by Robert Burns
I have just this moment an opportunity of a private hand to Edinburgh, as perhaps you would not digest double postage.
R. B.
83 In return for some valuable books.
84 Printer of the Edinburgh Evening Courant.
85 A club of boon companions.
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XCIX. — TO MRS. DUNLOP.
MAUCHLINE, August 2nd, 1788.
HONOURED MADAM, — Your kind letter welcomed me, yesternight, to Ayrshire. I am, indeed, seriously angry with you at the quantum of your luckpenny; but, vexed and hurt as I was, I could not help laughing very heartily at the noble lord’s apology for the missed napkin.
I would write you from Nithsdale, and give you my direction there, but I have scarce an opportunity of calling at a post-office once in a fortnight. I am six miles from Dumfries, am scarcely ever in it myself, and, as yet, have little acquaintance in the neighbourhood. Besides, I am now very busy on my farm, building a dwelling-house; as at present I am almost an evangelical man in Nithsdale, for I have scarce “where to lay my head.”
There are some passages in your last that brought tears in my eyes. “The heart knoweth its own sorrows, and a stranger intermeddleth not therewith.” The repository of these “sorrows of the heart” is a kind of sanctum sanctorum: and’tis only a chosen friend, and that, too, at particular, sacred times, who dares enter into them: —
Heaven oft tears the bosom-chords
That nature finest strung.
You will excuse this quotation for the sake of the author. Instead of entering on this subject farther, I shall transcribe you a few lines I wrote in a hermitage, belonging to a gentleman in my Nithsdale neighbourhood. They are almost the only favour the muses have conferred on me in that country.86
Since I am in the way of transcribing, the following were the production of yesterday as I jogged through the wild hills of New Cumnock. I intend inserting them, or something like them, in an epistle I am going to write to the gentleman on whose friendship my Excise hopes depend, Mr. Graham of Fintray, one of the worthiest and most accomplished gentlemen, not only of this country, but, I will dare to say it, of this age. The following are just the first crude thoughts “unhousel’d, unanointed, unanneal’d:”87 —
Here the muse left me. I am astonished at what you tell me of Anthony’s writing me. I never received it. Poor fellow I you vex me much by telling me that he is unfortunate. I shall be in Ayrshire ten days from this date. I have just room for an old Roman FAREWELL.
R. B.
86 Lines written in Friar’s Carse Hermitage.
87 First Epistle to Robert Graham.
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C. — TO MRS. DUNLOP.
ELLISLAND, 16th August 1788.
I am in a fine disposition, my honoured friend, to send you an elegiac epistle; and want only genius to make it quite Shenstonian: —
Why droops my heart with fancied woes forlorn?
Why sinks my soul beneath each wintry sky?
My increasing cares in this, as yet, strange country — gloomy conjectures in the dark vista of futurity — consciousness of my own inability for the struggle of the world — my broadened mark to misfortune in a wife and children; — I could indulge these reflections, till my humour should ferment into the most acid chagrin, that would corrode the very thread of life.
To counterwork these baneful feelings, I have sat down to write to you; as I declare upon my soul I always find that the most sovereign balm for my wounded spirit.
I was yesterday at Mr. Miller’s to dinner, for the first time. My reception was quite to my mind: from the lady of the house quite flattering. She sometimes hits on a couplet or two, impromptu. She repeated one or two to the admiration of all present. My suffrage as a professional man was expected: I for once went agonising over the belly of my conscience. Pardon me, ye, my adored household gods, independence of spirit, and integrity of soul! In the course of conversation, Johnsorfs Musical Museum, a collection of Scottish songs with the music, was talked of. We got a song on the harpsichord, beginning
Raving winds around her blowing.
The air was much admired: the lady of the house asked me whose were the words. “Mine, Madam — they are indeed my very best verses;” she took not the smallest notice of them! The old Scottish proverb says well, “King’s caff is better than ither folks’ corn.” I was going to make a New Testament quotation about “casting pearls,” but that would be too virulent, for the lady is actually a woman of sense and taste.
After all that has been said on the other side of the question, man is by no means a happy creature. I do not speak of the selected few, favoured by partial heaven, whose souls are tuned to gladness amidst riches and honours, and prudence and wisdom. I speak of the neglected many, whose nerves, whose sinews, whose days are sold to the minions of fortune.
If I thought you had never seen it, I would transcribe for you a stanza of an old Scottish ballad, called “The Life and Age of Man;” beginning thus: —
‘Twas in the sixteenth hundred year
Of God and fifty-three
Frae Christ was born, that bought us dear,
As writings testifie.
I had an old grand-uncle, with whom my mother lived a while in her girlish years; the good old man, for such he was, was long blind ere he died, during which time his highest enjoyment was to sit down and cry, while my mother would sing the simple old song of “The Life and Age of Man.”
It is this way of thinking; it is these melancholy truths, that make religion so precious to the poor, miserable children of men. If it is a mere phantom, existing only in the heated imagination of enthusiasm,
What truth on earth so precious as the lie?
My idle reasonings sometimes make me a little sceptical, but the necessities of my heart always give the cold philosophisings the lie. Who looks for the heart weaned from earth; the soul affianced to her God; the correspondence fixed with heaven; the pious supplication and devout thanksgiving, constant as the vicissitudes of even and morn; who thinks to meet with these in the court, the palace, in the glare of public life? No; to find them in their precious importance and divine efficacy, we must search among the obscure recesses of disappointment, affliction, poverty, and distress.
I am sure, dear Madam, you are now more than pleased with the length of my letters. I return to Ayrshire middle of next week: and it quickens my pace to think that there will be a letter from you waiting me there. I must be here again very soon for my harvest.
R. B.
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CI. — TO MR. BEUGO, ENGRAVER, EDINBURGH.
ELLISLAND, 9th Sept. 1788.
MY DEAR SIR, — There is not in Edinburgh above the number of the graces whose letters would have given so much pleasure as yours of the 3rd instant, which only reached me yesternight.
I am here on my farm, busy with my harvest; but for all that most pleasurable part of life called SOCIAL COMMUNICATION, I am here at the very elbow of existence. The only things that are to be found in this country, in any degree of perfection, are stupidity and canting. Prose they only know in graces, prayers, etc., and the value of these they estimate, as they do their plaiding webs, by the ell! As for the muses, they have as much an idea of a rhinoceros as of a poet. For my old, capricious, but good-natured hussy of a muse,
By banks of Nith I sat and wept
When Coila I thought on,
In midst thereof I hung my harp
The willow trees upon.
I am generally about half my time in Ayrshire with my “darling Jean,” and then I, at lucid intervals, throw my horny fist across my becobwebbed lyre, much in the same manner as an old wife throws her hand across the spokes of her spinning-wheel.
I will send you the “Fortunate Shepherdess” as soon as I return to Ayrshire, for there I keep it with other precious treasure. I shall send it by a careful hand, as I would not for a
nything it should be mislaid or lost. I do not wish to serve you from any benevolence, or other grave Christian virtue; ‘tis purely a selfish gratification of my own feelings whenever I think of you.
If your better functions would give you leisure to write me, I should be extremely happy; that is to say, if you neither keep nor look for a regular correspondence. I hate the idea of being obliged to write a letter. I sometimes write a friend twice a week; at other times once a quarter.
I am exceedingly pleased with your fancy in making the author you mention place a map of Iceland, instead of his portrait, before his works; ‘twas a glorious idea.
Could you conveniently do me one thing? — whenever you finish any head, I should like to have a proof copy of it. I might tell you a long story about your fine genius; but, as what everybody knows cannot have escaped you, I shall not say one syllable about it.
R. B.
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CII. — TO MR. ROBERT GRAHAM, OF FINTRAY.
SIR, — When I had the honour of being introduced to you at Athole House, I did not think so soon of asking a favour of you. When Lear, in Shakespeare, asked Old Kent why he wished to be in his service, he answers, “Because you have that in your face which I would fain call master.” For some such reason, Sir, do I now solicit your patronage. You know, I dare say, of an application I lately made to your Board to be admitted an officer of the Excise. I have, according to form, been examined by a supervisor, and today I gave in his certificate, with a request for an order for instructions. In this affair, if I succeed, I am afraid I shall but too much need a patronising friend. Propriety of conduct as a man, and fidelity and attention as an officer, I dare engage for; but with anything like business, except manual labour, I am totally unacquainted.
I had intended to have closed my late appearance on the stage of life in the character of a country farmer; but, after discharging some filial and fraternal claims, I find I could only fight for existence in that miserable manner, which I have lived to see throw a venerable parent into the jaws of a jail, whence death, the poor man’s last and often best friend, rescued him.
I know, Sir, that to need your goodness, is to have a claim on it; may I, therefore, beg your patronage to forward me in this affair, till I be appointed to a division, where, by the help of rigid economy, I will try to support that independence so dear to my soul, but which has been too often so distant from my situation.
R. B.
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CII. — TO His WIFE, AT MAUCHLINE.
ELLISLAND, Friday, 12th Sep. 1788.
MY DEAR LOVE, — I received your kind letter with a pleasure which no letter but one from you could have given me. I dreamed of you the whole night last; but alas! I fear it will be three weeks yet ere I can hope for the happiness of seeing you. My harvest is going on. I have some to cut down still, but I put in two stacks to-day, so I’m as tired as a dog.
You might get one of Gilbert’s sweet-milk cheeses, and send it to.... On second thoughts I believe you had best get the half of Gilbert’s web of table linen and make it up; though I think it damnable dear, but it is no outlaid money to us, you know. I have just now consulted my old landlady about table linen, and she thinks I may have the best for two shillings a yard; so, after all, let it alone till I return; and some day soon I will be in Dumfries and ask the price there. I expect your new gowns will be very forward or ready to make, against I be home to get the baiveridge.88
I have written my long-thought-on letter to Mr. Graham, the Commissioner of Excise; and have sent a sheetful of poetry besides.
88 On her first appearance in public in a new dress a young woman was subject to this tax, if claimed by the young man who happened first to meet her.
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CIV. — TO Miss CHALMERS, EDINBURGH.
ELLISLAND, NEAR DUMFRIES, Sept. 16th, 1788.
Where are you? and how are you? and is Lady Mackenzie recovering her health? for I have had but one solitary letter from you. I will not think you have forgot me, Madam and, for my part,
When thee, Jerusalem, I forget,
Skill part from my right hand!
“My heart is not of that rock, nor my soul careless as that sea.” I do not make my progress among mankind as a bowl does among its fellows-rolling through the crowd without bearing away any mark or impression, except where they hit in hostile collision.
I am here, driven in with my harvest-folks by bad weather; and as you and your sister once did me the honour of interesting yourselves much à l’ egard de moi, I sit down to beg the continuation of your goodness. I can truly say that, all the exterior of life apart, I never saw two whose esteem flattered the nobler feelings of my soul — I will not say more, but so much, as Lady Mackenzie and Miss Chalmers. When I think of you — hearts the best, minds the noblest of human kind — unfortunate even in the shades of life — when I think I have met with you, and have lived more of real life with you in eight days than I can do with almost anybody I meet with in eight years — when I think on the improbability of meeting you in this world again — I could sit down and cry like a child! If ever you honoured me with a place in your esteem, I trust I can now plead more desert. I am secure against that crushing grip of iron poverty, which, alas! is less or more fatal to the native worth and purity of, I fear, the noblest souls; and a late important step in my life has kindly taken me out of the way of those ungrateful iniquities, which, however overlooked in fashionable licence, or varnished in fashionable phrase, are indeed but lighter and deeper shades of villainy.
Shortly after my last return to Ayrshire, I married “my Jean.” This was not in consequence of the attachment of romance, perhaps; but I had a long and much-loved fellow-creature’s happiness or misery in my determination, and I durst not trifle with so important a deposit. Nor have I any cause to repent it. If I have not got polite tattle, modish manners, and fashionable dress, I am not sickened and disgusted with the multiform curse of boarding-school affectation; and I have got the handsomest figure, the sweetest temper, the soundest constitution, and the kindest heart in the county. Mrs. Burns believes, as firmly as her creed, that I am le plus bel esprit, et le plus honnête homme in the universe; although she scarcely ever in her life, except the Scriptures of the old and New Testament, and the Psalms of David in metre, spent five minutes together on either prose or verse. I must except also from this last a certain late publication of Scots poems, which she has perused very devoutly; and all the ballads in the country, as she has (O the partial lover! you will cry) the finest “wood note wild” I ever heard. I am the more particular in this lady’s character, as I know she will henceforth have the honour of a share in your best wishes. She is still at Mauchline, as I am building my house; for this hovel that I shelter in, while occasionally here, is pervious to every blast that blows, and every shower that falls; and I am only preserved from being chilled to death, by being suffocated with smoke. I do not find my farm that pennyworth I was taught to expect, but I believe, in time, it may be a saving bargain. You will be pleased to hear that I have laid aside the idle éclat, and bind every day after my reapers.
To save me from that horrid situation of at any time going down, in a losing bargain of a farm, to misery, I have taken my Excise instructions, and have my commission in my pocket for any emergency of fortune. If I could set all before your view, whatever disrespect you, in common with the world, have for this business, I know you would approve of my idea.
I will make no apology, dear Madam, for this egotistic detail; I know you and your sister will be interested in every circumstance of it. What signify the silly, idle gew-gaws of wealth, or the ideal trumpery of greatness! When fellow-partakers of the same nature fear the same God, have the same benevolence of heart, the same nobleness of soul, the same detestation at everything dishonest, and the same scorn at everything unworthy — if they are not in the dependence of absolute beggary, in the na
me of common sense, are they not equals? And if the bias, the instinctive bias of their souls run the same way, why may they not be friends?
When I may have an opportunity of sending you this, Heaven only knows. Shenstone says, “When one is confined idle within doors by bad weather, the best antidote against ennui is to read the letters of, or write to, one’s friends;” in that case then, if the weather continues thus, I may scrawl you half a quire.
I very lately — to wit, since harvest began — wrote a poem, not in imitation, but in the manner of Pope’s Moral Epistles. It is only a short essay, just to try the strength of my Muse’s pinion in that way. I will send you a copy of it, when once I have heard from you. I have likewise been laying the foundation of some pretty large poetic works; how the superstructure will come on, I leave to that great maker and marrer of projects, time. Johnson’s collection of Scots songs is going on in the third volume; and, of consequence, finds me a consumpt for a great deal of idle metre. One of the most tolerable things I have done in that way, is two stanzas I made to an air a musical gentleman of my acquaintance composed for the anniversary of his wedding-day, which happens on the seventh of November. Take it as follows: —
The day returns — my bosom burns —
The blissful day we twa did meet, etc.
I shall give over this letter for shame. If I should be seized with a scribbling fit, before this goes away, I shall make it another letter; and then you may allow your patience a week’s respite between the two. I have not room for more than the old, kind, hearty farewell!