I finished the other sheet, the political blast that threatened my welfare is overblown. I have corresponded with Commissioner Graham, for the board had made me the subject of their animadversions; and now I have the pleasure of informing you, that all is set to rights in that quarter. Now as to these informers, may the devil be let loose to – but, hold! I was praying most fervently in my last sheet, and I must not so soon fall a swearing in this.
Alas! how little do the wantonly or idly officious think what mischief they do by their malicious insinuations, indirect impertinence, or thoughtless blabbings. What a difference there is in intrinsic worth, candour, benevolence, generosity, kindness,—in all the charities and all the virtues, between one class of human beings and another! For instance, the amiable circle I so lately mixed with in the hospitable hall of Dunlop, their generous hearts—their uncontaminated dignified minds—their informed and polished understandings—what a contrast, when compared—if such comparing were not downright sacrilege—with the soul of the miscreant who can deliberately plot the destruction of an honest man that never offended him, and with a grin of satisfaction see the unfortunate being, his faithful wife, and prattling innocents, turned over to beggary and ruin!
Your cup, my dear Madam, arrived safe. I had two worthy fellows dining with me the other day, when I, with great formality, produced my whigmeeleerie cup, and told them that it had been a family-piece among the descendants of William Wallace. This roused such an enthusiasm, that they insisted on bumpering the punch round in it; and by and by, never did your great ancestor lay a Suthron more completely to rest, than for a time did your cup my two friends. Apropos, this is the season of wishing. My God bless you, my dear friend, and bless me, the humblest and sincerest of your friends, by granting you yet many returns of the season! May all good things attend you and yours wherever they are scattered over the earth!
R. B.