phrenological development of robert burns by george combe. engraved & published by w. & a.k. johnston, edinburgh. april 1834. _reprinted january 1859._ phrenological development of robert burns, from a cast of his skull moulded at dumfries. the 31st day of march 1834. with remarks by george combe, author of "a system of phrenology,"--"the constitution of man" &c. [illustration: mausoleum, erected at dumfries, to the memory of robt burns] engraved & published by w. & a.k. johnston, edinburgh 30 april 1834. reprinted january 1859. [illustration: views of the skull of robert burns.] [illustration: key to the phrenological organs.] observations on the skull of burns, by george combe. robert burns was born on 25th january 1759, and died at dumfries on 21st july 1796, in the 37th year of his age, and, on the 26th, was interred in st michael's churchyard. eighteen years afterwards, a mausoleum was erected by subscription to his memory in that cemetery; and, on the 19th september 1815, his remains were privately exhumed and transferred to the vault attached to it. mrs burns, the poet's widow, having died on 26th march 1834, the vault was opened for the purpose of depositing her remains beside those of her husband; and the gentlemen who took charge of the proceedings, being aware of the anxiety which had long been generally felt to obtain a cast of the poet's skull, resolved to avail themselves of the opportunity to gratify this desire. the consent of the relatives having been obtained, mr m'diarmid, the editor of the _dumfries courier_, went with several other gentlemen to the vault, and successfully effected their purpose. the following description is written by mr archibald blacklock, surgeon: "the cranial bones were perfect in every respect, if we except a little erosion of their external table, and firmly held together by their sutures; even the delicate bones of the orbits, with the trifling exception of the _os unguis_ in the left, were sound and uninjured by death and the grave. the superior maxillary bones still retained the four most posterior teeth on each side, including the dentes sapientiæ, and all without spot or blemish; the incisores, cuspidati, &c., had, in all probability, recently dropped from the jaw, for the alveoli were but little decayed. the bones of the face and palate were also sound. some small portions of black hair, with a very few grey hairs intermixed, were observed while detaching some extraneous matter from the occiput. indeed, nothing could exceed the high state of preservation in which we found the bones of the cranium, or offer a fairer opportunity of supplying what has so long been desiderated by phrenologists--a correct model of our immortal poet's head; and in order to accomplish this in the most accurate and satisfactory manner, every particle of sand or other foreign body was carefully washed off, and the plaster-of-paris applied with all the tact and accuracy of an experienced artist. the cast is admirably taken, and cannot fail to prove highly interesting to phrenologists and others. "having completed our intention, the skull, securely enclosed in a leaden case, was again committed to the earth precisely where we found it. "archd. blacklock." dumfries, _1st april 1834_. cerebral development of burns. i.--dimensions of the skull. inches. greatest circumference, 22-1/4 from occipital spine to individuality, over the top of the head, 14 ... ear to ear vertically over the top of the head, 13 ... philoprogenitiveness to individuality (greatest length), 8 ... concentrativeness to comparison, 7-1/8 ... ear to philoprogenitiveness, 4-7/8 ... ear to individuality, 4-3/4 ... ear to benevolence, 5-1/2 ... ear to firmness, 5-1/2 ... destructiveness to destructiveness, 5-3/4 ... secretiveness to secretiveness, 5-7/8 ... cautiousness to cautiousness, 5-1/2 ... ideality to ideality, 4-5/8 ... constructiveness to constructiveness, 4-1/2 ... mastoid process to mastoid process, 4-3/4 ii.--development of the organs. scale. 1. amativeness, rather large, 16 2. philoprogenitiveness, very large, 20 3. concentrativeness, large, 18 4. adhesiveness, very large, 20 5. combativeness, very large, 20 6. destructiveness, large, 18 7. secretiveness, large, 19 8. acquisitiveness, rather large, 16 9. constructiveness, full, 15 10. self-esteem, large, 18 11. love of approbation, very large, 20 12. cautiousness, large, 19 13. benevolence, very large, 20 14. veneration, large, 18 15. firmness, full, 15 16. conscientiousness, full, 15 17. hope, full, 14 18. wonder, large, 18 19. ideality, large, 18 20. wit, or mirthfulness, full, 15 21. imitation, large, 19 22. individuality, large, 19 23. form, rather large, 16 24. size, rather large, 17 25. weight, rather large, 16 26. colouring, rather large, 16 27. locality, large, 18 28. number, rather full, 12 29. order, full, 14 30. eventuality, large, 18 31. time, rather large, 16 32. tune, full, 15 33. language, uncertain, 34. comparison, rather large, 17 35. causality, large, 18 _the scale of the organs indicates their relative proportions to each other; 2 is idiotcy--10 moderate--14 full--18 large--and 20 very large._ the cast of a skull does not show the temperament of the individual, but the portraits of burns indicate the bilious and nervous temperaments--the sources of strength, activity, and susceptibility; and the descriptions given by his contemporaries of his beaming and energetic eye, and the rapidity and impetuosity of his manifestations, establish the inference that his brain was active and susceptible. size in the brain, other conditions being equal, is the measure of mental power. the skull of burns indicates a large brain. the length is 8, and the greatest breadth nearly 6 inches. the circumference is 22-1/4 inches. these measurements exceed the average of scotch living heads, _including the integuments_, for which four-eighths of an inch may be allowed. the brain of burns, therefore, possessed the two elements of power and activity. the portions of the brain which manifest the animal propensities are uncommonly large, indicating strong passions, and great energy in action under their influence. the group of organs manifesting the domestic affections (amativeness, philoprogenitiveness, and adhesiveness), is large; philoprogenitiveness uncommonly so for a male head. the organs of combativeness and destructiveness are large, bespeaking great heat of temper, impatience, and liability to irritation. secretiveness and cautiousness are both large, and would confer considerable power of restraint, where he felt restraint to be necessary. acquisitiveness, self-esteem, and love of approbation, are also in ample endowment, although the first is less than the other two; these feelings give the love of property, a high consideration of self, and desire of the esteem of others. the first quality will not be so readily conceded to burns as the second and third, which, indeed, were much stronger; but the phrenologist records what is presented by nature, in full confidence that the manifestations, when the character is correctly understood, will be found to correspond with the development, and he states that the brain indicates considerable love of property. the organs of the moral sentiments are also largely developed. ideality, wonder, imitation, and benevolence, are the largest in size. veneration also is large. conscientiousness, firmness, and hope, are full. the knowing organs, or those of perceptive intellect, are large; and the organs of reflection are also considerable, but less than the former. causality is larger than comparison, and wit is less than either. the skull indicates the combination of strong animal passions, with equally powerful moral emotions. if the natural morality had been less, the endowment of the propensities is sufficient to have constituted a character of the most desperate description. the combination, as it exists, bespeaks a mind extremely subject to contending emotions--capable of great good or great evil--and encompassed with vast difficulties in preserving a steady, even, onward course of practical morality. in the combination of very large philoprogenitiveness and adhesiveness, with very large benevolence and large ideality, we find the elements of that exquisite tenderness and refinement, which burns so frequently manifested, even when at the worst stage of his career. in the combination of great combativeness, destructiveness, and self-esteem, we find the fundamental qualities which inspired "scots wha hae wi' wallace bled," and similar productions. the combination of large secretiveness, imitation, and the perceptive organs, gives the elements of his dramatic talent and humour. the skull indicates a decided talent for humour, but less for wit. the public are apt to confound the talents for wit and humour. the metaphysicians, however, have distinguished them, and in the phrenological works their different elements are pointed out. burns possessed the talent for satire: destructiveness, added to the combination which gives humour, produces it. an unskilful observer looking at the forehead might suppose it to be moderate in size; but when the dimensions of the anterior lobe, in both length and breadth, are attended to, the intellectual organs will be recognised to have been large. the anterior lobe projects so much that it gives an appearance of narrowness to the forehead which is not real. this is the cause, also, why benevolence appears to lie farther back than usual. an anterior lobe of this magnitude indicates great intellectual power. the combination of large perceptive and reflecting organs (causality predominant), with large concentrativeness and large organs of the feelings, gives that sagacity and vigorous common sense for which burns was distinguished. the skull rises high above causality, and spreads wide in the region of ideality; the strength of his moral feelings lay in that region. the combination of large organs of the animal propensities, with large cautiousness, and only full hope, together with the unfavourable circumstances in which he was placed, accounts for the melancholy and internal unhappiness with which burns was so frequently afflicted. this melancholy was rendered still deeper by bad health. the combination of acquisitiveness, cautiousness, love of approbation, and conscientiousness, is the source of his keen feelings in regard to pecuniary independence. the great power of his animal propensities would give him strong temptations to waste; but the combination just mentioned would impose a powerful restraint. the head indicates the elements of an economical character; and it is known that he died free from debt, notwithstanding the smallness of his salary. no phrenologist can look upon this head, and consider the circumstances in which burns was placed, without vivid feelings of regret. burns must have walked the earth with a consciousness of great superiority over his associates in the station in which he was placed--of powers calculated for a far higher sphere than that which he was able to reach--and of passions which he could with difficulty restrain, and which it was fatal to indulge. if he had been placed from infancy in the higher ranks of life, liberally educated, and employed in pursuits corresponding to his powers, the inferior portion of his nature would have lost part of its energy, while his better qualities would have assumed a decided and permanent superiority. the drawings of the skull are ably executed by george harvey, esq., s.a. [illustration: rose emblem] a day with burns. _painting by w. j. neatby._ my luve is like a red, red rose. my luve is like a red, red rose that's newly sprung in june: my luve is like the melodie that's sweetly played in tune as fair thou art, my bonnie lass, so deep in luve am i: and i will love thee still, my dear, till a' the seas gang dry. [illustration: lady with rose] a day with the poet burns london hodder & stoughton _in the same series._ _longfellow._ _tennyson._ _keats._ _browning._ _wordsworth._ a day with burns. there are few figures which appeal more picturesquely to the imagination than that of the ploughman-poet--swarthy, stalwart, black-eyed,--striding along the furrow in the grey of a dreary dawn. yet burns was far from being a mere uncultured peasant, nor did he come of peasant stock. his forefathers were small yeoman farmers, who had risked themselves in the cause of the young pretender: they had a certain amount of family pride and family tradition. robert burns had been educated in small schools, by various tutors, and by his father, a man of considerable attainments. he had acquired some french and latin, studied mensuration, and acquainted himself with a good deal of poetry and many theological and philosophical books. _painting by e. w. haslehust._ the home of burns. the man in hodden grey and rough top boots who might be seen going out on dusky mornings from his little farmstead of ellisland near dumfries. [illustration: man on horseback leaving farm] so that the man who may be seen going out this dusky morning from his little farmstead of ellisland near dumfries--the dark and taciturn man in hodden grey and rough top boots--is not precisely a son of the soil. he is a hard worker in the field by dint of necessity, but his strenuous and impetuous mind is set upon other thoughts than the plough, as he drives his share along the nithsdale uplands. it is exactly the season of the year that he delights in. "there is scarcely any earthly object," he has written, "which gives me more--i do not know if i should call it pleasure, but something that exalts me, something that enraptures me--than to walk in the sheltered side of a wood or high plantation on a cloudy winter's day, and hear the stormy wind howling among the trees, or raving over the plains.... i take a peculiar pleasure in the season of winter, more than the rest of the year.... there is something that raises the mind to a serious sublimity, favourable to everything great and noble." and there is also something secretly akin to the poet's wild and passionate soul. for this is not a happy man, but an embittered one, and ready to "rail on lady fortune in good set terms." he takes the storm-wind for an interpreter: 'the sweeping blast, the sky o'ercast,' the joyless winter day, let others fear, to me more dear than all the pride of may: the tempest's howl, it soothes my soul, my griefs it seems to join; the leafless trees my fancy please, their fate resembles mine! thou power supreme, whose mighty scheme these woes of mine fulfil, here firm i rest; they must be best, because they are _thy_ will! then all i want--o do thou grant this one request of mine!- since to _enjoy_ thou dost deny, assist me to _resign_. his brief meteoric reign of popularity in edinburgh is now at an end: from being a popular idol of society, caressed and fêted, he has been let to sink back into his native obscurity. and, being poignantly proud, he suffers accordingly. the consciousness of genius burns within him, a flame that devours rather than illumines: and he finds vent for his bitterness, as he treads the clogging fallow, in the immortal lines: _a man's a man for a' that._ is there for honest poverty that hings his head, an' a' that; the coward-slave--we pass him by, we dare be poor for a' that! for a' that, an' a' that, our toils obscure an' a' that, the rank is but the guinea's stamp, the man's the gowd for a' that. what though on hamely fare we dine, wear hoddin grey, an' a' that; gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine, a man's a man for a' that, for a' that, an' a' that, their tinsel show an' a' that; the honest man, tho' e'er sae poor, is king o' men for a' that; * * * * * a prince can mak a belted knight, a marquis, duke, an' a' that; but an honest man's aboon his might, gude faith, he mauna fa' that! for a' that, an' a' that, their dignities an' a' that; the pith o' sense, an' pride o' worth, are higher rank than a' that. then let us pray that come it may (as come it will for a' that), that sense and worth, o'er a' the earth, shall bear the gree an' a' that, for a' that, an' a' that; it's coming yet for a' that, that man to man, the world o'er, shall brothers be for a' that. presently, however, the sweet influences of the clear air, the pleasant smell of upturned earth, the wholesome sight and sounds of morning, soothe the poet's rugged spirit: he becomes attuned to the calmer present, and forgetful of the feverish past. burns has never been given to depicting the shows and forms of nature for their own sake: he only uses them as a stage for the setting of a central human interest. in short, he "cares little," it has been said, "for the natural picturesqueness in itself: the moral picturesqueness touches him more nearly." and all sentient life is dear to him--not human life alone. hence, one sees him wince and shrink, as his ploughshare destroys the daisy. _painting by dudley hardy._ the mountain daisy. wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower, thou's met me in an evil hour, for i maun crush amang the stoure thy slender stem: to spare thee now is past my power, thou bonnie gem. [illustration: evening ploughing scene] wee, modest crimson-tipped flow'r, thou'st met me in an evil hour; for i maun crush amang the stoure thy slender stem: to spare thee now is past my pow'r, thou bonie gem. alas! it's no thy neibor sweet, the bonie lark, companion meet, bending thee 'mang the dewy weet, wi' spreckl'd breast! when upward-springing, blithe, to greet the purpling east. cauld blew the bitter-biting north upon thy early humble birth; yet cheerfully thou glinted forth amid the storm, scarce rear'd above the parent-earth thy tender form. * * * * * there, in thy scanty mantle clad, thy snawie bosom sun-ward spread, thou lifts thy unassuming head in humble guise; but now the share uptears thy bed, and low thou lies! * * * * * ev'n thou who mourn'st the daisy's fate, that fate is thine--no distant date; stern ruin's ploughshare drives elate, full on thy bloom, till crush'd beneath the furrow's weight shall be thy doom! (_to a mountain daisy._) or he becomes thoughtful and abstracted beyond his wont, after turning up a mouse's nest with the plough; and sternly recalls his "gaudsman" or ploughboy, who would kill the little creature out of pure thoughtlessness. he muses upon the irony of fate: and the world is the richer for his musings. wee, sleeket, cowrin, tim'rous beastie, o, what a panic's in thy breastie! thou need na start awa sae hasty, wi' bickerin brattle! i wad be laith to run an' chase thee, wi' murderin' pattle! thou saw the fields laid bare and waste, an' weary winter coming fast, an' cozie here, beneath the blast, thou thought to dwell- till crash! the cruel coulter past out thro' thy cell. * * * * * but, mousie, thou art no thy lane, in proving foresight may be vain; the best-laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley, an' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain, for promised joy! (_lines to a mouse._) but nothing is too trivial to evade this large and universal sympathy of his. "not long ago, one morning, as i was out in the fields sowing some grass seeds, i heard the burst of a shot from a neighbouring plantation, and presently a poor little wounded hare came crippling by me. you will guess my indignation at the inhuman fellow who could shoot a hare at this season, when they all of them have young ones." it is on record that he threatened to throw the culprit--a neighbouring farmer's son--into the nith to reward his inhumanity. the ploughing is finished for the day, but the poet must now needs betake himself to those official duties as an exciseman, which are perhaps even less congenial to him than agricultural pursuits. he has to cover some two hundred miles' riding every week; he is forced to earn a scanty living for himself and his family, by incessant physical and mental work. the iron has entered into his soul--here and there it crops up in hard metallic outbursts: though for the most part, he is unrivalled in spontaneous gaiety of song. and old sorrows come upon him as he rides alone.... he considers the present time to be the happiest of his life. he has an excellent wife, and bonnie bairns: friends many and faithful: comparative immunity from financial troubles: a popularity such as no other scottish poet has attained; yet memories of the past remain, which are never to be obliterated in oblivion. and chief among these is the greatest sorrow that has befallen him--the loss of his one true love, his cherished highland mary. ye banks and braes and streams around the castle o' montgomery! green be your woods, and fair your flowers, your waters never drumlie: there simmer first unfald her robes, and there the langest tarry; for there i took the last farewell o' my sweet highland mary. how sweetly bloom'd the gay, green birk, how rich the hawthorn's blossom, as underneath their fragrant shade i clasp'd her to my bosom! the golden hours on angel wings, flew o'er me and my dearie; for dear to me, as light and life, was my sweet highland mary. * * * * * o pale, pale now, those rosy lips, i aft hae kiss'd sae fondly! and clos'd for ay, the sparkling glance that dwalt on me sae kindly! and mouldering now in silent dust, that heart that lo'ed me dearly! but still within my bosom's core shall live my highland mary. burns has been an easy and inconstant lover all his days: devoted, for the nonce, to every girl he met. but mary was on a pinnacle apart--unequalled, irreplaceable; and still he is continually dreaming of her--dreaming in tender and melodious verse. _painting by dudley hardy._ highland mary. the golden hours, on angel wings, flew o'er me and my dearie, for dear to me as light and life was my sweet highland mary. [illustration: woman in red] thou ling'ring star, with less'ning ray, that lov'st to greet the early morn, again thou usher'st in the day my mary from my soul was torn. o mary! dear departed shade! where is thy place of blissful rest? see'st thou thy lover lowly laid? hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast? that sacred hour can i forget, can i forget the hallow'd grove, where by the winding ayr we met, to live one day of parting love! eternity will not efface those records dear of transports past, thy image at our last embrace, ah! little thought we 'twas our last! (_to mary in heaven._) but now, hard upon the scent of smugglers across the nithsdale moors, exchanging cheery greetings with cottagers here and there, the tramp of his horse's hoofs inspires him to a gayer measure. the clouds, which have overhung his mind all the forenoon, roll away: and his mercurial spirit seizes any pleasure that the moment may afford. the nearest to hand is the ready ripple of rhythm in light short songs that fairly bubble over with gaiety. for there is nothing of the midnight oil about robert burns--his poems come swiftly and spontaneously to him, as naturally as music to a blackbird: they have indeed the same quality as the carols of birds--careless, happy, tuneful. any casual impression sets our poet singing: the mere glance of a merry blue eye at a window, and he is away on the praises of one immediately present lassie, or of innumerable others absent. _chorus_:--green grow the rashes, o; green grow the rashes, o; the sweetest hours that e'er i spend, are spent among the lasses, o. there's nought but care on ev'ry han', in every hour that passes, o: what signifies the life o' man, an' 'twere na for the lasses, o. green grow, etc. the war'ly race may riches chase, and riches still may fly them, o; an' tho' at last they catch them fast, their hearts can ne'er enjoy them, o. green grow, etc. but gie me a cannie hour at e'en my arms about my dearie, o; an' war'ly cares, and war'ly men, may a' gae tapsalteerie, o! green grow, etc. for you sae douce, ye sneer at this; ye're nought but senseless asses, o: the wisest man the warl' e'er saw, he dearly lov'd the lasses, o. green grow, etc. auld nature swears, the lovely dears her noblest work she classes, o: her prentice han' she try'd on man, an' then she made the lasses, o. green grow, etc. sometimes a flower in the hedgerow opens out to him a new and exquisite signification. my luve is like a red red rose that's newly sprung in june; my luve is like the melodie that's sweetly play'd in tune. as fair art thou, my bonie lass, so deep in luve am i; and i will luve thee still, my dear, till a' the seas gang dry. till a' the seas gang dry, my dear, an' the rocks melt wi' the sun; and i will luve thee still, my dear, while the sands o' life shall run. and fare-thee-weel, my only luve! and fare-thee-weel awhile! and i will come again, my luve, tho' 'twere ten thousand mile! _painting by dudley hardy._ o wert thou in the cauld blast. o wert thou in the cauld blast, on yonder lea, on yonder lea; my plaidie to the angry airt, i'd shelter thee, i'd shelter thee; or did misfortune's bitter storms around thee blaw, around thee blaw, thy bield should be my bosom, to share it a', to share it a'. [illustration: man protectively embracing woman] or, as he meets the wind--still bleak, though now it is midday,--a cold wind charged with latent snow,--its chilly breaths are crystallized into a very jewel of song. o wert thou in the cauld blast, on yonder lea, on yonder lea, my plaidie to the angry airt, i'd shelter thee, i'd shelter thee; or did misfortune's bitter storms around thee blaw, around thee blaw, thy bield should be my bosom, to share it a', to share it a'. or were i in the wildest waste, sae black and bare, sae black and bare, the desert were a paradise, if thou wert there, if thou wert there; or were i monarch o' the globe, wi' thee to reign, wi' thee to reign, the brightest jewel in my crown wad be my queen, wad be my queen. presently he turns his horse's head towards dumfries. it is market-day in the town, and a score of friends give him clamorous welcome. they may not fully appreciate rob's mental equipments, but they greet him as the best of good companions: and in a little while he forms the leading spirit of some excited group, discussing matters social and political. for burns takes the keenest interest in current events: and, though most of his poems may be of a more ephemeral interest, he is capable, when deeply stirred, of expressing himself with a stern and lofty patriotism. it may be inspired by the events of the present: it often is evoked by glories of the past. scots, wha hae wi' wallace bled, scots, wham bruce has aften led, welcome to your gory bed, or to victorie! now's the day, and now's the hour; see the front o' battle lour; see approach proud edward's power- chains and slaverie! wha will be a traitor knave? wha can fill a coward's grave? wha sae base as be a slave? let him turn and flee! * * * * * lay the proud usurpers low! tyrants fall in every foe! liberty's in every blow!- let us do--or die!!! seated in the inn among his cronies, "as market-days are wearing late," the dour and bitter looks of the poet are exchanged for glowing eyes and laughing lips, while he recites some of the lines which he has wedded to old and familiar melodies. as moore, a little later, secured for the irish airs a world-wide reputation, by supplying them with words of a more popular character than their own--so burns re-wrote the songs of his country. thousands of people who never heard of "the highland watch's farewell" have carolled that melody to his delightful verses, my heart is sair--i dare na tell, my heart is sair for somebody; i could wake a winter night for the sake o' somebody: oh-hon! for somebody! oh-hey! for somebody! i could range the world around, for the sake o' somebody. ye powers that smile on virtuous love, o, sweetly smile on somebody! frae ilka danger keep him free, and send me safe my somebody! oh-hon! for somebody! oh-hey! for somebody! i wad do--what would i not? for the sake o' somebody. as time wears by, burns pulls out a manuscript from his pocket, and reads his latest poem to a hilarious audience: a very masterpiece, they acclaim it. the legend and the scenery are awhile familiar to them: but they have never heard the tale told thus before, as burns has immortalized it in "tam o' shanter." ... as bees flee hame wi' lades o' treasure, the minutes wing'd their way wi' pleasure: kings may be blest, but tam was glorious, o'er a' the ills o' life victorious! but pleasures are like poppies spread, you seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed; or like the snow falls in the river, a moment white--then melts for ever; or like the borealis race, that flit ere you can point their place; or like the rainbow's lovely form evanishing amid the storm. nae man can tether time nor tide, the hour approaches tam maun ride- that hour, o' night's black arch the key-stane, that dreary hour he mounts his beast in; and sic a night he takes the road in, as ne'er poor sinner was abroad in. * * * * * weel mounted on his grey meare meg (a better never lifted leg), tam skelpit on thro' dub and mire, despising wind, and rain, and fire; whiles holding fast his guid blue bonnet, whiles crooning o'er an auld scots sonnet, whiles glow'ring round wi' prudent cares, lest bogles catch him unawares; kirk-alloway was drawing nigh, whare ghaists and howlets nightly cry. * * * * * ... the lightnings flash from pole to pole, near and more near the thunders roll, when glimmering thro' the groaning trees, kirk-alloway seemed in a bleeze, thro' ilka bore the beams were glancing, and loud resounded mirth and dancing. * * * * * ... and, wow! tam saw an unco sight! warlocks and witches in a dance: nae cotillion, brent-new frae france, but hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels, put life and mettle in their heels. (_tam o' shanter._) but now it is time that burns, like his hero, should take the homeward road. he calls for his horse, parts from his boisterous comrades, and rides out into the wintry evening. nithsdale is a land of lovely sunsets: and against the rose and gold of heaven, the poet sees the homely cottage-smoke of earth, thin spirals of blue vapour, speaking of happy hearths and labour ended. it is several years since burns, standing with douglas stewart upon the braid hills, declared that to him the worthiest object in the whole bright morning landscape was the cluster of smoking cottages. but still he regards them with affection and enjoyment: and chiefly his eyes are bent towards that quiet homestead which holds his own dear folk. all the peace which that stormy heart can find is set and centred there: despite all previous fugitive fancies for jessie, and peggie, and phemie, and the rest, he has found calm happiness with his jean, the most devoted of wives. of a' the airts the wind can blaw, i dearly like the west, for there the bonie lassie lives, the lassie i lo'e best: there's wild-woods grow, and rivers row, and mony a hill between: but day and night my fancy's flight is ever wi' my jean. i see her in the dewy flowers, i see her sweet and fair, i hear her in the tunefu' birds, i hear her charm the air: there's not a bonie flower that springs, by fountain, shaw, or green; there's not a bonie bird that sings, but minds me o' my jean. she comes out into the twilight to meet him, and his emotion shapes itself, on the instant, into song. this is no my ain lassie, fair tho' the lassie be; weel ken i my ain lassie, kind love is in her e'e. i see a form, i see a face, ye weel may wi' the fairest place; it wants, to me, the witching grace, the kind love that's in her e'e. she's bonnie, blooming, straight, and tall, and lang has had my heart in thrall; and aye it charms my very saul, the kind love that's in her e'e. a thief sae pawkie is my jean, to steal a blink, by a' unseen; but gleg as light are lovers' een, when kind love is in the e'e. it may escape the courtly sparks, it may escape the learnèd clerks; but weel the watching lover marks the kind love that's in her e'e. the servants, sitting at the same table, according to scottish farm custom, share his simple evening meal: and subsequently, before the children's bedtime, the master speaks with seriousness to his household, and reads aloud some passages from the holy book. their master's and their mistress's command, the younkers a' are warned to obey; and mind their labours wi' an eydent hand, an' ne'er, tho' out o' sight, to jauk or play; "and o! be sure to fear the lord alway, "and mind your duty, duly, morn and night; "lest in temptation's path ye gang astray, "implore his counsel and assisting might: "they never sought in vain that sought the lord aright." * * * * * then homeward all take off their several way, the youngling cottagers retire to rest: the parent-pair their secret homage pay, and proffer up to heaven the warm request, that he who stills the raven's clam'rous nest, and decks the lily fair in flow'ry pride, would in the way his wisdom sees the best, for them and for their little ones provide; but chiefly, in their hearts with grace divine preside. (_the cotter's saturday night._) _painting by dudley hardy_. john anderson, my jo. john anderson, my jo, john, we clamb the hill thegither; and monie a canty day, john, we've had wi' ane anither: now we maun totter down, john, but hand in hand we'll go, and sleep thegither at the foot, john anderson, my jo. [illustration: two old men chatting happily] now, in the quiet house, the man at last is free to take up his pen. he is writing hard, daily, or rather nightly: every week sees a parcel of manuscript despatched to his publisher. the thoughts which have crowded tumultuously upon him all day long, may at last be set down and conserved: for poetry, as wordsworth says, "is emotion remembered in tranquillity." the grave and swarthy face bends above the paper in the candlelight--varying expressions chase each other across the mobile mouth and eyes. sometimes the theme is one of poignant pathos. ae fond kiss and then we sever; ae fareweel, and then forever! deep in heart-wrung tears i'll pledge thee, warring sighs and groans i'll wage thee. who shall say that fortune grieves him, while the star of hope she leaves him? me, nae cheerful twinkle lights me; dark despair around benights me. i'll ne'er blame my partial fancy, naething could resist my nancy. but to see her was to love her; love but her, and love for ever. had we never lov'd sae kindly, had we never lov'd sae blindly, never met--or never parted, we had ne'er been broken-hearted! fare-thee-weel, thou first and fairest! fare-thee-weel, thou best and dearest! thine be ilka joy and treasure, peace, enjoyment, love, and pleasure! ae fond kiss, and then we sever! ae fareweel, alas! for ever! deep in heart-wrung tears i'll pledge thee, warring sighs and groans i'll wage thee. (_parting song to clarinda._) again the music changes to the sprightliest vivaciousness, to tell how "last may a braw wooer came down the lang glen," or to sing the "dainty distress" of the maiden enamoured of _tam glen_. my heart is a-breaking, dear tittie, some counsel unto me come len', to anger them a' is a pity, but what will i do wi' tam glen? i'm thinking, wi' sic a braw fellow, in poortith i might mak a fen'; what care i in riches to wallow, if i mauna marry tam glen! there's lowrie the laird o' dumeller- "gude-day to you"--brute! he comes ben: he brags and he braws o' his siller, but when will he dance like tam glen! my minnie does constantly deave me, and bids me beware o' young men; they flatter, she says, to deceive me, but wha can think sae o' tam glen! my daddie says, gin i'll forsake him, he'll gie me gude hunder marks ten; but, if it's ordain'd i maun take him, o wha will i get but tam glen! yestreen at the valentine's dealing, my heart to my mou gied a sten; for thrice i drew ane without failing, and thrice it was written "tam glen!" the last halloween i was waukin my droukit sark-sleeve, as ye ken, his likeness came up the house staukin, and the very grey breeks o' tam glen! come, counsel, dear tittie! don't tarry; i'll gie ye my bonnie black hen, gif ye will advise me to marry the lad i lo'e dearly, tam glen! but here comes a knock at the door, to stop the flow of inspiration: it is not an unwelcome visitor, but an old friend, who, returning after many years from foreign parts, has learned of "rob's" amazing leap into fame. strangers, drawn by curiosity and admiration, are not infrequent visitors: "it was something to have dined or supped in the company of burns." but this is a different matter: and the warm impulsive heart responds to it, in words which have never been forgotten. should auld acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind? should auld acquaintance be forgot, and auld lang syne! for auld lang syne, my dear, for auld lang syne, we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet, for auld lang syne. and surely ye'll be your pint-stowp! and surely i'll be mine! and we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet, for auld lang syne. we twa hae run about the braes, and pou'd the gowans fine; but we've wander'd mony a weary fitt, sin' auld lang syne. we twa hae paidl'd i' the burn, frae morning sun till dine; but seas between us braid hae roar'd sin' auld lang syne. it is late, very late, when the visitor departs: the stars are frosty, the ground hard. the spell of newly-roused remembrances lies heavy still upon burns's heart: and as he turns to rest, and sees the peaceful sleeping forms of his wife and little children, tender and calm desires well up within him. he can conceive no higher happiness than comes of a serene old age, in the company of those dear ones: and a picture rises before him of old folk gently descending to a longer rest, side by side together. john anderson, my jo, john, when we were first acquent; your locks were like the raven, your bonie brow was brent; but now your brow is beld, john, your locks are like the snaw; but blessings on your frosty pow, john anderson, my jo. john anderson, my jo, john, we clamb the hill thegither; and mony a cantie day, john, we've had wi' ane anither: now we maun totter down, john, and hand in hand we'll go, and sleep thegither at the foot, john anderson, my jo. [illustration: rose emblem] _printed by percy lund, humphries & co., ltd., bradford and london._ transcriber's note the words belore and bedtine were changed to before and bedtime in the phrase: before the children's bedtime the word divnie was corrected to divine in the line: but chiefly, in their hearts with grace divine preside. http://www.archive.org/details/lifeofrobertburn00carl life of robert burns. mostly by thomas carlyle. new york: delisser & procter, 508 broadway. 1859. editor's preface. the readers of the "household library" will certainly welcome a life of burns. that his soul was of the real heroic stamp, no one who is familiar with his imperishable lyric poetry, will deny. this life of the great scottish bard is composed of two parts. the first part, which is brief, and gives merely his external life, is taken from the "encyclopedia britannica." the principle object of it, in this place, is to prepare the reader for what follows. the second part is a grand spiritual portrait of burns, the like of which the ages have scarcely produced; the equal of which, in our opinion, does not exist. in fact, since men began to write and publish their thoughts in this world, no one has appeared who equals carlyle as a spiritual-portrait painter; and, taken all in all, this of his gifted countryman burns is his master-piece. i should not dare to say how many times i have perused it, and always with new wonder and delight. i once read it in the manfrini palace, at venice, sitting before titian's portrait of ariosto. great is the contrast between the songs of burns and the _rime_ of the italian poet, between the fine spiritual perception of carlyle's mind and the delicate touch of titian's hand, between picturesque expression and an expressive picture; yet this very antithesis seemed to prepare my mind for the full enjoyment of both these famous portraits; the sombre majesty of northern genius seemed to heighten and be heightened by the sunset glow of the genius of the south. besides giving the article from the "encyclopedia britannica," as a kind of frame for the portrait of burns, we will here add, from the "english cyclopedia," a sketch of carlyle's life. a severe taste may find it a little out of place, yet we must be allowed to consult the wishes of those for whom these little volumes are designed. * * * * * carlyle, (thomas,) a thinker and writer, confessedly among the most original and influential that britain has produced, was born in the parish of middlebie, near the village of ecclefechan, in dumfries-shire, scotland, on the 4th of december, 1795. his father, a man of remarkable force of character, was a small farmer in comfortable circumstances; his mother was also no ordinary person. the eldest son of a considerable family, he received an education the best in its kind that scotland could then afford--the education of a pious and industrious home, supplemented by that of school and college. (another son of the family, dr. john a. carlyle, a younger brother of thomas, was educated in a similar manner, and, after practising for many years as a physician in germany and rome, has recently become known in british literature as the author of the best prose translation of dante.) after a few years spent at the ordinary parish school, thomas was sent, in his thirteenth or fourteenth year, to the grammar school of the neighboring town of annan; and here it was that he first became acquainted with a man destined, like himself, to a career of great celebrity. "the first time i saw edward irving," writes mr. carlyle in 1835, "was six-and-twenty years ago, in his native town, annan. he was fresh from edinburgh, with college prizes, high character, and promise: he had come to see our school-master, who had also been his. we heard of famed professors--of high matters, classical, mathematical--a whole wonderland of knowledge; nothing but joy, health, hopefulness without end, looked out from the blooming young man." irving was then sixteen years of age, carlyle fourteen; and from that time till irving's sad and premature death, the two were intimate and constant friends. it was not long before carlyle followed irving to that "wonderland of knowledge," the university of edinburgh, of which, and its "famed professors," he had received such tidings. if the description of the nameless german university, however, in "sartor resartus," is to be supposed as allusive also to mr. carlyle's own reminiscences of his training at edinburgh, he seems afterwards to have held the more formal or academic part of that training in no very high respect. "what vain jargon of controversial metaphysic, etymology, and mechanical manipulation, falsely named science, was current there," says teufelsdröckh; "i indeed learned better perhaps than most." at edinburgh, the professor of "controversial metaphysic" in carlyle's day, was dr. thomas brown, dugald stewart having then just retired; physical science and mathematics, were represented by playfair and sir john leslie, and classical studies by men less known to fame. while at college, carlyle's special bent, so far as the work of the classes was concerned, seems to have been to mathematics and natural philosophy. but it is rather by his voluntary studies and readings, apart from the work of the classes, that mr. carlyle, in his youth, laid the foundation of his vast and varied knowledge. the college session in edinburgh extends over about half the year, from november to april; and during these months, the college library, and other such libraries as were accessible, were laid under contribution by him to an extent till then hardly paralleled by any scottish student. works on science and mathematics, works on philosophy, histories of all ages, and the great classics of british literature, were read by him miscellaneously or in orderly succession; and it was at this period, also, if we are not mistaken, he commenced his studies--not very usual then in scotland--in the foreign languages of modern europe. with the same diligence, and in very much the same way, were the summer vacations employed, during which he generally returned to his father's house in dumfries-shire, or rambled among the hills and moors of that neighborhood. mr. carlyle had begun his studies with a view to entering the scottish church. about the time, however, when these studies were nearly ended, and when, according to the ordinary routine, he might have become a preacher, a change of views induced him to abandon the intended profession. this appears to have been about the year 1819 or 1820, when he was twenty-four years of age. for some time, he seems to have been uncertain as to his future course. along with irving, he employed himself for a year or two, as a teacher in fifeshire; but gradually it became clear to him, that his true vocation was that of literature. accordingly, parting from irving, about the year 1822, the younger scot of annandale, deliberately embraced the alternative open to him, and became a general man of letters. probably few have ever embraced that profession with qualifications so wide, or with aims so high and severe. apart altogether from his diligence in learning, and from the extraordinary amount of acquired knowledge of all kinds, which was the fruit of it, there had been remarked in him, from the first, a strong originality of character, a noble earnestness and fervor in all that he said or did, and a vein of inherent constitutional contempt for the mean and the frivolous, inclining him, in some degree, to a life of isolation and solitude. add to this, that his acquaintance with german literature, in particular, had familiarized him with ideas, modes of thinking, and types of literary character, not then generally known in this country, and yet, in his opinion, more deserving of being known than much of a corresponding kind that was occupying and ruling british thought. the first period of mr. carlyle's literary life may be said to extend from 1822 to 1827, or from his twenty-sixth to his thirty-second year. it was during this period that he produced (besides a translation of legendre's "geometry," to which he prefixed an "essay on proportion,") his numerous well-known translations from german writers, and also his "life of schiller." the latter and a considerable proportion of the former, were written by him during the leisure afforded him by an engagement he had formed in 1823, as tutor to charles buller, whose subsequent brilliant though brief career in the politics of britain, gives interest to this connection. the first part of the "life of schiller" appeared originally in the "london magazine," of which john scott was editor, and hazlitt, charles lamb, allan cunningham, de quincey, and hood, were the best known supporters; and the second and third parts, were published in the same magazine in 1824. in this year appeared also the translation of göthe's "wilhelm meister," which was published by messrs. oliver and boyd, of edinburgh, without the translator's name. this translation, the first real introduction of göthe to the reading world of great britain, attracted much notice. "the translator," said a critic in "blackwood," "is, we understand, a young gentleman in this city, who now for the first time appears before the public. we congratulate him on his very promising debut; and would fain hope to receive a series of really good translations from his hand. he has evidently a perfect knowledge of german; he already writes english better than is at all common, even at this time; and we know of no exercise more likely to produce effects of permanent advantage upon a young mind of intellectual ambition." the advice here given to mr. carlyle by his critic, was followed by him in so far that, in 1827, he published in edinburgh, his "specimens of german romance," in four volumes; one of these containing "wilhelm meister's wanderjahre," as a fresh specimen of göthe; the others containing tales from jean paul, tieck, musæus, and hoffman. meanwhile, in 1825, mr. carlyle had revised and enlarged his "life of schiller," and given it to the world in a separate form, through the press of messrs. taylor and hessay, the proprietors of the "london magazine." in the same year, quitting his tutorship of charles buller, he had married a lady fitted in a pre-eminent degree to be the wife of such a man. (it is interesting to know that mrs. carlyle, originally miss welch, is a lineal descendent of the scottish reformer, knox.) for some time after the marriage, mr. carlyle continued to reside in edinburgh; but before 1827 he removed to craigenputtoch, a small property in the most solitary part of dumfries-shire. the second period of mr. carlyle's literary life, extending from 1827 to 1834, or from his thirty-second to his thirty-ninth year, was the period of the first decided manifestations of his extraordinary originality as a thinker. probably the very seclusion in which he lived helped to develope, in stronger proportions, his native and peculiar tendencies. the following account of his place and mode of life at this time was sent by him, in 1828, to göthe, with whom he was then in correspondence, and was published by the great german in the preface to a german translation of the "life of schiller," executed under his immediate care:--"dumfries is a pleasant town, containing about fifteen thousand inhabitants, and to be considered the centre of the trade and judicial system of a district which possesses some importance in the sphere of scottish activity. our residence is not in the town itself, but fifteen miles to the northwest of it, among the granite hills and the black morasses which stretch westward through galloway almost to the irish sea. in this wilderness of heath and rock, our estate stands forth a green oasis, a tract of ploughed, partly inclosed and planted ground, where corn ripens and trees afford a shade, although surrounded by sea-mews and rough-woolled sheep. here, with no small effort, have we built and furnished a neat, substantial dwelling; here, in the absence of a professional or other office, we live to cultivate literature according to our strength, and in our own peculiar way. we wish a joyful growth to the roses and flowers of our garden; we hope for health and peaceful thoughts to further our aims. the roses, indeed, are still in part to be planted, but they blossom already in anticipation. two ponies which carry us every where, and the mountain air, are the best medicine for weak nerves. this daily exercise, to which i am much devoted, is my only recreation; for this nook of ours is the loneliest in britain--six miles removed from any one likely to visit me. here rousseau would have been as happy as on his island of saint-pierre. my town friends, indeed, ascribe my sojourn here to a similar disposition, and forbode me no good result; but i came hither solely with the design to simplify my way of life, and to secure the independence through which i could be enabled to remain true to myself. this bit of earth is our own; here we can live, write, and think, as best pleases ourselves, even though zoilus himself were to be crowned the monarch of literature. nor is the solitude of such great importance, for a stage-coach takes us speedily to edinburgh, which we look upon as our british weimar; and have i not, too, at this moment, piled upon the table of my little library, a whole cart-load of french, german, american, and english journals and periodicals--whatever may be their worth? of antiquarian studies, too, there is no lack." before this letter was written, mr. carlyle had already begun the well-known series of his contributions to the "edinburgh review." the first of these was his essay on "jean paul," which appeared in 1827; and was followed by his striking article on "german literature," and by his singularly beautiful essay on "burns" (1828). other essays in the same periodical followed, as well as articles in the "foreign quarterly review," which was established in 1828, and shorter articles of less importance in brewster's "edinburgh encyclopedia," then in course of publication. externally, in short, at this time, mr. carlyle was a writer for reviews and magazines, choosing to live, for the convenience of his work and the satisfaction of his own tastes, in a retired nook of scotland, whence he could correspond with his friends, occasionally visit the nearest of them, and occasionally also receive visits from them in turn. among the friends whom he saw in his occasional visits to edinburgh, were jeffrey, wilson, and other literary celebrities of that capital (sir walter scott, we believe, he never met otherwise than casually in the streets); among the more distant friends who visited him, none was more welcome than the american emerson, who, having already been attracted to him by his writings, made a journey to dumfries-shire, during his first visit to england, expressly to see him; and of his foreign correspondents, the most valued by far was göthe, whose death in 1832, and that of scott in the same year, impressed him deeply, and were finely commemorated by him. meanwhile, though thus ostensibly but an occasional contributor to periodicals, mr. carlyle was silently throwing his whole strength into a work which was to reveal him in a far other character than that of a mere literary critic, however able and profound. this was his "sartor resartus;" or, an imaginary history of the life and opinions of herr teufelsdröckh, an eccentric german professor and philosopher. under this quaint guise (the name "sartor resartus" being, it would appear, a translation into latin of "the tailor done over," which is the title of an old scottish song), mr. carlyle propounded, in a style half-serious and half-grotesque, and in a manner far more bold and trenchant than the rules of review-writing permitted, his own philosophy of life and society in almost all their bearings. the work was truly an anomaly in british literature, exhibiting a combination of deep, speculative power, poetical genius, and lofty moral purpose, with wild and riotous humor and shrewd observation and satire, such as had rarely been seen; and coming into the midst of the more conventional british literature of the day, it was like a fresh but barbaric blast from the hills and moorlands amid which it had been conceived. but the very strangeness and originality of the work prevented it from finding a publisher; and after the manuscript had been returned by several london firms to whom it was offered, the author was glad to cut it into parts and publish it piecemeal in "frazer's magazine." here it appeared in the course of 1833-34, scandalising most readers by its gothic mode of thought and its extraordinary torture, as it was called, of the english language; but eagerly read by some sympathetic minds, who discerned in the writer a new power in literature, and wondered who and what he was. with the publication of the "sartor resartus" papers, the third period of mr. carlyle's literary life may be said to begin. it was during the negotiations for the publication that he was led to contemplate removing to london--a step which he finally took, we believe, in 1834. since that year--the thirty-ninth of his life--mr. carlyle has permanently resided in london, in a house situated in one of the quiet streets running at right angles to the river thames, at chelsea. the change into the bustle of london, from the solitude of craigenputtoch was, externally, a great one. in reality, however, it was less than it seemed. a man in the prime of life, when he came to reside in the metropolis, he brought into its roar and confusion, not the restless spirit of a young adventurer, but the settled energy of one who had ascertained his strength, and fixed his methods and his aims. among the maginns and others who contributed to "frazer," he at once took his place as a man rather to influence than be influenced; and gradually, as the circle of his acquaintances widened so as to include such notable men as john mill, sterling, maurice, leigh hunt, browning, thackeray, and others of established or rising fame in all walks of speculation and literature, the recognition of his rare personal powers of influence became more general and deep. in particular, in that london circle, in which john sterling moved, was his personal influence great, even while as yet he was but the anonymous author of the "sartor resartus" papers, and of numerous other contributions, also anonymous, to "frazer's magazine," and the "edinburgh," "foreign quarterly," "british and foreign," and "westminster," reviews. it was not till 1837, or his forty-second year, that his name, already so well known to an inner circle of admirers, was openly associated with a work fully proportional to his powers. this was his "french revolution: a history," in three volumes, the extraordinary merits of which as at once a history and a gorgeous prose-epic, are known to all. in 1838, the "sartor resartus" papers, already re-published in the united states, were put forth, collectively, with his name; and, in the same year, his various scattered articles in periodicals, after having similarly received the honor of re-publication in america, were given to the world in four volumes, in their chronological series from 1827 to 1837, under the title of "miscellanies." mr. carlyle's next publication was his little tract on "chartism," published in 1839, in which, to use the words of one of his critics, "he first broke ground on the condition of england question." during the time when these successive publications were carrying his name through the land, mr. carlyle appeared in a new capacity, and delivered four courses of lectures in london to select but crowded audiences, including many of the aristocracy both of rank and of literature: the first, a course on "german literature," delivered at willis's rooms in 1837; the second, a course on "the history of literature, or the successive periods of european culture," delivered in edward-street, portman-square, in 1838; the third, a course on "the revolutions of modern europe," delivered in 1839; and the fourth, a course on "heroes, hero-worship, and the heroic in history," delivered in 1840. this last course alone was published; and it became more immediately popular than any of the works which had preceded it. it was followed, in 1843, by "past and present," a work contrasting, in a historico-philosophical spirit, english society of the middle ages with english society in our own day; and this again, in 1845, by "oliver cromwell's letters and speeches, with elucidations and a connecting narrative;" such being the unpretending form which a work, originally intended to be a history of cromwell and his times, ultimately assumed. by the year 1849, this work had reached a third edition. in 1850, appeared the "latter-day pamphlets," in which, more than in any previous publication, the author spoke out in the character of a social and political censor of his own age. from their very nature, as stern denunciations of what the author considered contemporary fallacies, wrongs, and hypocrisies, these pamphlets produced a storm of critical indignation against mr. carlyle, which was still raging, when, in 1851, he gave to the world his "life of john sterling." while we write (april, 1856) this, with the exception of some papers in periodicals, is the last publication that has proceeded from his pen; but at the present the british public are anxiously expecting a "history of the life and times of frederick the great," in which he is known to have been long engaged. a collection of some of the most striking opinions, sentiments, and descriptions, contained in all his works hitherto written, has been published in a single volume, entitled, "passages selected from the writings of thomas carlyle," (1855,) from the memoir prefixed to which, by the editor, mr. thomas ballantyne, we have derived most of the facts for this notice. an appreciation of mr. carlyle's genius and of his influence on british thought and literature, is not to be looked for here, and indeed is hardly possible in the still raging conflict of opinions--one might even say, passions and parties--respecting him. the following remarks, however, by one of his critics, seems to us to express what all must admit to be the literal truth:--"it is nearly half a generation since mr. carlyle became an intellectual power in this country; and certainly rarely, if ever, in the history of literature, has such a phenomenon been witnessed as that of his influence. throughout the whole atmosphere of this island his spirit has diffused itself, so that there is, probably, not an educated man under forty years of age, from caithness to cornwall, that can honestly say that he has not been more or less affected by it. not to speak of his express imitators, one can hardly take up a book or a periodical, without finding some expression or some mode of thinking that bears the mint-mark of his genius." the same critic notices it as a peculiarity in mr. carlyle's literary career, that, whereas most men begin with the vehement and the controversial, and gradually become calm and acquiescent in things as they are, he began as an artist in pure literature, a critic of poetry, song, and the drama, and has ended as a vehement moralist and preacher of social reforms, disdaining the etiquette and even the name of pure literature, and more anxious to rouse than to please. with this development of his views of his own functions as a writer, is connected the development of his literary style, from the quiet and pleasing, though still solid and deep beauty of his earlier writings, to that later and more peculiar, and to many, disagreeable form, which has been nicknamed 'the carlylese.' * * * * * as all the world knows, two volumes of carlyle's frederick the great have recently appeared. we might add, from personal acquaintance, many anecdotes, but we have learned, during a long residence abroad, to respect the hospitality that we have enjoyed. o. w. wight. _january, 1859._ life of burns. _part first._ robert burns, the national bard of scotland, was born on the 25th of january, 1759, in a clay-built cottage about two miles south of the town of ayr. he was the eldest son of william burnes, or burness, who, at the period of robert's birth, was gardener and overseer to a gentleman of small estate; but resided on a few acres of land which he had on lease from another person. the father was a man of strict religious principles, and also distinguished for that penetration and knowledge of mankind which was afterwards so conspicuous in his son. the mother of the poet was likewise a very sagacious woman, and possessed an inexhaustible store of ballads and legendary tales, with which she nourished the infant imagination of him whose own productions were destined to excel them all. these worthy individuals labored diligently for the support of an increasing family; nor, in the midst of harassing struggles did they neglect the mental improvement of their offspring; a characteristic of scottish parents, even under the most depressing circumstances. in his sixth year, robert was put under the tuition of one campbell, and subsequently under mr. john murdoch, a very faithful and pains-taking teacher. with this individual he remained for a few years, and was accurately instructed in the first principles of composition. the poet and his brother gilbert were the aptest pupils in the school, and were generally at the head of the class. mr. murdoch, in afterwards recording the impressions which the two brothers made on him, says: "gilbert always appeared to me to possess a more lively imagination, and to be more of the wit, than robert. i attempted to teach them a little church music. here they were left far behind by all the rest of the school. robert's ear, in particular, was remarkably dull, and his voice untunable. it was long before i could get them to distinguish one tune from another. robert's countenance was generally grave, and expressive of a serious, contemplative, and thoughtful mind. gilbert's face said, _mirth, with thee i mean to live_; and certainly, if any person who knew the two boys had been asked which of them was the most likely to court the muses, he would never have guessed that _robert_ had a propensity of that kind." besides the tuition of mr. murdoch, burns received instructions from his father in writing and arithmetic. under their joint care, he made rapid progress, and was remarkable for the ease with which he committed devotional poetry to memory. the following extract from his letter to dr. moore, in 1787, is interesting, from the light which it throws upon his progress as a scholar, and on the formation of his character as a poet:--"at those years," says he, "i was by no means a favorite with anybody. i was a good deal noted for a retentive memory, a stubborn, sturdy something in my disposition, and an enthusiastic idiot piety. i say idiot piety, because i was then but a child. though it cost the schoolmaster some thrashings, i made an excellent scholar; and by the time i was ten or eleven years of age, i was a critic in substantives, verbs, and particles. in my infant and boyish days, too, i owed much to an old woman who resided in the family, remarkable for her ignorance, credulity, and superstition. she had, i suppose, the largest collection in the country, of tales and songs, concerning devils, ghosts, fairies, brownies, witches, warlocks, spunkies, kelpies, elf-candles, dead-lights, wraiths, apparitions, cantrips, giants, enchanted towers, dragons, and other trumpery. this cultivated the latent seeds of poetry; but had so strong an effect upon my imagination, that to this hour, in my nocturnal rambles, i sometimes keep a sharp look-out in suspicious places; and though nobody can be more skeptical than i am in such matters, yet it often takes an effort of philosophy to shake off these idle terrors. the earliest composition that i recollect taking pleasure in, was, _the vision of mirza_, and a hymn of addison's, beginning, "_how are thy servants blest, o lord!_" i particularly remember one-half stanza, which was music to my boyish ear: "for though on dreadful whirls we hung high on the broken wave." i met with these pieces in _mason's english collection_, one of my school-books. the first two books i ever read in private, and which gave me more pleasure than any two books i ever read since, were, _the life of hannibal_, and _the history of sir william wallace_. hannibal gave my young ideas such a turn, that i used to strut in raptures up and down after the recruiting drum and bagpipe, and wish myself tall enough to be a soldier; while the story of wallace poured a tide of scottish prejudice into my veins, which will boil along there till the flood-gates of life shut in eternal rest." mr. murdoch's removal from mount oliphant deprived burns of his instructions; but they were still continued by the father of the bard. about the age of fourteen, he was sent to school every alternate week for the improvement of his writing. in the mean while, he was busily employed upon the operations of the farm; and, at the age of fifteen, was considered as the principal laborer upon it. about a year after this he gained three weeks of respite, which he spent with his old tutor, murdoch, at ayr, in revising the english grammar, and in studying the french language, in which he made uncommon progress. ere his sixteenth year elapsed, he had considerably extended his reading. the vicinity of mount oliphant to ayr afforded him facilities for gratifying what had now become a passion. among the books which he had perused were some plays of shakspeare, pope, the works of allan ramsay, and a collection of songs, which constituted his _vade mecum_. "i pored over them," says he, "driving my cart or walking to labor, song by song, verse by verse, carefully noticing the true, tender or sublime, from affectation and fustian." so early did he evince his attachment to the lyric muse, in which he was destined to surpass all who have gone before or succeeded him. at this period the family removed to lochlea, in the parish of tarbolton. some time before, however, he had made his first attempt in poetry. it was a song addressed to a rural beauty, about his own age, and though possessing no great merit as a whole, it contains some lines and ideas which would have done honor to him at any age. after the removal to lochlea, his literary zeal slackened, for he was thus cut off from those acquaintances whose conversation stimulated his powers, and whose kindness supplied him with books. for about three years after this period, he was busily employed upon the farm, but at intervals he paid his addresses to the poetic muse, and with no common success. the summer of his nineteenth year was spent in the study of mensuration, surveying, etc., at a small sea-port town, a good distance from home. he returned to his father's considerably improved. "my reading," says he, "was enlarged with the very important addition of thomson's and shenstone's works. i had seen human nature in a new phasis; and i engaged several of my school-fellows to keep up a literary correspondence with me. this improved me in composition. i had met with a collection of letters by the wits of queen anne's reign, and i pored over them most devoutly; i kept copies of any of my own letters that pleased me, and a comparison between them and the composition of most of my correspondents flattered my vanity. i carried this whim so far, that though i had not three farthings' worth of business in the world, yet almost every post brought me as many letters as if i had been a broad, plodding son of day-book and ledger." his mind, peculiarly susceptible of tender impressions, was continually the slave of some rustic charmer. in the "heat and whirlwind of his love," he generally found relief in poetry, by which, as by a safety-valve, his turbulent passions were allowed to have vent. he formed the resolution of entering the matrimonial state; but his circumscribed means of subsistence as a farmer preventing his taking that step, he resolved on becoming a flax-dresser, for which purpose he removed to the town of irvine, in 1781. the speculation turned out unsuccessful; for the shop, catching fire, was burnt, and the poet returned to his father without a sixpence. during his stay at irvine he had met with ferguson's poems. this circumstance was of some importance to burns, for it roused his poetic powers from the torpor into which they had fallen, and in a great measure finally determined the _scottish_ character of his poetry. he here also contracted some friendships, which he himself says did him mischief; and, by his brother gilbert's account, from this date there was a serious change in his conduct. the venerable and excellent parent of the poet died soon after his son's return. the support of the family now devolving upon burns, in conjunction with his brother he took a sub-lease of the farm of mossgiel, in the parish of mauchline. the four years which he resided upon this farm were the most important of his life. it was here he felt that nature had designed him for a poet; and here, accordingly, his genius began to develop its energies in those strains which will make his name familiar to all future times, the admiration of every civilized country, and the glory and boast of his own. the vigor of burns's understanding, and the keenness of his wit, as displayed more particularly at masonic meetings and debating clubs, of which he formed one at mauchline, began to spread his fame as a man of uncommon endowments. he now could number as his acquaintance several clergymen, and also some gentlemen of substance; amongst whom was mr. gavin hamilton, writer in mauchline, one of his earliest patrons. one circumstance more than any other contributed to increase his notoriety. "polemical divinity," says he to dr. moore in 1787, "about this time was putting the country half mad; and i, ambitious of shining in conversation-parties on sundays, at funerals, etc., used to puzzle calvinism with so much heat and indiscretion, that i raised a hue-and-cry of heresy against me, which has not ceased to this hour." the farm which he possessed belonged to the earl of loudon, but the brothers held it in sub-lease from mr. hamilton. this gentleman was at open feud with one of the ministers of mauchline, who was a rigid calvinist. mr. hamilton maintained opposite tenets; and it is not matter of surprise that the young farmer should have espoused his cause, and brought all the resources of his genius to bear upon it. the result was _the holy fair_, _the ordination_, _holy willie's prayer_, and other satires, as much distinguished for their coarse severity and bitterness, as for their genius. the applause which greeted these pieces emboldened the poet, and encouraged him to proceed. in his life, by his brother gilbert, a very interesting account is given of the occasions which gave rise to the poems, and the chronological order in which they were produced. the exquisite pathos and humor, the strong manly sense, the masterly command of felicitous language, the graphic power of delineating scenery, manners, and incidents, which appear so conspicuously in his various poems, could not fail to call forth the admiration of those who were favored with a perusal of them. but the clouds of misfortune were gathering darkly above the head of him who was thus giving delight to a large and widening circle of friends. the farm of mossgiel proved a losing concern; and an amour with miss jane armour, afterwards mrs. burns, had assumed so serious an aspect, that he at first resolved to fly from the scene of his disgrace and misery. one trait of his character, however, must be mentioned. before taking any steps for his departure, he met miss armour by appointment, and gave into her hands a written acknowledgment of marriage, which, when produced by a person in her situation, is, according to the scots' law, to be accepted as legal evidence of an _irregular_ marriage having really taken place. this the lady burned, at the persuasion of her father, who was adverse to a marriage; and burns, thus wounded in the two most powerful feelings of his mind, his love and pride, was driven almost to insanity. jamaica was his destination; but as he did not possess the money necessary to defray the expense of his passage out, he resolved to publish some of his best poems, in order to raise the requisite sum. these views were warmly promoted by some of his more opulent friends; and a sufficiency of subscribers having been procured, one of the finest volumes of poetry that ever appeared in the world issued from the provincial press of kilmarnock. it is hardly possible to imagine with what eager admiration and delight they were every where received. they possessed in an eminent degree all those qualities which invariably contribute to render any literary work quickly and permanently popular. they were written in a phraseology of which all the powers were universally felt, and which being at once antique, familiar, and now rarely written, was therefore fitted to serve all the dignified and picturesque uses of poetry, without making it unintelligible. the imagery and the sentiments were at once natural, impressive, and interesting. those topics of satire and scandal in which the rustic delights; that humorous imitation of character, and that witty association of ideas, familiar and striking, yet not naturally allied to one another, which has force to shake his sides with laughter; those fancies of superstition, at which one still wonders and trembles; those affecting sentiments and images of true religion, which are at once dear and awful to the heart; were all represented by burns with the magical power of true poetry. old and young, high and low, grave and gay, learned and ignorant, all were alike surprised and transported. in the mean time, a few copies of these fascinating poems found their way to edinburgh, and having been read to dr. blacklock, obtained his warmest approbation; and he advised the author to repair to edinburgh. burns lost no time in complying with this request; and accordingly, towards the end of the year 1786, he set out for the capitol, where he was received by dr. blacklock with the most flattering kindness, and introduced to every person of taste among that excellent man's friends. multitudes now vied with each other in patronizing the rustic poet. those who possessed at once true taste and ardent philanthropy were soon united in his praise; those who were disposed to favor any good thing belonging to scotland, purely because it was scottish, gladly joined the cry; while those who had hearts and understandings to be charmed without knowing why, when they saw their native customs, manners, and language, made the subjects and the materials of poesy, could not suppress that impulse of feeling which struggled to declare itself in favor of burns. thus did burns, ere he had been many weeks in edinburgh, find himself the object of universal curiosity, favor, admiration, and fondness. he was sought after, courted with attentions the most respectful and assiduous, feasted, flattered, caressed, and treated by all ranks as the great boast of his country, whom it was scarcely possible to honor and reward in a degree equal to his merits. a new edition of his poems was called for; and the public mind was directed to the subject by henry mackenzie, who dedicated a paper in the _lounger_ to a commendatory notice of the poet. this circumstance will ever be remembered to the honor of that polished writer, not only for the warmth of the eulogy he bestowed, but because it was the first printed acknowledgment which had been made to the genius of burns. the copyright was sold to creech for £100; but the friends of the poet advised him to forward a subscription. the patronage of the caledonian hunt, a very influential body, was obtained. the list of subscribers rapidly rose to 1500, many gentlemen paying a great deal more than the price of the volume; and it was supposed that the poet derived from the subscription and the sale of his copyright a clear profit of at least £700. the conversation of burns, according to the testimony of all the eminent men who heard him, was even more wonderful than his poetry. he affected no soft air nor graceful motions of politeness, which might have ill accorded with the rustic plainness of his native manners. conscious superiority of mind taught him to associate with the great, the learned, and the gay, without being overawed into any such bashfulness as might have rendered him confused in thought, or hesitating in elocution. he possessed withal an extraordinary share of plain common sense, or mother-wit, which prevented him from obtruding upon persons, of whatever rank, with whom he was admitted to converse, any of those effusions of vanity, envy, or self-conceit, in which authors who have lived remote from the general practice of life, and whose minds have been almost exclusively confined to contemplate their own studies and their own works, are but too prone to indulge. in conversation, he displayed a sort of intuitive quickness and rectitude of judgment, upon every subject that arose. the sensibility of his heart, and the vivacity of his fancy, gave a rich coloring to whatever opinions he was disposed to advance; and his language was thus not less happy in conversation than in his writings. hence those who had met and conversed with him once, were pleased to meet and to converse with him again and again. for some time he associated only with the virtuous, the learned, and the wise, and the purity of his morals remained uncontaminated. but unfortunately he fell, as others have fallen in similar circumstances. he suffered himself to be surrounded by persons who were proud to tell that they had been in company with burns, and had seen burns as loose and as foolish as themselves. he now also began to contract something of arrogance in conversation. accustomed to be among his associates what is vulgarly but expressively called "the cock of the company," he could scarcely refrain from indulging in a similar freedom and dictatorial decision of talk, even in the presence of persons who could less patiently endure presumption. after remaining some months in the scottish metropolis, basking in the noontide sun of a popularity which, as dugald stewart well remarks, would have turned any head but his own, he formed a resolution of returning to the shades whence he had emerged, but not before he had perambulated the southern border. on the 6th of may, 1787, he set out on his journey, and, visiting all that appeared interesting on the north of the tweed, proceeded to newcastle and other places on the english side. he returned in about two months to his family at mauchline; but in a short period he again set out on an excursion to the north, where he was most flatteringly received by all the great families. on his return to mossgiel he completed his marriage with miss armour. he then concluded a bargain with mr. miller of dalswinton, for a lease of the farm of elliesland, on advantageous terms. burns entered on possession of this farm at whit-sunday, 1788. he had formerly applied with success for an excise commission, and during six weeks of this year, he had to attend to the business of that profession at ayr. his life for some time was thus wandering and unsettled; and dr. currie mentions this as one of his chief misfortunes. mrs. burns came home to him towards the end of the year, and the poet was accustomed to say that the happiest period of his life was the first winter spent in elliesland. the neighboring farmers and gentlemen, pleased to obtain for a neighbor the poet by whose works they had been delighted, kindly sought his company, and invited him to their houses. burns, however, found an inexpressible charm in sitting down beside his wife, at his own fireside; in wandering over his own grounds; in once more putting his hand to the spade and the plough; in farming his enclosures, and managing his cattle. for some months he felt almost all that felicity which fancy had taught him to expect in his new situation. he had been for a time idle; but his muscles were not yet unbraced for rural toil. he now seemed to find a joy in being the husband of the mistress of his affections, and in seeing himself the father of children such as promised to attach him for ever to that modest, humble, and domestic life, in which alone he could hope to be permanently happy. even his engagements in the service of excise did not, at first, threaten either to contaminate the poet or to ruin the farmer. from various causes, the farming speculation did not succeed. indeed, from the time he obtained a situation under government, he gradually began to sink the farmer in the exciseman. occasionally he assisted in the rustic occupations of elliesland, but for the most part he was engaged in very different pursuits. in his professional perambulations over the moors of dumfries-shire he had to encounter temptations which a mind and temperament like his found it difficult to resist. his immortal works had made him universally known and enthusiastically admired; and accordingly he was a welcome guest at every house, from the most princely mansion to the lowest country inn. in the latter he was too frequently to be found as the presiding genius, and master of the orgies. however, he still continued at intervals to cultivate the muse; and, besides a variety of other pieces, he produced at this period the inimitable poem of tam o'shanter. johnson's miscellany was also indebted to him for the finest of its lyrics. one pleasing trait of his character must not be overlooked. he superintended the formation of a subscription library in the parish, and took the whole management of it upon himself. these institutions, though common now, were not so short at the period of which we write; and it should never be forgotten that burns was amongst the first, if not the very first, of their founders in the rural districts of southern scotland. towards the close of 1791 he finally abandoned his farm; and obtaining an appointment to the dumfries division of excise, he repaired to that town on a salary of £70 per annum. all his principal biographers concur in stating that after settling in dumfries his moral career was downwards. heron, who had some acquaintance with the matter, says, "his dissipation became still more deeply habitual; he was here more exposed than in the country to be solicited to share the revels of the dissolute and the idle; foolish young men flocked eagerly about him, and from time to time pressed him to drink with them, that they might enjoy his wit. the caledonia club, too, and the dumfries-shire and galloway hunt, had occasional meetings in dumfries after burns went to reside there: and the poet was of course invited to share their conviviality, and hesitated not to accept the invitation. in the intervals between his different fits of intemperance, he suffered the keenest anguish of remorse, and horribly afflictive foresight. his jane behaved with a degree of conjugal and maternal tenderness and prudence, which made him feel more bitterly the evil of his misconduct, although they could not reclaim him." this is a dark picture--perhaps too dark. the rev. mr. gray, who, as the teacher of his son, was intimately acquainted with burns, and had frequent opportunities of judging of his general character and deportment, gives a more amiable portrait of the bard. being an eye-witness, the testimony of this gentleman must be allowed to have some weight. "the truth is," says he, "burns was seldom _intoxicated_. the drunkard soon becomes besotted, and is shunned even by the convivial. had he been so, he could not have long continued the idol of every party." this is strong reasoning; and he goes on to mention other circumstances which seem to confirm the truth of his position. in balancing these two statements, a juster estimate of the moral deportment of burns may be formed. in the year 1792 party politics ran to a great height in scotland, and the liberal and independent spirit of burns did certainly betray him into some indiscretions. a general opinion prevails, that he so far lost the good graces of his superiors by his conduct, as to consider all prospects of future promotion as hopeless. but this appears not to have been the case; and the fact that he acted as supervisor before his death is a strong proof to the contrary. of his political verses, few have as yet been published. but in these he warmly espoused the cause of the whigs, which kept up the spleen of the other party, already sufficiently provoked; and this may in some measure account for the bitterness with which his own character was attacked. whatever opinion may be formed of the extent of his dissipation in dumfries, one fact is unquestionable, that his powers remained unimpaired to the last; it was there he produced his finest lyrics, and they are the finest, as well as the purest, that ever delighted mankind. besides johnson's _museum_, in which he took an interest to the last, and to which he contributed most extensively, he formed a connection with mr. george thomson, of edinburgh. this gentleman had conceived the laudable design of collecting the national melodies of scotland, with accompaniments by the most eminent composers, and poetry by the best writers, in addition to those words which were originally attached to them. from the multitude of songs which burns wrote, from the year 1792 till the commencement of his illness, it is evident that few days could have passed without his producing some stanzas for the work. the following passage from his correspondence, which was also most extensive, proves that his songs were not hurriedly got up, but composed with the utmost care and attention. "until i am complete master of a tune in my own singing, such as it is," says he, "i can never compose for it. my way is this: i consider the poetic sentiment correspondent to my idea of the musical expression--then choose my theme--compose one stanza. when that is composed, which is generally the most difficult part of the business, i walk out--sit down now and then--look out for objects in nature round me that are in unison or harmony with the cogitations of my fancy, and workings of my bosom--humming every now and then the air, with the verses i have framed. when i feel my muse beginning to jade, i retire to the solitary fireside of my study, and there commit my effusions to paper; swinging at intervals on the hind legs of my elbow-chair, by way of calling forth my own critical strictures, as my pen goes. seriously, this, at home, is almost invariably my way." this is not only interesting for the light which it throws upon his method of composition, but it proves that conviviality had not as yet greater charms for him than the muse. from his youth burns had exhibited ominous symptoms of a radical disorder in his constitution. a palpitation of the heart, and a derangement of the digestive organs, were conspicuous. these were, doubtless, increased by his indulgences, which became more frequent as he drew towards the close of his career. in the autumn of 1795 he lost an only daughter, which was a severe blow to him. soon afterwards he was seized with a rheumatic fever; and "long the die spun doubtful," says he, in a letter to his faithful friend mrs. dunlap, "until, after many weeks of a sick bed, it seems to have turned up life, and i am beginning to crawl across my room." the cloud behind which his sun was destined to be eclipsed at noon had begun to darken above him. before he had completely recovered, he had the imprudence to join a festive circle; and, on his return from it, he caught a cold, which brought back his trouble upon him with redoubled severity. sea-bathing was had recourse to, but with no ultimate success. he lingered until the 21st of july, 1796, when he expired. the interest which the death of burns excited was intense. all differences were forgotten; his genius only was thought of. on the 26th of the same month he was conveyed to the grave, followed by about ten thousand individuals of all ranks, many of whom had come from distant parts of the country to witness the solemnity. he was interred with military honors by the dumfries volunteers, to which body he had belonged. thus, at the age of thirty-seven, an age when the mental powers of man have scarcely reached their climax, died robert burns, one of the greatest poets whom his country has produced. it is unnecessary to enter into any lengthened analysis of his poetry or character. his works are universally known and admired, and criticism has been drawn to the dregs upon the subject; and that, too, by the greatest masters who have appeared since his death,--no mean test of the great merits of his writings. he excels equally in touching the heart by the exquisiteness of his pathos, and exciting the risible faculties by the breadth of his humor. his lyre had many strings, and he had equal command over them all; striking each, and frequently in chords, with the skill and power of a master. that his satire sometimes degenerates into coarse invective, can not be denied; but where personality is not permitted to interfere, his poems of this description may take their place beside any thing of the kind which has ever been produced, without being disgraced by the comparison. it is unnecessary to re-echo the praises of his best pieces, as there is no epithet of admiration which has not been bestowed upon them. those who had best opportunities of judging, are of opinion that his works, stamped as they are with the impress of sovereign genius, fall short of the powers he possessed. it is therefore to be lamented that he undertook no great work of fiction or invention. had circumstances permitted, he would probably have done so; but his excise duties, and without doubt his own follies, prevented him. his passions were strong, and his capacity of enjoyment corresponded with them. these continually precipitated him into the variety of pleasure, where alone they could be gratified; and the reaction consequent upon such indulgences (for he possessed the finest discrimination between right and wrong) threw him into low spirits, to which he was also constitutionally liable. his mind, being thus never for any length of time in an equable tone, could scarcely pursue with steady regularity a work of any length. his moral aberrations, as detailed by some of his biographers, have been exaggerated, as already noticed. this has been proved by the testimony of many witnesses, from whose authority there can be no appeal; for they had the best opportunities of judging. in fine, it may be doubted whether he has not, by his writings, exercised a greater power over the minds of men, and the general system of life, than has been exercised by any other modern poet. a complete edition of his works, in four vols. 8vo., with a life, was published by dr. currie of liverpool, for the benefit of his family, to whom it realized a handsome sum. editions have been since multiplied beyond number; and several excellent biographies of the poet have been published, particularly that by mr. lockhart. life of burns.[1] _part second._ in the modern arrangements of society, it is no uncommon thing that a man of genius must, like butler, "ask for bread and receive a stone;" for, in spite of our grand maxim of supply and demand, it is by no means the highest excellence that men are most forward to recognize. the inventor of a spinning-jenny is pretty sure of his reward in his own day; but the writer of a true poem, like the apostle of a true religion, is nearly as sure of the contrary. we do not know whether it is not an aggravation of the injustice, that there is generally a posthumous retribution. robert burns, in the course of nature, might yet have been living; but his short life was spent in toil and penury; and he died, in the prime of his manhood, miserable and neglected; and yet already a brave mausoleum shines over his dust, and more than one splendid monument has been reared in other places to his fame: the street where he languished in poverty is called by his name; the highest personages in our literature have been proud to appear as his commentators and admirers, and here is the _sixth_ narrative of his _life_, that has been given to the world! mr. lockhart thinks it necessary to apologize for this new attempt on such a subject: but his readers, we believe, will readily acquit him; or, at worst, will censure only the performance of his task, not the choice of it. the character of burns, indeed, is a theme that cannot easily become either trite or exhausted; and will probably gain rather than lose in its dimensions by the distance to which it is removed by time. no man, it has been said, is a hero to his valet: and this is probably true; but the fault is at least as likely to be the valet's as the hero's: for it is certain, that to the vulgar eye few things are wonderful that are not distant. it is difficult for men to believe that the man, the mere man whom they see, nay, perhaps, painfully feel, toiling at their side through the poor jostlings of existence, can be made of finer clay than themselves. suppose that some dining acquaintance of sir thomas lucy's, and neighbour of john a combe's, had snatched an hour or two from the preservation of his game, and written us a life of shakspeare! what dissertations should we not have had,--not on _hamlet_ and _the tempest_, but on the wool-trade and deer-stealing, and the libel and vagrant laws! and how the poacher became a player; and how sir thomas and mr. john had christian bowels, and did not push him to extremities! in like manner, we believe, with respect to burns, that till the companions of his pilgrimage, the honourable excise commissioners, and the gentlemen of the caledonian hunt, and the dumfries aristocracy, and all the squires and earls, equally with the ayr writers, and the new and old light clergy, whom he had to do with, shall have become invisible in the darkness of the past, or visible only by light borrowed from _his_ juxtaposition, it will be difficult to measure him by any true standard, or to estimate what he really was and did, in the eighteenth century, for his country and the world. it will be difficult, we say; but still a fare problem for literary historians; and repeated attempts will give us repeated approximations. his former biographers have done something, no doubt, but by no means a great deal, to assist us. dr. currie and mr. walker, the principal of these writers, have both, we think, mistaken one essentially important thing:--their own and the world's true relation to their author, and the style in which it became such men to think and to speak of such a man. dr. currie loved the poet truly; more perhaps than he avowed to his readers, or even to himself; yet he everywhere introduces him with a certain patronizing, apologetic air; as if the polite public might think it strange and half unwarrantable that he, a man of science, a scholar, and gentleman, should do such honour to a rustic. in all this, however, we readily admit that his fault was not want of love, but weakness of faith; and regret that the first and kindest of all our poet's biographers should not have seen farther, or believed more boldly what he saw. mr. walker offends more deeply in the same kind: and both err alike in presenting us with a detached catalogue of his several supposed attributes, virtues, and vices, instead of a delineation of the resulting character as a living unity. this, however, is not painting a portrait; but gauging the length and breadth of the several features, and jotting down their dimensions in arithmetical ciphers. nay, it is not so much as this: for we are yet to learn by what arts or instruments the mind _could_ be so measured and gauged. mr. lockhart, we are happy to say, has avoided both these errors. he uniformly treats burns as the high and remarkable man the public voice has now pronounced him to be: and in delineating him, he has avoided the method of separate generalities, and rather sought for characteristic incidents, habits, actions, sayings; in a word, for aspects which exhibit the whole man, as he looked and lived among his fellows. the book accordingly, with all its deficiencies, gives more insight, we think, into the true character of burns, than any prior biography; though, being written on the very popular and condensed scheme of an article for _constable's miscellany_, it has less depth than we could have wished and expected from a writer of such power, and contains rather more, and more multifarious, quotations, than belong of right to an original production. indeed, mr. lockhart's own writing is generally so good, so clear, direct, and nervous, that we seldom wish to see it making place for another man's. however, the spirit of the work is throughout candid, tolerant, and anxiously conciliating; compliments and praises are liberally distributed, on all hands, to great and small; and, as mr. morris birkbeck observes of the society in the backwoods of america, "the courtesies of polite life are never lost sight of for a moment." but there are better things than these in the volume; and we can safely testify, not only that it is easily and pleasantly read a first time, but may even be without difficulty read again. nevertheless, we are far from thinking that the problem of burns's biography has yet been adequately solved. we do not allude so much to deficiency of facts or documents,--though of these we are still every day receiving some fresh accession,--as to the limited and imperfect application of them to the great end of biography. our notions upon this subject may perhaps appear extravagant; but if an individual is really of consequence enough to have his life and character recorded for public remembrance, we have always been of opinion, that the public ought to be made acquainted with all the inward springs and relations of his character. how did the world and man's life, from his particular position, represent themselves to his mind? how did coexisting circumstances modify him from without? how did he modify these from within? with what endeavors and what efficacy rule over them? with what resistance and what suffering sink under them? in one word, what and how produced was the effect of society on him? what and how produced was his effect on society? he who should answer these questions, in regard to any individual, would, as we believe, furnish a model of perfection in biography. few individuals, indeed, can deserve such a study; and many _lives_ will be written, and, for the gratification of innocent curiosity, ought to be written, and read, and forgotten, which are not in this sense _biographies_. but burns, if we mistake not, is one of these few individuals; and such a study, at least with such a result, he has not yet obtained. our own contributions to it, we are aware, can be but scanty and feeble; but we offer them with goodwill, and trust they may meet with acceptance from those for whom they are intended. burns first came upon the world as a prodigy; and was, in that character, entertained by it, in the usual fashion, with loud, vague, tumultuous wonder, speedily subsiding into censure and neglect; till his early and most mournful death again awakened an enthusiasm for him, which, especially as there was now nothing to be done, and much to be spoken, has prolonged itself even to our own time. it is true, the "nine days" have long since elapsed; and the very continuance of this clamor proves that burns was no vulgar wonder. accordingly, even in sober judgments, where, as years passed by, he has come to rest more and more exclusively on his own intrinsic merits, and may now be well nigh shorn of that casual radiance, he appears not only as a true british poet, but as one of the most considerable british men of the eighteenth century. let it not be objected that he did little: he did much, if we consider where and how. if the work performed was small, we must remember that he had his very materials to discover; for the metal he worked in lay hid under the desert, where no eye but his had guessed its existence; and we may almost say, that with his own hand he had to construct the tools for fashioning it. for he found himself in deepest obscurity, without help, without instruction, without model; or with models only of the meanest sort. an educated man stands, as it were, in the midst of a boundless arsenal and magazine, filled with all the weapons and engines which man's skill has been able to devise from the earliest time; and he works, accordingly, with a strength borrowed from all past ages. how different is _his_ state who stands on the outside of that storehouse, and feels that its gates must be stormed, or remain for ever shut against him? his means are the commonest and rudest; the mere work done is no measure of his strength. a dwarf behind his steam engine may remove mountains; but no dwarf will hew them down with the pick-axe; and he must be a titan that hurls them abroad with his arms. it is in this last shape that burns presents himself. born in an age the most prosaic britain had yet seen, and in a condition the most disadvantageous, where his mind, if it accomplished aught, must accomplish it under the pressure of continual bodily toil, nay, of penury and desponding apprehension of the worst evils, and with no furtherance but such knowledge as dwells in a poor man's hut, and the rhymes of a ferguson or ramsay for his standard of beauty, he sinks not under all these impediments. through the fogs and darkness of that obscure region, his eagle eye discerns the true relations of the world and human life; he grows into intellectual strength, and trains himself into intellectual expertness. impelled by the irrepressible movement of his inward spirit, he struggles forward into the general view, and with haughty modesty lays down before us, as the fruit of his labor, a gift, which time has now pronounced imperishable. add to all this, that his darksome, drudging childhood and youth was by far the kindliest era of his whole life; and that he died in his thirty-seventh year; and then ask if it be strange that his poems are imperfect, and of small extent, or that his genius attained no mastery in its art? alas, his sun shone as through a tropical tornado; and the pale shadow of death eclipsed it at noon! shrouded in such baleful vapors, the genius of burns was never seen in clear azure splendor, enlightening the world. but some beams from it did, by fits, pierce through; and it tinted those clouds with rainbow and orient colors into a glory and stern grandeur, which men silently gazed on with wonder and tears! we are anxious not to exaggerate; for it is exposition rather than admiration that our readers require of us here; and yet to avoid some tendency to that side is no easy matter. we love burns, and we pity him; and love and pity are prone to magnify. criticism, it is sometimes thought, should be a cold business; we are not so sure of this; but, at all events, our concern with burns is not exclusively that of critics. true and genial as his poetry must appear, it is not chiefly as a poet, but as a man, that he interests and affects us. he was often advised to write a tragedy: time and means were not lent him for this; but through life he enacted a tragedy, and one of the deepest. we question whether the world has since witnessed so utterly sad a scene; whether napoleon himself, left to brawl with sir hudson lowe, and perish on his rock, "amid the melancholy main," presented to the reflecting mind such a "spectacle of pity and fear," as did this intrinsically nobler, gentler, and perhaps greater soul, wasting itself away in a hopeless struggle with base entanglements, which coiled closer and closer round him, till only death opened him an outlet. conquerors are a race with whom the world could well dispense; nor can the hard intellect, the unsympathizing loftiness, and high but selfish enthusiasm of such persons, inspire us in general with any affection; at best it may excite amazement; and their fall, like that of a pyramid, will be beheld with a certain sadness and awe. but a true poet, a man in whose heart resides some effluence of wisdom, some tone of the "eternal melodies," is the most precious gift that can be bestowed on a generation: we see in him a freer, purer, development of whatever is noblest in ourselves; his life is a rich lesson to us, and we mourn his death, as that of a benefactor who loved and taught us. such a gift had nature in her bounty bestowed on us in robert burns; but with queen-like indifference she cast it from her hand, like a thing of no moment; and it was defaced and torn asunder, as an idle bauble, before we recognized it. to the ill-starred burns was given the power of making man's life more venerable, but that of wisely guiding his own was not given. destiny--for so in our ignorance we must speak,--his faults, the faults of others, proved too hard for him; and that spirit, which might have soared, could it but have walked, soon sank to the dust, its glorious faculties trodden under foot in the blossom, and died, we may almost say, without ever having lived. and so kind and warm a soul; so full of inborn riches, of love to all living and lifeless things! how his heart flows out in sympathy over universal nature; and in her bleakest provinces discerns a beauty and a meaning! the "daisy" falls not unheeded under his ploughshare; nor the ruined nest of that "wee, cowering, timorous beastie," cast forth, after all its provident pains, to "thole the sleety dribble, and cranreuch cauld." the "hoar visage" of winter delights him: he dwells with a sad and oft-returning fondness in these scenes of solemn desolation; but the voice of the tempest becomes an anthem to his ears; he loves to walk in the sounding woods, for "it raises his thoughts to _him that walketh on the wings of the wind_." a true poet-soul, for it needs but to be struck, and the sound it yields will be music! but observe him chiefly as he mingles with his brother men. what warm, all-comprehending, fellow-feeling, what trustful, boundless love, what generous exaggeration of the object loved! his rustic friend, his nut-brown maiden, are no longer mean and homely, but a hero and a queen, whom he prizes as the paragons of earth. the rough scenes of scottish life, not seen by him in any arcadian illusion, but in the rude contradiction, in the smoke and soil of a too harsh reality, are still lovely to him: poverty is indeed his companion, but love also, and courage; the simple feelings, the worth, the nobleness, that dwell under the straw roof, are dear and venerable to his heart; and thus over the lowest provinces of man's existence he pours the glory of his own soul; and they rise, in shadow and sunshine, softened and brightened into a beauty which other eyes discern not in the highest. he has a just self-consciousness, which too often degenerates into pride; yet it is a noble pride, for defence, not for offence, no cold, suspicious feeling, but a frank and social one. the peasant poet bears himself, we might say, like a king in exile; he is cast among the low, and feels himself equal to the highest; yet he claims no rank, that none may be disputed to him. the forward he can repel, the supercilious he can subdue; pretensions of wealth or ancestry are of no avail with him; there is a fire in that dark eye, under which the "insolence of condescension" cannot thrive. in his abasement, in his extreme need, he forgets not for a moment the majesty of poetry and manhood. and yet, far as he feels himself above common men, he wanders not apart from them, but mixes warmly in their interests; nay, throws himself into their arms; and, as it were, entreats them to love him. it is moving to see how, in his darkest despondency, this proud being still seeks relief from friendship; unbosoms himself, often to the unworthy; and, amid tears, strains to his glowing heart a heart that knows only the name of friendship. and yet he was "quick to learn;" a man of keen vision, before whom common disguises afforded no concealment. his understanding saw through the hollowness even of accomplished deceivers; but there was a generous credulity in his heart. and so did our peasant show himself among us; "a soul like an æolian harp, in whose strings the vulgar wind, as it passed through them, changed itself into articulate melody." and this was he for whom the world found no fitter business than quarrelling with smugglers and vintners, computing excise dues upon tallow, and gauging ale-barrels! in such toils was that mighty spirit sorrowfully wasted: and a hundred years may pass on, before another such is given us to waste. * * * * * all that remains of burns, the writings he has left, seem to us, as we hinted above, no more than a poor mutilated fraction of what was in him; brief, broken glimpses of a genius that could never show itself complete; that wanted all things for completeness; culture, leisure, true effort, nay, even length of life. his poems are, with scarcely any exception, mere occasional effusions, poured forth with little premeditation, expressing, by such means as offered, the passion, opinion, or humor of the hour. never in one instance was it permitted him to grapple with any subject with the full collection of his strength, to fuse and mould it in the concentrated fire of his genius. to try by the strict rules of art such imperfect fragments, would be at once unprofitable and unfair. nevertheless, there is something in these poems, marred and defective as they are, which forbids the most fastidious student of poetry to pass them by. some sort of enduring quality they must have; for, after fifty years of the wildest vicissitudes in poetic taste, they still continue to be read; nay, are read more and more eagerly, more and more extensively; and this not only by literary virtuosos, and that class upon whom transitory causes operate most strongly, but by all classes, down to the most hard, unlettered, and truly natural class, who read little, and especially no poetry, except because they find pleasure in it. the grounds of so singular and wide a popularity, which extends, in a literal sense, from the palace to the hut, and over all regions where the english tongue is spoken, are well worth inquiring into. after every just deduction, it seems to imply some rare excellence in these works. what is that excellence? to answer this question will not lead us far. the excellence of burns is, indeed, among the rarest, whether in poetry or prose; but, at the same time, it is plain and easily recognized: his _sincerity_, his indisputable air of truth. here are no fabulous woes or joys; no hollow fantastic sentimentalities; no wiredrawn refinings, either in thought or feeling: the passion that is traced before us has glowed in a living heart; the opinion he utters has risen in his own understanding, and been a light to his own steps. he does not write from hearsay, but from sight and experience; it is the scenes he has lived and labored amidst, that he describes: those scenes, rude and humble as they are, have kindled beautiful emotions in his soul, noble thoughts, and definite resolves; and he speaks forth what is in him, not from any outward call of vanity or interest, but because his heart is too full to be silent. he speaks it, too, with such melody and modulation as he can; "in homely rustic jingle;" but it is his own, and genuine. this is the grand secret for finding readers and retaining them: let him who would move and convince others, be first moved and convinced himself. horace's rule, _si vis me flere_, is applicable in a wider sense than the literal one. to every poet, to every writer, we might say: be true, if you would be believed. let a man but speak forth with genuine earnestness the thought, the emotion, the actual condition, of his own heart; and other men, so strangely are we all knit together by the tie of sympathy, must and will give heed to him. in culture, in extent of view, we may stand above the speaker, or below him; but in either case, his words, if they are earnest and sincere, will find some response within us; for in spite of all casual varieties in outward rank, or inward, as face answers to face, so does the heart of man to man. this may appear a very simple principle, and one which burns had little merit in discovering. true, the discovery is easy enough: but the practical appliance is not easy; is indeed the fundamental difficulty which all poets have to strive with, and which scarcely one in the hundred ever fairly surmounts. a head too dull to discriminate the true from the false; a heart too dull to love the one at all risks, and to hate the other in spite of all temptations, are alike fatal to a writer. with either, or, as more commonly happens, with both, of these deficiencies, combine a love of distinction, a wish to be original, which is seldom wanting, and we have affectation, the bane of literature, as cant, its elder brother, is of morals. how often does the one and the other front us, in poetry, as in life! great poets themselves are not always free of this vice; nay, it is precisely on a certain sort and degree of greatness that it is most commonly ingrafted. a strong effort after excellence will sometimes solace itself with a mere shadow of success, and he who has much to unfold, will sometimes unfold it imperfectly. byron, for instance, was no common man: yet if we examine his poetry with this view, we shall find it far enough from faultless. generally speaking, we should say that it is not true. he refreshes us, not with the divine fountain, but too often with vulgar strong waters, stimulating indeed to the taste, but soon ending in dislike or even nausea. are his harolds and giaours, we would ask, real men, we mean, poetically consistent and conceivable men? do not these characters, does not the character of their author, which more or less shines through them all, rather appear a thing put on for the occasion; no natural or possible mode of being, but something intended to look much grander than nature? surely, all these stormful agonies, this volcanic heroism, superhuman contempt, and moody desperation, with so much scowling, and teeth-gnashing, and other sulphurous humors, is more like the brawling of a player in some paltry tragedy, which is to last three hours, than the bearing of a man in the business of life, which is to last threescore and ten years. to our minds, there is a taint of this sort, something which we should call theatrical, false and affected, in every one of these otherwise powerful pieces. perhaps _don juan_, especially the latter parts of it, is the only thing approaching to a _sincere_ work, he ever wrote; the only work where he showed himself, in any measure, as he was; and seemed so intent on his subject, as, for moments, to forget himself. yet byron hated this vice; we believe, heartily detested it: nay, he had declared formal war against it in words. so difficult is it even for the strongest to make this primary attainment, which might seem the simplest of all: _to read its own consciousness without mistakes_, without errors involuntary or wilful! we recollect no poet of burns's susceptibility who comes before us from the first, and abides with us to the last, with such a total want of affectation. he is an honest man, and an honest writer. in his successes and his failures, in his greatness and his littleness, he is ever clear, simple, true, and glitters with no lustre but his own. we reckon this to be a great virtue; to be, in fact, the root of most other virtues, literary as well as moral. it is necessary, however, to mention, that it is to the poetry of burns that we now allude; to those writings which he had time to meditate, and where no special reason existed to warp his critical feeling, or obstruct his endeavor to fulfil it. certain of his letters, and other fractions of prose composition, by no means deserve this praise. here, doubtless, there is not the same natural truth of style; but on the contrary, something not only stiff, but strained and twisted; a certain high-flown, inflated tone; the stilting emphasis of which contrasts ill with the firmness and rugged simplicity of even his poorest verses. thus no man, it would appear, is altogether unaffected. does not shakspeare himself sometimes premeditate the sheerest bombast! but even with regard to these letters of burns, it is but fair to state that he had two excuses. the first was his comparative deficiency in language. burns, though for most part he writes with singular force, and even gracefulness, is not master of english prose, as he is of scottish verse; not master of it, we mean, in proportion to the depth and vehemence of his matter. these letters strike us as the effort of a man to express something which he has no organ fit for expressing. but a second and weightier excuse is to be found in the peculiarity of burns's social rank. his correspondents are often men whose relation to him he has never accurately ascertained; whom therefore he is either forearming himself against, or else unconsciously flattering, by adopting the style he thinks will please them. at all events, we should remember that these faults, even in his letters, are not the rule, but the exception. whenever he writes, as one would ever wish to do, to trusted friends and on real interests, his style becomes simple, vigorous, expressive, sometimes even beautiful. his letters to mrs. dunlop are uniformly excellent. but we return to his poetry. in addition to its sincerity, it has another peculiar merit, which indeed is but a mode, or perhaps a means, of the foregoing. it displays itself in his choice of subjects, or rather in his indifference as to subjects, and the power he has of making all subjects interesting. the ordinary poet, like the ordinary man, is for ever seeking, in external circumstances, the help which can be found only in himself. in what is familiar and near at hand, he discerns no form or comeliness; home is not poetical but prosaic; it is in some past, distant, conventional world, that poetry resides for him; were he there and not here, were he thus and not so, it would be well with him. hence our innumerable host of rose-colored novels and iron-mailed epics, with their locality not on the earth, but somewhere nearer to the moon. hence our virgins of the sun, and our knights of the cross, malicious saracens in turbans, and copper-colored chiefs in wampum, and so many other truculent figures from the heroic times or the heroic climates, who on all hands swarm in our poetry. peace be with them! but yet, as a great moralist proposed preaching to the men of this century, so would we fain preach to the poets, "a sermon on the duty of staying at home." let them be sure that heroic ages and heroic climates can do little for them. that form of life has attraction for us, less because it is better or nobler than our own, than simply because it is different; and even this attraction must be of the most transient sort. for will not our own age, one day, be an ancient one; and have as quaint a costume as the rest; not contrasted with the rest, therefore, but ranked along with them, in respect of quaintness? does homer interest us now, because he wrote of what passed out of his native greece, and two centuries before he was born; or because he wrote of what passed in god's world, and in the heart of man, which is the same after thirty centuries? let our poets look to this; is their feeling really finer, truer, and their vision deeper than that of other men, they have nothing to fear, even from the humblest object; is it not so?--they have nothing to hope, but an ephemeral favor, even from the highest. the poet, we cannot but think, can never have far to seek for a subject; the elements of his art are in him, and around him on every hand; for him the ideal world is not remote from the actual, but under it and within it; nay, he is a poet, precisely because he can discern it there. wherever there is a sky above him, and a world around him, the poet is in his place; for here too is man's existence, with its infinite longings and small acquirings; its ever-thwarted, ever-renewed endeavors; its unspeakable aspirations, its fears and hopes that wander through eternity: and all the mystery of brightness and of gloom that it was ever made of, in any age or climate, since man first began to live. is there not the fifth act of a tragedy, in every death-bed, though it were a peasant's and a bed of heath? and are wooings and weddings obsolete, that there can be comedy no longer? or are men suddenly grown wise, that laughter must no longer shake his sides, but be cheated of his farce? man's life and nature is, as it was, and as it will ever be. but the poet must have an eye to read these things, and a heart to understand them; or they come and pass away before him in vain. he is a _vates_, a seer; a gift of vision has been given him. has life no meanings for him, which another can not equally decipher? then he is no poet, and delphi itself will not make him one. in this respect, burns, though not perhaps absolutely a great poet, better manifests his capability, better proves the truth of his genius, than if he had, by his own strength, kept the whole minerva press going, to the end of his literary course. he shows himself at least a poet of nature's own making; and nature, after all, is still the grand agent in making poets. we often hear of this and the other external condition being requisite for the existence of a poet. sometimes it is a certain sort of training; he must have studied certain things, studied for instance "the elder dramatists," and so learned a poetic language; as if poetry lay in the tongue, not in the heart. at other times we are told, he must be bred in a certain rank, and must be on a confidential footing with the higher classes; because, above all other things, he must see the world. as to seeing the world, we apprehend this will cause him little difficulty, if he have but an eye to see it with. without eyes, indeed, the task might be hard. but happily every poet is born _in_ the world, and sees it, with or against his will, every day and every hour he lives. the mysterious workmanship of man's heart, the true light and the inscrutable darkness of man's destiny, reveal themselves not only in capital cities and crowded saloons, but in every hut and hamlet where men have their abode. nay, do not the elements of all human virtues, and all human vices--the passions at once of a borgia and of a luther, lie written, in stronger or fainter lines, in the consciousness of every individual bosom, that has practised honest self-examination? truly, this same world may be seen in mossgiel and tarbolton, if we look well, as clearly as it ever came to light in crockford's, or the tuileries itself. but sometimes still harder requisitions are laid on the poor aspirant to poetry; for it is hinted that he should have _been born_ two centuries ago; inasmuch as poetry, soon after that date, vanished from the earth, and became no longer attainable by men! such cobweb speculations have, now and then, overhung the field of literature; but they obstruct not the growth of any plant there: the shakspeare or the burns, unconsciously, and merely as he walks onward, silently brushes them away. is not every genius an impossibility till he appear? why do we call him new and original, if _we_ saw where his marble was lying, and what fabric he could rear from it? it is not the material but the workman that is wanting. it is not the dark _place_ that hinders, but the dim _eye_. a scottish peasant's life was the meanest and rudest of all lives, till burns became a poet in it, and a poet of it; found it a _man's_ life, and therefore significant to men. a thousand battle-fields remain unsung; but the _wounded hare_ has not perished without its memorial; a balm of mercy yet breathes on us from its dumb agonies, because a poet was there. our _halloween_ had passed and repassed, in rude awe and laughter, since the era of the druids; but no theocritus, till burns, discerned in it the materials of a scottish idyl: neither was the _holy fair_ any _council of trent_, or roman _jubilee_; but nevertheless, _superstition_ and _hypocrisy_, and _fun_ having been propitious to him, in this man's hand it became a poem, instinct with satire, and genuine comic life. let but the true poet be given us, we repeat it, place him where and how you will, and true poetry will not be wanting. independently of the essential gift of poetic feeling, as we have now attempted to describe it, a certain rugged sterling worth pervades whatever burns has written: a virtue, as of green fields and mountain breezes, dwells in his poetry; it is redolent of natural life, and hardy, natural men. there is a decisive strength in him; and yet a sweet native gracefulness: he is tender, and he is vehement, yet without constraint or too visible effort; he melts the heart, or inflames it, with a power which seems habitual and familiar to him. we see in him the gentleness, the trembling pity of a woman, with the deep earnestness, the force and passionate ardor of a hero. tears lie in him, and consuming fire; as lightning lurks in the drops of the summer cloud. he has a resonance in his bosom for every note of human feeling: the high and the low, the sad, the ludicrous, the joyful, are welcome in their turns to his "lightly-moved and all-conceiving spirit." and observe with what a prompt and eager force he grasps his subject, be it what it may! how he fixes, as it were, the full image of the matter in his eye; full and clear in every lineament; and catches the real type and essence of it, amid a thousand accidents and superficial circumstances, no one of which misleads him! is it of reason--some truth to be discovered? no sophistry, no vain surface-logic detains him; quick, resolute, unerring, he pierces through into the marrow of the question, and speaks his verdict with an emphasis that can not be forgotten. is it of description--some visual object to be represented? no poet of any age or nation is more graphic than burns: the characteristic features disclose themselves to him at a glance; three lines from his hand, and we have a likeness. and, in that rough dialect, in that rude, often awkward, metre, so clear, and definite a likeness! it seems a draughtsman working with a burnt stick; and yet the burin of a retzsch is not more expressive or exact. this clearness of sight we may call the foundation of all talent; for in fact, unless we _see_ our object, how shall we know how to place or prize it; in our understanding, our imagination, our affections? yet it is not in itself perhaps a very high excellence; but capable of being united indifferently with the strongest, or with ordinary powers. homer surpasses all men in this quality: but strangely enough, at no great distance below him are richardson and defoe. it belongs, in truth, to what is called a lively mind: and gives no sure indication of the higher endowments that may exist along with it. in all the three cases we have mentioned, it is combined with great garrulity; their descriptions are detailed, ample, and lovingly exact; homer's fire bursts through, from time to time, as if by accident; but defoe and richardson have no fire. burns, again, is not more distinguished by the clearness than by the impetuous force of his conceptions. of the strength, the piercing emphasis with which he thought, his emphasis of expression may give an humble but the readiest proof. who ever uttered sharper sayings than his; words more memorable, now by their burning vehemence, now by their cool vigor and laconic pith? a single phrase depicts a whole subject, a whole scene. our scottish forefathers in the battle-field struggled forward, he says, "_red-wat shod_;" giving, in this one word, a full vision of horror and carnage, perhaps too frightfully accurate for art! in fact, one of the leading features in the mind of burns is this vigor of his strictly intellectual perceptions. a resolute force is ever visible in his judgments, as in his feelings and volitions. professor stewart says of him, with some surprise: "all the faculties of burns's mind were, as far as i could judge, equally vigorous; and his predilection for poetry was rather the result of his own enthusiastic and impassioned temper, than of a genius exclusively adapted to that species of composition. from his conversation i should have pronounced him to be fitted to excel in whatever walk of ambition he had chosen to exert his abilities." but this, if we mistake not, is at all times the very essence of a truly poetical endowment. poetry, except in such cases as that of keats, where the whole consists in extreme sensibility, and a certain vague pervading tunefulness of nature, is no separate faculty, no organ which can be superadded to the rest or disjoined from them; but rather the result of their general harmony and completion. the feelings, the gifts, that exist in the poet, are those that exist, with more or less development, in every human soul: the imagination, which shudders at the hell of dante, is the same faculty, weaker in degree, which called that picture into being. how does the poet speak to all men, with power, but by being still more a man than they? shakspeare, it has been well observed, in the planning and completing of his tragedies, has shown an understanding, were it nothing more, which might have governed states, or indited a _novum organum_. what burns's force of understanding may have been, we have less means of judgment: for it dwelt among the humblest objects, never saw philosophy, and never rose, except for short intervals, into the region of great ideas. nevertheless, sufficient indication remains for us in his works: we discern the brawny movement of a gigantic though untutored strength, and can understand how, in conversation, his quick, sure insight into men and things may, as much as aught else about him, have amazed the best thinkers of his time and country. but, unless we mistake, the intellectual gift of burns is fine as well as strong. the more delicate relation of things could not well have escaped his eye, for they were intimately present to his heart. the logic of the senate and the forum is indispensable, but not all-sufficient; nay, perhaps the highest truth is that which will the most certainly elude it. for this logic works by words, and "the highest," it has been said, "cannot be expressed in words." we are not without tokens of an openness for this higher truth also, of a keen though uncultivated sense for it, having existed in burns. mr. stewart, it will be remembered, "wonders," in the passage above quoted, that burns had formed some distinct conception of the "doctrine of association." we rather think that far subtiler things than the doctrine of association had from of old been familiar to him. here for instance: "we know nothing," thus writes he, "or next to nothing, of the structure of our souls, so we cannot account for those seeming caprices in them, that one should be particularly pleased with this thing, or struck with that, which, on minds of a different cast, makes no extraordinary impression. i have some favorite flowers in spring, among which are the mountain-daisy, the hare-bell, the fox-glove, the wild-brier rose, the budding birch, and the hoary hawthorn, that i view and hang over with particular delight. i never hear the loud solitary whistle of the curlew in a summer noon, or the wild mixing cadence of a troop of gray plover in an autumnal morning, without feeling an elevation of soul like the enthusiasm of devotion or poetry. tell me, my dear friend, to what can this be owing? are we a piece of machinery, which, like the æolian harp, passive, takes the impression of the passing accident; or do these workings argue something within us above the trodden clod? i own myself partial to such proofs of those awful and important realities: a god that made all things, man's immaterial and immortal nature, and a world of weal or wo beyond death and the grave." force and fineness of understanding are often spoken of as something different from general force and fineness of nature, as something partly independent of them. the necessities of language probably require this; but in truth these qualities are not distinct and independent: except in special cases, and from special causes, they ever go together. a man of strong understanding is generally a man of strong character; neither is delicacy in the one kind often divided from delicacy in the other. no one, at all events, is ignorant that in the poetry of burns, keenness of insight keeps pace with keenness of feeling; that his _light_ is not more pervading than his _warmth_. he is a man of the most impassioned temper; with passions not strong only, but noble, and of the sort in which great virtues and great poems take their rise. it is reverence, it is love towards all nature that inspires him, that opens his eyes to its beauty, and makes heart and voice eloquent in its praise. there is a true old saying, that "love furthers knowledge:" but, above all, it is the living essence of that knowledge which makes poets; the first principle of its existence, increase, activity. of burns's fervid affection, his generous, all-embracing love, we have spoken already, as of the grand distinction of his nature, seen equally in word and deed, in his life and in his writings. it were easy to multiply examples. not man only, but all that environs man in the material and moral universe, is lovely in his sight: "the hoary hawthorn," the "troop of gray plover," the "solitary curlew," are all dear to him--all live in this earth along with him, and to all he is knit as in mysterious brotherhood. how touching is it, for instance, that, amidst the gloom of personal misery, brooding over the wintry desolation without him and within him, he thinks of the "ourie cattle" and "silly sheep," and their sufferings in the pitiless storm! "i thought me on the ourie cattle, or silly sheep, wha bide this brattle o' wintry war; or thro' the drift, deep-lairing, sprattle, beneath a scaur. ilk happing bird, wee helpless thing, that in the merry month o' spring delighted me to hear thee sing, what comes o' thee? where wilt thou cow'r thy chittering wing, and close thy ee?" the tenant of the mean hut, with its "ragged roof and chinky wall," has a heart to pity even these! this is worth several homilies on mercy; for it is the voice of mercy herself. burns, indeed, lives in sympathy; his soul rushes forth into all realms of being; nothing that has existence can be indifferent to him. the very devil he cannot hate with right orthodoxy! "but fare you weel, auld nickie-ben; o wad ye tak a thought and men'! ye aiblins might,--i dinna ken,- still hae a stake; i'm wae to think upo' yon den, even for your sake!" he did not know, probably, that sterne had been beforehand with him. "'he is the father of curses and lies,' said dr. slop; 'and is cursed and damned already.'--'i am sorry for it,' quoth my uncle toby!"--"a poet without love, were a physical and metaphysical impossibility." why should we speak of _scots, wha hae wi' wallace bled_; since all know it, from the king to the meanest of his subjects? this dithyrambic was composed on horseback; in riding in the middle of tempests, over the wildest galloway moor, in company with a mr. syme, who, observing the poet's looks, forebore to speak,--judiciously enough,--for a man composing _bruce's address_ might be unsafe to trifle with. doubtless this stern hymn was singing itself, as he formed it, through the soul of burns; but to the external ear, it should be sung with the throat of the whirlwind. so long as there is warm blood in the heart of a scotchman or man, it will move in fierce thrills under this war-ode, the best, we believe, that was ever written by any pen. another wild, stormful song, that dwells in our ear and mind with a strange tenacity, is _macpherson's farewell_. perhaps there is something in the tradition itself that co-operates. for was not this grim celt, this shaggy northland cacus, that "lived a life of sturt and strife, and died by treacherie," was not he too one of the nimrods and napoleons of the earth, in the arena of his own remote misty glens, for want of a clearer and wider one? nay, was there not a touch of grace given him? a fibre of love and softness, of poetry itself, must have lived in his savage heart; for he composed that air the night before his execution; on the wings of that poor melody, his better soul would soar away above oblivion, pain, and all the ignominy and despair, which, like an avalanche, was hurling him to the abyss! here, also, as at thebes, and in pelops' line, was material fate matched against man's free-will; matched in bitterest though obscure duel; and the ethereal soul sunk not, even in its blindness, without a cry which has survived it. but who, except burns, could have given words to such a soul--words that we never listen to without a strange half-barbarous, half-poetic fellow-feeling? _sae rantingly, sae wantonly, sae dauntingly gaed he; he play'd a spring, and danced it round, below the gallows tree._ under a lighter and thinner disguise, the same principle of love, which we have recognized as the great characteristic of burns, and of all true poets, occasionally manifests itself in the shape of humor. everywhere, indeed, in his sunny moods, a full buoyant flood of mirth rolls through the mind of burns; he rises to the high, and stoops to the low, and is brother and playmate to all nature. we speak not of his bold and often irresistible faculty of caricature; for this is drollery rather than humor: but a much tenderer sportfulness dwells in him; and comes forth, here and there, in evanescent and beautiful touches; as in his _address to the mouse_, or the _farmer's mare_, or in his _elegy on poor mailie_, which last may be reckoned his happiest effort of this kind. in these pieces, there are traits of a humor as fine as that of sterne; yet altogether different, original, peculiar,--the humor of burns. of the tenderness, the playful pathos, and many other kindred qualities of burns's poetry, much more might be said; but now, with these poor outlines of a sketch, we must prepare to quit this part of our subject. to speak of his individual writings, adequately, and with any detail, would lead us far beyond our limits. as already hinted, we can look on but few of these pieces as, in strict critical language, deserving the name of poems; they are rhymed eloquence, rhymed pathos, rhymed sense; yet seldom essentially melodious, aerial, poetical. _tam o'shanter_ itself, which enjoys so high a favor, does not appear to us, at all decisively, to come under this last category. it is not so much a poem, as a piece of sparkling rhetoric; the heart and body of the story still lies hard and dead. he has not gone back, much less carried us back, into that dark, earnest wondering age, when the tradition was believed, and when it took its rise; he does not attempt, by any new modelling of his supernatural ware, to strike anew that deep mysterious chord of human nature, which once responded to such things; and which lives in us too, and will forever live, though silent, or vibrating with far other notes, and to far different issues. our german readers will understand us, when we say, that he is not the tieck but the musäus of this tale. externally it is all green and living; yet look closer, it is no firm growth, but only ivy on a rock. the piece does not properly cohere; the strange chasm which yawns in our incredulous imaginations between the ayr public-house and the gate of tophet, is nowhere bridged over, nay, the idea of such a bridge is laughed at; and thus the tragedy of the adventure becomes a mere drunken phantasmagoria, painted on ale-vapors, and the farce alone has any reality. we do not say that burns should have made much more of this tradition; we rather think that, for strictly poetical purposes, not much _was_ to be made of it. neither are we blind to the deep, varied, genial power displayed in what he has actually accomplished: but we find far more "shakspearian" qualities, as these of _tam o'shanter_ have been fondly named, in many of his other pieces; nay, we incline to believe, that this latter might have been written, all but quite as well, by a man who, in place of genius, had only possessed talent. perhaps we may venture to say, that the most strictly poetical of all his "poems" is one, which does not appear in currie's edition; but has been often printed before and since, under the humble title of _the jolly beggars_. the subject truly is among the lowest in nature; but it only the more shows our poet's gift in raising it into the domain of art. to our minds, this piece seems thoroughly compacted; melted together, refined; and poured forth in one flood of true _liquid_ harmony. it is light, airy, and soft of movement; yet sharp and precise in its details; every face is a portrait: that _raucle carlin_, that _wee apollo_, that _son of mars_, are scottish, yet ideal; the scene is at once a dream, and the very rag-castle of "poosie-nansie." farther, it seems in a considerable degree complete, a real self-supporting whole, which is the highest merit in a poem. the blanket of the night is drawn asunder for a moment; in full, ruddy, and flaming light, these rough tatterdemalions are seen in their boisterous revel; for the strong pulse of life vindicates its right to gladness even here; and when the curtain closes, we prolong the action without effort; the next day, as the last, our _caird_ and our _balladmonger_ are singing and soldiering; their "brats and callets" are hawking, begging, cheating; and some other night, in new combinations, they will ring from fate another hour of wassail and good cheer. it would be strange, doubtless, to call this the best of burns's writings; we mean to say only, that it seems to us the most perfect of its kind, as a piece of poetical composition, strictly so called. in the _beggar's opera_, in the _beggar's bush_, as other critics have already remarked, there is nothing which, in real poetic vigor, equals this _cantata_; nothing, as we think, which comes within many degrees of it. but by far the most finished, complete, and truly inspired pieces of burns are, without dispute, to be found among his _songs_. it is here that, although through a small aperture, his light shines with the least obstruction; in its highest beauty, and pure sunny clearness. the reason may be, that song is a brief and simple species of composition: and requires nothing so much for its perfection as genuine poetic feeling, genuine music of heart. the song has its rules equally with the tragedy; rules which in most cases are poorly fulfilled, in many cases are not so much as felt. we might write a long essay on the songs of burns; which we reckon by far the best that britain has yet produced; for, indeed, since the era of queen elizabeth, we know not that, by any other hand, aught truly worth attention has been accomplished in this department. true, we have songs enough "by persons of quality;" we have tawdry, hollow, wine-bred, madrigals; many a rhymed "speech" in the flowing and watery vein of ossorius the portugal bishop, rich in sonorous words, and, for moral, dashed perhaps with some tint of a sentimental sensuality; all which many persons cease not from endeavoring to sing: though for most part, we fear, the music is but from the throat outward, or at best from some region far enough short of the _soul_; not in which, but in a certain inane limbo of the fancy, or even in some vaporous debatable land on the outside of the nervous system, most of such madrigals and rhymed speeches seem to have originated. with the songs of burns we must not name these things. independently of the clear, manly, heartfelt sentiment that ever pervades _his_ poetry, his songs are honest in another point of view: in form as well as in spirit. they do not _affect_ to be set to music; but they actually and in themselves are music; they have received their life, and fashioned themselves together, in the medium of harmony, as venus rose from the bosom of the sea. the story, the feeling, is not detailed, but suggested; not _said_, or spouted, in rhetorical completeness and coherence; but _sung_, in fitful gushes, in glowing hints, in fantastic breaks, in _warblings_ not of the voice only, but of the whole mind. we consider this to be the essence of a song; and that no songs since the little careless catches, and, as it were, drops of song, which shakspeare has here and there sprinkled over his plays, fulfil this condition in nearly the same degree as most of burns's do. such grace and truth of external movement, too, presupposes in general a corresponding force and truth of sentiment, and inward meaning. the songs of burns are not more perfect in the former quality than in the latter. with what tenderness he sings, yet with what vehemence and entireness! there is a piercing wail in his sorrow, the purest rapture in his joy: he burns with the sternest ire, or laughs with the loudest or slyest mirth; and yet he is sweet and soft, "sweet as the smile when fond lovers meet, and soft as their parting tear!" if we farther take into account the immense variety of his subjects; how, from the loud flowing revel in _willie brew'd a peck o' maut_, to the still, rapt enthusiasm of sadness for _mary in heaven_; from the glad kind greeting of _auld langsyne_, or the comic archness of _duncan gray_, to the fire-eyed fury of _scots, wha hae wi' wallace bled_, he has found a tone and words for every mood of man's heart,--it will seem a small praise if we rank him as the first of all our song-writers; for we know not where to find one worthy of being second to him. it is on his songs, as we believe, that burns's chief influence as an author will ultimately be found to depend: nor, if our fletcher's aphorism is true, shall we account this a small influence. "let me make the songs of a people," said he, "and you shall make its laws." surely, if ever any poet might have equalled himself with legislators, on this ground, it was burns. his songs are already part of the mother tongue, not of scotland only but of britain, and of the millions that in all the ends of the earth speak a british language. in hut and hall, as the heart unfolds itself in the joy and wo of existence, the name, the voice of that joy and that wo, is the name and voice which burns has given them. strictly speaking, perhaps, no british man has so deeply affected the thoughts and feelings of so many men as this solitary and altogether private individual, with means apparently the humblest. in another point of view, moreover, we incline to think that burns's influence may have been considerable: we mean, as exerted specially on the literature of his country, at least on the literature of scotland. among the great changes which british, particularly scottish literature, has undergone since that period, one of the greatest will be found to consist in its remarkable increase of nationality. even the english writers, most popular in burns's time, were little distinguished for their literary patriotism, in this its best sense. a certain attenuated cosmopolitanism had, in good measure, taken place of the old insular home-feeling; literature was, as it were, without any local environment--was not nourished by the affections which spring from a native soil. our grays and glovers seemed to write almost as if _in vacuo_; the thing written bears no mark of place; it is not written so much for englishmen, as for men; or rather, which is the inevitable result of this, for certain generalizations which philosophy termed men. goldsmith is an exception; not so johnson; the scene of his _rambler_ is little more english than that of his _rasselas_. but if such was, in some degree, the case with england, it was, in the highest degree, the case with scotland. in fact, our scottish literature had, at that period, a very singular aspect; unexampled, so far as we know, except perhaps at geneva, where the same state of matters appears still to continue. for a long period after scotland became british, we had no literature: at the date when addison and steele were writing their _spectators_, our good thomas boston was writing, with the noblest intent, but alike in defiance of grammar and philosophy, his _fourfold state of man_. then came the schisms in our national church, and the fiercer schisms in our body politic: theologic ink, and jacobite blood, with gaul enough in both cases, seemed to have blotted out the intellect of the country; however, it was only obscured, not obliterated. lord kames made nearly the first attempt, and a tolerably clumsy one, at writing english; and, ere long, hume, robertson, smith, and a whole host of followers, attracted hither the eyes of all europe. and yet in this brilliant resuscitation of our "fervid genius," there was nothing truly scottish, nothing indigenous; except, perhaps, the natural impetuosity of intellect, which we sometimes claim, and are sometimes upbraided with, as a characteristic of our nation. it is curious to remark that scotland, so full of writers, had no scottish culture, nor indeed any english; our culture was almost exclusively french. it was by studying racine and voltaire, batteux and boileau, that kames had trained himself to be a critic and philosopher: it was the light of montesquieu and mably that guided robertson in his political speculations: quesnay's lamp that kindled the lamp of adam smith. hume was too rich a man to borrow; and perhaps he reached on the french more than he was acted on by them: but neither had he aught to do with scotland; edinburgh, equally with la flèche, was but the lodging and laboratory, in which he not so much morally _lived_, as metaphysically _investigated_. never, perhaps, was there a class of writers, so clear and well-ordered, yet so totally destitute, to all appearance, of any patriotic affection, nay, of any human affection whatever. the french wits of the period were as unpatriotic; but their general deficiency in moral principle, not to say their avowed sensuality and unbelief in all virtue, strictly so called, render this accountable enough. we hope there is a patriotism founded on something better than prejudice; that our country may be dear to us, without injury to our philosophy; that in loving and justly prizing all other lands, we may prize justly, and yet love before all others, our own stern motherland, and the venerable structure of social and moral life, which mind has through long ages been building up for us there. surely there is nourishment for the better part of man's heart in all this: surely the roots, that have fixed themselves in the very core of man's being, may be so cultivated as to grow up not into briers, but into roses, in the field of his life! our scottish sages have no such propensities: the field of their life shows neither briers nor roses; but only a flat, continuous thrashing-floor for logic, whereon all questions, from the "doctrine of rent," to the "natural history of religion," are thrashed and sifted with the same mechanical impartiality! with sir walter scott at the head of our literature, it cannot be denied that much of this evil is past, or rapidly passing away: our chief literary men, whatever other faults they may have, no longer live among us like a french colony, or some knot of propaganda missionaries; but like natural-born subjects of the soil, partaking and sympathizing in all our attachments, humors, and habits. our literature no longer grows in water, but in mould, and with the true racy virtues of the soil and climate. how much of this change may be due to burns, or to any other individual, it might be difficult to estimate. direct literary imitation of burns was not to be looked for. but his example, in the fearless adoption of domestic subjects, could not but operate from afar; and certainly in no heart did the love of country ever burn with a warmer glow than in that of burns: "a tide of scottish prejudice," as he modestly calls this deep and generous feeling, "had been poured along his veins; and he felt that it would boil there till the flood-gates shut in eternal rest." it seemed to him, as if _he_ could do so little for his country, and yet would so gladly have done all. one small province stood open for him; that of scottish song, and how eagerly he entered on it; how devotedly he labored there! in his most toilsome journeyings, this object never quits him; it is the little happy-valley of his careworn heart. in the gloom of his own affliction, he eagerly searches after some lonely brother of the muse, and rejoices to snatch one other name from the oblivion that was covering it! these were early feelings, and they abode with him to the end. ----a wish, (i mind its power,) a wish, that to my latest hour will strongly heave my breast; that i, for poor auld scotland's sake, some useful plan or book could make, or sing a sang at least. the rough bur thistle spreading wide amang the bearded bear, i turn'd my weeding-clips aside, and spared the symbol dear. but to leave the mere literary character of burns, which has already detained us too long, we cannot but think that the life he willed, and was fated to lead among his fellow-men, is both more interesting and instructive than any of his written works. these poems are but like little rhymed fragments scattered here and there in the grand unrhymed romance of his earthly existence; and it is only when intercalated in this at their proper places, that they attain their full measure of significance. and this too, alas, was but a fragment! the plan of a mighty edifice had been sketched; some columns, porticoes, firm masses of building, stand completed; the rest more or less clearly indicated; with many a far-stretching tendency, which only studious and friendly eyes can now trace towards the purposed termination. for the work is broken off in the middle, almost in the beginning; and rises among us, beautiful and sad, at once unfinished and a ruin! if charitable judgment was necessary in estimating his poems, and justice required that the aim and the manifest power to fulfil it must often be accepted for the fulfilment; much more is this the case in regard to his life, the sum and result of all his endeavors, where his difficulties came upon him not in detail only, but in mass; and so much has been left unaccomplished, nay, was mistaken, and altogether marred. properly speaking, there is but one era in the life of burns, and that the earliest. we have not youth and manhood; but only youth: for, to the end, we discern no decisive change in the complexion of his character; in his thirty-seventh year, he is still, as it were, in youth. with all that resoluteness of judgment, that penetrating insight, and singular maturity of intellectual power, exhibited in his writings, he never attains to any clearness regarding himself; to the last he never ascertains his peculiar aim, even with such distinctness as is common among ordinary men; and therefore never can pursue it with that singleness of will, which insures success and some contentment to such men. to the last, he wavers between two purposes: glorying in his talent, like a true poet, he yet cannot consent to make this his chief and sole glory, and to follow it as the one thing needful, through poverty or riches, through good or evil report. another far meaner ambition still cleaves to him; he must dream and struggle about a certain "rock of independence;" which, natural and even admirable as it might be, was still but a warring with the world, on the comparitively insignificant ground of his being more or less completely supplied with money, than others; of his standing at a higher, or at a lower altitude in general estimation, than others. for the world still appears to him, as to the young, in borrowed colors; he expects from it what it cannot give to any man; seeks for contentment, not within himself, in action and wise effort, but from without, in the kindness of circumstances, in love, friendship, honor, pecuniary ease. he would be happy, not actively and in himself, but passively, and from some ideal cornucopia of enjoyments, not earned by his own labor, but showered on him by the beneficence of destiny. thus, like a young man, he cannot steady himself for any fixed or systematic pursuit, but swerves to and fro, between passionate hope, and remorseful disappointment: rushing onwards with a deep tempestuous force, he surmounts or breaks asunder many a barrier; travels, nay, advances far, but advancing only under uncertain guidance, is ever and anon turned from his path: and to the last, cannot reach the only true happiness of a man, that of clear, decided activity in the sphere for which by nature and circumstances he has been fitted and appointed. we do not say these things in dispraise of burns: nay, perhaps, they but interest us the more in his favor. this blessing is not given soonest to the best; but rather, it is often the greatest minds that are latest in obtaining it; for where most is to be developed, most time may be required to develope it. a complex condition had been assigned him from without, as complex a condition from within: no "pre-established harmony" existed between the clay soil of mossgiel and the empyrean soul of robert burns; it was not wonderful, therefore, that the adjustment between them should have been long postponed, and his arm long cumbered, and his sight confused, in so vast and discordant an economy, as he had been appointed steward over. byron was, at his death, but a year younger than burns; and through life, as it might have appeared, far more simply situated; yet in him, too, we can trace no such adjustment, no such moral manhood; but at best, and only a little before his end, the beginning of what seemed such. by much the most striking incident in burns's life is his journey to edinburgh; but perhaps a still more important one is his residence at irvine, so early as in his twenty-third year. hitherto his life had been poor and toilworn; but otherwise not ungenial, and, with all its distresses, by no means unhappy. in his parentage, deducting outward circumstances, he had every reason to reckon himself fortunate: his father was a man of thoughtful, intense, earnest character, as the best of our peasants are; valuing knowledge, possessing some, and, what is far better and rarer, open-minded for more; a man with a keen insight, and devout heart; reverent towards god, friendly therefore at once, and fearless towards all that god has made; in one word, though but a hard-handed peasant, a complete and fully unfolded _man_. such a father is seldom found in any rank in society; and was worth descending far in society to seek. unfortunately, he was very poor; had he been even a little richer, almost ever so little, the whole might have issued far otherwise. mighty events turn on a straw; the crossing of a brook decides the conquest of the world. had this william burns's small seven acres of nursery ground anywise prospered, the boy robert had been sent to school; had struggled forward, as so many weaker men do, to some university; come forth not as a rustic wonder, but as a regular well-trained intellectual workman, and changed the whole course of british literature,--for it lay in him to have done this! but the nursery did not prosper; poverty sank his whole family below the help of even our cheap school-system: burns remained a hard-worked plough-boy, and british literature took its own course. nevertheless, even in this rugged scene, there is much to nourish him. if he drudges, it is with his brother, and for his father and mother, whom he loves, and would fain shield from want. wisdom is not banished from their poor hearth, nor the balm of natural feeling: the solemn words, _let us worship god_, are heard there from a "priest-like father;" if threatenings of unjust men throw mother and children into tears, these are tears not of grief only, but of holiest affection; every heart in that humble group feels itself the closer knit to every other; in their hard warfare they are there together, a "little band of brethren." neither are such tears, and the deep beauty that dwells in them, their only portion. light visits the hearts as it does the eyes of all living: there is a force, too, in this youth, that enables him to trample on misfortune; nay, to bind it under his feet to make him sport. for a bold, warm, buoyant humor of character has been given him; and so the thick-coming shapes of evil are welcomed with a gay, friendly irony, and in their closest pressure he bates no jot of heart or hope. vague yearnings of ambition fail not, as he grows up; dreamy fancies hang like cloud-cities around him; the curtain of existence is slowly rising, in many-colored splendor and gloom: and the auroral light of first love is gilding his horizon, and the music of song is on his path; and so he walks "----in glory and in joy, behind his plough, upon the mountain side!" we know, from the best evidence, that up to this date, burns was happy; nay, that he was the gayest, brightest, most fantastic, fascinating being to be found in the world; more so even than he ever afterwards appeared. but now at this early age, he quits the paternal roof; goes forth into looser, louder, more exciting society; and becomes initiated in those dissipations, those vices, which a certain class of philosophers have asserted to be a natural preparative for entering on active life; a kind of mud-bath, in which the youth is, as it were, necessitated to steep, and, we suppose, cleanse himself, before the real toga of manhood can be laid on him. we shall not dispute much with this class of philosophers; we hope they are mistaken; for sin and remorse so easily beset us at all stages of life, and are always such indifferent company, that it seems hard we should, at any stage, be forced and fated not only to meet, but to yield to them; and even serve for a term in their leprous armada. we hope it is not so. clear we are, at all events, it cannot be the training one receives in this service, but only our determining to desert from it, that fits for true manly action. we become men, not after we have been dissipated, and disappointed in the chase of false pleasure; but after we have ascertained, in any way, what impassable barriers hem us in through this life; how mad it is to hope for contentment to our infinite soul from the _gifts_ of this extremely finite world! that a man must be sufficient for himself; and that "for suffering and enduring there is no remedy but striving and doing." manhood begins when we have in any way made truce with necessity; begins, at all events, when we have surrendered to necessity, as the most part only do; but begins joyfully and hopefully only when we have reconciled ourselves to necessity; and thus, in reality, triumphed over it, and felt that in necessity we are free. surely, such lessons as this last, which, in one shape or other, is the grand lesson for every mortal man, are better learned from the lips of a devout mother, in the looks and actions of a devout father, while the heart is yet soft and pliant, than in collision with the sharp adamant of fate, attracting us to shipwreck us, when the heart is grown hard, and may be broken before it will become contrite! had burns continued to learn this, as he was already learning it, in his father's cottage, he would have learned it fully, which he never did,--and been saved many a lasting aberration, many a bitter hour and year of remorseful sorrow. it seems to us another circumstance of fatal import in burns's history, that at this time too he became involved in the religious quarrels of his district; that he was enlisted and feasted, as the fighting man of the new-light priesthood, in their highly unprofitable warfare. at the tables of these free-minded clergy, he learned much more than was needful for him. such liberal ridicule of fanaticism awakened in his mind scruples about religion itself; and a whole world of doubts, which it required quite another set of conjurors than these men to exorcise. we do not say that such an intellect as his could have escaped similar doubts, at some period of his history; or even that he could, at a later period, have come through them altogether victorious and unharmed: but it seems peculiarly unfortunate that this time, above all others, should have been fixed for the encounter. for now, with principles assailed by evil example from without, by "passions raging like demons" from within, he had little need of skeptical misgivings to whisper treason in the heat of the battle, or to cut off his retreat if he were already defeated. he loses his feeling of innocence; his mind is at variance with itself; the old divinity no longer presides there; but wild desires and wild repentance alternately oppress him. ere long, too, he has committed himself before the world; his character for sobriety, dear to a scottish peasant, as few corrupted worldings can even conceive, is destroyed in the eyes of men; and his only refuge consists in trying to disbelieve his guiltiness, and is but a refuge of lies. the blackest desperation now gathers over him, broken only by the red lightnings of remorse. the whole fabric of his life is blasted asunder; for now not only his character, but his personal liberty, is to be lost; men and fortune are leagued for his hurt; "hungry ruin has him in the wind." he sees no escape but the saddest of all: exile from his loved country, to a country in every sense inhospitable and abhorrent to him. while the "gloomy night is gathering fast," in mental storm and solitude, as well as in physical, he sings his wild farewell to scotland: "farewell, my friends, farewell my foes! my peace with these, my love with those: the bursting tears my heart declare; adieu, my native banks of ayr!" light breaks suddenly in on him in floods; but still a false transitory light, and no real sunshine. he is invited to edinburgh; hastens thither with anticipating heart; is welcomed as in triumph, and with universal blandishment and acclamation; whatever is wisest, whatever is greatest, or loveliest there, gathers round him, to gaze on his face, to show him honor, sympathy, affection. burns's appearance among the sages and nobles of edinburgh, must be regarded as one of the most singular phenomena in modern literature; almost like the appearance of some napoleon among the crowned sovereigns of modern politics. for it is nowise as a "mockery king," set there by favor, transiently, and for a purpose, that he will let himself be treated; still less is he a mad rienzi, whose sudden elevation turns his too weak head; but he stands there on his own basis; cool, unastonished, holding his equal rank from nature herself; putting forth no claim which there is not strength _in_ him, as well as about him, to vindicate. mr. lockhart has some forcible observations on this point: "it needs no effort of imagination," says he, "to conceive what the sensations of an isolated set of scholars (almost all either clergymen or professors) must have been, in the presence of this big-boned, black-browed, brawny stranger, with his great flashing eyes, who, having forced his way among them from the plough-tail, at a single stride, manifested in the whole strain of his bearing and conversation, a most thorough conviction, that in the society of the most eminent men of his nation, he was exactly where he was entitled to be; hardly deigned to flatter them by exhibiting even an occasional symptom of being flattered by their notice; by turns calmly measured himself against the most cultivated understandings of his time in discussion; overpowered the _bon mots_ of the most celebrated convivialists by broad floods of merriment, impregnated with all the burning life of genius; astounded bosoms habitually enveloped in the thrice-piled folds of social reserve, by compelling them to tremble,--nay, to tremble visibly,--beneath the fearless touch of natural pathos; and all this without indicating the smallest willingness to be ranked among those professional ministers of excitement, who are content to be paid in money and smiles for doing what the spectators and auditors would be ashamed of doing in their own persons, even if they had the power of doing it; and last, and probably worst of all, who was known to be in the habit of enlivening societies which they would have scorned to approach, still more frequently than their own, with eloquence no less magnificent; with wit, in all likelihood still more daring; often enough as the superiors whom he fronted without alarm might have guessed from the beginning, and had, ere long, no occasion to guess, with wit pointed at themselves." the farther we remove from this scene, the more singular will it seem to us: details of the exterior aspect of it are already full of interest. most readers recollect mr. walker's personal interviews with burns as among the best passages of his narrative; a time will come when this reminiscence of sir walter scott's, slight though it is, will also be precious. "as for burns," writes sir walter, "i may truly say _vergilium vidi tantum_. i was a lad of fifteen in 1786-7, when he came first to edinburgh, but had sense and feeling enough to be much interested in his poetry, and would have given the world to know him: but i had very little acquaintance with any literary people; and still less with the gentry of the west country, the two sets that he most frequented. mr. thomas grierson was at that time a clerk of my father's. he knew burns, and promised to ask him to his lodgings to dinner, but had no opportunity to keep his word; otherwise i might have seen more of this distinguished man. as it was, i saw him one day at the late venerable professor ferguson's, where there were several gentlemen of literary reputation, among whom i remember the celebrated mr. dugald stewart. of course, we youngsters sat silent, looked and listened. the only thing i remember, which was remarkable in burns's manner, was the effect produced upon him by a print of bunbury's, representing a soldier lying dead on the snow, his dog sitting in misery on one side,--on the other, his widow, with a child in her arms. these lines were written beneath: "cold on canadian hills, or minden's plain, perhaps that mother wept her soldier slain: bent o'er her babe, her eye dissolved in dew, the big drops mingling with the milk he drew gave the sad presage of his future years, the child of misery baptized in tears." "burns seemed much affected by the print, or rather by the ideas which it suggested to his mind. he actually shed tears. he asked whose the lines were, and it chanced that nobody but myself remembered that they occur in a half-forgotten poem of langhorne's, called by the unpromising title of "the justice of peace." i whispered my information to a friend present, he mentioned it to burns, who rewarded me with a look and a word, which, though of mere civility, i then received and still recollect with very great pleasure. "his person was strong and robust; his manners rustic, not clownish; a sort of dignified plainness and simplicity, which received part of its effect perhaps from one's knowledge of his extraordinary talents. his features are represented in mr. nasmyth's picture: but to me it conveys the idea that they are diminished, as if seen in perspective. i think his countenance was more massive than it looks in any of the portraits. i should have taken the poet, had i not known what he was, for a very sagacious country farmer of the old scotch school, _i. e._ none of your modern agriculturists who keep laborers for their drudgery, but the _douce gudeman_ who held his own plough. there was a strong expression of sense and shrewdness in all his lineaments; the eye alone, i think, indicated the poetical character and temperament. it was large, and of a dark cast, which glowed (i say literally _glowed_) when he spoke with feeling or interest. i never saw such another eye in a human head, though i have seen the most distinguished men of my time. his conversation expressed perfect self-confidence, without the slightest presumption. among the men who were the most learned of their time and country, he expressed himself with perfect firmness, but without the least intrusive forwardness; and when he differed in opinion, he did not hesitate to express it firmly, yet at the same time with modesty. i do not remember any part of his conversation distinctly enough to be quoted; nor did i ever see him again, except in the street, where he did not recognize me, as i could not expect he should. he was much caressed in edinburgh: but (considering what literary emoluments have been since his day) the efforts made for his relief were extremely trifling. "i remember, on this occasion, i mention, i thought burns's acquaintance with english poetry was rather limited; and also, that having twenty times the abilities of allan ramsay and of ferguson, he talked of them with too much humility as his models: there was doubtless national predilection in his estimate. "this is all i can tell you about burns. i have only to add, that his dress corresponded with his manner. he was like a farmer dressed in his best to dine with the laird. i do not speak in _malam partem_, when i say, i never saw a man in company with his superiors in station or information more perfectly free from either the reality or the affectation of embarrassment. i was told, but did not observe it, that his address to females was extremely deferential, and always with a turn either to the pathetic or humorous, which engaged their attention particularly. i have heard the late duchess of gordon remark this. i do not know any thing i can add to these recollections of forty years since." the conduct of burns under this dazzling blaze of favor; the calm, unaffected, manly manner, in which he not only bore it, but estimated its value, has justly been regarded as the best proof that could be given of his real vigor and integrity of mind. a little natural vanity, some touches of hypocritical modesty, some glimmerings of affectation, at least some fear of being thought affected, we could have pardoned in almost any man; but no such indication is to be traced here. in his unexampled situation the young peasant is not a moment perplexed; so many strange lights do not confuse him, do not lead him astray. nevertheless, we cannot but perceive that this winter did him great and lasting injury. a somewhat clearer knowledge of men's affairs, scarcely of their characters, it did afford him: but a sharper feeling of fortune's unequal arrangements in their social destiny it also left with him. he had seen the gay and gorgeous arena, in which the powerful are born to play their parts; nay, had himself stood in the midst of it; and he felt more bitterly than ever, that here he was but a looker-on, and had no part or lot in that splendid game. from this time a jealous, indignant fear of social degradation takes possession of him; and perverts, so far as aught could pervert, his private contentment, and his feelings towards his richer fellows. it was clear enough to burns that he had talent enough to make a fortune, or a hundred fortunes, could he but have rightly willed this; it was clear also that he willed something far different, and therefore could not make one. unhappy it was that he had not power to choose the one, and reject the other; but must halt forever between two opinions, two objects; making hampered advancement towards either. but so is it with many men: we "long for the merchandise, yet would fain keep the price;" and so stand chaffering with fate in vexatious altercation, till the night come, and our fair is over! the edinburgh learned of that period were in general more noted for clearness of head than for warmth of heart: with the exception of the good old blacklock, whose help was too ineffectual, scarcely one among them seems to have looked at burns with any true sympathy, or indeed much otherwise than as at a highly curious _thing_. by the great, also, he is treated in the customary fashion; entertained at their tables, and dismissed: certain modica of pudding and praise are, from time to time, gladly exchanged for the fascination of his presence; which exchange once effected, the bargain is finished, and each party goes his several way. at the end of this strange season, burns gloomily sums up his gains and losses, and meditates on the chaotic future. in money he is somewhat richer; in fame and the show of happiness, infinitely richer; but in the substance of it, as poor as ever. nay, poorer, for his heart is now maddened still more with the fever of mere worldly ambition: and through long years the disease will rack him with unprofitable sufferings, and weaken his strength for all true and nobler aims. what burns was next to do or avoid; how a man so circumstanced was now to guide himself towards his true advantage, might at this point of time have been a question for the wisest: and it was a question which he was left altogether to answer for himself: of his learned or rich patrons it had not struck any individual to turn a thought on this so trivial matter. without claiming for burns the praise of perfect sagacity, we must say, that his excise and farm scheme does not seem to us a very unreasonable one; and that we should be at a loss, even now, to suggest one decidedly better. some of his admirers, indeed, are scandalized at his ever resolving to _gauge_; and would have had him apparently lie still at the pool, till the spirit of patronage should stir the waters, and then heal with one plunge all his worldly sorrows! we fear such counsellors knew but little of burns; and did not consider that happiness might in all cases be cheaply had by waiting for the fulfilment of golden dreams, were it not that in the interim the dreamer must die of hunger. it reflects credit on the manliness and sound sense of burns, that he felt so early on what ground he was standing; and preferred self-help, on the humblest scale, to dependence and inaction, though with hope of far more splendid possibilities. but even these possibilities were not rejected in his scheme: he might expect, if it chanced that he _had_ any friend, to rise, in no long period, into something even like opulence and leisure; while again, if it chanced that he had no friend, he could still live in security; and for the rest, he "did not intend to borrow honor from any profession." we think, then, that his plan was honest and well calculated: all turned on the execution of it. doubtless it failed; yet not, we believe, from any vice inherent in itself. nay, after all, it was no failure of external means, but of internal, that overtook burns. his was no bankruptcy of the purse, but of the soul; to his last day, he owed no man any thing. meanwhile he begins well; with two good and wise actions. his donation to his mother, munificent from a man whose income had lately been seven pounds a year, was worthy of him, and not more than worthy. generous also, and worthy of him, was his treatment of the woman whose life's welfare now depended on his pleasure. a friendly observer might have hoped serene days for him: his mind is on the true road to peace with itself: what clearness he still wants will be given as he proceeds; for the best teacher of duties, that still lie dim to us, is the practice of those we see, and have at hand. had the "patrons of genius," who could give him nothing, but taken nothing from him, at least nothing more!--the wounds of his heart would have healed, vulgar ambition would have died away. toil and frugality would have been welcome, since virtue dwelt with them, and poetry would have shone through them as of old; and in her clear ethereal light, which was his own by birth-right, he might have looked down on his earthly destiny, and all its obstructions, not with patience only, but with love. but the patrons of genius would not have it so. picturesque tourists,[2] all manner of fashionable danglers after literature, and, far worse, all manner of convivial mecænases, hovered round him in his retreat; and his good as well as his weak qualities secured them influence over him. he was flattered by their notice; and his warm social nature made it impossible for him to shake them off, and hold on his way apart from them. these men, as we believe, were proximately the means of his ruin. not that they meant him any ill; they only meant themselves a little good; if he suffered harm, let _him_ look to it! but they wasted his precious time and his precious talent; they disturbed his composure, broke down his returning habits of temperance and assiduous contented exertion. their pampering was baneful to him; their cruelty, which soon followed, was equally baneful. the old grudge against fortune's inequality awoke with new bitterness in their neighborhood, and burns had no retreat but to the "rock of independence," which is but an air-castle, after all, that looks well at a distance, but will screen no one from real wind and wet. flushed with irregular excitement, exasperated alternately by contempt of others, and contempt of himself, burns was no longer regaining his peace of mind, but fast losing it forever. there was a hollowness at the heart of his life, for his conscience did not now approve what he was doing. amid the vapors of unwise enjoyment, of bootless remorse, and angry discontent with fate, his true loadstar, a life of poetry, with poverty, nay, with famine if it must be so, was too often altogether hidden from his eyes. and yet he sailed a sea, where, without some such guide, there was no right steering. meteors of french politics rise before him, but these were not _his_ stars. an accident this, which hastened, but did not originate, his worst distresses. in the mad contentions of that time, he comes in collision with certain official superiors; is wounded by them; cruelly lacerated, we should say, could a dead mechanical implement, in any case, be called cruel: and shrinks, in indignant pain, into deeper self-seclusion, into gloomier moodiness than ever. his life has now lost its unity: it is a life of fragments; led with little aim, beyond the melancholy one of securing its own continuance--in fits of wild false joy, when such offered, and of black despondency when they passed away. his character before the world begins to suffer: calumny is busy with him; for a miserable man makes more enemies than friends. some faults he has fallen into, and a thousand misfortunes; but deep criminality is what he stands accused of, and they that are _not_ without sin, cast the first stone at him! for is he not a well-wisher of the french revolution, a jacobin, and therefore in that one act guilty of all? these accusations, political and moral, it has since appeared, were false enough; but the world hesitated little to credit them. nay, his convivial mecænases themselves were not the last to do it. there is reason to believe that, in his later years, the dumfries aristocracy had partly withdrawn themselves from burns, as from a tainted person, no longer worthy of their acquaintance. that painful class, stationed, in all provincial cities, behind the outmost breastwork of gentility, there to stand siege and do battle against the intrusion of grocerdom, and grazierdom, had actually seen dishonor in the society of burns, and branded him with their veto; had, as we vulgarly say, _cut_ him! we find one passage in this work of mr. lockhart's, which will not out of our thoughts: "a gentleman of that country, whose name i have already more than once had occasion to refer to, has often told me that he was seldom more grieved, than when, riding into dumfries one fine summer evening about this time to attend a country ball, he saw burns walking alone, on the shady side of the principal street of the town, while the opposite side was gay with successive groups of gentlemen and ladies, all drawn together for the festivities of the night, not one of whom appeared willing to recognize him. the horseman dismounted, and joined burns, who, on his proposing to cross the street, said: 'nay, nay, my young friend, that's all over now;' and quoted, after a pause, some verses of lady grizzel baillie's pathetic ballad: 'his bonnet stood ance fu' fair on his brow, his auld ane looked better than mony ane's new; but now he lets 't wear ony way it will hing, and casts himsell dowie upon the corn-bing. 'o were we young, as we ance hae been, we sud hae been galloping down on yon green, and linking it ower the lily-white lea! _and werena my heart light i wad die._' it was little in burns's character to let his feelings on certain subjects escape in this fashion. he, immediately after reciting these verses, assumed the sprightliness of his most pleasing manner; and, taking his young friend home with him, entertained him very agreeably till the hour of the ball arrived." alas! when we think that burns now sleeps "where bitter indignation can no longer lacerate his heart,"[3] and that most of these fair dames and frizzled gentlemen already lie at his side, where the breastwork of gentility is quite thrown down,--who would not sigh over the thin delusions and foolish toys that divide heart from heart, and make man unmerciful to his brother! it was not now to be hoped that the genius of burns would ever reach maturity, or accomplish ought worthy of itself. his spirit was jarred in its melody; not the soft breath of natural feeling, but the rude hand of fate, was now sweeping over the strings. and yet what harmony was in him, what music even in his discords! how the wild tones had a charm for the simplest and the wisest; and all men felt and knew that here also was one of the gifted! "if he entered an inn at midnight, after all the inmates were in bed, the news of his arrival circulated from the cellar to the garret; and ere ten minutes had elapsed, the landlord and all his guests were assembled!" some brief, pure moments of poetic life were yet appointed him, in the composition of his songs. we can understand how he grasped at this employment; and how, too, he spurned at all other reward for it but what the labor itself brought him. for the soul of burns, though scathed and marred, was yet living in its full moral strength, though sharply conscious of its errors and abasement: and here, in his destitution and degradation, was one act of seeming nobleness and self-devotedness left even for him to perform. he felt, too, that with all the "thoughtless follies" that had "laid him low," the world was unjust and cruel to him; and he silently appealed to another and calmer time. not as a hired soldier, but as a patriot, would he strive for the glory of his country; so he cast from him the poor sixpence a-day, and served zealously as a volunteer. let us not grudge him this last luxury of his existence; let him not have appealed to us in vain! the money was not necessary to him; he struggled through without it; long since, these guineas would have been gone, and now the high-mindedness of refusing them will plead for him in all hearts for ever. we are here arrived at the crisis of burns's life; for matters had now taken such a shape with him as could not long continue. if improvement was not to be looked for, nature could only for a limited time maintain this dark and maddening warfare against the world and itself. we are not medically informed whether any continuance of years was, at this period, probable for burns; whether his death is to be looked on as in some sense an accidental event, or only as the natural consequence of the long series of events that had preceded. the latter seems to be the likelier opinion; and yet it is by no means a certain one. at all events, as we have said, _some_ change could not be very distant. three gates of deliverance, it seems to us, were open for burns: clear poetical activity, madness, or death. the first, with longer life, was still possible, though not probable; for physical causes were beginning to be concerned in it: and yet burns had an iron resolution; could he but have seen and felt, that not only his highest glory, but his first duty, and the true medicine for all his woes, lay here. the second was still less probable; for his mind was ever among the clearest and firmest. so the milder third gate was opened for him: and he passed, not softly, yet speedily, into that still country, where the hail-storms and fire-showers do not reach, and the heaviest-laden wayfarer at length lays down his load! contemplating this sad end of burns, and how he sank unaided by any real help, uncheered by any wise sympathy, generous minds have sometimes figured to themselves, with a reproachful sorrow, that much might have been done for him; that by counsel, true affection, and friendly ministrations, he might have been saved to himself and the world. we question whether there is not more tenderness of heart than soundness of judgment in these suggestions. it seems dubious to us whether the richest, wisest, most benevolent individual, could have lent burns any effectual help. counsel, which seldom profits any one, he did not need; in his understanding, he knew the right from the wrong, as well perhaps as any man ever did; but the persuasion, which would have availed him, lies not so much in the head, as in the heart, where no argument or expostulation could have assisted much to implant it. as to money again, we do not really believe that this was his essential want; or well see how any private man could, even presupposing burns's consent, have bestowed on him an independent fortune, with much prospect of decisive advantage. it is a mortifying truth, that two men in any rank of society could hardly be found virtuous enough to give money, and to take it, as a necessary gift, without injury to the moral entireness of one or both. but so stands the fact: friendship, in the old heroic sense of that term, no longer exists; except in the cases of kindred or other legal affinity; it is in reality no longer expected, or recognized as a virtue among men. a close observer of manners has pronounced "patronage," that is, pecuniary or other economic furtherance, to be "twice cursed;" cursing him that gives, and him that takes! and thus, in regard to outward matters also, it has become the rule, as in regard to inward it always was and must be the rule, that no one shall look for effectual help to another; but that each shall rest contented with what help he can afford himself. such, we say, is the principle of modern honor; naturally enough growing out of that sentiment of pride, which we inculcate and encourage as the basis of our whole social morality. many a poet has been poorer than burns; but no one was ever prouder: and we may question, whether, without great precautions, even a pension from royalty would not have galled and encumbered, more than actually assisted him. still less, therefore, are we disposed to join with another class of burns's admirers, who accuse the higher ranks among us of having ruined burns by their selfish neglect of him. we have already stated our doubts whether direct pecuniary help, had it been offered, would have been accepted, or could have proved very effectual. we shall readily admit, however, that much was to be done for burns; that many a poisoned arrow might have been warded from his bosom; many an entanglement in his path cut asunder by the hand of the powerful; and light and heat shed on him from high places, would have made his humble atmosphere more genial; and the softest heart then breathing might have lived and died with some fewer pangs. nay, we shall grant further, and for burns it is granting much, that with all his pride, he would have thanked, even with exaggerated gratitude, any one who had cordially befriended him: patronage, unless once cursed, needed not to have been twice so. at all events, the poor promotion he desired in his calling might have been granted: it was his own scheme, therefore likelier than any other to be of service. all this it might have been a luxury, nay, it was a duty, for our nobility to have done. no part of all this, however, did any of them do; or apparently attempt, or wish to do; so much is granted against them. but what then is the amount of their blame? simply that they were men of the world, and walked by the principles of such men; that they treated burns, as other nobles and other commoners had done other poets; as the english did shakspeare; as king charles and his cavaliers did butler, as king philip and his grandees did cervantes. do men gather grapes of thorns? or shall we cut down our thorns for yielding only a _fence_, and haws? how, indeed, could the "nobility and gentry of his native land" hold out any help to this "scottish bard, proud of his name and country?" were the nobility and gentry so much as able rightly to help themselves? had they not their game to preserve; their borough interests to strengthen; dinners, therefore, of various kinds to eat and give? were their means more than adequate to all this business, or less than adequate? less than adequate in general: few of them in reality were richer than burns; many of them were poorer; for sometimes they had to wring their supplies, as with thumbscrews, from the hard hand; and, in their need of guineas, to forget their duty of mercy; which burns was never reduced to do. let us pity and forgive them. the game they preserved and shot, the dinners they ate and gave, the borough interests they strengthened, the _little_ babylons they severally builded by the glory of their might, are all melted, or melting back into the primeval chaos, as man's merely selfish endeavors are fated to do: and here was an action extending, in virtue of its worldly influence, we may say, through all time; in virtue of its moral nature, beyond all time, being immortal as the spirit of goodness itself; this action was offered them to do, and light was not given them to do it. let us pity and forgive them. but, better than pity, let us go and _do otherwise_. human suffering did not end with the life of burns; neither was the solemn mandate, "love one another, bear one another's burdens," given to the rich only, but to all men. true, we shall find no burns to relieve, to assuage by our aid or our pity: but celestial natures, groaning under the fardels of a weary life, we shall still find; and that wretchedness which fate has rendered _voiceless_ and _tuneless_, is not the least wretched, but the most. still we do not think that the blame of burns's failure lies chiefly with the world. the world, it seems to us, treated him with more, rather than with less kindness, than it usually shows to such men. it has ever, we fear, shown but small favor to its teachers; hunger and nakedness, perils and reviling, the prison, the cross, the poison-chalice, have, in most times and countries, been the market-place it has offered for wisdom, the welcome with which it has greeted those who have come to enlighten and purify it. homer and socrates, and the christian apostles belong to old days; but the world's martyrology was not completed with these. roger bacon and galileo languish in priestly dungeons, tasso pines in the cell of a madhouse, camoens dies begging on the streets of lisbon. so neglected, so "persecuted they the prophets," not in judea only, but in all places where men have been. we reckon that every poet of burns's order is, or should be, a prophet and teacher to his age; that he has no right therefore to expect great kindness from it, but rather is bound to do it great kindness; that burns, in particular, experienced fully the usual proportion of the world's goodness; and that the blame of his failure, as we have said, lies not chiefly with the world. where then does it lie? we are forced to answer: with himself; it is his inward, not his outward misfortunes, that bring him to the dust. seldom, indeed, is it otherwise; seldom is a life morally wrecked, but the grand cause lies in some internal mal-arrangement, some want less of good fortune than of good guidance. nature fashions no creature without implanting in it the strength needful for its action and duration; least of all does she so neglect her masterpiece and darling, the poetic soul. neither can we believe that it is in the power of _any_ external circumstances utterly to ruin the mind of a man; nay, if proper wisdom be given him, even so much as to affect its essential health and beauty. the sternest sum-total of all worldly misfortunes is death; nothing more _can_ lie in the cup of human wo: yet many men, in all ages, have triumphed over death, and led it captive; converting its physical victory into a moral victory for themselves, into a seal and immortal consecration for all that their past life had achieved. what has been done, may be done again; nay, it is but the degree and not the kind of such heroism that differs in different seasons; for without some portion of this spirit, not of boisterous daring, but of silent fearlessness, of self-denial, in all its forms, no good man, in any scene or time, has ever attained to be good. we have already stated the error of burns; and mourned over it, rather than blamed it. it was the want of unity in his purposes, of consistency in his aims; the hapless attempt to mingle in friendly union the common spirit of the world with the spirit of poetry, which is of a far different and altogether irreconcilable nature. burns was nothing wholly, and burns could be nothing; no man formed as he was can be any thing, by halves. the heart, not of a mere hot-blooded, popular verse-monger, or poetical _restaurateur_, but of a true poet and singer, worthy of the old religious heroic times, had been given him: and he fell in an age, not of heroism and religion, but of skepticism, selfishness, and triviality, when true nobleness was little understood, and its place supplied by a hollow, dissocial, altogether barren and unfruitful principle of pride. the influences of that age, his open, kind, susceptible nature, to say nothing of his highly untoward situation, made it more than usually difficult for him to repel or resist; the better spirit that was within him ever sternly demanded its rights, its supremacy; he spent his life in endeavoring to reconcile these two; and lost it, as he must have lost it, without reconciling them here. burns was born poor; and born also to continue poor, for he would not endeavor to be otherwise: this it had been well could he have once for all admitted, and considered as finally settled. he was poor, truly; but hundreds even of his own class and order of minds have been poorer, yet have suffered nothing deadly from it: nay, his own father had a far sorer battle with ungrateful destiny than his was; and he did not yield to it, but died courageously warring, and to all moral intents prevailing, against it. true, burns had little means, had even little time for poetry, his only real pursuit and vocation; but so much the more precious was what little he had. in all these external respects his case was hard; but very far from the hardest. poverty, incessant drudgery, and much worse evils, it has often been the lot of poets and wise men to strive with, and their glory to conquer. locke was banished as a traitor; and wrote his _essay on the human understanding_, sheltering himself in a dutch garret. was milton rich or at his ease, when he composed _paradise lost_? not only low, but fallen from a height; not only poor, but impoverished; in darkness and with dangers compassed round, he sang his immortal song, and found fit audience, though few. did not cervantes finish his work, a maimed soldier, and in prison? nay, was not the _araucana_, which spain acknowledges as its epic, written without even the aid of paper; scraps of leather, as the stout fighter and voyager snatched any moment from that wild warfare? and what then had these men, which burns wanted? two things; both which, it seems to us, are indispensable for such men. they had a true, religious principle of morals; and a single not a double aim in their activity. they were not self-seekers and self-worshippers; but seekers and worshippers of something far better than self. not personal enjoyment was their object; but a high, heroic idea of religion, of patriotism, of heavenly wisdom, in one or the other form, ever hovered before them; in which cause, they neither shrunk from suffering, nor called on the earth to witness it as something wonderful; but patiently endured, counting it blessedness enough so to spend and be spent. thus the "golden calf of self-love," however curiously carved, was not their deity; but the invisible goodness, which alone is man's reasonable service. this feeling was as a celestial fountain, whose streams refreshed into gladness and beauty all the provinces of their otherwise too desolate existence. in a word, they willed one thing, to which all other things were subordinated, and made subservient; and therefore they accomplished it. the wedge will rend rocks; but its edge must be sharp and single: if it be double, the wedge is bruised in pieces and will rend nothing. part of this superiority these men owed to their age; in which heroism and devotedness were still practised, or at least not yet disbelieved in; but much of it likewise they owed to themselves. with burns again it was different. his morality, in most of its practical points, is that of a mere worldly man; enjoyment, in a finer or a coarser shape, is the only thing he longs and strives for. a noble instinct sometimes raises him above this; but an instinct only, and acting only for moments. he has no religion; in the shallow age, where his days were cast, religion was not discriminated from the new and old light _forms_ of religion; and was, with these, becoming obsolete in the minds of men. his heart, indeed, is alive with a trembling adoration, but there is no temple in his understanding. he lives in darkness and in the shadow of doubt. his religion, at best, is an anxious wish; like that of rabelais, "a great perhaps." he loved poetry warmly, and in his heart; could he but have loved it purely, and with his whole undivided heart, it had been well. for poetry, as burns could have followed it, is but another form of wisdom, of religion; is itself wisdom and religion. but this also was denied him. his poetry is a stray vagrant gleam, which will not be extinguished within him, yet rises not to be the true light of his path, but is often a wildfire that misleads him. it was not necessary for burns to be rich, to be, or to seem, "independent;" but _it was_ necessary for him to be at one with his own heart; to place what was highest in his nature, highest also in his life; "to seek within himself for that consistency and sequence, which external events would for ever refuse him." he was born a poet; poetry was the celestial element of his being, and should have been the soul of his whole endeavors. lifted into that serene ether, whither he had wings given him to mount, he would have needed no other elevation: poverty, neglect, and all evil, save the desecration of himself and his art, were a small matter to him; the pride and the passions of the world lay far beneath his feet; and he looked down alike on noble and slave, on prince and beggar, and all that wore the stamp of man, with clear recognition, with brotherly affection, with sympathy, with pity. nay, we question whether for his culture as a poet, poverty, and much suffering for a season, were not absolutely advantageous. great men, in looking back over their lives, have testified to that effect. "i would not for much," says jean paul, "that i had been born richer." and yet paul's birth was poor enough; for, in another place, he adds; "the prisoner's allowance is bread and water; and i had often only the latter." but the gold that is refined in the hottest furnace comes out the purest; or, as he has himself expressed it, "the canary-bird sings sweeter the longer it has been trained in a darkened cage." a man like burns might have divided his hours between poetry and virtuous industry; industry which all true feeling sanctions, nay prescribes, and which has a beauty, for that cause, beyond the pomp of thrones: but to divide his hours between poetry and rich men's banquets, was an ill-starred and inauspicious attempt. how could he be at ease at such banquets? what had he to do there, mingling his music with the coarse roar of altogether earthly voices, and brightening the thick smoke of intoxication with fire lent him from heaven? was it his aim to _enjoy_ life? to-morrow he must go drudge as an exciseman! we wonder not that burns became moody, indignant, and at times an offender against certain rules of society; but rather that he did not grow utterly frantic, and run _a-muck_ against them all. how could a man, so falsely placed, by his own or others' fault, ever know contentment or peaceable diligence for an hour? what he did, under such perverse guidance, and what he forbore to do, alike fill us with astonishment at the natural strength and worth of his character. doubtless there was a remedy for this perverseness: but not in others; only in himself; least of all in simple increase of wealth and worldly "respectability." we hope we have now heard enough about the efficacy of wealth for poetry, and to make poets happy. nay, have we not seen another instance of it in these very days? byron, a man of endowment considerably less ethereal than that of burns, is born in the rank not of a scottish ploughman, but of an english peer: the highest worldly honors, the fairest worldly career, are his by inheritance: the richest harvest of fame he soon reaps, in another province, by his own hand. and what does all this avail him? is he happy, is he good, is he true? alas, he has a poet's soul, and strives towards the infinite and the eternal; and soon feels that all this is but mounting to the house-top to reach the stars! like burns, he is only a proud man; might like him have "purchased a pocket-copy of milton to study the character of satan;" for satan also is byron's grand exemplar, the hero of his poetry, and the model apparently of his conduct. as in burns's case, too, the celestial element will not mingle with the clay of earth; both poet and man of the world he must not be; vulgar ambition will not live kindly with poetic adoration; he _cannot_ serve god and mammon. byron, like burns, is not happy; nay, he is the most wretched of all men. his life is falsely arranged: the fire that is in him is not a strong, still, central fire, warming into beauty the products of a world; but it is the mad fire of a volcano; and now,--we look sadly into the ashes of a crater, which ere long, will fill itself with snow! byron and burns were sent forth as missionaries to their generation, to teach it a higher doctrine, a purer truth: they had a message to deliver, which left them no rest till it was accomplished; in dim throes of pain, this divine behest lay smouldering within them; for they knew not what it meant, and felt it only in mysterious anticipation, and they had to die without articulately uttering it. they are in the camp of the unconverted. yet not as high messengers of rigorous though benignant truth, but as soft flattering singers, and in pleasant fellowship, will they live there; they are first adulated, then persecuted; they accomplish little for others; they find no peace for themselves, but only death and the peace of the grave. we confess, it is not without a certain mournful awe that we view the fate of these noble souls, so richly gifted, yet ruined to so little purpose with all their gifts. it seems to us there is a stern moral taught in this piece of history,--_twice_ told us in our own time! surely to men of like genius, if there be any such, it carries with it a lesson of deep impressive significance. surely it would become such a man, furnished for the highest of all enterprises, that of being the poet of his age, to consider well what it is that he attempts, and in what spirit he attempts it. for the words of milton are true in all times, and were never truer than in this: "he, who would write heroic poems, must make his whole life a heroic poem." if he cannot first so make his life, then let him hasten from this arena; for neither its lofty glories, nor its fearful perils, are for him. let him dwindle into a modish balladmonger; let him worship and be-sing the idols of the time, and the time will not fail to reward him,--if, indeed, he can endure to live in that capacity! byron and burns could not live as idol-priests, but the fire of their own hearts consumed them; and better it was for them that they could not. for it is not in the favor of the great, or of the small, but in a life of truth, and in the inexpugnable citadel of his own soul, that a byron's or a burns's strength must lie. let the great stand aloof from him, or know how to reverence him. beautiful is the union of wealth with favor and furtherance for literature; like the costliest flower-jar enclosing the loveliest amaranth. yet let not the relation be mistaken. a true poet is not one whom they can hire by money or flattery to be a minister of their pleasures, their writer of occasional verses, their purveyor of table-wit; he cannot be their menial, he cannot even be their partisan. at the peril of both parties, let no such union be attempted! will a courser of the sun work softly in the harness of a drayhorse? his hoofs are of fire, and his path is through the heavens, bringing light to all lands; will he lumber on mud highways, dragging ale for earthly appetites, from door to door? but we must stop short in these considerations, which would lead us to boundless lengths. we had something to say on the public moral character of burns; but this also we must forbear. we are far from regarding him as guilty before the world, as guiltier than the average; nay, from doubting that he is less guilty than one of ten thousand. tried at a tribunal far more rigid than that where the _plebiscita_ of common civic reputations are pronounced, he has seemed to us even there less worthy of blame than of pity and wonder. but the world is habitually unjust in its judgments of such men; unjust on many grounds, of which this one may be stated as the substance: it decides, like a court of law, by dead statutes; and not positively but negatively; less on what is done right, than on what is, or is not, done wrong. not the few inches of reflection from the mathematical orbit, which are so easily measured, but the _ratio_ of these to the whole diameter, constitutes the real aberration. this orbit may be a planet's, its diameter the breadth of the solar system; or it may be a city hippodrome; nay, the circle of a ginhorse, its diameter a score of feet or paces. but the inches of deflection only are measured; and it is assumed that the diameter of the ginhorse, and that of the planet, will yield the same ratio when compared with them. here lies the root of many a blind, cruel condemnation of burnses, swifts, rousseaus, which one never listens to with approval. granted, the ship comes into harbor with shrouds and tackle damaged; and the pilot is therefore blameworthy; for he has not been all-wise and all-powerful; but to know _how_ blameworthy, tell us first whether his voyage has been round the globe, or only to ramsgate and the isle of dogs. with our readers in general, with men of right feeling anywhere, we are not required to plead for burns. in pitying admiration, he lies enshrined in all our hearts, in a far nobler mausoleum than that one of marble; neither will his works, even as they are, pass away from the memory of man. while the shakspeares and miltons roll on like mighty rivers through the country of thought, bearing fleets of traffickers and assiduous pearl-fishers on their waves; this little valclusa fountain will also arrest our eye: for this also is of nature's own and most cunning workmanship, bursts from the depths of the earth, with a full gushing current, into the light of day; and often will the traveller turn aside to drink of its clear waters, and muse among its rocks and pines! the end. footnotes: [1] a review of the life of robert burns. by j. g. lockhart, ll. b. edinburgh, 1828. [2] there is one little sketch certain "english gentlemen" of this class, which, though adopted in currie's narrative, and since then repeated in most others, we have all along felt an invincible disposition to regard as imaginary: "on a rock that projected into the stream they saw a man employed in angling, of a singular appearance. he had a cap made of fox-skin on his head, a loose great-coat fixed round him by a belt, from which depended an enormous highland broad-sword. it was burns." now, we rather think, it was not burns. for, to say nothing of the fox-skin cap, loose and quite hibernian watch-coat with the belt, what are we to make of this "enormous highland broad-sword" depending from him? more especially, as there is no word of parish constables on the outlook to see whether, as dennis phrases it, he had an eye to his own midriff, or that of the public! burns, of all men, had the least tendency to seek for distinction, either in his own eyes, or those of others, by such poor mummeries. [3] _ubi sæva indignatio cor ulterius lacerare nequit._--swift's epitaph. * * * * * transcriber's note: text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_). the following misprints have been corrected: "aquaintances" corrected to "acquaintances" (page 34) "acqaintance" corrected to "acquaintance" (page 66) "aristrocracy" corrected to "aristocracy" (page 67) other than the corrections listed above, inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation have been retained from the original. generously made available by the internet archive.) the real robert burns the real robert burns by j. l. hughes, ll.d. author of 'dickens as an educator,' &c. london: 38 soho square, w.1 w. & r. chambers, limited edinburgh: 339 high street the ryerson press toronto: corner queen and john streets printed in great britain. w. & r. chambers, ltd., london and edinburgh. contents. chapter page foreword 7 i. the true values of biography 9 ii. the educational advantages of burns 17 iii. the characteristics of burns 35 iv. burns was a religious man 63 v. burns the democrat 99 vi. burns and brotherhood 126 vii. burns a revealer of pure love 135 viii. burns a philosopher 167 ix. the development of burns 197 foreword. the writer of the following pages learned years ago to reverence the memories of burns and dickens. frequently hearing one or the other attacked from platform or pulpit, and believing both to be great interpreters of the highest things taught by christ, as the basis of the development of humanity towards the divine, he resolved that some day he would try to help the world to understand correctly the work of these two great men. his book, _dickens as an educator_, has helped to give a new conception of dickens, as an educational pioneer and as a philosopher. the purpose of this book is to show that burns was well educated, and that both in his poems and in his letters he was an unsurpassed exponent of the highest human ideals yet expressed of religion--democracy based on the value of the individual soul, brotherhood, love, and the philosophy of human life. the writer believes that gossiping in regard to the weakness of the living is indecent and degrading, but that it is pardonable as compared with the debasing practice of gossiping about the weaknesses of the dead. those who can wallow in the muck of degraded biographers are only a degree less wicked than the biographers themselves, who sin against the dead, and sin against the living by providing debasing matter for them to read. the evidence to prove the positions claimed to be true in this book is mainly taken from the poems and letters of burns himself. some may doubt the sincerity of burns. carlyle had no doubt about his sincerity or his honesty. he says of the popularity of burns: 'the grounds of so singular and wide a popularity, which extends, in a literal sense, from the palace to the hut, and over all regions where the english tongue is spoken, are well worth inquiring into. after every just deduction, it seems to imply some rare excellence in these works. what is that excellence? to answer this question will not lead us far. the excellence of burns is, indeed, among the rarest, whether in poetry or in prose, but, at the same time, it is plain and easily recognised--_his sincerity, his indisputable air of truth_.' speaking of the moral character of burns, carlyle said: 'we are far from regarding him as guilty before the world, as guiltier than the average; nay, from doubting that _he is less guilty than one of ten thousand_.... what he _did_ under such circumstances, and what he _forbore to do_, alike fill us with astonishment at the _natural strength and worth of his character_.' shakespeare says in _hamlet_: 'ay, sir, to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of ten thousand.' carlyle chose burns as one of ten thousand. these quotations should help two classes of men: the 'unco guid,' who believe evil stories, most of which had no real foundation; and those professed lovers of burns who love him for his weaknesses. the real robert burns was not weak enough to suit either of these two classes. 'less guilty than one in ten thousand' is a high standard. to do something to help all men and women to a juster understanding of the real robert burns is the aim of the writer. let us learn, and ever remember, that he was a reverent writer about religion, a clear interpreter of christ's teaching of democracy and brotherhood, a profound philosopher, and the author of the purest love-songs ever written. the real robert burns. chapter i. the true values of biography. a man's biography should relate the story of his development in power, and his achievements for his fellow-men. biography can justify itself only in two ways: by revealing the agencies and experiences that formed a man's character and aided in the growth of his highest powers; and by relating the things he achieved for humanity, and the processes by which he achieved them. only the good in the lives of great men should be recorded in biographies. to relate the evil men do, or describe their weaknesses, is not only objectionable, it is in every way execrable. it degrades those who write it and those who read it. biography should not be mainly a story; it should be a revelation, not of evil, but of good. it should unfold and impress the value of the visions of the great man whose biography is being written, and his success in revealing his high visions to his fellow-men. it should tell the things he achieved or produced to make the world better; the things that aid in the growth of humanity towards the divine. the biographer who tells of evils is, from thoughtlessness or malevolence, a mischievous enemy of mankind. no man's memory was ever more unjustly dealt with than the memory of robert burns. his first editor published many poems that burns said on his death-bed should be allowed 'to sink into oblivion,' and told all of weakness that he could learn in order that he might be regarded as just. he considered justice to himself of more consequence than justice to burns, or to humanity. his only claim to be remembered is the fact that he prepared the poems of burns for publication, and wrote his biography. it is much to be regretted that he had not higher ideals of what a biography should be, not merely for the memory of the man about whom it is written, but for its influence in enlightening and uplifting those who read it. biographers should reveal not weaknesses, but the things achieved for god and humanity. carlyle, writing of the biographers of burns, says: 'his former biographers have done something, no doubt, but by no means a great deal, to assist us. dr currie and mr walker, the principal of these writers, have both, we think, mistaken one important thing: their own and the world's true relation to the author, and the style in which it became such men to think and to speak of such a man. dr currie loved the poet truly, more perhaps than he avowed to his readers, or even to himself; yet he everywhere introduces him with a certain patronising, apologetic air, as if the polite public might think it strange and half unwarrantable that he, a man of science, a scholar and a gentleman, should do such honour to a rustic. in all this, however, we readily admit that his fault was not want of love, but weakness of faith; and regret that the first and kindest of all our poet's biographers should not have seen farther, or believed more boldly what he saw. mr walker offends more deeply in the same kind, and both err alike in presenting us with a detached catalogue of his attributes, virtues, and vices, _instead of a delineation of the resulting character as a living unity_.' the biographers of robert burns criticised reputed defects of his--defects common among men of all classes and all professions in his time--but failed to give him credit for his revelations of divine wisdom. they bemoaned his lack of religion--though he was a reverently religious man--instead of telling the simple truth that he was the greatest religious reformer of his time in any part of the world. they said he was not a christian because he did not perform certain ceremonies required by the churches, when freer and less bigoted men would have told the real fact, that he was one of the world's greatest interpreters of christ's highest ideals--democracy and brotherhood. he still holds that high rank. they related idle gossip about his vanity and other trivial stories, instead of being content with proclaiming him the greatest genius of his time in the comprehensiveness of his visions, and in the scope of his powers. some of them tried to prove that he was not a loyal man; they should have revealed him as the giant leader of men in making them conscious of the value of liberty and of the right of every man to its fullest enjoyment. the oft-repeated charge of disloyalty was disproved when the charge was made during the life of burns, but the false accusation has been accepted as a fact by many people to the present time. fortunately the records of the dumfries volunteers have been discovered recently, and mr william will has published them in a book entitled _robert burns as a volunteer_. they prove most conclusively that burns was a truly loyal man. when the provost of dumfries called a meeting of the citizens of dumfries to consider the need of establishing a company of volunteers burns attended the meeting, and was chosen as a member of a small committee to write to the king asking permission to form a company. when permission was granted by the king, burns joined the company on the night when it was first organised, and sat up most of the night composing 'the dumfries volunteers,' the most inspiring poem of its kind ever written. it did more to arouse the people of scotland and england to put down the bolshevism of the time than any other loyal propaganda. the minutes of the volunteer company in dumfries give a perfect answer to the basest slander ever made against burns--that he had sunk so low as a hopelessly vile drunkard the respectable people of dumfries would not associate with him; that he was ostracised by the community at large. yet this 'ostracised man' was chosen by the best citizens of dumfries as one of the committee to write to king george, and was elected as a member of the committee to manage the company. this slander was so generally accepted in carlyle's time that even carlyle himself wrote that burns did not die too soon, as he had lost the respect of his fellow-men, and had lost also the power to write. his first statement is proved to have no true foundation by the record of the dumfries volunteer company, and the second by the fact that burns wrote the greatest poem ever written by any man to interpret christ's highest visions, democracy and brotherhood, 'a man's a man for a' that,' the year before he died, and 'the dumfries volunteers.' the second year before his death he wrote 'the tree of liberty' and 'the ode to liberty,' and the third year before he died he wrote the clarion call to fight in defence of freedom, 'scots, wha hae.' these poems have no equals in any literature of their kind. during the same three years of his life he wrote one hundred and seventeen other fine songs and sent them to edinburgh for publication, the last one on the ninth day before his death. it should be remembered, too, that burns had to ride two hundred miles each week in the discharge of his duty to the government; and that after the organisation of the volunteer company he had to drill four hours each week, and attend the meetings of the company committee. the minutes of the company show he was never fined for absence. the last meeting he attended before his fatal illness was called to prepare a letter of gratitude to god for preserving the life of the king when the london bolshevistic mob tried to kill him on his way to the house of commons. assisting to prepare this letter to the king was the last public act of burns. had his weaknesses been tenfold what they were, his biographers should have said nothing about them, for in spite of his human weakness he had divine power to reveal to all men christ's teachings--democracy and brotherhood, based on the value of the individual soul. he was also the greatest poet of religion, ethics, and love; and he holds a high place among the loving interpreters of nature. to relate facts in his life to account for the development of his powers, so that he was able to be so great a revealer of the highest things in the lives of men and women, should have been the work of his biographers. it is worthy of note that wordsworth wrote to the publishers of the biography of burns in regard to the true attitude of a biographer. he objected to recording imputed failings, and expressed indignation at dr currie for devoting so much attention to the infirmities of burns. chambers and douglas were in most respects better than his other early biographers. the rev. lauchlan maclean watt, of edinburgh, wrote for the nation's library in 1914 the sanest, truest book yet written about burns. chapter ii. the educational advantages of burns. many people still speak of burns as an 'uneducated man.' although a farmer, he was in reality a well-educated man. he was not a finished scholar in the accepted sense of the universities, but both in his poetry and in his unusually forceful and polished prose he was superior to most of the university men of his time. he had read many books, the best books that his intelligent father could buy, or that he could borrow from friends or from libraries. in addition to school-books, he names the following among those books read in his youth and young manhood--_the spectator_, pope's works, shakespeare, works on agriculture, _the pantheon_, locke's _essay on the human understanding_, stackhouse's _history of the bible_, justice's _british gardener_, boyle lectures, allan ramsay's works, doctor taylor's _doctrine of original sin_, _a select collection of english songs_, hervey's _meditations_, thomson's works, shenstone's works, _the letters by the wits of queen anne's reign_, sterne's _tristram shandy_, mackenzie's _the man of feeling_, macpherson's _ossian_, two volumes of _pamela_, and one novel by smollett, _ferdinand, count fathom_. in addition to these he had read some french and some latin books, guided by one of the greatest teachers of his time, john murdoch, who was so great that when he established a private school in london his fame spread to france, and some leading young men, notably talleyrand, came to receive his training and inspiration. william burns read regularly at night to his two sons, robert and gilbert, and after the reading the three fellow-students discussed the matter that had been read, each from his own individual standpoint. as the boys grew older they read books during their meals, so earnest were they in their desire to become acquainted with the best thought of the world's leaders, so far as it was available. david sillar has stated that robert generally carried a book with him when he was alone, that he might read and think. when robert settled at ellisland he aroused an interest among the people of the district, and succeeded in establishing a circulating library. his father, though a labourer, was supremely desirous that his family should be educated and thoughtful. this desire prompted him to become a farmer, that he might keep his family at home. he was an independent thinker himself, and by example and experience he trained his sons to love reading and to think independently. robert never thought he was thinking when he let other people's thoughts run through his mind. the result of the reading and thinking which their father led robert and gilbert to do was most gratifying. the influence on robert's mind must be recognised. he became not only a great writer in prose and in poetry, but a great orator as well. he stood modestly, but conscious of his power, and proved his superiority both in conversation and impromptu oratory to the leading university men of his time in edinburgh. gilbert, too, became an original thinker and a writer of clear and forceful english. in a long letter to dr currie he discussed very profoundly and very independently some deep psychological ideas in excellent language. few men of his time could have written more thoughtfully or more definitely. as illustrations of robert's learning, as well as of his independent thought in relating the books he read to each other and to human life, two instances are worth recording. first, in a letter to dr moore,[1] of london, an author of some distinction, who had sent him a copy of one of his books, burns said, 1790: 'you were pleased to express a wish for my opinion of your work, which so flattered me that nothing less would serve my overweening fancy than a formal criticism on the book. in fact, i have gravely planned a comparative view of you, fielding, richardson, and smollett in your different qualities and merits as novel writers. this, i own, betrays my ridiculous vanity, and i may probably never bring the business to bear, but i am fond of the spirit young elihu shows in the book of job--"and i said, i will also declare my opinion."' to mrs dunlop he wrote, 1788: 'dryden's _virgil_ has delighted me. i do not know whether the critics will agree with me, but the _georgics_ are to me by far the best of virgil. it is indeed a species of writing entirely new to me, and has filled my head with a thousand fancies of emulation.... i own i am disappointed in the _ã�neid_. faultless correctness may please, and does highly please, the letter critic; but to that awful character i have not the most distant pretensions. i do not know whether i do not hazard my pretensions to be a critic of any kind, when i say that i think virgil, in many instances, a servile copier of homer. if i had the _odyssey_ by me, i could parallel many passages where virgil has evidently copied, but by no means improved, homer. nor can i think there is anything of this owing to the translators; for from everything i have seen of dryden, i think him in genius and fluency of language pope's master.' but a small percentage of university graduates of his time could have written independent criticisms, wise or otherwise, of homer and virgil, or even of english writers, as clearly as burns did. they could have told what the opinions of other people were in regard to homer and virgil; they could have told what they had been told. burns had been trained to think by his father, and to express his own thoughts about the books he read; they had merely been informed. the advantage in real education was greatly in favour of burns. their memories had been stored with opinions of others; his mind had been trained to read carefully, to relate the thoughts of others to life, to decide as to their wisdom, and to think independently himself. his education from books was somewhat limited, but the development of his mind that came from discussions of the value of the matter read was vital, and helped him to relate himself to men, to nature around him, to the universe, and to god. in schools burns had not a very extended experience. when six years old he was sent to a small school beside the mill on the doon at alloway. his teacher gave up the school soon after burns began to attend it. mr burns secured the co-operation of several of his neighbours, and they engaged a young man named murdoch to teach their children, agreeing to take him in turn as their guest, and to pay him a small salary. the fact that john murdoch formed a high estimate of mr burns is a proof of the ability and sincerity of the father of the poet. when burns was seven years old his father removed to mount oliphant farm, but robert continued to attend the school of mr murdoch, about two miles away, in alloway. the books used were a spelling-book, the new testament, the bible, mason's _collection of prose and verse_, and fisher's _english grammar_. mr murdoch gave up his alloway school when burns was nine years old. after that time the teacher of his sons was their father. he taught them arithmetic, and bought them salmon's _geographical grammar_, derham's _physicoand astro-theology_, hay's _wisdom of god in the creation_, and the _history of the reigns of james i. and charles i. of england_. robert, when eleven years old, showed a deep interest in the study of grammar and language, and 'excelled as a critic in substantives, verbs, and participles.' in his twelfth year he was kindled in his patriotic spirit by the _life of sir william wallace_. wallace remained a hero to him throughout his life. in his thirty-fifth year he wrote the grandest call to the defence of liberty ever written, beginning: scots, wha hae wi' wallace bled. in his eleventh year, which seemed to be a kindling epoch in his mind, his mother's brother gave him a collection of _letters by the wits of queen anne's reign_. he read them over and over again, greatly delighted by both their contents and their literary style. they had a distinct influence in forming his own prose style, as during his twelfth year he conducted an imaginary correspondence of quite an extensive character and in a stately style. when he was thirteen the greatest kindler of his early powers, john murdoch, became teacher of english in the ayr high school. robert was sent to board with him to study grammar and composition. he received instruction from murdoch in french and in latin. he continued the study of french in the evenings at home, as he had obtained a french dictionary and a french grammar. his formal education, so far as it became an element in the cultivation of his mind and the development of his supreme powers, ended with the few weeks spent with john murdoch in ayr. they were epoch weeks to burns; transforming weeks, because of the increased range of his learning, but made infinitely more richly transforming by the revelation of new visions of life, and by the culture gained by association with a man of rare ability and supreme kindling power, such as john murdoch undoubtedly possessed. a genius like burns, living with a great teacher like murdoch, could in a month get many of the new revelations, the new visions, and the strong impulses that should come into a growing soul as the result of a university course. burns, in his seventeenth year, was sent to kirkoswald to study mensuration and surveying. he intended to become a surveyor. peggy thomson lived next door to the school he attended. he met peggy, loved her madly, and found it impossible to study longer. he afterwards wrote two beautiful poems to her. his school life for a brief period in kirkoswald had little influence in the development of his power, except for the organisation of a debating society composed of a companion, william niven, and himself. they met weekly to hold debates, and these debates were greatly enjoyed by burns. his practice in debating societies afterwards organised by him in tarbolton and in mauchline not only developed in him his unusual oratorical ability, but at the same time gave him mental training of vital importance. impromptu speaking surpasses any other known educational process in developing the human mind. however, burns could neither study for hugh rodger nor debate with william niven after he fell in love with peggy thomson, so, after a sleepless week, he went home. some may wonder, when they learn that for a time burns took more interest in studying euclid's _elements of geometry_ than in any other department of study in his home under his father's guidance. when the rev. archibald alison sent him his book, _essays on the principles of taste_, burns thanked him, and in his letter said: 'in short, sir, except euclid's _elements of geometry_, which i made a shift to unravel by my father's fireside in the winter evenings of the first season i held the plough, i never read a book which gave me such a quantum of information, and added so much to my stock of ideas, as your _essays on the principles of taste_.' burns evidently studied geometry at the time his mind was ripe for new development by that special study. all children and young people would be fortunate if they could be guided to the special study capable of arousing their deepest interest, and therefore capable of promoting their highest development, at the special period of their mental growth when that particular study will awaken their deepest and most productive interest. robert's mind appears to have had a splendid power of adaptation to the books and studies which his father secured for his sons. gilbert says: 'robert read all these with an avidity and industry scarcely to be equalled; and no book was so voluminous as to slacken his industry, or so antiquated as to damp his researches.' dr moore wrote to burns in 1787: 'i know very well you have a mind capable of attaining knowledge by a shorter process than is commonly used, and i am certain you are capable of making better use of it, when attained, than is generally done.' this makes it easier to understand why burns had a mind so well stored with so many kinds of knowledge; and knowledge classified by himself, and related to life, so well that he could use it readily when he required to do so. the university men in edinburgh marvelled more at the vastness of his stores of different kinds of knowledge, when he met them with dignified calmness, than they did because of his wonderful gifts of poetic genius. douglas says of burns in edinburgh: 'burns did not fail to mix by times with the eminent men of letters and philosophy, who then shed lustre on the name of scotland.' lockhart wrote: 'burns's poetry might have procured him access to these circles; but it was the extraordinary resources he displayed in conversation, the strong sagacity of his observations on life and manners, the splendour of his wit, and the glowing energy of his eloquence, that made him the serious object of admiration among these practised masters of the arts of talk. even the stateliest of these philosophers had enough to do to maintain the attitude of equality when brought into contact with burns's gigantic understanding; and every one of them whose impressions on the subject have been recorded agrees in pronouncing his conversation to have been the most remarkable thing about him.' speaking of this, chambers properly says: 'we are thus left to understand that the best of burns has not been, and was not of a nature to be, transmitted to posterity.' why was burns, though a ploughman, able to meet a galaxy of leaders in different spheres of learning, and culture, and philosophy, and outshine any of them in his own special department? the answer is simple. he had two great teachers to kindle him and guide him in the development of his remarkable natural powers: his father, william burns, and his teacher and friend, john murdoch. his father made it certain that he would possess a wide range of knowledge of the best available books on religious, ethical, and philosophical subjects--philosophy of science and philosophy of the mind; and, better than that, he trained him definitely by nightly practice to digest, and expound, and relate, and even dare to disbelieve, the opinions expressed in the books he read. in nightly discussions with his father and gilbert his mind became keen and broad, and he became self-reliant. he had not merely stored knowledge in his mind, he had wrought the knowledge into his being, as an element of his growing power. like great players of chess who sometimes meet several opposing players of eminence at the same time and vanquish them all at one period of play, burns could meet the leaders of many departments of progress, culture, and philosophy at the same time, and stand calm and serene in glory with each leader on the crest of his own special mountain of knowledge. from john murdoch he received the inspiration of a vital comradeship, a fine training in english language--grammar, and a good introduction to literature--and visions of higher relationships to his fellow-men and to god. however, great as murdoch was as a kindler and a teacher, the education of robert burns was mainly due to his remarkable father. alexander smith, in his memoir of burns, which douglas claimed to be 'the finest biography of its extent ever written,' speaking of william burns, says: 'in his whole mental build and training he was superior to the people by whom he was surrounded. he had forefathers he could look back to; he had family traditions which he kept sacred. hard-headed, industrious, religious, somewhat austere, he ruled his house with a despotism which affection and respect on the part of the ruled made light and easy. to the blood of the burnses a love of knowledge was native, as valour in the old times was native to the blood of the douglases.' john murdoch wrote of william burns: 'although i cannot do justice to the character of this worthy man, yet you will perceive from what i have written _what kind of person had the principal part in the education of the poet_. he spoke the english language with more propriety, both with respect to diction and pronunciation, than any man i ever knew with no greater advantages; this had a very good effect on the boys, who talk and reason like men much sooner than their neighbours.' these two quotations help us to understand william burns as a great teacher of his sons, and his daughters, too, although he did not deem it quite so important to educate his daughters as his sons. it is perfectly clear that the paternal despotism spoken of by mr smith, which indeed was supposed to be necessary one hundred and fifty years ago, was not the reason why his boys so early talked and reasoned like men. william burns was the elderly friend of his sons, not a despot, when he trained them to love reading, and much better to speak freely their individual opinions about what they read. this naturally led his sons to speak like men early and fearlessly. despotism on the part of the father would have had directly the opposite effect. gilbert burns sums up his father's estimate of early education and good training when he says: 'my father laboured hard, and lived with the most rigid economy, that he might be able to keep his children at home, thereby having an opportunity of watching the progress of our young minds and forming in them early habits of piety and virtue; and from this motive alone did he engage in farming, the source of all his difficulties and distresses.' robert, after his father's death, wrote to his cousin, and said his father was 'the best of friends, and the ablest of instructors.' in the sketch of his life sent to dr moore, of london, he wrote: 'my father, after many years of wanderings and sojournings, picked up a pretty large quantity of observation and experience, to which i am indebted for most of my pretensions to wisdom.' an important element in the education of burns was his love of nature. his mind was specially susceptible to development by nature in any of its forms of beauty or of majesty. a friend who was his guide through the grounds of athole house, when he was making his tour through the highlands, in a letter to mr alex. cunningham, wrote: 'i had often, like others, experienced the pleasures which arise from the sublime or elegant landscape, but i never saw those feelings so intense as in burns.' burns was born and spent his early life and young manhood in a district whose beauty has few equals anywhere. its rivers--ayr, doon, afton, lugar, fail, and cessnock; all, except afton, within easy walking distance of his homes in ayrshire--with their beautifully wooded banks, were, in a very definite way, transforming agencies in the growth of his mind, and therefore most important elements in his highest education. the 'winding nith,' which flowed within a few yards of the home he built on ellisland farm, around the promontory on which stand the ruins of lincluden abbey, and on through dumfries, continued during the last few years of his life the educational work of the rivers of his native ayrshire. the mind of burns was brought into unity with spiritual ideals through the influence of nature more productively than by any other agency. he walked in the gloaming, according to his own statement, by the riverside or in woodland paths when he was composing his poems. while residing in dumfries he had a favourite walk up the nith to lincluden abbey, amid whose ruins he sat in the gloaming, and on moonlight nights often till midnight, recording the visions that came to him in that sacred environment of wooded river and linn (waterfall). there was much similarity between the most vital educational development of burns and of mrs browning. in _aurora leigh_, the record of her own growth, she describes her true education, although not her actual life's history. aurora loses her mother in her fifth year, and lives with her father for nine great years near florence; she says: so nine full years our days were hid with god among his mountains. i was just thirteen, still growing like a plant from unseen roots in tongue-tied springs; and suddenly awoke to full life, and life's needs and agonies, with an intense, strong, struggling heart beside a stone-dead father. life struck sharp on death makes awful lightning. her years till thirteen are spent mainly in her father's fine library reading what she most loved of the treasuries of the world. her own statement of her father's educational guidance is: my father taught me what he had learnt the best before he died, and left me--grief and love; and seeing we had books among the hills, strong words of counselling souls, confederate with vocal pines and waters, out of books he taught me all the ignorance of men, and how god laughs in heaven when any man says, 'here i'm learned; this i understand; in that i'm never caught at fault or doubt.' like burns she reads good books with joyous interest; like burns she has a father deeply interested in her education who teaches her vital things; and like burns she loves to learn from the 'vocal pines and waters,' and finds her richest revelations for her mind 'with god among his mountains.' the hills of ayrshire, the rivers, and the river-glens, whose sides are covered with beautiful trees, were to burns kindlers of high ideals, and revealers of god. chapter iii. the characteristics of burns. he was a truly independent democrat. the love of liberty was the basic element of his character. his fundamental philosophy he expressed in the unanswered and unanswerable questions: why should ae man better fare, and a' men brothers? _epistle to dr blacklock._ if i'm designed yon lordling's slave, by nature's law designed, why was an independent wish e'er planted in my mind? _man was made to mourn._ to the right hon. john francis erskine he wrote: 'the partiality of my countrymen has brought me forward as a man of genius, and has given me a character to support. in the poet i have avowed manly and independent sentiments, which i trust will be found in the man.' referring to the fact that his father's family rented land from the 'famous, noble keiths,' and had the honour of sharing their fate--their estates were forfeited because they took part in the rebellion of 1715--he says: 'those who dare welcome ruin and shake hands with infamy, for what they believe sincerely to be the cause of their god and their king, are--as mark antony in shakespeare says of brutus and cassius--"honourable men."' though his father was not born in 1715, he undoubtedly got from his family the principles of independence and the love of liberty which he afterwards taught to his sons, and which robert propagated with so much zeal. in a letter to mrs dunlop he wrote: 'light be the turf upon his breast who taught, "reverence thyself."' to lord glencairn, after expressing his gratitude, he said: 'my gratitude is not selfish design--that i disdain; it is not dodging after the heel of greatness--that is an offering you disdain. it is a feeling of the same kind with my devotion.' in many of his letters he expresses the same sentiments. in his epistle to his young friend, andrew aiken, he advises him, among other things, to gather gear by every wile that's justified by honor; not for to hide it in a hedge, nor for a train attendant; but for the glorious privilege of being independent. in a letter to mr william dunbar, dealing with his consciousness of his responsibility for his children, he wrote, 1790: 'i know the value of independence; and since i cannot give my sons an independent fortune, i shall give them an independent line of life.' writing to mrs dunlop about his son--her god-son--burns said: 'i am myself delighted with the manly swell of his little chest, and a certain miniature dignity in the carriage of the head, and the glance of his fine black eye, which promise the undaunted gallantry of an independent mind.' in 'a man's a man for a' that' he says: ye see yon birkie, ca'd 'a lord,' wha struts, and stares, and a' that; tho' hundreds worship at his word, he's but a coof for a' that. blockhead for a' that, and a' that, his ribband, star, and a' that, the man o' independent mind he looks and laughs at a' that. in the same great poem he crystallises a fundamental truth in the immortal couplet: the rank is but the guinea stamp, the man's the gowd for a' that. gold to mrs dunlop he wrote in 1787: 'i trust i have too much pride for servility, and too little prudence for selfishness.' to mrs m'lehose he wrote in 1788: 'the dignifying and dignified consciousness of an honest man, and the well-grounded trust in approving heaven, are two most substantial foundations of happiness.' to mrs dunlop he wrote in 1788: 'two of my adored household gods are independence of spirit and integrity of soul.' to mrs graham he wrote in 1791: 'may my failings ever be those of a generous heart and an independent mind.' to john francis erskine he wrote in 1793: 'my independent british mind oppression might bend, but could not subdue.' in the 'vision' the message he says he received from coila, the genius of kyle, the part of ayrshire in which he was born, was: preserve the dignity of man, with soul erect. burns has been criticised for meddling with what his critics called politics. the highest messages christ gave to the world were the value of the individual soul, and brotherhood based on the unity of developed individual souls. his highest messages were understood by burns more clearly than by any one else during his time, and burns was too great a man to be untrue to his greatest visions. his poems are still among the best interpretations of christ's ideals of democracy and brotherhood. the supreme aim of burns was to secure for all men and women freedom from the unnatural restrictions of class or custom, so that each individual might have equal opportunity for the development of his highest element of power, his individuality, or self-hood--really the image of god in each. god gave him the vision of the ideal: 'why should ae man better fare, and a' men brothers?' and he tried to reveal the great vision to the world to kindle the hearts of men. burns was a devoted son, and a loving, considerate, respectful, and generous brother. after his father died, robert wrote to his cousin: 'on the 13th current i lost the best of fathers. though, to be sure, we have had long warning of the impending stroke, still the feelings of nature claim their part, and i cannot recollect the tender endearments and paternal lessons of the best of friends and the ablest of instructors without feeling what, perhaps, the calmer dictates of reason would partly condemn. 'i hope my father's friends in your country will not let their connection in this place die with him. for my part, i shall ever with pleasure--with pride--acknowledge my connection with those who were allied by the ties of blood and friendship to a man whose memory i shall ever honour and revere.' on the stone above his father's grave in alloway kirkyard are engraved the words burns wrote as his father's epitaph: o ye, whose cheek the tear of pity stains, draw near with pious reverence and attend! here lies the loving husband's dear remains, the tender father, and the gen'rous friend; the pitying heart that felt for human woe; the dauntless heart that feared no human pride; the friend of man--to vice alone a foe; for ev'n his failings leaned to virtue's side. john murdoch warmly approved of this epitaph of his former pupil and friend robert. he wrote: 'i have often wished, for the good of mankind, that it were as customary to honour and perpetuate the memory of those who excel in moral rectitude, as it is to extol what are called heroic actions.' when burns found that the edinburgh edition of his poems had brought him about five hundred pounds, he loaned gilbert one hundred and fifty pounds to assist him to get out of debt, in order that his mother and sisters might be placed in a position of security and greater happiness. in a letter to robert graham of fintry, explaining the circumstances that led him to accept the position of an exciseman, he first explains that ellisland farm, which he rented, was in the last stage of worn-out poverty when he got possession of it, and that it would take some time before it would pay the rent. then he says: 'i might have had cash to supply the deficiencies of these hungry years; but i have a younger brother and three sisters on a farm in ayrshire, and it took all my surplus over what i thought necessary for my farming capital to save not only the comfort, but the very existence, of that fireside circle from impending destruction.' he helped with sympathy, advice, and material support a younger brother who lived in england. his true attitude towards his own wife and family is shown in his 'epistle to dr blacklock': to make a happy fireside clime for weans and wife, is the true pathos and sublime of human life. the greatest dread of his later years was that he might not be able to provide for his family in case of his death. burns was an upright, honest man. to the mother of the earl of glencairn he wrote: 'i would much rather have it said that my profession borrowed credit from me, than that i borrowed credit from my profession.' to james hamilton, of glasgow, he wrote: 'among some distressful emergencies that i have experienced in life, i have ever laid it down as my foundation of comfort--that he who has lived the life of an honest man has by no means lived in vain.' to sir john whitefoord he wrote in 1787: 'reverence to god and integrity to my fellow-creatures i hope i shall ever preserve.' in a letter to john m'murdo in 1793 he wrote: 'to no man, whatever his station in life, have i ever paid a compliment at the expense of truth.' in 'lines written in friar's carse' he wrote: keep the name of man in mind, and dishonour not your kind. to robert ainslie he wrote: 'it is much to be a great character as a lawyer, but beyond comparison more to be a great character as a man.' to andrew aiken, in his 'epistle to a young friend,' he wrote: where you feel your honour grip, let that aye be your border. in 'a man's a man for a' that' he expresses his faith in righteousness as a fundamental element in character, where he says: the honest man, tho' e'er sae poor, is king o' men for a' that. burns had a sympathetic heart that overflowed with kindness for his fellow-men, and even for animals, domestic and wild. in a letter to the rev. g. h. baird in 1791 he said: 'i am fain to do any good that occurs in my very limited power to a fellow-creature, just for the selfish purpose of clearing a little the vista of retrospection.' it was the big heart of burns that directed the writing of the first part of that sentence, and his modesty that led to the expression of the second part. the joy of remembering a good deed was never his chief reason for doing it. in a 'tragic fragment' he wrote: with sincere though unavailing sighs i view the helpless children of distress. a number of stories have been preserved to prove that while burns was strict and stern in dealing with smugglers, and others who made a practice of breaking the law by illegally selling strong drink without licence, he was tenderly kind and protective to poor women who had little stores of refreshments to sell to their friends on fair and market days. professor gillespie related that he overheard burns say to a poor woman of thornhill one fair-day as she stood at her door: 'kate, are you mad? don't you know that the supervisor and i will be in upon you in the course of forty minutes? good-bye t'ye at present.' his friendly hint saved a poor widow from a heavy fine of several pounds, while the annual loss to the revenue would be only a few shillings. he was ordered to look into the case of another old woman, suspected of selling home-brewed ale without licence. when she knew his errand she said: 'mercy on us! are ye an exciseman? god help me, man! ye'll surely no inform on a puir auld body like me, as i hae nae other means o' leevin' than sellin' my drap o' home-brewed to decent folk that come to holywood kirk.' burns patted her on the shoulder and said: 'janet, janet, sin awa', and i'll protect ye.' in 'a winter night' burns reveals a deep and genuine sympathy with the outlying cattle, the poor sheep hiding from the storm, the wee helpless birds, and even for the fox and the wolf; and mourns because the pitiless tempest beats on them. carlyle says of 'a winter night' that 'it is worth seven homilies on mercy, for it is the voice of mercy herself. burns indeed lives in sympathy; his soul rushes into all the realms of being; nothing that has existence can be indifferent to him.' the auld farmer's 'new year morning salutation to his auld mare, maggie,' reveals a profound and affectionate sympathy more tender than the pity he felt for the animals and birds that suffered from the winter storm. it is based on long years of friendly association in co-operative achievement. from the new year's wish at the beginning, to the end, where he assures her that she is no less deserving now than she was that day ye pranced wi' muckle pride when ye bure hame my bonnie bride; and sweet and gracefu' she did ride wi' maiden air! and tells her that he has a heapet feed of oats laid by for her, and will also tether her on a reserved ridge of fine pasture, where she may have plenty to eat and a comfortable place on which to rest; each verse is full of pleasant memories. his kindly sympathy is as appreciative as if she had been a human being instead of a mare. 'poor mailie's elegy' is a natural expression of sorrow in the heart--the great, loving heart of burns--for the death of the pet lamb. he says: he's lost a friend and neighbour dear in mailie dead. thro' a' the toun she trotted by him; a lang half-mile she could descry him; wi' kindly bleat, when she did spy him, she ran wi' speed; a friend mair faithfu' ne'er cam nigh him, than mailie dead. so in the pathos and emotion shown for the mouse whose home his plough destroyed at the approach of winter; for the wounded hare that limped past him; for the starving thrush with which he offered to share his last crust; and for the scared water-fowl that flew from him, when he regretted that they had reason to do so on account of man's treatment of them, he gives ample evidence of the warmth of the glow of his sympathy. one of the most prominent characteristics of burns was loyalty to his native land. one of his earliest dreams, when he was a boy, was a hope that some day he might be able to do something that would bring honour to scotland. in his epistle to mrs scott of wauchope-house he says: i mind it weel, in early date, when i was beardless, young, and blate, bashful * * * * * when first amang the yellow corn a man i reckoned was, * * * * * e'en then a wish (i mind its power), a wish that to my latest hour shall strongly heave my breast; that i for poor auld scotland's sake some usefu' plan or book could make, or sing a sang at least. the rough burr-thistle, spreading wide amang the bearded bear, barley i turned the weeder-clips aside and spared the symbol dear: no nation, no station, my envy e'er could raise; a scot still, but blot still, without i knew nae higher praise. the boy who had such a reverent feeling in his heart for the thistle, the symbol of his native land, that he did not like to cut it, continued throughout his life to have a reverence for the land itself, and tried to honour it in every possible way. he did make the book and sing the songs that brought more lasting glory to scotland than any other work done by any other man or combination of men in his time. he wrote more than two hundred and fifty love-songs, and he refused to accept a shilling for them, though he needed money very badly. many of his love-songs were the direct out-pouring of his heart, the overflow of his love for nellie kirkpatrick and peggy thomson, the girl lovers of his boyhood; and for alison begbie, jean armour, mary campbell, and mrs m'lehose; but most of his love-songs were 'fictitious,' as he said they were in the inscription on the copy of his works presented to jean lorimer, the chloris of his ellisland and dumfries period. they were written mainly to provide pure language and thought for fine melodies of scotland composed long before his time; but the words of the songs that were sung to them were indelicate. he wrote his unequalled songs for scotland's sake, and by doing so he gave to scotland the gift of the sweetest love-songs ever written. but for these sacred songs his patriotic spirit resented the idea of acceptance of material reward. no higher revelation of genuine patriotism was ever shown than this. burns was a sensitive and very shy man. he is commonly supposed to have been just the opposite. he was brought up in a home at mount oliphant where he rarely associated with other people. months sometimes passed without an evening spent in any other way than in reading and discussions of the matter read by his father, gilbert, and himself; so in boyhood and early youth he was reserved. when he began to go out among other young men his comparatively developed mind, his very unusual stores of knowledge--not merely stored, but classified and related--and his extraordinary power of eloquence made him at once a leader and a favourite, so he soon overcame his reserve and shyness with young men. it was not so with young women. he had been trained to wait for introductions to them. he was walking past jean armour, when she was at the town pump at mauchline getting water to sprinkle the clothes on the bleaching-green, without speaking to her, and she spoke to him, recalling a remark she heard him make at the annual dance on the evening of the fair. he was twenty-five, and she was eighteen. he would have passed close to her in respectful silence if she had not spoken. sir walter scott wrote: 'i was told, but did not observe it, that his address to females was extremely deferential.' scott did not mean to suggest a doubt about what he was told, but just to intimate that he had not had opportunity to observe the fact. scott met burns only once in company, and scott was a boy at the time. he dearly and reverently loved alison begbie when he was twenty-one. she was the first woman whom he asked to become his wife. she was a servant in a farm-house on the banks of cessnock water, in the neighbourhood of lochlea farm. he was twenty-two when he asked her to marry him, and he was so shy, even at that age, that he could not propose when he was with her. she did not accept his offer. few women of his acquaintance would have refused to accept his written proposal. probably none of them--not even alison begbie--would have refused him if he had been able to overcome his shyness, and had proposed in person instead of by letter. he wrote five letters to alison begbie, and definitely asked her to marry him in the fourth letter. in the first he said: 'i am a stranger in these matters, as i assure you that you are the first woman to whom i ever made such a declaration, so i declare i am at a loss how to proceed. i have more than once come into your company with a resolution to say what i have just now told you; but my resolution always failed me, and even now my heart trembles for the consequence of what i have said.' the following copies of the letter containing his proposal (the fourth), and of his reply to her refusal, if read carefully, should reveal several admirable characteristics of burns. 'lochlea, 1781. 'my dear e.,[2]--i have often thought it a peculiarly unlucky circumstance in love that, though in every other situation in life, telling the truth is not only the safest, but actually by far the easiest way of proceeding, a lover is never under greater difficulty in acting, or more puzzled for expression, than when his passion is sincere, and his intentions are honourable. i do not think that it is very difficult for a person of ordinary capacity to talk of love and fondness which are not felt, and to make vows of constancy and fidelity which are never intended to be performed, if he be villain enough to practise such detestable conduct; but to a man whose heart glows with the principles of integrity and truth, and who sincerely loves a woman of amiable person, uncommon refinement of sentiment, and purity of manners--to such a one in such circumstances i can assure you, my dear, from my own feelings at this present moment, _courtship_ is a task indeed. there is such a number of foreboding fears, and distrustful anxieties crowd into my mind when i am in your company, or when i sit down to write to you, that what to speak or what to write i am altogether at a loss. 'there is one rule which i have hitherto practised, and which i shall invariably keep with you, and that is, honestly to tell you the plain truth. there is something so mean and unmanly in the arts of dissimulation and falsehood, that i am surprised they can be used by any one in so noble, so generous a passion as virtuous love. no, my dear e., i shall never endeavour to gain your favour by such detestable practices. if you will be so good and so generous as to admit me for your partner, your companion, your bosom friend through life, there is nothing on this side of eternity shall give me greater transport; but i shall never think of purchasing your hand by any arts unworthy of a man, and, i will add, of a christian. there is one thing, my dear, which i earnestly request of you, and it is this: that you would soon either put an end to my hopes by a peremptory refusal, or cure me of my fears by a generous consent. 'it would oblige me much if you would send me a line or two when convenient. i shall only add further, that if a behaviour regulated (though perhaps but very imperfectly) by the rules of honour and virtue, if a heart devoted to love and esteem you, and an earnest endeavour to promote your happiness; if these are qualities you would wish in a friend, in a husband, i hope you shall ever find them in your real friend and sincere lover.' after her refusal he wrote: 'lochlea, 1781. 'i ought in good manners to have acknowledged the receipt of your letter before this time, but my heart was so shocked with the contents of it, that i can scarcely yet collect my thoughts so as to write to you on the subject. i will not attempt to describe what i felt on receiving your letter. i read it over and over, again and again, and though it was in the politest language of refusal, still it was peremptory; you "were very sorry you could not make me a return, but you wish me--what without you i can never obtain--you wish me all kinds of happiness." it would be weak and unmanly to say that without you i never can be happy; but sure i am, that sharing life with you would have given it a relish that, wanting you, i can never taste. 'your uncommon personal advantages, and your superior good sense, do not so much strike me; these possibly in a few instances may be met with in others; but that amiable goodness, that tender, feminine softness, that endearing sweetness of disposition, with all the charming offspring of a warm, feeling heart--these i never again expect to meet with in such a degree in this world. all these charming qualities, heightened by an education much beyond anything i have ever met with in any woman i ever dared to approach, have made an impression on my heart that i do not think the world can ever efface. my imagination had fondly flattered itself with a wish--i dare not say it ever reached a hope--that possibly i might one day call you mine. i had formed the most delightful images, and my fancy fondly brooded over them; but now i am wretched for the loss of what i really had no right to expect. i must now think no more of you as a mistress, still i presume to ask to be admitted as a friend. as such i wish to be allowed to wait on you, and as i expect to remove in a few days a little farther off, and you, i suppose, will perhaps soon leave this place, i wish to see you or hear from you soon; and if an expression should perhaps escape me rather too warm for friendship, i hope you will pardon it in, my dear miss ---(pardon me the dear expression for once), 'r. b.' those who say that these letters 'have an air of taskwork and constraint about them' should remember that burns formed the style of his letter-writing when but a boy from a book containing the letters of leaders of queen anne's time, which was given to him by his uncle. his own letters on all subjects are written in a dignified style. it is worth noting that motherwell, who criticised the style of the letters, says of them: 'they are, in fact, the only sensible love-letters we have ever seen.' though naturally a very shy man, he grew to be happier as his powers developed. in his teens and young manhood he had fits bordering on despondency. but he passed through them and became more buoyant in spirit, and, though poor, was contented. in 'my nannie o' he wrote: come weel, come woe, i care na by, i'll tak what heaven will sen' me. in 'it is na, jean, thy bonnie face,' he said: content am i if heaven shall give but happiness to thee. this shows that consideration for others was one of his sources of happiness. in his 'epistle to james smith' he wrote: truce with peevish, poor complaining! is fortune's fickle luna waning? e'en let her gang! beneath what light she has remaining let's sing our sang. dr john m'kenzie of mauchline, in 1810, thirteen years after the death of burns, described a visit made to see his father when he was ill. in it he says: 'gilbert, in the first interview i had with him at lochlea, was frank, modest, well-informed, and communicative. the poet seemed distant, suspicious, and without any wish to interest or please. he kept himself very silent in a dark corner of the room; and before he took any part in the conversation, i frequently detected him scrutinising me during my conversation with his father and brother. 'but afterwards, when the conversation, which was on a medical subject, had taken the turn he wished, he began to engage in it, displaying a dexterity of reasoning, an ingenuity of reflection, and a familiarity with topics apparently beyond his reach, by which his visitor was no less gratified than astonished.' burns lived next door to dr m'kenzie after he was married the second time to jean armour. they were great friends. burns wrote a masonic poem to him, and called him 'common-sense' in 'the holy fair.' in the letter from which the above quotation is made, dr m'kenzie says robert took his characteristics mainly from his mother, and that gilbert resembled his father. burns looked like his mother, and inherited his temperamental characteristics mainly from her. burns had a definitely religious tendency as one of his strong characteristics when he was a child. in the sketch of his life that he wrote to dr moore, of london, when he was twenty-eight years old, he says that as a boy he possessed 'an enthusiastic idiot-piety. i say idiot-piety because i was then a child.' he wrote several religious poems while living on lochlea farm and on mossgiel farm. 'the cotter's saturday night' was written at mossgiel. throughout his life his religious tendency was one of his characteristics. this will be considered more fully in the chapter on 'burns's great work for religion.' burns was the warm, personal friend of the best people in every district in or near which he lived. he must have been a good man who could count among his friends such men and women as the following: lord glencairn, mrs dunlop, the earl of eglintoun, dr moore, dr m'kenzie, gavin hamilton, hon. henry erskine, the duchess of gordon, right rev. bishop geddes, robert graham of fintry, robert riddell, robert aiken, the earl of buchan, prof. dugald stewart, dr candlish, sir john whitefoord, john murdoch, dr blacklock, dr hugh blair, alex. cunningham, rev. archibald alison, sir john sinclair, rev. john m'math, and the best ministers of the 'new licht,' or progressive class; the leading professors in edinburgh university, and the leading schoolmasters in his neighbourhood. in fact, he was loved and respected by leaders of all classes except the 'auld licht' preachers. he lives on and becomes more popular as he becomes better known. his one characteristic that would most fully represent him and his work for god and humanity is his propelling tendency to be a reformer of conditions. he accepted no existing conditions as good enough. he saw quickly and clearly the defects of conditions as they existed, and he never hesitated to attack any evil that he could help to overthrow. he saw that individual freedom and pure religion were vital and essential elements of human progress and happiness. he saw with unerring vision the lack of freedom and of vital religion in the lives of the people; so to make all men free, to give all children equal opportunity to develop the best in their souls, and to purify religion from superstition, hypocrisy, bigotry, and kindred evils that were blighting it, became his highest purposes. what was the character of burns in the estimation of the leading people of his own time? on replying to a request that he would use his influence in favour of burns for an appointment sir john whitefoord wrote: 'your character as a man, as well as a poet, entitles you, i think, to the assistance of every inhabitant of ayrshire.' sir john owned the ballochmyle estate near mauchline, and was one of the leading country gentlemen of ayrshire in his time. mr archibald prentice, editor of the _manchester times_, was the son of a prominent man who lived about half-way between mauchline and edinburgh, at covington, in lanarkshire. mr prentice, senior, was a great admirer of burns, as were leaders everywhere. mr archibald prentice, writing about his father's affectionate respect for burns, said; 'my father, though a strictly moral and religious man himself, always maintained that the virtues of the poet greatly predominated over his faults. i once heard him exclaim with hot wrath, when somebody was quoting from an apologist, "what! do _they_ apologise for _him_! one half of his good, and all his bad divided among a score of them, would make them a' better men!" 'in the year 1809 i resided for a short time in ayrshire, in the hospitable house of my father's friend reid, and surveyed with a strong interest such visitors as had known burns. i soon learned how to anticipate their representations of his character. the men of strong minds and strong feelings were invariable in their expressions of admiration; but the _prosy_, consequential _bodies_ all disliked him as exceedingly dictatorial. the men whose religion was based on intellect and high moral sentiment all thought well of him; but the mere professors [of religion] "with their three-mile prayers and half-mile graces" denounced him as worse than an infidel.' the progress of religious reformers has always been a thorny one. the master, christ himself, was crucified by the 'auld lichts' of his time, and they stoned stephen to death. so, through the centuries unprogressive theologians have persecuted and often murdered the religious reformers, who saw the evils in theology, and wished to remove them from the creeds that blighted men's souls. they burned latimer in england; and luther in germany was saved by the action of his friends by shutting him in wartburg castle for protection. religious reformers in the time of burns were not burned or stoned to death, but they were persecuted and prosecuted before the church courts by men who did not approve of their higher visions of truth. burns himself was regarded as unorthodox, but his creed is much more in harmony with the religious thought of to-day than it was with the creed of the 'auld licht' preachers. one of the marvels of human development through the ages has been that the bigoted theologians of each succeeding century resented the attempts of men with clearer vision to reform their creeds. men who truly believe in god cannot believe that any creed made by men can be infallible; they should know that from generation to generation humanity consciously grows towards the divine, and that as they climb they see in the clearer spiritual air new visions of higher meaning in regard to life and to vital religion, revealing to each man new conceptions of his duty to god and to his fellow-men. lovers of burns reverence his memory because he was so great and so wise a reformer, and did so much to make men truly free, and to make religion a more vitally uplifting agency in the hearts of men. chapter iv. burns was a religious man. 'burns a religious man!' scoffers exclaim. 'he was a drunkard.' burns was a moderate drinker compared with most of the ministers of his time. if drinking whisky was a disqualification for religious character in the time of burns, a large proportion of the ministers of his time were disqualified. burns should not, in all fairness, be judged by the standards of our time. more than fifty years after burns died it was customary for even methodist ministers in canada, when visiting the members of their churches, to accept a little whisky punch as an evidence of good fellowship and comradeship. this custom persisted in scotland and england for more than a century after burns died, and in many places it exists still. in a letter to mr william cruickshank in 1788 he said: 'i have fought my way severely through the savage hospitality of this country--the object of all hosts being to send every guest to bed drunk if they can.' burns was not speaking of hotel-keepers, but of homes of people of high respectability. he wrote in 1793: 'taverns i have totally abandoned, but it is the private parties in the family way among the hard-drinking gentlemen of the country that do me the mischief.' he did occasionally go to the globe tavern in dumfries after 1793, when the guest of visitors who came to dumfries solely for the purpose of meeting him and having the honour of entertaining him. in his short life of burns, alexander smith says: 'if he drank hard, it was in an age when hard drinking was fashionable. if he sinned in this respect, he sinned in company with english prime ministers, scotch lords of session, grave dignitaries of the church in both countries, and thousands of ordinary blockheads who went to their graves in the odour of sanctity, and whose epitaphs are a catalogue of all the virtues.' burns spoke with all sincerity, in a letter to his friend samuel clark of dumfries, when he wrote: 'some of our folks about the excise office, edinburgh, had, and perhaps still have, conceived a prejudice against me as being a drunken, dissipated character. i might be all this, you know, and yet be an honest fellow; but you know that _i am an honest fellow_, and am nothing of this.' his superiors in the excise department gave him a high record for accuracy and honesty in his work. other objectors say: 'he could not be religious, because he attacked religion.' this statement is not correct. he attacked the evils that in his time robbed religion of its vital power, but never religion. emerson says: 'not luther, not latimer, struck stronger blows against false theology than did the poet burns.' to clarinda, burns wrote: 'i hate the superstition of a fanatic, but i love the religion of a man.' in his poem 'the tree of liberty' he lays the blame of the terrible degradation of the french peasantry on superstition's wicked brood. in his 'epistle to john goudie' he speaks of poor gapin', glowrin' superstition. he attacked superstition, but not religion. he attacked hypocrisy, and true men are grateful to him because he did so. in his 'epistle to rev. john m'math,' the 'new licht' minister of tarbolton, burns says: god knows i'm not the thing i should be, nor am i ev'n the thing i could be; but twenty times i rather would be an atheist clean, than under gospel colours hid be just for a screen. he ridiculed hypocrisy, and we are grateful to him for doing so. nothing more contemptible than a religious hypocrite can be made of a being created in the image of god. hypocrisy is not religion. he attacked bigotry, one of the most savage monsters that ever tried to block the way of christ's highest teaching, the brotherhood of man. no phenomenal religious absurdity is more incomprehensible than the idea that christianity can be promoted by the multiplication of religious denominations; especially when, as in the time of burns, and long after his time, leaders of so-called christian denominations refused to have fellowship with each other, or to unite on a common platform in working for the promotion of christian ideals. how trivial the formalisms of theologians seem that kept men apart whom christ desired to become co-operative and loving brothers, working harmoniously together for the achievement of the great visions he revealed! he wrote to clarinda, 1788: 'i hate the very idea of a controversial divinity; and i firmly believe that every upright, honest man, of whatever sect, will be accepted of the deity.' in his 'epistle to john goudie' burns calls bigotry sour bigotry on its last legs. he wrote this in 1785, and much more than a century later bigotry is still on its legs, but it is tottering to its final overthrow. burns attacked bigotry, but not religion. he attacked the doctrine of predestination, as taught in his time, a most soul-dwarfing doctrine, calculated to rob humanity of motives to stimulate it to greater and nobler efforts to achieve for god. he makes holy willie say he deserved damnation five thousand years before he was born. few people now regard predestination as an element in vital religion. he attacked one of the most horribly blasphemous doctrines ever preached, but preached in the time of burns, and long after: that god sends ane to heaven and ten to hell for his ain glory. he puts this impious doctrine into the mouth of holy willie. more than half a century after the time of burns, preachers in the presence of mothers of their dead babies taught that the babes could not go to heaven because they were too young to be 'believers in christ;' and being unable to account for their statements logically, would say, 'god did these things for his own glory.' burns attacked such horrible teaching, but in doing so he was not attacking religion. burns did not believe in the use of the fear of hell as a means of promoting true religion. there is no soul-kindling power in fear. fear is one of the most powerful agencies of evil in preventing the conscious development of the soul, and of the faith that each soul should have in god as the source of power, in christ as the revealer of individual power, and in himself as god's partner. fear is a negative agency that appeals to the weaker side of character. humanity will not be able to make the rapid progress towards the divine that it should make until fear ceases to be a motive in the minds of men, women, and children. in his great 'epistle to a young friend' burns says: the fear o' hell's a hangman's whip to haud the _wretch_ in order. keep burns proved himself to be a philosopher when he attacked the common plan of using fear o' hell to make men religious. this was not attacking religion. the rev. l. maclean watt says: 'while the professional christians of scotland were fighting about hell, the humble hearts by the lowly firesides, with the open book before them, were enriched by the knowledge of heaven; and while the hypocrites in holy places were scourging those who were in their power with the thorns of christ, there were cotters in their kitchens that had found the healing and the balm of the warm blood of a redeemer who died on calvary for _a wider world_ than theologians seemed to know.' speaking further of the theologians of the time of burns the rev. mr watt says: 'their idea of god was shaped in fashion like themselves--merciless, remorseless, hating, and hateful; his only passion seeming to their narrow souls to be damnation and torture of the wretched, lost, and wandering. their preachers loved to picture the souls of the condemned swathed in batches lying in eternal anguish of a most real blazing hell as punishment for some small offence, or as having been outcast from grace through the wanton exercise of divine prerogatives. to commend such a god for worship were like praising and complimenting the cruel child who, for sport, spent a whole day plucking the limbs and wings from the palpitating body of some poor, helpless insect. it was a false and blasphemous insult to the human intelligence.' burns had the good fortune to be a cotter, trained by a father who was a remarkably able man, a great teacher, and a reverently religious man of very advanced ideals; and it took a century or more of theological evolution to bring the religious teaching of the world up to the standards of belief of the ayrshire cotter. he attacked the doctrine of faith without works. in a letter to gavin hamilton, one of the leading men of the town of mauchline, a warm, personal friend of the poet, and an advanced thinker among 'new licht' laymen, he wrote in a humorous but really profound way: 'i understand you are in the habit of intimacy with that boanerges of gospel powers, father auld. be earnest with him that he will wrestle in prayer for you that you may see the vanity of vanities in trusting to, even practising, the carnal moral works of charity, humanity, and generosity; things which you practised so flagrantly that it was evident you delighted in them, neglecting, or perhaps profanely despising, the wholesome doctrine of _faith without works_, the only hope of salvation.' burns did not say a word against faith in christ, or love for christ, or reverence for the teaching of christ. so true a christian as dean stanley said burns was a 'wise religious teacher.' burns deplored the fact that the love of christ--the highest revelation of love ever given to the world--should be limited to saving the individual believer from eternal punishment. that was degrading the highest love into selfishness. burns pleaded for loving service for humanity, and for christ's highest revelation, brotherhood, as evidence of vital christian-hood; not merely 'sound believing.' this was not attacking religion. he attacked the men who attacked other men, like gavin hamilton among laymen, and rev. dr m'gill of ayr among ministers, because they had advanced ideas regarding religion. he attacked the gloom and awful sunday solemnity of those who professed to be religious. the world owes him a debt of gratitude for helping to remove the shadows of religious gloom from human lives. in his poem 'a dedication,' addressed to gavin hamilton, he advises him ironically, in order that he may be acceptable to daddy auld and others of the 'auld licht' creed, to learn three-mile pray'rs an' half-mile graces, wi' weel-spread looves, an' lang, wry faces; palms grunt up a solemn, lengthened groan, and damn a' parties [religious] but your own; i'll warrant then you're nae deceiver, a steady, sturdy, staunch believer. if true religion means anything vitally hopeful to a man, it should mean what burns said it meant to him in a letter to mrs dunlop: 'my dearest enjoyment.' in his wise poem, 'epistle to a young friend,' he says: but still the preaching cant forbear, and ev'n the rigid feature. he attacked the 'unco guid,' who delighted to tell how good they were themselves, and how many were the weaknesses and evil-doings of their neighbours. he had no more respect for the self-righteous than christ had. the fact that he attacked and exposed them, and spoke kindly and reasonably to them, in his great 'address to the unco guid,' is an evidence that in this respect at any rate he was a true christian. one of the most comprehensively christian doctrines ever written is the verse: who made the heart, 'tis he alone decidedly can try us; he knows each heart--its various tone, each spring--its various bias. then at the balance let's be mute, we never can adjust it; what's done we partly may compute, but know not what's resisted. there is sound philosophy in the first verse of the poem addressed to the unco guid: the rigid righteous is a fool, the rigid wise another. he often advised the 'douce folks' to be considerate of those who had greater temptations than they knew; and advised them to try to help them to overcome their temptations, and with christian comradeship win their admiration and sympathetic co-operation in some department of achieving good. in the time of burns nothing would have surprised a wayward man or woman more than to have received genuine sympathy and respectful comradeship from members of the church, the institution that claimed to represent christ, who told the story of the one stray lamb, and the story of the prodigal son; the great teacher who said, 'let him that is without sin cast the first stone.' burns attacked superstition, hypocrisy, bigotry, predestination (taught in its most repellent form in the time of burns), the equally repellent doctrine that 'god sends men to hell for his own glory;' fear of hell as a basis of religious life; faith without works; religious gloom; and the spirit of the unco guid. he helped to free religion from these evils more than any other man of his time did; but that was just the opposite to attacking religion. in the 'holy fair' and 'the twa herds' he criticised with biting sarcasm certain things connected with religion in his time, from which it is now happily free. but he did not attack religion. the rev. l. maclean watt, when summing up the great work burns did for true religion, especially in 'the holy fair,' 'the twa herds,' and 'holy willie's prayer,' says: 'it was in consequence of this ecclesiastical contact that he was, ere long, involved in a bitter and incessant warfare with the mediã¦val shadows of ultra-calvinism, which laid upon the people the bondage of a rigid predestinarianism, the terrible result of which in parochial religion was, that it became a commonplace in the matter of conduct that it did not matter what you did so long as you believed certain hard and fast tenets dealing with the purpose of god and the future of the human soul. this could not but inevitably lead to the observation of grave discrepancies between creed and conduct; and the setting up of the greatest hypocrisies, veiled in the cloak of religiousness, that yet, with searching eye of judgment, sat testing the conduct of better men. burns was one of the better men.' his own attitude towards true religion is shown in his 'epistle to the rev. john m'math,' a progressive presbyterian minister in tarbolton. in it he says: all hail, religion! maid divine! pardon a muse sae mean as mine, who in her rough, imperfect line thus daurs to name thee; to stigmatise _false friends_ of thine can ne'er defame thee. he stigmatised false friends of religion, but not religion itself. there are some who yet say 'burns could not have been a religious man, because he was a sceptic.' burns was an independent thinker. his mind did not accept dogmas or creeds without investigation. in his father's fine school he was not trained to think he was thinking, when he was merely allowing the ideas of others to run through his head on the path of memory. burns was not trained to believe that he believed, but to think till he believed; and to accept in the realm beyond his power to reason great fundamental principles that supplied the conscious needs of his own heart, as those principles are revealed in the bible. in a letter to mrs dunlop he wrote: 'i am a very sincere believer in the bible; but i am drawn by the conviction of a man, not by the halter of an ass.' to mrs dunlop he wrote, 1788: 'my idle reasonings sometimes made me a little sceptical, but the necessities of my own heart always gave the cold philosophisings the lie.' to mr peter stuart he wrote, referring to the poet fergusson, 1789: 'poor fergusson! if there be a life beyond the grave, which i trust there is; and if there be a good god presiding over all nature, which i am sure there is--thou art now enjoying existence in a glorious world, where worth of the heart alone is the distinction of man.' to mrs dunlop, to whom more than to any other person he revealed the depths of his heart, he wrote again, 1789: 'in vain would we reason and pretend to doubt. i have myself done so to a very daring pitch; but when i reflected that i was opposing the most ardent wishes, and the most darling hopes of good men, and flying in the face of all human belief, in all ages, i was shocked at my own conduct.' to robert aiken he wrote, 1786: 'though sceptical in some points of our current belief, yet i think i have every evidence for the reality of a life beyond the stinted bourne of our present existence.' to dr candlish, of edinburgh, he wrote, 1787: 'despising old women's stories, i ventured into the daring path spinoza trod, but my experience with the weakness, not the strength, of human power _made me glad to grasp revealed religion_.' to clarinda he wrote, 1788: 'the supreme being has put the immediate administration of all this for wise and good ends known to himself into the hands of jesus christ, a great personage whose relation to him we cannot comprehend, but whose relation to us is that of a guide and saviour.' in his epistle to his young friend andrew aiken, he sums up in two lines his attitude to scepticism: an atheist's laugh's a poor exchange for deity offended. the men who believe most profoundly are those who honestly doubted in early life, but who naturally loved truth, and sought it with hopeful minds till they found it. burns was not a sceptic. he was a reverently religious man. no man could have written 'the cotter's saturday night' who was not a reverently religious man. his father, from the earliest years, when his children were old enough to understand them, began to teach them fundamental religious principles. they took root deeply in robert's mind. william burns preferred not to use the 'shorter catechism,' so he wrote a special catechism for his own family. it is a remarkable production for a man in his position in life. it deals with vitally fundamental principles, and shows a clear understanding of the bible. burns wrote several short religious poems in his early young manhood, probably his twenty-second and twenty-third years, showing that his mind was deeply impressed by the majesty, justice, and love of god. two of these poems are paraphrases of the psalms. the fact that religion was one of the most important elements of his thought and life is amply proved by the five letters he wrote to alison begbie in his twenty-first and twenty-second years--even before he wrote his early religious poems. love-letters though they were, they related nearly as much to religion as to love. some people have tried to say irreverently smart things about the absurdity of writing about religion in letters to his loved one. both the religion and the love of his letters to the first woman he ever asked to marry him are too sacred to provoke ridicule in the minds of men with proper reverence for either religion or love. no one can carefully read these five letters without having a deeper respect for burns, the young gentleman who loved so deeply that he regarded love worthy to be placed in association with religion. religion was the subject that had been given first place in his life and thought by the teaching and the life of his father, who had meant infinitely more to him than most fathers ever mean to their sons. in his epistle to andrew aiken he recommends, in the last verse but one, two things of vast importance 'when on life we're tempest-driv'n': first, a conscience but a canker. without second, a correspondence fixed wi' heaven is sure a noble anchor. many people read the last couplet without consciously thinking what a correspondence fixed with heaven means. clearly it may have three meanings: prayer, communion in spirit with the divine, and similarity to or harmony with the divine spirit. burns had family worship in his home every day to the end of his life when he was not absent, and though some scoffers may smile, he was earnest and sincere in trying to conduct for himself and for his family a 'correspondence fixed with heaven' in a spirit of communion with the divine father. he had other altars for communion with god in addition to his home. he composed his poems in the gloaming after his day's work, in favourite spots in the deep woods, where he was 'hid with god' alone. god revealed himself to burns in the woods and by the sides of his sacred rivers more fully than in any other places. one of the most sacred shrines in scotland is the great root under one of the mighty beeches of the fine park on ballochmyle estate, on which burns sat so often to compose his poems in the long scottish twilights, and later on in the moonlight, when he lived on mossgiel farm. then next night, at his desk over the stable at mossgiel, he would rewrite them and improve their form. no man but a religious man would have written, in his 'epistle to a young friend,' as burns did to andrew aiken: the great creator to revere must sure become the creature. when in irvine, in his twenty-third year, he wrote a letter to his father. as usual, he wrote not of trivial matters, but of the great realities of time and eternity. among other serious things he wrote: 'my principal, and, indeed, my only pleasurable, employment is looking backwards and forwards in a moral and religious way.' in the same letter he wrote: the soul, uneasy and confined, at home rests and expatiates in a life to come.[3] burns follows this quotation by saying to his father: 'it is for this reason that i am more pleased with the 15th, 16th, and 17th verses of the 7th chapter of revelation than with any ten times as many verses in the whole bible, and would not exchange the noble enthusiasm with which they inspire me for all that the world has to offer.' his imagination enabled him to see clearly the glories of joy, and service, and association, and reward, in the heavenly paradise, as revealed in those triumphant verses. to mrs dunlop he wrote, 1788: 'religion, my honoured madam, has not only been all my life my chief dependence, but my dearest enjoyment.... an irreligious poet would be a monster.' in his 'grace before eating' he reveals his gratitude and conscious dependence on god: o thou, who kindly dost provide for every creature's want! we bless thee, god of nature wide, for all thy goodness lent. in 'winter: a dirge' he says, in reverent submission to god's will: thou power supreme, whose mighty scheme those woes of mine fulfil, here firm i rest, they must be best, because they are thy will. in a poem to clarinda he wrote, recognising the blessing of gods universal presence, not in awe so much as in joy: god is ever present, ever felt, in the void waste, as in the city full; and where he vital breathes, there must be joy! in the 'cotter's saturday night' he teaches absolute faith in god, and indicates man's true relationship to the divine father: lest in temptation's path ye gang astray, implore his counsel and assisting might: they never sought in vain, that sought the lord aright. writing in condemnation of a miserably selfish miser, he said: see these hands, ne'er stretched to save, hands that took, but never gave; keeper of mammon's iron chest, lo, there she goes, unpitied and unblest; she goes, but not to realms of everlasting rest. and are they of no more avail, ten thousand glittering pounds a year? in other worlds can mammon fail, omnipotent as he is here? o, bitter mockery of the pompous bier, while down the wretched vital part is driven! the cave-lodged beggar, with a conscience clear, expires in rags, unknown, and goes to heaven. the philosophy of his mind, and the affectionate sympathy of his heart made burns believe that unselfish service for our fellow-men should be one of the manifestations of true religion. in the fine poem he wrote to mrs dunlop on new year's day, 1790, he says: a few days may, a few years must, repose us in the silent dust. then is it wise to damp our bliss? yes--all such reasonings are amiss! the voice of nature loudly cries, and many a message from the skies, that something in us never dies; that on this frail, uncertain state hang matters of eternal weight; that future life in worlds unknown must take its hue from this alone; whether as heavenly glory bright, or dark as misery's woeful night. let us the important now employ, and live as those who never die. since, then, my honoured first of friends, on this poor living all depends. any honest man who reads those lines must admit that burns was a man of deep religious thought and feeling. mrs dunlop, to whom he wrote so many letters, was one of the leading women of scotland in her time. she was a woman of great wisdom and deep religious character. like the other great people who knew burns, she was his friend. many of his clearest expressions of his religious opinions are contained in his letters to her. in a letter to her on new year's morning, 1789, he said: 'i have some favourite flowers in spring, among which are the mountain-daisy, the hare-bell, the foxglove, the wild brier-rose, the budding birk [birch], and the hoary hawthorn, that i view and hang over with particular delight. i never hear the loud, solitary whistle of the curlew in the summer noon, or the wild, mixing cadence of a troop of grey-plover in an autumnal morning, without feeling an elevation of soul like the enthusiasm of devotion or poetry. tell me, my dear friend, to what can this be owing? are we a piece of machinery that, like the ã�olian harp, passive, takes the impression of the passing accident? or do these workings argue something within us above the trodden clod? i own myself partial to these proofs of those awful and important realities--a god that made all things--man's immaterial and immortal nature--and a world of weal or woe beyond death and the grave--these proofs that we deduct by dint of our own powers of observation. however respectable individuals in all ages have been, i have ever looked on mankind in the lump to be nothing better than a foolish, head-strong, credulous, unthinking mob; and their universal belief has ever had extremely little weight with me. still, i am a very sincere believer in the bible.' in september 1789 he wrote to mrs dunlop: 'religion, my dear friend, is true comfort! a strong persuasion in a future state of existence; a proposition so obviously probable, that, setting revelation aside, every nation and people, so far as investigation has reached, for at least four thousand years, have, in some mode or other, firmly believed it.' to mrs dunlop, in 1792, he wrote: 'i am so convinced that an unshaken faith in the doctrines of religion is not only necessary by making us better men, but also by making us happier men, that i shall take every care that your little god-son [his son], and every creature that shall call me father, shall be taught them.' one of his most beautiful religious letters was written to alexander cunningham, of edinburgh, in 1794: 'still there are two pillars that bear us up amid the wreck of misfortune and misery. the _one_ is composed of the different modifications of a certain noble, stubborn something in man, known by the names of courage, fortitude, magnanimity. the _other_ is made up of those feelings and sentiments which, however the sceptic may deny them, or the enthusiast may disfigure them, are yet, i am convinced, original and component parts of the human soul; those _senses of the mind_, if i may be allowed the expression, which connect us with and link us to, those awful, obscure realities--an all-powerful and equally beneficent god, and a world to come, beyond death and the grave. the first gives the nerve of combat, while a ray of hope beams on the field; the last pours the balm of comfort into the wounds which time can never cure. 'i do not remember, my dear cunningham, that you and i ever talked on the subject of religion at all. i know some who laugh at it, as the trick of the crafty few, to lead the undiscerning many; or at most as an uncertain obscurity, which mankind can never know anything of, and with which they are fools if they give themselves much to do. nor would i quarrel with a man for his irreligion, any more than i would for his want of a musical ear. i would regret that he was shut out from what, to me and to others, were such superlative sources of enjoyment. it is in this point of view, and for this reason, that i will deeply imbue the mind of every child of mine with religion. if my son should happen to be a man of feeling, sentiment, and taste, i shall thus add largely to his enjoyments. let me flatter myself that this sweet little fellow, who is just now running about my desk, will be a man of a melting, ardent, glowing heart; and an imagination, delighted with the painter and rapt with the poet. let me figure him wandering out in a sweet evening, to inhale the balmy gales, and enjoy the glowing luxuriance of the spring; himself the while in the blooming youth of life. he looks abroad on all nature, and thro' nature up to nature's god; his soul, by swift delighting degrees, is rapt above this sublunary sphere, until he can be silent no longer, and bursts out into the glorious enthusiasm of thomson: '"these, as they change, almighty father--these are but the varied god; the rolling year is full of thee." 'and so on, in all the spirit and ardour of that charming hymn. 'these are no ideal pleasures; they are real delights; and i ask what of the delights among the sons of men are superior, not to say equal, to them? and they have this precious, vast addition, that conscious virtue stamps them for her own, and lays hold on them to bring herself into the presence of a witnessing, judging, and approving god.' in 1788 he wrote to clarinda: '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 be my judge.' again to clarinda he wrote in 1788: 'he who is our author and preserver, and will one day be our judge, must be--not for his sake in the way of duty, but from the natural impulse of our hearts--the object of our reverential awe and grateful adoration. he is almighty and all-bounteous; we are weak and dependent; hence prayer and every other sort of devotion. "he is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to everlasting life;" consequently it must be in every one's power to embrace his offer of everlasting life; otherwise he could not in justice condemn those who did not.' again in 1788 he wrote to clarinda: 'in proportion as we are wrung with grief, or distracted with anxiety, the ideas of a compassionate deity, an almighty protector, are doubly dear.' to mrs dunlop, in 1795, a year and a half before he died, he wrote: 'i have nothing to say to any one as to which sect he belongs to, or what creed he believes; but i look on the man who is firmly persuaded of infinite wisdom and goodness superintending and directing every circumstance that can happen in his lot--i felicitate such a man as having a solid foundation for his mental enjoyment; a firm prop and stay in the hour of difficulty, trouble, and distress; and a never-failing anchor of hope when he looks beyond the grave.' this quotation emphasises his lifelong faith in god, and his belief in his own immortality. it also shows his perfect freedom from bigotry, and the broadness of his creed. in his first 'commonplace book' he wrote: 'the grand end of human being is to cultivate an intercourse with that being to whom we owe life, with every enjoyment that renders life delightful; and to maintain an integritive conduct towards our fellow-creatures; that by so forming piety and virtue into habit, we may be fit members for that society of the pious, and the good, which reason and revelation teach us to expect beyond the grave.' there are no truly good men who will yield to the temptation to speak sneeringly of any man who fails in his life to reach his highest ideals. the little-minded men who may sneer at burns, when they read this quotation written in his youth, should read his 'address to the unco guid' over and over, till they get a glimmering comprehension of its meaning. whatever the puny minds may be focussed on in the life of burns, they should be 'mute at the balance.' they should remember that burns did more than any man of his time for true religion, and that to the end of his life his mind and heart overflowed with the same faith and gratitude to god that he almost continuously expressed throughout his life. a final quotation from the letters of burns about religion may fittingly be taken from a letter to robert aiken, written in 1786: 'o thou unknown power! thou almighty god who hast lighted up reason in my breast, and blessed me with immortality! i have frequently wandered from that order and regularity necessary for the perfection of thy works, yet thou hast never left me nor forsaken me.' burns was a reverently religious man. dean stanley said: 'burns was a wise religious teacher.' principal rainy objected to dean stanley's view because 'burns had never become a member of a church on profession of faith in christ.' professor rainy either did not remember, or had never realised, that burns had done more to reveal christ's highest teachings--the value of the individual soul, and brotherhood--than any other man in the church, or out of it, in scotland in his time; and also did more to make religion free from false theology and dwarfing practices, than any other man of his time, or of any other time in scotland. rev. l. maclean watt, of edinburgh, in his most admirable book on burns, answers principal rainy's objections with supreme ability, as the following quotations amply prove: 'because a man does not categorically declare his belief in christ, as that belief is formulated in existing dogmatic statements of theological authority, it does not mean that he abhors that belief; nor even though he withhold himself from explicitly uttering that confession of the christian faith, does it preclude him from being a religious teacher. a man may have an enormous influence as a religious teacher, and yet never have made a formal statement of christianity, nor signed a christian creed.'--'the measure of a man's faithfulness to the better side of his nature is not to be gauged by the depth of his fall, but the height to which he rises.... burns was, unfortunately, confronted by a narrow and self-righteous set, who were enslaved to doctrine and dogma, rather than to the practice of the christian life with charity and humanity of spirit, part and parcel of a system of petty tyrannies and mean oppressions, the exercise of which made for exile from the fold, because of the spiritual conceit and sectarian humbug which created such characters as "holy willie," and the "unco guid," with the superior airs of religious security from which they looked down on all besides.' we should test neither the terrible theologians of his time--those men who attacked burns and called him irreligious, because he had a clear vision of a higher, holier religion than the one they preached--nor burns himself by the conditions of our own time. it is unjust both to burns and to his enemies to do so. a comparison of the religious principles of the best christians in the world nearly a century and a half after his time will show, however, that the creed of the present is more--much more--like the creed of burns than the creed of the dreadful theologians of his time. the creed of the religious leaders a century hence will be still more like the creed of robert burns than is the creed of to-day. the following creed is taken from the letters of burns, expressed in his own language, except the last article, which is found in longer form in many of his letters, and more nearly in 'the hermit,' in which he says: let me, o lord! from life retire, unknown each guilty, worldly fire, remorse's throb, or loose desire; and when i die let me in this belief expire- to god i fly. the creed of robert burns. 1. religion should be a simple business, as it equally concerns the ignorant and the learned, the poor and the rich. 2. there is a great and incomprehensible being to whom i owe my existence. 3. the creator perfectly understands the being he has made. 4. there is a real and eternal distinction between vice and virtue. 5. there must be a retributive scene of existence beyond the grave. 6. from the sublimity, the excellence, and the purity of his doctrines and precepts, i believe jesus christ came from god. 7. whatever is done to mitigate the woes, or increase the happiness of humanity, is goodness. 8. whatever injures society or any member of it is iniquity. 9. i believe in the immaterial and immortal nature of man. 10. i believe in eternal life with god. carlyle expressed regret that 'burns became involved in the religious quarrels of his district.' this statement proves that carlyle failed fully to comprehend the religious character of burns. his chivalrous nature was partly responsible for his entering the battle waged by the 'auld lichts' against his dear friend the rev. dr m'gill of ayr and gavin hamilton of mauchline; but his chief reason was his innate determination to free religion from the evils taught and practised in the name of religion in his time. he had the soul of a reformer, and the two leading elements in his soul were religion and liberty for the individual. it would have robbed the world of one of the greatest steps in human progress towards the divine made in the eighteenth century, if burns had failed to be true to the greatest things in his mind and heart. carlyle had clearly not studied the religious elements in either the poems or the letters of burns, or he could not have written his comparison between burns and locke, milton, and cervantes, who did in poverty and unusual difficulties grand work. he asks: 'what, then, had these men which burns wanted? two things; both which, it seems to us, are indispensable for such men. they had a true religious principle of morals, and a single, not a double, aim in their activity. they were not self-seekers and self-worshippers; but seekers and worshippers of something far better than self. not personal enjoyment was their object; but a high heroic idea of religion, of patriotism, of heavenly wisdom in one form or the other form ever hovered before them. it passes understanding to comprehend how carlyle could regard burns as a 'selfish' man, or a man with 'a double aim'--that is, two conflicting and opposing aims that he wasted his power in trying to harmonise. burns had three great aims: purer religion, a just democracy, and closer brotherhood; but these aims are in perfect harmony. carlyle ends the contrast between burns and his model trio--locke, milton, and cervantes--by saying of burns: 'he has no religion; in the shallow age, where his days were cast, religion was not discriminated from the new and old light _forms_ of religion; and was, with these, becoming obsolete in the minds of men.' 'the heart not of a mere hot-blooded, popular verse-monger, or poetical _restaurateur_, but of a true poet and singer, worthy of the old religions heroic, had been given him, and he fell in an age, not of heroism and religion, but of scepticism, selfishness, and triviality, when true nobleness was little understood, and its place supplied by a hollow, dissocial, altogether barren and unfruitful principle of pride.' in a just comparison between burns and the three named by carlyle, burns will need no apologists. burns, directly in opposition to the statement of carlyle, was more vitally religious and less selfish than any of them. when twenty-one years of age he said, in one of his beautiful love-letters to alison begbie: 'i grasp every creature in the arms of universal benevolence, and equally participate in the pleasures of the happy, and sympathise with the miseries of the unfortunate.' this alone proves that burns was one of the least selfish men who ever lived. as an heroic teacher of vital religion burns was infinitely greater than any other man of his time, and has been much more influential since his time in promoting christ's ideals than the men named by carlyle. he was a fearless hero, and so meets the requirements specified by carlyle, because, when he recognised the evils connected with religion in his time, when true religion was, to use carlyle's words, 'becoming obsolete,' he valiantly attacked them, hoping to enable his fellow-men to see the vision of true religion which his father had given him by his life and teaching. there was absolutely no justification for calling burns a mere verse-monger. to write such a wild nightmare dream about scotland's greatest and most self-less poet was unworthy of one of scotland's leading prose-writers. it seems almost ludicrous to take notice of the assertion that burns had not a high ideal of patriotism, as compared with the three ideal men of carlyle--burns, whose love for scotland was a sacred feeling, a holy fire that never ceased to burn. this criticism needs no answer now. chapter v. burns the democrat. no man ever comprehended christ's ideals regarding democracy more fully than did burns. christ based his teaching of the need of human liberty on his revelation of the value of the individual soul. burns clearly understood christ's ideals regarding individual freedom, and faithfully followed him. the message of coila in 'the vision' to burns was: preserve the dignity of man with soul erect. this was the central thought in the work of burns regarding the freedom of all mankind: freedom from oppression by other men; freedom from the bondage imposed on the peasant and the labouring man by customs organised by so-called 'higher classes'; freedom from the hardship and sorrow of poverty; freedom for each child to grow under proper conditions of nourishment, of physical development, and of educational training. his whole nature was stirred to dignified indignation and resentment by class distinctions among men and women who were all created in the image of god, and who, in accordance with the teaching of christ, should be brothers. he despised class distinctions which were made by man, whether the distinctions were made on the basis of rank or wealth. he was ashamed of the toadies who reverenced a lord merely because he chanced to be born a lord, and pitied those who accepted without protest inferiority to men of wealth. he was so true a democrat that he freely and respectfully recognised the worth of members of the aristocracy or of the wealthy class whose ability and high character made them worthy of respect; but he held in contempt those who assumed superiority simply because of rank or gold. one of his most brilliant poems is 'a man's a man for a' that.' in it he gives comprehensive expression to his opinions, based on the fundamental principle, the honest man, though e'er sae poor, is king o' men for a' that. is there for honesty poverty, that hangs his head an' a' that? the coward-slave, we pass him by; we dare be poor for a' that. for a' that, an' a' that, our toils obscure, an' a' that; the rank is but the guinea stamp, the man's the gowd for a' that. gold ye see yon birkie, ca'd a lord, wha struts, and stares, an' a' that; tho' hundreds worship at his word, he's but a coof for a' that: blockhead for a' that, an' a' that, his ribband, star, an' a' that; the man of independent mind he looks and laughs at a' that. a prince can mak a belted knight, a marquis, duke, an' a' that; but an honest man's aboon his might, above gude faith he maunna fa' that. must not try for a' that, an' a' that, their dignities an' a' that, the pith o' sense, an' pride o' worth, are higher ranks than a' that. labouring man on farm or in factory, this is your charter. let this be your creed. sing this great democratic hymn at your gatherings--ay, sing it in your homes with your children, and each time you sing it, it should kindle some new light in your soul that will bring you new vision of the greatest fact in connection with human life and duty, that you are alive to be god's partner, and that while you remain honest, and unselfishly consider the rights of others, as fully as you consider your own, you are entitled to stand with kings, because you are an honest man. the discussion between cã¦sar the aristocratic dog and luath the cotter's dog is a fair representation of class conditions in scotland in the time of burns. cã¦sar describes the laird's riches, his idleness, his rackã¨d rents, and the compulsory services required from the poor tenants; dilates on the wastefulness in connection with the meals even of the servants in the homes of the great; and expresses surprise that poor folks could exist under their trying conditions. luath admits that sometimes the strain on the cotter was very severe: digging ditches, building dykes with dirty stones, baring a quarry, 'an' sic like,' as a means of sustaining a lot of ragged children with nothing but his hand labour. he acknowledges that, when ill or out of work, it sometimes seems hopeless; but, after all, though past his comprehension, the poor folks are wonderfully contented, and stately men and clever women are brought up in their homes. cã¦sar then expatiates on the contemptuous way the poor are 'huffed, and cuffed, and disrespecket.' he especially sympathises with the poor on account of the way tenants are treated by the laird's agents on rent-day--compelled to submit to their insolence, while they swear and threaten to seize their property; and concludes that poor folks must be very wretched. luath replies that, after all, they are not so wretched as he thinks; that their dearest enjoyments are in their wives and thriving children; that they often forget their private cares and discuss the affairs of kirk and state; that hallowe'en and christmas celebrations give them grand opportunities for happiness that make them forget their hardships and sorrows, and that during these festivals the old folks are so cheery and the young ones are so frolicsome that he 'for joy has barket wi' them!' still, he admits that it is owre true what cã¦sar says, and that many decent, honest folk 'are riven out, baith root and branch, some rascal's pridefu' greed to quench.' cã¦sar then describes the reckless way in which the money received from the poor cotters was wasted at operas, plays, mortgaging, gambling, masquerading, or taking trips to calais, vienna, versailles, madrid, or italy; and finally to germany, to some resort where their dissipations may be overcome by drinking muddy german water. luath is surprised to learn that the money for which the cotters have toiled so hard should be spent so wastefully; and wishes the gentry would stay at home and take interest in the sports of their own country, as it would be so much better for all: laird, tenant, and cotter. he closes by saying that many of the lairds are not ill-hearted fellows, and asks cã¦sar if there is not a great deal of true pleasure in the lives of the rich. cã¦sar replies: lord, man, were ye but whyles where i am, the gentles ye wad ne'er envy them. admitting that they need not starve or work hard through winter's cold or summer's heat, or suffer in old age from working all day in the wet, he says: but human bodies are sic fools, for a' their colleges and schools, that when nae real ills perplex them, they mak enow themsels to vex them; an' aye the less they hae to sturt them, in like proportion less will hurt them. a country fellow at the pleugh, his acres till'd, he's right eneugh; a country girl at her wheel, her dizzens dune, she's unco weel; but gentlemen, and ladies warst, wi' ev'n-down want o' wark are curst. they loiter, lounging, lank and lazy; tho' deil-haet ails them, yet uneasy; their days insipid, dull, an' tasteless; their nights unquiet, lang, and restless. an' even their sports, their balls and races, their galloping through public places, there's sic parade, sic pomp an' art, the joy can scarcely reach the heart. the ladies arm-in-arm in clusters, as great and gracious a' as sisters; but hear their absent thoughts o' ither, they're a' run deils and jads thegither. whyles, ower the wee bit cup an' plaitie, they sip the scandal-potion pretty; or lee-lang nights, wi' crabbet leuks, pore ower the devil's pictured beuks; cards stake on a chance a farmer's stackyard, an' cheat like ony unhanged blackguard. there's some exceptions, man an' woman; but this is gentry's life in common. burns was a philosopher, and he knew such conditions were wrong, and that they should not be allowed to last. they are better, after more than a century, since burns became the champion of the poor; but the great problem, 'why should ae man better fare, and a' men brothers?' is not properly answered yet. the wisest among the aristocracy know this, and admit it, and sincerely hope that the inevitable evolution to juster conditions and relationships may be brought about by constitutional means, and not by revolution. professor dugald stewart, of edinburgh university, wrote: 'i recollect once he told me, when i was admiring a distant prospect in one of our morning walks, that the sight of so many smoking cottages gave a pleasure to his mind none could understand who had not witnessed, like himself, the happiness and the worth which they contained.' it was not the unhappiness of the peasantry that stirred the democratic heart of burns. it was 'man's inhumanity' to his fellow-men; the assumption of those belonging to the so-called upper classes that they had a divine right to hold higher positions than the common people, and that the poorer people should be contented in the 'station to which god had called them,' that led burns to write so ably in favour of democracy. he recognised no human right to establish stations to which people were called, and in which they should remain, in spite of their right to fill any positions for which they had proved their fitness. he could not be so irreverent or so unreasonable as to believe god could establish the conditions found all around him, so he claimed the right of every child to full opportunity for its best development, and to rise honourably to any position to which it could attain. in a letter to miss margaret chalmers, 1788, he wrote: 'what signify the silly, idle gewgaws of wealth, or the idle 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 of everything dishonest, and the same scorn at everything unworthy--in the name of common-sense, are they not equals?' to mrs dunlop he wrote in 1788: 'there are few circumstances, relating to the unequal distribution of good things of this life, that give me more vexation (i mean in what i see around me) than the importance the opulent bestow on their trifling family affairs, compared with the very same things on the contracted scale of the cottage. last afternoon i had the honour to spend an hour or two at a good woman's fireside, where the planks that composed the floor were decorated with a splendid carpet, and the gay table sparkled with silver and china. 'tis now about term-day [a regular time twice a year was fixed for hiring servants], and there has been a revolution among those creatures [servants], who, though in appearance partakers, and equally noble partakers, of the same nature as madame, are from time to time--their nerves, sinews, their health, strength, wisdom, experience, genius, time, nay, a good part of their very thoughts--sold for months and years, not only to the necessities but the caprices of the important few. we talked of the insignificant creatures; nay, notwithstanding their general stupidity and rascality, did some of the poor devils the honour to commend them. but light be the turf upon his breast who taught "reverence thyself!" we looked down on the unpolished wretches, their impertinent wives, and clouterly brats, as the lordly bull does on the little, dirty anthill, whose puny inhabitants he crushes in the carelessness of his ramble, or tosses in the air in the wantonness of his pride.' such experiences added fuel to the divine purpose in his mind to free a large portion of his fellow-countrymen from the bonds that had been bound on their bodies and souls by long years of class presumption and heartless tyranny, which, till burns attacked them, had grown more unjust and contemptuous as generation succeeded generation. burns's reverence for real manhood, a basic principle of true democratic spirit, is shown in the closing verse of his 'elegy on captain matthew henderson': go to your sculptured tombs, ye great, in a' the tinsel trash o' state! but by thy honest turf i'll wait, thou man of worth! and weep the ae best fellow's fate e'er lay in earth. to john francis erskine he wrote, 1793: 'burns was a poor man from birth and an exciseman from necessity; but--i will say it--the sterling of his honest worth no poverty could debase, and his independent british mind oppression might bend, but could not subdue.... 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 runs my own blood?... 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 concerns 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 reflect, yet low enough to keep clear of the venal contagion of a court--these are a nation's strength.' he wrote the letter, from which this is an extract, because some super-loyalists were trying to undermine his reputation on account of his independence of spirit and his democratic principles, with a view to having him removed from the paltry position he held as an excise officer. he was proudly, sensitively independent. he inherited his temperamental characteristics from his mother. he was happier defending others than working for himself. writing to the earl of eglintoun, he said: 'mercenary servility, i trust, i shall ever have as much honest pride as to detest.' writing to mr francis grose, f.s.a., in 1790, about professor dugald stewart, he said: 'mr stewart's principal characteristic is your favourite feature--that sterling independence of mind which, though every man's right, so few men have the courage to claim, and fewer still the magnanimity to support.' in 1795, the year before his death, he wrote three poems favourable to the election of mr heron, the whig candidate. in the first poem he said: the independent commoner shall be the man for a' that. mrs riddell, writing of burns after his death, said: 'his features were stamped with the hardy character of independence.' he was a democrat whose democracy was based on the rock of independence and a character that 'preserved the dignity of man with soul erect.' burns saw both sides of the ideal of freedom. he hated tyrants, and he despised those who tamely submitted to tyranny. the inscription on the altar to independence, erected by mr heron at kerroughtree, written by burns, reads: thou of an independent mind, with soul resolv'd, with soul resign'd; prepar'd power's proudest frown to brave, who wilt not be, nor have a slave; virtue alone who dost revere, thy own reproach alone dost fear- approach this shrine, and worship here. the man of whom burns approved was 'one who wilt not _be_ nor _have_ a slave.' in 'lines inscribed in a lady's pocket almanac' he says: deal freedom's sacred treasures free as air, till slave and despot be but things that were. in the 'lines on the commemoration of rodney's victory' he wrote: be anarchy cursed, and be tyranny damned; condemned and who would to liberty e'er be disloyal may his son be a hangman--and he his first trial. burns was a philosopher whose mind had been trained to look at both sides of a question, and estimate truly their relationships to each other. even in one of his beautiful poems to his wife, written after he was married, 'i hae a wife o' my ain,' he wrote: i am naebody's lord, i'll be slave to naebody. while burns was an intense lover of freedom, he had no sympathy with those who would overturn constituted authority. he wished to achieve the freedom of the people, but to achieve it by constitutional means. he was a national volunteer in dumfries, and he composed a fine patriotic song for the corps to sing. he revealed his balanced mind in the following lines in that song: the wretch that would a tyrant own, and the wretch, his true-born brother, who would set the mob aboon the throne, above may they be damned together. burns had as little respect for a king who was a tyrant, as he had for a tyrant in any other situation in life; but he clearly saw the wicked folly of allowing mob-rule to be substituted for constitutional authority. in the prologue written to be spoken by an actor on his benefit night, burns wrote: no hundred-headed riot here we meet with decency and law beneath his feet; nor insolence assumes fair freedom's name. here, again, he records the dominant ideal of his mind through life; but at the same time he utters a warning against ignorant and wild theorists, who, in their madness, would overthrow civilisation. he overflows again on his favourite theme in the 'lines on the commemoration of rodney's victory,' when he was proposing toasts: the next in succession i'll give you's the king! whoe'er would betray him, on high may he swing! and here's the grand fabric, the free constitution, as built on the base of our great revolution. the love of liberty grew stronger in his heart and in his mind as he grew older. in his songs, and in his letters, he frequently moralised on independence of character and the value of liberty. in a letter to the _morning chronicle_ he said, 1795: 'i am a briton, and must be interested in the cause of liberty.' to patrick miller he sent a copy of his poems in 1793, accompanied by a letter expressing gratitude for his kindness and appreciation of him 'as a patriot who in a venal, sliding age stands forth the champion of the liberties of my country.' in his love-song, 'their groves o' sweet myrtle,' he compares the boasted glories of tropical lands with the beauty of his beloved scotland, and boasts in pride of the charms of the lone glen o' green breckan, ferns wi' the burn stealing under the lang yellow broom, and of the sweetness of yon humble broom bowers, where the blue-bell and gowan lurk, lowly, unseen. he cannot close the song, however, without claiming that beautiful as are the 'sweet-scented woodlands' of these foreign countries, they are, after all, 'the haunt of the tyrant and slave,' and that the slave's spicy forests, and gold-bubbling fountains, the brave caledonian views wi' disdain; he wanders as free as the winds of his mountains. burns celebrated the success of the french revolution in a poem entitled 'the tree of liberty.' his heart bled for the peasantry of france, whom the aristocrats had treated so contemptuously, and with such lack of consideration, and cruelty. he rejoiced in the overthrow of their oppressors, and the establishment of a republican form of government. in this poem he gives credit to lafayette, the great frenchman who had gone to assist the people of the united states in their brave struggle to get free. he asks blessings on the head of the noble man, lafayette, in the verse: my blessings aye attend the chiel wha pitied gallia's slaves, man, and staw a branch, spite o' the deil, stole frae yont the western waves, man. fair virtue watered it wi' care, and now she sees wi' pride, man, how weel it buds and blossoms there, its branches spreading wide, man. * * * * * a wicked crew syne, on a time, did tak a solemn aith, man, oath it ne'er should flourish to its prime, i wat they pledged their faith, man. awa they gaed, wi' mock parade, like beagles hunting game, man, but soon grew weary o' the trade, and wished they'd stayed at hame, man. fair freedom, standing by the tree, her sons did loudly ca', man; she sang a song o' liberty, marseillaise which pleased them ane and a', man. by her inspired, the new-born race soon drew the avenging steel, man; the hirelings ran--her friends gied chase and banged the despot weel, man. * * * * * wi' plenty o' sic trees, i trow, the warld would live at peace, man; the sword would help to mak' a plough; the din o' war wad cease, man. the greatest poem burns wrote to rejoice at the victorious progress of humanity towards freedom was his 'ode to liberty,' written to express his supreme gratification at the success of the people of the united states in their struggle for independence from england. he wrote it, as he wrote most of his poems during his life in dumfries, in the moonlight in lincluden abbey ruins, on the nith river, just outside of dumfries. he introduces the ode in a poem named 'a vision.' he tells that, at midnight, while in the ruins, he saw in the roofless tower of the abbey, a vision: by heedless chance i turned my eyes, and, by the moonbeam, shook to see a stern and stalwart ghaist arise, ghost attired as minstrels wont to be. had i a statue been o' stane, his daring look had daunted me; and on his bonnet graved was plain, the sacred posy, 'libertie.' and frae his harp sic strains did flow might rouse the slumbering dead to hear; but oh! it was a tale of woe, as ever met a briton's ear! the ghost tells the story of the tyranny england exercised over the people of the united states, and of the breaking of the tyrant's chains. burns had no more respect for despotism by an english king than he had for the despotism of a tyrant in any other land. he knew the people of the american colonies were right. england's greatest statesman, pitt, had said so, when the colonists, driven to desperation, rebelled; so the ghost's revelation should be to a liberty-loving briton's ear 'a tale of woe.' the ode begins: no spartan tube, no attic shell, no lyre ã�olian i awake; 'tis liberty's bold note i swell; thy harp, columbia, let me take! see gathering thousands, while i sing, a broken chain exultant bring, and dash it in the tyrant's face, and dare him to his very beard, and tell him he no more is feared- no more the despot of columbia's race! a tyrant's proudest insults braved, they shout--a people freed! they hail an empire saved. * * * * * but come, ye sons of liberty, columbia's offspring, brave and free. in danger's hour still flaming in the van, ye know and dare maintain 'the royalty of man.' so the poem proceeds, till he appeals to king alfred, and finally to caledonia: alfred! on thy starry throne, surrounded by the tuneful choir, the bards that erst have struck the patriotic lyre, and rous'd the freeborn briton's soul of fire, no more thy england own! dare injured nations form the great design, to make detested tyrants bleed? thy england execrates the glorious deed! beneath her hostile banners waving, every pang of honour braving, england, in thunder calls, 'the tyrant's cause is mine!' that hour accurst how did the fiends rejoice, and hell, through all her confines, raise the exulting voice! that hour which saw the generous english name linkt with such damned deeds of everlasting shame! thee, caledonia! thy wild heaths among, fam'd for the martial deed, the heaven-taught song, to thee i turn with swimming eyes; where is that soul of freedom fled? immingled with the mighty dead, beneath that hallow'd turf where wallace lies! hear it not, wallace! in thy bed of death. ye babbling winds! in silence sweep, disturb not ye the hero's sleep, nor give the coward secret breath. is this the ancient caledonian form, firm as the rock, resistless as the storm? he loved to stir the liberty-loving spirit of his beloved caledonia, so to her sons he makes the final appeal in his great ode. he wrote in a similar strain in the prologue written for his friend woods, the actor: o thou dread power! whose empire-giving hand has oft been stretched to shield the honoured land! strong may she glow with all her ancient fire! may every son be worthy of his sire! firm may she rise with generous disdain at tyranny's, or direr pleasure's, chain; still self-dependent in her native shore, bold may she brave grim danger's loudest roar, till fate the curtain drop on worlds to be no more. he reached the highest degree of patriotic fervour, and his clearest call, not only to scotsmen, but to all true men, to be ready to do their duty for justice and liberty, in 'bruce's address at bannockburn.' in a letter to the earl of buchan, 1794, enclosing a copy of this poem, he wrote: 'independent of my enthusiasm as a scotsman, i have rarely met with anything in history which interests my feelings as a man equal with the story of bannockburn. on the one hand a cruel, but able, usurper, leading on the finest army in europe, to extinguish the last spark of freedom among a greatly daring and greatly injured people; on the other hand, the desperate relics of a gallant nation, devoting themselves to rescue their bleeding country or perish with her. liberty! thou art a prize truly and indeed invaluable, for never canst thou be too dearly bought.' scots, wha hae wi' wallace bled, scots, wham bruce has aften led, welcome to your gory bed, or to victorie! now's the day and now's the hour; see the front o' battle lour! see approach proud edward's power- chains and slaverie! wha will be a traitor knave? wha can fill a coward's grave? wha sae base as be a slave? let him turn and flee! wha for scotland's king and law, freedom's sword will strongly draw, free-man stand, or free-man fa'? let him follow me! by oppression's woes and pains! by your sons in servile chains! we will drain our dearest veins, but they _shall_ be free! lay the proud usurpers low! tyrants fall in every foe! liberty's in every blow! let us do--or die. 'so may god ever defend the cause of truth and liberty as he did that day. 'robert burns.' because he was so outspoken in regard to democracy, some men assumed he was not a loyal man. the truth is, that he always loved his country, but he ardently desired to improve the conditions of the great body of his countrymen. complaints were made about his disloyalty to the excise commissioners under whom he worked. these complaints were investigated, and burns was found to be a loyal man. when the call came from the government for volunteers, burns joined the dumfries volunteers. in his great song composed for these volunteers he strongly expresses his loyalty, both to his country and to his king, in the following quotations: we'll ne'er permit a foreign foe on british ground to rally. be britain still to britain true, amang oursels united; for never but by british hands maun british wrangs be righted. must who will not sing 'god save the king,' shall hang as high's the steeple! but while we sing 'god save the king,' we'll ne'er forget the people. to robert graham of fintry, 1792, he wrote: 'to the british constitution on revolution principles, next after my god, i am most devoutly attached.' again, a month later, he wrote to mr graham: 'i never uttered any invectives against the king. his private worth it is altogether impossible that such a man as i can appreciate; but in his public capacity i always revered, and always will, with the soundest loyalty, revere the monarch of great britain as (to speak in masonic) the sacred keystone of our royal arch constitution. as to reform principles, i look upon the british constitution, as settled at the revolution, to be the most glorious constitution on earth, or that perhaps the wit of man can frame. * * * * * 'i never dictated to, corresponded with, or had the least connection with, any political association whatever--except that when the magistrates and principal inhabitants of dumfries met to declare their attachment to the constitution, and their abhorrence of riot.' he had strong desires to effect many reforms in public life, but he was an intelligent believer in the british constitution, and had no faith in any method of achieving reforms in the empire except by constitutional measures. he was a radical reformer with a grand mental balance-wheel; and such reformers make the best type of citizens, ardent reformers with cool heads and unselfish hearts. carlyle strangely misunderstood the spirit of democracy in burns, although he justly wrote, long after the poet's death: 'he appears not only as a true british poet, but as one of the most considerable british men of the eighteenth century.' what were the achievements, in addition to his poetic power, that made burns 'one of the most considerable men of the eighteenth century?' mainly the work he did to develop in the souls of men a consciousness of fundamental principles of democracy, and higher ideals of vital religion; yet carlyle does not approve of his efforts to reform either social or religious conditions. as the centuries pass, the work of burns for religion, democracy, and brotherhood will be recognised as his greatest work for humanity. carlyle's belief was that burns wrote about the wrongs of the oppressed because he could not become rich. in that belief he was clearly in error. the love of freedom, justice, and independence was a basic passion in the character of burns. the anxiety of burns regarding money was not for himself, but for his family in case he should die. several times he referred to this in letters to his most intimate friends. chapter vi. burns and brotherhood. in the third letter burns wrote alison begbie, the first woman he asked to marry him, he said: 'i grasp every creature in the arms of universal benevolence, and equally participate in the pleasures of the happy, and sympathise with the miseries of the unfortunate.' this statement of one of the fundamental principles which guided him during his whole life is a profound interpretation of the teachings of christ in regard to the attitude that each individual should have, must have, in order that brotherhood may be established on the earth. he taught universal benevolence and vital sympathy _with_--not _for_--humanity; not merely when sorrows and afflictions bring dark clouds to hearts, but in times of happiness and rejoicing; affectionate sympathy, unostentatious sympathy, co-operative sympathy that stimulates helpfulness and hopefulness; sympathy that produces activity of the divine in the human heart and mind, and leads to brotherhood. the amazing fact is, not that burns wrote such fundamental christian philosophy in a love-letter, but that a youth of twenty-one could think it and express it so perfectly. to clarinda he wrote, 1787: 'lord! why was i born to see misery which i cannot relieve?' again, in 1788, he wrote to her: 'give me to feel "another's woe," and continue with me that dear-loved friend that feels with mine.' to mrs walter riddell he wrote, 1793: 'of all the qualities we assign to the author and director of nature, by far the most enviable is to be able "to wipe away all tears from all eyes." o what insignificant, sordid wretches are they, however chance may have loaded them with wealth, who go to their graves, to their magnificent mausoleums, with hardly the consciousness of having made one poor, honest heart happy.' in 'a winter night,' the great poem of universal sympathy, he says: affliction's sons are brothers in distress; a brother to relieve, how exquisite the bliss. he closes the poem with four great lines: but deep this truth impressed my mind- thro' all his works abroad, the heart benevolent and kind the most resembles god. in the same poem he paints the characters who lack loving sympathy, and whose lives and attitudes towards their fellow-men separate men, and break the ties that should unite all men, and thus prevent the development of the spirit of brotherhood. after describing the fierceness of the storm and expressing his heartfelt sympathy for the cattle, the sheep, the birds, and even with destructive animals such as prey on hen-roosts or defenceless lambs, his mind was filled with a plaintive strain, as he thought of the bitterness of man to his brother man, and he proceeds: blow, blow, ye winds, with heavier gust! and freeze, thou bitter-biting frost! descend, ye chilly, smothering snows! not all your rage, as now united, shows more hard unkindness, unrelenting, vengeful malice unrepenting, than heaven-illumined man on brother man bestows. the depth and universality of his sympathy is shown in 'to a mouse,' after he had destroyed its nest while ploughing: i'm truly sorry man's dominion has broken nature's social union, an' justifies that ill opinion which makes thee startle at me, thy poor earth-born companion, an' fellow-mortal! in his 'epistle to davie,' a brother poet, he emphasises the value of true sympathy, that should bind all hearts, must yet bind all hearts in universal brotherhood, when he says: all hail! ye tender feelings dear! the smile of love, the friendly tear, the sympathetic glow! long since, this world's thorny ways had numbered out my weary days, had it not been for you. in his 'epistle to robert graham of fintry,' after describing the thrifty but selfishly prudent, 'who feel by reason and who give by rule,' and expressing regret that 'the friendly e'er should want a friend,' he writes: but come ye, who the godlike pleasure know, heaven's attribute distinguished--to bestow! whose arms of love would grasp the human race. in the opinion of burns, they are the ideal men and women who best understood, and most perfectly practised, the teaching of christ. in one of his epistles to his friend lapraik he says: for thus the royal mandate ran, when first the human race began: the social, friendly, honest man, whate'er he be- 'tis _he_ fulfils great nature's plan, and none but he. the influence of any act on society, on the brotherhood of man as a whole, was the supreme test of burns to distinguish between goodness and evil. to dr moore, of london, he said: 'whatsoever is not detrimental to society, and is of positive enjoyment, is of god, the giver of all good things, and ought to be received and enjoyed by his creatures with thankful delight.' to clarinda he wrote: 'thou almighty author of peace, and goodness, and love! do thou give me the social heart that kindly tastes of every man's cup! is it a draught of joy? warm and open my heart to share it with cordial, unenvying rejoicing! is it the bitter potion of sorrow? melt my heart with sincerely sympathetic woe! above all, do thou give me the manly mind, that resolutely exemplifies in life and manners those sentiments which i would wish to be thought to possess.' in 'on the seas and far away' he says: peace, thy olive wand extend, and bid wild war his ravage end; man with brother man to meet, and as a brother kindly greet. in the 'tree of liberty' he says, if we had plenty of the trees of liberty growing throughout the whole world: like brothers in a common cause we'd on each other smile, man; and equal rights and equal laws wad gladden ev'ry isle, man. to clarinda, when he presented a pair of wine-glasses--a perfectly proper gift to a lady in the opinion of his time--he gave her at the same time a poem, in which he said: and fill them high with generous juice, as generous as your mind; and pledge them to the generous toast, 'the whole of human kind!' in his 'epistle to john lapraik,' after describing those whose lives do not help men towards brotherhood, he describes those who are true to the great ideal: but ye whom social pleasure charms, whose hearts the tide of kindness warms, who hold your being on the terms, 'each aid the others,' come to my bowl, come to my arms, my friends, my brothers. burns gives each man the true test of the influence of his life for the promotion of true brotherhood in the short line, 'each aid the others.' that line is the supreme test of duty, and is the highest interpretation of christ's commandment to his disciples, and through them to all men, 'love one another, as i have loved you.' vital love means vital helpfulness. dickens gives the same great message as burns when, in describing little dorritt, he says: 'she was something different from the rest, and she was that something for the rest.' this is probably the shortest sentence ever written that conveys so clearly the two great revelations of christ: individuality and brotherhood. there are some who dislike the expression 'come to my bowl.' they should test burns by the accepted standards of his time, not by the standards of our time. the bowl was the symbol of true comradeship in castle and cot, in the manse and in the layman's home, in the time of burns. no other writer has interpreted christ's revelations of democracy and brotherhood so clearly and so fully as robert burns. he sums up the whole matter of man's relationship to man in 'a man's a man for a' that,' in the last verse: then let us pray that come it may- as come it will for a' that- that sense and worth, o'er a' the earth, shall bear the gree, an' a' that. pre-eminence for a' that, an' a' that, it's coming yet, for a' that, that man to man the world o'er, shall brothers be for a' that. he revealed his supreme purpose in 'a revolutionary lyric': in virtue trained, enlightened youth will love each fellow-creature; and future years shall prove the truth- that man is good by nature. the golden age will then revive; each man will love his brother; in harmony we all shall live, and share the earth together. while the so-called religious teachers of the time of burns were dividing men into creeds based on petty theological distinctions, burns was interpreting for humanity the highest teachings of christ: democracy based on recognition of the value of the individual soul, and brotherhood as the natural fruit of true democracy. chapter vii. burns a revealer of pure love. many people yet believe that burns was a universal and inconstant lover. he really did not love many women. he loved deeply, but he had not a great many really serious experiences of love. he loved nellie kirkpatrick when he was fifteen, and peggy thomson when he was seventeen. he says his love of nellie made him a poet. there is no other experience that will kindle the strongest element in a human soul during the adolescent period so fully, and so permanently, as genuine love. love will not make all young people poets, but it will kindle with its most developing glow whatever is the strongest natural power in each individual soul. parents should foster such love in young people during the adolescent period, instead of ridiculing it, as is too often done. god may not mean that the love is to be permanent, but there is no other agency that can be so productive at the time of adolescence as love that is reverenced by parents who, by due reverence, sympathy, and comradeship, help love to do its best work. these two adolescent loves did their work in developing burns, but they were not loves of maturity. from seventeen till he was twenty-one he was not really in love. then he met, and deeply and reverently loved, alison begbie. she was a servant girl of charm, sweetness, and dignity, in a home not far from lochlea farm. he wrote three poems to her: 'the lass o' cessnock banks,' 'peggy alison,' and 'mary morrison.' he reversed her name for the second title, because it possessed neither the elements of metre nor of rhyme. he gave his third poem to her the title 'mary morrison' to make it conform to the same metre as 'peggy alison.' there was a mary morrison who was nine years of age when burns wrote 'mary morrison.' she is buried in mauchline churchyard, and on her tombstone it is stated that she was 'the mary morrison of burns.' his brother gilbert knew better. he said the poem was written to the lady to whom 'peggy alison' was written. it is impossible to believe that burns would write 'mary morrison' to a child only nine years old. burns wrote five love-letters to alison begbie. beautiful and reverent letters they were, too. in the fourth, he asked her to become his wife. in chapter iii. it has been explained that he was too shy, even at twenty-two, to ask the woman whom he loved to marry him when he was with her. this does not indicate that he had a new love each week, as many yet believe. miss begbie refused to marry him, and his reply should win him the respect of every reasonable man or woman who reads it. it is the dignified and reverent outpouring of a loving heart, held in control by a well-balanced and considerate mind. although burns had no lover from seventeen to twenty-one years of age, he wrote love-songs during those years, but even his mother could not tell the name of any young woman who kindled his muse during these four years. neither could the other members of his family. he wrote one poem, 'my nannie o,' during this period. he first wrote for the first line: beyond the hills where stinchar flows. he did not like the word 'stinchar,' so he changed it to 'lugar,' a much more euphonious word. he had no lover named 'nannie.' lugar and stinchar were several miles apart. he was really writing about love, not the love of any one woman, during those four years; and he was writing about other great subjects more than about love, mainly religious and ethical ideals. from the age of twenty-two he was for three years without a lover. at twenty-five he met jean armour, then eighteen. jean spoke first to the respectfully shy man. at the annual dance on fair night in mauchline, burns was one of the young men who were present. his dog, luath, who loved him, and whom he loved in return, traced his master upstairs to the dance hall. of course the dance was interrupted when luath got on the floor and found his master. burns kindly led the dog out, and as he was going he said, 'i wish i could find a lassie to loe me as well as my dog.' a short time afterwards burns was going along a street in mauchline, and was passing jean armour without speaking to her, because he had not been introduced to her. she was at the village pump getting water to sprinkle her clothes on the village green, and as he was passing her she asked, 'hae you found a lassie yet to loe you as well as your dog?' burns then stopped and conversed with her. she was a handsome, bright young woman. their acquaintance soon developed a strong love between them, and resulted in a test of the real manhood of the character of burns. when he realised that jean was to become a mother, he did not hesitate as to his duty. he gave her a legal certificate of marriage, signed by himself and regularly witnessed, which was as valid as a marriage certificate of a clergyman or a magistrate in scottish law. jean's father compelled her to destroy, or let him destroy, the certificate. this, and her father's threatened legal prosecution, nearly upset the mind of burns. he undoubtedly loved jean armour. in a letter written at the time to david brice, a friend in glasgow, he wrote: 'never man loved, or rather adored, a woman more than i did her; and, to confess a truth between you and me, i do still love her to distraction after all.... may almighty god forgive her ingratitude and perjury to me, as i from my very soul forgive her; and may his grace be with her, and bless her in all her future life.' he had arranged to leave scotland for jamaica to escape from his mental torture, when two things came into his life: mary campbell, and the suggestion that he should publish his poems. the first filled his heart, the second gave him the best tonic for his mind--deeply and joyously interesting occupation. mary campbell, 'highland mary,' he had met when she was a nursemaid in the home of his friend gavin hamilton. meeting her again, when she was a servant in montgomery castle, he became acquainted with her, and they soon loved each other. it is not remarkable that burns should love mary campbell, because she was a winsome, quiet, refined young woman, and his heart was desolate at the loss of jean armour. he, at the time he made love to mary, had no hope of reconciliation with jean. the greater his love for jean had been, and still was, the greater his need was for another love to fill his heart, and he found a pure and satisfying lover in mary. their love was deep and short, lasting only about two months. two busy months they were, as burns was preparing his poems for the kilmarnock edition, till he and mary agreed to be married. they parted for the last time on 14th may 1785. the day was sunday. they spent the afternoon in the fine park of montgomery castle, through which the fail river runs for a mile and a half. in the evening they went out of the grounds about half a mile to failford, a little village at the junction of the fail with the ayr. the fail runs parallel to the ayr, and in the opposite direction after leaving the castle grounds, until it reaches failford. there it meets a solid rock formation, which compels it to turn squarely to the right and flow into the ayr, about three hundred yards away. at a narrow place where the fail had cut a passage through the soft rock on its way to the ayr, burns and highland mary parted. he stood on one side of the river and mary on the other, and after they had exchanged bibles, they made their vows of intention to marry, he holding one side of an open bible and she the other side. mary went home to prepare for her marriage, but a relative in greenock fell ill with malignant fever, and mary went to nurse him, and caught the fever herself and died. the poems he wrote to her and about her made her a renowned character. when in 1919 a shipbuilding company at greenock, after a four years' struggle, finally purchased the church and churchyard in which mary was buried, with the intention of removing the bodies to another place, the british parliament passed an act providing that her monument must stand forever over her grave, where it had always stood.[4] though she held a humble position, the beautiful poems of her lover gave her an honoured place in the hearts of millions of people all over the world. burns did not go to jamaica, although he had secured a berth on a ship to take him to that beautiful island. calls came to him just in time to publish an edition of his poems in edinburgh. he answered the calls, startled and delighted edinburgh society, published his poems, and met clarinda. mrs m'lehose was a cultured and charming grass-widow. she had been courted and married by a wealthy young man in glasgow when she was only seventeen years of age. though a lady of the highest character, on the advice of relatives and friends she left her husband. he then went to jamaica. burns and mrs m'lehose mutually admired each other when they met, and their friendship quickly developed into affection. under the names of sylvander and clarinda they conducted a love correspondence which will probably always remain the finest love correspondence of the ages. clarinda was a religious and cultured woman; burns was a religious and cultured man, so their letters of love are on a high plane. clarinda wrote very good poems as well as good prose, and burns wrote some of his best poems to clarinda. his parting song to clarinda is, in the opinion of many literary men, the greatest love-song of its kind ever written. those who study the clarinda correspondence will find not only love, but many interesting philosophical discussions regarding religion and human life. thus ends the record of his real loves, notwithstanding the outrageous misstatements that his loves extended, according to one writer, to nearly four hundred. he had just four deep and serious loves, not counting the two deep and transforming affections of his adolescent period for nellie kirkpatrick and peggy thomson. he loved four women: alison begbie, jean armour, mary campbell, and mrs m'lehose. at the age of twenty-one he loved alison begbie, and, when twenty-two, he asked her to marry him. she declined his proposal. he was too shy to propose to her when he was with her. get this undoubted fact into your consciousness, and think about it fairly and reasonably, and it will help you to get a truer vision of the real burns. read the proposal and his subsequent letter on pages 51-55, and your mind should form juster conceptions of burns as a lover and as a man. you will find it harder to be misled by the foolish or the malicious misrepresentations that have too long passed as facts concerning him as a lover. from twenty-two to twenty-five he had no lover; then he loved and married jean armour. no act of his prevented that marriage-contract remaining in force. when her father forced the destruction of the contract, and much against his will, and in defiance of the love of his heart, he found that he had lost his wife beyond any reasonable hope of reconciliation and reunion, and was therefore free to love another, he loved mary campbell, and honourably proposed marriage to her. she accepted his offer, but died soon after. he was untrue to no one when he took clarinda into his heart. of course he could not ask her to marry him, as she was already married. the first three women he loved after he reached the age of twenty-one years were alison begbie, jean armour, and mary campbell. the first refused his offer; he married the second, and was forced into freedom by her father; the third accepted his offer of marriage, but died before they could be married. the fourth woman whom he loved loved him, but could not marry him, a fact recognised by both of them. there is not a shadow of evidence of inconstancy or unfaithfulness on his part in the eight years during which he loved the four women--the only four he did love after he became a man. it may be answered that burns was not loyal to jean armour because he loved mary campbell and clarinda after he was married to jean. burns absolutely believed that his marriage to jean was annulled by the burning of the marriage certificate. he would not have pledged matrimony with mary campbell if he had known that jean was still his wife. when mary died, and he found jean's father was willing that he might again marry jean, he did marry her in gavin hamilton's home. in writing to clarinda he forgot himself for a moment and spoke disrespectfully of jean, but his prompt and honourable action in marrying her soon after showed him to be a true man. it should ever be remembered that burns was in no sense a fickle lover. to each of the three women whom he loved, his love was reverent and true. he had a reverent affection for alison begbie after she refused him; he loved jean armour after she allowed their marriage-certificate to be destroyed; and he loved mary campbell, not only till she died, but to the end of his life. the fact that he sat out in the stackyard on ellisland farm through the long moonlit night, with tears flowing down his cheeks, on the third anniversary of her death, and wrote 'to mary in heaven,' proves the depth and permanency of his love. in 'my eppie adair' he says: by love and by beauty, by law and by duty, i swear to be true to my eppie adair. in these lines burns truly defines his own type of love. it is true that miss margaret chalmers told the poet campbell, after burns died, that he had asked her to marry him. his letters to her are letters of deep friendship--reverent friendship--not love. it is true that the last poem he ever wrote was written to margaret chalmers, and that in it he said: full well thou knowest i love thee, dear. but it must be remembered that burns had been married to jean and living happily with her for eight years, so the love of this line was not the love that is expected to lead to marriage, but an expression of reverent affection. the whole tenor of this last poem of his life indicates that he thought her feeling for him was cooling, and his deep affectionate friendship urged him to plead with her for a continuance of their long-existing and quite unusual relationship. many people will doubtless say, 'what about chloris?' chloris was his name for jean lorimer, the daughter of a friend of his who dwelt near him when he lived on ellisland farm after his second marriage to jean armour. chloris was a sweet singer and player, who frequently visited mrs burns, and who sang for burns, sometimes, with mrs burns the grand old scottish airs that had long been sung to words that were not pure, and to which he was writing new and pure words nearly every day. a number of these songs were addressed to chloris, but in a book of his poems presented to miss lorimer he states clearly that the love he appeared to be expressing for her was an assumed, or, as he called it, a 'fictitious,' and not a real love. when burns had earned five hundred pounds by the sale of the edinburgh edition of his poems, he decided 'that he had the responsibility for the temporal and possibly the eternal welfare of a dearly loved fellow-creature;' so again giving proof of his honest manhood and recognising his plain duty, he married jean armour a second time, in the home of his dear friend gavin hamilton. of the first three women whom he loved one refused him, one died after their sacred engagement, and the third he married twice. the fourth and last woman that he loved could not marry. any one of the first three would have made him a good wife, but no one could have been more considerate or more faithful than the one he married. could any reasonable man believe that if burns had really loved other women, as he loved alison begbie, jean armour, mary campbell, and mrs m'lehose, the names of the other women would not have been known by the world? he never tried to hide his love. he wrote songs of love with other names attached to them, used for variety. in a letter to a friend he regretted the use of 'chloris' in several of his ellisland and dumfries poems, and to her directly he said they were 'fictitious' or assumed expressions of love. notwithstanding the foolish or malicious statements that burns had many lovers, he had but four real loves. one would have been his limit if the first had accepted him and lived as long as he did. it has been said that 'the love of burns was the love of the flesh.' it is worth while to examine the love-songs of burns to learn what elements of thought and feeling dominated his mind and heart. he wrote two hundred and fifty love-songs, and only three or four contain indelicate references; even these were not considered improper in his time. what were the themes of his love-songs? what were the symbols that he used to typify love? there is no beauty or delight in nature on earth or sky that he did not use as a symbol of true love. he saw god through nature as few men ever saw him, and he therefore naturally used the beauty and sweetness and glory of nature to help to reveal the beauty and sweetness and glory of love, the element of the divine that thrilled him with the deepest joy and the highest reverence. in his first poem, written when he was fifteen, describing his fourteen-year-old sweetheart, he says: a bonnie lass, i will confess, is pleasant to the e'e; but without some better qualities, she's no a lass for me. * * * * but it's innocence and modesty that polishes the dart. 'tis this in nelly pleases me, 'tis this enchants my soul; for absolutely in my breast she reigns without control. of peggy thomson, his second love, he wrote: not vernal showers to budding flowers, not autumn to the farmer, so dear can be as thou to me, my fair, my lovely charmer. of alison begbie he wrote in 'the lass o' cessnock banks': but it's not her air, her form, her face, tho' matching beauty's fabled queen; 'tis the mind that shines in ev'ry grace, and chiefly in her rogueish een. in 'young peggy blooms' he describes her: young peggy blooms our bonniest lass, her blush is like the morning, the rosy dawn, the springing grass with early gems adorning. her eyes outshine the radiant beams that gild the passing shower, and glitter o'er the crystal streams, and cheer each fresh'ning flower. in 'will ye go to the indies, my mary?' he says: o sweet grows the lime and the orange, and the apple o' the pine; but a' the charms o' the indies can never equal thine. the following are emblems of beauty in the 'lass o' ballochmyle': on every blade the pearls hang. her look was like the morning's eye, her air like nature's vernal smile. fair is the morn in flowery may, and sweet is night in autumn mild. describing 'my nannie o' he says: her face is fair, her heart is true; as spotless as she's bonnie, o; the opening gowan, wat wi' dew, daisy nae purer is than nannie o. in 'the birks [birches] of aberfeldy' he speaks to his lover of 'summer blinking on flowery braes' and 'playing o'er the crystal streamlets;' and the 'blythe singing o' the little birdies' and 'the braes o'erhung wi' fragrant woods' and 'the hoary cliffs crowned wi' flowers;' and 'the streamlet pouring over a waterfall.' love and nature were united in his heart. in 'blythe was she' he describes the lady by saying she was like beautiful things: her looks were like a flower in may. her smile was like a simmer morn; her bonnie face it was as meek as any lamb upon a lea; and the 'ev'ning sun.' her step was as light's a bird upon a thorn. he wrote 'o' a' the airts the wind can blaw' about jean armour after they were married, while he was building their home on ellisland. he says in this exquisite song: by day and night my fancy's flight is ever wi' my jean. i see her in the dewy flowers, i see her sweet and fair; i hear her in the tunefu' birds, i hear her charm the air: there's not a bonnie flower that springs by fountain, shaw, or green; woodland there's not a bonnie bird that sings, but minds me o' my jean. to jean he wrote again: it is na, jean, thy bonnie face, nor shape that i admire; although thy beauty and thy grace might weel awake desire. something in ilka part o' thee to praise, to love, i find; but dear as is thy form to me, still dearer is thy mind. in 'delia--an ode,' he uses the 'fair face of orient day,' and 'the tints of the opening rose' to suggest her beauty, and 'the lark's wild warbled lay' and the 'sweet sound of the tinkling rill' to suggest the sweetness of her voice. in 'i gaed a waefu' gate yestreen' he says: she talked, she smiled, my heart she wiled; she charmed my _soul_, i wist na how. it was the soul of burns that responded to love. neither alison begbie nor mary campbell excelled in beauty, and no one acquainted with their high character could have had the temerity to suggest that love for them was 'the love of the flesh.' his beautiful poems to jean armour place his love for her on a high plane. he was a man of strong passion, but passion was not the source of his love. in 'aye sae bonnie, blythe and gay' he says: she's aye sae neat, sae trim, sae light, the graces round her hover, ae look deprived me o' my heart, and i became her lover 'ilka bird sang o' its love' he makes miss kennedy say in 'the banks o' doon.' as the birds ever sang love to burns, he naturally makes them sing love to all hearts. in 'the bonnie wee thing' he gives high qualifications for love kindling: wit, and grace, and love, and beauty in ae constellation shine; to adore thee is my duty, goddess o' this soul o' mine. in 'the charms of lovely davies' he says: each eye it cheers when she appears, like phoebus in the morning, when past the shower, and ev'ry flower the garden is adorning. the last three poems from which quotations have been made were written about two ladies whose lovers had been untrue to them: the first about miss kennedy, a member of one of the leading ayrshire families; the other two about miss davies, a relative of the glenriddell family. in a letter to miss davies he said: 'woman is the blood-royal of life; let there be slight degrees of precedency among them, but let them all be sacred. whether this last sentiment be right or wrong, i am not accountable; it is an original component feature of my mind.' burns was not in love with either miss kennedy or miss davies, but he explains the writing of the songs to miss davies, in a letter enclosing 'bonnie wee thing,' by saying, 'when i meet a person of my own heart i positively can no more desist from rhyming on impulse than an ã�olian harp can refuse its tones to the streaming air.' one of his most beautiful poems is 'the posie,' which he planned to pull for his 'ain dear may.' the primrose i will pu', the firstling o' the year, and i will pu' the pink, the emblem o' my dear, for she's the pink o' womankind, and blooms without a peer. i'll pu' the budding rose, when phoebus peeps in view, for it's like a baumy kiss o' her sweet, bonnie mou'; the hyacinth's for constancy, wi' its unchanging blue. the lily it is pure, and the lily it is fair, and in her lovely bosom i'll place the lily there; the daisy's for simplicity and unaffected air. the woodbine i will pu', when the e'ening star is near, and the diamond draps o' dew shall be her een sae clear; the violet's for modesty, which weel she fa's to wear. i'll tie the posie round wi' the silken band o' luve, and i'll place it in her breast, and i'll swear by a' above that to my latest draught o' life the band shall ne'er remove, and this will be a posie to my ain dear may. in 'lovely polly stewart' he says: o lovely polly stewart, o charming polly stewart, there's ne'er a flower that blooms in may that's half so fair as thou art. the flower it blaws, it fades, it fa's, and art can ne'er renew it; but worth and truth, eternal youth will gie to polly stewart. in 'thou fair eliza' he says: not the bee upon the blossom, in the pride o' sinny noon; not the little sporting fairy, all beneath the simmer moon; not the minstrel, in the moment fancy lightens in his e'e, kens the pleasure, feels the rapture, that thy presence gies to me. in 'my bonie bell' he writes: the smiling spring comes in rejoicing, the surly winter grimly flies; now crystal clear are the falling waters, and bonie blue are the sunny skies. fresh o'er the mountains breaks forth the morning, the evening gilds the ocean's swell; all creatures joy in the sun's returning, and i rejoice in my bonie bell. 'sweet afton' was suggested by the following: 'i charge you, o ye daughters of jerusalem, that ye stir not, nor awaken my love--my dove, my undefiled! the flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in the land.' in descriptive power and in fond and reverent love no poem of burns, or any other writer, surpasses sweet afton. authorities have been divided in regard to the person who was the mary of sweet afton. currie and lockhart declined to accept the statement of gilbert burns that it was highland mary. chambers and douglas, the most illuminating and reliable of the early biographers of burns, agree with gilbert. one of mrs dunlop's daughters stated that she heard burns himself say that mary campbell was the woman whose name he used to represent the lover for whom he asked such reverent consideration. he had no lover at any period of his life on the afton. he had but one lover named mary, and she stirred him to a degree of reverence that toned the music of his love to the end of his life. mary campbell was alive to burns in a truly realistic sense when he wrote the sacred poem 'sweet afton.' in 'o were my love yon lilac fair' he assumes that his love might be a lilac fair, wi' purpling blossoms in the spring, and i a bird to shelter there, when wearied on my little wing. in the second verse he says: o gin my love were yon red rose if that grows upon the castle wa'; and i mysel' a drop o' dew, into her bonie breast to fa'! could imagination kindle more pure ideals to reveal love than these? in 'bonie jean--a ballad' he gives two delightful pictures of love: as in the bosom of the stream the moonbeam dwells at dewy e'en; so trembling, pure, was tender love within the breast of bonie jean. * * * * * the sun was sinking in the west, the birds sang sweet in ilka grove; every his cheek to hers he fondly laid, and whispered thus his tale of love. in 'phillis the fair' he writes: while larks, with little wing, fann'd the pure air, tasting the breathing spring, forth did i fare; gay the sun's golden eye peep'd o'er the mountains high; such thy morn! did i cry, phillis the fair. in each bird's careless song glad did i share; while yon wild-flow'rs among, chance led me there! sweet to the op'ning day, rosebuds bent the dewy spray; such thy bloom! did i say, phillis the fair. in 'by allan stream' he describes the glories of nature, but gives them second place to the joys of love: the haunt o' spring's the primrose-brae, the summer joys the flocks to follow; how cheery thro' her short'ning day is autumn in her weeds o' yellow; but can they melt the glowing heart, or chain the soul in speechless pleasure? or thro' each nerve the rapture dart, like meeting her, our bosom's treasure? in 'phillis, the queen o' the fair' he uses many beautiful things to illustrate her charms: the daisy amused my fond fancy, so artless, so simple, so wild: thou emblem, said i, o' my phillis- for she is simplicity's child. the rosebud's the blush o' my charmer, her sweet, balmy lip when 'tis prest: how fair and how pure is the lily! but fairer and purer her breast. yon knot of gay flowers in the arbour, they ne'er wi' my phillis can vie: her breath is the breath of the woodbine, its dew-drop o' diamond her eye. her voice is the song o' the morning, that wakes thro' the green-spreading grove, when phoebus peeps over the mountains on music, and pleasure, and love. but beauty, how frail and how fleeting! the bloom of a fine summer's day; while worth, in the mind o' my phillis, will flourish without a decay. in 'my love is like a red, red rose' he uses exquisite symbolism: my luve is like a red, red rose that's newly sprung in june; my luve is like a melodie that's sweetly play'd in tune. as fair art thou, my bonie lass, so deep in luve am i; and i will luve thee still, my dear, till a' the seas gang dry. in the pastoral song, 'behold, my love, how green the groves,' he says in the last verse: these wild-wood flowers i've pu'd to deck that spotless breast o' thine; the courtier's gems may witness love, but never love like mine. in the dialogue song 'philly and willy,' _he says_, as songsters of the early spring are ilka day more sweet to hear, each so ilka day to me mair dear and charming is my philly. _she replies_, as on the brier the budding rose still richer breathes and fairer blows, so in my tender bosom grows the love i bear my willy. in 'o bonnie was yon rosy brier' he says: o bonnie was yon rosy brier that blooms so far frae haunt o' man; and bonnie she, and ah, how dear! it shaded frae the e'ening sun. yon rosebuds in the morning dew, how pure amang the leaves sae green; but purer was the lover's vow they witnessed in their shade yestreen. all in its rude and prickly bower, that crimson rose, how sweet and fair. but love is far a sweeter flower, amid life's thorny path o' care. in 'a health to ane i loe dear'--one of his most perfect love-songs--he says: thou art sweet as the smile when fond lovers meet, and soft as their parting tear. * * * * * 'tis sweeter for thee despairing than aught in the world beside. in 'my peggy's charms,' describing miss margaret chalmers, burns confines himself mainly to her mental and spiritual charms. this was clearly a distinctive characteristic of nearly the whole of his love-songs. no other man ever wrote so many pure songs without suggestion of the flesh as did robert burns. my peggy's face, my peggy's form, the frost of hermit age might warm; my peggy's worth, my peggy's mind, might charm the first of human kind. i love my peggy's angel air, her face so truly, heavenly fair. her native grace, so void of art; but i adore my peggy's heart. the tender thrill, the pitying tear, the generous purpose, nobly dear; the gentle look that rage disarms- these are all immortal charms. in his 'epistle to davie--a brother poet' burns, after detailing the many hardships and sorrows of the poor, forgets the hardships, and recalls his blessings: there's a' the pleasures o' the heart, the lover and the frien'; ye hae your meg, your dearest part, and i my darling jean. it warms me, it charms me, to mention but her name; it heats me, it beets me, kindles and sets me a' on flame. o all ye powers who rule above! o thou whose very self art love! thou know'st my words sincere! the life-blood streaming through my heart, or my more dear immortal part is not more fondly dear! when heart-corroding care and grief deprive my soul of rest, her dear idea brings relief and solace to my breast. thou being, all-seeing, o hear my fervent prayer; still take her, and make her thy most peculiar care. three years after the death of highland mary, burns remained out in the stackyard on ellisland farm and composed 'to mary in heaven.' nothing could more strikingly prove the sincerity, the permanence, the purity, and the sacredness of the white-souled love of burns than this poem: thou ling'ring star, with less'ning ray, that lov'st to greet the early morn, again thou usher'st in the day my mary from my soul was torn. o mary! dear departed shade! where is thy place of blissful rest? see'st thou thy lover lowly laid? hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast? that sacred hour can i forget? can i forget that hallow'd grove where, by the winding ayr, we met to live one day of parting love? eternity can not efface those records dear of transports past; thy image at our last embrace; ah! little thought we 'twas our last! ayr, gurgling, kiss'd his pebbled shore, o'erhung with wild-woods, thickening green; the fragrant birch and hawthorn hoar twined amorous round the raptured scene: the flowers sprang wanton to be prest, the birds sang love on every spray; till too, too soon, the glowing west, proclaimed the speed of wingã¨d day. still o'er these scenes my mem'ry wakes, and fondly broods with miser-care; time but th' impression stronger makes, as streams their channels deeper wear. my mary, dear departed shade! where is thy place of blissful rest? see'st thou thy lover lowly laid? hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast? the general themes of this sacred poem, written three years after mary campbell's death, are the preponderating themes of his love-songs. no love-songs ever written have so little of even embracing and kissing as the love-songs of burns, except the sonnets of mrs browning. it is worthy of note that mary campbell was not a beauty--her attractions were kindness, honesty, and unselfishness; yet, though happily married himself, he loved her, three years after her death, as profoundly as when they parted on the fail, more than three years before he wrote the poem. chapter viii. burns a philosopher. the fine training by their father developed the minds of both robert and gilbert burns as original, independent thinkers, chiefly in regard to religious, ethical, and social problems. professor dugald stewart, of edinburgh university, expressed the opinion that 'the mind of burns was so strong and clear that he might have taken high rank as a thinker in any department of human thought; probably attaining as high rank in any other department as he achieved as a poet.' the quotations given from his writings in the preceding pages prove that he was a philosopher of unusual power in regard to religion, democracy, and brotherhood. lockhart said, speaking of the ranking of burns as a thinker, compared with the best trained minds in edinburgh: 'even the stateliest of these philosophers had enough to do to maintain the attitude of equality when brought into contact with burns's gigantic understanding.' many of his poems are ornamented and increased in value by flashes of philosophic thought. his 'epistle to a young friend' is a series of philosophical statements for human guidance. ye'll find mankind an unco squad, strange and muckle they may grieve ye, much i'll no say men are villains a'; the real hardened wicked, wha hae nae check but human law, are to a few restricket; restricted but, och! mankind are unco weak, very an' little to be trusted; if self the wavering balance shake it's rarely right adjusted. he takes a kindly view, that men as a whole are not so bad as pessimists would have us believe; that there are comparatively few that have no respect for the divine law, and are kept in check only by the fear of human law; but mourns because most men yet think more of self than of their neighbours, to whom they may be of service, and sees that, where our relations with our fellow-men are not satisfactorily balanced, the destroyer of harmony is universally selfishness in one form or another. the fear o' hell's a hangman's whip to haud the wretch in order. even yet this is advanced philosophy, that fear, being a negative motive, cannot kindle human power or lead men to higher growth. so far as it can influence the human soul, its effect must be to depress it. not only the fear of hell, but fear of anything, is an agency of evil. some day a better word than fear will be used to express the proper attitude of human souls towards god. but where you feel your honour grip let that aye be your border. what you think of yourself matters more to you than what others think of you. let honour and conscience be your guide, and go not beyond the limits they prescribe. stop at the slightest warning honour gives, and resolutely keep its laws, uncaring consequences. in regard to religious matters, he gave his young friend sage advice: the great creator to revere must sure become the creature; but still the preaching cant forbear, and ev'n the rigid feature. the soul's attitude to the creator is a determining factor in deciding its happiness and growth. reverence should not mean solemnity and awe. reverence based on dread blights the soul and dwarfs it. true reverence reaches its highest when its source is joy; then it becomes productive of character--constructively transforming character. the formalism of 'preaching cant' robs religion of its natural attractiveness, especially to younger people; the 'rigid feature' turns those who would enjoy religion from association with those who claim to be christians, and yet, especially when they speak about religion, look like melancholy and miserable criminals whose final appeal for pardon has been refused. burns's philosophy would lift the shadows of frightfulness from religion and let its joyousness be revealed. an atheist's laugh's a poor exchange for deity offended. a correspondence fixed wi' heaven is sure a noble anchor. to burns, the relationship of the soul to god was of first importance. he cared little for man's formalisms, but personal connection with a loving father he regarded as the supreme source of happiness. only a reverent and philosophic mind would think of prayer as 'a correspondence with heaven.' burns holds a high rank as a profound philosopher of human life, of human growth, and of human consciousness of the divine, as the vital centre of human power. burns was a philosopher in his recognition that productive work is essential to human happiness and progress. in 'the twa dogs' he makes cã¦sar say: but human bodies are sic fools, for a' their colleges and schools, that when nae real ills perplex them, they mak enow themselves to vex them; an' ay the less they hae to sturt them, trouble in like proportion less will hurt them. * * * * * but gentleman, and ladies warst, wi' ev'n-down want o' wark are curst. burns had real sympathy for the idle rich. he saw that idleness leads to many evils, and that probably the worst evils, those that produce most unhappiness, are those that result from neglecting to use, or misusing, powers that, if wisely used, would produce comfort and happiness for ourselves as well as for others. he believed that every man and woman would be happier if engaged in some productive occupation, and that those who do not use their hands to produce for themselves and their fellows are 'curst wi' want o' wark.' this belief is based on an old and very profound philosophy, that is not even yet understood as widely and as fully as it should be: the philosophy first expounded by plato, and afterwards by goethe and ruskin, that 'all evil springs from unused, or misused, good.' whatever element is highest in our lives will degrade us most if misused. the best in the lives of the idle sours and causes deterioration instead of development of character, and breeds discontent and unhappiness, so that days are 'insipid, dull and tasteless,' and nights are 'unquiet, lang and restless.' burns showed that he understood this revealing philosophy in 'the vision.' in this great poem he assumes that coila, the genius of kyle, his native district in ayrshire, appeared to him in a vision, and revealed a clear understanding of the epoch events of his past life and their influence on his development, and gave him advice to guide him for the future. in one verse he says: i saw thy pulse's maddening play wild send thee pleasure's devious way, misled by fancy's meteor-ray, by passion driven; but yet the light that led astray was light from heaven. he was attacked and criticised severely for the statement contained in the last two lines. the statement is but philosophic truth that his critics did not understand. fancy and passion are elements of power given from heaven. properly used they become important elements in human happiness and development. improperly used they produce unhappiness and degradation. burns understood clearly the philosophic basis of modern education, the importance of developing the individuality, or selfhood, or special power of each child. the poem he wrote to his friend robert graham of fintry, beginning: when nature her great masterpiece designed and framed her last, best work, the human mind, her eye intent on all the mazy plan, she formed of various parts the various man, is a philosophical description of how nature produced various types of men, giving to each mind special powers and aptitudes. the thought of the poem is the basis of all modern educational thought: the value of the individuality of each child, and the importance of developing it. he expresses very beautifully the philosophy of the ephemeral nature of certain forms of pleasure in eight lines of 'tam o' shanter': but pleasures are like poppies spread, you seize the flower, its bloom is shed; or as the snowfall in the river, a moment white, then melts forever; or like the borealis race, that flit e'er you can point their place; or like the rainbow's lovely form, evanishing amid the storm. burns understood the philosophy of the simple life in the development of character and happiness. in 'the cotter's saturday night,' after dilating on the glories of simple, reverent religion, as compared with 'religion's pride,' in all the pomp of method and of art, when men display to congregations wide devotion's every grace except the heart, he prays for the young people of scotland- long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content; and o! may heaven their simple lives prevent from luxury's contagion, weak and vile! then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent, a virtuous populace may rise the while, and stand a wall of fire around their much-loved isle. he understood the value of simplicity in life as well as in religion, and expressed it in admirable form. 'the address to the unco guid' has a kindly philosophic sympathy running like a stream of light through it; the profound sympathy of the master who searched for the one stray lamb, and who suggested that he who was without sin should cast the first stone. the last verse especially contains a sublime human philosophy, that if studied till understood, and then practised, would work a greatly needed change in the attitude of the rest of humanity towards the so-called wayward. it is one of the strange anomalies of life that, generally, professing christian women have in the past been the last to come with christian sympathy of an affectionate, and sisterly, and respectful quality to take an erring sister in their arms to try to prove that she still possessed their esteem, and to rekindle faith in her heart. his poem to mrs dunlop on 'new year's day, 1790;' 'a man's a man for a' that;' 'a winter night;' 'sketch in verse;' and 'verses written in friar's carse hermitage,' all show him to have been a philosophic student of human nature. a few quotations from letters to his friends will show his philosophical attitude to general matters, as the quotations from his letters showed the clearness and trueness of his philosophy regarding religion, democracy, and brotherhood. burns saw man's duty to his fellows and to himself in this life. in a letter to robert ainslie, edinburgh, 1788, he wrote: 'i have no objection to prefer prodigality to avarice, in some few instances; but i appeal to your observation, if you have not met, and often met, with the same disingenuousness, the same hollow-hearted insincerity, and disintegrative depravity of principle, in the hackneyed victims of profusion, as in the unfeeling children of parsimony. i have every possible reverence for the much-talked-of world beyond the grave, and i wish that which piety believes, and virtue deserves, may be all matter of fact. but in all things belonging to, and terminating in, the present scene of existence, man has serious business on hand. whether a man shall shake hands with welcome in the distinguished elevation of respect, or shrink from contempt in the abject corner of insignificance; whether he shall wanton under the tropic of plenty, or at least enjoy himself in the comfortable latitudes of easy convenience, or starve in the arctic circle of poverty; whether he shall rise in the manly consciousness of a self-approving mind, or sink beneath a galling load of regret and remorse--these are alternatives of the last moment.' since the time of burns men and women, both in the churches and out of them, have learned to set more store on the importance of living truly on the earth, and have ceased to a large extent to think only of a life to come after death. men and women are now trying in increasing numbers to make it more heavenly here. burns taught a sound philosophy of contentment as a basis for happiness. he wrote to mr ainslie in 1789: 'you need not doubt that i find several very unpleasant and disagreeable circumstances in my business [that of a gauger], but i am tired with and disgusted at the language of complaint at the evils of life. human existence in the most favourable situations does not abound with pleasures, and has its inconveniences and ills; capricious, foolish man mistakes these inconveniences and ills, as if they were the peculiar property of his own particular situation; and hence that eternal fickleness, that love of change, which has ruined, and daily does ruin, many a fine fellow, as well as many a blockhead; and is almost without exception a constant source of disappointment and misery. so far from being dissatisfied with my present lot, i earnestly pray the great disposer of events that it may never be worse, and i think i can lay my hand on my heart and say "i shall be content."' good, sound philosophy of contentment! not the contentment that does not try to improve life's conditions, but the wise contentment that recognises the best in present conditions, instead of foolishly resenting what it cannot change. burns taught the philosophy of good citizenship. in 1789 he wrote to mr ainslie: 'if the relations we stand in to king, country, kindred, and friends be anything but the visionary fancies of dreaming metaphysicians; if religion, virtue, magnanimity, generosity, humanity, and justice be aught but empty sounds; then the man who may be said to live only for others, for the beloved, honourable female whose tender, faithful embrace endears life, and for the helpless little innocents who are to be the men and women, the worshippers of his god, the subjects of his king, and the support, nay the very vital existence, of his country in the ensuing age, is the type of truest manhood.' this quotation from a letter written to a warm, personal friend from whom he was not seeking any favours gives an insight into a rational mind loyal to god, loyal to his king, loyal to his country, and lovingly loyal to his wife and family. in a letter to the right rev. dr geddes, a roman catholic bishop resident in edinburgh, a very kind friend to burns, he wrote, 1789: 'i am conscious that wherever i am, you do me the honour to interest yourself in my welfare. it gives me pleasure to inform you that i am here at last [at ellisland], stationary in the serious business of life, and have now not only the retired leisure, but the hearty inclination to attend to those great and important questions: what i am? where i am? for what i am destined? thus with a rational aim and method in life, you may easily guess, my reverend and much honoured friend, that my characteristical trade is not forgotten; i am, if possible, more than ever an enthusiast to the muses. i am determined to study man and nature, and in that view, incessantly to try if the ripening and corrections of years can enable me to produce something worth preserving.' bishop gillis, a roman catholic bishop who lived more than sixty years after the death of burns, said, in reference to the letter from which this quotation was made: 'if any man, after perusing this letter, will still say that the mind of burns was beyond the reach of religious influence, or, in other words, that he was a scoffer at revelation, that man need not be reasoned with, as his own mind must be hopelessly beyond the reach of argument.' in a letter to his friend cunningham he wrote, 1789: 'what strange beings we are! since we have a portion of conscious existence equally capable of enjoying pleasure, happiness, and rapture, or of suffering pain, wretchedness, and misery, it is surely worthy of inquiry whether there be not such a thing as a science of life; whether method, economy, and fertility of expedients be not applicable to enjoyment, and whether there be not a want of dexterity in pleasure which renders our little scantling of happiness still less; and a profuseness and intoxication in bliss which leads to satiety, disgust, and self-abhorrence. 'there is not a doubt but that health, talents, character, decent competency, respectable friends, are real, substantial blessings; and yet do we not daily see those who enjoy many, or all, of these good things, and _notwithstanding_ contrive to be as unhappy as others to whose lot few of them have fallen? i believe one great source of this mistake or misconduct is owing to a certain stimulus, with us called ambition, which goads us up the hill of life--not as we ascend other eminences, for the laudable curiosity of viewing an extended landscape, but rather for the dishonest pride of looking down on others of our fellow-creatures, seemingly diminutive in other stations, &c.' his philosophy clearly recognised the evils of unduly centring our minds and hearts on pleasure, and thus not only robbing ourselves of development, and humanity of the advantage of the many things we might do in our overtime devoted to pleasure, but destroying our interest in the things that were intended to give us happiness. he also recognised fully the evils of selfish ambition which aims at attaining higher positions than others; which climbs, not to get into purer air to see more widely our true relationships to our fellow-men, but for the degrading satisfaction of being able to look down with a hardening pride that separates humanity into groups instead of uniting all men in brotherhood. a man whose heart and mind are engrossed by base material aims cannot grow truly, and he loses the advantages that should have come to him from the elements of blessing he possesses by misusing them for selfish ends. in another letter he wrote: 'all my fears and cares are of this world; if there is another, an honest man has nothing to fear from it. i hate a man that wishes to be a deist; but, i fear, every fair, unprejudiced inquirer must in some degree be a sceptic. it is not that there are any very staggering arguments against the immortality of man, but, like electricity, phlogiston, &c., the subject is so involved in darkness that we want data to go upon.' his philosophy left him no fears for what comes after death. he had deep faith in the justice of god. 'i believe,' he said, 'that god perfectly understands the being he has made.' believing this, and believing also that god is just, he feared not the future. burns, as he said to mrs dunlop, was 'in his idle moments sometimes a little sceptical.' but they were only moments. he knew there were problems he could not solve, and so, as he wrote to dr candlish, 'he was glad to grasp revealed religion.' a thoughtful man requires more faith in revealed religion than a man who does not really think, but only thinks he is thinking, when other people's thoughts are running through his head. burns needed strong faith, and he had it even about religious matters he could not explain. 'the necessities of my own heart,' as he wrote to mrs dunlop, 'gave the lie to my cold philosophisings.' his 'ode to mrs dunlop on new year's day, 1790,' said: the voice of nature loudly cries, and many a message from the skies, that something in us never dies. he accepted by faith the 'messages from the skies,' and in his soul harmonised the messages with the 'voice of nature,' even though his philosophic mind searched for proof of problems he could not solve. in a letter to peter hill, 1790, he wrote: 'mankind are by nature benevolent creatures, except in a few scoundrelly instances. i do not think that avarice for the good things we chance to have is born with us; but we are placed here among so much nakedness and hunger and poverty and want, that we are under a damning necessity of studying selfishness in order that we may exist. still there are in every age a few souls that all the wants and woes of life cannot debase into selfishness, or even give the necessary alloy of caution and prudence. if ever i am in danger of vanity, it is when i contemplate myself on this side of my disposition and character. god knows i am no saint; i have a whole host of follies and sins to answer for, but if i could (and i believe i do, as far as i can), i would 'wipe away all tears from all eyes.' burns was not self-righteous. he moralises in this quotation not as one of the 'unco guid,' but as a man on what he thought was one of life's most perplexing problems, poverty. he saw the problem more keenly than most men see it yet. it was not the poverty of burns himself that, as carlyle believed, made him write and work for freedom and justice for the labouring-classes. it is quite true, however, that one of his reasons for pleading for democracy was the poverty among the peasantry of his time. he saw the injustice of conditions, and admitted in his poem to davie, a brother poet, that it's hardly in a body's power to keep at times from being sour, to see how things are shared. burns recommended the philosophy of right, not expediency in public as well as private matters. he wrote a letter to mrs dunlop in 1790, in which he said: 'i believe, in my conscience, such ideas as, "my country; her independence; her honour; the illustrious names that mark the history of my native land," &c.--i believe these, among your _men of the world_; men who, in fact, guide, for the most part, and govern our world, are looked on as so many modifications of wrong-headedness. they knew the use of bawling out such terms to rouse or lead the rabble; but for their own private use, with almost all the _able statesmen_ that ever existed, or now exist, when they talk of right and wrong, they only mean proper and improper; and their measure of conduct is not what they ought, but _what they dare_. for the truth of this, i shall not ransack the history of nations, but appeal to one of the ablest judges of men, and himself one of the ablest men that ever lived--the celebrated earl of chesterfield. in fact a man that could thoroughly control his vices, whenever they interfered with his interest, and who could completely put on the appearance of every virtue as often as it suited his purposes, is, on the stanhopian plan, _the perfect man_, a man to lead nations. but are great abilities, complete without a flaw, and polished without a blemish, the standard of human excellence? this is certainly not the staunch opinion of _men of the world_; but i call on honour, virtue, and worth to give the stygian doctrine a loud negative! however, this must be allowed, that, if you abstract from man the idea of an existence beyond the grave, then the true measure of human conduct is _proper and improper_; virtue and vice, as dispositions of the heart, are, in that case, of scarcely the same import and value to the world at large as harmony and discord in the modifications of sound; and a delicate sense of honour, like a nice ear for music, though it may sometimes give the possessor an ecstasy unknown to the coarser organs of the herd, yet, considering the harsh gratings and inharmonic jars in this ill-tuned state of being, it is odds but the individual would be as happy, and certainly would be as much respected by the true judges of society, as it would then stand, without either a good ear or a good heart.... 'mackenzie has been called "the addison of the scots," and, in my opinion, addison would not be hurt at the comparison. if he has not addison's exquisite humour, he as certainly outdoes him in the tender and the pathetic. his _man of feeling_--but i am not counsel-learned in the laws of criticism--i estimate as the first performance of the kind i ever saw. from what book, moral or even pious, will the susceptible young mind receive impressions more congenial to humanity and kindness, generosity and benevolence--in short, more of all that ennobles the soul to herself, or endears her to others, than from the simple, affecting tale of poor harley? 'still, with all my admiration of mackenzie's writings, i do not know if they are the fittest reading for a young man who is about to set out, as the phrase is, to make his way into life. do you not think, madam, that among the few favoured of heaven in the structure of their minds (for such there certainly are) there may be a purity, a tenderness, a dignity, and elegance of soul, which are of no use, nay, in some degree absolutely disqualifying, for the truly important business of making a man's way into life?' burns understood the underlying philosophy of sensitiveness. in a letter to miss craik, 1790, he wrote: 'there is not among the martyrologies ever 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 wanton 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 bestowing 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 poesy is like bewitching woman: she has in all ages been accused of misleading mankind from the counsels 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 worth the name--that even the holy hermit's solitary prospect of paradisaical 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!' he based the last two lines in his 'poem on sensibility' on this philosophy: chords that vibrate sweetest pleasure, thrill the deepest notes of woe. his 'parting song to clarinda' reveals in the four lines, said by sir walter scott 'to contain the essence of a thousand love-tales,' how deepest love may bring darkest sorrow: had we never loved sae kindly, had we never loved sae blindly, never met--or never parted, we had ne'er been broken-hearted. in a letter to crawford tait, esq., edinburgh, 1790, requesting a sympathetic interest on behalf of a young man from ayrshire, he says: 'i shall give you my friend's character in two words: as to his head, he has talents enough, and more than enough, for common life; as to his heart, when nature had kneaded the kindly clay that composes it, she said, "i can no more." 'you, my good sir, were born under kinder stars; but your fraternal sympathy, i well know, can enter into the feelings of the young man who goes into life with the laudable ambition to _do_ something, and to _be_ something among his fellow-creatures; but whom the consciousness of friendless obscurity presses to the earth, and wounds to the soul! 'even the fairest of his virtues are against him. that independent spirit, and that ingenuous modesty--qualities inseparable from a noble mind--are, with the million, circumstances not a little disqualifying. what pleasure is in the power of the fortunate and the happy, by their notice and patronage, to brighten the countenance and glad the heart of such depressed youth! i am not so angry with mankind for their deaf economy of the purse--the goods of this world cannot be divided without being lessened--but why be a niggard of that which bestows bliss on a fellow-creature, yet takes nothing from our own means of enjoyment? we wrap ourselves up in the cloak of our better-fortune and turn away our eyes, lest the wants and woes of our brother-mortals should disturb the selfish apathy of our souls.' burns was a deep character student, and he was able to adjust the balance fairly when weighing the characteristics that count for success in public life, in business, and in private life. he always recommended honesty, and always admired that independent spirit and that ingenuous modesty inseparable from a noble mind. much as he admired them, however, he clearly understood that these admirable qualities might prevent the perfect development of a soul if they made a man morbidly sensitive, or interfered in any way with his faith in himself. speaking of 'independence and sensibility,' the same qualities he discussed in the letter quoted (to mr crawford tait), he says in a letter to peter hill, edinburgh, 1791, addressing poverty: 'by thee the man of sentiment, whose heart flows with independence, and melts with sensibility, inly pines under the neglect or writhes in bitterness of soul under the contumely of arrogant, unfeeling wealth.' burns taught the just philosophy of gratitude to god. in a letter to dr moore, of london, he wrote, 1791: 'whatsoever is not detrimental to society, and is of positive enjoyment, is of god, the giver of all good things, and ought to be received and enjoyed by his creatures with thankful delight.' we cannot yet estimate the philosophic vision of burns. it will grow clearer as century follows century. carlyle said of him: 'we see that in this man was the gentleness, the trembling pity of a woman, with the deep earnestness, the force, and passionate ardour of a hero. tears lie in him, and a consuming fire, as lightning lurks in the drop of the summer clouds.' so much for his heart; what says carlyle about his mind? 'burns never studied philosophy.... nevertheless, sufficient indication, if no proof sufficient, remains for us in his works; we discern the brawny movements of a gigantic though untutored strength; and can understand how, in conversation, his quick, sure insight into men and things may, as aught else about him, have amazed the best thinkers of his time and country. 'but, unless we mistake, the intellectual gift of burns is fine as well as strong. the more delicate relations of things could not well have escaped his eye, for they were intimately present to his heart. the logic of the senate and the forum is indispensable, but not all-sufficient; nay, perhaps the highest truth is that which will most certainly elude it, for this logic works by words, and "the highest," it has been said, "cannot be expressed in words." we are not without tokens of an openness for this higher truth also, a keen though uncultivated sense for it having existed in burns. mr stewart, it will be remembered, wondered that burns had formed some distinct conception of the doctrine of association. we rather think that far subtler things than the doctrine of association had from of old been familiar to him.' carlyle's last statement is correct. he admits the great essential truth that burns was a subtle philosopher. what a pity that such a man as carlyle should have thought it necessary to say that burns 'never studied philosophy.' the statement is incorrect, but, if it had been correct, why make it? and why call his mental strength 'untutored,' and his 'keen sense of the highest philosophy' 'uncultivated'? did any other philosopher of the time of burns in the universities reveal a more profound philosophy of human life, and make so many applications of it, as robert burns revealed in the quotations in this chapter, and in the chapters on democracy, brotherhood, and love? burns was a philosopher, an independent thinker, whose thought is more highly appreciated now than it was in the time of carlyle. in a letter to mrs graham, 1791, he wrote: 'i was born a poor dog; and however i may occasionally pick a better bone than i used to do, i know i must live and die poor. but i will indulge the flattering faith that my poetry will considerably outlive my poverty; and without any fustian affectation of spirit, i can promise and affirm that it must be no ordinary craving of the latter that shall ever make me do anything injurious to the honest fame of the former. whatever may be my failings--for failings are a part of human nature--may they ever be those of a generous heart and an independent mind.' speaking of the moral character of burns, carlyle is wise and just. he says: 'we are far from regarding him as guilty before the world, as guiltier than the average; nay, from doubting that he is less guilty than one of ten thousand tried at a tribunal far more rigid than that where the plebiscite of common civic reputations are pronounced, he has seemed to us less worthy of blame than of pity and wonder. but the world is habitually unjust in its judgments of such men; unjust on many grounds, of which this one may be stated as the substance; it decides, like a court of law, by dead statutes; and not positively, but negatively, less on what is done right than on what is or is not done wrong.... what burns did under his circumstances, and what he forbore to do, alike fill us with astonishment at the natural strength and worth of his character.' burns was naturally a student gifted with a great mind. his splendid mind was trained to act logically by his remarkable father, and quickened and illuminated by his great teacher john murdoch. he was a great philosopher, not merely because he read locke's 'essay on the human understanding' when a boy, but because during his short life he read with joyous interest many books of a philosophical character, and what is of infinitely greater importance, he interpreted all he read with an independent mind, and related all truth as he understood it to human life. he could discuss even the principles of spinoza, and 'venture into the daring path spinoza trod.' yet, as he told dr candlish, of edinburgh, he merely 'ventured in' to test spinoza's philosophy, which he soon found to be inadequate to the true development of the human soul, and therefore he 'was glad to grasp revealed religion.' not merely as a great poetic genius, but as a profound philosophic teacher of religion, democracy, and brotherhood--the most essentially vital elements related to the highest development of the souls of men and women--will the real robert burns become known as he is more justly and more deeply studied. chapter ix. the development of burns. born 1759--died 1796. _6 years old._ at six years of age he was sent to a school in a little home near alloway mill for a few months. then the school was closed, and william burns, his father, and a few neighbours engaged a remarkably fine teacher named john murdoch to teach their children. _7 years old._ when burns was seven years old his father moved to mount oliphant farm, about two miles from alloway. robert continued to attend murdoch's school. _8 years old._ he continued to attend murdoch's school. _9 years old._ murdoch, his beloved teacher, left alloway. he had not only been the teacher of burns, but had lent the boy books, among them being _the life of hannibal_. burns said this book 'was the earliest i recollect taking any pleasure in.' murdoch presented him with an english grammar and a book translated from the french, named _the school for love_. his imagination during this period was kindled by many legends, ghost stories, tales, and songs told and sung by an old lady, betty davidson, who lived in the family home. _10 years old._ read and studied with his father, discussing freely the merits of the books read. _11 years old._ he studied, and continued to study with enthusiasm, english grammar, and had become an unusually excellent scholar for his age in english. his father regularly taught his family after murdoch left alloway. a deep and lasting impression was made on robert's mind during this year by a _collection of letters_, written by the leading authors of queen anne's reign. _12 years old._ worked on the farm, and read with his father at night. wrote many letters to imaginary correspondents. _13 years old._ he was sent for a few weeks to a school in dalrymple to learn penmanship. john murdoch was appointed teacher in the high school at ayr. he became again a visitor to the burns' home, in which he was a most welcome guest. he presented pope's works to robert. during this year burns continued an imaginary correspondence with many people, and began to form a style moulded by the letters of the great prose-writers of queen anne's time. _14 years old._ boarded with murdoch in ayr for a few weeks, to devote himself to a deeper study of english. studied french a little, and gave a little attention to latin. the best influence of his brief period with murdoch was the kindling of his vision with higher ideals of life, his relationship to his fellow-men, and his duty to god. _15 years old._ began to take his place as an independent thinker with men, and surprised them by his wide knowledge and his unusual powers of expression and impression. took his share in reaping the grain on the farm, and fell in love with his harvest mate, nellie kirkpatrick, who bound and shocked, or stooked, what he reaped. she was a good-looking girl of fourteen, who sang well. burns said her love made him a poet. he composed his first poem, 'handsome nell,' as a tribute to her. his love for her undoubtedly kindled him at the centre of his power, as a true love that is respectfully treated by parents always does for a youth during the adolescent period. _16 years old._ he laboured hard on the farm, but was worried by his father's poverty, by the poorness of the soil of mount oliphant farm, and especially by the harsh and over-bearing manner in which his father was treated by the landlord's agent. hard labour and possibly insufficient nourishment for a youth growing rapidly, coupled with his humiliation at the conduct of the agent, and his sorrowful sympathy, affected his health. he became depressed and moody, and suffered from headaches and palpitation of the heart. he had become acquainted with a few respectable women in ayr, one of whom lent him the _spectator_ and pope's _homer_. these he read and digested with a growing interest, and used with rapidly developing power. _17 years old._ was sent to the school of hugh rodger at kirkoswald to learn mathematics, especially mensuration and surveying. he enjoyed the work and made rapid progress. he formed a friendship with william niven, who went to the same school; and in order to develop his powers as an independent thinker and a public speaker, he and willie organised a debating society of two, which met in formal debate once a week. this developed his intellectual powers more than the study of mathematics. his school-days in kirkoswald came to a sudden ending when he met peggy thomson, who lived next to the school. his second adolescent love came unexpectedly, and with great force. he says peggy thomson's charms 'overset his trigonometry, and set him off at a tangent from his studies.' he tried to study, but at the end of the week gave it all up and went home. his schoolmaster learned about the debates between him and willie niven, and determined to put an end to such waste of time from the study of mathematics. he charged niven one day with the crime of debating, and demanded the subject for the next debate. willie told him the subject for to-morrow was, 'resolved that a great general is of more use to the world than a good merchant.' 'nonsense,' thundered the teacher; 'everybody ought to know that a general is of far more importance to the world than a merchant.' burns promptly said to the teacher, 'you take the general's side, and i will take the merchant's side, and let us see.' burns spoke with such wide information, such fine reasoning and such splendid eloquence, that he soon had the boys cheering him wildly. this annoyed the master, and he became so angry that he dismissed the school for the day. even at the early age of seventeen he had few rivals as a public speaker and debater. he took lessons in a dancing-school at tarbolton, when he returned from kirkoswald, to improve his social manners. during this year he read thomson's works, shenstone's works, a _select collection of english songs_, allan ramsay's works, hervey's _meditations_, and some of shakespeare's plays. _18 years old._ the family moved to lochlea farm, about four miles from mauchline. up to this time he had been an awkward and bashful youth. he began now to be more at ease with the opposite sex after he had been introduced to them. he had no real lover, however, between 17 and 21. _19 years old._ about this time he made a plan for a tragedy. he never finished it, and preserved only a fragment, beginning, 'all devil as i am.' _20 years old._ a year of work, reading, and visions that were but the bases of higher visions yet to come. _21 years old._ he, with his brother gilbert and five other young men, founded a debating club in an upstairs room of a private house in tarbolton. he read persistently; held a book in his left hand at meals; and usually carried a book with him while walking. about this time he began to be known as a critic of the preaching and practices of the 'auld licht' preachers, and enjoyed shocking those who were, in his judgment, not vital, but only professing, christians, who did nothing to prove the genuineness of their religion. in this year his heart was kindled by the first love of his manhood. _22 years old._ he read sterne's works, macpherson's ossian, and mackenzie's _the man of the world_ and _man of feeling_. he said 'he valued the last book more than any other book, except the bible.' his mind turned to religious subjects very definitely at this period. he developed a deep and reverent affection for alison begbie, who was a servant on a farm not far from lochlea farm. the farm was on cessnock water. he wrote three poems to her: 'the lass of cessnock banks,' 'peggy alison,' and 'mary morrison.' his letters to her reveal the two great dominant elements in his mind and heart at that time: a deep and respectful love, and some of the highest ideals of vital religion. in this year love again stirred him to write poetry. he said it became 'a darling walk for his mind.' 'winter--a dirge' belongs to this period. _23 years old._ this was an eventful year. alison begbie had declined his offer of marriage. had she married him and lived he would have had but one love after maturity. he ventured into business in irvine. he says his partner 'was a scoundrel of the first water, who made money by the mystery of thieving.' their shop was burned, and he found himself not worth a sixpence. he read two novels, _pamela_, and _ferdinand, count fathom_, and _fergusson's poems_, which filled him with a deeper determination to write poetry. he wrote several religious poems this year. _24 years old._ he became a freemason in tarbolton, and devoted a good deal of time to the order. he did not write much poetry. his mind was occupied by religious matters, and he had an impression that his life was not going to last very long. this idea haunted him for two or three years after his maturity. he contemplated death as a rest, but he continued to store his mind and think independently. dr mackenzie, who attended his father on his death-bed towards the end of the year, wrote, 'that on his first visit he found gilbert and his father friendly and cordial, but robert silent and uncompanionable, till he began discussing a medical subject, when robert promptly joined in the discussion, and showed an unexpected and remarkable understanding of the subject.' during this year he wrote 'my father was a farmer' and 'the death and dying words of poor mailie.' _25 years old._ his father died in february, leaving the family very poor. robert and gilbert rented mossgiel farm, about two miles from mauchline, and the family moved there. robert determined to be a scientific farmer. he read the best books he could get on agriculture; but bad seed, bad weather, and late harvest left the brothers only half an average crop. he continued to work on the farm, but evidently began to realise more clearly the kindling call to poetry as the special work of his life. during the next twelve years he produced a continuous out-pouring of wonderful poems, although about half of the twelve years he worked as a farmer on mossgiel and ellisland farms, and most of the rest of the time worked hard as a gauger, riding two hundred miles each week in the performance of his duties. in this year he wrote 'the rigs of barley,' composed in august; 'my nannie o,' 'green grow the rashes,' 'man was made to mourn,' 'the twa herds,' and the 'epitaph on my ever honoured father.' in this year he met jean armour, and soon loved her. _26 years old._ he wrote many poems during this year, the most important being 'epistle to davie, a brother poet,' 'holy willie's prayer,' 'death and doctor hornbook,' three long 'epistles to john lapraik,' 'epistle to william simpson,' 'epistle to john goldie,' 'rantin', rovin' robin,' 'epistle to rev. john m'math,' 'second epistle to davie,' 'farewell to ballochmyle,' 'hallowe'en,' 'to a mouse,' 'the jolly beggars,' 'the cotter's saturday night,' 'address to the deil,' and 'the auld farmer's new-year morning salutation to his auld mare maggie.' _27 years old._ this was an eventful and productive year for burns. quickly following each other came 'the twa dogs,' 'the author's earnest cry and prayer,' 'the ordination,' 'epistle to james smith,' 'the vision,' 'address to the unco guid,' 'the holy fair,' 'to a mountain daisy,' 'to ruin,' 'despondency: an ode,' 'epistle to a young friend,' 'nature's law,' 'the brigs of ayr,' 'o thou dread power!' 'farewell song to the banks of ayr,' 'lines on meeting lord daer,' 'masonic song,' 'tam samson's elegy,' 'a winter night,' 'yon wild mossy mountains,' 'address to edinburgh,' and 'address to a haggis,' with love-songs and many minor pieces. burns had given jean armour a certificate of marriage, and he nearly lost his mental balance when, at her father's order, she consented to have it burned. fortunately for him two things aided in preserving his balance: the publication of the kilmarnock edition of his poems, and his love for mary campbell, 'highland mary.' no man ever needed a love, deep and true, to save him more than burns did. he believed jean was lost to him for ever. he was not a faithless but a needy lover when he found a responsive heart in highland mary. they made their marriage vows on the fail, sunday, 14th may 1786. mary went home to prepare for marriage, but caught a fever and died. burns went to edinburgh later in the year to publish a second edition of his poems, as the first edition had been so well received. in edinburgh he was the hero of the highest and most thoroughly educated classes. he wrote several fine poems to mary campbell. _28 years old._ three thousand copies of his poems were published in april in edinburgh, netting him over five hundred pounds. he made two triumphal tours--the border tour and the highland tour. as mary campbell was dead, his love was kindled by clarinda, mrs m'lehose, with whom he conducted an intensive love correspondence, and to whom he wrote several beautiful love-songs. as she was a married woman who was separated from her husband, burns could not marry her. in this year he wrote the 'inscription for the headstone of fergusson,' 'epistle to mrs scott,' 'the bonnie moor hen,' 'on the death of john m'leod,' 'elegy on the death of james hunter blair,' 'the humble petition of bruar water,' 'lines on the fall of fyers,' 'castle gordon,' 'on scaring some waterfowl,' 'a rosebud by my early walk,' 'the banks of devon,' 'the young highland rover,' 'birthday ode,' and many short pieces and love-songs, among them 'the birks of aberfeldy.' _29 years old._ rented ellisland farm, on the nith, near dumfries. married jean armour (second marriage to her) in april, and left her in mauchline till he could build a home for her on ellisland, which was ready in december. building his new home, stocking and managing the farm, and riding fifty miles occasionally to his jean, made his year so busy that he wrote little poetry, but exquisite love-songs. the estate of glenriddell, owned in the time of burns by robert riddell, bordered on ellisland farm. robert riddell was a fine type of scottish gentleman, and burns and he became warm friends. among the best poems of this year, not love-songs, are 'verses written in friar's carse hermitage,' 'epistle to robert graham of fintry,' 'the day returns,' 'a mother's lament,' 'the fall of the leaf,' 'auld lang syne,' 'the poet's progress,' 'elegy on the year 1788,' and 'epistle to james tennant.' _30 years old._ wrote many love-songs for johnson's scots musical museum, though busily engaged in farming, and, in addition, a new psalm for the chapel of kilmarnock; a sketch in verse to right hon. c. j. fox, 'the wounded hare,' 'the banks of nith,' 'john anderson my joe,' 'the kirk of scotland's alarm,' 'caledonia,' 'the battle of sherramuir,' 'the braes o' killiecrankie,' 'farewell to the highlands,' 'to mary in heaven,' 'epistle to dr blacklock,' and 'new year's day, 1790.' _31 years old._ found his farm 'a ruinous affair.' accepted a position as an exciseman at fifty pounds a year. had to ride two hundred miles each week. continued writing love-songs for johnson's museum (without pay), and wrote in addition, 'tam o' shanter,' 'lament of mary queen of scots,' and 'the banks of doon.' _32 years old._ continued to write love-songs, among the most beautiful being 'sweet afton' and 'parting song to clarinda.' in addition, wrote 'lament for james, earl of glencairn,' 'on glenriddell's fox breaking his chain,' 'poem on pastoral poetry,' 'verses on the destruction of the woods near drumlanrig,' 'second epistle to robert graham of fintry,' 'the song of death,' and 'poem on sensibility.' _33 years old._ wrote many love-songs, among them 'the lea rig' and 'highland mary.' his other poems were mainly election ballads. his love-songs were now written mainly for thomson's _national songs and melodies_. he still refused pay for his songs. _34 years old._ still, notwithstanding his very busy life, he sent a continuous stream of songs to edinburgh. other poems of the year were 'sonnet written on the author's birthday,' 'lord gregory,' and 'scots, wha hae wi' wallace bled.' in this year he moved to the house in which he died, and in which jean died thirty-eight years afterwards. _35 years old._ in this year burns, to supplement 'scots, wha hae' (the greatest bugle-song of freedom), wrote two grand poems on liberty: 'the ode to liberty' and 'the tree of liberty;' and 'contented wi' little and cantie wi' mair.' in this year he declined an offer from the london _morning chronicle_ to become a regular contributor to that paper. _36 years old._ love-songs, and election ballads in favour of his friend mr heron, were his most numerous poems this year. in addition to other minor pieces he wrote a fine poem to his friend, alexander cunningham, 'does haughty gaul invasion threat,' and the most triumphant combined interpretation of democracy and brotherhood ever written, 'a man's a man for a' that.' _37 years old._ early in the year his health gave way, and he died, 21st july 1796. though apparently a strong man, it is reasonable to believe that he had a constitutional tendency towards consumption. his father died from this dread disease, and his grandmother (his mother's mother) died at thirty-five from the same cause. burns inherited his physical and intellectual powers mainly from his mother. both by heredity and contagion, therefore, he was made susceptible to influences that develop consumption. he continued to write poetry, chiefly love-songs, during his illness. his last poem was written, nine days before his death, to miss margaret chalmers, for whom he had a reverent affection. no reference has been made in this sketch of his development to the prose written each year. five hundred and thirty-four of his letters have been published. they are written in a stately style, and most of them contain philosophic discussions of religion, ethics, or democracy. a shy, sensitive, retiring boy; a deep-thinking, persistently studying, eloquent, still shy youth; a brilliant reasoner, a thinker ranking with leaders in his neighbourhood, meeting each on equal terms, and easily proving his superiority by his remarkable knowledge of each man's special subject of study, and by his still more remarkable powers of independent thinking and clear revelation of his thought in his young manhood, but still at twenty-two too shy to propose to the first lover of his maturity; always a reverent lover of nature, whose mind saw god in beauty, in dawn-gleam and eve-glow, in tree and flower, in river and mountain; he studied, thought, and expressed his thoughts in exquisite poetry, and, according to those who knew him best, in still richer and more captivating conversation, until at twenty-seven he stood in the midst of the most learned professors of scotland and outclassed them all. no single professor of the galaxy of culture in which he stood, modest and dignified, could have spoken so wisely, so profoundly, so easily, and with such graceful manner and charming eloquence on _so many subjects_ as did burns. it is a marvel that grows greater the more we try to understand it, that a boy who left school when he was nine years old, and, except for a few weeks, did not go to school again; and who, from nine years of age to his thirty-second year, was a steady farm-worker, with the exception of a brief interval during which he was engaged publishing his poems; and was a gauger from thirty-two to thirty-six, should have been able to write so much immortal poetry and so much instructive prose in such a short time. one of the most interesting of all the pictures of the lives of the world's literary leaders is the picture of robert burns, after a day of toil on the farm, walking from mossgiel farm, when his evening meal was over, two miles to his favourite seat in the woods on ballochmyle estate, and sitting there on the high bank of the ayr in the long scottish gloaming, and often on in the moonlight, 'shut in with god,' revealing in sublime form the visions that thrilled his soul. during the last few years of his life he walked from his home to lincluden abbey ruins on his favourite path beside the winding nith to spend his gloaming hours alone, and composed there some of his masterpieces. short was his life, but he lives on in the hearts of succeeding generations. he lives on, too, in his permanent influence on religion, freedom, and brotherhood. the end. edinburgh: printed by w. & r. chambers, limited. footnotes: [1] dr moore was the father of sir john moore, the british general who was killed at corunna in the peninsular war. [2] her name was spelled alison or elison. [3] one of john murdoch's quotations used as a headline to be copied in his copy-book. [4] the lovers of burns afterwards got permission to remove the monument and remains of highland mary to a more suitable location. robert burns [illustration: robert burns by gabriel setoun famous ·scots· ·series· published by oliphant anderson & ferrier · edinburgh and london ] * * * * * the designs and ornaments of this volume are by mr. joseph brown, and the printing from the press of morrison & gibb limited, edinburgh. _june 1896._ * * * * * contents page chapter i birth and education 7 chapter ii lochlea and mossgiel 25 chapter iii the series of satires 40 chapter iv the kilmarnock edition 56 chapter v the edinburgh edition 73 chapter vi burns's tours 92 chapter vii ellisland 111 chapter viii dumfries 128 chapter ix summary and estimate 148 robert burns chapter i birth and education of the many biographies of robert burns that have been written, most of them laboriously and carefully, perhaps not one gives so luminous and vivid a portrait, so lifelike and vigorous an impression of the personality of the poet and the man, as the picture the author has given of himself in his own writings. burns's poems from first to last are, almost without exception, the literary embodiment of his feelings at a particular moment. he is for ever revealing himself to the reader, even in poems that might with propriety be said to be purely objective. his writings in a greater degree than the writings of any other author are the direct expression of his own experiences; and in his poems and songs he is so invariably true to himself, so dominated by the mood of the moment, that every one of them gives us some glimpse into the heart and soul of the writer. in his letters he is rarely so happy; frequently he is writing up to certain models, and ceases to be natural. consequently we often miss in them the character and spirituality that is never absent from his poetry. but his poems and songs, chronologically arranged, might make in themselves, and without the aid of any running commentary, a tolerably complete biography. reading them, we note the development of his character and the growth of his powers as a poet; we can see at any particular time his attitude towards the world, and the world's attitude towards him; we have, in fine, a picture of the man in his relations to his fellow-man and in relation to circumstances, and may learn if we will what mark he made on the society of his time, and what effect that society had on him. and that surely is an important essential of perfect biography. but otherwise the story of burns's life has been told with such minuteness of detail, that the internal evidence of his poetry would seem only to be called in to verify or correct the verdict of tradition and the garbled gossip of those wise after the fact of his fame. it is so easy after a man has compelled the attention of the world to fill up the empty years of his life when he was all unknown to fame, with illustrative anecdotes and almost forgotten incidents, revealed and coloured by the light of after events! this is a penalty of genius, and it is sometimes called fame, as if fame were a gift given of the world out of a boundless and unintelligent curiosity, and not the life-record of work achieved. it is easier to collect ana and to make them into the patchwork pattern of a life than to read the character of the man in his writings; and patchwork, of necessity, has more of colour than the homespun web of a peasant-poet. burns has suffered sorely at the hands of the anecdote-monger. one great feature of his poems is their perfect sincerity. he pours out his soul in song; tells the tale of his loves, his joys and sorrows, of his faults and failings, and the awful pangs of remorse. and if a man be candid and sincere, he will be taken at his word when he makes the world his confessional, and calls himself a sinner. there is pleasure to small minds in discovering that the gods are only clay; that they who are guides and leaders are men of like passions with themselves, subject to the same temptations, and as liable to fall. this is the consolation of mediocrity in the presence of genius; and if from the housetops the poet proclaims his shortcomings, the world will hear him gladly and believe; his faults will be remembered, and his genius forgiven. what more easy than to bear out his testimony with the weight of collateral evidence, and the charitable anecdotage of acquaintances who knew him not? information that is vile and valueless may ever be had for the seeking; and it needs only to be whispered about for a season to find its way ultimately into print, and to flourish. it might naturally be expected at this time of day that all that is merely mythical and traditional might have been sifted from what is accredited and attested fact, that the chaff might have been winnowed from the grain in the life of burns. in some of the most recently-published biographies this has been most carefully and conscientiously done; but through so many years wild and improbable stories had been allowed to thrive and to go unchallenged, that fiction has come to take the colour and character of fact, and to pass into history. 'the general impression of the place,' that unfortunate phrase on which the late george gilfillan based an unpardonable attack on the character of the poet, has grown by slow degrees, and gained credence by the lapse of time, till it is accepted as the general impression of the country. those who would speak of the poet robert burns are expected to speak apologetically, and to point a moral from the story of a wasted life. for that has become a convention, and convention is always respectable. but after all is said and done, the devil's advocate makes a wretched biographer. it seems strange and unaccountable that men should dare to become apologists for one who has sung himself into the heart and conscience of his country, and taken the ear of the world. yet there have been apologists even for the poetry of burns. we are told, wofully, that he wrote only short poems and songs; was content with occasional pieces; did not achieve any long and sustained effort--to be preserved, it is to be expected, in a folio edition, and assigned a fitting place among other musty and hide-bound immortals on the shelves of libraries under lock and key. as well might we seek to apologise for the fields and meadows, in so far as they bring forth neither corn nor potatoes, but only grasses and flowers, to dance to the piping of the wind, and nod in the sunshine of summer. it is a healthier sign, however, that the more recent biographers of burns snap their fingers in the face of convention, and, looking to the legacy he has left the world, refuse to sit in sackcloth and ashes round his grave, either in the character of moralising mourners or charitable mutes. whatever has to be said against them nowadays, the 'cant of concealment'--to adopt another of gilfillan's phrases--is not to be laid to their charge. rather have they rushed to the other extreme, and in their eagerness to do justice to the memory of the poet, led the reader astray in a wilderness of unnecessary detail. so much is now known of burns, so many minute and unimportant details of his life and the lives of others have been unearthed, that the poet is, so to speak, buried in biography; the character and the personality of the man lost in the voluminous testimony of many witnesses. reading, we note the care and conscientiousness of the writer; we have but a confused and blurred impression of the poet. although a century has passed since his death, we do not yet see the events of burns's life in proper perspective. things trifling in themselves, and of little bearing on his character, have been preserved, and are still recorded with painful elaboration; while the sidelights from friends, companions, and acquaintances, male and female, are many and bewildering. would it not be possible out of this mass of material to tell the story of robert burns's life simply and clearly, neither wandering away into the family histories and genealogies of a crowd of uninteresting contemporaries, nor wasting time in elaborating inconsequential trifles? what is wanted is a picture of the man as he was, and an understanding of all that tended to make him the name and the power he is in the world to-day. william burness, the father of the poet, was a native of kincardineshire, and 'was thrown by early misfortunes on the world at large.' after many years' wanderings, he at last settled in ayrshire, where he worked at first as a gardener before taking a lease of some seven acres of land near the bridge of doon, and beginning business as a nurseryman. it was to a clay cottage which he built on this land that he brought his wife, agnes broun, in december 1757; and here the poet was born in 1759. the date of his birth is not likely to be forgotten. 'our monarch's hindmost year but ane was five-and-twenty days begun, 'twas then a blast o' jan'war' win' blew hansel in on robin.' to his father burns owed much; and if there be anything in heredity in the matter of genius, it was from him that he inherited his marvellous mental powers. his mother is spoken of as a shrewd and sagacious woman, with education enough to enable her to read her bible, but unable to write her own name. she had a great love for old ballads, and robert as a boy must often have listened to her chanting the quaint old songs with which her retentive memory was stored. the poet resembled his mother in feature, although he had the swarthy complexion of his father. attempts have been made now and again to trace his ancestry on the father's side, and to give to the world a kind of genealogy of genius. writers have demonstrated to their own satisfaction that it was perfectly natural that burns should have been the man he was. but the other children of william burness were not great poets. it has even been discovered that his genius was celtic, whatever that may mean! excursions and speculations of this kind are vain and unprofitable, hardly more reputable than the profanities of the dumfries craniologists who, in 1834, in the early hours of april 1st,--a day well chosen,--desecrated the poet's dust. they fingered his skull, 'applied their compasses to it, and satisfied themselves that burns had capacity enough to write _tam o' shanter_, _the cotter's saturday night_, and _to mary in heaven_.' let us take the poet as he comes to us, a gift of the gods, and be thankful. as la bruyère puts it, 'ces hommes n'ont ni ancêtres ni postérités; ils forment eux seuls toute une descendance.' what burns owed particularly to his father he has told us himself both in prose and verse. the exquisite and beautiful picture of the father and his family at their evening devotions is taken from life; and william burness is the sire who 'turns o'er with patriarchal grace the big ha'-bible ance his father's pride'; and in his fragment of autobiography the poet remarks: 'my father picked up a pretty large quantity of observation and experience, to which i am indebted for most of my pretensions to wisdom. i have met with few men who understood men, their manners and their ways, equal to him; but stubborn, ungainly integrity and headlong, ungovernable irascibility are disqualifying circumstances; consequently i was born a very poor man's son.... it was his dearest wish and prayer to have it in his power to keep his children under his own eye till they could discern between good and evil; so with the assistance of his generous master, he ventured on a small farm in that gentleman's estate.' this estimate of william burness is endorsed and amplified by mr. murdoch, who had been engaged by him to teach his children, and knew him intimately. 'i myself,' he says, 'have always considered william burness as by far the best of the human race that ever i had the pleasure of being acquainted with. he was an excellent husband; a tender and affectionate father. he had the art of gaining the esteem and goodwill of those that were labourers under him. he carefully practised every known duty, and avoided everything that was criminal; or, in the apostle's words, _herein did he exercise himself in living a life void of offence towards god and man_.' even in his manner of speech he was different from men in his own walk in life. 'he spoke the english language with more propriety (both with respect to diction and pronunciation) than any man i ever knew with no greater advantages.' truly was burns blessed in his parents, especially in his father. naturally such a father wished his children to have the best education his means could afford. it may be that he saw even in the infancy of his firstborn the promise of intellectual greatness. certain it is he laboured, as few fathers even in scotland have done, to have his children grow up intelligent, thoughtful, and virtuous men and women. robert burns's first school was at alloway mill, about a mile from home, whither he was sent when in his sixth year. he had not been long there, however, when the father combined with a few of his neighbours to establish a teacher in their own neighbourhood. that teacher was mr. murdoch, a young man at that time in his nineteenth year. this is an important period in the poet's life, although he himself in his autobiography only briefly touches on his schooling under murdoch. he has more to say of what he owed to an old maid of his mother's, remarkable for her ignorance, credulity, and superstition. 'she had, i suppose, the largest collection in the country of tales and songs concerning devils, ghosts, fairies, brownies, witches, warlocks, spunkies, kelpies, elf-candles, dead-lights, wraiths, apparitions, cantraips, enchanted towers, giants, dragons, and other trumpery. this cultivated the latent seeds of poesy; but had so strong an effect on my imagination, that to this hour, in my nocturnal rambles, i sometimes keep a sharp lookout in suspicious places; and though nobody can be more sceptical in these matters than i, yet it often takes an effort of philosophy to shake off these idle terrors.' it ought not to be forgotten that burns had a better education than most lads of his time. even in the present day many in better positions have not the advantages that robert and gilbert burns had, the sons of such a father as william burness, and under such an earnest and thoughtful teacher as mr. murdoch. it is important to notice this, because burns is too often regarded merely as a _lusus naturæ_; a being gifted with song, and endowed by nature with understanding from his birth. we hear too much of the _ploughman_ poet. his genius and natural abilities are unquestioned and unquestionable; but there is more than mere natural genius in his writings. they are the work of a man of no mean education, and bear the stamp--however spontaneously his songs sing themselves in our ears--of culture and study. in a letter to dr. moore several years later than now, burns himself declared against the popular view. 'i have not a doubt but the knack, the aptitude to learn the muses' trade is a gift bestowed by him who forms the secret bias of the soul; but i as firmly believe that _excellence_ in the profession is the fruit of industry, attention, labour, and pains. at least i am resolved to try my doctrine by the test of experience.' there is a class of people, however, to whom this will sound heretical, forbidding them, as it were, the right to babble with grovelling familiarity of rab, rob, robbie, scotia's bard, and the ploughman poet; and insisting on his name being spoken with conscious pride of utterance, robert burns, poet. gilbert burns, writing to dr. currie of the school-days under mr. murdoch, says: 'we learnt to read english tolerably well, and to write a little. he taught us, too, the english grammar. i was too young to profit much by his lessons in grammar, but robert made some proficiency in it--a circumstance of considerable weight in the unfolding of his genius and character, as he soon became remarkable for the fluency and correctness of his expression, and read the few books that came in his way with much pleasure and improvement; for even then he was a reader when he could get a book.' after the family removed to mount oliphant, the brothers attended mr. murdoch's school for two years longer, until mr. murdoch was appointed to a better situation, and the little school was broken up. thereafter the father looked after the education of his boys himself, not only helping them with their reading at home after the labours of the day, but 'conversing familiarly with them on all subjects, as if they had been men, and being at great pains, as they accompanied him on the labours of the farm, to lead conversation to such subjects as might tend to increase their knowledge or confirm them in virtuous habits.' among the books he borrowed or bought for them at that period were salmon's _geographical grammar_, derham's _physico-theology_, ray's _wisdom of god in the works of creation_, and stackhouse's _history of the bible_. it was about this time, too, that robert became possessed of _the complete letter-writer_, a book which gilbert declared was to robert of the greatest consequence, since it inspired him with a great desire to excel in letter-writing, and furnished him with models by some of the first writers in our language. perhaps this book was a great gain. it is questionable. what would robert burns's letters have been had he never seen a complete letter-writer, and never read 'those models by some of the first writers in our language'? easier and more natural, we are of opinion; and he might have written fewer. those in the complete letter-writer style we could easily have spared. his teacher, mr. murdoch, furnishes some excellent examples of the stilted epistolary style that was then fashionable. 'but now the plains of mount oliphant began to whiten, and robert was summoned to relinquish the pleasing scenes that surrounded the grotto of calypso, and, armed with a sickle, to seek glory by signalising himself in the fields of ceres.' though robert burns never perpetrated anything like this, his models were not without their pernicious effect on his prose compositions. when robert was about fourteen years old, he and gilbert were sent for a time, week about, to a school at dalrymple, and the year following robert was sent to ayr to revise his english grammar under mr. murdoch. while there he began the study of french, bringing with him, when he returned home, a french dictionary and grammar and fenelon's _telemaque_. in a little while he could read and understand any french author in prose. he also gave some time to latin; but finding it dry and uninteresting work, he soon gave it up. still he must have picked up a little of that language, and we know that he returned to the rudiments frequently, although 'the latin seldom predominated, a day or two at a time, or a week at most.' under the heading of general reading might be mentioned _the life of hannibal_, _the life of wallace_, _the spectator_, pope's _homer_, locke's _essay on the human understanding_, _allan ramsay's works_, and several _plays of shakspeare_. all this is worth noting, even at some length, because it shows how burns was being educated, and what books went to form and improve his literary taste. yet when we consider the circumstances of the family we see that there was not much time for study. the work on the farm allowed burns little leisure, but every spare moment would seem to have been given to reading. father and sons, we are told by one who afterwards knew the family at lochlea, used to sit at their meals with books in their hands; and the poet says that one book in particular, _a select collection of english songs_, was his _vade mecum_. he pored over them, driving his cart or walking to labour, song by song, verse by verse, carefully noting the true, tender, or sublime from affectation or fustian. 'i am convinced,' he adds, 'i owe to this practice much of my critic craft, such as it is.' the years of their stay at mount oliphant were years of unending toil and of poverty bravely borne. the whole period was a long fight against adverse circumstances. looking back on his life at this time, burns speaks of it as 'the cheerless gloom of a hermit with the unceasing moil of a galley slave'; and we can well believe that this is no exaggerated statement. his brother gilbert is even more emphatic. 'mount oliphant,' he says, 'is almost the poorest soil i know of in a state of cultivation.... my father, in consequence of this, soon came into difficulties, which were increased by the loss of several of his cattle by accident and disease. to the buffetings of misfortune we could only oppose hard labour and the most rigid economy. we lived very sparingly. for several years butcher's meat was a stranger in the house, while all the members of the family exerted themselves to the utmost of their strength, and rather beyond it, in the labours of the farm. my brother, at the age of thirteen, assisted in thrashing the crop of corn, and at fifteen was the principal labourer on the farm; for we had no hired servant, male or female. the anguish of mind we felt at our tender years under these straits and difficulties was very great. to think of our father growing old (for he was now above fifty), broken down with the long-continued fatigues of his life, with a wife and five other children, and in a declining state of circumstances, these reflections produced in my brother's mind and mine sensations of the deepest distress. i doubt not but the hard labour and sorrow of this period of his life was in a great measure the cause of that depression of spirits with which robert was so often afflicted through his whole life afterwards. at this time he was almost constantly afflicted in the evenings with a dull headache, which at a future period of his life was exchanged for a palpitation of the heart and a threatening of fainting and suffocation in his bed in the night-time.' this, we doubt not, is a true picture--melancholy, yet beautiful. but not only did this increasing toil and worry to make both ends meet, injure the bodily health of the poet, but it did harm to him in other ways. it affected, to a certain extent, his moral nature. those bursts of bitterness which we find now and again in his poems, and more frequently in his letters, are assuredly the natural outcome of these unsocial and laborious years. burns was a man of sturdy independence; too often this independence became aggressive. he was a man of marvellous keenness of perception; too frequently did this manifest itself in a sulky suspicion, a harshness of judgment, and a bitterness of speech. we say this in no spirit of fault-finding, but merely point it out as a natural consequence of a wretched and leisureless existence. this was the education of circumstances--hard enough in burns's case; and if it developed in him certain sterling qualities, gave him an insight into and a sympathy with the lives of his struggling fellows, it at the same time warped, to a certain extent, his moral nature. what was his outlook on the world at this time? he measured himself with those he met, we may be sure, for burns certainly (as he says of his father) 'understood men, their manners and their ways,' as it is given to very few to be able to do. of the ploughmen, farmers, lairds, or factors, he saw round about him there was none to compare with him in natural ability, few his equal in field-work. 'at the plough, scythe, or reap-hook,' he remarks, 'i feared no competitor.' yet, conscious of easy superiority, he saw himself a drudge, almost a slave, while those whom nature had not blessed with brains were gifted with a goodly share of this world's wealth. it's hardly in a body's power to keep at times frae being sour, to see how things are shar'd; how best o' chiels are whiles in want, while coofs on countless thousands rant, an' ken na how to wair 't.' his father, his brother, and himself--all the members of the family indeed--toiled unceasingly, yet were unable to better their position. matters, indeed, got worse, and worst of all when their landlord died, and they were left to the tender mercies of a factor. the name of this man we do not know, nor need we seek to know it. we know the man himself, and he will live for ever a type of tyrannous, insolent insignificance. 'i've noticed, on our laird's court-day, an' mony a time my heart's been wae, poor tenant bodies, scant o' cash, how they maun thole a factor's snash: he'll stamp an' threaten, curse an swear, he'll apprehend them, poind their gear: while they maun stan', wi' aspect humble, an' hear it a', an' fear an' tremble.' is it to be wondered at that burns's blood boiled at times, or that he should now and again look at those in easier circumstances with snarling suspicion, and give vent to his feelings in words of rankling bitterness? robert burns and his father were just such men as an insolent factor would take a fiendish delight in torturing. 'my indignation yet boils,' burns wrote years afterwards, 'at the recollection of the scoundrel factor's insolent, threatening letters, which used to set us all in tears.' had they 'boo'd and becked' at his bidding, and grovelled at his feet, he might have had some glimmering sense of justice, and thought it mercy. but the burnses were men of a different stamp. 'william burness always treated superiors with a becoming respect, but he never gave the smallest encouragement to aristocratical arrogance'; and his son robert was not less manly and independent. he was too sound in judgment; too conscious of his own worth, to sink into mean and abject servility. but this factor, perhaps more than anyone else, did much to pervert, if he could not kill, the poet's spirit of independence. curiously enough, the opening sentences of his autobiographical sketch have a suspicious ring of the pride that apes humility. there is something harsh and aggressive in his unnecessary confidence. 'i have not the most distant pretensions to assume the character which the pye-coated guardians of escutcheons call a gentleman. when at edinburgh last winter i got acquainted at the herald's office; and, looking through that granary of honours, i there found almost every name in the kingdom; but for me, "my ancient but ignoble blood had crept through scoundrels ever since the flood." gules, purpure, argent, etc., quite disowned me.' all this is quite gratuitous and hardly in good taste. yet, in spite of untoward circumstances, ceaseless drudgery, and insufficient diet, the family of mount oliphant was not utterly lost to happiness. with such a shrewd mother and such a father as william burness--a man of whom scotland may be justly proud--no home could be altogether unhappy. in burns's picture of the family circle in _the cotter's saturday night_ there is nothing of bitterness or gloom or melancholy. 'with joy unfeign'd brothers and sisters meet, an' each for other's welfare kindly spiers: the social hours, swift-wing'd, unnotic'd fleet; each tells the uncos that he sees or hears. the parents, partial, eye their hopeful years; anticipation forward points the view: the mother, wi' her needle an' her shears, gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the new; the father mixes a' wi' admonition due.' in the work of the farm, too, hard as it was, there was pleasure, and the poet's first song, with the picture he gives of the partners in the harvest field, breaks forth from this life of cheerless gloom and unceasing moil like a blink of sunshine through a lowering sky. burns's description of how the song came to be made is worthy of quotation, because it gives us a very clear and well-defined likeness of himself at the time, a lad in years, but already counting himself among men. 'you know our country custom of coupling a man and a woman together in the labours of harvest. in my fifteenth autumn my partner was a bewitching creature who just counted an autumn less. in short, she, unwittingly to herself, initiated me into a certain delicious passion, which ... i hold to be the first of human joys.... i did not well know myself why i liked so much to loiter behind her when returning in the evening from our labours; why the tones of her voice made my heart-strings thrill like an æolian harp; and particularly why my pulse beat such a furious rantann when i looked and fingered over her hand to pick out the nettle-stings and thistles. among her other love-inspiring qualifications she sang sweetly; and 'twas her favourite scotch reel that i attempted to give an embodied vehicle to in rhyme. i was not so presumptive as to imagine i could make verses like printed ones composed by men who had greek and latin; but my girl sung a song which was said to be composed by a small country laird's son, on one of his father's maids with whom he was in love; and i saw no reason why i might not rhyme as well as he.' he had already measured himself with this moorland poet, and admits no inferiority; and what a laird's son has done he too may do. writing of this song afterwards, burns, who was always a keen critic, admits that it is 'very puerile and silly.' still, we think there is something of beauty, and much of promise, in this early effusion. it has at least one of the merits, and, in a sense, the peculiar characteristic of all burns's songs. it is sincere and natural; and that is the beginning of all good writing. 'thus with me,' he says, 'began love and poetry, which at times have been my only and ... my highest enjoyment.' this was the first-fruit of his poetic genius, and we doubt not that in the composition, and after the composition, life at mount oliphant was neither so cheerless nor so hard as it had been. a new life was opened up to him with a thousand nameless hopes and aspirations, though probably as yet he kept all these things to himself, and pondered them in his heart. chapter ii lochlea and mossgiel the farm at mount oliphant proved a ruinous failure, and after weathering their last two years on it under the tyranny of the scoundrel factor, it was with feelings of relief, we may be sure, that the family removed to lochlea, in the parish of tarbolton. this was a farm of 130 acres of land rising from the right bank of the river ayr. the farm appeared to them more promising than the one they had left. the prospect from its uplands was extensive and beautiful. it commanded a view of the carrick hills, and the firth of clyde beyond; but where there are extensive views to be had the land is necessarily exposed. the farm itself was bleak and bare, and twenty shillings an acre was a high rent for fields so situated. the younger members of the family, however, were now old enough to be of some assistance in the house or in the fields, and for a few years life was brighter than it had been before; not that labour was lighter to them here, but simply because they had escaped the meshes and machinations of a petty tyrant, and worked more cheerfully, looking to the future with confidence. father, mother, and children all worked as hard as they were able, and none more ungrudgingly than the poet. we know little about those first few years of life at lochlea, which should be matter for special thanksgiving. better we should know nothing at all than that we should learn of misfortunes coming upon them, and see the family again in tears and forced to thole a factor's snash; better silence than the later unsavoury episodes, which have not yet been allowed decent burial. probably life went evenly and beautifully in those days. the brothers accompanied their father to the fields; agnes milked the cows, reciting the while to her younger sisters, annabella and isabella, snatches of song or psalm; and in the evening the whole family would again gather round the ingle to raise their voices in _dundee_ or _martyrs_ or _elgin_, and then to hear the priest-like father read the sacred page. the little that we do know is worth recording. 'gilbert,' to quote from chambers's excellent edition of the poet's works, 'used to speak of his brother as being at this period a more admirable being than at any other. he recalled with delight the days when they had to go with one or two companions to cut peats for the winter fuel, because robert was sure to enliven their toil with a rattling fire of witty remarks of men and things, mingled with the expressions of a genial glowing heart, and the whole perfectly free from the taint which he afterwards acquired from his contact with the world. not even in those volumes which afterwards charmed his country from end to end, did gilbert see his brother in so interesting a light as in those conversations in the bog, with only two or three noteless peasants for an audience.' this is a beautiful picture: the poet enlivening toil with talk, lighting and illustrating all he said with his lively imagination; gilbert listening silently, and a group of noteless peasants dumb with wonder. no artist has yet painted this picture of burns, as his brother saw him, at his best. writers have glanced at the scene and passed it by. it needed to be looked at with naked, appreciative eyes; they had come with microscopes to the study of burns. far more interesting material awaited them farther on: _the poet's welcome_, for example! they could amplify that. here, too, is the first hint of burns's brilliant powers as a talker; a glimpse on this lonely peat moss of the man who, not many years afterwards, was to dazzle literary edinburgh with the sparkle and force of his graphic speech. probably it was about this time that burns went for a summer to a school at kirkoswald. in his autobiography he says it was his seventeenth year, and, if so, it must have been before the family had left mount oliphant. gilbert's recollection was that the poet was then in his nineteenth year, which would bring the incident into the lochlea period. in the new edition of chambers's burns, william wallace accepts robert's statement as correct; yet we hardly think the poet would have spent a summer at school at a time when the family was under the heel of that merciless factor. besides, although he speaks of his seventeenth year, he has just made mention of the fact that he was in the secret of half the amours of the parish; and it was in the parish of tarbolton that we hear of him acting 'as the second of night-hunting swains.' probably also it would be after the family had found comparative peace and quiet in their new home that it would occur to burns to resume his studies in a methodical way. the point is a small one. the important thing is, that in his seventeenth or nineteenth summer he went to a noted school on a smuggling coast to learn mathematics, surveying, dialling, etc., in which he made a pretty good progress. 'but,' he says, 'i made a greater progress in the knowledge of mankind. the contraband trade was at this time very successful; scenes of swaggering riot and roaring dissipation were as yet new to me, and i was no enemy to social life. here, though i learnt to look unconcernedly on a large tavern bill and mix without fear in a drunken squabble, yet i went on with a high hand in my geometry.' the glimpses we have of burns during his stay here are all characteristic of the man. we see a young man looking out on a world that is new to him; moving in a society to which he had hitherto been a stranger. his eyes are opened not only to the knowledge of mankind, but to a better knowledge of himself. thirsting for information and power, we find him walking with willie niven, his companion from maybole, away from the village to where they might have peace and quiet, and converse on subjects calculated to improve their minds. they sharpen their wits in debate, taking sides on speculative questions, and arguing the matter to their own satisfaction. no doubt in these conversations and debates he was developing that gift of clear reasoning and lucid expression which afterwards so confounded the literary and legal luminaries of edinburgh. they had made a study of logic, but here was a man from the plough who held his own with them, discussing questions which in their opinion demanded a special training. for an uncouth country ploughman gifted with song they were prepared, but they did not expect one who could meet them in conversation with the fence and foil of a skilled logician. we may see also his burning desire for distinction in that scene in school when he led the self-confident schoolmaster into debate and left him humiliated in the eyes of the pupils. even in his contests with john niven there was the same eagerness to excel. when he could not beat him in wrestling or putting the stone, he was fain to content himself with a display of his superiority in mental calisthenics. the very fact that a charming _fillette_ overset his trigonometry, and set him off at a tangent, is a characteristic ending to this summer of study. peggy thomson in her kail-yard was too much for the fiery imagination of a poet: 'it was in vain to think of doing more good at school.' too much stress is not to be laid on burns's own mention of 'scenes of swaggering riot and dissipation' at kirkoswald. such things were new to him, and made a lasting impression on his mind. we know that he returned home very considerably improved. his reading was enlarged with the very important addition of thomson's and shenstone's works. he had seen human nature in a new phasis, and now he engaged in literary correspondence with several of his schoolfellows. it was not long after his return from kirkoswald that the bachelor's club was founded, and here could burns again exercise his debating powers and find play for his expanding intellect. the members met to forget their cares in mirth and diversion, 'without transgressing the bounds of innocent decorum'; and the chief diversion appears to have been debate. if we are to believe gilbert, the seven years of their stay in tarbolton parish were not marked by much literary improvement in robert. that may well have been gilbert's opinion at the time; for the poet was working hard on the farm, and often spending an evening at tarbolton or at one or other of the neighbouring farms. but he managed all the same to get through a considerable amount of reading; and though, perhaps, he did not devote himself so sedulously to books as he had been accustomed to do in the seclusion of mount oliphant, he was storing his mind in other ways. his keen observation was at work, and he was studying what was of more interest and importance to him than books--'men, their manners and their ways.' 'i seem to be one sent into the world,' he remarks in a letter to mr. murdoch, 'to see and observe; and i very easily compound with the knave who tricks me of my money, if there be anything original about him, which shows me human nature in a different light from anything i have seen before.' partly it was this passion to see and observe, partly it was another passion that made him the assisting confidant of most of the country lads in their amours. 'i had a curiosity, zeal, and intrepid dexterity in these matters which recommended me as a proper second in duels of that kind.' his song, _my nannie, o_, which belongs to this period, is not only true as a lyric of sweet and simple love, but is also true to the particular style of love-making then in vogue. 'the westlin wind blaws loud an' shill; the night's baith mirk and rainy, o: but i'll get my plaid, an' out i'll steal, an' owre the hills to nannie, o.' according to gilbert, the poet himself was constantly the victim of some fair enslaver, although, being jealous of those richer than himself, he was not aspiring in his loves. but while there was hardly a comely maiden in tarbolton to whom he did not address a song, we are not to imagine that he was frittering his heart away amongst them all. a poet may sing lyrics of love to many while his heart is true to one. the one at this time to robert burns was ellison begbie, to whom some of his songs are addressed--notably _mary morrison_, one of the purest and most beautiful love lyrics ever poet penned. nothing is more striking than the immense distance between this composition and any he had previously written. in this song he for the first time stepped to the front rank as a song-writer, and gave proof to himself, if to nobody else at the time, of the genius that was in him. a few letters to ellison begbie are also preserved, pure and honourable in sentiment, but somewhat artificial and formal in expression. it was because of his love for her, and his desire to be settled in life, that he took to the unfortunate flax-dressing business in irvine. that is something of an unlovely and mysterious episode in burns's life. suffice it to say in his own words: 'this turned out a sadly unlucky affair. my partner was a scoundrel of the first water, and, to finish the whole business, while we were giving a welcome carousal to the new year, our shop, by the drunken carelessness of my partner's wife, took fire and burned to ashes, and i was left, like a true poet, not worth a sixpence.' his stay at irvine was neither pleasant for him at the time nor happy in its results. he met there 'acquaintances of a freer manner of thinking and living than he had been used to'; and it needs something more than the family misfortunes and the deathbed of his father to account for that terrible fit of hypochondria when he returned to lochlea. 'for three months i was in a diseased state of body and mind, scarcely to be envied by the hopeless wretches who have just got their sentence, _depart from me, ye cursed_.' up to this time, the twenty-fifth year of his age, burns had not written much. besides _mary morrison_ might be mentioned _the death and dying words of poor mailie_, and another bewitching song, _the rigs o' barley_, which is surely an expression of the innocent abandon, the delicious rapture of pure and trustful love. but what he had written was work of promise, while at least one or two of his songs had the artistic finish as well as the spontaneity of genuine poetry. in all that he had done, 'puerile and silly,' to quote his own criticism of _handsome nell_, or at times halting and crude, there was the ring of sincerity. he was not merely an echo, as too many polished poetasters in their first attempts have been. such jinglers are usually as happy in their juvenile effusions as in their later efforts. but burns from the first tried to express what was in him, what he himself felt, and in so far had set his feet on the road to perfection. being natural, he was bound to improve by practice, and if there was genius in him to become in time a great poet. that he was already conscious of his powers we know, and the longing for fame, 'that last infirmity of noble mind,' was strong in him and continually growing stronger. 'then out into the world my course i did determine, though to be rich was not my wish, yet to be great was charming; my talents they were not the worst, nor yet my education; resolved was i at least to try to mend my situation.' before this he had thought of more ambitious things than songs, and had sketched the outlines of a tragedy; but it was only after meeting with fergusson's _scotch poems_ that he 'struck his wildly resounding lyre with rustic vigour.' in his commonplace book, begun in 1783, we have ever-recurring hints of his devoting himself to poetry. 'for my own part i never had the least thought or inclination of turning poet till i got once heartily in love, and then rhyme and song were in a measure the spontaneous language of my heart.' the story of wallace from the poem by blind harry had years before fired his imagination, and his heart had glowed with a wish to make a song on that hero in some measure equal to his merits. 'e'en then, a wish, i mind its power- a wish that to my latest hour shall strongly heave my breast- that i, for poor auld scotland's sake, some usefu' plan or beuk could make, or sing a sang at least.' this was written afterwards, but it is retrospective of the years of his dawning ambition. for a time, however, all dreams of greatness are to be set aside as vain. the family had again fallen on evil days, and when the father died, his all went 'among the hell-hounds that grovel in the kennel of justice.' this was no time for poetry, and robert was too much of a man to think merely of his own aims and ambitions in such a crisis. it was only by ranking as creditors to their father's estate for arrears of wages that the children of william burness made a shift to scrape together a little money, with which robert and gilbert were able to stock the neighbouring farm of mossgiel. thither the family removed in march 1784; and it is on this farm that the life of the poet becomes most deeply interesting. the remains of the father were buried in alloway kirkyard; and on a small tombstone over the grave the poet bears record to the blameless life of the loving husband, the tender father, and the friend of man. he had lived long enough to hear some of his son's poems, and to express admiration for their beauty; but he had also noted the passionate nature of his first-born. there was one of his family, he said on his deathbed, for whose future he feared; and robert knew who that one was. he turned to the window, the tears streaming down his cheeks. mossgiel, to which the brothers now removed, taking with them their widowed mother, was a farm of about one hundred and eighteen acres of cold clayey soil, close to the village of mauchline. the farm-house, having been originally the country house of their landlord, mr. gavin hamilton, was more commodious and comfortable than the home they had left. here the brothers settled down, determined to do all in their power to succeed. they made a fresh start in life, and if hard work and rigid economy could have compelled success, they might now have looked to the future with an assurance of comparative prosperity. mr. gavin hamilton was a kind and generous landlord, and the rent was only £90 a year; considerably lower than they had paid at lochlea. but misfortune seemed to pursue this family, and ruin to wait on their every undertaking. burns says: 'i entered on this farm with a full resolution, "come, go to, i will be wise." i read farming books; i calculated crops; i attended markets; and, in short, in spite of the devil, the world, and the flesh, i should have been a wise man; but the first year, from unfortunately buying in bad seed; the second from a late harvest, we lost half of both our crops. this overset all my wisdom, and i returned like the dog to his vomit, and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.' that this resolution was not just taken in a repentant mood merely to be forgotten again in a month's time, gilbert bears convincing testimony. 'my brother's allowance and mine was £7 per annum each, and during the whole time this family concern lasted, which was four years, as well as during the preceding period at lochlea, his expenses never in any one year exceeded his slender income. his temperance and frugality were everything that could be wished.' honest, however, as burns's resolution was, it was not to be expected that he would--or, indeed, could--give up the practice of poetry, or cease to indulge in dreams of after-greatness. poetry, as he has already told us, had become the spontaneous expression of his heart. it was his natural speech. his thoughts appeared almost to demand poetry as their proper vehicle of expression, and rhythmed into verse as inevitably as in chemistry certain solutions solidify in crystals. besides this, burns was conscious of his abilities. he had measured himself with his fellows, and knew his superiority. more than likely he had been measuring himself with the writers he had studied, and found himself not inferior. the great misfortune of his life, as he confessed himself, was never to have an aim. he had felt early some stirrings of ambition, but they were like gropings of homer's cyclops round the walls of his cave. now, however, we have come to a period of his life when he certainly did have an aim, but necessity compelled him to renounce it as soon as it was recognised. it was not a question of ploughing or poetry. there was no alternative. however insidiously inclination might whisper of poetry, duty's voice called him to the fields, and that voice he determined to obey. reading farming books and calculating crops is not a likely road to perfection in poetry. yet, in spite of all noble resolution, the voice of poesy was sweet, and he could not shut his ears to it. he might sing a song to himself, even though it were but to cheer him after the labours of the day, and he sang of love in 'the genuine language of his heart.' 'there's nought but care on every hand, in every hour that passes, o: what signifies the life o' man, an' 'twere na for the lasses, o?' for song must come in spite of him. the caged lark sings, though its field be but a withered sod, and the sky above it a square foot of green baize. nor was his commonplace book neglected; and in august we come upon an entry which shows that poetical aspirations were again possessing him; this time not to be cast forth, either at the timorous voice of prudence or the importunate bidding of poverty. burns has calmly and critically taken stock--so to speak--of his literary aptitudes and abilities, and recognised his fitness for a place in the ranks of scotland's poets. 'however i am pleased with the works of our scotch poets, particularly the excellent ramsay, and the still more excellent fergusson, yet i am hurt to see other places of scotland, their towns, rivers, woods, haughs, etc., immortalised in such celebrated performances, whilst my dear native country, the ancient bailieries of carrick, kyle, and cunningham, famous both in ancient and modern times for a gallant and warlike race of inhabitants; a country where civil and particularly religious liberty have ever found their first support and their last asylum, a country the birthplace of many famous philosophers, soldiers, and statesmen, and the scene of many important events in scottish history, particularly a great many of the actions of the glorious wallace, the saviour of his country; yet we have never had one scottish poet of any eminence to make the fertile banks of irvine, the romantic woodlands and sequestered scenes of aire, and the heathy mountainous source and winding sweep of doon, emulate tay, forth, ettrick, tweed, etc. this is a complaint i would gladly remedy; but, alas! i am far unequal to the task, both in native genius and education. obscure i am, and obscure i must be, though no young poet nor young soldier's heart ever beat more fondly for fame than mine.' the same thoughts and aspirations are echoed later in his _epistle to william simpson_- 'ramsay and famous fergusson gied forth and tay a lift aboon; yarrow and tweed, to mony a tune, owre scotland rings, while irwin, lugar, ayr, and doon, naebody sings. * * * * * we'll gar our streams and burnies shine up wi' the best!' the dread of obscurity spoken of here was almost a weakness with burns. we hear it like an ever-recurring wail in his poems and letters. in the very next entry in his commonplace book, after praising the old bards, and drawing a parallel between their sources of inspiration and his own, he shudders to think that his fate may be such as theirs. 'oh mortifying to a bard's vanity, their very names are buried in the wreck of things that were!' close on the heels of these entries came troubles on the head of the luckless poet, troubles more serious than bad seed and late harvests. during the summer of 1784, we know that he was in bad health, and again subject to melancholy. his verses at this time are of a religious cast, serious and sombre, the confession of fault, and the cry of repentance. 'thou know'st that thou hast formèd me with passions wild and strong; and listening to their witching voice has often led me wrong.' perhaps this is only the prelude to his verses to rankine, written towards the close of the year, and his poem, _a poet's welcome_. they must at least be all read together, if we are to have any clear conception of the nature of burns. it is not enough to select his _epistle to rankine_, and speak of its unbecoming levity. this was the time when burns was first subjected to ecclesiastical discipline; and some of his biographers have tried to trace the origin of that wonderful series of satires, written shortly afterwards, to the vengeful feelings engendered in the poet by this degradation. but burns's attack on the effete and corrupt ceremonials of the church was not a burst of personal rancour and bitterness. the attack came of something far deeper and nobler, and was bound to be delivered sooner or later. his own personal experience, and the experience of his worthy landlord, gavin hamilton, may have given the occasion, but the cause of the attack was in the church itself, and in burns's inborn loathing of humbug, hypocrisy, and cant. well was it the satires were written by so powerful a satirist, that the church purged itself of the evil thing and cleansed its ways. this, however, is an episode of such importance in the life of burns, and in the religious history of scotland, as to require to be taken up carefully and considered by itself. chapter iii the series of satires before we can clearly see and understand burns's attitude to the church, we must have studied the nature of the man himself, and we must know something also of his religious training. it will not be enough to select his series of satires, and, from a study of them alone, try to make out the character of the man. his previous life must be known; the natural bent of his mind apprehended, and once that is grasped, these satires will appeal to the heart and understanding of the reader with a sense of naturalness and expectedness. they are as inevitable as his love lyrics, and are read with the conviction that his merciless exposure of profanity masquerading in the habiliments of religion, was part of the life-work and mission of this great poet. he had been born, it is recognised, not only to sing the loves and joys and sorrows of his fellow men and women, but to purge their lives of grossness, and their religion of the filth of hypocrisy and cant. let it be admitted, that he himself went 'a kennin wrang.' what argument is there? we do not deny the divine mission of samson because of delilah. surely that giant's life was a wasted one, yet in his very death he was true to his mission, and fulfilled the purpose of his birth. in other lands and in other times the satirist is recognised and his work appraised; the abuses he scourged, the pretensions he ridiculed, are seen in all their hideousness; but when a great satirist arises amongst ourselves to probe the ulcers of pharisaism, he is banned as a profaner of holy things, touching with impious hands the ark of the covenant. why should the _cloth_--as it is so ingenuously called--be touched with delicate hands, unless it be that it is shoddy? yet the man who would stand well in the eyes of society must not whisper a word against pharisaism; for the pharisee is a highly respectable person, and observes the proprieties; he typifies the conventional righteousness and religion of his time. let us have done with all this timidity and coward tenderness. if the church is filthy, it must be cleansed; if there be money-changers within its gates, let them be driven out with a whip of small cords. this awe of the _cloth_, not yet stamped out in scotland, is but the remains of a pagan superstition, and has nothing to do with the manliness and courage of true religion. but prophets have no honour in their own country, rarely in their own time; they have ever been persecuted, and it is the church's martyrs that have handed down through the ages the light of the world. the profanities and religious blasphemies burns attacked were evils insidious and poisonous, eating to the very heart of the religious life of the country, and they required a desperate remedy. let us be thankful that the remedy was applied in time; and, looking to the righteousness he wrought, let us bless the name of burns. burns's father, stern and severe moralist as he was, was not a strict calvinist. anyone who takes the trouble to read 'the manual of religious belief in a dialogue between father and son, compiled by william burness, farmer, mount oliphant, and transcribed with grammatical corrections by john murdoch, teacher,' will see that the man was of too loving and kindly a nature to be strictly orthodox. what was rigid and unlovely to him in the calvinism of the scottish church of that day has been here softened down into something not very far from arminianism. he had had a hard experience in the world himself, and that may have drawn him nearer to his suffering fellow-men and into closer communion with his god. he had learned that religion is a thing of the spirit, and not a matter of creeds and catechisms. of robert burns's own religion it would be impertinent to inquire too curiously. the religion of a man is not to be paraded before the public like the manifesto of a party politician. after all, is there a single man who can sincerely, without equivocation or mental reservation, label himself calvinist, arminian, socinian, or pelagian? if there be, his mind must be a marvel of mathematical nicety and nothing more. all that we need know of burns is that he was naturally and sincerely religious; that he worshipped an all-loving father, and believed in an ever-present god; that his charity was boundless; that he loved what was good and true, and hated with an indignant hatred whatever was loathsome and false. he loved greatly his fellow-creatures, man and beast and flower; he could even find something to pity in the fate of the devil himself. that he was not orthodox, in the narrow interpretation of orthodoxy in his day, we are well enough aware, else had he not been the poet we love and cherish. in his early days at mount oliphant there is a hint of these later satires. 'polemical divinity about this time was,' he says, 'putting the country half-mad, and i, ambitious of shining on sundays, between sermons, in conversation parties, at funerals, etc., in a few years more, used to puzzle calvinism with so much heat and indiscretion that i raised a hue and cry of heresy against me, which has not ceased to this hour.' and heresy is a terrible cry to raise against a man in scotland. in those days it was anathema-maranatha; even now it is still the war-slogan of the assemblies. the polemical divinity which he refers to as putting the country half-mad was the wordy war that was being carried on at that time between the auld lights and the new lights. these new lights, as they were called, were but a birth of the social and religious upheaval that was going on in scotland and elsewhere. the spirit of revolution was abroad; in france it became acutely political; in scotland there was a desire for greater religious freedom. the church, as reformed by knox, was requiring to be re-reformed. the yoke of papacy had been lifted certainly, but the yoke of pseudo-protestantism which had taken its place was quite as heavy on the necks of the people. so long as it had been new; so long as it had been of their own choosing, it had been endured willingly. but a generation was springing up--stiff-necked they might have been called, in that they fretted under the yoke of their fathers--that sought to be delivered from the tyranny of their pastors and the fossilised formalism of their creed. to the people in their bondage a prophet was born, and that prophet was robert burns. it was natural that a man of burns's temperament and clearness of perception should be on the side of the 'common-sense' party. in one of his letters to mr. james burness, montrose, wherein he describes the strange doings of a strange sect called the buchanites,--surely in itself a convincing proof of the degeneracy of the times in the matter of religion,--we have an interesting reflection which gives us some insight into the poet's mind. 'this, my dear sir, is one of the many instances of the folly in leaving the guidance of sound reason and common sense in matters of religion. whenever we neglect or despise those sacred monitors, the whimsical notions of a perturbed brain are taken for the immediate influences of the deity, and the wildest fanaticism and the most inconsistent absurdities will meet with abettors and converts. nay, i have often thought that the more out of the way and ridiculous their fancies are, if once they are sanctified under the name of religion, the unhappy, mistaken votaries are the more firmly glued to them.' the man who wrote that was certainly not the man, when the day of battle came, to join himself with the orthodox party, the party that stuck to the pure, undiluted puritanism of covenanting times. yet many biographers have not seen the bearing that such a letter has on burns's attitude to the church. principal shairp seems to say that burns, had it not been for the accident of ecclesiastical discipline to which he had been subjected, would have joined the orthodox party. the notion is absurd. burns had attacked orthodox calvinism even in his boyhood, and was already tainted with heresy. 'these men,' the worthy principal informs us, 'were democratic in their ecclesiastical views, and stout protesters against patronage. all burns's instincts would naturally have been on the side of those who wished to resist patronage and "cowe the lairds" had not this, his natural tendency, been counteracted by a stronger bias drawing him in an opposite direction.' this is a narrowing--if not even a positive misconception--of the case with a vengeance. the question was not of patronage at all, but of moral and religious freedom; while the democracy of those ministers was a terribly one-sided democracy. the lairds may have dubbed them democrats, but they were aristocratic enough, despotic even, to their herds. but principal shairp has been led altogether wrong by imagining that 'burns, smarting under the strict church discipline, naturally threw himself into the arms of the opposite or new light party, who were more easy in their life and in their doctrine.' more charitable also, and christ-like in their judgments, i should fain hope; less blinded by a superstitious awe of the church. 'nothing could have been more unfortunate,' he continues, 'than that in this crisis of his career he should have fallen into intimacy with those hard-headed but coarse-minded men.' surely this zeal for the church has carried him too far. were these men all coarse minded? nobody believes it. the coarse-minded dr. dalrymple of ayr, and the coarse-minded mr. lawrie of loudon! this is not argument. besides, it is perfectly gratuitous. the question, again, is not one of men--that ecclesiastical discipline has been an offence and a stumbling-block--either coarse minded or otherwise. it is a question of principle, and burns fought for it with keen-edged weapons. it would be altogether a mistake to identify burns with the new light party, or with any other sect. he was a law unto himself in religion, and would bind himself by no creed. because he attacked rigid orthodoxy as upheld by auld light doctrine, that does not at all mean that he was espousing, through thick and thin, the cause of the new light party. he fought in his own name, with his own weapons, and for humanity. it ought to be clearly understood that in his series of satires he was not attacking the orthodoxy of the auld lights from the bulwarks of any other creed. his criticism was altogether destructive. from his own conception of a wise and loving god he satirised what he conceived to be their irrational and inhuman conception of deity, whose attitude towards mankind was assuredly not that of a father to his children. burns's god was a god of love; the god they worshipped was the creation of their creed, a god of election. it is quite true that burns made many friends amongst the new lights, but we are certain he did not hold by all their tenets or subscribe to their doctrine. in the _dictionary of national biography_ we read: 'burns represented the revolt of a virile and imaginative nature against a system of belief and practice which, as he judged, had degenerated into mere bigotry and pharisaism.... that burns, like carlyle, who at once retained the sentiment and rejected the creed of his race more decidedly than burns, could sympathise with the higher religious sentiments of his class is proved by _the cotter's saturday night_.' principal shairp, however, has not seen the matter in this broad light. all he sees is a man of keen insight and vigorous powers of reasoning, who 'has not only his own quarrel with the parish minister and the stricter clergy to revenge, but the quarrel also of his friend and landlord, gavin hamilton, a county lawyer who had fallen under church censure for neglect of church ordinances,'--a question of new potatoes in fact,--'and had been debarred from the communion.' it is pleasing to see that the academic spirit is not always so blinding and blighting. professor blackie recognises that the abuses burns castigated were real abuses, and admits that the verdict of time has been in his favour. 'in the case of _holy willie_ and _the holy fair_,' he remarks, 'the lash was wisely and effectively wielded'; and on another occasion he wrote, 'though a sensitive pious mind will naturally shrink from the bold exposure of devout abuses in holy things, in _the holy fair_ and other similar satires, on a broad view of the matter we cannot but think that the castigation was reasonable, and the man who did it showed an amount of independence, frankness, and moral courage that amply compensates for the rudeness of the assault.' rude, the assault certainly was and overwhelming. augean stables are not to be cleansed with a spray of rose-water. lockhart, whilst recognising the force and keenness of these satires, has regretfully pointed out that the very things burns satirised were part of the same religious system which produced the scenes described in _the cotter's saturday night_. but is this not really the explanation of the whole matter? it was just because burns had seen the beauty of true religion at home, that he was fired to fight to the death what was false and rotten. it was the cause of true religion that he espoused. 'all hail religion! maid divine, pardon a muse so mean as mine, who in her rough imperfect line thus dares to name thee. to stigmatise false friends of thine can ne'er defame thee.' compare the reading of the sacred page, when the family is gathered round the ingle, and 'the sire turns o'er with patriarchal grace the big ha'-bible' and 'wales a portion with judicious care,' with the reading of _peebles frae the water fit_- 'see, up he's got the word o' god, and meek and mim has viewed it.' what a contrast! the two readings are as far apart as is heaven from hell, as far as the true from the false. it is strange that both lockhart and shairp should have stumbled on the explanation of burns's righteous satire in these poems; should have been so near it, and yet have missed it. it was just because burns could write _the cotter's saturday night_ that he could write _the holy tulzie_, _holy willie's prayer_, _the ordination_, and _the holy fair_. had he not felt the beauty of that family worship at home; had he not seen the purity and holiness of true religion, how could such scenes as those described in _the holy fair_, or such hypocrisy as holy willie's, ever have moved him to scathing satire? where was the poet's indignation to come from? that is not to be got by tricks of rhyme or manufactured by rules of metre; but let it be alive and burning in the heart of the poet, and all else will be added unto him for the perfect poem, as it was to burns. that burns, though he wrote in humorous satire, was moved to the writing by indignation, he tells us in his epistle to the rev. john m'math- 'but i gae mad at their grimaces, their sighin', cantin', grace-prood faces, their three-mile prayers, and half-mile graces, their raxin' conscience, whase greed, revenge, and pride disgraces waur nor their nonsense.' the first of burns's satires, if we except his epistle to john goudie, wherein we have a hint of the acute differences of the time, is his poem _the twa herds_, or _the holy tulzie_. the two herds were the rev. john russell and the rev. alexander moodie, both afterwards mentioned in _the holy fair_. these reverend gentlemen, so long sworn friends, bound by a common bond of enmity against a certain new light minister of the name of lindsay, 'had a bitter black outcast,' and, in the words of lockhart, 'abused each other _coram populo_ with a fiery virulence of personal invective such as has long been banished from all popular assemblies.' this degrading spectacle of two priests ordained to preach the gospel of love, attacking each other with all the rancour of malice and uncharitableness, and foaming with the passion of a pothouse, was too flagrant an occasion for satire for burns to miss. he held them up to ridicule in _the holy tulzie_, and showed them themselves as others saw them. it has been objected by some that burns made use of humorous satire; did not censure with the fiery fervour of a righteous indignation. burns used the weapon he could handle best; and a powerful weapon it is in the hands of a master. we acknowledge horace's satires to be scathing enough, though they are light and delicate, almost trifling and flippant at times. he has not the volcanic utterance of juvenal, but i doubt not his castigations were quite as effective. 'quamquam ridentem dicere verum quid vetat?' burns might have well replied to his censors with the same question. quick on the heels of this poem came _holy willie's prayer_, wherein he took up the cudgels for his friend, mr. gavin hamilton, and fought for him in his own enthusiastic way. the satire here is so scathing and scarifying that we can only read and wonder, shuddering the while for the wretched creature so pitilessly flayed. not a word is wasted; not a line without weight. the character of the self-righteous, sensual, spiteful pharisee is a merciless exposure, and, hardest of all, the picture is convincing. for burns believed in his own mind that these men, holy willie and the crew he typified, were thoroughly dishonest. they were not in his judgment--and burns had keen insight--mere bigots dehumanised by their creed, but a pack of scheming, calculating scoundrels. 'they take religion in their mouth, they talk o' mercy, grace, and truth, for what? to gie their malice skouth on some puir wight, and hunt him down, o'er right and ruth to ruin straight.' but it must be noted in _holy willie_ that the poet is not letting himself out in a burst of personal spleen. he is again girding at the rigidity of a lopped and maimed calvinism, and attacking the creed through the man. the poem is a living presentment of the undiluted, puritanic doctrine of the auld light party, to whom calvinism meant only a belief in hell and an assurance of their own election. it is evident that burns was not sound on either essential. _the address to the unco guid_ is a natural sequel to this poem, and, in a sense, its culmination. there is the same strength of satire, but now it is more delicate and the language more dignified. there is the same condemnation of pharisaism; but the poem rises to a higher level in its appeal for charitable views of human frailty, and its kindly counsel to silence; judgment is to be left to him who 'knows each cord, its various tone, each spring its various bias.' of all the series of satires, however, _the holy fair_ is the most remarkable. it is in a sense a summing up of all the others that preceded it. the picture it gives of the mixed and motley multitude fairing in the churchyard at mauchline, with a relay of ministerial mountebanks catering for their excitement, is true to the life. it is begging the question to deplore that burns was provoked to such an attack. the scene was provocation sufficient to any right-thinking man who associated the name of religion with all that was good and beautiful and true. such a state of things demanded reformation. the churchyard--that holy ground on which the church was built and sanctified by the dust of pious and saintly men--cried aloud against the desecration to which it was subjected; and burns, who alone had the power to purify it from such profanities, would have been untrue to himself and a traitor to the religion of his country had he merely shrugged his shoulders and allowed things to go on as they were going. and after all what was the result? for the poem is part and parcel of the end it achieved. 'there is a general feeling in ayrshire,' says chambers, 'that _the holy fair_ was attended with a good effect; for since its appearance the custom of resorting to the occasion in neighbouring parishes for the sake of holiday-making has been much abated and a great increase of decorous observance has taken place.' to that nothing more need be added. in this series of satires _the address to the deil_ ought also to be included. burns had no belief at all in that frankenstein creation. it was too bad, he thought, to invent such a monster for the express purpose of imputing to him all the wickedness of the world. if such a creature existed, he was rather sorry for the maligned character, and inclined to think that there might be mercy even for him. 'i'm wae to think upon yon den, even for your sake.' speaking of this address, auguste angellier says: 'all at once in their homely speech they heard the devil addressed not only without awe, but with a spice of good-fellowship and friendly familiarity. they had never heard the devil spoken of in this tone before. it was a charming address, jocund, full of raillery and good-humour, with a dash of friendliness, as if the two speakers had been cronies and companions ready to jog along arm in arm to the nether regions. he simply laughs satan out of countenance, turns him to ridicule, pokes his fun at him, scolds and defies him just as he might have treated a person from whom he had nothing to fear. nor is that all. he must admonish him, tell him he has been naughty long enough, and wind up by giving him some good advice, counselling him to mend his ways. this was certainly without theological precedent. it was, however, a simple idea which would have arranged matters splendidly.... even to-day to speak well of the devil is an abomination almost as serious as to speak evil of the deity. there was assuredly a great fortitude of mind as well as daring of conduct to write such a piece as this.' the poem has done more than anything else to kill the devil of superstition in scotland. after his death he found, it is averred, a quiet resting-place in kirkcaldy, where pious people have built a church on his grave. when burns later in life made the witches and warlocks dance to the piping of the devil in alloway's auld haunted kirk, he was but assembling them in their fit and proper house of meeting. here had they been called into being; here had they the still-born children of superstition been thrashed into life and trained in unholiness. one can imagine them oozing out from the walls that had echoed their names so often through centuries of sabbath days. the devil himself, by virtue of his rank, takes his place in the east, rising we have no doubt from the very spot on which the pulpit once had stood. in the church had superstition exorcised this hellish legion out of the dead mass of ignorance into the swarming maggots that batten on corruption; and it was in accordance with the eternal fitness of things that here their spirits should abide, and, when they took bodily shape, that they should assume the form and feature in which their mother superstition had conceived them. upon the holy table too lay 'twa span-lang wee unchristened bairns.' for this hell the poet pictures is the creation of a creed that throngs it with the souls of innocent babes. 'suffer little children to come unto me,' christ had said; 'for of such is the kingdom of heaven.' 'but unbaptized children must come unto me,' the devil of superstition said; 'for of such is the kingdom of hell.' what pathos is in this line of burns! there is in its slow spondaic movement an eternity of tears. could satire or sermon have shown more forcibly the revolting inhumanity of a doctrine upheld as divine? yet were there devout men, in other things gentle and loving and charitable, who preached this as the law of a loving god. with one stroke of genius they were brought face to face with the logical sequence of their barbarous teaching, and that without a word of coarseness or a touch of caricature. only once again did burns return to this attack on bigotry and superstition, and that was when he was induced to fight for dr. macgill in _the kirk's alarm_. but he had done his part in the series of satires of this year to expose the loathsomeness of hypocrisy and to purge holy places and the most solemn ceremonies of what was blasphemous and grossly profane. that in this burns was fulfilling a part of his mission as a poet, we can hardly doubt; and that his work wrought for righteousness, the purer religious life that followed amply proves. the true poet is also a prophet; and robert burns was a prophet when he spoke forth boldly and fearlessly the truth that was in him, and dared to say that sensuality was foul even in an elder of the kirk, and that profanities were abhorred of god even though sanctioned and sanctified under the sacred name of religion. chapter iv the kilmarnock edition _the holy tulzie_ had been written probably in april 1785, and the greatest of the satires, _the holy fair_, is dated august of the same year. it may, however, have been only drafted, and partly written, when the recent celebration of the sacrament at mauchline was fresh in the poet's mind. at the very latest, it must have been taken up, completed, and perfected, in the early months of 1786. that is a period of some ten months between the first and the last of this series of satires; and during that time he had composed _holy willie's prayer_, _the address to the deil_, _the ordination_, and _the address to the unco guid_. but this represents a very small part of the poetry written by burns during this busy period. from the spring of 1785 on to the autumn of 1786 was a time of great productiveness in his life, a productiveness unparalleled in the life of any other poet. if, according to gilbert, the seven years of their stay at lochlea were not marked by much literary improvement in his brother, we take it that the poet had been 'lying fallow' all those years; and what a rich harvest do we have now! here, indeed, was a reward worth waiting for. to read over the names of the poems, songs, and epistles written within such a short space of time amazes us. and there is hardly a poem in the whole collection without a claim to literary excellence. a month or two previous to the composition of his first satire he had written what gilbert calls his first poem, _the epistle to davie_, 'a brother poet, lover, ploughman, and fiddler.' it is worthy of notice that, in the opening lines of this poem- 'while winds frae aff ben lomond blaw, and bar the doors wi' driving snaw, and hing us ower the ingle'-we see the poet and his surroundings, as he sets himself down to write. he plunges, as horace advises, in _medias res_, and we have the atmosphere of the poem in the first phrase. this is burns's usual way of beginning his poems and epistles, as well as a great many of his songs. the metre of this poem burns has evidently taken from _the cherry and the slae_, by alexander montgomery, which he must have read in ramsay's _evergreen_. the stanza is rather complicated, although burns, with his extraordinary command and pliancy of language, uses it from the first with masterly ease. but there is much more than mere jugglery of words in the poem. indeed, such is this poet's seeming simplicity of speech that his masterly manipulation of metres always comes as an afterthought. it never disturbs us in our first reading of the poem. gilbert's opinion of this poem is worth recording, the more especially as he expressly tells us that the first idea of robert's becoming an author was started on this occasion. 'i thought it,' he says, 'at least equal to, if not superior, to many of allan ramsay's epistles, and that the merit of these and much other scottish poetry seemed to consist principally in the knack of the expression; but here there was a strain of interesting sentiment, and the scotticism of the language scarcely seemed affected, but appeared to be the natural language of the poet.' it startles us to hear gilbert talking thus of the scotticism, after having heard so much of robert burns writing naturally in the speech of his home and county. in this poem we have, at least, the first proof of that graphic power in which burns has never been excelled, and in it we have the earliest mention of his bonnie jean. in his next poem, _death and dr. hornbook_, his command of language and artistic phrasing are more apparent, while pawky humour and genial satire sparkle and flash from every line. the poem is written in that form of verse which burns has made particularly his own. he had become acquainted with it, it is most likely, in the writings of fergusson, ramsay, and gilbertfield, who had used it chiefly for comic subjects; but burns showed that, in his hands at least, it could be made the vehicle of the most pensive and tender feeling. in an interesting note to the _centenary burns_, edited by henley and henderson, it is pointed out that 'the six-line stave in rime couée built on two rhymes,' was used by the troubadours in their _chansons de gestes_, and that it dates at the very latest from the eleventh century. burns's happiest use of it was in those epistles which about this time he began to dash off to some of his friends; and it is with these epistles that the uninterrupted stream of poetry of this season may be said properly to begin. perhaps it was in the use of this stanza that burns first discovered his command of rhymes and his felicity of phrasing. certain it is, that after his first epistle to lapraik, we have epistles, poems, songs, satires flowing from his pen, uninterrupted for a period, and apparently with marvellous ease. it has to be remembered, too, that he was now inspired by the dream of becoming an author--in print. when or where or how, had not been determined; but the idea was delightful all the same; the hope was inspiration itself. some day his work would be published, and he would be read and talked about! he would have done something for poor auld scotland's sake. the one thing now was to make the book, and to that he set himself deliberately. poetry was at last to have its chance. farming had been tried, with little success. the crops of 1784 had been a failure, and this year they were hardly more promising. in these discouraging circumstances the poet was naturally driven in upon himself. his eyes were turned _ad intra_, and he sought consolation in his muse. he was conscious of some poetical ability, and he knew that his compositions were not destitute of merit. poetry, too, was to him, and particularly so at this time, its own exceeding great reward. he rhymed 'for fun'; and probably he was finding in the exercise that excitement his passionate nature craved. herein was his stimulant after the routine of farm-work--spiritless work that was little better than slavery, incessant and achieving nothing. we can imagine him in those days returning from the fields, 'forjesket, sair, with weary legs,' and becoming buoyant as soon as he has opened the drawer of that small deal table in the garret. 'leeze me on rhyme! it's aye a treasure, my chief, amaist, my only pleasure; at hame, afield, at wark or leisure, the muse, poor hizzie, though rough and raploch be her measure, she's seldom lazy.' but, lazy or not, she becomes 'ramfeezled' with constant work, when he vows if 'the thowless jad winna mak it clink,' to prose it,--a terrible threat. for he must write, though it be but to keep despondency at arm's length. yet it had become more than a pleasure and a recreation to him; and this he was beginning to understand. this, after all, was his real work, not the drudgery of the fields; in it he must live his life, and fulfil his mission. the more he wrote the more he accustomed himself with the idea of being an author. he knew that the critic-folk, deep read in books, might scoff at the very suggestion of a ploughman turning poet, but he recognised also that they might be wrong. it was not by dint of greek that parnassus was to be climbed. 'ae spark o' nature's fire' was the one thing needful for poetry that was to touch the heart. 'the star that rules my luckless lot, has fated me the russet coat, and damned my fortune to the groat; but, in requit, has blest me with a random shot o' countra wit. this while my notion's ta'en a sklent, to try my fate in guid, black prent; but still the mair i'm that way bent, something cries, "hoolie! i red you, honest man, tak tent! ye'll shaw your folly. "there's ither poets, much your betters, far seen in greek, deep men o' letters, hae thought they had ensured their debtors, a' future ages; now moths deform in shapeless tatters their unknown pages."' the works of such scholars enjoyed of the moths! there is gentle satire here. they themselves had grubbed on greek, and now is time avenged. it is in his epistles that we see burns most vividly and clearly, the man in all his moods. they are just such letters as might be written to intimate friends when one is not afraid of being himself, and can speak freely. in sentiment they are candid and sincere, and in language transparently unaffected. whatever occurs to him as he writes goes down; we have the thoughts of his heart at the time of writing, and see the varying expressions of his face as he passes from grave to gay, from lively to severe. now he is tender, now indignant; now rattling along in good-natured raillery without broadening into burlesque; now becoming serious and pensively philosophic without a suggestion of mawkish morality. for burns, when he is himself, is always an artist; says his say, and lets the moral take care of itself; and in his epistles he lets himself go in a very revelry of artistic abandon. he does not think of style--that fetich of barren minds--and style comes to him; for style is a coquette that flies the suppliant wooer to kiss the feet of him who worships a goddess; a submissive handmaiden, a wayward and moody mistress. but along with delicacy of diction, force and felicity of expression, pregnancy of phrase and pliancy of language, what knowledge there is of men--the passions that sway, the impulses that prompt, the motives that move them to action. clearness of vision and accuracy of observation are evidenced in their vividness of imagery; naturalness and truthfulness--the first essential of all good writing--in their convincing sincerity of sentiment. wit and humour, play and sparkle of fancy, satire genial or scathing, a boundless love of nature and all created things, are harmoniously unified in the glowing imagination of the poet, and welded into the perfect poem. behind all is the personality of the writer, captivating the reader as much by his kindliness and sympathy as by his witchery of words. others have attempted poetic epistles, but none has touched familiar intercourse to such fine issues; none has written with such natural grace or woven the warp and woof of word and sentiment so cunningly into the web of poetry as robert burns. looseness of rhythm may be detected, excruciating rhymes are not awanting, but all are forgiven and forgotten in the enjoyment of the feast as a whole. besides the satires and epistles we have during this fertile period poems as different in subject, sentiment, and treatment as _the cotter's saturday night_ and _the jolly beggars_; _hallowe'en_ and _the mountain daisy_; _the farmer's address to his auld mare maggie_ and _the twa dogs_; _address to a mouse_, _man was made to mourn_, _the vision_, _a winter's night_, and _the epistle to a young friend_. perhaps of all these poems _the vision_ is the most important. it is an epoch-marking poem in the poet's life. all that he had previously written had been leading to this; the finer the poem the more surely was it bringing him to this composition. the time was bound to come when he had to settle for himself finally and firmly what his work in life was to be. was poetry to be merely a pastime; a recreation after the labours of the day were done; a solace when harvests failed and ruin stared the family in the face? that question burns answered when he sat down by the ingle-cheek, and, looking backward, mused on the years of youth that had been spent 'in stringing blethers up in rhyme for fools to sing.' he saw what he might have been; he knew too well what he was--'half-mad, half-fed, half-sarket.' yet the picture of what he might have been he dismissed lightly, almost disdainfully; for he saw what he might be yet--what he should be. turning from the toilsome past and the unpromising present, he looked to the future with a manly assurance of better things. he should shine in his humble sphere, a rustic bard; his to 'preserve the dignity of man, with soul erect; and trust, the universal plan will all protect.' the poem is pitched on a high key; the keynote is struck in the opening lines, and the verses move to the end with stateliness and dignity. it is calm, contemplative, with that artistic restraint that comes of conscious power. burns took himself seriously, and knew that if he were true to his genius he would become the poet and prophet of his fellow-men. it is worth while dwelling a little on this particular poem, because it marks a crisis in burns's life. at this point he shook himself free from the tyranny of the soil. he had considered all things, and his resolution for authorship was taken. some of the other poems will be mentioned afterwards; meantime we have to consider another crisis in his life--some aspects of his nature less pleasing, some episodes in his career dark and unlovely. speaking of the effect _holy willie's prayer_ had on the kirk-session, he says that they actually held three meetings to see if their holy artillery could be pointed against profane rhymers. 'unluckily for me,' he adds, 'my idle wanderings led me on another side, point-blank within reach of their heaviest metal. this is the unfortunate story alluded to in my printed poem _the lament_. 'twas a shocking affair, which i cannot yet bear to recollect, and it had very nearly given me one or two of the principal qualifications for a place with those who have lost the chart and mistaken the reckoning of rationality.' throughout the year 1785 burns had been acquainted with jean armour, the daughter of a master mason in mauchline. her name, besides being mentioned in his _epistle to davie_, is mentioned in _the vision_, and we know from a verse on the six belles of mauchline that 'armour was the jewel o' them a'.' from the depressing cares and anxieties of that gloomy season the poet had turned to seek solace in song, but he had also found comfort and consolation in love. 'when heart-corroding care and grief deprive my soul of rest, her dear idea brings relief and solace to my breast.' now in the spring of 1786 burns as a man of honour must acknowledge jean as his wife. the lovers had imprudently anticipated the church's sanction to marriage, and it was his duty, speaking in the homely phrase of the scottish peasantry, to make an honest woman of his bonnie jean. but, unfortunately, matters had been going from bad to worse on the farm of mossgiel, and about this time the brothers had come to a final decision to quit the farm. robert, as gilbert informs us, durst not then engage with a family in his poor, unsettled state, but was anxious to shield his partner by every means in his power from the consequences of their imprudence. it was agreed, therefore, between them, that they should make a legal acknowledgment of marriage, that he should go to jamaica to push his fortune, and that she should remain with her father till it should please providence to put the means of supporting a family in his power. he was willing even to work as a common labourer so that he might do his duty by the woman he had already made his wife. but jean's father, whatever were his reasons, would allow her to have nothing whatever to do with a man like burns. a husband in jamaica was, in his judgment, no husband at all. what inducement he held out, or what arguments he used, we may not know, but he prevailed on jean to surrender to him the paper acknowledging the irregular marriage. this he deposited with mr. aitken of ayr, who, as burns heard, deleted the names, thus rendering the marriage null and void. this was the circumstance, what he regarded as jean's desertion, which brought burns, as he has said, to the verge of insanity. now it was that he finally resolved to leave the country. it was not the first time he had thought of america. poverty, before this, had led him to think of emigrating; the success of others who had gone out as settlers tempted him to try his fortune beyond the seas, even though he 'should herd the buckskin kye in virginia.' now, imprudence as well as poverty urged him, while, wounded so sorely by the action of the armours both in his love and his vanity, he had little desire to remain at home. there is no doubt that, prior to the birth of his twin children and the publication of his poems, he would have quitted scotland with little reluctance. but he was so poor that, even after accepting a situation in jamaica, he had not money to pay his passage; and it was at the suggestion of gavin hamilton that he began seriously to prepare for the publication of his poems by subscription, in order to raise a sum sufficient to buy his banishment. accordingly we find him under the date april 3, 1786, writing to mr. aitken, 'my proposals for publishing i am just going to send to press.' but what a time this was in the poet's life! it was a long tumult of hope and despair, exultation and despondency, poetry and love; revelry, rebellion, and remorse. everything was excitement; calmness itself a fever. yet through it all inspiration was ever with him, and poem followed poem with miraculous, one might almost say, unnatural rapidity. now he is apostrophising ruin; now he is wallowing in the mire of village scandal; now he is addressing a mountain daisy in words of tenderness and purity; now he is scarifying a garrulous tailor, and ranting with an alien flippancy; now it is beelzebub he addresses, now the king; now he is waxing eloquent on the virtues of scotch whisky, anon writing to a young friend in words of wisdom that might well be written on the fly-leaf of his bible. this was certainly a period of ageing activity in burns's life. it seemed as if there had been a conspiracy of fate and circumstance to herald the birth of his poems with the wildest convulsions of labour and travail. the parish of tarbolton became the stage of a play that had all the makings of a farce and all the elements of a tragedy. there were endless complications and daily developments, all deepening the dramatic intensity without disturbing the unity. we watch with breathless interest, dumbly wondering what the end will be. it is tragedy, comedy, melodrama, and burlesque all in one. driven almost to madness by the faithlessness of jean armour, he rends himself in a whirlwind of passion, and seeks sympathy and solace in the love of mary campbell. what a situation for a novelist! this is just how the story-teller would have made his jilted hero act; sent him with bleeding heart to seek consolation in a new love. for novelists make a study of the vagaries of love, and know that hearts are caught in the rebound. most of the biographers of burns are agreed that this highland lassie was the object of by far the deepest passion he ever knew. they may be right. death stepped in before disillusion, and she was never other than the adored mary of that rapturous meeting when the white hawthorn-blossom no purer was than their love. thus was his love for mary campbell ever a holy and spiritual devotion. auguste angellier says: 'this was the purest, the most lasting, and by far the noblest of his loves. above all the others, many of which were more passionate, this one stands out with the chasteness of a lily. there is a complete contrast between his love for jean and his love for mary. in the one case all the epithets are material; here they are all moral. the praises are borrowed, not from the graces of the body, but from the features of the soul. the words which occur again and again are those of honour, of purity, of goodness. the idea of seeing her again some day was never absent from his mind. every time he thought of eternity, of a future life, of reunions in some unknown state, it was to her that his heart went out. the love of that second sunday of may was ever present. it was the love which led burns to the most elevated sphere to which he ever attained; it was the inspiration of his most spiritual efforts. this sweet, blue-eyed highland lassie was his beatrice, and waved to him from the gates of heaven.' we know little about mary campbell from the poet himself; and though much has been ferreted out about her by a host of snappers-up of unconsidered trifles, this episode in his life is still involved in mystery. it is pleasant to reflect that his reticence here has kept at least one love passage in his life sacred and holy. is not mystery half the charm and beauty of love? yet, in spite of his silence, or probably because of it, details have been raked up from time to time, some grey and colourless fossil-remains of what was once fresh and living fact. from burns himself we know that the lovers took a tender farewell in a sequestered spot by the banks of the ayr, and parted never to meet again. all the romance and tragedy are there, and what need we more? we are not even certain as to either the place or the date of her death. mrs. begg, the poet's sister, knew little or nothing about mary campbell. she remembered, however, a letter being handed in to him after the work of the season was over. 'he went to the window to open and read it, and she was struck by the look of agony which was the consequence. he went out without uttering a word.' what he felt he expressed afterwards in song--song that has become the language of bereaved and broken hearts for all time. the widowed lover knows 'the dear departed shade,' but he may not have heard of mary campbell. it was in may that burns and highland mary had parted; in june he wrote to a friend about ungrateful armour, confessing that he still loved her to distraction, though he would not tell her so. but all his letters about this time are wild and rebellious. he raves in a tempest of passion, and cools himself again, perhaps in the composition of a song or poem. just about the time this letter was written, his poems were already in the press. his proposal for publishing had met with so hearty a reception, that success financially was to a certain extent assured, and the printing had been put into the hand of john wilson, kilmarnock. even yet his pen was busy. he wrote often in a gay and lively style, almost, it would seem, in a struggle to keep himself from sinking into melancholy, 'singing to keep his courage up.' his gaiety was 'the madness of an intoxicated criminal under the hands of the executioner.' _a bard's epitaph_, however, among the many pieces of this season, is earnest and serious enough to disarm hostile criticism; and his loose and flippant productions are read leniently in the light of this pathetic confession. it is a self-revelation truly, but it is honest, straightforward, and manly. there is nothing plaintive or mawkish about it. we next find burns flying from home to escape legal measures that jean armour's father was instituting against him. he was in hiding at kilmarnock to be out of the way of legal diligence, and it was in such circumstances that he saw his poems through the press. surely never before in the history of literature had book burst from such a medley of misfortunes into so sudden and certain fame. born in tumult, it vindicated its volcanic birth, and took the hearts of men by storm. burns says little about those months of labour and bitterness. we know that he had then nearly as high an idea of himself and his works as he had in later life; he had watched every means of information as to how much ground he occupied as a man and a poet, and was sure his poems would meet with some applause. he had subscriptions for about three hundred and fifty, and he got six hundred copies printed, pocketing, after all expenses were paid, nearly twenty pounds. with nine guineas of this sum he bespoke a passage in the first ship that was to sail for the west indies. 'i had for some time,' he says, 'been skulking from covert to covert under all the terrors of a jail, as some ill-advised, ungrateful people had uncoupled the merciless, legal pack at my heels. i had taken the last farewell of my friends; my chest was on the road to greenock; i had composed the song _the gloomy night is gathering fast_, which was to be the last effort of my muse in caledonia, when a letter from dr. blacklock to a friend of mine overthrew all my schemes, by rousing my poetic ambition. the doctor belonged to a class of critics, for whose applause i had not even dared to hope. his idea that i would meet with every encouragement for a second edition fired me so much, that away i posted to edinburgh, without a single acquaintance in town, or a single letter of recommendation in my pocket.' it was towards the end of july that the poems were published, and they met with a success that must have been gratifying to those friends who had stood by the poet in his hour of adversity, and done what they could to ensure subscriptions. in spite of the fact that burns certainly looked upon himself as possessed of some poetic abilities, the reception the little volume met with, and the impression it at once made, must have exceeded his wildest anticipations. even yet, however, he did not relinquish the idea of going to america. on the other hand, as we have seen, the first use he made of the money which publication had brought him, was to secure a berth in a vessel bound for jamaica. but he was still compelled by the dramatic uncertainty of circumstance. the day of sailing was postponed, else had he certainly left his native land. it was only after jean armour had become the mother of twin children that there was any hint of diffidence about sailing. in a letter to robert aitken, written in october, he says: 'all these reasons urge me to go abroad, and to all these reasons i have one answer--the feelings of a father. that in the present mood i am in overbalances everything that can be laid in the scale against it.' his friends, too, after the success of his poems, were beginning to be doubtful about the wisdom of his going abroad, and were doing what they could to secure for him a place in the excise. for his fame had gone beyond the bounds of his native county, and others than people in his own station had recognised his genius. mrs. dunlop of dunlop was one of the first to seek the poet's acquaintance, and she became an almost lifelong friend; through his poems he renewed acquaintance with mrs. stewart of stair. he was 'roosed' by craigen-gillan; dugald stewart, the celebrated metaphysician, and one of the best-known names in the learned and literary circles of edinburgh, who happened to be spending his vacation at catrine, not very far from mossgiel, invited the poet to dine with him, and on that occasion he 'dinnered wi' a laird'--lord daer. then came the appreciative letter from dr. blacklock to the rev. george lawrie of loudon, already mentioned. even this letter might not have proved strong enough to detain him in scotland, had it not been that he was disappointed of a second edition of his poems in kilmarnock. other encouragement came from edinburgh in a very favourable criticism of his poems in the _edinburgh magazine_. this, taken along with dr. blacklock's suggestion about 'a second edition more numerous than the former,' led the poet to believe that his work would be taken up by any of the edinburgh publishers. the feelings of a father also urged him to remain in scotland; and at length--probably in november--the thought of exile was abandoned. it was with very different feelings, we may be sure, that he contemplated setting out from mossgiel to sojourn for a season in edinburgh--a name that had ever been associated in his mind with the best traditions of learning and literature in scotland. chapter v the edinburgh edition edinburgh towards the close of last century was a very different place from edinburgh of the present day. it was then to a certain extent the hub of scottish society; the centre of learning and literature; the winter rendezvous of not a few of the nobility and gentry of scotland. for in those days it had its society and its season; county families had not altogether abandoned the custom of keeping their houses in town. all roads did not then lead to london as they do now, when edinburgh is a capital in little more than name, and its prestige has become a tradition. a century ago edinburgh had all the glamour and fascination of the capital of a no mean country; to-day it is but the historical capital invested with the glamour and fascination of a departed glory. the very names of those whom burns met on his first visit to edinburgh are part of the history of the nation. in the university there were at that time, representative of the learning of the age, dugald stewart, dr. blair, and dr. robertson. david hume was but recently dead, and the lustre of his name remained. his great friend, adam smith, author of _the wealth of nations_, was still living; while henry mackenzie, _the man of feeling_, the most popular writer of his day, was editing _the lounger_; and dr. blacklock, the blind poet, was also a name of authority in the world of letters. nor was the bar, whose magnates have ever figured in the front rank of edinburgh society, eclipsed by the literary luminaries of the university. lord monboddo has left a name, which his countrymen are not likely to forget. he was an accomplished, though eccentric character, whose classical bent was in the direction of epicurean parties. his great desire was to revive the traditions of the elegant suppers of classical times. not only were music and painting employed to this end, but the tables were wreathed with flowers, the odour of incense pervaded the room; the wines were of the choicest, served from decanters of grecian design. but, perhaps, the chief attraction to burns in the midst of all this super-refinement was the presence of 'the heavenly miss burnet,' daughter of lord monboddo. 'there has not been anything nearly like her,' he wrote to his friend chalmers, 'in all the combinations of beauty and grace and goodness the great creator has formed since milton's eve in the first day of her existence.' the hon. henry erskine was another well-known name, not only in legal circles, but as well in fashionable society. his genial and sunny nature made him so great a favourite in his profession, that having been elected dean of the faculty of advocates in 1786, he was unanimously re-elected every year till 1796, when he was victorious over dundas of arniston, who had been brought forward in opposition to him. the leader of fashion was the celebrated duchess of gordon, who was never absent from a public place, and 'the later the hour so much the better.' her amusements--her life, we might say--were dancing, cards, and company. with such a leader, the season to the very select and elegant society of edinburgh was certain to be a time of brilliance and gaiety; while its very exclusiveness, and the fact that it affected or reflected the literary life of the university and the bar, would make it all the more ready to lionise a man like burns when the opportunity came. the members of the middle class caught their tone from the upper ranks, and took their nightly sederunts and morning headaches as privileges they dared aristocratic exclusiveness to deny them. douce citizens, merchants, respectable tradesmen, well-to-do lawyers, forgathered when the labours of the day were done to spend a few hours in some snug back-parlour, where mine host granted them the privileges and privacy of a club. such social beings as these, met to discuss punch, law, and literature, were no less likely than their aristocratic neighbours to receive burns with open arms, and once he was in their midst to prolong their sittings in his honour. nor was burns, if he found them honest and hearty fellows, the man to say them nay. he was eminently a social and sociable being, and in company such as theirs he could unbend himself as he might not do in the houses of punctilious society. the etiquette of that howff of the crochallan fencibles in the anchor close or of johnnie dowie's tavern in libberton's wynd was not the etiquette of drawing-rooms; and the poet was free to enliven the hours with a rattling fire of witty remarks on men and things as he had been wont to do on the bog at lochlea, with only a few noteless peasants for audience. burns entered edinburgh on november 28, 1786. he had spent the night after leaving mossgiel at the farm of covington mains, where the kind-hearted host, mr. prentice, had all the farmers of the parish gathered to meet him. this is of interest as showing the popularity burns's poems had already won; while the eagerness of those farmers to see and know the man after they had read his poems proves most strikingly how straight the poet had gone to the hearts of his readers. they had recognised the voice of a human being, and heard it gladly. this gathering was convincing testimony, if such were needed, of the truthfulness and sincerity of his writings. no doubt burns, with his great force of understanding, appreciated the welcome of those brother-farmers, and valued it above the adulation he afterwards received in edinburgh. the kilmarnock edition was but a few months old, yet here was a gathering of hard-working men, who had read his poems, we may be sure, from cover to cover, and now they were eager to thank him who had sung the joys and sorrows of their workaday lives. of course there was a great banquet, and night wore into morning before the company dispersed. they had seen the poet face to face, and the man was greater than his poems. next morning he resumed his journey, breakfasting at carnwath, and reaching edinburgh in the evening. he had come, as he tells us, without a letter of introduction in his pocket, and he took up his abode with john richmond in baxter's close, off the lawnmarket. he had known richmond when he was a clerk with gavin hamilton, and had kept up a correspondence with him ever since he had left mauchline. the lodging was a humble enough one, the rent being only three shillings a week; but here burns lodged all the time he was in edinburgh, and it was hither he returned from visiting the houses of the rich and great, to share a bed with his friend and companion of many a merry meeting at mauchline. it would be vain to attempt to describe burns's feelings during those first few days in edinburgh. he had never before been in a larger town than kilmarnock or ayr; and now he walked the streets of scotland's capital, to him full of history and instinct with the associations of centuries. this was really the heart of scotland, the home of heroes who fought and fell for their country, 'the abode of kings of other years.' his sentimental attachment to jacobitism became more pronounced as he looked on holyrood. for burns, a representative of the strength and weakness of his countrymen, was no less representative of scotland's sons in his chivalrous pity for the fate of queen mary and his romantic loyalty to the gallant prince charlie. his poetical espousal of the cause of the luckless stuarts was purely a matter of sentiment, a kind of pious pity that had little to do with reason; and in this he was typical of his countrymen even of the present day, who are loyal to the house of stuart in song, and in life are loyal subjects of their queen. we are told, and we can well believe that for the first few days of his stay he wandered about, looking down from arthur's seat, gazing at the castle, or contemplating the windows of the booksellers' shops. we know that he made a special pilgrimage to the grave of fergusson, and that in a letter, dated february 6, 1787, he applied to the honourable bailies of canongate, edinburgh, for permission 'to lay a simple stone over his revered ashes'; which petition was duly considered and graciously granted. the stone was afterwards erected, with the simple inscription, 'here lies robert fergusson, poet. born september 5th, 1751; died 16th october, 1774. no sculptured marble here, nor pompous lay, "no storied urn nor animated bust"; this simple stone directs pale scotia's way to pour her sorrow o'er her poet's dust.' on the reverse side is recorded the fact that the stone was erected by robert burns, and that the ground was to remain for ever sacred to the memory of robert fergusson. it is related, too, that he visited ramsay's house, and that he bared his head when he entered. burns over and over again, both in prose and verse, turned to these two names with a kind of fetich worship, that it is difficult to understand. he must have known that, as a poet, he was immeasurably superior to both. it may have been that their writings first opened his eyes to the possibilities of the scots tongue in lyrical and descriptive poetry; and there was something also which appealed to him in the wretched life of fergusson. 'o thou, my elder brother in misfortune, by far my elder brother in the muses.' his elder brother indeed by some six years! but there is more of reverence than sound judgment in his estimate of either ramsay or fergusson. burns, however, had come to edinburgh with a fixed purpose in view, and it would not do to waste his time mooning about the streets. on december 7 we find him writing to gavin hamilton, half seriously, half jokingly: 'i am in a fair way of becoming as eminent as thomas à kempis or john bunyan, and you may expect henceforth to see my birthday inserted among the wonderful events in the poor robins' and aberdeen almanacs along with the black monday and the battle of bothwell bridge. my lord glencairn and the dean of faculty, mr. h. erskine, have taken me under their wing, and by all probability i shall soon be the tenth worthy and the eighth wise man of the world. through my lord's influence it is inserted in the records of the caledonian hunt that they universally one and all subscribe for the second edition.' this letter shows that burns had already been taken up, as the phrase goes, by the élite of edinburgh; and it shows also and quite as clearly in the tone of quiet banter, that he was little likely to lose his head by the notice taken of him. to the earl of glencairn, mentioned in it, he had been introduced probably by mr. dalrymple of orangefield, whom he knew both as a brother-mason and a brother-poet. the earl had already seen the kilmarnock edition of the poems, and now he not only introduced burns to william creech, the leading publisher in edinburgh, but he got the members of the caledonian hunt to become subscribers for a second edition of the poems. to erskine he had been introduced at a meeting of the canongate kilwinning lodge of freemasons; and assuredly there was no man living more likely to exert himself in the interests of a genius like burns. two days after this letter to gavin hamilton there appeared in _the lounger_ mackenzie's appreciative notice of the kilmarnock edition. this notice has become historical, and at the time of its appearance it must have been peculiarly gratifying to burns. he had remarked before, in reference to the letter from dr. blacklock, that the doctor belonged to a class of critics for whose applause he had not even dared to hope. now his work was criticised most favourably by the one who was regarded as the highest authority on literature in scotland. if a writer was praised in _the lounger_, his fame was assured. he went into the world with the hall-mark of henry mackenzie; and what more was needed? the oracle had spoken, and his decision was final. his pronouncement would be echoed and re-echoed from end to end of the country. and this great critic claimed no special indulgence for burns on the plea of his mean birth or poor education. he saw in this heaven-taught ploughman a genius of no ordinary rank, a man who possessed the spirit as well as the fancy of a great poet. he was a poet, and it mattered not whether he had been born a peasant or a peer. 'his poetry, considered abstractedly and without the apologies arising from his situation, seems to me fully entitled to command our feelings and obtain our applause.... the power of genius is not less admirable in tracing the manners, than in painting the passions or in drawing the scenery of nature. that intuitive glance with which a writer like shakspeare discerns the character of men, with which he catches the many changing hues of life, forms a sort of problem in the science of mind, of which it is easier to see the truth than assign the cause.' but mackenzie did more than praise. he pointed out the fact that the author had had a terrible struggle with poverty all the days of his life, and made an appeal to his country 'to stretch out her hand and retain the native poet whose wood-notes wild possessed so much excellence.' there seems little doubt that the concluding words of this notice led burns for the first time to hope and believe that, through some influential patron, he might be placed in a position to face the future without a fear, and to cultivate poetry at his leisure. there is no mistaking the meaning of mackenzie's words, and he had evidently used them with the conviction that something would be done for burns. unfortunately, he was mistaken; the poet, at first misled, was slowly disillusioned and somewhat embittered. 'to repair the wrongs of suffering or neglected merit; to call forth genius from the obscurity where it had pined indignant, and place it where it may profit or delight the world--these are exertions which give to wealth an enviable superiority, to greatness and to patronage a laudable pride.' to burns, at the time, such a criticism as this must have been all the more pleasing, inasmuch as it was the verdict of a man whose best-known work had been one of the poet's favourite books. we can easily imagine that, under the patronage of lord glencairn and henry erskine, and after mackenzie's generous recognition of his genius, the doors of the best houses in edinburgh would be open to him. his letter to john ballantine, ayr, written a few days after this criticism appeared, shows in what circles the poet was then moving. 'i have been introduced to a good many of the _noblesse_, but my avowed patrons and patronesses are, the duchess of gordon, the countess of glencairn with my lord and lady betty, the dean of faculty, sir john whitefoord. i have likewise warm friends among the _literati_; professors stewart, blair, and mr. mackenzie, _the man of feeling_.... i am nearly agreed with creech to print my book, and i suppose i will begin on monday.... dugald stewart and some of my learned friends put me in a periodical called _the lounger_, a copy of which i here enclose you. i was, sir, when i was first honoured with your notice, too obscure; now i tremble lest i should be ruined by being dragged too suddenly into the glare of learned and polite observation.' burns was now indeed the lion of edinburgh. it must have been a great change for a man to have come straight from the stilts of the plough to be dined and toasted by such men as lord glencairn, lord monboddo, and the hon. henry erskine; to be fêted and flattered by the duchess of gordon, the countess of glencairn, and lady betty cunningham; to count amongst his friends mr. mackenzie and professors stewart and blair. it would have been little wonder if his head had been turned by the patronage of the nobility, the deference and attention of the literary and learned coteries of edinburgh. but burns was too sensible to be carried away by the adulation of a season. a man of his keenness of penetration and clearness of insight would appreciate the praise of the world at its proper value. he bore himself with becoming dignity, taking his place in refined society as one who had a right there, without showing himself either conceitedly aggressive or meanly servile. he took his part in conversation, but no more than his part, and expressed himself with freedom and decision. his conversation, in fact, astonished the _literati_ even more than his poems had done. perhaps they had expected some uncouth individual who would stammer crop-and-weather commonplaces in a rugged vernacular, or, worse still, in ungrammatical english; but here was one who held his own with them in speculative discussion, speaking not only with the eloquence of a poet, but with the readiness, clearness, and fluency of a man of letters. his pure english diction astonished them, but his acuteness of reasoning, his intuitive knowledge of men and the world, was altogether beyond their comprehension. all they had got by years of laborious study this man appeared to have as a natural gift. in repartee, even, he could more than hold his own with them, and in the presence of ladies could turn a compliment with the best. 'it needs no effort of imagination,' says lockhart, 'to conceive what the sensations of an isolated set of scholars (almost all either clergymen or professors) must have been in the presence of this big-boned, black-browed, brawny stranger, who, having forced his way among them from the plough-tail at a single stride, manifested in the whole strain of his bearing and conversation a most thorough conviction that in the society of the most eminent men of his nation he was exactly where he was entitled to be.' it was a new world to burns, yet he walked about as if he were of old familiar with its ways; he conducted himself in society like one to the manner born. all who have left written evidence of burns's visit to edinburgh are agreed that he conducted himself with manliness and dignity, and all have left record of the powerful impression his conversation made on them. his poems were wonderful; himself was greater than his poems, a giant in intellect. a ploughman who actually dared to have formed a distinct conception of the doctrine of _association_ was a miracle before which schools and scholars were dumb. 'nothing, perhaps,' dugald stewart wrote, 'was more remarkable among his various attainments than the fluency, precision, and originality of his language when he spoke in company; more particularly as he aimed at purity in his turn of expression, and avoided more successfully than most scotchmen the peculiarities of scottish phraseology.' and professor stewart goes further than this when he speaks of the soundness and sanity of burns's nature. 'the attentions he received during his stay in town from all ranks and descriptions of persons, were such as would have turned any head but his own. he retained the same simplicity of manner and appearance which had struck me so forcibly when i first saw him in the country; nor did he seem to feel any additional self-importance from the number and rank of his new acquaintance. his dress was perfectly suited to his station, plain and unpretentious, with a sufficient attention to neatness.' principal robertson has left it on record, that he had scarcely ever met with any man whose conversation displayed greater vigour than that of burns. walter scott, a youth of some sixteen years at the time, met burns at the house of dr. adam ferguson, and was particularly struck with his poetic eye, 'which literally glowed when he spoke with feeling or interest,' and with his forcible conversation. 'among the men who were the most learned of their time and country, he expressed himself with perfect firmness, but without the least intrusive forwardness; and when he differed in opinion, he did not hesitate to express it firmly, and at the same time with modesty.... i never saw a man in company more perfectly free from either the reality or the affectation of embarrassment.' to these may be added the testimony of dr. walker, who gives, perhaps, the most complete and convincing picture of the man at this time. he insists on the same outstanding characteristics in burns, his innate dignity, his unaffected demeanour in company, and brilliancy in conversation. in no part of his manner, we read, was there the slightest degree of affectation, and no one could have guessed from his behaviour or conversation, that he had been for some months the favourite of all the fashionable circles of a metropolis. 'in conversation he was powerful. his conceptions and expression were of corresponding vigour, and on all subjects were as remote as possible from commonplace.' but whilst ladies of rank and fashion were deluging this ayrshire ploughman with invitations, and vying one with another in their patronage and worship, the mind of the poet was no less busy registering impressions of every new experience. if the learned men of edinburgh set themselves to study the character of a genius who upset all their cherished theories of birth and education, and to chronicle his sayings and doings, burns at the same time was studying them, gauging their powers intuitively, telling their limitations at a glance. for he must measure every man he met, and himself with him. his standard was always the same; every brain was weighed against his own; but with burns this was never more than a comparison of capacities. he took his stand, not by what work he had done, but by what he felt he was capable of doing. and that is not, and cannot be, the way of the world. in all his letters at this time we see him studying himself in the circles of fashion and learning. he could look on robert burns, as he were another person, brought from the plough and set down in a world of wealth and refinement, of learning and wit and beauty. he saw the dangers that beset him, and the temptations to which he was exposed; he recognised that something more than his poetic abilities was needed to explain his sudden popularity. he was the vogue, the favourite of a season; but public favour was capricious, and next year the doors of the great might be closed against him; while patrician dames who had schemed for his smiles might glance at him with indifferent eyes as at a dismissed servant once high in favour. his letter to mrs. dunlop, dated january 15, may be taken as a just, deliberate, and clear expression of his views of himself and society at this time. the letter is so quietly dignified that we may quote at some length. 'you are afraid i shall grow intoxicated with my prosperity as a poet. alas! madam, i know myself and the world too well. i do not mean any airs of affected modesty; i am willing to believe that my abilities deserve some notice, but in a most enlightened, informed age and nation, where poetry is and has been the study of men of the first natural genius, aided with all the powers of polite learning, polite books, and polite company--to be dragged forth to the full glare of learned and polite observation, with all my imperfections of awkward rusticity and crude and unpolished ideas on my head--i assure you, madam, i do not dissemble when i tell you i tremble for the consequences. the novelty of a poet in my obscure situation, without any of those advantages that are reckoned necessary for that character, at least at this time of day, has raised a partial tide of public notice which has borne me to a height where i am absolutely, feelingly certain my abilities are inadequate to support me; and too surely do i see that time when the same tide will leave me and recede, perhaps as far below the mark of truth. i do not say this in the ridiculous affectation of self-abasement and modesty. i have studied myself, and know what ground i occupy; and however a friend or the world may differ from me in that particular, i stand for my own opinion in silent resolve, with all the tenaciousness of property. i mention this to you once for all to disburden my mind, and i do not wish to hear or say more about it. but- "when proud fortune's ebbing tide recedes," you will bear me witness that when my bubble of fame was at the highest, i stood unintoxicated with the inebriating cup in my hand, looking forward with rueful resolve to the hastening time when the blow of calamity should dash it to the ground with all the eagerness of vengeful triumph.' in a letter to dr. moore he harps on the same string, for he sees clearly enough that though his abilities as a poet are worthy of recognition, it is the novelty of his position and the strangeness of the life he has pictured in his poems that have brought him into polite notice. the field of his poetry, rather than the poetry itself, is the wonder in the eyes of stately society. to the rev. mr. lawrie of loudon he writes in a similar strain, and speaks even more emphatically. from all his letters, indeed, at this time we gather that he saw that novelty had much to do with his present éclat; that the tide of popularity would recede, and leave him at his leisure to descend to his former situation; and, above all, that he was prepared for this, come when it would. all this time he had been busy correcting the proofs of his poems; and now that he was already assured the edition would be a success, he began to think seriously of the future and of settling down again as farmer. the appellation of scottish bard, he confessed to mrs. dunlop, was his highest pride; to continue to deserve it, his most exalted ambition. he had no dearer aim than to be able to make 'leisurely pilgrimages through caledonia, to sit on the fields of her battles, to wander on the romantic banks of her rivers, and to muse by the stately towers or venerable ruins, once the honoured abodes of her heroes.' but that was a utopian dream; he had dallied long enough with life, and now it was time he should be in earnest. 'i have a fond, an aged mother to care for; and some other bosom ties perhaps equally tender.' perhaps, had burns received before he left edinburgh the £500 which creech ultimately paid him for the edinburgh edition, he might have gone straight to a farm in the south country, and taken up what he considered the serious business of life. he himself, about this time, estimated that he would clear nearly £300 by authorship, and with that sum he intended to return to farming. mr. miller of dalswinton had expressed a wish to have burns as tenant of one of his farms, and the poet had been already approached on the subject. we also gather from almost every letter written just before the publication of his poems, that he contemplated an immediate return 'to his shades.' however, when the edinburgh edition came out, april 21, 1787, the poet found that it would be a considerable time before the whole profits accruing from publication could be paid over to him. indeed, there was certainly an unnecessary delay on creech's part in making a settlement. the first instalment of profits was not sufficient for leasing and stocking a farm; and during the months that elapsed before the whole profits were in his hands, burns made several tours through the borders and highlands of scotland. this was certainly one of his dearest aims; but these tours were undertaken somewhat under compulsion, and we doubt not he would much more gladly have gone straight back to farm-life, and kept these leisurely pilgrimages to a more convenient season. one is not in a mood for dreaming on battlefields, or wandering in a reverie by romantic rivers, when the future is unsettled and life is for the time being without an aim. there is something of mystery and melancholy hanging about these peregrinations, and the cause, it seems to us, is not far to seek. these months are months of waiting and wearying; he is unsettled, oftentimes moody and despondent; his bursts of gaiety appear forced, and his muse is well-nigh barren. in the circumstances, no doubt it was the best thing he could do, to gratify his long-cherished desire of seeing these places in his native country, whose names were enshrined in song or story. but how much more pleasant--and more profitable both to the poet himself and the country he loved--had these journeys been made under more favourable conditions! the past also as much as the future weighed on the poet's mind. his days had been so fully occupied in edinburgh that he had little leisure to think on some dark and dramatic episodes of mauchline and kilmarnock; but now in his wanderings he has time not only to think but to brood; and we may be sure the face of bonnie jean haunted him in dreams, and that his heart heard again and again the plaintive voices of little children. in several of his letters now we detect a tone of bitterness, in which we suspect there is more of remorse than of resentment with the world. he certainly was disappointed that creech could not pay him in full, but he must have been gratified with the reception his poems had got. the list of subscribers ran to thirty-eight pages, and was representative of every class in scotland. in the words of cunningham: 'all that coterie influence and individual exertion--all that the noblest and humblest could do, was done to aid in giving it a kind reception. creech, too, had announced it through the booksellers of the land, and it was soon diffused over the country, over the colonies, and wherever the language was spoken. the literary men of the south seemed even to fly to a height beyond those of the north. some hesitated not to call him the northern shakspeare.' this surely was a great achievement for one who, a few months previously, had been skulking from covert to covert to escape the terrors of a jail. he had hardly dared to hope for the commendation of the edinburgh critics, yet he had been received by the best society of the capital; his genius had been recognised by the highest literary authorities of scotland; and now the second edition of his poems was published under auspices that gave it the character of a national book. if the poems this volume contained established fully and finally the reputation of the poet, the subscription list was a no less substantial proof of a generous and enthusiastic appreciation of his genius on the part of his countrymen. and that burns must have recognised. a man of his sound common sense could not have expected more. chapter vi burns's tours the edinburgh edition having now been published, there was no reason for the poet to prolong his stay in the city. it was only after being disappointed of a second kilmarnock edition of his poems that he had come to try his fortunes in the capital; and now that his hopes of a fuller edition and a wider field had been realised, the purpose of his visit was accomplished, and there was no need to fritter his time away in idleness. in a letter to lord buchan, burns had doubted the prudence of a penniless poet faring forth to see the sights of his native land. but circumstances have changed. with the assured prospect of the financial success of his second venture, he felt himself in a position to gratify the dearest wish of his heart and to fire his muse at scottish story and scottish scenes. moreover, as has been said, it would be some time before creech could come to a final settlement of accounts with the poet, and he may have deemed that the interval would be profitably spent in travel. his travelling companion on his first tour was a mr. robert ainslie, a young gentleman of good education and some natural ability, with whom he left edinburgh on the 5th may, a fortnight after the publication of his poems. we are told that the poet, just before he mounted his horse, received a letter from dr. blair, which, having partly read, he crumpled up and angrily thrust into his pocket. a perusal of the letter will explain, if it does not go far to justify, the poet's irritation. it is a sleek, superior production, with the tone of a temperance tract, and the stilted diction of a dominie. the doctor is in it one of those well-meaning, meddlesome men, lavish of academic advice. burns resented moral prescriptions at all times--more especially from one whose knowledge of men was severely scholastic; and we can well imagine that he quitted edinburgh in no amiable mood. from edinburgh the two journeyed by the lammermuirs to berrywell, near duns, where the ainslie family lived. on the sunday he attended church with the ainslies, where the minister, dr. bowmaker, preached a sermon against obstinate sinners. 'i am found out,' the poet remarked, 'wherever i go.' from duns they proceeded to coldstream, where, having crossed the tweed, burns first set foot on english ground. here it was that, with bared head, he knelt and prayed for a blessing on scotland, reciting with the deepest devotion the two concluding verses of _the cotter's saturday night_. the next place visited was kelso, where they admired the old abbey, and went to see roxburgh castle, thence to jedburgh, where he met a miss hope and a miss lindsay, the latter of whom 'thawed his heart into melting pleasure after being so long frozen up in the greenland bay of indifference amid the noise and nonsense of edinburgh.' when he left this romantic city his thoughts were not of the honour its citizens had done him, but of jed's crystal stream and sylvan banks, and, above all, of miss lindsay, who brings him to the verge of verse. thereafter he visited kelso, melrose, and selkirk, and after spending about three weeks seeing all that was to be seen in this beautiful country-side, he set off with a mr. ker and a mr. hood on a visit to england. in this visit he went as far as newcastle, returning by way of hexham and carlisle. after spending a day here he proceeded to annan, and thence to dumfries. whilst in the nithsdale district he took the opportunity of visiting dalswinton and inspecting the unoccupied farms; but he did not immediately close with mr. miller's generous offer of a four-nineteen years' lease on his own terms. from nithsdale he turned again to his native ayrshire, arriving at mossgiel in the beginning of june, after an absence from home of six eventful months. we can hardly imagine what this home-coming would be like. the burnses were typical scots in their undemonstrative ways; but this was a great occasion, and tradition has it that his mother allowed her feeling so far to overcome her natural reticence that she met him at the threshold with the exclamation, 'o robert!' he had left home almost unknown, and had returned with a name that was known and honoured from end to end of his native land. he had left in the direst poverty, and haunted with the terrors of a jail, now he came back with his fortune assured; if not actually rich, at least with more money due to him than the family had ever dreamed of possessing. the mother's excess of feeling on such an occasion as this may be easily understood and excused. of this border tour burns kept a scrappy journal, but he was more concerned in jotting down the names and characteristics of those with whom he forgathered than of letting himself out in snatches of song. he makes shrewd remarks by the way on farms and farming, on the washing and shearing of sheep, but the only verse he attempted was his _epistle to creech_. he who had longed to sit and muse on 'those once hard-contested fields' did not go out of his way to look on ancrum moor or philiphaugh, nor do we read of him musing pensive in yarrow. however, we are not to regard these days as altogether barren. the poet was gathering impressions which would come forth in song at some future time. 'neither the fine scenery nor the lovely women,' cunningham regrets, 'produced any serious effect on his muse.' this is a rash statement. poets do not sow and reap at the same time--not even burns. if his friends were disappointed at what they considered the sterility of his muse on this occasion, the fault did not lie with the poet, but with their absurd expectations. it may be as well to point out here that the greatest harm edinburgh did to burns was that it gathered round him a number of impatient and injudicious admirers who could not understand that poetry was not to be forced. the burst of poetry that practically filled the kilmarnock edition came after a seven years' growth of inspiration; but after his first visit to edinburgh he was never allowed to rest. it was expected that he should write whenever a subject was suggested, or burst into verse at the first glimpse of a lovely landscape. every friend was ready with advice as to how and what he should write, and quite as ready, the poet unfortunately knew, to criticise afterwards. the poetry of the mossgiel period had come from him spontaneously. he had flung off impressions in verse fearlessly, without pausing to consider how his work would be appreciated by this one or denounced by that; and was true to himself. now he knew that every verse he wrote would be read by many eyes, studied by many minds; some would scent heresy, others would spot jacobitism, or worse, freedom; some would suspect his morality, others would deplore his scots tongue; all would criticise favourably or adversely his poetic expression. it has to be kept in mind, too, that burns at this time was in no mood for writing poetry. his mind was not at ease; and after his long spell of inspiration and the fatiguing distractions of edinburgh, it was hardly to be wondered at that brain and body were alike in need of rest. the most natural rest would have been a return direct to the labours of the farm. that, however, was denied him, and the period of his journeyings was little else than a season of unsettlement and suspense. burns only stayed a few days at home, and then set off on a tour to the west highlands, a tour of which we know little or nothing. perhaps this was merely a pilgrimage to the grave of highland mary. we do not know, and need not curiously inquire. burns, as has been already remarked, kept sacred his love for this generous-hearted maiden, hidden away in his own heart, and the whole story is a beautiful mystery. we do know that before he left he visited the armours, and was disgusted with the changed attitude of the family towards himself. 'if anything had been wanting,' he wrote to mr. james smith, 'to disgust me completely at armour's family, their mean, servile compliance would have done it.' to his friend, william nicol, he wrote in the same strain. 'i never, my friend, thought mankind very capable of anything generous; but the stateliness of the patricians in edinburgh, and the servility of my plebeian brethren (who perhaps formerly eyed me askance) since i returned home, have nearly put me out of conceit altogether with my species.' this shows burns in no very enviable frame of mind; but the cause is obvious. he is as yet unsettled in life, and now that he has met again his bonnie jean, and seen his children, he is more than ever dissatisfied with aimless roving. 'i have yet fixed on nothing with respect to the serious business of life. i am just as usual a rhyming, mason-making, raking, aimless, idle fellow. however, i shall somewhere have a farm soon. i was going to say a wife too, but that must never be my blessed lot.' to his own folks he was nothing but kindness, ready to share with them his uttermost farthing, and to have them share in the glory that was his; but he was at enmity with himself, and at war with the world. like hamlet, who felt keenly, but was incapable of action, he saw that 'the times were out of joint'; circumstances were too strong for him. almost the only record we have of this tour is a vicious epigram on what he considered the flunkeyism of inveraray. nor are we in the least astonished to hear that on the homeward route he spent a night in dancing and boisterous revel, ushering in the day with a kind of burlesque of pagan sun-worship. this was simply a reaction from his gloom and despondency; he sought to forget himself in reckless conviviality. about the end of july we find him back again in mauchline, and on the 25th may he set out on a highland tour along with his friend william nicol, one of the masters of the high school. of this man dr. currie remarks that he rose by the strength of his talents, and fell by the strength of his passions. burns was perfectly well aware of the passionate and quarrelsome nature of the man. he compared himself with such a companion to one travelling with a loaded blunderbuss at full-cock; and in his epigrammatic way he said of him to mr. walker, 'his mind is like his body; he has a confounded, strong, in-kneed sort of a soul.' the man, however, had some good qualities. he had a warm heart; never forgot the friends of his early years, and he hated vehemently low jealousy and cunning. these were qualities that would appeal strongly to burns, and on account of which much would be forgiven. still we cannot think that the poet was happy in his companion; nor was he yet happy in himself. otherwise the highland tour might have been more interesting, certainly much more profitable to the poet in its results, than it actually proved. in his diary of this tour, as in his diary of the border tour, there is much more of shrewd remark on men and things than of poetical jottings. the fact is, poetry is not to be collected in jottings, nor is inspiration to be culled in catalogue cuttings; and if many of his friends were again disappointed in the immediate poetical results of this holiday, it only shows how little they understood the comings and goings of inspiration. those, however, who read his notes and reflections carefully and intelligently are bound to notice how much more than a mere verse-maker burns was. this was the journal of a man of strong, sound sense and keen observation. it has also to be recognised that burns was at his weakest when he attempted to describe scenery for mere scenery's sake. his gift did not lie that way. his landscapes, rich in colour and deftly drawn though they be, are always the mere backgrounds of his pictures. they are impressionistic sketches, the setting and the complement of something of human interest in incident or feeling. the poet and his companion set out in a postchaise, journeying by linlithgow and falkirk to stirling. they visited 'a dirty, ugly place called borrowstounness,' where he turned from the town to look across the forth to dunfermline and the fertile coast of fife; carron iron works, and the field of bannockburn. they were shown the hole where bruce set his standard, and the sight fired the patriotic ardour of the poet till he saw in imagination the two armies again in the thick of battle. after visiting the castle at stirling, he left nicol for a day, and paid a visit to mrs. chalmers of harvieston. 'go to see caudron linn and rumbling brig and deil's mill.' that is all he has to say of the scenery; but in a letter to gavin hamilton he has much more to tell of grace chalmers and charlotte, 'who is not only beautiful but lovely.' from stirling the tourists proceeded northwards by crieff and glenalmond to taymouth; thence, keeping by the banks of the river, to aberfeldy, whose birks he immortalised in song. here he had the good fortune to meet niel gow and to hear him playing. 'a short, stout-built, honest, highland figure,' the poet describes him, 'with his greyish hair shed on his honest, social brow--an interesting face, marking strong sense, kind open-heartedness mixed with unmistaking simplicity.' by the tummel they rode to blair, going by fascally and visiting--both those sentimental jacobites--'the gallant lord dundee's stone,' in the pass of killiecrankie. at blair he met his friend mr. walker, who has left an account of the poet's visit; while the two days which burns spent here, he has declared, were among the happiest days of his life. 'my curiosity,' walker wrote, 'was great to see how he would conduct himself in company so different from what he had been accustomed to. his manner was unembarrassed, plain, and firm. he appeared to have complete reliance on his own native good sense for directing his behaviour. he seemed at once to perceive and appreciate what was due to the company and to himself, and never to forget a proper respect for the separate species of dignity belonging to each. he did not arrogate conversation, but when led into it he spoke with ease, propriety, and manliness. he tried to exert his abilities, because he knew it was ability alone gave him a title to be there.' burns certainly enjoyed his stay, and would, at the family's earnest solicitation, have stayed longer, had the irascible and unreasonable nicol allowed it. here it was he met mr. graham of fintry, and if he had stayed a day or two longer he would have met dundas, a man whose patronage might have done much to help the future fortunes of the poet. after leaving blair, he visited, at the duke's advice, the falls of bruar, and a few days afterwards he wrote from inverness to mr. walker enclosing his verses, _the humble petition of bruar water to the noble duke of athole_. leaving blair, they continued their journey northwards towards inverness, viewing on the way the falls of foyers,--soon to be lost to scotland,--which the poet celebrated in a fragment of verse. of course two such jacobites had to see culloden moor; then they came through nairn and elgin, crossed the spey at fochabers, and burns dined at gordon castle, the seat of the lively duchess of gordon, whom he had met in edinburgh. here again he was received with marked respect, and treated with the same highland hospitality that had so charmed him at blair; and here also the pleasure of the whole party was spoilt by the ill-natured jealousy of nicol. that fiery dominie, imagining that he was slighted by burns, who seemed to prefer the fine society of the duchess and her friends to his amiable companionship, ordered the horses to be put to the carriage, and determined to set off alone. as the spiteful fellow would listen to no reason, burns had e'en to accompany him, though much against his will. he sent his apologies to her grace in a song in praise of castle gordon. from fochabers they drove to banff, and thence to aberdeen. in this city he was introduced to the rev. john skinner, a son of the author of _tullochgorum_, and was exceedingly disappointed when he learned that on his journey he had been quite near to the father's parsonage, and had not called on the old man. mr. skinner himself regretted this, when he learned the fact from his son, as keenly as burns did; but the incident led to a correspondence between the two poets. from aberdeen he came south by stonehaven, where he 'met his relations,' and montrose to dundee. hence the journey was continued through perth, kinross, and queensferry, and so back to edinburgh, 16th september 1787. his letter to his brother from edinburgh is more meagre even than his journal, being simply a catalogue of the places visited. 'warm as i was from ossian's country,' he remarks, 'what cared i for fishing towns or fertile carses?' yet although the journal reads now and again like a railway time-table, we come across references which give proof of the poet's abounding interest in the locality of scottish song; and it was probably the case, as professor blackie writes, that 'such a lover of the pure scottish muse could not fail when wandering from glen to glen to pick up fragments of traditional song, which, without his sympathetic touch, would probably have been lost.' burns's wanderings were not yet, however, at an end. probably he had expected on his return to edinburgh some settlement with creech, and was disappointed. perhaps he was eager to revisit some places or people--peggy chalmers, no doubt--without being hampered in his movements by such a companion as nicol. anyhow, we find him setting out again on a tour through clackmannan and perthshire with his friend dr. adair, a warm but somewhat injudicious admirer of the poet's genius. it was probably about the beginning of october that the two left edinburgh, going round by stirling to harvieston, where they remained about ten days, and made excursions to the various parts of the surrounding scenery. the caldron linn and rumbling bridge were revisited, and they went to see castle campbell, the ancient seat of the family of argyle. 'i am surprised,' the doctor ingenuously remarks, 'that none of these scenes should have called forth an exertion of burns's muse. but i doubt if he had much taste for the picturesque.' one wonders whether dr. adair had actually read the published poems. what a picture it must have been to see the party dragging burns about, pointing out the best views, and then breathlessly waiting for a torrent of verse. the verses came afterwards, but they were addressed, not to the ochils or the devon, but to peggy chalmers. from harvieston he went to ochtertyre on the teith to visit mr. ramsay, a reputed lover of scottish literature; and thence he proceeded to ochtertyre in strathearn, in order to visit sir william murray. in a letter to dr. currie, mr. ramsay speaks thus of burns on this visit: 'i have been in the company of many men of genius, some of them poets, but never witnessed such flashes of intellectual brightness, the impulse of the moment, sparks of celestial fire! i never was more delighted, therefore, than with his company for two days' _tête-à-tête_.' of his residence with sir william murray he has left two poetical souvenirs, one _on scaring some water fowl in loch turit_, and the other, a love song, _blithe, blithe, and merry was she_, in honour of miss euphemia murray, the flower of strathearn. returning to harvieston, he went back with dr. adair to edinburgh, by kinross and queensferry. at dunfermline he visited the ruined abbey, where, kneeling, he kissed the stone above bruce's grave. it was on this tour, too, that he visited at clackmannan an old scottish lady, who claimed to be a lineal descendant of the family of robert the bruce. she conferred knighthood on the poet with the great double-handed sword of that monarch, and is said to have delighted him with the toast she gave after dinner, 'hooi uncos,' which means literally, 'away strangers,' and politically much more. the year 1787 was now drawing to a close, and burns was still waiting for a settlement with creech. he could not understand why he was kept hanging on from month to month. this was a way of doing business quite new to him, and after being put off again and again he at last began to suspect that there was something wrong. he doubted creech's solvency; doubted even his honesty. more than ever was he eager to be settled in life, and he fretted under commercial delays he could not understand. on the first day of his return to edinburgh he had written to mr. miller of dalswinton, telling him of his ambitions, and making an offer to rent one of his farms. we know that he visited dalswinton once or twice, but returned to edinburgh. his only comfort at this time was the work he had begun in collecting scottish songs for johnson's museum; touching up old ones and writing new ones to old airs. this with burns was altogether a labour of love. the idea of writing a song with a view to money-making was abhorrent to him. 'he entered into the views of johnson,' writes chambers, 'with an industry and earnestness which despised all money considerations, and which money could not have purchased'; while allan cunningham marvels at the number of songs burns was able to write at a time when a sort of civil war was going on between him and creech. another reason for staying through the winter in edinburgh burns may have had in the hope that through the influence of his aristocratic friends some office of profit, and not unworthy his genius, might have been found for him. places of profit and honour were at the disposal of many who might have helped him had they so wished. but burns was not now the favourite he had been when he first came to edinburgh. the ploughman-poet was no longer a novelty; and, moreover, burns had the pride of his class, and clung to his early friends. it is not possible for a man to be the boon-companion of peasants and the associate of peers. had he dissociated himself altogether from his past life, the doors of the nobility might have been still held open to him; and no doubt the cushioned ease of a sinecure's office would have been had for the asking. but in that case he would have lost his manhood, and we should have lost a poet. burns would not have turned his back on his fellows for the most lucrative office in the kingdom; that, he would have considered as selling his soul to the devil. yet, on the other hand, what could any of these men do for a poet who was 'owre blate to seek, owre proud to snool'? burns waited on in the expectation that those who had the power would take it upon themselves to do something for him. perhaps he credited them with a sense and a generosity they could not lay claim to; though had one of them taken the initiative in this matter, he would have honoured himself in honouring burns, and endeared his name to the hearts of his countrymen for all time. but such offices are created and kept open for political sycophants, who can importune with years of prostituted service. they are for those who advocate the opinions of others; certainly not for the man who dares to speak fearlessly his own mind, and to assert the privileges and prerogatives of his manhood. the children's bread is not to be thrown to the dogs. burns asked for nothing, and got nothing. the excise commission which he applied for, and graduated for, was granted. the work was laborious, the remuneration small, and _gauger_ was a name of contempt. but whilst waiting on in the hope of something 'turning up,' he was still working busily for johnson's museum, and still trying to bring creech to make a settlement. at last, however, out of all patience with his publisher, and recognising the futility of his hopes of preferment, he had resolved early in december to leave edinburgh, when he was compelled to stay against his will. a double accident befell him; he was introduced to a mrs. maclehose, and three days afterwards, through the carelessness of a drunken coachman, he was thrown from a carriage, and had his knee severely bruised. the latter was an accident that kept him confined to his room for a time, and from which he quickly recovered; but the meeting with mrs. maclehose was a serious matter, and for both, most unfortunate in its results. it was while he was 'on the rack of his present agony' that the sylvander-clarinda correspondence was begun and continued. that much may be said in excuse for burns. a man, especially one with the passion and sensitiveness of a poet, cannot be expected to write in all sanity when he is racked by the pain of an injured limb. certainly the poet does not show up in a pleasant light in this absurd interchange of gasping epistles; nor does mrs. maclehose. 'i like the idea of arcadian names in a commerce of this kind,' he unguardedly admits. the most obvious comment that occurs to the mind of the reader is that they ought never to have been written. it is a pity they were written; more than a pity they were ever published. it seems a terrible thing that, merely to gratify the morbid curiosity of the world, the very love-letters of a man of genius should be made public. is there nothing sacred in the lives of our great men? 'did i imagine,' burns remarked to mrs. basil montagu in dumfries, 'that one half of the letters which i have written would be published when i die, i would this moment recall them and burn them without redemption.' after all, what was gained by publishing this correspondence? it adds literally nothing to our knowledge of the poet. he could have, and has, given more of himself in a verse than he gives in the whole series of letters signed sylvander. occasionally he is natural in them, but rarely. 'i shall certainly be ashamed of scrawling whole sheets of incoherence.' we trust he was. the letters are false in sentiment, stilted in diction, artificial in morality. we have a picture of the poet all through trying to batter himself into a passion he does not feel, into love of an accomplished and intellectual woman; while in his heart's core is registered the image of jean armour, the mother of his children. he shows his paces before clarinda and tears passion to tatters in inflated prose; he poses as a stylist, a moralist, a religious enthusiast, a poet, a man of the world, and now and again accidentally he assumes the face and figure of robert burns. we read and wonder if this be really the same man who wrote in his journal, 'the whining cant of love, except in real passion and by a masterly hand, is to me as insufferable as the preaching cant of old father smeaton, whig minister at kilmaurs. darts, flames, cupids, love graces and all that farrago are just ... a senseless rabble.' clarinda comes out of the correspondence better than sylvander. her letters are more natural and vastly more clever. she grieves to hear of his accident, and sympathises with him in his suffering; were she his sister she would call and see him. he is too romantic in his style of address, and must remember she is a married woman. would he wait like jacob seven years for a wife? and perhaps be disappointed! she is not unhappy: religion has been her balm for every woe. she had read his autobiography as desdemona listened to the narration of othello, but she was pained because of his hatred of calvinism; he must study it seriously. she could well believe him when he said that no woman could love as ardently as himself. the only woman for him would be one qualified for the companion, the friend, and the mistress. the last might gain sylvander, but the others alone could keep him. she admires him for his continued fondness for jean, who perhaps does not possess his tenderest, faithfulest friendship. how could that bonnie lassie refuse him after such proofs of love? but he must not rave; he must limit himself to friendship. the evening of their third meeting was one of the most exquisite she had ever experienced. only he must now know she has faults. she means well, but is liable to become the victim of her sensibility. she too now prefers the religion of the bosom. she cannot deny his power over her: would he pay another evening visit on saturday? when the poet is leaving edinburgh, clarinda is heartbroken. 'oh, let the scenes of nature remind you of clarinda! in winter, remember the dark shades of her fate; in summer, the warmth of her friendship; in autumn, her glowing wishes to bestow plenty on all; and let spring animate you with hopes that your friend may yet surmount the wintry blasts of life, and revive to taste a spring-time of happiness. at all events, sylvander, the storms of life will quickly pass, and one unbounded spring encircle all. love, there, is not a crime. i charge you to meet me there, o god! i must lay down my pen.' poor clarinda! well for her peace of mind that the poet was leaving her; well for burns, also, that he was leaving clarinda and edinburgh. only one thing remained for both to do, and it had been wise, to burn their letters. would that clarinda had been as much alive to her own good name, and the poet's fair fame, as peggy chalmers, who did not preserve her letters from burns! it was february 1788 before burns could settle with creech; and, after discharging all expenses, he found a balance in his favour of about five hundred pounds. to gilbert, who was in sore need of the money, he advanced one hundred and eighty pounds, as his contribution to the support of their mother. with what remained of the money he leased from mr. miller of dalswinton the farm of ellisland, on which he entered at whitsunday 1788. chapter vii ellisland when burns turned his back on edinburgh in february 1788, and set his face resolutely towards his native county and the work that awaited him, he left the city a happier and healthier man than he had been all the months of his sojourn in it. the times of aimless roving, and of still more demoralising hanging on in the hope of something being done for him, were at an end; he looked to the future with self-reliance. his vain hopes of preferment were already 'thrown behind and far away,' and he saw clearly that by the labour of his own hands he had to live, independent of the dispensations of patronage, and trusting no longer to the accidents of fortune. 'the thoughts of a home,' to quote cunningham's words, 'of a settled purpose in life, gave him a silent gladness of heart such as he had never before known.' burns, though he had hoped and was disappointed, left the city not so much with bitterness as with contempt. if he had been received on this second visit with punctilious politeness, more ceremoniously than cordially, it was just as he had himself expected. gossip, too, had been busy while he was absent, and his sayings and doings had been bruited abroad. his worst fault was that he was a shrewd observer of men, and drew, in a memorandum book he kept, pen-portraits of the people he met. 'dr blair is merely an astonishing proof of what industry and application can do. natural parts like his are frequently to be met with; his vanity is proverbially known among his acquaintance.' the lord advocate he pictured in a verse: 'he clenched his pamphlets in his fist, he quoted and he hinted, till in a declamation-mist, his argument he tint it. he gap'd for't, he grap'd for't, he fand it was awa, man; but what his common sense came short, he eked it out wi' law, man.' had pen-portraits, such as these, been merely caricatures, they might have been forgiven; but, unfortunately, they were convincing likenesses, therefore libels. we doubt not, as cunningham tells us, that the _literati_ of edinburgh were not displeased when such a man left them; they could never feel at their ease so long as he was in their midst. 'nor were the titled part of the community without their share in this silent rejoicing; his presence was a reproach to them. the illustrious of his native land, from whom he had looked for patronage, had proved that they had the carcass of greatness, but wanted the soul; they subscribed for his poems, and looked on their generosity "as an alms could keep a god alive." he turned his back on edinburgh, and from that time forward scarcely counted that man his friend who spoke of titled persons in his presence.' it was with feelings of relief, also, that burns left the super-scholarly litterateurs; 'white curd of asses' milk,' he called them; gentlemen who reminded him of some spinsters in his country who 'spin their thread so fine that it is neither fit for weft nor woof.' to such men, recognising only the culture of schools, a genius like burns was a puzzle, easier dismissed than solved. burns saw them, in all their tinsel of academic tradition, through and through. coming from edinburgh to the quiet home-life of mossgiel was like coming out of the vitiated atmosphere of a ballroom into the pure and bracing air of early morning. away from the fever of city life, he only gradually comes back to sanity and health. the artificialities and affectations of polite society are not to be thrown off in a day's time. hardly had he arrived at mauchline before he penned a letter to clarinda, that simply staggers the reader with the shameless and heartless way in which it speaks of jean armour. 'i am dissatisfied with her--i cannot endure her! i, while my heart smote me for the profanity, tried to compare her with my clarinda. 'twas setting the expiring glimmer of a farthing taper beside the cloudless glory of the meridian sun. _here_ was tasteless insipidity, vulgarity of soul, and mercenary fawning; _there_, polished good sense, heaven-born genius, and the most generous, the most delicate, the most tender passion. i have done with her, and she with me.' poor jean! think of her too confiding and trustful love written down _mercenary fawning_! but this was not burns. the whole letter is false and vulgar. perhaps he thought to please his clarinda by the comparison; she had little womanly feeling if she felt flattered. let us believe, for her own sake, that she was disgusted. his letter to ainslie, ten days later, is something very different, though even yet he gives no hint of acknowledging jean as his wife. 'jean i found banished like a martyr--forlorn, destitute, and friendless--all for the good old cause. i have reconciled her to her fate; i have reconciled her to her mother; i have taken her a room; i have taken her to my arms; i have given her a guinea, and i have embraced her till she rejoiced with joy unspeakable and full of glory.' this is flippant in tone, but something more manly in sentiment; burns was coming to his senses. on 13th june, twin girls were born to jean, but they only lived a few days. on the same day their father wrote from ellisland to mrs. dunlop a letter, in which we see the real burns, true to the best feelings of his nature, and true to his sorely-tried and long-suffering wife. 'this is the second day, my honoured friend, that i have been on my farm. a solitary inmate of an old smoky spence, far from every object i love, or by whom i am beloved; nor any acquaintance older than yesterday, except jenny geddes, the old mare i ride on; while uncouth cares and novel plans hourly insult my awkward ignorance and bashful inexperience.... your surmise, madam, is just; i am, indeed, a husband.... you are right that a bachelor state would have ensured me more friends; but, from a cause you will easily guess, conscious peace in the enjoyment of my own mind, and unmistrusting confidence in approaching my god, would seldom have been of the number. i found a once much-loved and still much-loved female, literally and truly cast out to the mercy of the naked elements; but i enabled her to _purchase_ a shelter,--there is no sporting with a fellow-creature's happiness or misery.' it was not till august that the marriage was ratified by the church, when robert burns and jean armour were rebuked for their acknowledged irregularity, and admonished 'to adhere faithfully to one another, as man and wife, all the days of their life.' this was the only fit and proper ending of burns's acquaintance with jean armour. as an honourable man, he could not have done otherwise than he did. to have deserted her now, and married another, even admitting he was legally free to do so, which is doubtful, would have been the act of an abandoned wretch, and certainly have wrought ruin in the moral and spiritual life of the poet. in taking jean as his wedded wife, he acted not only honourably, but wisely; and wisdom and prudence were not always distinguishing qualities of robert burns. some months had to elapse, however, before the wife could join her husband at ellisland. the first thing he had to do when he entered on his lease was to rebuild the dwelling-house, he himself lodging in the meanwhile in the smoky spence which he mentions in his letter to mrs. dunlop. in the progress of the building he not only took a lively interest, but actually worked with his own hands as a labourer, and gloried in his strength: 'he beat all for a dour lift.' but it was some time before he could settle down to the necessarily monotonous work of farming. 'my late scenes of idleness and dissipation,' he confessed to dunbar, 'have enervated my mind to a considerable degree.' he was restless and rebellious at times, and we are not surprised to find the sudden settling down from gaiety and travel to the home-life of a farmer marked by bursts of impatience, irritation, and discontent. the only steadying influence was the thought of his wife and children, and the responsibility of a husband and a father. he grew despondent occasionally, and would gladly have been at rest, but a wife and children bound him to struggle with the stream. his melancholy blinded him even to the good qualities of his neighbours. the only things he saw in perfection were 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.' he was, in fact, ungracious towards his neighbours, not that they were boorish or uninformed folk, but simply because, though living at ellisland in body, his mind was in ayrshire with his darling jean, and he was looking to the future when he should have a home and a wife of his own. his eyes would ever wander to the west, and he sang, to cheer him in his loneliness, a song of love to his bonnie jean: 'of a' the airts the wind can blaw, i dearly lo'e the west; for there the bonnie lassie lives, the lassie i lo'e best.' it was not till the beginning of december that he was in a position to bring his wife and children to ellisland; and this event brought him into kindlier relations with his fellow-farmers. his neighbours gathered to bid his wife welcome; and drank to the roof-tree of the house of burns. the poet, now that he had made his home amongst them, was regarded as one of themselves; while burns, on his part, having at last got his wife and children beside him, was in a healthier frame of mind and more charitably disposed towards those who had come to give them a welcome. that he was now as one settled in life with something worthy to live for, we have ample proof in his letter written to mrs. dunlop on the first day of the new year. it is discursive, yet philosophical and reflective, and its whole tone is that of a man who looks on the world round about him with a kindly charity, and looks to the future with faith and trust. life passed very sweetly and peacefully with the poet and his family for a time here. the farm, it would appear, was none of the best,--mr. cunningham told him he had made a poet's not a farmer's choice,--but burns was hopeful and worked hard. yet the labour of the farm was not to be his life-work. even while waiting impatiently the coming of his wife, he had been contributing to johnson's museum, and he fondly imagined that he was going to be farmer, poet, and exciseman all in one. some have regretted his appointment to the excise at this time, and attributed to his frequent absences from home his failure as a farmer. they may be right. but what was the poet to do? he knew by bitter experience how precarious the business of farming was, and thought that a certain salary, even though small, would always stand between his family and absolute want. 'i know not,' he wrote to ainslie, 'how the word exciseman, or, still more opprobrious, gauger, will sound in your ears. i too have seen the day when my auditory nerves would have felt very delicately on this subject; but a wife and children have a wonderful power in blunting these kind of sensations. fifty pounds a year for life and a pension for widows and orphans, you will allow, is no bad settlement for a _poet_.' and to blacklock he wrote in verse: 'but what d'ye think, my trusty fier, i'm turned a gauger--peace be here! parnassian queans, i fear, i fear, ye'll now disdain me! and then my fifty pounds a year will little gain me. i hae a wife and twa wee laddies, they maun hae brose and brats o' duddies; ye ken yoursel's my heart right proud is- i needna vaunt, but i'll sned besoms--thraw saugh woodies, before they want. but to conclude my silly rhyme (i'm scant o' verse, and scant o' time), to make a happy fireside clime to weans and wife, that's the true pathos and sublime of human life.' this was nobly said; and the poet spoke from the heart. not content with being gauger, farmer, and poet, burns took a lively interest in everything affecting the welfare of the parish and the well-being of its inhabitants. for this was no poet of the study, holding himself aloof from the affairs of the world, and fearing the contamination of his kind. burns was alive all-round, and always acted his part in the world as a husband and father; as a citizen and a man. he made himself the poet of humanity, because he himself was so intensely human, and joyed and sorrowed with his fellows. at this time he established a library in dunscore, and himself undertook the whole management,--drawing out rules, purchasing books, acting for a time as secretary, treasurer, and committee all in one. among the volumes he ordered were several of his old favourites, _the spectator_, _the man of feeling_, and _the lounger_; and we know that there was on the shelves even a folio hebrew concordance. a favourite walk of the poet's while he stayed here was along nithside, where he often wandered to take a 'gloamin' shot at the muses.' here, after a fall of rain, cunningham records, the poet loved to walk, listening to the roar of the river, or watching it bursting impetuously from the groves of friar's carse. 'thither he walked in his sterner moods, when the world and its ways touched his spirit; and the elder peasants of the vale still show the point at which he used to pause and look on the red and agitated stream.' in spite of his multifarious duties, he was now more than ever determined to make his name as a poet. to dr. moore he wrote (4th january 1789): 'the character and employment of a poet were formerly my pleasure, but now my pride.... poesy i am determined to prosecute with all my vigour. nature has given very few, if any, of the profession the talents of shining in every species of composition. i shall try (for until trial it is impossible to know) whether she has qualified me to shine in any one.' it was inevitable that one whose district as an exciseman reached far and wide could not regularly attend to ploughing, sowing, and reaping, and the farm was very often left to the care of servants. dr. currie appears to count it as a reproach that his farm no longer occupied the principal part of his care or his thoughts. yet it could not have been otherwise. burns after having undertaken a duty would attend to it religiously, and we know that he pursued his work throughout his ten parishes diligently, faithfully, and with unvarying punctuality. others have bemoaned that those frequent excise excursions led the poet into temptation, that he was being continually assailed by the sin that so easily beset him. let it be admitted frankly that the temptations to social excess were great; is it not all the more creditable to burns that he did not sink under those temptations and become the besotted wreck conventional biography has attempted to make him? if those who raise this plaint mean to insinuate that burns became a confirmed toper, then they are assuredly wrong; if they be only drawing attention to the fact that drinking was too common in scotland at that time, then they are attacking not the poet but the social customs of his day. it would be easy if we were to accept 'the general impression of the place,' and go by the tale of gossip, to show that burns was demoralised by his duties as a gauger, and sank into a state of maudlin intemperance. but ascertained fact and the testimony of unimpeachable authority are at variance with the voice of gossip. 'so much the worse for fact,' biography would seem to have said, and gaily sped on the work of defamation. we only require to forget allan cunningham's _personal sketch of the poet_, the letters from mr. findlater and mr. gray, and to close our eyes to the excellence of the poetry of this period, in order to see burns on the downgrade, and to preach grand moral lessons from the text of a wasted life. but, after all, 'facts are chiels that winna ding,' and we must take them into account, however they may baulk us of grand opportunities of plashing in watery sentiment. speaking of the poet's biographers, mr. findlater remarks that they have tried to outdo one another in heaping obloquy on his name; they have made his convivial habits, habitual drunkenness; his wit and humour, impiety; his social talents, neglect of duty; and have accused him of every vice. then he gives his testimony: 'my connection with robert burns commenced immediately after his admission into the excise, and continued to the hour of his death. in all that time the superintendence of his behaviour as an officer of the revenue was a branch of my especial province; and it may be supposed i would not be an inattentive observer of the general conduct of a man and a poet so celebrated by his countrymen. in the former capacity, so far from its being impossible for him to discharge the duties of his office with that regularity which is almost indispensable, as is palpably assumed by one of his biographers, and insinuated, not very obscurely even, by dr. currie, he was exemplary in his attention as an excise officer, and was even jealous of the least imputation on his vigilance.' but a glance at the poems and songs of this period would be a sufficient vindication of the poet's good name. there are considerably over a hundred songs and poems written during his stay at ellisland, many of them of his finest. the third volume of johnson's museum, published in february 1790, contained no fewer than forty songs by burns. among the ellisland songs were such as, _ye banks and braes o' bonnie doon_, _auld lang syne_, _willie brewed a peck o' maut_, _to mary in heaven_, _of a' the airts the wind can blaw_, _my love she's but a lassie yet_, _tam glen_, _john anderson my jo_, songs that have become the property of the world. of the last-named song, angellier remarks that the imagination of the poet must have indeed explored every situation of love to have led him to that which he in his own experience could not have known. even the song _willie brewed a peck o' maut_, the first of bacchanalian ditties, is the work of a man of sane mind and healthy appetite. it is not of the diseased imagination of drunken genius. but the greatest poem of this period, and one of burns's biggest achievements, is _tam o' shanter_. this poem was written in answer to a request of captain grose that the poet would provide a witch story to be printed along with a drawing of alloway kirk, and was first published in grose's _antiquities of scotland_. we have been treated by several biographers to a private view of the poet, with wild gesticulations, agonising in the composition of this poem; but where his wife did not venture to intrude, we surely need not seek to desecrate. 'i stept aside with the bairns among the broom,' says bonnie jean; not, we should imagine, to leave room for aliens and strangers. he has been again burlesqued for us rending himself in rhyme, and stretched on straw groaning elegiacs to mary in heaven. all this is mere sensationalism provided for illiterate readers. we have the poem, and its excellence sufficeth. it is worthy of note that in _tam o' shanter_, as well as in _to mary in heaven_, the poet goes back to his earlier years in ayrshire. they are posthumous products of the inspiration which gave us the kilmarnock edition. i am not inclined to agree with carlyle in his estimate of _tam o' shanter_. it is not the composition of a man of great talent, but of a man of transcendent poetical genius. the story itself is a conception of genius, and in the narration the genius is unquestionable. it is a panorama of pictures so vivid and powerful that the characters and scenes are fixed indelibly on the mind, and abide with us a cherished literary possession. after reading the poem, the words are recalled without conscious effort of memory, but as the only possible embodiment of the mental impressions retained. short as the poem is, there is in it character, humour, pathos, satire, indignation, tenderness, fun, frolic, diablerie, almost every human feeling. i have heard burns in the writing of this poem likened to a composer at an organ improvising a piece of music in which, before he has done, he has used every stop and touched every note on the keyboard. even the weakest lines of the piece, which mark a dramatic pause in the rapid narration, have a distinctive beauty and are the most frequently quoted lines of the poem. in artistic word-painting and graphic phrasing burns is here at his best. his description of the horrible is worthy of shakspeare; and it is questionable if even the imagination of that master ever conceived anything more awful than the scene and circumstance of the infernal orgies of those witches and warlocks. what zolaesque realism there is! in the line, 'the grey hairs yet stack to the heft,' all the gruesomeness of murder is compressed into a distich. yet the horrible details are controlled and unified in the powerful imagination of the poet. we believe dr. blacklock was right in thinking that this poem, though burns had never written another syllable, would have made him a high reputation. certainly it was not the work of a man daily dazing his faculties with drink; no more was that exquisite lyric _to mary in heaven_. another poem of this period deserving special mention is _the whistle_, not merely because of its dramatic force and lyrical beauty, but because it gives a true picture of the drinking customs of the time. and again i dare assert that this is not the work of a mind enfeebled or debased by drink. it is a bit of simple, direct, sincere narration, humanly healthy in tone; the ideas are clear and consecutive, and the language fitting. it is not so that drunken genius expresses itself. the language of a poetical mind enfeebled by alcohol or opium is frequently mystic and musical; it never deals with the realities and responsibilities of life, but in a witchery of words winds and meanders through the realms of reverie and dream. it may be sweet and sensuous; it is rarely narrative or simple; never direct nor forcible. in the _kirk's alarm_, wherein he again reverted to his mossgiel period, he displayed all his former force of satire, as well as his sympathy with those who advocated rational views in religion. dr. macgill had written a book which the kirk declared to be heretical, and burns, at the request of some friends, fought for the doctor in his usual way, though with little hope of doing him any good. 'ajax's shield consisted, i think, of seven bull-hides and a plate of brass, which altogether set hector's utmost force at defiance. alas! i am not a hector, and the worthy doctor's foes are as securely armed as ajax was. ignorance, superstition, bigotry, stupidity, malevolence, self-conceit, envy--all strongly bound in a massy frame of brazen impudence; to such a shield humour is the peck of a sparrow and satire the pop-gun of a schoolboy. creation-disgracing scélérats such as they, god only can mend, and the devil only can punish.' the doctor yielded, cunningham tells us, and was forgiven, but not the poet; pertinently adding, 'so much more venial is it in devout men's eyes to be guilty of heresy than of satire.' into political as well as theological matters burns also entered with all his wonted enthusiasm. of his election ballads, the best, perhaps, are _the five carlins_ and the _epistle to mr. graham of fintry_. but these ballads are not to be taken as a serious addition to the poet's works; he did not wish them to be so taken. he was a man as well as a poet; was interested with his neighbours in political affairs, and in the day of battle fought with the weapons he could wield with effect. nor are his ballads always to be taken as representing his political principles; these he expressed in song that did not owe its inspiration to the excitement of elections. burns was not a party man; he had in politics, as in religion, some broad general principles, but he had 'the warmest veneration for individuals of both parties.' the most important verse in his _epistle to graham of fintry_ is the last: 'for your poor friend, the bard, afar he hears and only hears the war, a cool spectator purely: so, when the storm the forest rends, the robin in the hedge descends, and sober chirps securely.' burns's life was, therefore, quite full at ellisland, too full indeed; for, towards the end of 1791, we find him disposing of the farm, and looking to the excise alone for a livelihood. in the farm he had sunk the greater part of the profits of his edinburgh edition; and now it was painfully evident that the money was lost. he had worked hard enough, but he was frequently absent, and a farm thrives only under the eye of a master. on excise business he was accustomed to ride at least two hundred miles every week, and so could have little time to give to his fields. besides this, the soil of ellisland had been utterly exhausted before he entered on his lease, and consequently made a miserable return for the labour expended on it. the friendly relations that had existed between him and his landlord were broken off before now; and towards the close of his stay at ellisland burns spoke rather bitterly of mr. miller's selfish kindness. miller was, in fact, too much of a lord and master, exacting submission as well as rent from his tenants; while burns was of too haughty a spirit to beck and bow to any man. 'the life of a farmer is,' he wrote to mrs. dunlop, 'as a farmer paying a dear, unconscionable rent, a cursed life.... devil take the life of reaping the fruits that others must eat!' the poet, too, had been overworking himself, and was again subject to his attacks of hypochondria. 'i feel that horrid hypochondria pervading every atom of both body and soul. this farm has undone my enjoyment of myself. it is a ruinous affair on all hands.' in the midst of his troubles and vexations with his farm, he began to look more hopefully to the excise, and to see in the future a life of literary ease, when he could devote himself wholly to the muses. he had already got ranked on the list as supervisor, an appointment that he reckoned might be worth one hundred or two hundred pounds a year; and this determined him to quit the farm entirely, and to try to make a living by one profession. as farmer, exciseman, and poet he had tried too much, and even a man of his great capacity for work was bound to have succumbed under the strain. even had the farm not proved the ruinous bargain it did, we imagine that he must have been compelled sooner or later to relinquish one of the two, either his farm or his excise commission. circumstances decided for him, and in december 1791 he sold by auction his stock and implements, and removed to dumfries, 'leaving nothing at ellisland but a putting-stone, with which he loved to exercise his strength; a memory of his musings, which can never die; and three hundred pounds of his money, sunk beyond redemption in a speculation from which all augured happiness.' chapter viii dumfries when burns removed from ellisland to dumfries, he took up his abode in a small house of three apartments in the wee vennel. here he stayed till whitsunday 1793, when the family removed to a detached house of two storeys in the mill vennel. a mere closet nine feet square was the poet's writing-room in this house, and it was in the bedroom adjoining that he died. the few years of his residence in dumfries have been commonly regarded as a period of poverty and intemperance. but his intemperance has always been most religiously exaggerated, and we doubt not also that the poverty of the family at this time has been made to appear worse than it was. burns had not a salary worthy of his great abilities, it is true, but there is good reason to believe that the family lived in comparative ease and comfort, and that there were luxuries in their home, which neither father nor mother had known in their younger days. burns liked to see his bonnie jean neat and trim, and she went as braw as any wife of the town. though we know that he wrote painfully, towards the end of his life, for the loan of paltry sums, we are to regard this as a sign more of temporary embarrassment than of a continual struggle to make ends meet. the word debt grated so harshly on burns's ears that he could not be at peace with himself so long as the pettiest account remained unpaid; and if he had no ready money in his hands to meet it, he must e'en borrow from a friend. his income, when he settled in dumfries, was 'down money £70 per annum,' and there were perquisites which must have raised it to eighty or ninety. though his hopes of preferment were never realised, he tried his best on this slender income 'to make a happy fireside clime to weans and wife,' and in a sense succeeded. what he must have felt more keenly than anything else in leaving ellisland was, that in giving up farming he was making an open confession of failure in his ideal of combining in himself the farmer, the poet, and the exciseman. there was a stigma also attaching to the name of gauger, that must often have been galling to the spirit of burns. the ordinary labourer utters the word with dry contempt, as if he were speaking of a spy. but the thoughts of a wife and bairns had already prevailed over prejudice; he realised the responsibilities of a husband and father, and pocketed his pride. a great change it must have been to come from the quiet and seclusion of ellisland to settle down in the midst of the busy life of an important burgh. life in provincial towns in scotland in those days was simply frittered away in the tittle-tattle of cross and causeway, and the insipid talk of taverns. the most trifling incidents of everyday life were dissected and discussed, and magnified into events of the first importance. many residents had no trade or profession whatever. annuitants and retired merchants built themselves houses, had their portraits painted in oil, and thereafter strutted into an aristocracy. without work, without hobby, without healthy recreation, and cursed with inglorious leisure, they simply dissipated time until they should pass into eternity. the only amusement such lumpish creatures could have was to meet in some inn or tavern, and swill themselves into a debauched joy of life. dumfries, when burns came to it in 1791, was no better and no worse than its neighbours; and we can readily imagine how eagerly such a man would be welcomed by its pompously dull and leisured topers. now might their meetings be lightened with flashes of genius, and the lazy hours of their long nights go fleeting by on the wings of wit and eloquence. too often in dumfries was burns wiled into the howffs and haunts of these seasoned casks. they could stand heavy drinking; the poet could not. he was too highly strung, and if he had consulted his own inclination would rather have shunned than sought the company of men who met to quaff their quantum of wine and sink into sottish sleep. for burns was never a drunkard, not even in dumfries; though the contrary has been asserted so often that it has all the honour that age and the respectability of authority can give it. there was with him no animal craving for drink, nor has he been convicted of solitary drinking; but he was intensely convivial, and drank, as professor blackie put it, 'only as the carnal seasoning of a rampant intellectuality.' there is no doubt that he came to dumfries a comparatively pure and sober man; and if he now began to frequent the globe tavern, often to cast his pearls before swine, let it be remembered that he was compelled frequently to meet there strangers and tourists who had journeyed for the express purpose of meeting the poet. nowadays writers and professional men have their clubs, and in general frequent them more regularly than burns ever haunted the howffs of dumfries. but we have heard too much about 'the poet's moral course after he settled in dumfries being downward.' 'from the time of his migration to dumfries,' principal shairp soberly informs us, 'it would appear that he was gradually dropped out of acquaintance by most of the dumfriesshire lairds, as he had long been by the parochial and other ministers.' poor lairds! poor ministers! if they preferred their own talk of crops and cattle and meaner things to the undoubted brilliancy of burns's conversation, surely their dulness and want of appreciation is not to be laid to the charge of the poet. i doubt not had the poet lived to a good old age he would have been gradually dropped out of acquaintance by some who have not scrupled to write his biography. politics, it is admitted, may have formed the chief element in the lairds' and ministers' aversion, but there is a hint that his irregular life had as much to do with it. is it to be seriously contended that these men looked askance at burns because of his occasional convivialities? 'madam,' he answered a lady who remonstrated with him on this very subject, 'they would not thank me for my company if i did not drink with them.' these lairds, perhaps even these ministers, could in all probability stand their three bottles with the best, and were more likely to drop the acquaintance of one who would not drink bottle for bottle with them than of one who indulged to excess. it was considered a breach of hospitality not to imbibe so long as the host ordained; and in many cases glasses were supplied so constructed that they had to be drained at every toast. 'occasional hard drinking,' he confessed to mrs. dunlop, 'is the devil to me; against this i have again and again set my resolution, and have greatly succeeded. taverns i have totally abandoned; it is the private parties in the family way among the hard-drinking gentlemen of this county that do me the mischief; but even this i have more than half given over.' most assuredly whatever these men charged against robert burns it was not drunkenness. but he has been accused of mixing with low company! that is something nearer the mark, and goes far to explain the aversion of those stately tories. but again, what is meant by low company? are we to believe that the poet made associates of depraved and abandoned men? not for a moment! this low company was nothing more than men in the rank of life into which he had been born; mechanics, tradesmen, farmers, ploughmen, who did not move in the aristocratic circles of patrician lairds or ministers ordained to preach the gospel to the poor. it was simply the old, old cry of 'associating with publicans and sinners.' we do not defend nor seek to hide the poet's aberrations; he confessed them remorselessly, and condemned himself. but we do raise our voice against the exaggeration of occasional over-indulgence into confirmed debauchery; and dare assert that burns was as sober a man as the average lairds and ministers who had the courage of their prejudices, and wrote themselves down asses to all posterity. but here again the work the poet managed to do is a sufficient disproof of his irregular life. he was at this time, besides working hard at his excise business, writing ballads and songs, correcting for creech the two-volume edition of his poems, and managing somehow or other to find time for a pretty voluminous correspondence. his hands were full and his days completely occupied. he would not have been an excise officer very long had he been unable to attend to his duties. william wallace, the editor of _chambers's burns_, has studied very carefully this period of the poet's life, and found that in those days of petty faultfinding he has not once been reprimanded, either for drunkenness or for dereliction of duty. there were spies and informers about who would not have left the excise commissioners uninformed of the paltriest charge they could have trumped up against burns. nor is there, when we look at his literary work, any falling off in his powers as a poet. he sang as sweetly, as purely, as magically as ever he did; and this man, who has been branded as a blasphemer and a libertine, had nobly set himself to purify the polluted stream of scottish song. he was still continuing his contributions to johnson's museum, and now he had also begun to write for thomson's more ambitious work. some of the first of his dumfriesshire songs owe their inspiration to a hurried visit he paid to mrs. maclehose in edinburgh before she sailed to join her husband in the west indies. the best of these are, perhaps, _my nannie's awa'_ and _ae fond kiss_. the fourth verse of the latter was a favourite of byron's, while scott claims for it that it is worth a thousand romances- 'had we never loved so kindly, had we never loved so blindly! never met--or never parted, we had ne'er been broken-hearted.' another song of a different kind, _the deil's awa wi' the exciseman_, had its origin in a raid upon a smuggling brig that had got into shallow water in the solway. the ship was armed and well manned; and while lewars, a brother-excisemen, posted to dumfries for a guard of dragoons, burns, with a few men under him, watched to prevent landing or escape. it was while impatiently waiting lewars's return that he composed this song. when the dragoons arrived burns put himself at their head, and wading, sword in hand, was the first to board the smuggler. the affair might ultimately have led to his promotion had he not, next day at the sale of the vessel's arms and stores in dumfries, purchased four carronades, which he sent, with a letter testifying his admiration and respect, to the french legislative assembly. the carronades never reached their destination, having been intercepted at dover by the custom house authorities. it is a pity perhaps that burns should have testified his political leanings in so characteristic a way. it was the impetuous act of a poet roused to enthusiasm, as were thousands of his fellow-countrymen at the time, by what was thought to be the beginning of universal brotherhood in france. but whatever may be said as to the impulsive imprudence of the step, it is not to be condemned as a most absurd and presumptuous breach of decorum. we were not at war with france at this time; had not even begun to await developments with critical suspicion. talleyrand had not yet been slighted by our queen, and protestations of peace and friendship were passing between the two governments. any subject of the king might at this time have written a friendly letter or forwarded a token of goodwill to the french government, without being suspected of disloyalty. but by the time the carronades had reached dover the complexion of things had changed; and yet even in those critical times burns's action, though it may have hindered promotion, does not appear to have been interpreted as 'a most absurd and presumptuous breach of decorum.' that interpretation was left for biographers made wise with the passions of war; and yet they have not said in so many words, what they darkly insinuate, that the poet was not a loyal british subject. his love of country is too surely established. that, later, he thought the ministry engaging in an unjust and unrighteous war, may be frankly admitted. he was not alone in his opinion; nor was he the only poet carried away with a wild enthusiasm of liberty, equality, and fraternity. societies were then springing up all over the country calling for redress of grievances and for greater political freedom. such societies were regarded by the government of the day as seditious, and their agitations as dangerous to the peace of the country; and burns, though he did not become a member of the society of the friends of the people, was at one with them in their desire for reform. it was known also that he 'gat the _gazeteer_,' and that was enough to mark him out as a disaffected person. no doubt he also talked imprudently; for it was not the nature of this man to keep his sentiments hidden in his heart, and to talk the language of expediency. what he thought in private he advocated publicly in season and out of season; and it was quite in the natural course of things that information regarding his political opinions should be lodged against him with the board of excise. his political conduct was made the subject of official inquiry, and it would appear that for a time he was in danger of dismissal from the service. this is a somewhat painful episode in his life; and we find him in a letter to mr. graham of fintry repudiating the slanderous charges, yet confessing that the tender ties of wife and children 'unnerve courage and wither resolution.' mr. findlater, his superior, was of opinion that only a very mild reprimand was administered, and the poet warned to be more prudent in his speech. but what appeared mild to mr. findlater was galling to burns. in his letter to erskine of mar he says: '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_.' we can hardly conceive a harsher sentence on one of burns's temperament, and we doubt not that the degradation of being thus gagged, and the blasting of his hopes of promotion, were the cause of much of the bitterness that we find bursting from him now more frequently than ever, both in speech and writing. that remorse for misconduct irritated him against himself and against the world, is true; but it is none the less true that he must have chafed against the servility of an office that forbade him the freedom of personal opinion. in the same letter he unburdens his heart in a burst of eloquent and noble indignation. 'burns was a poor man from birth, and an exciseman by necessity; but--i _will_ say it--the sterling of his honest worth no poverty could debase; his independent british mind oppression might bend, but could not subdue.... i have three sons who, i see already, have brought into the world souls ill-qualified to inhabit the bodies of slaves.... 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 concerns 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.' what the precise charges against him were, we are not informed. it is alleged that he once, when the health of pitt was being drunk, interposed with the toast of 'a greater than pitt--george washington.' there can be little fault found with the sentiment. it is given to poets to project themselves into futurity, and declare the verdict of posterity. but the occasion was ill-chosen, and he spoke with all a poet's imprudence. in another company he aroused the martial fury of an unreasoning captain by proposing the toast, 'may our success in the present war be equal to the justice of our cause.' a very humanitarian toast, one would think, but regarded as seditious by the fire-eating captain, who had not the sense to see that there was more of sedition in his resentment than in burns's proposal. yet the affair looked black enough for a time, and the poet was afraid that even this story would be carried to the ears of the commissioners, and his political opinions be again misrepresented. another thing that came to disturb his peace of mind was his quarrel with mrs. riddell of woodley park, where he had been made a welcome guest ever since his advent to this district. that burns, in the heat of a fever of intoxication, had been guilty of a glaring act of impropriety in the presence of the ladies seated in the drawing-room, we may gather from the internal evidence of his letter written the following morning 'from the regions of hell, amid the horrors of the damned.' it would appear that the gentlemen left in the dining-room had got ingloriously drunk, and there and then proposed an indecorous raid on the drawing-room. whatever it might be they did, it was burns who was made to suffer the shame of the drunken plot. his letter of abject apology remained unanswered, and the estrangement was only embittered by some lampoons which he wrote afterwards on this accomplished lady. the affair was bruited abroad, and the heinousness of the poet's offence vastly exaggerated. certain it is that he became deeply incensed against not only the lady, but her husband as well, to whom he considered he owed no apology whatever. matters were only made worse by his unworthy verses, and it was not till he was almost on the brink of the grave that he and mrs. riddell met again, and the old friendship was re-established. the lady not only forgot and forgave, but she was one of the first after the poet's death to write generously and appreciatively of his character and abilities. that the quarrel with mrs. riddell was prattled about in dumfries, and led other families to drop the acquaintance of the poet, we are made painfully aware; and in his correspondence now there is rancour, bitterness, and remorse more pronounced and more settled than at any other period of his life. he could not go abroad without being reminded of the changed attitude of the world; he could not stay at home without seeing his noble wife uncomplainingly nursing a child that was not hers. he cursed himself for his sins and follies; he cursed the world for its fickleness and want of sympathy. 'his wit,' says heron, 'became more gloomy and sarcastic, and his conversation and writings began to assume a misanthropical tone, by which they had not been before in any eminent degree distinguished. but with all his failings his was still that exalted mind which had raised itself above the depression of its original condition, with all the energy of the lion pawing to free his hinder limbs from the yet encumbering earth.' his health now began to give his friends serious concern. to cunningham he wrote, february 24, 1794: 'for these two months i have not been able to lift a pen. my constitution and my frame were _ab origine_ blasted with a deep, incurable taint of hypochondria, which poisons my existence.' a little later he confesses: 'i have been in poor health. i am afraid that i am about to suffer for the follies of my youth. my medical friends threaten me with a flying gout, but i trust they are mistaken.' his only comfort in those days was his correspondence with thomson and with johnson. he kept pouring out song after song, criticising, rewriting, changing what was foul and impure into songs of the tenderest delicacy. he showed love in every mood, from the rapture of pure passion in the _lea rig_, the maidenly abandon of _whistle and i'll come to you, my lad_, to the humour of _last may a braw wooer_ and _duncan gray_, and the guileless devotion of _o wert thou in the cauld blast_. but he sang of more than love. turning from the coldness of the high and mighty, who had once been his friends, he found consolation in the naked dignity of manhood, and penned the hymn of humanity, _a man's a man for a' that_. perhaps he found his text in _tristram shandy_: 'honours, like impressions upon coin, may give an ideal and local value to a bit of base metal, but gold and silver pass all the world over with no other recommendation than their own weight.' something like this occurs in massinger's _duke of florence_, where it is said of princes that 'they can give wealth and titles, but no virtues; this is without their power.' gower also had written- 'a king can kill, a king can save; a king can make a lord a knave, and of a knave a lord also.' but the poem is undoubtedly burns's, and it is one he must have written ere he passed away. _scots wha hae_ is another of his dumfries poems. mr. syme gives a highly-coloured and one-sided view of the poet riding in a storm between gatehouse and kenmure, where we are assured he composed this ode. carlyle accepts syme's authority, and adds: 'doubtless this stern hymn was singing itself, as he formed it, through the soul of burns; but to the external ear it should be sung with the throat of the whirlwind.' burns gives an account of the writing of the poem, which it is difficult to reconcile with mr. syme's sensational details. it matters not, however, when or how it was written; we have it now, one of the most martial and rousing odes ever penned. not only has it gripped the heart of scotsmen, but it has taken the ear of the world; its fire and vigour have inspired soldiers in the day of battle, and consoled them in the hour of death. we are not forgetful of the fact that mrs. hemans, who wrote some creditable verse, and the placid wordsworth, discussed this ode, and agreed that it was little else than the rhodomontade of a schoolboy. it is a pity that such authorities should have missed the charm of _scots wha hae_. more than likely they made up for the loss in a solitary appreciation of _betty foy_ or _the pilgrim fathers_. another martial ode, composed in 1795, was called forth by the immediate dangers of the time. the country was roused by the fear of foreign invasion, and burns, who had enrolled himself in the ranks of the dumfriesshire volunteers, penned the patriotic song, _does haughty gaul invasion threat?_ this song itself might have reinstalled him in public favour, and dispelled all doubt as to his loyalty, had he cared again to court the society of those who had dropped him from the list of their acquaintance. but burns had grown indifferent to any favour save the favour of his muse; besides, he was now shattered in health, and assailed with gloomy forebodings of an early death. for himself he would have faced death manfully, but again it was the thought of wife and bairns that unmanned him. not content with supplying thomson with songs, he wrote letters full of hints and suggestions anent songs and song-making, and now and then he gave a glimpse of himself at work. we see him sitting under the shade of an old thorn crooning to himself until he gets a verse to suit the measure he has in his mind; looking round for objects in nature that are in unison and harmony with the cogitations of his fancy; humming every now and then the air with the verses; retiring to his study to commit his effusions to paper, and while he swings at intervals on the hind legs of his elbow-chair, criticising what he has written. a common walk of his when he was in the poetical vein was to the ruins of lincluden abbey, whither he was often accompanied by his eldest boy; sometimes towards martingdon ford, on the north side of the nith. when he returned home with a set of verses, he listened attentively to his wife singing them, and if she happened to find a word that was harsh in sound, a smoother one was immediately substituted; but he would on no account ever sacrifice sense to sound. during the earlier part of this year burns had taken his full share in the political contest that was going on, and fought for heron of heron, the whig candidate, with electioneering ballads, not to be claimed as great poems nor meant to be so ranked, but marked with all his incisiveness of wit and satire, and with his extraordinary deftness of portraiture. heron was the successful candidate, and his poetical supporter again began to indulge in dreams of promotion: 'a life of literary leisure with a decent competency was the summit of his wishes.' but his dreams were not to be realised. in september his favourite child and only daughter, elizabeth, died at mauchline, and he was prostrated with grief. he had also taken very much to heart the inexplicable silence of his old friend, and for many years constant correspondent, mrs. dunlop. to both these griefs he alludes in a letter to her, dated january 31, 1796: 'these many months you have been two packets in my debt. what sin of ignorance i have committed against so highly valued a friend i am utterly at a loss to guess. alas! madam, i can ill afford at this time to be deprived of any of the small remnant of my pleasures. i have lately drunk deep of the cup of affliction. the autumn robbed me of my only daughter and darling child, and that at a distance, too, and so rapidly as to put it out of my power to pay my last duties to her. i had scarcely begun to recover from that shock when i became myself the victim of a severe rheumatic fever, and long the die spun doubtful, until, after many weeks of a sickbed, it seems to have turned up life.' there was an evident decline in the poet's appearance, dr. currie tells us, for upwards of a year before his death, and he himself was sensible that his constitution was sinking. during almost the whole of the winter of 1795-96 he had been confined to the house. then follows the unsubstantiated story which has done duty for shakspeare and many other poets. 'he dined at a tavern, returned home about three o'clock in a very cold morning, benumbed and intoxicated. this was followed by an attack of rheumatism.' it is difficult to kill a charitable myth, especially one that is so agreeable to the levelling instincts of ordinary humanity, and of such sweet consolation to the weaker brethren. of course there are variants of the story, with a stair and sleep and snow brought in as sensational, if improbable, accessories; but such stories as these all good men refuse to believe, unless they are compelled to do so by the conclusive evidence of direct authority; and that, in this case, is altogether awanting. all evidence that has been forthcoming has gone directly against it, and the story may be accepted as a myth. the fact is that brains have been ransacked to find reason for the poet's early death,--as if the goings and comings of death could be scientifically calculated in biography,--and the last years of his 'irregular life' are blamed: dumfries is set apart as the chief sinner. no doubt his life was irregular there; his duties were irregular; his hours were irregular. but burns in his thirty-six years, had lived a full life, putting as much into one year as the ordinary sons of men put into two. he had had threatenings of rheumatism and heart disease when he was an overworked lad at lochlea; and now his constitution was breaking up from the rate at which he had lived. excess of work more than excess of drink brought him to an early grave. during his few years' stay at dumfries he had written over two hundred poems, songs, etc., many of them of the highest excellence, and most of them now household possessions. besides his official duties, we know also that he took a great interest in his home and in the education of his children. mr. gray, master of the high school of dumfries, who knew the poet intimately, wrote a long and interesting letter to gilbert burns, in which he mentions particularly the attention he paid to his children's education. 'he was a kind and attentive father, and took great delight in spending his evenings in the cultivation of the minds of his children. their education was the grand object of his life; and he did not, like most parents, think it sufficient to send them to public schools; he was their private instructor; and even at that early age bestowed great pains in training their minds to habits of thought and reflection, and in keeping them pure from every form of vice. this he considered a sacred duty, and never to his last illness relaxed in his diligence.' throughout the winter of 1795 and spring of 1796, he could only keep up an irregular correspondence with thomson. 'alas!' he wrote in april, 'i fear it will be long ere i tune my lyre again. i have only known existence by the pressure of the heavy hand of sickness, and counted time by the repercussion of pain. i close my eyes in misery and open them without hope.' yet it was literally on his deathbed that he composed the exquisite song, _o wert thou in the cauld blast_, in honour of jessie lewars, who waited on him so faithfully. in june he wrote: 'i begin to fear the worst. as to my individual self i am tranquil, and would despise myself if i were not; but burns's poor widow and half a dozen of his dear little ones--helpless orphans!--there, i am weaker than a woman's tear.' from brow, whither he had gone to try the effect of sea-bathing, he wrote several letters all in the same strain, one to cunningham; a pathetic one to mrs. dunlop, regretting her continued silence; and letters begging a temporary loan to james burness, montrose, and to george thomson, whom he had been supplying with songs without fee or reward. thomson at once forwarded the amount asked--five pounds! to his wife, who had not been able to accompany him, he wrote: 'my dearest love, i delayed writing until i could tell you what effect sea-bathing was likely to produce. it would be injustice to deny it has eased my pain.... i will see you on sunday.' during his stay at brow he met again mrs. riddell, and she has left in a letter her impression of his appearance at that time. 'the stamp of death was imprinted on his features. he seemed already touching the brink of eternity.... he spoke of his death with firmness as well as feeling as an event likely to happen very soon.... he said he was well aware that his death would occasion some noise, and that every scrap of his writing would be revived against him, to the injury of his future reputation.... the conversation was kept up with great evenness and animation on his side. i had seldom seen his mind greater or more collected.' when he returned from brow he was worse than when he went away, and those who saw him tottering to his door knew that they had looked their last on the poet. the question in dumfries for a day or two was, 'how is burns now?' and the question was not long in being answered. he knew he was dying, but neither his humour nor his wit left him. 'john,' he said to one of his brother volunteers, 'don't let the awkward squad fire over me.' he lingered on for a day or two, his wife hourly expecting to be confined and unable to attend to him, and jessie lewars taking her place, a constant and devoted nurse. on the fourth day after his return, july 21, he sank into delirium, and his children were summoned to the bedside of their dying father, who quietly and gradually sank to rest. his last words showed that his mind was still disturbed by the thought of the small debt that had caused him so much annoyance. 'and thus he passed,' says carlyle, 'not softly, yet speedily, into that still country where the hailstorms and fire-showers do not reach, and the heaviest laden wayfarer at length lays down his load.' chapter ix summary and estimate in mrs. riddell's sketch of burns, which appeared shortly after his death, she starts with the somewhat startling statement that poetry was not actually his _forte_. she did not question the excellence of his songs, or seek to depreciate his powers as a poet, but she spoke of the man as she had known him, and was one of the first to assert that burns was very much more than an uneducated peasant with a happy knack of versification. even in the present day we hear too much of the inspired ploughman bursting into song as one that could not help himself, and warbling of life and love in a kind of lyrical frenzy. the fact is that burns was a great intellectual power, and would have been a force in any sphere of life or letters. all who met him and heard him talk have insisted on the greatness of the man, apart from his achievements in poetry. it was not his fame as a poet that made him the lion of a season in edinburgh, but the force and brilliancy of his conversation; and it needs more than the reputation of a minstrel to explain the hold he has on the affection and intelligence of the world to-day. on the other hand, it would be a mistake to accept his intellectual greatness as a mere tradition of those who knew him, and to regret that he has not left us some long and ponderous work worthy of the power he possessed. it is an absurd idea to imagine that every great poet ought to write an epic or a play. burns's powers were concentrative, and he could put into a song what a dramatist might elaborate into a five-act tragedy; but that is not to say that the dramatist is the greater poet. after all, the song is the more likely to live, and the more likely, therefore, to keep the mission of the poet an enduring and living influence in the lives of men. still burns might have been a great song-writer without becoming the name and power he is in the world to-day. the lyrical gift implies a quick emotional sense, which in some cases may be little more than a beautiful defect in a weak nature. but burns was essentially a strong man. his very vices are the vices of a robust and healthy humanity. besides being possessed of all the qualities of a great singer, he was at the same time vigorously human and throbbing with the love and joy of life. it is this sterling quality of manhood that has made burns the poet and the power he is. he looked out on the world with the eyes of a man, and saw things in their true colours and in their natural relations. he regarded the world into which he had been born, and saw it not as some other poet or an artist or a painter might have beheld it,--for the purposes of art,--but in all its uncompromising realism; and what his eye saw clearly, his lips as clearly uttered. his first and greatest gift, therefore, as a poet was his manifest sincerity. his men and women are living human beings; his flowers are real flowers; his dogs, real dogs, and nothing more. all his pictures are presented in the simplest and fewest possible words. there is no suspicion of trickery; no attempt to force words to carry a weight of meaning they are incapable of expressing. he knew nothing of the deification of style, and on absolute truthfulness and unidealised reality rested his poetical structure. wordsworth speaks of him- 'whose light i hailed when first it shone, and showed my youth how verse may build a princely throne on humble truth.' it is this quality that made burns the interpreter of the lives of his fellow-men, not only to an outside world that knew them not, but to themselves. and he has glorified those lives in the interpretation, not by the introduction of false elements or the elimination of unlovely features, but simply by his insistence, in spite of the sordidness of poverty, on the naked dignity of man. everything he touched became interesting because it was interesting to him, and he spoke forth what he felt. for burns did not go outside of his own life, either in time or place, for subject. there are poetry and romance, tragedy and comedy ever waiting for the man who has eyes to see them; and burns's stage was the parish of tarbolton, and he found his poetry in (or rendered poetical) the ordinary humdrum life round about him. for that reason it is, perhaps, that he has been called the satirist and singer of a parish. had he lived nowadays, he would have been relegated to the kailyard, there to cultivate his hardy annuals and indigenous daisies. for burns did not affect exotics, and it requires a specialist in manure to produce blue dandelions or sexless ferns. in the narrow sense of the word he was not parochial. whilst true to class and country, he reached out a hand to universal man. a scotsman of scotsmen, he endeared himself to the hearts of a people; but he was from first to last a man, and so has found entrance to the hearts of all men. although local in subject, he was artistic in treatment; he might address the men and women of mauchline, but he spoke with the voice of humanity, and his message was for mankind. besides interpreting the lives of the scottish peasantry, he revived for them their nationality. for he was but the last of the great bards that sang the iliad of scotland; and in him, when patriotism was all but dead, and a hybrid culture was making men ashamed of their land and their language, the voices of nameless ballad-makers and forgotten singers blended again into one great voice that sang of the love of country, till men remembered their fathers, and gloried in the name of scotsmen. his patriotism, however, was not parochial. it was no mere prejudice which bound him hand and foot to scottish theme and scottish song. he knew that there were lands beyond the cheviots, and that men of other countries and other tongues joyed and sorrowed, toiled and sweated and struggled and hoped even as he did. he was attached to the people of his own rank in life, the farmers and ploughmen amongst whom he had been born and bred; but his sympathies went out to all men, prince or peasant, beggar or king, if they were worthy of the name of men he recognised them as brothers. it is this sympathy which gives him his intimate knowledge of mankind. he sees into the souls of his fellows; the thoughts of their hearts are visible to his piercing eye. he who had mixed only with hard-working men, and scarcely ever been beyond the boundary of his parish, wrote of court and parliament as if he had known princes and politicians from his boyhood. the goodwife of wauchope house would hardly credit that he had come straight from the plough-stilts- 'and then sae slee ye crack your jokes o' willie pitt and charlie fox; our great men a' sae weel descrive, and how to gar the nation thrive, ane maist would swear ye dwalt amang them, and as ye saw them sae ye sang them.' but his intuitive knowledge of men is apparent in almost all he wrote. every character he has drawn stands out a living and breathing personality. this is greatly due to the fact that he studied those he met, as _men_, dismissing the circumstance of birth and rank, of costly apparel, or beggarly rags. for rank and station after all are mere accidents, and count for nothing in an estimate of character. indeed, burns was too often inclined from his hard experience of life to go further than this, and to count them disqualifying circumstances. this aggressive independence was, however, always as far removed from insolence as it was from servility. he saw clearly that the 'pith o' sense and pride o' worth' are beyond all the dignities a king can bestow; and he looked to the time when class distinctions would cease, and the glory of manhood be the highest earthly dignity. 'then let us pray that come it may- as come it will for a' that- that sense and worth, o'er a' the earth, may bear the gree and a' that! for a' that, and a' that, it's comin' yet, for a' that, that man to man, the warld o'er, shall brothers be for a' that!' besides this abiding love of his fellow-man, or because of it, burns had also a childlike love of nature and all created things. he sings of the mountain daisy turned up by his plough; his heart goes out to the mouse rendered homeless after all its provident care. listening at home while the storm made the doors and windows rattle, he bethought him on the cattle and sheep and birds outside- 'i thought me on the ourie cattle or silly sheep, wha bide this brattle o' wintry war, and thro' the drift, deep-lairing, sprattle beneath a scaur.' nor is there in his love of nature any transcendental strain; no mawkish sentimentality, and consequently in its expression no bathos. everywhere in his poetry nature comes in, at times in artistically selected detail, at times again with a deft suggestive touch that is telling and effective, yet always in harmony with the feeling of the poem, and always subordinate to it. his descriptions of scenery are never dragged in. they are incidental and complementary; human life and human feeling are the first consideration; to this his scenery is but the setting and background. he is never carried away by the force or beauty of his drawing as a smaller artist might have been. the picture is given with simple conciseness, and he leaves it; nor does he ever attempt to elaborate a detail into a separate poem. the description of the burn in _hallowe'en_ is most beautiful in itself, yet it is but a detail in a great picture- 'whyles owre a linn the burnie plays, as thro' the glen it wimpl't; whyles round a rocky scaur it strays; whyles in a wiel it dimpl't; whyles glitter'd to the nightly rays, wi' bickerin', dancin' dazzle; whyles cookit underneath the braes, below the spreading hazel, unseen that night.' that surely is the perfection of description; whilst the wimple of the burn is echoed in the music of the verse! allied to the clearness of vision and truthfulness of presentment of burns, growing out of them it may be, is that graphic power in which he stands unexcelled. he is a great artist, and word-painting is not the least of his many gifts. he combines terseness and lucidity, which is a rare combination in letters; his phrasing is as beautiful and fine as it is forcible, which is a distinction rarer still. hundreds of examples of his pregnant phrasing might be cited, but it is best to see them in the poems. many have become everyday expressions, and have passed into the proverbs of the country. another of burns's gifts was the saving grace of humour. this, of course, is not altogether a quality distinct in itself, but rather a particular mode in which love or tenderness or pity may manifest itself. this humour is ever glinting forth from his writings. some of his poems--_the farmer's address to his auld mare_, for example--are simply bathed in it, and we see the subject glowing in its light, soft and tremulous, as of an autumn sunset. in others, again, it flashes and sparkles, more sportive than tender. but, however it manifest itself, we recognise at once that it has a character of its own, which marks it off from the humour of any other writer; it is a peculiar possession of burns. perhaps the poem in which all burns's poetic qualities are seen at their best is _the jolly beggars_. the subject may be low and the materials coarse, but that only makes the finished poem a more glorious achievement. for the poem is a unity. we see those vagabonds for a moment's space holding high revel in poosie nansie's; but in that brief glance we see them from their birth to their death. they are flung into the world, and go zigzagging through it, chaffering and cheating, swaggering and swearing; kicked and cuffed from parish to parish; their only joy of existence an occasional night like this, a carnival of drink and all sensuality; snapping their fingers in the face of the world, and as they have lived so going down defiantly to death, a laugh on their lips and a curse in their heart. every character in it is individual and distinct from his neighbour; the language from first to last simple, sensuous, musical. of this poem matthew arnold says: 'it has a breadth, truth, and power which make the famous scene in auerbach's cellar of goethe's _faust_ seem artificial and tame beside it, and which are only matched by shakspeare and aristophanes.' _the cotter's saturday night_ has usually, in scotland, been the most lauded of his poems. many writers give it as his best. it is a pious opinion, but is not sound criticism. burns handicapped himself, not only by the stanza he selected for this poem, but also by the attitude he took towards his subject. he is never quite himself in it. we admire its many beauties; we see the life of the poor made noble and dignified; we see, in the end, the soul emerging from the tyranny of time and circumstance; but with all that we feel that there is something awanting. the priest-like father is drawn from life, and the picture is beautiful; not less deftly drawn is the mother's portrait, though it be not so frequently quoted: 'the mother, wi' a woman's wiles, can spy what makes the youth so bashfu' and so grave; weel pleased to think her bairn's respected like the lave.' the last line gives one of the most natural and most subtle touches in the whole poem. the closing verses are, i think, unhappy. the poet has not known when to stop, keeps writing after he has finished, and so becomes stilted and artificial. it is in his songs, however, more than in his poems, that we find burns most regularly at his best. and excellence in song-writing is a rare gift. the snatches scattered here and there throughout the plays of shakspeare are perhaps the only collection of lyrics that can at all stand comparison with the wealth of minstrelsy burns has left behind him. this was his undying legacy to the world. song-writing was a labour of love, almost his only comfort and consolation in the dark days of his later years. he set himself to this as to a congenial task, and he knew that he was writing himself into the hearts of unborn generations. his songs live; they are immortal, because every one is a bit of his soul. these are no feverish, hysterical jingles of clinking verse, dead save for the animating breath of music. they sing themselves, because the spirit of song is in them. quite as marvellous as his excellence in this department of poetry is his variety of subject. he has a song for every age; a musical interpretation of every mood. but this is a subject for a book to itself. his songs are sung all over the world. the love he sings appeals to all, for it is elemental, and is the love of all. heart speaks to heart in the songs of robert burns; there is a freemasonry in them that binds scotsmen to scotsmen across the seas in the firmest bonds of brotherhood. what place burns occupies as a poet has been determined not so much by the voice of criticism, as by the enthusiastic way in which his fellow-mortals have taken him to their heart. the summing-up of a judge counts for little when the jury has already made up its mind. what matters it whether a critic argues burns into a first or second or third rate poet? his countrymen, and more than his countrymen, his brothers all the world over, who read in his writings the joys and sorrows, the temptations and trials, the sins and shortcomings of a great-hearted man, have accepted him as a prophet, and set him in the front rank of immortals. they admire many poets; they love robert burns. they have been told their love is unreasoning and unreasonable. it may be so. love goes by instinct more than by reason; and who shall say it is wrong? yet burns is not loved because of his faults and failings, but in spite of them. his sins are not hidden. he himself confessed them again and again, and repented in sackcloth and ashes. if he did not always abjure his weaknesses, he denounced them, and with no uncertain voice; nor do we know how hardly he strove to do more. what estimate is to be taken of burns as a man will have many and various answers. those who still denounce him as the chief of sinners, and without mercy condemn him out of his own mouth, are those whom burns has pilloried to all posterity. there are dull, phlegmatic beings with blood no warmer than ditch-water, who are virtuous and sober citizens because they have never felt the force of temptation. what power could tempt them? the tree may be parched and blistered in the heat of noonday, but the parasitical fungus draining its sap remains cool--and poisonous. so in the glow of sociability the pharisee remains cold and clammy; the fever of love leaves his blood at zero. how can such anomalies understand a man of burns's wild and passionate nature, or, indeed, human nature at all? the broad fact remains, however much we may deplore his sins and shortcomings, they are the sins and shortcomings of a large-hearted, healthy, human being. had he loved less his fellow men and women, he might have been accounted a better man. after all, too, it must be remembered that his failings have been consistently exaggerated. coleridge, in his habit of drawing nice distinctions, admits that burns was not a man of degraded genius, but a degraded man of genius. burns was neither the one nor the other. in spite of the occasional excesses of his later years, he did not degenerate into drunkenness, nor was the sense of his responsibilities as a husband, a father, and a man less clear and acute in the last months of his life than it had ever been. had he lived a few years longer, we should have seen the man mellowed by sorrow and suffering, braving life, not as he had done all along with the passionate vehemence of undisciplined youth, but with the fortitude and dignity of one who had learned that contentment and peace are gifts the world cannot give, and, if he haply find them in his own heart, which it cannot take away. that is the lesson we read in the closing months of burns's chequered career. but it was not to be. his work was done. the message god had sent him into the world to deliver he had delivered, imperfectly and with faltering lips it may be, but a divine message all the same. and because it is divine men still hear it gladly and believe. let all his failings and defects be acknowledged, his sins as a man and his limitations as a poet, the want of continuity and purpose in his work and life; but at the same time let his nobler qualities be weighed against these, and the scale 'where the pure gold is, easily turns the balance.' in the words of angellier: 'admiration grows in proportion as we examine his qualities. when we think of his sincerity, of his rectitude, of his kindness towards man and beast; of his scorn of all that is base, his hatred of all knavery which in itself would be an honour; of his disinterestedness, of the fine impulses of his heart, and the high aspirations of his spirit; of the intensity and idealism necessary to maintain his soul above its circumstances; when we reflect that he has expressed all these generous sentiments to the extent of their constituting his intellectual life; that they have fallen from him as jewels ... as if his soul had been a furnace for the purification of precious metals, we are tempted to regard him as belonging to the elect spirits of humanity, to those gifted with exceptional goodness. when we recall what he suffered, what he surmounted, and what he has effected; against what privations his genius struggled into birth and lived; the perseverance of his apprenticeship; his intellectual exploits; and, after all, his glory, we are inclined to maintain that what he failed to accomplish or undertake is as nothing in comparison with his achievements.... there is nothing left but to confess that the clay of which he was made was thick with diamonds, and that his life was one of the most valiant and the most noble a poet ever has lived.' with burns's own words we may fitly conclude. they are words not merely to be read and admired, but to be remembered in our hearts and practised in our lives- 'then gently scan your brother man, still gentler sister woman; tho' they may gang a kennin wrang, to step aside is human: one point must still be greatly dark, the moving _why_ they do it; and just as lamely can ye mark, how far perhaps they rue it. who made the heart, 'tis he alone decidedly can try us, he knows each chord--its various tone, each spring--its various bias: then at the balance let's be mute, we never can adjust it; what's _done_ we partly may compute, but know not what's _resisted_' [transcriber's note: obvious printer's errors have been corrected, all other inconsistencies are as in the original. author's spelling has been maintained. missing page numbers correspond to blank pages.] robert burns by principal shairp, professor of poetry in the university of oxford london macmillan and co., limited new york: the macmillan company 1906 _all rights reserved_ _first edition april 1879_ _reprinted december 1879, 1883, 1887, 1895, 1902, 1906_ contents. page chapter i. youth in ayrshire 1 chapter ii. first winter in edinburgh 42 chapter iii. border and highland tours 60 chapter iv. second winter in edinburgh 79 chapter v. life at ellisland 94 chapter vi. migration to dumfries 135 chapter vii. last years 155 chapter viii. character, poems, songs 188 index 209 robert burns. (p. 001) chapter i. youth in ayrshire. great men, great events, great epochs, it has been said, grow as we recede from them; and the rate at which they grow in the estimation of men is in some sort a measure of their greatness. tried by this standard, burns must be great indeed, for during the eighty years that have passed since his death, men's interest in the man himself and their estimate of his genius have been steadily increasing. each decade since he died has produced at least two biographies of him. when mr. carlyle wrote his well-known essay on burns in 1828, he could already number six biographies of the poet, which had been given to the world during the previous thirty years; and the interval between 1828 and the present day has added, in at least the same proportion, to their number. what it was in the man and in his circumstances that has attracted so much of the world's interest to burns, i must make one more attempt to describe. if success were that which most secures men's sympathy, burns would have won but little regard; for in all but his poetry his was a (p. 002) defeated life--sad and heart-depressing to contemplate beyond the lives even of most poets. perhaps it may be the very fact that in him so much failure and shipwreck were combined with such splendid gifts, that has attracted to him so deep and compassionate interest. let us review once more the facts of that life, and tell again its oft-told story. it was on the 25th of january, 1759, about two miles from the town of ayr, in a clay-built cottage, reared by his father's own hands, that robert burns was born. the "auld clay bigging" which saw his birth still stands by the side of the road that leads from ayr to the river and the bridge of doon. between the banks of that romantic stream and the cottage is seen the roofless ruin of "alloway's auld haunted kirk," which tam o' shanter has made famous. his first welcome to the world was a rough one. as he himself says,- a blast o' janwar' win' blew hansel in on robin. a few days after his birth, a storm blew down the gable of the cottage, and the poet and his mother were carried in the dark morning to the shelter of a neighbour's roof, under which they remained till their own home was repaired. in after-years he would often say, "no wonder that one ushered into the world amid such a tempest should be the victim of stormy passions." "it is hard to be born in scotland," says the brilliant parisian. burns had many hardships to endure, but he never reckoned this to be one of them. his father, william burness or burnes, for so he spelt his name, was a native not of ayrshire, but of kincardineshire, where he had been reared on a farm belonging to the forfeited estate of the noble (p. 003) but attainted house of keith-marischal. forced to migrate thence at the age of nineteen, he had travelled to edinburgh, and finally settled in ayrshire, and at the time when robert, his eldest child, was born, he rented seven acres of land, near the brig o' doon, which he cultivated as a nursery-garden. he was a man of strict, even stubborn integrity, and of strong temper--a combination which, as his son remarks, does not usually lead to worldly success. but his chief characteristic was his deep-seated and thoughtful piety. a peasant-saint of the old scottish stamp, he yet tempered the stern calvinism of the west with the milder arminianism more common in his northern birthplace. robert, who, amid all his after-errors, never ceased to revere his father's memory, has left an immortal portrait of him in _the cotter's saturday night_, when he describes how the saint, the father, and the husband prays. william burness was advanced in years before he married, and his wife, agnes brown, was much younger than himself. she is described as an ayrshire lass, of humble birth, very sagacious, with bright eyes and intelligent looks, but not beautiful, of good manners and easy address. like her husband, she was sincerely religious, but of a more equable temper, quick to perceive character, and with a memory stored with old traditions, songs, and ballads, which she told or sang to amuse her children. in his outer man the poet resembled his mother, but his great mental gifts, if inherited at all, must be traced to his father. three places in ayrshire, besides his birthplace, will always be remembered as the successive homes of burns. these were mount (p. 004) oliphant, lochlea (pronounced lochly), and mossgiel. mount oliphant.--this was a small upland farm, about two miles from the brig o' doon, of a poor and hungry soil, belonging to mr. ferguson, of doon-holm, who was also the landlord of william burness' previous holding. robert was in his seventh year when his father entered on this farm at whitsuntide, 1766, and he had reached his eighteenth when the lease came to a close in 1777. all the years between these two dates were to the family of burness one long sore battle with untoward circumstances, ending in defeat. if the hardest toil and severe self-denial could have procured success, they would not have failed. it was this period of his life which robert afterwards described, as combining "the cheerless gloom of a hermit with the unceasing moil of galley-slave." the family did their best, but a niggard soil and bad seasons were too much for them. at length, on the death of his landlord, who had always dealt generously by him, william burness fell into the grip of a factor, whose tender mercies were hard. this man wrote letters which set the whole family in tears. the poet has not given his name, but he has preserved his portrait in colours which are indelible:- i've noticed, on our laird's court-day, an' mony a time my heart's been wae, poor tenant bodies, scant o' cash, how they maun thole a factor's snash; he'll stamp an' threaten, curse and swear, he'll apprehend them, poind their gear, while they maun stan', wi aspect humble, and hear it a', an' fear an' tremble. in his autobiographical sketch the poet tells us that, "the farm proved a ruinous bargain. i was the eldest of seven children, and (p. 005) my father, worn out by early hardship, was unfit for labour. his spirit was soon irritated, but not easily broken. there was a freedom in the lease in two years more; and to weather these two years we retrenched expenses, and toiled on." robert and gilbert, the two eldest, though still boys, had to do each a grown man's full work. yet for all their hardships these mount oliphant days were not without alleviations. if poverty was at the door, there was warm family affection by the fireside. if the two sons had, long before manhood, to bear toil beyond their years, still they were living under their parents' roof, and those parents two of the wisest and best of scotland's peasantry. work was no doubt incessant, but education was not neglected--rather it was held one of the most sacred duties. when robert was five years old, he had been sent to a school at alloway mill, and when the family removed to mount oliphant, his father combined with four of his neighbours to hire a young teacher, who boarded among them, and taught their children for a small salary. this young teacher, whose name was murdoch, has left an interesting description of his two young pupils, their parents, and the household life while he sojourned at mount oliphant. at that time murdoch thought that gilbert possessed a livelier imagination, and was more of a wit than robert. "all the mirth and liveliness," he says, "were with gilbert. robert's countenance at that time wore generally a grave and thoughtful look." had their teacher been then told that one of his two pupils would become a great poet, he would have fixed on gilbert. when he tried to teach them church music along with other rustic lads, they two lagged far behind the rest. robert's voice especially was untuneable, and his ear so dull, that it was with difficulty he could distinguish one tune from another. yet this was he who was to (p. 006) become the greatest song-writer that scotland--perhaps the world--has known. in other respects the mental training of the lads was of the most thorough kind. murdoch taught them not only to read, but to parse, and to give the exact meaning of the words, to turn verse into the prose order, to supply ellipses, and to substitute plain for poetic words and phrases. how many of our modern village schools even attempt as much? when murdoch gave up, the father himself undertook the education of his children, and carried it on at night after work-hours were over. of that father murdoch speaks as by far the best man he ever knew. tender and affectionate towards his children he describes him, seeking not to drive, but to lead them to the right, by appealing to their conscience and their better feelings, rather than to their fears. to his wife he was gentle and considerate in an unusual degree, always thinking of her ease and comfort; and she repaid it with the utmost reverence. she was a careful and thrifty housewife, but, whenever her domestic tasks allowed, she would return to hang with devout attention on the discourse that fell from her wise husband. under that father's guidance knowledge was sought for as hid treasure, and this search was based on the old and reverential faith that increase of knowledge is increase of wisdom and goodness. the readings of the household were wide, varied, and unceasing. some one entering the house at meal-time found the whole family seated, each with a spoon in one hand and a book in the other. the books which burns mentions as forming part of their reading at mount oliphant surprise us even now. not only the ordinary school-books and geographies, not only the traditional life of wallace and other popular books of that (p. 007) sort, but the spectator, odd plays of shakespeare, pope (his homer included), locke on the human understanding, boyle's lectures, taylor's scripture doctrine of original sin, allan ramsay's works, formed the staple of their reading. above all there was a collection of songs, of which burns says, "this was my _vade mecum_. i pored over them driving my cart, or walking to labour, song by song, verse by verse; carefully noting the true tender or sublime, from affectation and fustian, i am convinced i owe to this practice much of my critic-craft, such as it is!" and he could not have learnt it in a better way. there are few countries in the world which could at that time have produced in humble life such a teacher as murdoch and such a father as william burness. it seems fitting, then, that a country which could rear such men among its peasantry should give birth to such a poet as robert burns to represent them. the books which fed his young intellect were devoured only during intervals snatched from hard toil. that toil was no doubt excessive. and this early over-strain showed itself soon in the stoop of his shoulders, in nervous disorder about the heart, and in frequent fits of despondency. yet perhaps too much has sometimes been made of these bodily hardships, as though burns's boyhood had been one long misery. but the youth which grew up in so kindly an atmosphere of wisdom and home affection, under the eye of such a father and mother, cannot be called unblest. under the pressure of toil and the entire want of society, burns might have grown up the rude and clownish and unpopular lad that he has been pictured in his early teens. but in his fifteenth summer there came to him a new influence, which at one touch unlocked the springs of (p. 008) new emotions. this incident must be given in his own words:--"you know," he says, "our country custom of coupling a man and woman together as partners in the labours of the harvest. in my fifteenth summer my partner was a bewitching creature, a year younger than myself. my scarcity of english denies me the power of doing her justice in that language, but you know the scottish idiom. she was a bonnie, sweet, sonsie lass. in short, she, altogether unwittingly to herself, initiated me in that delicious passion, which, in spite of acid disappointment, gin-horse prudence, and book-worm philosophy, i hold to be the first of human joys here below! how she caught the contagion i cannot tell.... indeed i did not know myself why i liked so much to loiter behind with her, when returning in the evening from our labours; why the tones of her voice made my heartstrings thrill like an æolian harp; and especially why my pulse beat such a furious ratan when i looked and fingered over her little hand, to pick out the cruel nettle-stings and thistles. among her love-inspiring qualities, she sung sweetly; and it was her favourite reel to which i attempted giving an embodied vehicle in rhyme. i was not so presumptuous as to imagine that i could make verses like printed ones, composed by men who read greek and latin; but my girl sung a song which was said to be composed by a country laird's son, on one of his father's maids with whom he was in love; and i saw no reason why i might not rhyme as well as he; for, excepting that he could shear sheep, and cast peats, his father living in the moorlands, he had no more scholar-craft than myself. thus with me began love and poetry." the song he then composed is entitled "handsome nell," and is the (p. 009) first he ever wrote. he himself speaks of it as very puerile and silly--a verdict which chambers endorses, but in which i cannot agree. simple and artless it no doubt is, but with a touch of that grace which bespeaks the true poet. here is one verse which, for directness of feeling and felicity of language, he hardly ever surpassed:- she dresses aye sae clean and neat, baith decent and genteel, and then there's something in her gait gars ony dress look weel. "i composed it," says burns, "in a wild enthusiasm of passion, and to this hour i never recollect it but my heart melts, my blood sallies at the remembrance." lochlea.--escaped from the fangs of the factor, with some remnant of means, william burness removed from mount oliphant to lochlea in the parish of tarbolton (1777), an upland undulating farm, on the north bank of the river ayr, with a wide outlook, southward over the hills of carrick, westward toward the isle of arran, ailsa craig, and down the firth of clyde, toward the western sea. this was the home of burns and his family from his eighteenth till his twenty-fifth year. for a time the family life here was more comfortable than before, probably because several of the children were now able to assist their parents in farm labour. "these seven years," says gilbert burns, "brought small literary improvement to robert," but i can hardly believe this when we remember that lochlea saw the composition of _the death and dying words of poor mailie_, and of _my nannie, o_, and one or two more of his most popular songs. it was during those days that robert, (p. 010) then growing into manhood, first ventured to step beyond the range of his father's control, and to trust the promptings of his own social instincts and headlong passions. the first step in this direction was to go to a dancing school, in a neighbouring village, that he might there meet companions of either sex, and give his rustic manners "a brush," as he phrases it. the next step was taken when burns resolved to spend his nineteenth summer in kirkoswald, to learn mensuration and surveying from the schoolmaster there, who was famous as a teacher of these things. griswold, on the carrick coast, was a village full of smugglers and adventurers, in whose society burns was introduced to scenes of what he calls "swaggering riot and roaring dissipation." it may readily be believed that with his strong love of sociality and excitement he was an apt pupil in that school. still the mensuration went on till one day, when in the kail-yard behind the teachers house, burns met a young lass, who set his heart on fire, and put an end to mensuration. this incident is celebrated in the song beginning- now westlin winds and slaughtering guns bring autumn's pleasant weather,-"the ebullition," he calls it, "of that passion which ended the school business at kirkoswald." from this time on for several years, love making was his chief amusement, or rather his most serious business. his brother tells us that he was in the secret of half the love affairs of the parish of tarbolton, and was never without at least one of his own. there was not a comely girl in tarbolton on whom he did not compose a song, and then he made one which included them all. when he was thus inly (p. 011) moved, "the agitations of his mind and body," says gilbert, "exceeded anything of the kind i ever knew in real life. he had always a particular jealousy of people who were richer than himself, or had more consequence. his love therefore rarely settled on persons of this description." the jealousy here noted, as extending even to his loves, was one of the weakest points of the poet's character. of the ditties of that time, most of which have been preserved, the best specimen is _my nannie, o_. this song, and the one entitled _mary morison_ render the whole scenery and sentiment of those rural meetings in a manner at once graphic and free from coarseness. yet, truth to speak, it must be said that those gloaming trysts, however they may touch the imagination and lend themselves to song, do in reality lie at the root of much that degrades the life and habits of the scottish peasantry. but those first three or four years at lochlea, if not free from peril, were still with the poet times of innocence. his brother gilbert, in the words of chambers, "used to speak of his brother as at this period, to himself, a more admirable being than at any other. he recalled with delight the days when they had to go with one or two companions to cut peats for the winter fuel, because robert was sure to enliven their toil with a rattling fire of witty remarks on men and things, mingled with the expressions of a genial glowing heart, and the whole perfectly free from the taint which he afterwards acquired from his contact with the world. not even in those volumes which afterwards charmed his country from end to end, did gilbert see his brother in so interesting a light as in these conversations in the bog, with only two or three noteless peasants for an audience." while gilbert acknowledges that his brother's love-makings were at (p. 012) this time unceasing, he asserts that they were "governed by the strictest rules of virtue and modesty, from which he never deviated till he reached his twenty-third year." it was towards the close of his twenty-second that there occurs the record of his first serious desire to marry and settle in life. he had set his affections on a young woman named ellison begbie, daughter of a small farmer, and at that time servant in a family on cessnock water, about two miles from lochlea. she is said to have been not a beauty, but of unusual liveliness and grace of mind. long afterwards, when he had seen much of the world, burns spoke of this young woman as, of all those on whom he ever fixed his fickle affections, the one most likely to have made a pleasant partner for life. four letters which he wrote to her are preserved, in which he expresses the most pure and honourable feelings in language which, if a little formal, is, for manliness and simplicity, a striking contrast to the bombast of some of his later epistles. songs, too, he addressed to her--_the lass of cessnock banks_, _bonnie peggy alison_, and _mary morison_. the two former are inconsiderable; the latter is one of those pure and beautiful love-lyrics, in the manner of the old ballads, which, as hazlitt says, "take the deepest and most lasting hold on the mind." yestreen, when to the trembling string, the dance gaed thro' the lighted ha', to thee my fancy took its wing, i sat, but neither heard nor saw: tho' this was fair, and that was braw, and yon the toast of a' the town, i sigh'd, and said amang them a', "ye are na mary morison." oh, mary, canst thou wreck his peace, (p. 013) wha for thy sake wad gladly die; or canst thou break that heart of his, whase only faut is loving thee? if love for love thou wilt na gie, at least be pity to me shown; a thought ungentle canna be the thought o' mary morison. in these lines the lyric genius of burns was for the first time undeniably revealed. but neither letters nor love-songs prevailed. the young woman, for some reason untold, was deaf to his entreaties, and the rejection of this his best affection fell on him with a malign influence, just as he was setting his face to learn a trade which he hoped would enable him to maintain a wife. irvine was at that time a centre of the flax-dressing art, and as robert and his brother raised flax on their farm, they hoped that if they could dress as well as grow flax, they might thereby double their profits. as he met with this heavy disappointment in love just as he was setting out for irvine, he went thither downhearted and depressed, at midsummer, 1781. all who met him at that time were struck with his look of melancholy, and his moody silence, from which he roused himself only when in pleasant female society, or when he met with men of intelligence. but the persons of this sort whom he met in irvine were probably few. more numerous were the smugglers and rough-living adventurers with which that seaport town, as kirkoswald, swarmed. among these he contracted, says gilbert, "some acquaintance of a freer manner of thinking and living than he had been used to, whose society prepared him for over-leaping the bonds of rigid virtue which had hitherto restrained him." one companion, a sailor-lad of wild life (p. 014) and loose and irregular habits, had a wonderful fascination for burns, who admired him for what he thought his independence and magnanimity. "he was," says burns, "the only man i ever knew who was a greater fool than myself, where woman was the presiding star; but he spoke of lawless love with levity, which hitherto i had regarded with horror. _here his friendship did me a mischief._" another companion, older than himself, thinking that the religious views of burns were too rigid and uncompromising, induced him to adopt "more liberal opinions," which in this case, as in so many others, meant more lax opinions. with his principles of belief, and his rules of conduct at once assailed and undermined, what chart or compass remained any more for a passionate being like burns over the passion-swept sea of life that lay before him? the migration to irvine was to him the descent to avernus, from which he never afterwards, in the actual conduct of life, however often in his hours of inspiration, escaped to breathe again the pure upper air. this brief but disastrous irvine sojourn was brought to a sudden close. burns was robbed by his partner in trade, his flax-dressing shop was burnt to the ground by fire during the carousal of a new year's morning, and himself, impaired in purse, in spirits, and in character, returned to lochlea to find misfortunes thickening round his family, and his father on his death-bed. for the old man, his long struggle with scanty means, barren soil, and bad seasons, was now near its close. consumption had set in. early in 1784, when his last hour drew on, the father said that there was one of his children of whose future he could not think without fear. robert, who was in the room, came up to his bedside (p. 015) and asked, "o father, is it me you mean?" the old man said it was. robert turned to the window, with tears streaming down his cheeks, and his bosom swelling, from the restraint he put on himself, almost to bursting. the father had early perceived the genius that was in his boy, and even in mount oliphant days had said to his wife, "whoever lives to see it, something extraordinary will come from that boy." he had lived to see and admire his son's earliest poetic efforts. but he had also noted the strong passions, with the weak will, which might drive him on the shoals of life. mossgiel.--towards the close of 1783, robert and his brother, seeing clearly the crash of family affairs which was impending, had taken on their own account a lease of the small farm of mossgiel, about two or three miles distant from lochlea, in the parish of mauchline. when their father died in february, 1784, it was only by claiming the arrears of wages due to them, and ranking among their father's creditors, that they saved enough from the domestic wreck, to stock their new farm. thither they conveyed their widowed mother, and their younger brothers and sisters, in march, 1784. their new home was a bare upland farm, 118 acres of cold clay-soil, lying within a mile of mauchline village. burns entered on it with a firm resolution to be prudent, industrious, and thrifty. in his own words, "i read farming books, i calculated crops, i attended markets, and, in short, in spite of the devil, the world, and the flesh, i should have been a wise man; but the first year from unfortunately buying bad seed--the second, from a late harvest, we lost half our crops. this overset all my wisdom, and i returned like the dog to his vomit, and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire." burns was in the beginning (p. 016) of his twenty-sixth year when he took up his abode at mossgiel, where he remained for four years. three things those years and that bare moorland farm witnessed,--the wreck of his hopes as a farmer, the revelation of his genius as a poet, and the frailty of his character as a man. the result of the immoral habits and "liberal opinions" which he had learnt at irvine were soon apparent in that event of which he speaks in his _epistle to john rankine_ with such unbecoming levity. in the chronological edition of his works it is painful to read on one page the pathetic lines which he engraved on his father's headstone, and a few pages on, written almost at the same time, the epistle above alluded to, and other poems in the same strain, in which the defiant poet glories in his shame. it was well for the old man that he was laid in alloway kirkyard before these things befell. but the widowed mother had to bear the burden, and to receive in her home and bring up the child that should not have been born. when silence and shame would have most become him, burns poured forth his feelings in ribald verses, and bitterly satirized the parish minister, who required him to undergo that public penance which the discipline of the church at that time exacted. whether this was a wise discipline or not, no blame attached to the minister, who merely carried out the rules which his church enjoined. it was no proof of magnanimity in burns to use his talent in reviling the minister, who had done nothing more than his duty. one can hardly doubt but that in his inmost heart he must have been visited with other and more penitential feelings than those unseemly verses express. but, as lockhart has well observed, "his false pride recoiled from letting his jovial associates know (p. 017) 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 himself escaped--as may be often traced in the history of satirists--in angry sarcasms against those who, whatever their private errors might be, had at least done him no wrong." mr. carlyle's comment on this crisis of his life is too weighty to be omitted here. "with principles assailed by evil example from without, by 'passions raging like demons' from within, he had little need of sceptical misgivings to whisper treason in the heat of the battle, or to cut off his retreat if he were already defeated. he loses his feeling of innocence; his mind is at variance with itself; the old divinity no longer presides there; but wild desires and wild repentance alternately oppress him. ere long, too, he has committed himself before the world; his character for sobriety, dear to a scottish peasant as few corrupted worldlings can even conceive, is destroyed in the eyes of men; and his only refuge consists in trying to disbelieve his guiltiness, and is but a refuge of lies. the blackest desperation gathers over him, broken only by the red lightnings of remorse." amid this trouble it was but a poor vanity and miserable love of notoriety which could console itself with the thought the mair they talk, i'm kent the better, e'en let them clash. or was this not vanity at all, but the bitter irony of self-reproach? this collision with the minister and kirk session of his parish, and the bitter feelings it engendered in his rebellious bosom, at once launched burns into the troubled sea of religious controversy that was at that time raging all around him. the clergy of the west were divided into two parties, known as the auld lights and the new lights. (p. 018) ayrshire and the west of scotland had long been the stronghold of presbyterianism and of the covenanting spirit; and in burns's day--a century and a half after the covenant--a large number of the ministers still adhered to its principles, and preached the puritan theology undiluted. these men were democratic in their ecclesiastical views, and stout protestors against patronage, which has always been the bugbear of the sects in scotland. as burns expresses it, they did their best to stir up their flocks to join their counsel and their skills to cowe the lairds, an' get the brutes the power themsels to chuse their herds. all burns's instincts would naturally have been on the side of those who wished to resist patronage and "to cowe the lairds," had not this his natural tendency been counteracted by a stronger bias drawing him in an opposite direction. the auld lights, though democrats in church politics, were the upholders of that strict church discipline under which he was smarting, and to this party belonged his own minister, who had brought that discipline to bear upon him. burns, therefore, naturally threw himself into the arms of the opposite, or new light party, who were more easy in their life and in their doctrine. this large and growing section of ministers were deeply imbued with rationalism, or, as they then called it, "common-sense," in the light of which they pared away from religion all that was mysterious and supernatural. some of them were said to be socinians or even pure deists, most of them shone less in the pulpit, than at the festive board. (p. 019) with such men a person in burns's then state of mind would readily sympathize, and they received him with open arms. nothing could have been more unfortunate than that in this crisis of his career he should have fallen into intimacy with those hard-headed but coarse-minded men. they were the first persons of any pretensions to scholarly education with whom he had mingled freely. he amused them with the sallies of his wit and sarcasm, and astonished them by his keen insight and vigorous powers of reasoning. they abetted those very tendencies in his nature which required to be checked. their countenance, as clergymen, would allay the scruples and misgivings he might otherwise have felt, and stimulate to still wilder recklessness whatever profanity he might be tempted to indulge in. when he had let loose his first shafts of satire against their stricter brethren, those new light ministers heartily applauded him; and hounded him on to still more daring assaults. he had not only his own quarrel with his parish minister and the stricter clergy to revenge, but the quarrel also of his friend and landlord, gavin hamilton, a county lawyer, who had fallen under church censure for neglect of church ordinances, and had been debarred from the communion. burns espoused gavin's cause with characteristic zeal, and let fly new arrows one after another from his satirical quiver. the first of these satires against the orthodox ministers was _the twa herds, or the holy tulzie_, written on a quarrel between two brother clergymen. then followed in quick succession _holy willie's prayer_, _the ordination_, and _the holy fair_. his good mother and his brother were pained by these performances, and remonstrated against them. but burns, though he generally gave ear to their counsel, in this (p. 020) instance turned a deaf ear to it, and listened to other advisers. the love of exercising his strong powers of satire and the applause of his boon-companions, lay and clerical, prevailed over the whispers of his own better nature and the advice of his truest friends. whatever may be urged in defence of employing satire to lash hypocrisy, i cannot but think that those who have loved most what is best in burns' poetry must have regretted that these poems were ever written. some have commended them on the ground that they have exposed religious pretence and pharisaism. the good they may have done in this way is perhaps doubtful. but the harm they have done in scotland is not doubtful, in that they have connected in the minds of the people so many coarse and even profane thoughts with objects which they had regarded till then with reverence. even _the holy fair_, the poem in this kind which is least offensive, turns on the abuses that then attended the celebration of the holy communion in rural parishes, and with great power portrays those gatherings in their most mundane aspects. yet, as lockhart has well remarked, those things were part of the same religious system which produced the scenes which burns has so beautifully described in _the cotter's saturday night_. strange that the same mind, almost at the same moment, should have conceived two poems so different in spirit as _the cotter's saturday night_ and _the holy fair_! i have dwelt thus long on these unpleasant satires that i may not have again to return to them. it is a more welcome task to turn to the other poems of the same period. though burns had entered on mossgiel resolved to do his best as a farmer, he soon discovered that it was not in that way he was to attain success. the crops of 1784 and (p. 021) 1785 both failed, and their failure seems to have done something to drive him in on his own internal resources. he then for the first time seems to have awakened to the conviction that his destiny was to be a poet; and he forthwith set himself, with more resolution than he ever showed before or after, to fulfil that mission. hitherto he had complained that his life had been without an aim; now he determined that it should be so no longer. the dawning hope began to gladden him that he might take his place among the bards of scotland, who, themselves mostly unknown, have created that atmosphere of minstrelsy which envelopes and glorifies their native country. this hope and aim is recorded in an entry of his commonplace book, of the probable date of august, 1784:-"however i am pleased with the works of our scotch poets, particularly the excellent ramsay, and the still more excellent fergusson, yet i am hurt to see other places of scotland, their towns, rivers, woods, and haughs, immortalized in such celebrated performances, while my dear native country,--the ancient bailieries of carrick, kyle, and cunningham, famous both in ancient and modern times for a gallant and warlike race of inhabitants--a country where civil, and particularly religious liberty, have ever found their first support, and their last asylum--a country, the birthplace of many famous philosophers, soldiers, and statesmen, and the scene of many important events recorded in scottish history, particularly a great many of the actions of the glorious wallace, the saviour of his country--yet we have never had one scotch poet of any eminence to make the fertile banks of irvine, the romantic woodlands and sequestered scenes of ayr, and the heathy mountainous source and winding sweep of doon, emulate tay, forth, ettrick, (p. 022) tweed. this is a complaint i would gladly remedy; but, alas! i am far unequal to the task, both, in native genius and in education. obscure i am, obscure i must be, though no young poet nor young soldier's heart ever beat more fondly for fame than mine." though the sentiment here expressed may seem commonplace and the language hardly grammatical, yet this extract clearly reveals the darling ambition that was now haunting the heart of burns. it was the same wish which he expressed better in rhyme at a later day in his _epistle to the gude wife of wauchope house_. e'en then, a wish, i mind its power, a wish that to my latest hour shall strongly heave my breast, that i for poor auld scotland's sake some usefu' plan or beuk could make, or sing a sang at least. the rough burr-thistle, spreading wide amang the bearded bear, i turn'd the weeder-clips aside, an' spar'd the symbol dear. it was about his twenty-fifth year when he first conceived the hope that he might become a national poet. the failure of his first two harvests, 1784 and '85, in mossgiel may well have strengthened this desire and changed it into a fixed purpose. if he was not to succeed as a farmer, might he not find success in another employment that was much more to his mind? and this longing so deeply cherished, he had, within less than two years from the time that the above entry in his diary was written, amply fulfilled. from the autumn of 1784 till may 1786 the fountains of poetry were unsealed within, and flowed forth in a continuous stream. that period so prolific of poetry that none like it ever (p. 023) afterwards visited him, saw the production not only of the satirical poems already noticed, and of another more genial satire, _death and dr. hornbook_, but also of those characteristic epistles in which he reveals so much of his own character, and of those other descriptive poems in which he so wonderfully delineates the habits of the scottish peasantry. within from sixteen to eighteen months were composed, not only seven or eight long epistles to rhyme-composing brothers in the neighbourhood, david sillar, john lapraik, and others, but also, _halloween_, _to a mouse_, _the jolly beggars_, _the cotter's saturday night_, _address to the deil_, _the auld farmer's address to his auld mare_, _the vision_, _the twa dogs_, _the mountain daisy_. the descriptive poems above named followed each other in rapid succession during that spring-time of his genius, having been all composed, as the latest edition of his works shows, in a period of about six months, between november, 1785, and april, 1786. perhaps there are none of burns' compositions which give the real man more naturally and unreservedly than his epistles. written in the dialect he had learnt by his father's fireside, to friends in his own station, who shared his own tastes and feelings, they flow on in an easy stream of genial happy spirits, in which kindly humour, wit, love of the outward world, knowledge of men, are all beautifully intertwined into one strand of poetry, unlike anything else that has been seen before or since. the outward form of the verse and the style of diction are no doubt after the manner of his two forerunners whom he so much admired, ramsay and fergusson; but the play of soul and power of expression, the natural grace with which they rise and fall, the vividness of every image, (p. 024) and transparent truthfulness of every sentiment, are all his own. if there is any exception to be made to this estimate, it is in the grudge which here and there peeps out against those whom he thought greater favourites of fortune than himself and his correspondents. but taken as a whole, i know not any poetic epistles to be compared with them. they are just the letters in which one friend might unbosom himself to another without the least artifice or disguise. and the broad doric is so pithy, so powerful, so aptly fitted to the thought, that not even horace himself has surpassed it in "curious felicity." often, when harvests were failing and the world going against him, he found his solace in pouring forth in rhyme his feelings to some trusted friend. as he says in one of these same epistles,- leeze me on rhyme! it's aye a treasure, my chief, amaist my only pleasure, at hame, a-fiel', at wark, at leisure, the muse, poor hizzie! tho' rough an' raploch be her measure, she's seldom lazy. of the poems founded on the customs of the peasantry, i shall speak in the sequel. the garret in which all the poems of this period were written is thus described by chambers:--"the farmhouse of mossgiel, which still exists almost unchanged since the days of the poet, is very small, consisting of only two rooms, a but and a ben as they are called in scotland. over these, reached by a trap stair, is a small garret, in which robert and his brother used to sleep. thither, when he had returned from his day's work, the poet used to retire, and seat himself at a small deal table, lighted by a narrow skylight in the roof, to transcribe the verses which he had composed in the fields. his (p. 025) favourite time for composition was at the plough. long years afterwards his sister, mrs. begg, used to tell how when her brother had gone forth again to field work, she would steal up to the garret and search the drawer of the deal table for the verses which robert had newly transcribed." in which of the poems of this period his genius is most conspicuous it might not be easy to determine. but there can be little question about the justice of lockhart's remark, that "_the cotter's saturday night_ is of all burns's pieces the one whose exclusion from the collection would be most injurious, if not to the genius of the poet, at least to the character of the man. in spite of many feeble lines, and some heavy stanzas, it appears to me that even his genius would suffer more in estimation by being contemplated in the absence of this poem, than of any other single poem he has left us." certainly it is the one which has most endeared his name to the more thoughtful and earnest of his countrymen. strange it is, not to say painful, to think that this poem, in which the simple and manly piety of his country is so finely touched, and the image of his own religious father so beautifully portrayed, should have come from the same hand which wrote nearly at the same time _the jolly beggars_, _the ordination_, and _the holy fair_. during those two years at mossgiel, from 1784 to 1786, when the times were hard, and the farm unproductive, burns must indeed have found poetry to be, as he himself says, its own reward. a nature like his required some vent for itself, some excitement to relieve the pressure of dull farm drudgery, and this was at once his purest and noblest excitement. in two other more hazardous forms of excitement he was by temperament disposed to seek refuge. these were conviviality and (p. 026) love-making. in the former of these, gilbert says that he indulged little, if at all, during his mossgiel period. and this seems proved by his brother's assertion that during all that time robert's private expenditure never exceeded seven pounds a year. when he had dressed himself on this, and procured his other necessaries, the margin that remained for drinking must have been small indeed. but love-making--that had been with him, ever since he reached manhood, an unceasing employment. even in his later teens he had, as his earliest songs show, given himself enthusiastically to those nocturnal meetings, which were then and are still customary among the peasantry of scotland, and which at the best are full of perilous temptation. but ever since the time when, during his irvine sojourn, he forsook the paths of innocence, there is nothing in any of his love-affairs which those who prize what was best in burns would not willingly forget. if here we allude to two such incidents, it is because they are too intimately bound up with his life to be passed over in any account of it. gilbert says that while "one generally reigned paramount in robert's affections, he was frequently encountering other attractions, which formed so many underplots in the drama of his love." this is only too evident in those two loves which most closely touched his destiny at this time. from the time of his settlement at mossgiel frequent allusions occur in his letters and poems to flirtations with the belles of the neighbouring village of mauchline. among all these jean armour, the daughter of a respectable master-mason in that village, had the chief place in his affections. all through 1785 their courtship had continued, but early in 1786 a secret and irregular marriage, with (p. 027) a written acknowledgment of it had to be effected. then followed the father's indignation that his daughter should be married to so wild and worthless a man as burns; compulsion of his daughter to give up burns, and to destroy the document which vouched their marriage; burns's despair driving him to the verge of insanity; the letting loose by the armours of the terrors of the law against him; his skulking for a time in concealment; his resolve to emigrate to the west indies, and become a slave-driver. all these things were passing in the spring months of 1786, and in september of the same year jean armour became the mother of twin children. it would be well if we might believe that the story of his betrothal to highland mary was, as lockhart seems to have thought, previous to and independent of the incidents just mentioned. but the more recent investigations of mr. scott douglas and dr. chambers have made it too painfully clear that it was almost at the very time when he was half distracted by jean armour's desertion of him, and while he was writing his broken-hearted _lament_ over her conduct, that there occurred, as an interlude, the episode of mary campbell. this simple and sincere-hearted girl from argyllshire was, lockhart says, the object of by far the deepest passion burns ever knew. and lockhart gives at length the oft-told tale how, on the second sunday of may, 1786, they met in a sequestered spot by the banks of the river ayr, to spend one day of parting love; how they stood, one on either side of a small brook, laved their hands in the stream, and, holding a bible between them, vowed eternal fidelity to each other. they then parted, never again to meet. in october of the same year mary came from argyllshire, as far as greenock, in the hope of meeting burns, but she was (p. 028) there seized with a malignant fever which soon laid her in an early grave. the bible, in two volumes, which burns gave her on that parting day, has been recently recovered. on the first volume is inscribed, in burns's hand, "and ye shall not swear by my name falsely, i am the lord. levit. 19th chap. 12th verse;" and on the second volume, "thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the lord thine oath. matth. 5th chap. 33rd verse." but the names of mary campbell and robert burns, which were originally inscribed on the volumes, have been almost obliterated. it has been suggested by mr. scott douglas, the most recent editor who has investigated anew the whole incident, that, "in the whirl of excitement which soon followed that sunday, burns forgot his vow to poor mary, and that she, heart-sore at his neglect, deleted the names from this touching memorial of their secret betrothal." certain it is that in the very next month, june, 1786, we find burns, in writing to one of his friends about "poor, ill-advised, ungrateful armour," declaring that, "to confess a truth between you and me, i do still love her to distraction after all, though i won't tell her so if i were to see her." and chambers even suggests that there was still a third love interwoven, at this very time, in the complicated web of burns's fickle affections. burns, though he wrote several poems about highland mary, which afterwards appeared, never mentioned her name to any of his family. even, if there was no more in the story than what has been here given, no wonder that a heart like burns, which, for all its unsteadfastness, never lost its sensibility, nor even a sense of conscience, should have been visited by the remorse which forms the burden of the lyric to mary in heaven, written three years after. (p. 029) see'st thou thy lover lowly laid? hear'st thou the pangs that rend his breast? the misery of his condition, about the time when highland mary died, and the conflicting feelings which agitated him, are depicted in the following extract from a letter which he wrote probably about october, 1786, to his friend robert aiken:-"there are many things that plead strongly against it [seeking a place in the excise]: the uncertainty of getting soon into business; the consequences of my follies, which perhaps make it impracticable for me to stay at home; and, besides, i have been for some time pining under secret wretchedness, from causes which you pretty well know--the pang of disappointment, the sting of pride, with some wandering stabs of remorse, which never fail to settle on my vitals like vultures, when attention is not called away by the calls of society or the vagaries of the muse. even in the hour of social mirth, my gaiety is the madness of an intoxicated criminal under the hands of the executioner. all these reasons urge me to go abroad, and to all these reasons i have only one answer--the feelings of a father. this, in the present mood i am in, overbalances everything that can be laid in the scale against it. you may perhaps think it an extravagant fancy, but it is a sentiment which strikes home to my very soul; though sceptical in some points of our current belief, yet i think i have every evidence for the reality of a life beyond the stinted bourne of our present existence: if so, then how should i, in the presence of that tremendous being, the author of existence, how should i meet the reproaches of those who stand to me in the dear relation of children, whom i deserted in (p. 030) the smiling innocency of helpless infancy? oh, thou great unknown power! thou almighty god! who hast lighted up reason in my breast, and blessed me with immortality! i have frequently wandered from that order and regularity necessary for the perfection of thy works, yet thou hast never left me nor forsaken me...." * * * * * "you see, sir, that if to know one's errors were a probability of mending them, i stand a fair chance; but, according to the reverend westminster divines, though conviction must precede conversion, it is very far from always implying it." this letter exhibits the tumult of soul in which he had been tossed during the last six months before it was written. he had by his own conduct wound round himself complications from which he could not extricate himself, yet which he could not but poignantly feel. one cannot read of the "wandering stabs of remorse" of which he speaks, without thinking of highland mary. some months before the above letter was written, in the april of the same year, at the time when he first fell into trouble with jean armour and her father, burns had resolved to leave his country and sail for the west indies. he agreed with a mr. douglas to go to jamaica and become a book-keeper on his estate there. but how were funds to be got to pay his passage-money? his friend gavin hamilton suggested that the needed sum might be raised, if he were to publish by subscription, the poems he had lying in his table-drawer. accordingly, in april, the publication of his poems was resolved on. his friends, gavin hamilton of mauchline, aiken and ballantyne of ayr, muir and parker of kilmarnock, and others--all did their best to (p. 031) get the subscription lists quickly filled. the last-named person put down his own name for thirty-five copies. the printing of them was committed to john wilson, a printer in kilmarnock, and during may, june, and july of 1786, the work of the press was going forward. in the interval between the resolution to publish and the appearance of the poems, during his distraction about jean armour's conduct, followed by the episode of highland mary, burns gave vent to his own dark feelings in some of the saddest strains that ever fell from him--the lines on _the mountain daisy_, _the lament_, the odes to _despondency_ and to _ruin_. and yet so various were his moods, so versatile his powers, that it was during that same interval that he composed, in a very different vein, _the twa dogs_, and probably also his satire of _the holy fair_. the following is the account the poet gives of these transactions in the autobiographical sketch of himself which he communicated to dr. moore:-"i now began to be known in the neighbourhood as a maker of rhymes. the first of my poetic offspring that saw light was a burlesque lamentation of a quarrel between two reverend calvinists; both of them were _dramatis personæ_ in my _holy fair_. i had a notion myself, that the piece had some merit; but to prevent the worst, i gave a copy of it to a friend who was fond of such things, and told him that i could not guess who was the author of it, but that i thought it pretty clever. with a certain description of the clergy as well as the laity, it met with a roar of applause. "_holy willie's prayer_ next made its appearance, and alarmed the kirk session so much, that they held several meetings to look over their spiritual artillery, if haply any of it might be pointed against (p. 032) profane rhymers. unluckily for me, my wandering led me on another side, within point-blank shot of their heaviest metal. this is the unfortunate incident which gave rise to my printed poem, _the lament_. this was a most melancholy affair, which i cannot yet bear to reflect on, and had very nearly given me one or two of the principal qualifications for a place among those who have lost the chart and mistaken the reckoning of rationality. "i gave up my part of the farm to my brother, and made what little preparation was in my power for jamaica. but, before leaving my native country for ever, i resolved to publish my poems. i weighed my productions as impartially as was in my power; i thought they had merit; and it was a delicious idea that i should be called a clever fellow, even though it should never reach my ears--a poor negro-driver, or perhaps a victim to that inhospitable clime, and gone to the world of spirits! i can truly say, that _pauvre inconnu_ as i then was, i had pretty nearly as high an idea of my works as i have at this moment, when the public has decided in their favour.... "i threw off about six hundred copies, of which i got subscriptions for about three hundred and fifty. my vanity was highly gratified by the reception i met with from the public; and besides, i pocketed, all expenses deducted, nearly twenty pounds. this sum came very seasonably, as i was thinking of indenting myself, for want of money, to procure a passage. as soon as i was master of nine guineas, the price of wafting me to the torrid zone, i took a steerage passage in the first ship that was to sail from the clyde, for hungry ruin had me in the wind. "i had been for some days skulking from covert to covert, under (p. 033) all the terrors of a jail, as some ill-advised people had uncoupled the merciless pack of the law at my heels. i had taken the last farewell of my friends; my chest was on the way to greenock; i had composed the last song i should ever measure in caledonia, '_the gloomy night is gathering fast_,' when a letter from dr. blackwood to a friend of mine overthrew all my schemes, by opening up new prospects to my poetic ambition." it was at the close of july while burns was, according to his own account, "wandering from one friend's house to another," to avoid the jail with which he was threatened by jean armour's father, that the volume appeared, containing the immortal poems (1786). that burns himself had some true estimate of their real worth is shown by the way in which he expresses himself in his preface to his volume. ushered in with what lockhart calls, a "modest and manly preface," the kilmarnock volume went forth to the world. the fame of it spread at once like wild-fire throughout ayrshire and the parts adjacent. this is the account of its reception given by robert heron, a young literary man, who was at that time living in the stewartry of kirkcudbright:--"old and young, high and low, grave and gay, learned or ignorant, were alike delighted, agitated, transported. i was at that time resident in galloway, contiguous to ayrshire, and i can well remember how even ploughboys and maid-servants would have gladly bestowed the wages they earned most hardly, and which they wanted to purchase necessary clothing, if they might procure the works of burns." the edition consisted of six hundred copies--three hundred and fifty had been subscribed for before publication, and the remainder seems to have been sold off in about two mouths from their first (p. 034) appearance. when all expenses were paid, burns received twenty pounds as his share of the profits. small as this sum was, it would have more than sufficed to convey him to the west indies; and, accordingly, with nine pounds of it he took a steerage passage in a vessel which was expected to sail from greenock at the beginning of september. but from one cause or another the day of sailing was postponed, his friends began to talk of trying to get him a place in the excise, his fame was rapidly widening in his own country, and his powers were finding a response in minds superior to any which he had hitherto known. up to this time he had not associated with any persons of a higher grade than the convivial lawyers of mauchline and ayr, and the mundane ministers of the new light school. but now persons of every rank were anxious to become acquainted with the wonderful ayrshire ploughman, for it was by that name he now began to be known, just as in the next generation another poet of as humble birth was spoken of as the ettrick shepherd. the first persons of a higher order who sought the acquaintanceship of burns were dugald stewart and mrs. dunlop of dunlop. the former of these two was the celebrated scotch metaphysician, one of the chief ornaments of edinburgh and its university at the close of last and the beginning of this century. he happened to be passing the summer at catrine, on the ayr, a few miles from burns's farm, and having been made acquainted with the poet's works and character by mr. mackenzie, the surgeon of mauchline, he invited the poet and the medical man to dine with him at catrine. the day of this meeting was the 23rd of october, only three days after that on which highland mary died. burns met on that day not only the professor (p. 035) and his accomplished wife, but for the first time in his life dined with a live lord--a young nobleman, said to have been of high promise, lord daer, eldest son of the then earl of selkirk. he had been a former pupil of dugald stewart, and happened to be at that time his guest. burns has left the following humorous record of his own feelings at that meeting:- this wot ye all whom it concerns, i, rhymer robin, alias burns, october twenty-third, a ne'er to be forgotten day, sae far i sprachled up the brae [clambered], i dinner'd wi' a lord. * * * * * but wi' a lord! stand out my shin, a lord,--a peer, an earl's son! up higher yet my bonnet! and sic a lord! lang scotch ells twa, our peerage he o'erlooks them a', as i look o'er a sonnet. but oh for hogarth's magic power! to show sir bardie's willyart glower [bewildered], and how he stared and stammered, when goavan, as if led in branks, [moving stupidly], and stumpin' on his ploughman shanks, he in the parlour hammered. i sidling sheltered in a nook, an' at his lordship steal't a look like some portentous omen; except good sense and social glee, an' (what surprised me) modesty, i marked nought uncommon. i watched the symptoms o' the great, the gentle pride, the lordly state, the arrogant assuming; the fient a pride, nae pride had he, nor sauce, nor state, that i could see, mair than an honest ploughman. from this record of that evening given by burns, it is interesting (p. 036) to turn to the impression made on professor stewart by this their first interview. he says,-"his manners were then, as they continued ever afterwards, simple, manly, and independent; strongly expressive of conscious genius and worth, but without anything that indicated forwardness, arrogance, or vanity. he took his share in conversation, but not more than belonged to him; and listened with apparent attention and deference on subjects where his want of education deprived him of the means of information. if there had been a little more of gentleness and accommodation in his temper, he would, i think, have been still more interesting; but he had been accustomed to give law in the circle of his ordinary acquaintance, and his dread of anything approaching to meanness or servility rendered his manner somewhat decided and hard. nothing perhaps was more remarkable among his various attainments than the fluency, and precision, and originality of his language, when he spoke in company; more particularly as he aimed at purity in his turn of expression, and avoided, more successfully than most scotchmen, the peculiarities of scottish phraseology." burns parted with dugald stewart, after this evening spent with him in ayrshire, to meet him again in the edinburgh coteries, amid which the professor shone as a chief light. not less important in the history of burns was his first introduction to mrs. dunlop of dunlop, a lady who continued the constant friend of himself and of his family while she lived. she was said to be a lineal descendant of the brother of the great hero of scotland, william wallace. gilbert burns gives the following account of the way in (p. 037) which his brother's acquaintance with this lady began. "of all the friendships, which robert acquired in ayrshire or elsewhere, none seemed more agreeable to him than that of mrs. dunlop of dunlop, nor any which has been more uniformly and constantly exerted in behalf of him and his family, of which, were it proper, i could give many instances. robert was on the point of setting out for edinburgh before mrs. dunlop heard of him. about the time of my brother's publishing in kilmarnock, she had been afflicted with a long and severe illness, which had reduced her mind to the most distressing state of depression. in this situation, a copy of the printed poems was laid on her table by a friend; and happening to open on _the cotter's saturday night_, she read it over with the greatest pleasure and surprise; the poet's description of the simple cottagers operating on her mind like the charm of a powerful exorcist, expelling the demon _ennui_, and restoring her to her wonted inward harmony and satisfaction. mrs. dunlop sent off a person express to mossgiel, distant fifteen or sixteen miles, with a very obliging letter to my brother, desiring him to send her half a dozen copies of his poems, if he had them to spare, and begging he would do her the pleasure of calling at dunlop house as soon as convenient. this was the beginning of a correspondence which ended only with the poet's life. nearly the last use he made with his pen was writing a short letter to this lady a few days before his death." the success of the first edition of his poems naturally made burns anxious to see a second edition begun. he applied to his kilmarnock printer, who refused the venture, unless burns could supply ready money to pay for the printing. this he could not do. but the (p. 038) poems by this time had been read and admired by the most cultivated men in edinburgh, and more than one word of encouragement had reached him from that city. the earliest of these was contained in a letter from the blind poet, dr. blacklock, to whom mr. laurie, the kindly and accomplished minister of loudoun, had sent the volume. this mr. laurie belonged to the more cultivated section of the moderate party in the church, as it was called, and was the friend of dr. hugh blair, principal robertson, and dr. blacklock, and had been the channel through which macpherson's fragments of ossian had first been brought under the notice of that literary circle, which afterwards introduced them to the world. the same worthy minister had, on the first appearance of the poems, made burns' acquaintance; and had received him with warm-hearted hospitality. this kindness the poet acknowledged, on one of his visits to the manse of loudoun, by leaving in the room in which he slept a short poem of six very feeling stanzas, which contained a prayer for the family. this is the last stanza,- when soon or late they reach that coast, o'er life's rough ocean driven, may they rejoice, no wanderer lost, a family in heaven! as soon as mr. laurie received the letter from dr. blacklock, written on the 4th september, in which warm admiration of the kilmarnock volume was expressed, he forwarded it to burns at mossgiel. the result of it fell like sunshine on the young poet's heart; for as he says, "the doctor belonged to a set of critics for whose applause i had not dared to hope." the next word of approval from edinburgh was a highly appreciative criticism of the poems, which appeared in a number (p. 039) of _the edinburgh magazine_ at the beginning of november. up till this time burns had not abandoned his resolution to emigrate to the west indies. but the refusal of the kilmarnock printer to undertake a new edition, and the voices of encouragement reaching him from edinburgh, combining with his natural desire to remain, and be known as a poet, in his native country, at length made him abandon the thought of exile. on the 18th november we find him writing to a friend, that he had determined on monday or tuesday, the 27th or 28th november, to set his face toward the scottish capital and try his fortune there. at this stage of the poet's career, chambers pauses to speculate on the feelings with which the humble family at mossgiel would hear of the sudden blaze of their brother's fame, and of the change it had made in his prospects. they rejoiced, no doubt, that he was thus rescued from compulsory banishment, and were no way surprised that the powers they had long known him to possess had at length won the world's admiration. if he had fallen into evil courses, none knew it so well as they, and none had suffered more by these aberrations. still, with all his faults, he had always been to them a kind son and brother, not loved the less for the anxieties he had caused them. but the pride and satisfaction they felt in his newly-won fame, would be deep, not demonstrative. for the burns family were a shy, reserved race, and like so many of the scottish peasantry, the more they felt, the less they would express. in this they were very unlike the poet, with whom to have a feeling and to express it were almost synonymous. his mother, though not lacking in admiration of her son, is said to have been chiefly concerned lest the praises of his genius should make him forget the giver of it. such may have been the feelings of (p. 040) the poet's family. what may we imagine his own feeling to have been in this crisis of his fate? the thought of edinburgh society would naturally stir that ambition which was strong within him, and awaken a desire to meet the men who were praising him in the capital, and to try his powers in that wider arena. it might be that in that new scene something might occur which would reverse the current of his fortunes, and set him free from the crushing poverty that had hitherto kept him down. anyhow, he was conscious of strong powers, which fitted him to shine, not in poetry only, but in conversation and discussion; and, ploughman though he was, he did not shrink from encountering any man or any set of men. proud, too, we know he was, and his pride often showed itself in jealousy and suspicion of the classes who were socially above him, until such feelings were melted by kindly intercourse with some individual man belonging to the suspected orders. he felt himself to surpass in natural powers those who were his superiors in rank and fortune, and he could not, for the life of him, see why they should be full of this world's goods, while he had none of them. he had not yet learned--he never did learn--that lesson, that the genius he had received was his allotted and sufficient portion, and that his wisdom lay in making the most of this rare inward gift, even on a meagre allowance of the world's external goods. but perhaps, whether he knew it or not, the greatest attraction of the capital was the secret hope that in that new excitement he might escape from the demons of remorse and despair which had for many months been dogging him. he may have fancied this, but the pangs which burns had created for himself (p. 041) were too deep to be in this way permanently put by. the secret of his settled unhappiness lay in the affections that he had abused in himself and in others who had trusted him. the course he had run since his irvine sojourn was not of a kind to give peace to him or to any man. a coarse man of the world might have stifled the tender voices that were reproaching him, and have gone on his way uncaring that his conduct- hardened a' within, and petrified the feeling. but burns could not do this. the heart that had responded so feelingly to the sufferings of lower creatures, the unhoused mouse, the shivering cattle, the wounded hare, could not without shame remember the wrongs he had done to those human beings whose chief fault was that they had trusted him not wisely but too well. and these suggestions of a sensitive heart, conscience was at hand to enforce--a conscience wonderfully clear to discern the right, even when the will was least able to fulfil it. the excitements of a great city, and the loud praises of his fellow-men might enable him momentarily to forget, but could not permanently stifle inward voices like these. so it was with a heart but ill at ease, bearing dark secrets he could tell to no one, that burns passed from his ayrshire cottage into the applause of the scottish capital. chapter ii (p. 042) first winter in edinburgh the journey of burns from mossgiel to edinburgh was a sort of triumphal progress. he rode on a pony, lent him by a friend, and as the journey took two days, his resting-place the first night was at the farm-house of covington mains, in lanarkshire, hard by the clyde. the tenant of this farm, mr. prentice, was an enthusiastic admirer of burns' poems, and had subscribed for twenty copies of the second edition. his son, years afterwards, in a letter to christopher north, thus describes the evening on which burns appeared at his father's farm:--"all the farmers in the parish had read the poet's then published works, and were anxious to see him. they were all asked to meet him at a late dinner, and the signal of his arrival was to be a white sheet attached to a pitchfork, and put on the top of a corn-stack in the barn-yard. the parish is a beautiful amphitheatre, with the clyde winding through it--wellbrae hill to the west, tinto hill and the culter fells to the south, and the pretty, green, conical hill, quothquan law, to the east. my father's stack-yard, lying in the centre, was seen from every house in the parish. at length burns arrived, mounted on a borrowed _pownie_. instantly was the white flag hoisted, and as instantly were seen the farmers issuing from their (p. 043) houses, and converging to the point of meeting. a glorious evening, or rather night, which borrowed something from the morning, followed, and the conversation of the poet confirmed and increased the admiration created by his writings. on the following morning he breakfasted with a large party at the next farm-house, tenanted by james stodart; ... took lunch with a large party at the bank in carnwath, and rode into edinburgh that evening on the _pownie_, which he returned to the owner in a few days afterwards by john samson, the brother of the immortal _tam_." this is but a sample of the kind of receptions which were henceforth to await burns wherever his coming was known. if such welcomes were pleasing to his ambition, they must have been trying both to his bodily and his mental health. burns reached edinburgh on the 28th of november, 1786. the one man of note there with whom he had any acquaintance was professor dugald stewart, whom, as already mentioned, he had met in ayrshire. but it was not to him or to any one of his reputation that he first turned; but he sought refuge with john richmond, an old mauchline acquaintance, who was humbly lodged in baxter's close, lawnmarket. during the whole of his first winter in edinburgh, burns lived in the lodging of this poor lad, and shared with him his single room and bed, for which they paid three shillings a week. it was from this retreat that burns was afterwards to go forth into the best society of the scottish capital, and thither, after these brief hospitalities were over, he had to return. for some days after his arrival in town, he called on no one--letters of introduction he had none to deliver. but he is said to have wandered about alone, "looking down from arthur's seat, (p. 044) surveying the palace, gazing at the castle, or looking into the windows of the booksellers' shops, where he saw all books of the day, save the poems of the ayrshire ploughman." he found his way to the lowly grave of fergusson, and, kneeling down, kissed the sod; he sought out the house of allan ramsay, and, on entering it, took off his hat. while burns is thus employed, we may cast a glance at the capital to which he had come, and the society he was about to enter. edinburgh at that time was still adorned by a large number of the stars of literature, which, although none of those then living may have reached the first magnitude, had together made a galaxy in the northern heavens, from the middle till the close of last century. at that time literature was well represented in the university. the head of it was dr. robertson, well known as the historian of charles v., and as the author of other historic works. the chair of belles lettres was filled by the accomplished dr. hugh blair, whose lectures remain one of the best samples of the correct and elegant, but narrow and frigid style, both of sentiment and criticism, which then flourished throughout europe, and nowhere more than in edinburgh. another still greater ornament of the university was dugald stewart, the professor of moral philosophy, whose works, if they have often been surpassed in depth and originality of speculation, have seldom been equalled for solid sense and polished ease of diction. the professors at that time were most of them either taken from the ranks of the clergy, or closely connected with them. among the literary men unconnected with the university by far the greatest name, that of david hume, had disappeared about ten years (p. 045) before burns arrived in the capital. but his friend, dr. adam smith, author of _the wealth of nations_, still lingered. mr. henry mackenzie, 'the man of feeling,' as he was called from his best known work, was at that time one of the most polished as well as popular writers in scotland. he was then conducting a periodical called the _lounger_, which was acknowledged as the highest tribunal of criticism in scotland, and was not unknown beyond it. but even more influential than the literary lights of the university were the magnates of the bench and bar. during the eighteenth century and the earlier part of the nineteenth, the scottish bar was recruited almost entirely from the younger sons of ancient scottish families. to the patrician feelings which they brought with them from their homes these men added that exclusiveness which clings to a profession claiming for itself the highest place in the city where they resided. modern democracy has made rude inroads on what was formerly something of a select patrician caste. but the profession of the bar has never wanted either then or in more recent times some genial and original spirits who broke through the crust of exclusiveness. such, at the time of burns's advent, was lord monboddo, the speculative and humorous judge, who in his own way anticipated the theory of man's descent from the monkey. such, too, was the genial and graceful henry erskine, the brother of the lord chancellor of that name, the pride and the favourite of his profession--the sparkling and ready wit who, thirteen years before the day of burns, had met the rude manners of dr. johnson with a well-known repartee. when the doctor visited the parliament house, erskine was presented to him by boswell, and was somewhat gruffly received. after having made his bow, erskine (p. 046) slipped a shilling into boswell's hand, whispering that it was for the sight of his _bear_! besides these two classes, the occupants of the professorial chair and of the bar, there still gathered every winter in edinburgh a fair sprinkling of rank and beauty, which had not yet abandoned the scottish for the english capital. the leader at that time in gay society was the well-known duchess of gordon,--a character so remarkable in her day that some rumour of her still lives in scottish memory. the impression made upon her by burns and his conversation shall afterwards be noticed. though burns for the first day or two after his arrival wandered about companionless, he was not left long unfriended. mr. dalrymple, of orangefield, an ayrshire country gentleman, a warm-hearted man, and a zealous freemason, who had become acquainted with burns during the previous summer, now introduced the ayrshire bard to his relative, the earl of glencairn. this nobleman, who had heard of burns from his ayrshire factor, welcomed him in a very friendly spirit, introduced him to his connexion, henry erskine, and also recommended him to the good offices of creech, at that time the first publisher in edinburgh. of lord glencairn, chambers says that "his personal beauty formed the index to one of the fairest characters." as long as he lived he did his utmost to befriend burns, and on his death, a few years after this time, the poet, who seldom praised the great unless he respected and loved them, composed one of his most pathetic elegies. it was not, however, to his few ayrshire connexions only, mr. dalrymple, dugald stewart, and others, that burns was indebted for his introduction to edinburgh society. his own fame was now enough to secure it. (p. 047) a criticism of his poems, which appeared within a fortnight after his arrival in edinburgh, in the _lounger_, on the 9th of december, did much to increase his reputation. the author of that criticism was the man of feeling, and to him belongs the credit of having been the first to claim that burns should be recognized as a great original poet, not relatively only, in consideration of the difficulties he had to struggle with, but absolutely on the ground of the intrinsic excellence of his work. he pointed to his power of delineating manners, of painting the passions, and of describing scenery, as all bearing the stamp of true genius; he called on his countrymen to recognize that a great national poet had arisen amongst them, and to appreciate the gift that in him had been bestowed upon their generation. alluding to his narrow escape from exile, he exhorted them to retain and to cherish this inestimable gift of a native poet, and to repair, as far as possible, the wrongs which suffering or neglect had inflicted on him. the _lounger_ had at that time a wide circulation in scotland, and penetrated even to england. it was known and read by the poet cowper, who, whether from this or some other source, became acquainted with the poems of burns within the first year of their publication. in july, 1787, we find the poet of _the task_ telling a correspondent that he had read burns's poems twice; "and though they be written in a language that is new to me ... i think them, on the whole, a very extraordinary production. he is, i believe, the only poet these kingdoms have produced in the lower rank of life since shakespeare (i should rather say since prior), who need not be indebted for any part of his praise to a charitable consideration of his origin, and (p. 048) the disadvantages under which he has laboured." cowper thus endorses the verdict of mackenzie in almost the same language. it did not however require such testimonials, from here and there a literary man, however eminent, to open every hospitable door in edinburgh to burns. within a month after his arrival in town he had been welcomed at the tables of all the celebrities--lord monboddo, robertson, the historian, dr. hugh blair, dugald stewart, dr. adam ferguson, the man of feeling, mr. fraser tytler, and many others. we are surprised to find that he had been nearly two months in town before he called on the amiable dr. blacklock, the blind poet, who in his well-known letter to dr. laurie had been the first edinburgh authority to hail in burns the rising of a new star. how he bore himself throughout that winter when he was the chief lion of edinburgh society many records remain to show, both in his own letters and in the reports of those who met him. on the whole, his native good sense carried him well through the ordeal. if he showed for the most part due respect to others, he was still more bent on maintaining his respect for himself; indeed, this latter feeling was pushed even to an exaggerated independence. as mr. lockhart has expressed it, he showed, "in the whole strain of his bearing, his belief that in the society of the most eminent men of his nation he was where he was entitled to be, hardly deigning to flatter them by exhibiting a symptom of being flattered." all who heard him were astonished by his wonderful powers of conversation. these impressed them, they said, with a greater sense of his genius than even his finest poems. with the ablest men that he met he held his own in argument, astonishing all listeners by the strength of his judgment, and the keenness (p. 049) of his insight both into men and things. and when he warmed on subjects which interested him, the boldest stood amazed at the flashes of his wit, and the vehement flow of his impassioned eloquence. with the "high-born ladies" he succeeded even better than with the "stately patricians,"--as one of those dames herself expressed it, fairly carrying them off their feet by the deference of his manner, and the mingled humour and pathos of his talk. it is interesting to know in what dress burns generally appeared in edinburgh. soon after coming thither he is said to have laid aside his country clothes for "a suit of blue and buff, the livery of mr. fox, with buckskins and top-boots." how he wore his hair will be seen immediately. there are several well-known descriptions of burns's manner and appearance during his edinburgh sojourn, which, often as they have been quoted, cannot be passed by in any account of his life. mr. walker, who met him for the first time at breakfast in the house of dr. blacklock, says, "i was not much struck by his first appearance. his person, though strong and well-knit, and much superior to what might be expected in a ploughman, appeared to be only of the middle size, but was rather above it. his motions were firm and decided, and, though without grace, were at the same time so free from clownish constraint as to show that he had not always been confined to the society of his profession. his countenance was not of that elegant cast which is most frequent among the upper ranks, but it was manly and intelligent, and marked by a thoughtful gravity which shaded at times into sternness. in his large dark eye the most striking index of his genius resided. it was full of mind.... he was plainly but properly dressed, in a style midway between the holiday costume of a (p. 050) farmer and that of the company with which he now associated. his black hair without powder, at a time when it was generally worn, was tied behind, and spread upon his forehead. had i met him near a seaport, i should have conjectured him to be the master of a merchant vessel.... in no part of his manner was there the slightest affectation; nor could a stranger have suspected, from anything in his behaviour or conversation, that he had been for some months the favourite of all the fashionable circles of the metropolis. in conversation he was powerful. his conceptions and expressions were of corresponding vigour, and on all subjects were as remote as possible from commonplaces. though somewhat authoritative, it was in a way which gave little offence, and was readily imputed to his inexperience in those modes of smoothing dissent and softening assertion, which are important characteristics of polished manners. "the day after my first introduction to burns, i supped with him at dr. blair's. the other guests were few, and as they had come to meet burns, the doctor endeavoured to draw him out, and to make him the central figure of the group. though he therefore furnished the greatest proportion of the conversation, he did no more than what he saw evidently was expected. from the blunders often committed by men of genius burns was unusually free; yet on the present occasion he made a more awkward slip than any that are reported of the poets or mathematicians most noted for absence of mind. being asked from which of the public places he had received the greatest gratification, he named the high church, but gave the preference as a preacher to the colleague of our worthy entertainer, whose celebrity rested on his pulpit eloquence, in a tone so pointed and decisive as to throw (p. 051) the whole company into the most foolish embarrassment!" dr. blair, we are told, relieved their confusion by seconding burns's praise. the poet saw his mistake, but had the good sense not to try to repair it. years afterwards he told professor walker that he had never spoken of this unfortunate blunder, so painful to him had the remembrance of it been. there seems little doubt from all the accounts that have been preserved, that burns in conversation gave forth his opinions with more decision than politeness. he had not a little of that mistaken pride not uncommon among his countrymen, which fancies that gentle manners and consideration for others' feelings are marks of servility. he was for ever harping on independence, and this betrayed him into some acts of rudeness in society which have been recorded with perhaps too great minuteness. against these remarks, we must set the testimony of dugald stewart, who says,--"the attentions he received from all ranks and descriptions of persons would have turned any head but his own. i cannot say that i perceived any unfavourable effect which they left on his mind. he retained the same simplicity which had struck me so forcibly when first i saw him in the country, nor did he seem to feel any additional self-importance from the number and rank of his new acquaintance. he walked with me in spring, early in the morning, to the braid hills, when he charmed me still more by his private conversation than he had ever done in company. he was passionately fond of the beauties of nature; and he once told me, when i was admiring a distant prospect in one of our morning walks, that the sight of so many smoking cottages gave a pleasure to his mind which none could understand who had (p. 052) not witnessed, like himself, the happiness and worth which they contained.... the idea which his conversation conveyed of the powers of his mind exceeded, if possible, that which is suggested by his writings. all his faculties were, as far as i could judge, equally vigorous, and his predilection for poetry was rather the result of his own enthusiastic and impassioned temper, than of a genius exclusively adapted to that species of composition. i should have pronounced him fitted to excel in whatever walk of ambition he had chosen.... the remarks he made on the characters of men were shrewd and pointed, though frequently inclining too much to sarcasm. his praise of those he loved was sometimes indiscriminate and extravagant.... his wit was ready, and always impressed with the marks of a vigorous understanding; but, to my taste, not often pleasing or happy." while the learned of his own day were measuring him thus coolly, and forming their critical estimates of him, youths of the younger generation were regarding him with far other eyes. of jeffrey, when a lad in his teens, it is recorded that one day in the winter of 1786-87, as he stood on the high street of edinburgh, staring at a man whose appearance struck him, a person at a shop door tapped him on the shoulder and said, "aye, laddie, ye may weel look at that man. that's robbie burns." this was the young critic's first and last look at the poet of his country. but the most interesting of all the reminiscences of burns, during his edinburgh visit, or indeed, during any other time, was the day when young walter scott met him, and received from him that one look of approbation. this is the account of that meeting which scott himself gave to (p. 053) lockhart: "as for burns, i may truly say, '_virgilium vidi tantum_.' i was a lad of fifteen when he came to edinburgh. i saw him one day at the late venerable professor adam fergusson's. of course we youngsters sat silent, looked and listened. the only thing i remember which was remarkable in burns's manner, was the effect produced upon him by a print of bunbury's, representing a soldier lying dead on the snow, his dog sitting in misery on one side,--on the other, his widow, with a child in her arms. these lines were written beneath:- cold on canadian hills, or minden's plain, perhaps that parent wept her soldier slain,- bent o'er the babe, her eye dissolved in dew, the big drops mingling with the milk he drew, gave the sad presage of his future years, the child of misery baptized in tears. "burns seemed much affected by the print: he actually shed tears. he asked whose the lines were, and it chanced that nobody but myself remembered that they occur in a half-forgotten poem of langhorne's, called by the unpromising title of the justice of peace. i whispered my information to a friend present, who mentioned it to burns, who rewarded me with a look and a word, which though of mere civility, i then received with very great pleasure. his person was strong and robust; his manner rustic, not clownish; a sort of dignified plainness and simplicity. his countenance was more massive than it looks in any of the portraits. i would have taken the poet, had i not known who he was, for a very sagacious country farmer of the old scotch school,--the _douce gudeman_ who held his own plough. there was a strong expression of sense and shrewdness in all his lineaments; the eye alone, i think, indicated the poetical character and temperament. it was large, (p. 054) and of a dark cast, which glowed (i say literally glowed) when he spoke with feeling or interest. i never saw such another eye in a human head, though i have seen the most distinguished men of my time." while men of the upper ranks, old and young, were thus receiving their impressions, and forming their various estimates of burns, he, we may be sure, was not behind-hand in his reflections on them, and on himself. he had by nature his full share of that gnawing self-consciousness which haunts the irritable tribe, from which no modern poet but walter scott has been able wholly to escape. while he was bearing himself thus manfully to outward appearance, inwardly he was scrutinizing himself and others with a morbid sensitiveness. in the heyday of his edinburgh popularity, he writes to mrs. dunlop, one of his most trusted friends, what he repeats to other correspondents, that he had long been at pains to take a true measure of himself and to form a just estimate of his powers: that this self-estimate was not raised by his present success, nor would it be depressed by future neglect; that though the tide of popularity was now at full flood, he foresaw that the ebb would soon set in, and that he was prepared for it. in the same letters he speaks of his having too much pride for servility, as though there was no third and more excellent way; of "the stubborn pride of his own bosom," on which he seems mainly to have relied. indeed throughout his life there is much talk of what mr. carlyle well calls the altogether barren and unfruitful principle of pride; much prating about "a certain fancied rock of independence,"--a rock which he found but a poor shelter when the worst ills of life overtook him. this feeling reached its height when soon after leaving edinburgh, (p. 055) we find him writing to a comrade in the bitterness of his heart that the stateliness of edinburgh patricians and the meanness of mauchline plebeians had so disgusted him with his kind, that he had bought a pocket copy of milton to study the character of satan, as the great exemplar of "intrepid, unyielding independence." if during his stay in edinburgh, his "irascible humour" never went so far as this, "the contumely of condescension" must have entered pretty deeply into the soul of the proud peasant when he made the following memorable entry in his diary, on the 9th april, 1787. after some remarks on the difficulty of true friendship, and the hazard of losing men's respect by being too confidential with friends, he goes on: "for these reasons, i am determined to make these pages my confidant. i will sketch every character that any way strikes me, to the best of my power, with unshrinking justice. i will insert anecdotes and take down remarks, in the old law phrase, without feud or favour.... i think a lock and key a security at least equal to the bosom of any friend whatever. my own private story likewise, my love adventures, my rambles; the frowns and smiles of fortune on my bardship my poems and fragments, that must never see the light, shall be occasionally inserted. in short, never did four shillings purchase so much friendship, since confidence went first to the market, or honesty was set up for sale.... "there are few of the sore evils under the sun give me more uneasiness and chagrin, than the comparison how a man of genius, nay, of avowed worth, is received everywhere, with the reception which a mere ordinary character, decorated with the trappings and futile distinctions of fortune, meets: i imagine a man of abilities, his breast glowing (p. 056) with honest pride, conscious that men are born equal, still giving honour to whom honour is due; he meets at a great man's table a squire something or a sir somebody; he knows the noble landlord at heart gives the bard, or whatever he is, a share of his good wishes, beyond, perhaps, any one at the table; yet how will it mortify him to see a fellow whose abilities would scarcely have made an eightpenny tailor, and whose heart is not worth three farthings, meet with attention, and notice that are withheld from the son of genius and poverty! "the noble glencairn has wounded me to the soul here, because i dearly esteem, respect, and love him. he showed so much attention, engrossing attention, one day, to the only blockhead at table (the whole company consisted of his lordship, dunder-pate, and myself), that i was within half a point of throwing down my gage of contemptuous defiance, but he shook my hand and looked so benevolently good at parting, god bless him! though i should never see him more, i shall love him to my dying day! i am pleased to think i am so capable of gratitude, as i am miserably deficient in some other virtues." lockhart, after quoting largely from this common-place book, adds, "this curious document has not yet been printed entire. another generation will, no doubt, see the whole of the confession." all that remains of it has recently been given to the world. the original design was not carried on, and what is left is but a fragment, written chiefly in edinburgh, with a few additions made at ellisland. the only characters which are sketched are those of blair, stewart, creech, and greenfield. the remarks on blair, if not very appreciative, are mild and not unkindly. there seems to be irony in the praise of dugald (p. 057) stewart for the very qualities in which burns probably thought him to be deficient. creech's strangely composite character is well touched off. dr. greenfield, the colleague of dr. blair, whose eloquence burns on an unfortunate occasion preferred to that of his host, alone comes in for unaffected eulogy. the plain and manly directness of these prose sketches is in striking contrast to the ambitious flights which the poet attempts in many of his letters. dugald stewart in his cautious way hints that burns did not always keep himself to the learned circles which had welcomed him, but sometimes indulged in "not very select society." how much this cautious phrase covers may be seen by turning to heron's account of some of the scenes in which burns mingled. tavern life was then in edinburgh, as elsewhere, more or less habitual in all classes. in those clubs and brotherhoods of the middle class, which met in taverns down the closes and wynds of high street, burns found a welcome, warmer, freer, more congenial than any vouchsafed to him in more polished coteries. thither convened when their day's work was done, lawyers, writers, schoolmasters, printers, shopkeepers, tradesmen,--ranting, roaring boon companions--who gave themselves up, for the time, to coarse songs, rough raillery, and deep drinking. at these meetings all restraint was cast to the winds, and the mirth drove fast and furious. with open arms the clubs welcomed the poet to their festivities; each man proud to think that he was carousing with robbie burns. the poet the while gave full vein to all his impulses, mimicking, it is said, and satirizing his superiors in position, who, he fancied, had looked on him coldly, paying them off by making them the butt of his raillery, letting loose all his varied powers, wit, humour, satire, drollery, and throwing off from time to time snatches of licentious song, (p. 058) to be picked up by eager listeners,--song wildly defiant of all the proprieties. the scenes which burns there took part in far exceeded any revelries he had seen in the clubs of tarbolton and mauchline, and did him no good. if we may trust the testimony of heron, at the meetings of a certain crochallan club, and at other such uproarious gatherings, he made acquaintances who, before that winter was over, led him on from tavern dissipations to still worse haunts and habits. by the 21st of april (1787), the ostensible object for which burns had come to edinburgh was attained, and the second edition of his poems appeared in a handsome octavo volume. the publisher was creech, then chief of his trade in scotland. the volume was published by subscription, "for the sole benefit of the author," and the subscribers were so numerous that the list of them covered thirty-eight pages. in that list appeared the names of many of the chief men of scotland, some of whom subscribed for twenty--lord eglinton for as many as forty-two, copies. chambers thinks that full justice has never been done to the liberality of the scottish public in the way they subscribed for this volume. nothing equal to the patronage that burns at this time met with, had been seen since the days of pope's iliad. this second edition, besides the poems which had appeared in the kilmarnock one, contained several additional pieces the most important of which had been composed before the edinburgh visit. such were _death and doctor hornbook_, _the brigs of ayr_, _the ordination_, _the address to the unco guid_. the proceeds from this volume ultimately made burns the possessor of about 500_l._, quite a little fortune for one who, as (p. 059) he himself confesses, had never before had 10_l._ he could call his own. it would, however, have been doubly welcome and useful to him, had it been paid down without needless delay. but unfortunately this was not creech's way of transacting business, so that burns was kept for many months waiting for a settlement--months during which he could not for want of money turn to any fixed employment, and which were therefore spent by him unprofitably enough. chapter iii. (p. 060) border and highland tours. some small instalments of the profits of his new volume enabled our poet, during the summer and autumn of 1787, to make several tours to various districts of scotland, famous either for scenery or song. the day of regular touring had not yet set in, and few scots at that time would have thought of visiting what burns called the classic scenes of their country. a generation before this, poets in england had led the way in this--as when gray visited the lakes of cumberland, and dr. johnson the highlands and the western isles. in his ardour to look upon places famous for their natural beauty or their historic associations, or even for their having been mentioned in some old scottish song, burns surpassed both gray and johnson, and anticipated the sentiment of the present century. early in may he set out with one of his crochallan club acquaintances, named ainslie, on a journey to the border. ainslie was a native of the merse, his father and family living in dunse. starting thence with ainslie, burns traversed the greater part of the vale of tweed from coldstream to peebles, recalling, as he went along, snatches of song connected with the places he passed. he turned aside to see the valley of the jed, and got as far as selkirk in the hope of looking upon yarrow. but from doing this he was (p. 061) hindered by a day of unceasing rain, and he who was so soon to become the chief singer of scottish song was never allowed to look on that vale which has long been its most ideal home. before finishing his tour, he went as far as nithsdale, and surveyed the farm of ellisland, with some thought already, that he might yet become the tenant of it. it is noteworthy, but not wonderful, that the scenes visited in this tour called forth no poetry from burns, save here and there an allusion that occurred in some of his later songs. when we remember with what an uneasy heart burns left ayrshire for edinburgh, that the town life he had there led for the last six months had done nothing to lighten--it had probably done something to increase the load of his mental disquietude,--that in an illness which he had during his tour he confesses that "embittering remorse was scaring his fancy at the gloomy forebodings of death," and that when his tour was over, soon after his return to edinburgh, he found the law let loose against him, and what was called a "fugæ" warrant issued for his apprehension, owing to some occurrence like to that which a year ago had terrified him with legal penalties, and all but driven him to jamaica,--when all these things are remembered, is it to be wondered, that burns should have wandered by the banks of tweed, in no mood to chaunt beside it "a music sweeter than its own"? at the close of his border tour burns had, as we have seen, visited nithsdale and looked at the farm of ellisland. from nithsdale he made his way back to native ayrshire and his family at mossgiel. i have heard a tradition that his mother met him at the door of the small farm-house, with this only salutation, "o robbie!" neither lockhart nor chambers mentions this, but the latter says, his sister, (p. 062) mrs. begg, remembered the arrival of her brother. he came in unheralded, and was in the midst of them before they knew. it was a quiet meeting, for the mossgiel family had the true scottish reticence or reserve; but though their words were not "mony feck," their feelings were strong. it was, indeed, as strange a reverse as ever was made by fortune's fickle wheel. "he had left them," to quote the words of lockhart, "comparatively unknown, his tenderest feelings torn and wounded by the behaviour of the armours, and so miserably poor that he had been for some weeks obliged to skulk from the sheriff's officers to avoid the payment of a paltry debt. he returned, his poetical fame established, the whole country ringing with his praise, from a capital in which he was known to have formed the wonder and delight of the polite and the learned; if not rich, yet with more money already than any of his kindred had ever hoped to see him possess, and with prospects of future patronage and permanent elevation in the scale of society, which might have dazzled steadier eyes than those of maternal and fraternal affection. the prophet had at last honour in his own country, but the haughty spirit that had preserved its balance in edinburgh was not likely to lose it at mauchline." the haughty spirit of which lockhart speaks was reserved for others than his own family. to them we hear of nothing but simple affection. his youngest sister, mrs. begg, told chambers, "that her brother went to glasgow, and thence sent home a present to his mother and three sisters, namely, a quantity of _mode_ silk, enough to make a bonnet and a cloak to each, and a gown besides to his mother and youngest sister." this was the way he took to mark their right to share in his prosperity. mrs. begg remembers going for rather more than a week to ayr to assist in (p. 063) making up the dresses, and when she came back on a saturday, her brother had returned and requested her "to put on her dress that he might see how smart she looked in it." the thing that stirred his pride and scorn was the servility with which he was now received by his "plebeian brethren" in the neighbourhood, and chief among these by the armours, who had formerly eyed him with looks askance. if anything "had been wanting to disgust me completely with armour's family, their mean, servile compliance would have done it." so he writes, and it was this disgust that prompted him to furnish himself, as we have seen he did, with a pocket copy of milton, to study the character of satan. this fierce indignation was towards the family; towards "bonny jean" herself his feeling was far other. having accidentally met her, his old affection revived, and they were soon as intimate as of old. after a short time spent at mossgiel wandering about, and once, it would seem, penetrating the west highlands as far as inverary, a journey during which his temper seems to have been far from serene, he returned in august to edinburgh. there he encountered, and in time got rid of, the law troubles already alluded to, and on the 25th of august he set out, on a longer tour than any he had yet attempted, to the northern highlands. the travelling companion whom he chose for this tour was a certain mr. nicol, whose acquaintance he seems to have first formed at the crochallan club, or some other haunt of boisterous joviality. after many ups and downs in life nicol had at last, by dint of some scholastic ability, settled as a master of the edinburgh high school. what could have tempted burns to select such a man for a fellow-traveller? he was (p. 064) cast in one of nature's roughest moulds; a man of careless habits, coarse manners, enormous vanity, of most irascible and violent temper, which vented itself in cruelties on the poor boys who were the victims of his care. burns compared himself with such a companion to "a man travelling with a loaded blunderbuss at full cock." two things only are mentioned in his favour, that he had a warm heart, and an unbounded admiration of the poet. but the choice of such a man was an unfortunate one, and in the upshot did not a little to spoil both the pleasure and the benefit, which might have been gathered from the tour. their journey lay by stirling and crieff to taymouth and breadalbane, thence to athole, on through badenoch and strathspey to inverness. the return by the east coast was through the counties of moray and banff to aberdeen. after visiting the county whence his father had come, and his kindred who were still in kincardineshire, burns and his companion passed by perth back to edinburgh, which they reached on the 16th of september. the journey occupied only two and twenty days, far too short a time to see so much country, besides making several visits, with any advantage. during his border tour burns had ridden his rosinante mare, which he had named jenny geddes. as his friend, the schoolmaster, was no equestrian, burns was obliged to make his northern journey in a post-chaise, not the best way of taking in the varied and ever-changing sights and sounds of highland scenery. such a tour as this, if burns could have entered on it under happier auspices, that is, with a heart at ease, a fitting companion, and leisure enough to view quietly the scenes through which he passed, and to enjoy the society of the people whom he met, could not have (p. 065) failed, from its own interestingness, and its novelty to him, to have enriched his imagination, and to have called forth some lasting memorials. as it was, it cannot be said to have done either. there are, however, a few incidents which are worth noting. the first of these took place at stirling. burns and his companion had ascended the castle rock, to look on the blue mountain rampart, that flanks the highlands from ben lomond to benvoirlich. as they were both strongly attached to the stuart cause, they had seen with indignation, on the slope of the castle hill, the ancient hall, in which the scottish kings once held their parliaments, lying ruinous and neglected. on returning to their inn, burns, with a diamond he had bought for such purposes, wrote on the window-pane of his room some lines expressive of the disgust he had felt at that sight, concluding with some offensive remarks on the reigning family. the lines, which had no poetic merit, got into the newspapers of the day, and caused a good deal of comment. on a subsequent visit to stirling, burns himself broke the pane of the window on which the obnoxious lines were written, but they were remembered, it is said, long afterwards to his disadvantage. among the pleasantest incidents of the tour was the visit to blair castle, and his reception by the duchess of athole. the two days he spent there he declared were among the happiest of his life. we have seen how sensitive burns was to the way he was received by the great. resentful as he was equally of condescension and of neglect, it must have been no easy matter for persons of rank so to adapt their manner as to exactly please him. but his hosts at blair castle succeeded to admiration in this. they were assisted by the presence at the castle of mr., afterwards professor, walker, who had known burns in (p. 066) edinburgh, and was during that autumn living as a tutor in the duke's family. at dinner burns was in his most pleasing vein, and delighted his hostess by drinking to the health of her group of fair young children, as "honest men and bonny lassies"--an expression with which he happily closes his _petition of bruar water_. the duchess had her two sisters, mrs. graham and miss cathcart, staying with her on a visit, and all three ladies were delighted with the conversation of the poet. these three sisters were daughters of a lord cathcart, and were remarkable for their beauty. the second, mrs. graham, has been immortalized as the subject of one of gainsborough's most famous portraits. on her early death her husband, thomas graham of balnagown, never again looked on that beautiful picture, but left his home for a soldier's life, distinguished himself greatly in the peninsular war, and was afterwards known as lord lynedoch. after his death, the picture passed to his nearest relatives, who presented it to the national portrait gallery of scotland, of which it is now the chief ornament. all three sisters soon passed away, having died even before the short-lived poet. by their beauty and their agreeableness they charmed burns, and did much to make his visit delightful. they themselves were not less pleased; for when the poet proposed to leave, after two days were over, they pressed him exceedingly to stay, and even sent a messenger to the hotel to persuade the driver of burns's chaise to pull off one of the horse's shoes, that his departure might be delayed. burns himself would willingly have listened to their entreaties, but his travelling mate was inexorable. likely enough nicol had not been made so much of as the poet, and this was enough to rouse his irascible temper. for one day he had been persuaded to (p. 067) stay by the offer of good trout-fishing, which he greatly relished, but now he insisted on being off. burns was reluctantly forced to yield. this rapid departure was the more unfortunate because mr. dundas, who held the keys of scottish patronage, was expected on a visit to blair, and had he met the poet he might have wiped out the reproach often cast on the ministry of the day, that they failed in their duty towards burns. "that eminent statesman," as lockhart says, "was, though little addicted to literature, a warm lover of his own country, and, in general, of whatever redounded to her honour; he was, moreover, very especially qualified to appreciate burns as a companion; and had such an introduction taken place, he might not improbably have been induced to bestow that consideration on the claims of the poet, which, in the absence of any personal acquaintance, burns's works ought to have received at his hands." but during that visit burns met, and made the acquaintance of, another man of some influence, mr. graham of fintray, whose friendship afterwards, both in the excise business, and in other matters, stood him in good stead. the duke, as he bade farewell to burns at blair, advised him to turn aside, and see the falls of the bruar, about six miles from the castle, where that stream coming down from its mountains plunges over some high precipices, and passes through a rocky gorge to join the river garry. burns did so, and finding the falls entirely bare of wood, wrote some lines entitled _the humble petition of bruar water_, in which he makes the stream entreat the duke to clothe its naked banks with trees. the poet's petition for the stream was not in vain. the then duke of athole was famous as a planter of trees, and those with which, after the poet's petition, he surrounded the waterfall remain to this day. after visiting culloden muir, the fall of fyers, kilravock castle, (p. 068) where, but for the impatience of mr. nicol, he would fain have prolonged his stay, he came on to fochabers and gordon castle. this is burns's entry in his diary:--"cross spey to fochabers, fine palace, worthy of the noble, the polite, and generous proprietor. the duke makes me happier than ever great man did; noble, princely, yet mild and condescending and affable--gay and kind. the duchess, charming, witty, kind, and sensible. god bless them!" here, too, as at blair, the ducal hosts seem to have entirely succeeded in making burns feel at ease, and wish to protract his visit. but here, too, more emphatically than at blair, his friend spoilt the game. this is the account of the incident, as given by lockhart, with a few additions interpolated from chambers:-"burns, who had been much noticed by this noble family when in edinburgh, happened to present himself at gordon castle, just at the dinner-hour, and being invited to take a place at the table, did so, without for a moment adverting to the circumstance that his travelling companion had been left alone at the inn, in the adjacent village. on remembering this soon after dinner, he begged to be allowed to rejoin his friend; and the duke of gordon, who now for the first time learned that he was not journeying alone, immediately proposed to send an invitation to mr. nicol to come to the castle. his grace sent a messenger to bear it; but burns insisted on himself accompanying him. they found the haughty schoolmaster striding up and down before the inn-door in a high state of wrath and indignation at, what he considered, burns's neglect, and no apologies could soften his mood. he had already ordered horses, and was venting his anger on the (p. 069) postillion for the slowness with which he obeyed his commands. the poet, finding that he must choose between the ducal circle and his irascible associate, at once chose the latter alternative. nicol and he, in silence and mutual displeasure, seated themselves in the post-chaise, and turned their backs on gordon castle, where the poet had promised himself some happy days. this incident may serve to suggest some of the annoyances to which persons moving, like our poet, on the debatable land between two different ranks of society must ever be subjected." "to play the lion under such circumstances must," as the knowing lockhart observes, "be difficult at the best; but a delicate business indeed, when the jackals are presumptuous. the pedant could not stomach the superior success of his friend, and yet--alas for poor human nature!--he certainly was one of the most enthusiastic of his admirers, and one of the most affectionate of all his intimates." it seems that the duchess of gordon had some hope that her friend, mr. addington, afterwards lord sidmouth and the future premier, would have visited at gordon castle while burns was there. mr. addington was, allan cunningham tells us, an enthusiastic admirer of burns's poetry, and took pleasure in quoting it to pitt and melville. on that occasion he was unfortunately not able to accept the invitation of the duchess, but he forwarded to her "these memorable lines--memorable as the first indication of that deep love which england now entertains for the genius of burns:"- yes! pride of scotia's favoured plains, 'tis thine the warmest feelings of the heart to move; to bid it throb with sympathy divine, to glow with friendship, or to melt with love. what though each morning sees thee rise to toil, (p. 070) though plenty on thy cot no blessing showers, yet independence cheers thee with her smile, and fancy strews thy moorland with her flowers! and dost thou blame the impartial will of heaven, untaught of life the good and ill to scan? to thee the muse's choicest wreath is given- to thee the genuine dignity of man! then to the want of worldly gear resigned, be grateful for the wealth of thy exhaustless mind. it was well enough for mr. addington, and such as he, to advise burns to be content with the want of worldly gear, and to refer him for consolation to the dignity of man and the wealth of his exhaustless mind. burns had abundance of such sentiments in himself to bring forth, when occasion required. he did not need to be replenished with these from the stores of men who held the keys of patronage. what he wanted from them was some solid benefit, such as they now and then bestowed on their favourites, but which unfortunately they withheld from burns. an intelligent boy, who was guide to burns and nicol from cullen to duff house, gave long afterwards his remembrances of that day. among these this occurs. the boy was asked by nicol if he had read burns's poems, and which of them he liked best. the boy replied, "'i was much entertained with _the twa dogs_ and _death and dr. hornbook_, but i like best _the cotter's saturday night_, although it made me _greet_ when my father had me to read it to my mother.' burns, with a sudden start, looked at my face intently, and patting my shoulder, said, 'well, my callant, i don't wonder at your _greeting_ at reading the poem; it made me greet more than once when i was writing it at my father's fireside.'"... on the 16th of september, 1787, the two travellers returned to (p. 071) edinburgh. this tour produced little poetry directly, and what it did produce was not of a high order. in this respect one cannot but contrast it with the poetic results of another tour made, partly over the same ground, by another poet, less than twenty years after this time. when wordsworth and his sister made their first visit to scotland in 1803, it called forth some strains of such perfect beauty as will live while the english language lasts. burns's poetic fame would hardly be diminished if all that he wrote on his tours were obliterated from his works. perhaps we ought to except some allusions in his future songs, and especially that grand song, _macpherson's farewell_, which, though composed several months after this tour was over, must have drawn its materials from the day spent at duff house, where he was shown the sword of the highland reiver. but look at the lines composed after his first sight of breadalbane, which he left in the inn at kenmore. these lockhart has pronounced among "the best of his purely english heroics." if so, we can but say how poor are the best! what is to be thought of such lines as poetic ardours in my bosom swell, lone wandering by the hermit's mossy cell, &c., &c. nor less stilted, forced, and artificial are the lines in the same measure written at the fall of fyers. the truth is, that burns's _forte_ by no means lay in describing scenery alone, and for its own sake. all his really inspired descriptions of it occur as adjuncts to human incident or feeling, slips of landscape let in as a background. again, as burns was never at his best when called on to write for occasions--no really spontaneous poet ever can be--so when taken to see much talked-of scenes, and (p. 072) expected to express poetic raptures over them, burns did not answer to the call. "he disliked," we are told, "to be tutored in matters of taste, and could not endure that one should run shouting before him, whenever any fine object came in sight." on one occasion of this kind, a lady at the poet's side said, "burns, have you nothing to say of this?" "nothing, madam," he replied, glancing at the leader of the party, "for an ass is braying over it." burns is not the only person who has suffered from this sort of officiousness. besides this, the tours were not made in the way which most conduces to poetic composition. he did not allow himself the quiet and the leisure from interruption which are needed. it was not with such companions as ainslie or nicol by his side that the poet's eye discovered new beauty in the sight of a solitary reaper in a highland glen, and his ear caught magical suggestiveness in the words, "what! you are stepping westward," heard by the evening lake. another hindrance to happy poetic description by burns during these journeys was that he had now forsaken his native vernacular, and taken to writing in english after the mode of the poets of the day. this with him was to unclothe himself of his true strength. his correspondent, dr. moore, and his edinburgh critics had no doubt counselled him to write in english, and he listened for a time too easily to their counsel. he and they little knew what they were doing in giving and taking such advice. the truth is, when he used his own scottish dialect he was unapproached, unapproachable; no poet before or since has evoked out of that instrument so perfect and so varied melodies. when he wrote in english he was seldom more than third-rate; in (p. 073) fact, he was but a common clever versifier. there is but one purely english poem of his which at all approaches the first rank--the lines _to mary in heaven_. these may probably have been the reasons, but the fact is certain that burns's tours are disappointing in their direct poetic fruits. but in another way burns turned them to good account. he had by that time begun to devote himself almost entirely to the cultivation of scottish song. this was greatly encouraged by the appearance of _johnson's museum_, a publication in which an engraver of that name living in edinburgh had undertaken to make a thorough collection of all the best of the old scottish songs, accompanying them with the best airs, and to add to these any new songs of merit which he could lay hands on. before burns left edinburgh for his border tour, he had begun an acquaintance and correspondence with johnson, and had supplied him with four songs of his own for the first volume of _the museum_. the second volume was now in progress, and his labours for this publication, and for another of the same kind to be afterwards mentioned, henceforth engrossed burns's entire productive faculty, and were to be his only serious literary work for the rest of his life. he therefore employed the highland tour in hearing all he could, that had any bearing on his now absorbing pursuit, and in collecting materials that might promote it. with this view, when on his way from taymouth to blair, he had turned aside to visit the famous fiddler and composer of scotch tunes, neil gow, at his house, which is still pointed out, at inver, on the braan water, opposite the grounds of dunkeld. this is the entry about him in burns's diary:--"neil gow plays--a short, stout-built, honest highland figure, with his grey hair shed on (p. 074) his honest social brow; an interesting face marking strong sense, kind open-heartedness, mixed with unmistrusting simplicity; visit his house; margaret gow." it is interesting to think of this meeting of these two--the one a lowlander, the other a highlander; the one the greatest composer of words, the other of tunes, for scottish songs, which their country has produced. as he passed through aberdeen, burns met bishop skinner, a bishop of the scottish episcopal church; and when he learnt that the bishop's father, the author of the song of _tulloch-gorum_, and _the ewie wi' the crookit horn_, and other scottish songs, was still alive, an aged episcopalian clergyman, living in primitive simplicity in _a but and a ben_ at lishart, near peterhead, and that on his way to aberdeen he had passed near the place without knowing it, burns expressed the greatest regret at having missed seeing the author of songs he so greatly admired. soon after his return to edinburgh, he received from old mr. skinner a rhyming epistle, which greatly pleased the poet, and to which he replied,--"i regret, and while i live shall regret, that when i was north i had not the pleasure of paying a younger brother's dutiful respect to the author of the best scotch song ever scotland saw, _tulloch-gorum's my delight_." this is strong, perhaps too strong praise. allan cunningham, in his _songs of scotland_, thus freely comments on it:--"_tulloch-gorum_ is a lively clever song, but i would never have edited this collection had i thought with burns that it is the best song scotland ever saw. i may say with the king in my favourite ballad,- i trust i have within my realm, five hundred good as he." we also find burns, on his return to edinburgh, writing to the (p. 075) librarian at gordon castle to obtain from him a correct copy of a scotch song composed by the duke, in the current vernacular style, _cauld kail in aberdeen_. this correct copy he wished to insert in the forthcoming volume of _johnson's museum_, with the name of the author appended. at perth he made inquiries, we are told, "as to the whereabouts of the burn-brae on which be the graves of bessy bell and mary gray." whether he actually visited the spot, near the almond water, ten miles west of perth, is left uncertain. the pathetic story of these two hapless maidens, and the fine old song founded on it, had made it to him a consecrated spot. o bessy bell and mary gray! they were twa bonny lasses, they biggit a bower on yon burn-brae, and theekit it owre wi' rashes, is the beginning of a beautiful song which allan ramsay did his best to spoil, as he did in many another instance. sir walter scott afterwards recovered some of the old verses which ramsay's had superseded, and repeated them to allan cunningham, who gives them in his _songs of scotland_. whether burns knew any more of the song than the one old verse given above, with ramsay's appended to it, is more than doubtful. as he passed through perth he secured an introduction to the family of belches of invermay, that, on crossing the river earn on his southward journey, he might be enabled to see the little valley, running down from the ochils to the earn, which has been consecrated by the old and well-known song, _the birks of invermay_. it thus appears that the old songs of scotland, their localities, (p. 076) their authors, and the incidents whence they arose, were now uppermost in the thoughts of burns, whatever part of his country he visited. this was as intense and as genuinely poetical an interest, though a more limited one, than that with which walter scott's eye afterwards ranged over the same scenes. the time was not yet full come for that wide and varied sympathy, with which scott surveyed the whole past of his country's history, nor was burns's nature or training such as to give him that catholicity of feeling which was required to sympathize as scott did, with all ranks and all ages. neither could he have so seized on the redeeming virtues of rude and half-barbarous times, and invested them with that halo of romance which scott has thrown over them. this romantic and chivalrous colouring was an element altogether alien to burns's character. but it may well be, that these very limitations intensified the depth and vividness of sympathy, with which burns conceived the human situations portrayed in his best songs. there was one more brief tour of ten days during october, 1787, which burns made in the company of dr. adair. they passed first to stirling, where burns broke the obnoxious pane; then paid a second visit to harvieston near dollar--for burns had paid a flying visit of one day there, at the end of august, before passing northward to the highlands--where burns introduced his friend, and seems to have flirted with some ayrshire young ladies, relations of his friend gavin hamilton. thence they passed on a visit to mr. ramsay at ochtertyre on the teith, a few miles west from stirling. they then visited sir william murray at ochtertyre in strathearn, where burns wrote his _lines on scaring some waterfowl in lock turit_, and a pretty (p. 077) pastoral song on a young beauty he met there, miss murray of lintrose. from strathearn he next seems to have returned by clackmannan, there to visit the old lady who lived in the tower, of whom he had heard from mr. ramsay. in this short journey the most memorable thing was the visit to mr. ramsay at his picturesque old country seat, situate on the river teith, and commanding, down the vista of its old lime-tree avenue, so romantic a view of stirling castle rock. there burns made the acquaintance of mr. ramsay, the laird, and was charmed with the conversation of that "last of the scottish line of latinists, which began with buchanan and ended with gregory,"--an antiquary, moreover, whose manners and home lockhart thinks that sir walter may have had in his recollection, when he drew the character of monkbarns. years afterwards, in a letter addressed to dr. currie, ramsay thus wrote of burns:--"i have been in the company of many men of genius, some of them poets, but i never witnessed such flashes of intellectual brightness as from him, the impulse of the moment, sparks of celestial fire. i never was more delighted, therefore, than with his company two days _tête-à-tête_. in a mixed company i should have made little of him; for, to use a gamester's phrase, he did not know when to play off, and when to play on.... when i asked, whether the edinburgh literati had mended his poems by their criticisms, 'sir,' said he, 'these gentlemen remind me of some spinsters in my country, who spin their thread so fine, that it is neither fit for weft nor woof." there are other incidents recorded of that time. among these was a visit to mrs. bruce, an old scottish dame of ninety, who lived in the ancient tower of clackmannan, upholding her dignity as the lineal descendant and representative of the family of king robert bruce, (p. 078) and cherishing the strongest attachment to the exiled stuarts. both of these sentiments found a ready response from burns. the one was exemplified by the old lady conferring knighthood on him and his companion with the actual sword of king robert, which she had in her possession, remarking as she did it, that she had a better right to confer the title than some folk. another sentiment she charmed the poet by expressing in the toast she gave after dinner, "_hooi uncos_," that is, away strangers, a word used by shepherds when they bid their collies drive away strange sheep. who the strangers were in this case may be guessed from her known jacobite sentiments. on his way from clackmannan to edinburgh he turned aside to see loch leven and its island castle, which had been the prison of the hapless mary stuart; and thence passing to the norman abbey church of dunfermline, with deep emotion he looked on the grave of robert bruce. at that time the choir of the old church, which had contained the grave, had been long demolished, and the new structure which now covers it, had not yet been thought of. the sacred spot was only marked by two broad flagstones, on which burns knelt and kissed them, reproaching the while the barbarity that had so dishonoured the resting-place of scotland's hero king. then, with that sudden change of mood, so characteristic of him, he passed within the ancient church, and mounting the pulpit, addressed to his companion, who had, at his desire, mounted the cutty stool, or seat of repentance, a parody of the rebuke, which he himself had undergone some time before at mauchline. chapter iv. (p. 079) second winter in edinburgh. these summer and autumn wanderings ended, burns returned to edinburgh, and spent there the next five months from the latter part of october, 1787, till the end of march, 1788, in a way which to any man, much more to such an one as he, could give small satisfaction. the ostensible cause of his lingering in edinburgh was to obtain a settlement with his procrastinating publisher, creech, because till this was effected, he had no money with which to enter on the contemplated farm, or on any other regular way of life. probably in thus wasting his time, burns may have been influenced more than he himself was aware, by a secret hope that something might yet be done for him--that all the smiles lavished on him by the great and powerful could not possibly mean nothing, and that he should be left to drudge on in poverty and obscurity as before. during this winter burns changed his quarters from richmond's lodging in high street, where he had lived during the former winter, to a house then marked 2, now 30, st. james's square in the new town. there he lived with a mr. cruikshank, a colleague of his friend nicol in the high school, and there he continued to reside till he left edinburgh. more than once he paid brief visits to nithsdale, and examined (p. 080) again and yet again the farm on the dalswinton property, on which he had long had his eye. this was his only piece of serious business during those months. the rest of his time was spent more or less in the society of his jovial companions. we hear no more during this second winter of his meetings with literary professors, able advocates and judges, or fashionable ladies. his associates seem to have been rather confined to men of the ainslie and nicol stamp. he would seem also to have amused himself with flirtations with several young heroines, whose acquaintance he had made during the previous summer. the chief of these were two young ladies, miss margaret chalmers and miss charlotte hamilton, cousins of each other, and relatives of his mauchline friend, gavin hamilton. these he had met during the two visits which he paid to harvieston, on the river devon, where they were living for a time. on his return to edinburgh he continued to correspond with them both, and to address songs of affection, if not of love, now to one, now to another. to charlotte hamilton he addressed the song beginning,- how pleasant the banks of the clear winding devon; to miss chalmers, one with the opening lines,- where, braving angry winter's storms, the lofty ochils rise; and another beginning thus,- my peggy's face, my peggy's form. which of these young ladies was foremost in burns's affection, it is not easy now to say, nor does it much signify. to both he wrote some of his best letters, and some of not his best verses. allan (p. 081) cunningham thinks that he had serious affection for miss hamilton. the latest editor of his works asserts that his heart was set on miss chalmers, and that she, long afterwards in her widowhood, told thomas campbell the poet, that burns had made a proposal of marriage to her. however this may be, it is certain that while both admitted him to friendship, neither encouraged his advances. they were better "advised than to do so." probably they knew too much of his past history and his character to think of him as a husband. both were soon after this time married to men more likely to make them happy than the erratic poet. when they turned a deaf ear to his addresses, he wrote: "my rhetoric seems to have lost all its effect on the lovely half of mankind; i have seen the day, but that is a tale of other years. in my conscience, i believe, that my heart has been so often on fire that it has been vitrified!" well perhaps for him if it had been so, such small power had he to guide it. just about the time when he found himself rejected, notwithstanding all his fine letters and his verses, by the two young ladies on devon banks, he met with an accident through the upsetting of a hackney coach by a drunken driver. the fall left him with a bruised limb, which confined him to his room from the 7th of december till the middle of february (1787). during these weeks he suffered much from low spirits, and the letters which he then wrote under the influence of that hypochondria and despondency contain some of the gloomiest bursts of discontent with himself and with the world, which he ever gave vent to either in prose or verse. he describes himself as the "sport, the miserable victim of rebellious pride, hypochondriac imagination, agonizing sensibility, and bedlam passions. i wish i were dead, but i'm no like to (p. 082) die.... i fear i am something like undone; but i hope for the best. come, stubborn pride and unshrinking resolution; accompany me through this to me miserable world! i have a hundred times wished that one could resign life, as an officer resigns a commission; for i would not take in any poor wretch by selling out. lately i was a sixpenny private, and, god knows, a miserable soldier enough; now i march to the campaign, a starving cadet--a little more conspicuously wretched." but his late want of success on the banks of devon, and his consequent despondency, were alike dispelled from his thoughts by a new excitement. just at the time when he met with his accident, he had made the acquaintance of a certain mrs. m'lehose, and acquaintance all at once became a violent attachment on both sides. this lady had been deserted by her husband, who had gone to the west indies, leaving her in poverty and obscurity to bring up two young boys as best she might. we are told that she was "of a somewhat voluptuous style of beauty, of lively and easy manners, of a poetical fabric of mind, with some wit, and not too high a degree of refinement or delicacy--exactly the kind of woman to fascinate burns." fascinated he certainly was. on the 30th december he writes; "almighty love still reigns and revels in my bosom, and i am at this moment ready to hang myself for a young edinburgh widow, who has wit and wisdom more murderously fatal than the assassinating stiletto of the sicilian bandit, or the poisoned arrow of the savage african." for several months his visits to her house were frequent, his letters unremitting. the sentimental correspondence which they began, in which burns addresses her as clarinda, assuming to himself the name of sylvander, has been (p. 083) published separately, and become notorious. though this correspondence may contain, as lockhart says, "passages of deep and noble feeling, which no one but burns could have penned," it cannot be denied that it contains many more of such fustian, such extravagant bombast, as burns or any man beyond twenty might well have been ashamed to write. one could wish that for the poet's sake this correspondence had never been preserved. it is so humiliating to read this torrent of falsetto sentiment now, and to think that a man gifted like burns should have poured it forth. how far his feelings towards clarinda were sincere, or how far they were wrought up to amuse his vacancy by playing at love-making, it is hard to say. blended with a profusion of forced compliments and unreal raptures, there are expressions in burns's letters which one cannot but believe that he meant in earnest, at the moment when he wrote them. clarinda, it would seem, must have regarded burns as a man wholly disengaged, and have looked forward to the possible removal of mr. m'lehose, and with him of the obstacle to a union with burns. how far he may have really shared the same hopes it is impossible to say. we only know that he used again and again language of deepest devotion, vowing to "love clarinda to death, through death, and for ever." while this correspondence between sylvander and clarinda was in its highest flight of rapture, burns received, in january or february, 1788, news from mauchline which greatly agitated him. his renewed intercourse with jean armour had resulted in consequences which again stirred her father's indignation; this time so powerfully, that he turned his daughter to the door. burns provided a shelter for her under the roof of a friend; but for a time he does not seem to (p. 084) have thought of doing more than this. whether he regarded the original private marriage as entirely dissolved, and looked on himself as an unmarried man, does not quite appear. anyhow, he and clarinda, who knew all that had passed with regard to jean armour, seem to have then thought that enough had been done for the seemingly discarded mauchline damsel, and to have carried on their correspondence as rapturously as ever for fully another six weeks, until the 21st of march (1788). on that day sylvander wrote to clarinda a final letter, pledging himself to everlasting love, and following it by a copy of verses beginning,- fair empress of the poet's soul, presenting her at the same time with a pair of wineglasses as a parting gift. on the 24th of march, he turned his back on edinburgh, and never returned to it for more than a day's visit. before leaving town, however, he had arranged three pieces of business, all bearing closely on his future life. first, he had secured for himself an appointment in the excise through the kindness of "lang sandy wood," the surgeon who attended him when laid up with a bruised limb, and who had interceded with mr. graham of fintray, the chief of the excise board, on burns' behalf. when he received his appointment, he wrote to miss chalmers, "i have chosen this, my dear friend, after mature deliberation. the question is not at what door of fortune's palace shall we enter in, but what doors does she open for us. i was not likely to get anything to do. i got this without hanging-on, or mortifying solicitation; it is immediate bread, and though poor in comparison of the last eighteen months of my existence, 'tis (p. 085) luxury in comparison of all my preceding life." next, he had concluded a bargain with mr. miller of dalswinton, to lease his farm of ellisland, on which he had long set his heart, and to which he had paid several visits in order to inspect it. lastly, he had at last obtained a business settlement with creech regarding the second edition of his poems. before this was effected, burns had more than once lost his temper, and let creech know his mind. various accounts have been given of the profits that now accrued to burns from the whole transaction. we cannot be far wrong in taking the estimate at which dr. chambers arrived, for on such a matter he could speak with authority. he sets down the poet's profits at as nearly as possible 500_l._ of this sum burns gave 180_l._ to his brother gilbert, who was now in pecuniary trouble. "i give myself no airs on this," he writes, "for it was mere selfishness on my part; i was conscious that the wrong scale of the balance was pretty heavily charged, and i thought that throwing a little filial piety and fraternal affection into the scale in my favour, might help to smooth matters at the grand reckoning." this money was understood by the family to be the provision due from robert on behalf of his mother, the support of whom he was now, that he was setting up for himself, about to throw on his younger brother. chambers seems to reckon that as another 120_l._ must have been spent by burns on his tours, his accident, and his sojourn in edinburgh since october, he could not have more than 200_l._ over, with which to set up at ellisland. we see in what terms burns had written to clarinda on the 21st of march. on his leaving edinburgh and returning to ayrshire, he married jean armour, and forthwith acknowledged her in letters as his wife. (p. 086) this was in april, though it was not till august that he and jean appeared before the kirk-session, and were formally recognized as man and wife by the church. whether, in taking this step, burns thought that he was carrying out a legal, as well as a moral, obligation, we know not. the interpreters of the law now assert that the original marriage in 1786 had never been dissolved, and that the destruction of the promissory lines, and the temporary disownment of him by jean and her family, could not in any way invalidate it. indeed after all that had happened, for burns to have deserted jean, and married another, even if he legally could have done so, would have been the basest infidelity. amid all his other errors and inconsistencies, and no doubt there were enough of these, we cannot but be glad for the sake of his good name that he now acted the part of an honest man, and did what he could to repair the much suffering and shame he had brought on his frail but faithful jean. as to the reasons which determined burns to marry jean armour, and not another, this is the account he himself gives when writing to mrs. dunlop, one of his most trusted correspondents, to whom he spoke out his real heart in a simpler, more natural way, than was usual with him in letter-writing:-"you are right that a bachelor state would have ensured me more friends; but, from a cause you will easily guess, conscious peace in the enjoyment of my own mind, and unmistrusting confidence in approaching my god, would seldom have been of the number. i found a once much-loved, and still much-loved, female, literally and truly cast out to the mercy of the naked elements; but i enabled her to purchase a shelter;--there is no sporting with a fellow-creature's (p. 087) happiness or misery. the most placid good-nature and sweetness of disposition; a warm heart, gratefully devoted with all its powers to love me; vigorous health and sprightly cheerfulness, set off to the best advantage by a more than commonly handsome figure: these i think, in a woman may make a good wife, though she should never have read a page but the scriptures of the old and new testament, nor have danced in a brighter assembly than a penny pay wedding." to miss chalmers he says:-"i have married my jean. 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 tittle-tattle, modish manners, and fashionable dress, i am not sickened and disquieted 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 country.... a certain late publication of scots poems she has perused very devoutly, and all the ballads in the country, as she has the finest wood-note wild i ever heard." there have been many comments on this turning-point in burns' life. some have given him high praise for it, as though he had done a heroic thing in voluntarily sacrificing himself, when it might have been open to him to form a much higher connexion. but all such praise seems entirely thrown away. it was not, as it appears, open to him to form any other marriage legally; certainly it was not open to him morally. the remark of lockhart is entirely true, that, "had he hesitated to make her his wife, whom he loved, and who was the mother of his children, he must have sunk into the callousness of a ruffian." lockhart (p. 088) need hardly have added, "or into that misery of miseries, the remorse of a poet." but even had law and morality allowed him to pass by jean,--which they did not,--would it have been well for burns, if he had sought, as one of his biographers regrets that he had not done, a wife among ladies of higher rank and more refined manners? that he could appreciate what these things imply, is evident from his own confession in looking back on his introduction to what is called society: "a refined and accomplished woman was a being altogether new to me, and of which i had formed a very inadequate idea." it requires but little knowledge of the world and its ways to see the folly of all such regrets. great disparity of condition in marriage seldom answers. and in the case of a wayward, moody man, with the pride, the poverty, and the irregularities of burns, and the drudging toil which must needs await his wife, it is easy to see what misery such a marriage would have stored up for both. as it was, the marriage he made was, to put it at the lowest, one of the most prudent acts of his life. jean proved to be all, and indeed more than all, he anticipates in the letters above given. during the eight years of their married life, according to all testimony, she did her part as a wife and mother with the most patient and placid fidelity, and bore the trials which her husband's irregular habits entailed on her, with the utmost long-suffering. and after his death, during her long widowhood, she revered his memory, and did her utmost to maintain the honour of his name. with his marriage to his ayrshire wife, burns had bid farewell to edinburgh, and to whatever high hopes it may have at anytime kindled within him, and had returned to a condition somewhat nearer to that in which he was born. with what feelings did he pass from this (p. 089) brilliant interlude, and turn the corner which led him back to the dreary road of commonplace drudgery, which he hoped to have escaped? there can be little doubt that his feelings were those of bitter disappointment. there had been, it is said, a marked contrast between the reception he had met with during his first and second winters in edinburgh. as allan cunningham says, "on his first appearance the doors of the nobility opened spontaneously, 'on golden hinges turning,' and he ate spiced meats and drank rare wines, interchanging nods and smiles with high dukes and mighty earls. a colder reception awaited his second coming. the doors of lords and ladies opened with a tardy courtesy; he was received with a cold and measured stateliness, was seldom requested to stop, seldomer to repeat his visit; and one of his companions used to relate with what indignant feeling the poet recounted his fruitless calls and his uncordial receptions in the good town of edinburgh.... he went to edinburgh strong in the belief that genius such as his would raise him in society; he returned not without a sourness of spirit, and a bitterness of feeling." when he did give vent to his bitterness, it was not into man's, but into woman's sympathetic ear that he poured his complaint. it is thus he writes, some time after settling at ellisland, to mrs. dunlop, showing how fresh was still the wound within. "when i skulk into a corner lest the rattling equipage of some gaping blockhead should mangle me in the mire, i am tempted to exclaim, 'what merits has he had, or what demerit have i had, in some previous state of existence, that he is ushered into this state of being with the sceptre of rule, and the keys of riches in his puny fist, and i am kicked into the world, the sport of folly, or the victim of pride?... often as i (p. 090) have glided with humble stealth through the pomp of princes street, it has suggested itself to me, as an improvement on the present human figure, that a man, in proportion to his own conceit of his own consequence in the world, could have pushed out the longitude of his common size, as a snail pushes out his horns, or as we draw out a prospect-glass.'" this is a feeling which burns has uttered in many a form of prose and verse, but which probably never possessed him more bitterly than when he retired from edinburgh. many persons in such circumstances may have felt thoughts of this kind pass over them for a moment. but they have felt ashamed of them as they rose, and have at once put them by. burns no doubt had a severer trial in this way than most, but he never could overcome it, never ceased to chafe at that inequality of conditions which is so strongly fixed in the system in which we find ourselves. it was natural that he should have felt some bitterness at the changed countenance which edinburgh society turned on him, and it is easy to be sarcastic on the upper ranks of that day for turning it; but were they really so much to blame? there are many cases under the present order of things, in which we are constrained to say, "it must needs be that offences come." taking men and things as they are, could it well have been otherwise? first, the novelty of burns's advent had worn off by his second winter in edinburgh, and, though it may be a weakness, novelty always counts for something in human affairs. then, again, the quiet decorous men of blair's circle knew more of burns's ways and doings than at first, and what they came to know was not likely to increase their desire for (p. 091) intimacy with him. it was, it seems, notorious that burns kept that formidable memorandum-book already alluded to, in which he was supposed to sketch with unsparing hand, "stern likenesses" of his friends and benefactors. so little of a secret did he make of this, that we are told he sometimes allowed a visitor to have a look at the figures which he had sketched in his portrait-gallery. the knowledge that such a book existed was not likely to make blair and his friends more desirous of his society. again, the festivities at the crochallan club and other such haunts, the habits he there indulged in, and the associates with whom he consorted, these were well known. and it was not possible that either the ways, the conversation, or the cronies of the crochallan club could be welcomed in quieter and more polished circles. men of the ainslie and nicol stamp would hardly have been quite in place there. again--what is much to the honour of burns--he never in the highest access of his fame, abated a jot of his intimacy and friendship towards the men of his own rank, with whom he had been associated in his days of obscurity. these were tradesmen, farmers, and peasants. the thought of them, their sentiments, their prejudices and habits, if it had been possible, their very persons, he would have taken with him, without disguise or apology, into the highest circles of rank or of literature. but this might not be. it was impossible that burns could take mauchline with its belles, its poosie-nansies and its souter johnnies, bodily into the library of dr. blair or the drawing-room of gordon castle. a man, to whom it is open, must make his choice; but he cannot live at once in two different and widely sundered orders of society. to (p. 092) no one is it given, not even to men of genius great as that of burns, for himself and his family entirely to overleap the barriers with which custom and the world have hedged us in, and to weld the extremes of society into one. to the speculative as well as to the practically humane man, the great inequality in human conditions presents, no doubt, a perplexing problem. a little less worldly pride, and a little more christian wisdom and humility, would probably have helped burns to solve it better than he did. but besides the social grievance, which though impalpable is very real, burns had another more material and tangible. the great whom he had met in edinburgh, whose castles he had visited in the country, might have done something to raise him at once above poverty and toil, and they did little or nothing. they had, indeed, subscribed liberally for his second edition, and they had got him a gauger's post, with fifty or sixty pounds a year, that was all. what more could they, ought they to have done? to have obtained him an office in some one of the higher professions was not to be thought of, for a man cannot easily at the age of eight-and-twenty change his whole line and adapt himself to an entirely new employment. the one thing they might have combined to do, was to have compelled dundas, or some other of the men then in power, to grant burns a pension from the public purse. that was the day of pensions, and hundreds with no claim to compare with burns's were then on the pension list: 300_l._ a year would have sufficed to place him in comfort and independence, and could public money have been better spent? but though the most rigid economist might not have objected, would burns have accepted such a benefaction, had it been offered? and if he had accepted it, would he not have chafed under the (p. 093) obligation, more even than he did in the absence of it? such questions as these cannot but arise, as often as we think over the fate of burns, and ask ourselves, if nothing could have been done to avert it? though natural, they are vain. things hold on their own course to their inevitable issues, and burns left edinburgh, and set his face first towards ayrshire, then to nithsdale, a saddened and embittered man. chapter v. (p. 094) life at ellisland. "mr. burns, you have made a poet's not a farmer's choice." such was the remark of allan cunningham's father, land-steward to the laird of dalswinton, when the poet turned from the low-lying and fertile farm of foregirth, which cunningham had recommended to him, and selected for his future home the farm of ellisland. he was taken by the beautiful situation and fine romantic outlook of the poorest of several farms on the dalswinton estate which were in his option. ellisland lies on the western bank of the river nith, about six miles above dumfries. looking from ellisland eastward across the river, "a pure stream running there over the purest gravel," you see the rich holms and noble woods of dalswinton. dalswinton is an ancient historic place, which has even within recorded memory more than once changed its mansion-house and its proprietor. to the west the eye falls on the hills of dunscore, and looking northward up the nith, the view is bounded by the heights that shut in the river towards drumlanrig, and by the high conical hill of corsincon, at the base of which the infant stream slips from the shire of ayr into that of dumfries. the farmsteading of ellisland stands but a few yards to the west of the nith. immediately underneath there is a red scaur of considerable (p. 095) height, overhanging the stream, and the rest of the bank is covered with broom, through which winds a greensward path, whither burns used to retire to meditate his songs. the farm extends to upwards of a hundred acres, part holm, part croft-land, of which the former yielded good wheat, the latter oats and potatoes. the lease was for nineteen years, and the rent fifty pounds for the first three years, seventy for the rest of the tack. the laird of dalswinton, while burns leased ellisland, was mr. patrick millar, not an ordinary laird, but one well known in his day for his scientific discoveries. there was no proper farm-house or offices on the farm--it was part of the bargain that burns should build these for himself. the want of a house made it impossible for him to settle at once on his farm. his bargain for it had been concluded early in march (1788); but it was not till the 13th of june that he went to reside at ellisland. in the interval between these two dates he went to ayrshire, and completed privately, as we have seen, the marriage, the long postponement of which had caused him so much disquiet. with however great disappointment and chagrin he may have left edinburgh, the sense that he had now done the thing that was right, and had the prospect of a settled life before him, gave him for a time a peace and even gladness of heart, to which he had for long been a stranger. we can, therefore, well believe what he tells us, that, when he had left edinburgh, he journeyed towards mauchline with as much gaiety of heart, 'as a may-frog, leaping across the newly-harrowed ridge, enjoying the fragrance of the refreshed earth after the long-expected shower.' of what may be called the poet's marriage settlement, we have the following details from allan cunningham:-"his marriage reconciled the poet to his wife's kindred: there was (p. 096) no wedding portion. armour was a respectable man, but not opulent. he gave his daughter some small store of plenishing; and, exerting his skill as a mason, wrought his already eminent son-in-law a handsome punch-bowl in inverary marble, which burns lived to fill often, to the great pleasure both of himself and his friends.... mrs. dunlop bethought herself of ellisland, and gave a beautiful heifer; another friend contributed a plough. the young couple from love to their native county ordered their furniture from a wright in mauchline; the farm-servants, male and female, were hired in ayrshire, a matter of questionable prudence, for the mode of cultivation is different from that of the west, and the cold humid bottom of mossgiel bears no resemblance to the warm and stony loam of ellisland." when on the 13th june he went to live on his farm, he had, as there was no proper dwelling-house on it, to leave jean and her one surviving child behind him at mauchline, and himself to seek shelter in a mere hovel on the skirts of the farm. "i remember the house well," says cunningham, "the floor of clay, the rafters japanned with soot, the smoke from a hearth-fire streamed thickly out at door and window, while the sunshine which struggled in at those apertures produced a sort of twilight." burns thus writes to mrs. dunlop, "a solitary inmate of an old smoky spence, far from every object i love or by whom i am beloved; nor any acquaintance older than yesterday, except jenny geddes, the old mare i ride on, while uncouth cares and novel plans hourly insult my awkward ignorance and bashful inexperience." it takes a more even, better-ordered spirit than burns' to stand such solitude. his heart, during those first weeks at ellisland, (p. 097) entirely sank within him, and he saw all men and life coloured by his own despondency. this is the entry in his commonplace book on the first sunday he spent alone at ellisland:--"i am such a coward in life, so tired of the service, that i would almost at any time, with milton's adam, 'gladly lay me in my mother's lap, and be at peace.' but a wife and children bind me to struggle with the stream, till some sudden squall shall overset the silly vessel, or in the listless return of years its own craziness reduce it to wreck." the discomfort of his dwelling-place made him not only discontented with his lot, but also with the people amongst whom he found himself. "i am here," he writes, "on my farm, but for all the pleasurable part of life called social communication, i am at the very elbow of existence. the only things to be found in perfection in this country are stupidity and canting.... as for the muses, they have as much idea of a rhinoceros as a poet." when he was not in ayrshire in bodily presence, he was there in spirit. it was at such a time that looking up to the hills that divide nithsdale from ayrshire, he breathed to his wife that most natural and beautiful of all his love-lyrics,- of a' the airts the wind can blaw i dearly like the west, for there the bonnie lassie lives, the lassie i lo'e best. his disparagement of nithsdale people, allan cunningham, himself a dumfriesshire man, naturally resents, and accounts for it by supposing that the sooty hovel had infected his whole mental atmosphere. "the maxwells, the kirkpatricks, and dalzells," exclaims honest allan, "were fit companions for any man in scotland, and they were almost his (p. 098) neighbours; riddell of friars carse, an accomplished antiquarian, lived almost next door; and jean lindsay and her husband, patrick miller, the laird of dalswinton, were no ordinary people. the former, beautiful, accomplished, a writer of easy and graceful verses, with a natural dignity of manners which became her station; the latter an improver and inventor, the first who applied steam to the purposes of navigation." but burns's hasty judgments of men and things, the result of momentary feeling, are not to be too literally construed. he soon found that there was enough of sociality among all ranks of dumfriesshire people, from the laird to the cotter, indeed, more than was good for himself. yet, however much he may have complained, when writing letters to his correspondents of an evening, he was too manly to go moping about all day long when there was work to be done. he was, moreover, nerved to the task by the thought that he was preparing the home that was to shelter his wife and children. on the laying of the foundation-stone of his future house, he took off his hat and asked a blessing on it. "did he ever put his own hand to the work?" was asked of one of the men engaged in it. "ay, that he did, mony a time," was the answer, "if he saw us like to be beat wi' a big stane, he would cry, 'bide a wee,' and come rinning. we soon found out when he put to his hand, he beat a' i ever met for a dour lift." during his first harvest, though the weather was unfavourable, and the crop a poor one, we find burns speaking in his letters of being industriously employed, and binding every day after the reapers. but allan cunningham's father, who had every opportunity of observing, used to allege that burns seemed to him like a restless and (p. 099) unsettled man. "he was ever on the move, on foot or on horseback. in the course of a single day he might be seen holding the plough, angling in the river, sauntering, with his hands behind his back, on the banks, looking at the running water, of which he was very fond, walking round his buildings or over his fields; and if you lost sight of him for an hour, perhaps you might see him returning from friars carse, or spurring his horse through the hills to spend an evening in some distant place with such friends as chance threw in his way." before his new house was ready, he had many a long ride to and fro through the cumnock hills to mauchline, to visit jean, and to return. it was not till the first week of december, 1788, that his lonely bachelor life came to an end, and that he was able to bring his wife and household to nithsdale. even then the house at ellisland was not ready for his reception, and he and his family had to put up for a time in a neighbouring farm-house called the isle. they brought with them two farm-lads from ayrshire, and a servant lass called elizabeth smith, who was alive in 1851, and gave chambers many details of the poet's way of life at ellisland. among these she told him that her father was so concerned about her moral welfare that, before allowing her to go, he made burns promise to keep a strict watch over her behaviour, and to exercise her duly in the shorter catechism; and that both of these promises he faithfully fulfilled. the advent of his wife and his child in the dark days of the year kept dulness aloof, and made him meet the coming of the new year (1789) with more cheerful hopes and calmer spirits than he had known for long. alas, that these were doomed to be so short-lived! on new year's morning, 1789, his brother gilbert thus (p. 100) affectionately writes to the poet: "dear brother,--i have just finished my new year's day breakfast in the usual form, which naturally makes me call to mind the days of former years, and the society in which we used to begin them; and when i look at our family vicissitudes, 'through the dark postern of time long elapsed,' i cannot help remarking to you, my dear brother, how good the god of seasons is to us, and that, however some clouds may seem to lower over the portion of time before us, we have great reason to hope that all will turn out well." on the same new year's day burns addressed to mrs. dunlop a letter, which, though it has been often quoted, is too pleasing to be omitted here. "i own myself so little a presbyterian, that i approve set times and seasons of more than ordinary acts of devotion for breaking in on that habituated routine of life and thought, which is so apt to reduce our existence to a kind of instinct, or even sometimes, and with some minds, to a state very little superior to mere machinery. this day--the first sunday of may--a breezy, blue-skied noon some time about the beginning, and a hoary morning and calm sunny day about the end, of autumn--these, time out of mind, have been with me a kind of holiday.... we know nothing, or next to nothing of the substance or structure of our souls, so cannot account for those seeming caprices in them, that we should be particularly pleased with this thing, or struck with that, which on minds of a different cast makes no extraordinary impression. i have some favourite flowers in spring, among which are the mountain-daisy, the harebell, the fox-glove, the wild-brier rose, the budding birch, and the hoary hawthorn, that i view and hang over with particular delight. i never hear the loud, solitary whistle of the curlew in a summer noon, or the wild mixing cadence of a troop of gray plovers (p. 101) in an autumnal morning, without feeling an elevation of soul like the enthusiasm of devotion or poetry. tell me, my dear friend, to what can this be owing? are we a piece of machinery, which, like the æolian harp, passive, takes the impression of the passing accident? or do these workings argue something within us above the trodden clod? i own myself partial to such proofs of those awful and important realities--a god that made all things--man's immaterial and immortal nature--and a world of weal or woe beyond death and the grave!" on reading this beautiful and suggestive letter, an ornithologist remarked that burns had made a mistake in a fact of natural history. it is not the 'gray plover,' but the golden, whose music is heard on the moors in autumn. the gray plover, our accurate observer remarks, is a winter shore bird, found only at that season and in that habitat, in this country. it was not till about the middle of 1789 that the farm-house of ellisland was finished, and that he and his family, leaving the isle, went to live in it. when all was ready, burns bade his servant, betty smith, take a bowl of salt, and place the family bible on the top of it, and, bearing these, walk first into the new house and possess it. he himself, with his wife on his arm, followed betty and the bible and the salt, and so they entered their new abode. burns delighted to keep up old-world _freits_ or usages like this. it was either on this occasion, or on his bringing mrs. burns to the isle, that he held a house-heating mentioned by allan cunningham, to which all the neighbourhood gathered, and drank, "luck to the roof-tree of the house of burns!" the farmers and the well-to-do people welcomed him gladly, and were proud that such a man had come to be a dweller in their (p. 102) vale. yet the ruder country lads and the lower peasantry, we are told, looked on him not without dread, "lest he should pickle and preserve them in sarcastic song." "once at a penny wedding, when one or two wild young lads quarrelled, and were about to fight, burns rose up and said, 'sit down and ----, or else i'll hang you up like potatoe-bogles in sang to-morrow.' they ceased, and sat down as if their noses had been bleeding." the house which had cost burns so much toil in building, and which he did not enter till about the middle of the year 1789, was a humble enough abode. only a large kitchen, in which the whole family, master and servants, took their meals together, a room to hold two beds, a closet to hold one, and a garret, coom-ceiled, for the female servants, this made the whole dwelling-house. "one of the windows looked southward down the holms; another opened on the river; and the house stood so near the lofty bank, that its afternoon shadow fell across the stream, on the opposite fields. the garden or kail-yard was a little way from the house. a pretty footpath led southward along the river side, another ran northward, affording fine views of the nith, the woods of friars carse, and the grounds of dalswinton. half-way down the steep declivity, a fine clear cool spring supplied water to the household." such was the first home which burns found for himself and his wife, and the best they were ever destined to find. the months spent in the isle, and the few that followed the settlement at ellisland, were among the happiest of his life. besides trying his best to set himself to farm-industry, he was otherwise bent on well-doing. he had, soon after his arrival in ellisland, started (p. 103) a parish library, both for his own use and to spread a love of literature among his neighbours, the portioners and peasants of dunscore. when he first took up house at ellisland, he used every evening when he was at home, to gather his household for family worship, and, after the old scottish custom, himself to offer up prayer in his own words. he was regular, if not constant, in his attendance at the parish church of dunscore, in which a worthy minister, mr. kirkpatrick, officiated, whom he respected for his character, though he sometimes demurred to what seemed to him the too great sternness of his doctrine. burns and his wife had not been long settled in their newly-built farm-house, when prudence induced him to ask that he might be appointed excise officer in the district in which he lived. this request mr. graham of fintray, who had placed his name on the excise list before he left edinburgh, at once granted. the reasons that impelled burns to this step were the increase of his family by the birth of a son in august, 1789, and the prospect that his second year's harvest would be a failure like the first. he often repeats that it was solely to make provision for his increasing family that he submitted to the degradation of- searching auld wives' barrels,- och, hon! the day! that clarty barm should stain my laurels, but--what 'ill ye say? these movin things, ca'd wives and weans, wad move the very hearts o' stanes. that he felt keenly the slur that attached to the name of gauger is certain, but it is honourable to him that he resolved bravely to endure it for the sake of his family. "i know not," he writes, "how the word exciseman, or the still (p. 104) more opprobrious gauger, will sound in your ears. i, too, have seen the day when my auditory nerves would have felt very delicately on this subject; but a wife and children are things which have a wonderful power in blunting this kind of sensations. fifty pounds a year for life, and a provision for widows and orphans, you will allow, is no bad settlement for a poet." in announcing to dr. blacklock his new employment, he says,- but what d'ye think, my trusty fier, i'm turned a gauger--peace be here! parnassian queans, i fear, i fear, ye'll now disdain me! and then my fifty pounds a year will little gain me. * * * * * ye ken, ye ken that strang necessity supreme is 'mang sons o' men. i hae a wife and twa wee laddies, they maun hae brose and brats o' duddies; ye ken yoursels my heart right proud is, i need na vaunt, but i'll sned besoms, thraw saugh woodies, before they want. he would cut brooms and twist willow-ropes before his children should want. but perhaps, as the latest editor of burns' poems observes, his best saying on the subject of the excisemanship was that word to lady glencairn, the mother of his patron, "i would much rather have it said that my profession borrowed credit from me, than that i borrowed it from my profession." in these words we see something of the bitterness about his new (p. 105) employment, which often escaped from him, both in prose and verse. nevertheless, having undertaken it, he set his face honestly to the work. he had to survey ten parishes, covering a tract of not less than fifty miles each way, and requiring him to ride two hundred miles a week. smuggling was then common throughout scotland, both in the shape of brewing and of selling beer and whiskey without licence. burns took a serious yet humane view of his duty. to the regular smuggler he is said to have been severe; to the country folk, farmers or cotters, who sometimes transgressed, he tempered justice with mercy. many stories are told of his leniency to these last. at thornhill, on a fair day, he was seen to call at the door of a poor woman who for the day was doing a little illicit business on her own account. a nod and a movement of the forefinger brought the woman to the doorway. "kate, are you mad? don't you know that the supervisor and i will be in upon you in forty minutes?" burns at once disappeared among the crowd, and the poor woman was saved a heavy fine. another day the poet and a brother gauger entered a widow's house at dunscore and seized a quantity of smuggled tobacco. "jenny," said burns, "i expected this would be the upshot. here, lewars, take note of the number of rolls as i count them. now, jock, did you ever hear an auld wife numbering her threads before check-reels were invented? thou's ane, and thou's no ane, and thou's ane a'out--listen." as he handed out the rolls, and numbered them, old-wife fashion, he dropped every other roll into jenny's lap. lewars took the desired note with becoming gravity, and saw as though he saw not. again, a woman who had been brewing, on seeing burns coming with another exciseman, slipped out by the back door, leaving a servant and a little girl in the house. "has (p. 106) there been ony brewing for the fair here the day?" "o no, sir, we hae nae licence for that," answered the servant maid. "that's no true," exclaimed the child; "the muckle black kist is fou' o' the bottles o' yill that my mither sat up a' nicht brewing for the fair."... "we are in a hurry just now," said burns, "but when we return from the fair, we'll examine the muckle black kist." in acts like these, and in many another anecdote that might be given, is seen the genuine human-heartedness of the man, in strange contrast with the bitternesses which so often find vent in his letters. ultimately, as we shall see, the exciseman's work told heavily against his farming, his poetry, and his habits of life. but it was some time before this became apparent. the solitary rides through the moors and dales that border nithsdale gave him opportunities, if not for composing long poems, at any rate for crooning over those short songs in which mainly his genius now found vent. "the visits of the muses to me," he writes, "and i believe to most of their acquaintance, like the visits of good angels, are short and far between; but i meet them now and then as i jog through the hills of nithsdale, just as i used to do on the banks of ayr." take as a sample some of the varying moods he passed through in the summer and autumn of 1789. in the may-time of that year an incident occurs, which the poet thus describes:--"one morning lately, as i was out pretty early in the fields, sowing some grass-seeds, i heard the burst of a shot from a neighbouring plantation, and presently a poor little wounded hare came hirpling by me. you will guess my indignation at the inhuman fellow who could shoot a hare at this season, when all of them have young ones. indeed there is something in the business of destroying, for our sport, individuals in the animal creation that (p. 107) do not injure us materially, which i could never reconcile to my ideas of virtue." the lad who fired the shot and roused the poet's indignation, was the son of a neighbouring farmer. burns cursed him, and being near the nith at the time, threatened to throw him into the river. he found, however, a more innocent vent for his feelings in the following lines:- inhuman man! curse on thy barbarous art, and blasted be thy murder-aiming eye! may never pity soothe thee with a sigh, nor ever pleasure glad thy cruel heart! go live, poor wanderer of the wood and field, the bitter little that of life remains: no more the thickening brakes and verdant plains to thee shall home, or food, or pastime yield. seek, mangled wretch, some place of wonted rest, no more of rest, but now thy dying bed! the sheltering rushes whistling o'er thy head, the cold earth with thy bloody bosom prest. perhaps a mother's anguish adds its woe; the playful pair crowd fondly by thy side; ah! helpless nurslings, who will now provide that life a mother only can bestow! oft as by winding nith, i, musing, wait the sober eve, or hail the cheerful dawn, i'll miss thee sporting o'er the dewy lawn, and curse the ruffian's aim, and mourn thy hapless fate. this, which is one of the best of the very few good poems which burns composed in classical english, is no mere sentimental effusion, but expresses what in him was a real part of his nature--his tender feeling towards his lower fellow-creatures. the same feeling finds (p. 108) expression in the lines on _the mouse_, _the auld farmer's address to his mare_, and _the winter night_, when, as he sits by his fireside, and hears the storm roaring without, he says,- i thought me on the ourie cattle, or silly sheep, wha bide this brattle o' wintry war. or thro' the drift, deep-lairing, sprattle, beneath a scaur. ilk happing bird, wee helpless thing, that in the merry months o' spring, delighted me to hear thee sing, what comes o' thee? whare wilt then cow'r thy chittering wing, and close thy e'e? though for a time, influenced by the advice of critics, burns had tried to compose some poems according to the approved models of book-english, we find him presently reverting to his own doric, which he had lately too much abandoned, and writing in good broad scotch his admirably humorous description of captain grose, an antiquary, whom he had met at friars carse:- hear, land o' cakes, and brither scots, frae maidenkirk to johnnie groats- if there's a hole in a' your coats, i rede you tent it: a chield's amang you, takin' notes, and, faith, he'll prent it. by some auld, houlet-haunted biggin, or kirk deserted by its riggin, it's ten to ane ye'll find him snug in some eldritch part, wi' deils, they say, lord save's! colleaguin' at some black art. it's tauld he was a sodger bred, (p. 109) and ane wad rather fa'n than fled; but now he's quat the spurtle-blade, and dog-skin wallet, and taen the--antiquarian trade, i think they call it. he has a fouth o' auld nick-nackets; rusty airn caps, and jinglin' jackets, wad haud the lothians three in tackets, a towmont gude and parritch-pats and auld saut-backets, before the flood. * * * * * forbye, he'll shape you aff fu' gleg the cut of adam's philibeg; the knife that nicket abel's craig he'll prove you fully, it was a faulding jocteleg or lang-kail gullie. the meeting with captain grose took place in the summer of 1789, and the stanzas just given were written probably about the same time. to the same date belongs his ballad called _the kirk's alarm_, in which he once more reverts to the defence of one of his old friends of the new light school, who had got into the church courts, and was in jeopardy from the attacks of his more orthodox brethren. the ballad in itself has little merit, except as showing that burns still clung to the same school of divines to which he had early attached himself. in september we find him writing in a more serious strain to mrs. dunlop, and suggesting thoughts which might console her in some affliction under which she was suffering. "... in vain would we reason and pretend to doubt. i have myself done so to a very daring pitch; but when i reflected that i was opposing the most ardent wishes, and (p. 110) the most darling hopes of good men, and flying in the face of all human belief, in all ages, i was shocked at my own conduct." that same september burns, with his friend allan masterton, crossed from nithsdale to annandale to visit their common friend nicol, who was spending his vacation in moffatdale. they met and spent a night in nicol's lodging. it was a small thatched cottage, near craigieburn--a place celebrated by burns in one of his songs--and stands on the right-hand side as the traveller passes up moffatdale to yarrow, between the road and the river. few pass that way now without having the cottage pointed out, as the place where the three merry comrades met that night. "we had such a joyous meeting," burns writes, "that mr. masterton and i agreed, each in our own way, that we should celebrate the business," and burns's celebration of it was the famous bacchanalian song,- o, willie brewed a peck o' maut, and bob and allan cam to pree. if bacchanalian songs are to be written at all, this certainly must be pronounced "the king amang them a'." but while no one can withhold admiration from the genius and inimitable humour of the song, still we read it with very mingled feelings, when we think that perhaps it may have helped some topers since burns's day a little faster on the road to ruin. as for the three boon-companions themselves, just ten years after that night, currie wrote, "these three honest fellows--all men of uncommon talents--are now all under the turf." and in 1821, john struthers, a scottish poet little known, but of great worth and some genius, thus recurs to currie's words:- (p. 111) nae mair in learning willie toils, nor allan wakes the melting lay, nor rab, wi' fancy-witching wiles, beguiles the hour o' dawning day; for tho' they were na very fou, that wicked wee drap in the e'e has done its turn; untimely now the green grass waves o'er a' the three. _willie brewed a peck o' maut_ was soon followed by another bacchanalian effusion, the ballad called _the whistle_. three lairds, all neighbours of burns at ellisland, met at friars carse on the 16th of october, 1789, to contend with each other in a drinking-bout. the prize was an ancient ebony whistle, said to have been brought to scotland in the reign of james the sixth by a dane, who, after three days and three nights' contest in hard drinking, was overcome by sir robert laurie, of maxwelton, with whom the whistle remained as a trophy. it passed into the riddell family, and now in burns's time it was to be again contested for in the same rude orgie. burns was appointed the bard to celebrate the contest. much discussion has been carried on by his biographers as to whether burns was present or not. some maintain that he sat out the drinking-match, and shared the deep potations. others, and among these his latest editor, mr. scott douglas, maintain that he was not present that night in body, but only in spirit. anyhow, the ballad remains a monument, if not of his genius, at least of his sympathy with that ancient but now happily exploded form of good fellowship. this "mighty claret-shed at the carse," and the ballad commemorative of it, belong to the 16th of october, 1789. it must have been within a few days of that merry-meeting that burns fell into another and very different mood, which has recorded itself in an immortal lyric. it would seem that from the year 1786 onwards, a cloud of melancholy (p. 112) generally gathered over the poet's soul toward the end of each autumn. this october, as the anniversary of highland mary's death drew on, he was observed by his wife to "grow sad about something, and to wander solitary on the banks of nith, and about his farmyard in the extremest agitation of mind nearly the whole night. he screened himself on the lee-side of a corn-stack from the cutting edge of the night wind, and lingered till approaching dawn wiped out the stars, one by one, from the firmament." some more details lockhart has added, said to have been received from mrs. burns, but these the latest editor regards as mythical. however this may be, it would appear that it was only after his wife had frequently entreated him, that he was persuaded to return to his home, where he sat down and wrote as they now stand, these pathetic lines:- thou lingering star, with lessening ray, that lovest to greet the early morn, again thou usherest in the day my mary from my soul was torn. o mary! dear departed shade! where is thy place of blissful rest? see'st thou thy lover lowly laid? hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast? that burns should have expressed, in such rapid succession, the height of drunken revelry in _willie brewed a peck o' maut_ and in the ballad of _the whistle_, and then the depth of despondent regret in the lines _to mary in heaven_, is highly characteristic of him. to have many moods belongs to the poetic nature, but no poet ever passed more rapidly than burns from one pole of feeling to its very opposite. such a poem as this last could not possibly have proceeded from any but the (p. 113) deepest and most genuine feeling. once again, at the same season, three years later (1792), his thoughts went back to highland mary, and he poured forth his last sad wail for her in the simpler, not less touching song, beginning- ye banks, and braes, and streams around the castle o' montgomery! green be your woods, and fair your flowers, your waters never drumlie; there simmer first unfauld her robes, and there the langest tarry; for there i took the last fareweel o' my sweet highland mary. it would seem as though these retrospects were always accompanied by special despondency. for, at the very time he composed this latter song, he wrote thus to his faithful friend, mrs. dunlop:-"alas! who would wish for many years? what is it but to drag existence until our joys gradually expire, and leave us in a night of misery, like the gloom which blots out the stars, one by one from the face of heaven, and leaves us without a ray of comfort in the howling waste?" to fits of hypochondria and deep dejection he had, as he himself tells us, been subject from his earliest manhood, and he attributes to overtoil in boyhood this tendency which was probably a part of his natural temperament. to a disposition like his, raptures, exaltations, agonies came as naturally as a uniform neutral-tinted existence to more phlegmatic spirits. but we may be sure that every cause of self-reproach which his past life had stored up in his memory tended to keep him more and more familiar with the lower pole in that fluctuating scale. besides these several poems which mark the variety of moods which (p. 114) swept over him during the summer and autumn of 1789, there was also a continual succession of songs on the anvil in preparation for johnson's _museum_. this work of song-making, begun during his second winter in edinburgh, was carried on with little intermission during all the ellisland period. the songs were on all kinds of subjects, and of all degrees of excellence, but hardly one, even the most trivial, was without some small touch which could have come from no hand but that of burns. sometimes they were old songs with a stanza or two added. oftener an old chorus or single line was taken up, and made the hint out of which a new and original song was woven. at other times they were entirely original both in subject and in expression, though cast in the form of the ancient minstrelsy. among so many and so rapidly succeeding efforts, it was only now and then, when a happier moment of inspiration was granted him, that there came forth one song of supreme excellence, perfect alike in conception and in expression. the consummate song of this summer, 1789, was _john anderson my jo, john_, just as _auld lang syne_ and _the silver tassie_ had been those of the former year. during the remainder of the year 1789 burns seems to have continued more or less in the mood of mind indicated by the lines _to mary in heaven_. he was suffering from nervous derangement, and this, as usual with him, made him despondent. this is the way in which he writes to mrs. dunlop on the 13th december, 1789:-"i am groaning under the miseries of a diseased nervous system--a system, the state of which is most conducive to our happiness, or the most productive of our misery. for now near three weeks i have been so ill with a nervous headache, that i have been obliged for a time to give up my excise-books, being scarce able to lift my head, much (p. 115) less to ride once a week over ten muir parishes. what is man?..." and then he goes on to moralize in a half-believing, half-doubting kind of way, on the probability of a life to come, and ends by speaking of or rather apostrophizing jesus christ in a strain which would seem to savour of socinianism. this letter he calls "a distracted scrawl which the writer dare scarcely read." and yet it appears to have been deliberately copied with some amplification from an entry in his last year's commonplace book. even the few passages from his correspondence already given are enough to show that there was in burns's letter-writing something strained and artificial. but such discoveries as this seem to reveal an extent of effort, and even of artifice, which one would hardly otherwise have guessed at. in the same strain of harassment as the preceding extract, but pointing to another and more definite cause of it, is the following, written on the 20th december, 1789, to provost maxwell of lochmaben:-"my poor distracted mind is so torn, so jaded, so racked and bedevilled with the task of the superlatively damned, to make one guinea do the business of three, that i detest, abhor, and swoon at the very word business, though no less than four letters of my very short surname are in it." the rest of the letter goes off in a wild rollicking strain, inconsistent enough with his more serious thoughts. but the part of it above given points to a very real reason for his growing discontent with ellisland. by the beginning of 1790 the hopelessness of his farming prospects pressed on him still more heavily, and formed one ingredient in the mental depression with which he saw a new year dawn. whether he did wisely in attempting the excise business, who shall now say? in (p. 116) one respect it seemed a substantial gain. but this gain was accompanied by counterbalancing disadvantages. the new duties more and more withdrew him from the farm, which, in order to give it any chance of paying, required not only the aid of the master's hand, but the undivided oversight of the master's eye. in fact, farming to profit and excise-work were incompatible, and a very few months' trial must have convinced burns of this. but besides rendering regular farm industry impossible, the weekly absences from home, which his new duties entailed, had other evil consequences. they brought with them continual mental distraction, which forbade all sustained poetic effort, and laid him perilously open to indulgences which were sure to undermine regular habits and peace of mind. about this time (the beginning of 1790), we begin to hear of frequent visits to dumfries on excise business, and of protracted lingerings at a certain _howff_, place of resort, called the globe tavern, which boded no good. there were also intromissions with a certain company of players then resident in dumfries, and writings of such prologues for their second-rate pieces, as many a penny-a-liner could have done to order as well. political ballads, too, came from his pen, siding with this or that party in local elections, all which things as we read, we feel as if we saw some noble high-bred racer harnessed to a dust-cart. his letters during the first half of 1790 betoken the same restless, unsatisfied spirit as those written towards the end of the previous year. only we must be on our guard against interpreting his real state of mind too exclusively from his letters. for it seems to have been his habit when writing to his friends to take one mood of mind, (p. 117) which happened to be uppermost in him for the moment, and with which he knew that his correspondent sympathized, and to dwell on this so exclusively that for the moment it filled his whole mental horizon, and shut out every other thought. and not this only, which is the tendency of all ardent and impulsive natures, but we cannot altogether excuse burns of at times half-consciously exaggerating these momentary moods, almost for certain stage effects which they produced. it is necessary, therefore, in estimating his real condition at any time, to set against the account, which he gives of himself in his letters, the evidence of other facts, such as the testimony of those who met him from time to time, and who have left some record of those interviews. this i shall now do for the first half of the year 1790, and shall place, over against his self-revelations, some observations which show how he at this time appeared to others. an intelligent man named william clark, who had served burns as a ploughman at ellisland during the winter half-year of 1789-90, survived till 1838, and in his old age gave this account of his former master: "burns kept two men and two women servants, but he invariably when at home took his meals with his wife and family in the little parlour." clark thought he was as good a manager of land as most of the farmers in the neighbourhood. the farm of ellisland was moderately rented, and was susceptible of much improvement, had improvement been then in repute. burns sometimes visited the neighbouring farmers, and they returned the compliment; but that way of spending time was not so common then as now. no one thought that the poet and his writings would be so much noticed afterwards. he kept nine or ten milch (p. 118) cows, some young cattle, four horses, and several pet sheep: of the latter he was very fond. during the winter and spring-time, when not engaged in excise business, "he sometimes held the plough for an hour or two for him (w. clark), and was a fair workman. during seed-time, burns might be frequently seen at an early hour in the fields with his sowing sheet; but as he was often called away on business, he did not sow the whole of his grain." this old man went on to describe burns as a kindly and indulgent master, who spoke familiarly to his servants, both at home and a-field; quick-tempered, when anything put him out, but quickly pacified. once only clark saw him really angry, when one of the lasses had nearly choked one of the cows by giving her potatoes not cut small enough. burns's looks, gestures, and voice were then terrible. clark slunk out of the way, and when he returned, his master was quite calm again. when there was extra work to be done, he would give his servants a dram, but he was by no means _over-flush_ in this way. during the six months of his service, clark never once saw burns intoxicated or incapable of managing his business. the poet, when at home, used to wear a broad blue bonnet, a long-tailed coat, drab or blue, corduroy breeches, dark blue stockings, with _cootikens_ or gaiters. in cold weather he would have a plaid of black and white check wrapped round his shoulders. the same old man described mrs. burns as a good and prudent housewife, keeping everything neat and tidy, well liked by her servants, for whom she provided good and abundant fare. when they parted, burns paid clark his wages in full, gave him a written character, and a shilling for a _fairing_. in the summer or autumn of the same year, the scholarly ramsay of (p. 119) ochtertyre in the course of a tour looked in on burns, and here is the record of his visit which ramsay gave in a letter to currie. "seeing him pass quickly near closeburn, i said to my companion, 'that is burns.' on coming to the inn the hostler told us he would be back in a few hours to grant permits; that where he met with anything seizable, he was no better than any other gauger; in everything else that he was perfectly a gentleman. after leaving a note to be delivered to him on his return, i proceeded to his house, being curious to see his jean. i was much pleased with his 'uxor sabina qualis,' and the poet's modest mansion, so unlike the habitation of ordinary rustics. in the evening he suddenly bounced in upon us, and said, as he entered, 'i come, to use the words of shakespeare, _stewed in haste_.' in fact, he had ridden incredibly fast after receiving my note. we fell into conversation directly, and soon got into the _mare magnum_ of poetry. he told me he had now gotten a subject for a drama, which he was to call _rob mcquechan's elshin_, from a popular story of robert bruce being defeated on the water of cairn, when the heel of his boot having loosened in his flight, he applied to robert macquechan to fit it, who, to make sure, ran his awl nine inches up the king's heel. we were now going on at a great rate, when mr. stewart popped in his head, which put a stop to our discourse, which had become very interesting. yet in a little while it was resumed, and such was the force and versatility of the bard's genius, that he made the tears run down mr. stewart's cheeks, albeit unused to the poetic strain. from that time we met no more, and i was grieved at the reports of him afterwards. poor burns! we shall hardly ever see his like again. he was, in truth, a sort of comet in literature, irregular in its motions, which did (p. 120) no good, proportioned to the blaze of light it displayed." it seems that during this autumn there came a momentary blink in burns's clouded sky, a blink which alas never brightened into full sunshine. he had been but a year in the excise employment, when, through the renewed kindness of mr. graham of fintray, there seemed a near prospect of his being promoted to a supervisorship, which would have given him an income of 200_l._ a year. so probable at the time did it seem, that his friend nicol wrote to ainslie expressing some fears that the poet might turn his back on his old friends when to the pride of applauded genius was added the pride of office and income. this may have been ironical on nicol's part, but he might have spared his irony on his friend, for the promotion never came. but what had burns been doing for the last year in poetic production? in this respect--the whole interval between the composition of the lines _to mary in heaven_, in october, 1789, and the autumn of the succeeding year, is almost a blank. three electioneering ballads, besides a few trivial pieces, make up the whole. there is not a line written by him during this year which, if it were deleted from his works, would anyway impair his poetic fame. but this long barrenness was atoned for by a burst of inspiration which came on him, in the fall of 1790, and struck off at one heat the matchless _tale of tam o' shanter_. it was to the meeting already noticed of burns with captain grose, the antiquary, at friars carse, that we owe this wonderful poem. the poet and the antiquary suited each other exactly, and they soon became unco pack and thick thegither. burns asked his friend when he reached ayrshire to make a drawing (p. 121) of alloway kirk, and include it in his sketches, for it was dear to him because it was the resting-place of his father, and there he himself might some day lay his bones. to induce grose to do this, burns told him that alloway kirk was the scene of many witch stories and weird sights. the antiquary replied, "write you a poem on the scene, and i'll put in the verses with an engraving of the ruin." burns having found a fitting day and hour, when "his barmy noddle was working prime," walked out to his favourite path down the western bank of the river. the poem was the work of one day, of which mrs. burns retained a vivid recollection. her husband had spent most of the day by the river side, and in the afternoon she joined him with her two children. he was busily engaged _crooning to himsel_; and mrs. burns, perceiving that her presence was an interruption, loitered behind with her little ones among the broom. her attention was presently attracted by the strange and wild gesticulations of the bard, who was now seen at some distance, agonized with an ungovernable access of joy. he was reciting very loud, and with tears rolling down his cheeks, those animated verses which he had just conceived,- now tam! o tam! had thae been queans, a' plump and strappin' in their teens.' "i wish ye had seen him," said his wife; "he was in such ecstasy that the tears were happing down his cheeks." these last words are given by allan cunningham, in addition to the above account, which lockhart got from a manuscript journal of cromek. the poet having committed the verses to writing on the top of his sod-dyke above the water, (p. 122) came into the house, and read them immediately in high triumph at the fireside. thus in the case of two of burns's best poems, we have an account of the bard as he appeared in his hour of inspiration, not to any literary friend bent on pictorial effect, but from the plain narrative of his simple and admiring wife. burns speaks of _tam o' shanter_ as his first attempt at a tale in verse--unfortunately it was also his last. he himself regarded it as his master-piece of all his poems, and posterity has not, i believe, reversed the judgment. in this, one of his happiest flights, burns's imagination bore him from the vale of nith back to the banks of doon, and to the weird tales he had there heard in childhood, told by the winter firesides. the characters of the poem have been identified; that of tam is taken from a farmer, douglas graham, who lived at the farm of shanter, in the parish of kirkoswald. he had a scolding wife, called helen mctaggart, and the tombstones of both are pointed out in kirkoswald kirkyard. souter johnnie is more uncertain, but is supposed, with some probability, to have been john davidson, a shoemaker, who lies buried in the same place. yet, from burns's poem we would gather that this latter lived in ayr. but these things matter little. from his experience of the smuggling farmers of kirkoswald, among whom "he first became acquainted with scenes of swaggering and riot," and his remembrance of the tales that haunted the spot where he passed his childhood, combined with his knowledge of the peasantry, their habits and superstitions, burns's imagination wove the inimitable tale. after this, the best poetic offspring of the ellisland period, burns composed only a few short pieces during his tenancy of that farm. (p. 123) among these, however, was one which cannot be passed over. in january, 1791, the earl of glencairn, who had been his first, and, it may be almost said, his only real friend and patron among the scottish peerage, died at the early age of forty-two, just as he returned to falmouth after a vain search for health abroad. burns had always loved and honoured lord glencairn, as well he might,--although his lordship's gentleness had not always missed giving offence to the poet's sensitive and proud spirit. yet on the whole he was the best patron whom burns had found, or was ever to find among his countrymen. when then he heard of the earl's death, he mourned his loss as that of a true friend, and poured forth a fine lament, which concludes with the following well-known lines:- the bridegroom may forget the bride, was made his wedded wife yestreen; the monarch may forget the crown, that on his head an hour has been; the mother may forget the child, that smiles sae sweetly on her knee; but i'll remember thee, glencairn, and a' that thou hast done for me. burns's elegies, except when they are comical, are not among his happiest efforts. some of them are frigid and affected. but this was the genuine language of sincere grief. he afterwards showed the permanence of his affection by calling one of his boys james glencairn. a few songs make up the roll of the ellisland productions during 1791. one only of these is noteworthy--that most popular song, _the banks o' doon_. his own words in sending it to a friend are these:--"march, 1791. while here i sit, sad and solitary, by the side of a fire, (p. 124) in a little country inn, and drying my wet clothes, in pops a poor fellow of a sodger, and tells me he is going to ayr. by heavens! say i to myself, with a tide of good spirits, which the magic of that sound, 'auld toon o' ayr,' conjured up, i will send my last song to mr. ballantine." then he gives the second and best version of the song, beginning thus- ye flowery banks o' bonnie doon, how can ye blume sae fair? how can ye chant, ye little birds, and i sae fu' o' care! the latest edition of burns's works, by mr. scott douglas, gives three different versions of this song. any one who will compare these, will see the truth of that remark of the poet, in one of his letters to dr. moore, "i have no doubt that the knack, the aptitude to learn the muses' trade is a gift bestowed by him who forms the secret bias of the soul; but i as firmly believe that excellence in the profession is the fruit of industry, attention, labour, and pains; at least i am resolved to try my doctrine by the test of experience." the second version was that which burns wrought out by careful revision, from an earlier one. compare, for instance, with the verse given above, the first verse as originally struck off,- sweet are the banks, the banks of doon, the spreading flowers are fair, and everything is blythe and glad, but i am fu' of care. and the other changes he made on the first draught are all in the (p. 125) way of improvement. it is painful to know, on the authority of allan cunningham, that he who composed this pure and perfect song, and many another such, sometimes chose to work in baser metal, and that song-ware of a lower kind escaped from his hands into the press, and could never afterwards be recalled. * * * * * when burns told dr. moore that he was resolved to try by the test of experience the doctrine that good and permanent poetry could not be composed without industry and pains, he had in view other and wider plans of composition than any which he ever realized. he told ramsay of ochtertyre, as we have seen, that he had in view to render into poetry a tradition he had found of an adventure in humble life which bruce met with during his wanderings. whether he ever did more than think over the story of rob mcquechan's elshin, or into what poetic form he intended to cast it, we know not. as sir walter said, any poem he might have produced on this subject would certainly have wanted that tinge of chivalrous feeling which the manners of the age and the character of the king alike demanded. but with burns's ardent admiration of bruce, and that power of combining the most homely and humorous incidents with the pathetic and the sublime, which he displayed in _tam o' shanter_, we cannot but regret that he never had the leisure and freedom from care, which would have allowed him to try his hand on a subject so entirely to his mind. besides this, he had evidently, during his sojourn at ellisland, meditated some large dramatic attempt. he wrote to one of his correspondents that he had set himself to study shakespeare, and intended to master all the greatest dramatists, both of england (p. 126) and france, with a view to a dramatic effort of his own. if he had attempted it in pure english, we may venture to predict that he would have failed. but had he allowed himself that free use of the scottish dialect of which he was the supreme master, especially if he had shaped the subject into a lyrical drama, no one can say what he might not have achieved. many of his smaller poems show that he possessed the genuine dramatic vein. _the jolly beggars_, unpleasant as from its grossness it is, shows the presence of this vein in a very high degree, seeing that from materials so unpromising he could make so much. as mr. lockhart has said, "that extraordinary sketch, coupled with his later lyrics in a higher vein, is enough to show that in him we had a master capable of placing the musical drama on a level with the loftiest of our classical forms." regrets have been expressed that burns, instead of addressing himself to these high poetic enterprises, which had certainly hovered before him, frittered away so much of his time in composing for musical collections a large number of songs, the very abundance of which must have lessened their quality. and yet it may be doubted whether this urgent demand for songs, made on him by johnson and thomson, was not the only literary call to which he would in his circumstances have responded. these calls could be met by sudden efforts, at leisure moments, when some occasional blink of momentary inspiration came over him. great poems necessarily presuppose that the original inspiration is sustained by concentrated purpose and long-sustained effort; mental habits, which to a nature like burns must have at all times been difficult, and which his circumstances during his later years rendered simply impossible. from the first he had seen that his farm would (p. 127) not pay, and each succeeding year confirmed him in this conviction. to escape what he calls "the crushing grip of poverty, which, alas! i fear, is less or more fatal to the worth and purity of the noblest souls," he had, within a year after entering ellisland, recourse to excise work. this he did from a stern sense of duty to his wife and family. it was, in fact, one of the most marked instances in which burns, contrary to his too frequent habit, put pride in his pocket, and sacrificed inclination to duty. but that he had not accepted the yoke without some painful sense of degradation, is shown by the bitterness of many of his remarks, when in his correspondence he alludes to the subject. there were, however, times when he tried to take a brighter view of it, and to persuade himself, as he says in a letter to lady harriet don, that "one advantage he had in this new business was the knowledge it gave him of the various shades of character in man--consequently assisting him in his trade as a poet." but, alas! whatever advantages in this way it might have brought, were counteracted tenfold by other circumstances that attended it. the continual calls of a responsible business, itself sufficient to occupy a man,--when divided with the oversight of his farm, overtasked his powers, and left him no leisure for poetic work, except from time to time crooning over a random song. then the habits which his roving excise life must have induced were, even to a soul less social than that of burns, perilous in the extreme. the temptations he was in this way exposed to, lockhart has drawn with a powerful hand. "from the castle to the cottage, every door flew open at his approach; and the old system of hospitality, then flourishing, rendered it difficult for the most soberly inclined guest to rise from any man's board (p. 128) in the same trim that he sat down to it. the farmer, if burns was seen passing, left his reapers, and trotted by the side of jenny geddes, until he could persuade the bard that the day was hot enough to demand an extra libation. if he entered an inn at midnight, after all the inmates were in bed, the news of his arrival circulated from the cellar to the garret; and ere ten minutes had elapsed, the landlord and all his guests were assembled round the ingle; the largest punch-bowl was produced, and,- be ours to-night--who knows what comes to-morrow? was the language of every eye in the circle that welcomed him. the highest gentry of the neighbourhood, when bent on special merriment, did not think the occasion complete unless the wit and eloquence of burns were called in to enliven their carousals." it can readily be imagined how distracting such a life must have been, how fatal to all mental concentration on high objects, not to speak of the habits, of which it was too sure to sow the seeds. the frequent visits to dumfries, which his excise work entailed, and the haunting of the globe tavern, already spoken of, led to consequences, which more than even deep potations, must have been fatal to his peace. his stay at ellisland is now hastening to a close. before passing, however, from that, on the whole the best period of his life since manhood, one or two incidents of the spring of 1791 must be mentioned. in the february of that year burns received from the rev. archibald alison, episcopalian clergyman in edinburgh, a copy of his once famous, but now, i believe, forgotten, _essay on taste_, which contained (p. 129) the authorized exposition of that theory, so congenial to scotch metaphysics, that objects seem beautiful to us only because our minds associate them with sensible objects which have previously given us pleasure. in his letter to the author, acknowledging the receipt of his book, burns says, "i own, sir, at first glance, several of your propositions startle me as paradoxical: that the martial clangour of a trumpet had something in it vastly more grand, heroic, and sublime than the twingle-twangle of a jew's-harp; that the delicate flexure of a rose-twig, when the half-blown flower is heavy with the tears of the dawn, was infinitely more beautiful and elegant than the upright stub of a burdock; and that from something innate and independent of all association of ideas--these i had set down as irrefragable orthodox truths until perusing your book shook my faith." these words so pierce this soap-bubble of the metaphysicians, that we can hardly read them without fancying that the poet meant them to be ironical. dugald steward expressed surprise that the unschooled ayrshire ploughman should have formed "a distinct conception of the general principles of the doctrine of association;" on which mr. carlyle remarks, "we rather think that far subtler things than the doctrine of association had been of old familiar to him." in looking over his letters at this time (1791), we are startled by a fierce outburst in one of them, apparently apropos of nothing. he had been recommending to the protection of an edinburgh friend a schoolmaster, whom he thought unjustly persecuted, when all at once he breaks out: "god help the children of dependence! hated and persecuted by their enemies, and too often, alas! almost unexceptionally, received by their friends with disrespect and reproach, under the thin disguise of cold civility and humiliating advice. oh to be a sturdy savage, (p. 130) 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-speaking 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.... i do not want to be independent that i may sin, but i want to be independent in my sinning." what may have been the cause of this ferocious explosion there is no explanation. whether the real source of it may not have lain in certain facts which had occurred during the past spring, that must have rudely broken in on the peace at once of his conscience and his home, we cannot say. certainly it does seem, as chambers suggests, like one of those sudden outbursts of temper which fasten on some mere passing accident, because the real seat of it lies too deep for words. some instances of the same temper we have already seen. this is a sample of a growing exasperation of spirit, which found expression from time to time till the close of his life. let us turn from this painful subject, to one of the only notices we get of him from a stranger's hand during the summer of 1791. two english gentlemen, who were travelling, went to visit him; one of whom has left an amusing account of their reception. calling at his house, they were told that the poet was by the river-side, and thither they went in search of him. on a rock that projected into the stream, they saw a man employed in angling, of a singular appearance. he had a cap of fox's skin on his head, a loose great coat fixed round him by a (p. 131) belt, from which depended an enormous highland broadsword. it was burns. he received them with great cordiality, and asked them to share his humble dinner--an invitation which they accepted. "on the table they found boiled beef, with vegetables and barley broth, after the manner of scotland. after dinner the bard told them ingenuously that he had no wine, nothing better than highland whiskey, a bottle of which he set on the board. he produced at the same time his punch-bowl, made of inverary marble; and, mixing it with water and sugar, filled their glasses and invited them to drink. the travellers were in haste, and, besides, the flavour of the whiskey to their southern palates was scarcely tolerable; but the generous poet offered them his best, and his ardent hospitality they found impossible to resist. burns was in his happiest mood, and the charm of his conversation was altogether fascinating. he ranged over a variety of topics, illuminating whatever he touched. he related the tales of his infancy and youth; he recited some of his gayest and some of his tenderest poems; in the wildest of his strains of mirth he threw in some touches of melancholy, and spread around him the electric emotions of his powerful mind. the highland whiskey improved in its flavour; the marble bowl was again and again emptied and replenished; the guests of our poet forgot the flight of time and the dictates of prudence; at the hour of midnight they lost their way to dumfries, and could scarcely distinguish it when assisted by the morning's dawn. there is much naïveté in the way the english visitor narrates his experience of that 'nicht wi' burns." mr. carlyle, if we remember aright, has smiled incredulously at (p. 132) the story of the fox-skin cap, the belt, and the broadsword. but of the latter appendage this is not the only record. burns himself mentions it as a frequent accompaniment of his when he went out by the river. the punch-bowl here mentioned is the one which his father-in-law had wrought for him as a marriage-gift. it was, when chambers wrote his biography of burns, in the possession of mr. haistie, then m.p. for paisley, who is said to have refused for it three hundred guineas--"a sum," says chambers, "that would have set burns on his legs for ever." this is the last glimpse we get of the poet in his home at ellisland till the end came. we have seen that he had long determined if possible to get rid of his farm. he had sunk in it all the proceeds that remained to him from the sale of the second edition of his poems, and for this the crops he had hitherto reaped had given no adequate return. three years, however, were a short trial, and there was a good time coming for all farmers, when the war with france broke out, and raised the value of farm produce to a hitherto unknown amount. if burns could but have waited for that!--but either he could not, or he would not wait. but the truth is, even if burns ever had it in him to succeed as a farmer, that time was past when he came to ellisland. independence at the plough-tail, of which he often boasted, was no longer possible for him. he could no more work as he had done of yore. the habits contracted in edinburgh had penetrated too deeply. even if he had not been withdrawn from his farm by excise duties, he could neither work continuously himself, nor make his servants work. "faith," said a neighbouring farmer, "how could he miss but fail? (p. 133) he brought with him a bevy of servants from ayrshire. the lasses did nothing but bake bread (that is, oat-cakes), and the lads sat by the fireside and ate it warm with ale." burns meanwhile enjoying himself at the house of some jovial farmer or convivial laird. how could he miss but fail? when he had resolved on giving up his farm, an arrangement was come to with the laird of dalswinton by which burns was allowed to throw up his lease and sell off his crops. the sale took place in the last week in august (1791). even at this day the auctioneer and the bottle always appear side by side, as chambers observes; but then far more than now-a-days. after the roup, that is the sale, of his crop was over, burns, in one of his letters, describes the scene that took place within and without his house. it was one which exceeded anything he had ever seen in drunken horrors. mrs. burns and her family fortunately were not there to witness it, having gone many weeks before to ayrshire, probably to be out of the way of all the pain that accompanies the breaking up of a country home. when burns gave up his lease, mr. miller, the landlord, sold ellisland to a stranger, because the farm was an outlying one, inconveniently situated, on a different side of the river from the rest of his estate. it was in november or december that burns sold off his farm-stock and implements of husbandry, and moved his family and furniture into the town of dumfries, leaving at ellisland no memorial of himself, as allan cunningham tells us, "but a putting-stone with which he loved to exercise his strength, and 300_l._ of his money, sunk beyond redemption in a speculation from which all had augured happiness." it is not without deep regret that even now we think of burns's (p. 134) departure from this beautiful spot. if there was any position on earth in which he could have been happy and fulfilled his genius, it would have been on such a farm--always providing that it could have given him the means of a comfortable livelihood, and that he himself could have guided his ways aright. that he might have had a fair opportunity, how often one has wished that he could have met some landlord who could have acted towards him, as the present duke of buccleuch did towards the ettrick shepherd in his later days, and have given a farm on which he could have sat rent-free. such an act, one is apt to fancy, would have been honourable alike to giver and receiver. indeed, a truly noble nature would have been only too grateful to find such an opportunity put in his way of employing a small part of his wealth for so good an end. but the notions of modern society, founded as they are so entirely on individual independence, for the most part preclude the doing and the receiving of such favours. and with this social feeling no man was ever more filled than burns. chapter vi. (p. 135) migration to dumfries. a great change it must have been to pass from the pleasant holms and broomy banks of the nith at ellisland to a town home in the wee vennel of dumfries. it was, moreover, a confession visible to the world of what burns himself had long felt, that his endeavour to combine the actual and the ideal, his natural calling as a farmer with the exercise of his gift as a poet, had failed, and that henceforth he must submit to a round of toil, which, neither in itself nor in its surroundings, had anything to redeem it from commonplace drudgery. he must have felt from the time when he first became exciseman, that he had parted company with all thought of steadily working out his ideal, and that whatever he might now do in that way must be by random snatches. to his proud spirit the name of gauger must have been gall and wormwood, and it is much to his credit that for the sake of his wife and children he was content to undergo what he often felt to be a social obloquy. it would have been well for him if this had been the only drawback to his new calling. unfortunately the life into which it led him, exposed him to those very temptations which his nature was least able to withstand. if social indulgence and irregular habits had somewhat impaired his better resolves, and his power of poetic (p. 136) concentration, before he left ellisland, dumfries, and the society into which it threw him, did with increased rapidity the fatal work which had been already begun. his biographers, though with varying degrees of emphasis, on the whole agree, that from the time he settled in dumfries, "his moral course was downwards." the social condition of dumfries at the time when burns went to live in it was neither better nor worse than that of other provincial towns in scotland. what that was, dr. chambers has depicted from his own youthful experience of just such another country town. the curse of such towns, he tells us, was that large numbers of their inhabitants were either half or wholly idle; either men living on competences, with nothing to do, or shopkeepers with their time but half employed; their only amusement to meet in taverns, soak, gossip, and make stupid personal jokes. "the weary waste of spirits and energy at those soaking evening meetings was deplorable. insipid toasts, petty raillery, empty gabble about trivial occurrences, endless disputes on small questions of fact, these relieved now and then by a song,"--such chambers describes as the items which made up provincial town life in his younger days. "a life," he says, "it was without progress or profit, or anything that tended to moral elevation." for such dull companies to get a spirit like burns among them, to enliven them with his wit and eloquence, what a windfall it must have been! but for him to put his time and his powers at their disposal, how great the degradation! during the day, no doubt, he was employed busily enough in doing his duty as an exciseman. this could now be done with less travelling than in the ellisland days, and did not require him as formerly to keep a horse. when the day's work was over, his small (p. 137) house in the wee vennel, and the domestic hearth with the family ties gathered round it, were not enough for him. at ellisland he had sung,- to make a happy fire-side clime, for weans and wife, is the true pathos and sublime of human life. but it is one thing to sing wisely, another to practise wisdom. too frequently at nights burns's love of sociality and excitement drove him forth to seek the companionship of neighbours and drouthy cronies, who gathered habitually at the globe tavern and other such haunts. from these he was always sure to meet a warm welcome, abundant appreciation, and even flattery, for to this he was not inaccessible, while their humble station did not jar in any way on his social prejudices, nor their mediocre talents interfere with his love of pre-eminence. in such companies burns no doubt had the gratification of feeling that he was, what is proverbially called, cock of the walk. the desire to be so probably grew with that growing dislike to the rich and the titled, which was observed in him after he came to dumfries. in earlier days we have seen that he did not shrink from the society of the greatest magnates, and when they showed him that deference which he thought his due, he even enjoyed it. but now so bitter had grown his scorn and dislike of the upper classes, that we are told that if any one named a lord, or alluded to a man of rank in his presence, he instantly "crushed the offender in an epigram, or insulted him by some sarcastic sally." in a letter written during his first year at dumfries, this is the way he speaks of his daily occupations:--"hurry of business, grinding the faces of the (p. 138) publican and the sinner on the merciless wheels of the excise, making ballads, and then drinking and singing them; and over and above all, correcting the press of two different publications." but besides these duties by day, and the convivialities by night, there were other calls on his time and strength, to which burns was by his reputation exposed. when those of the country gentry whom he still knew were in dumfries for some hours, or when any party of strangers passing through the town, had an idle evening on their hands, it seems to have been their custom to summon burns to assist them in spending it; and he was weak enough, on receiving the message, to leave his home and adjourn to the globe, the george, or the king's arms, there to drink with them late into the night, and waste his powers for their amusement. verily, a samson, as has been said, making sport for philistines! to one such invitation his impromptu answer was- the king's most humble servant, i can scarcely spare a minute; but i'll be with you by-and-by, or else the devil's in it. and this we may be sure was the spirit of many another reply to these ill-omened invitations. it would have been well if, on these occasions, the pride he boasted of had stood him in better stead, and repelled such unjustifiable intrusions. but in this, as in so many other respects, burns was the most inconsistent of men. from the time of his migration to dumfries, it would appear that he was gradually dropped out of acquaintance by most of the dumfriesshire lairds, as he had long been by the parochial and all other (p. 139) ministers. i have only conversed with one person who remembered in his boyhood to have seen burns. he was the son of a dumfriesshire baronet, the representative of the house of redgauntlet. the poet was frequently in the neighbourhood of the baronet's country seat, but the old gentleman so highly disapproved of "robbie burns," that he forbade his sons to have anything to do with him. my informant, therefore, though he had often seen, had never spoken to the poet. when i conversed with him, his age was nigh four score years, and the one thing he remembered about burns was "the blink of his black eye." this is probably but a sample of the feeling with which burns was regarded by most of the country gentry around dumfries. what were the various ingredients that made up their dislike of him, it is not easy now exactly to determine. politics most likely had a good deal to do with it, for they were tories and aristocrats, burns was a whig and something more. though politics may have formed the chief, they were not probably the only element in their aversion. yet though the majority of the county families turned their backs on him, there were some with which he still continued intimate. these were either the few whig magnates of the southern counties, whose political projects he supported by electioneering ballads, charged with all the powers of sarcasm he could wield; or those still fewer, whose literary tastes were strong enough to make them willing, for the sake of his genius, to tolerate both his radical politics and his irregular life. among these latter was a younger brother of burns's old friend, glen riddel, mr. walter riddel, who with his wife had settled at a place four miles from dumfries, formerly called goldie-lea, but named after mrs. riddel's maiden name, woodley (p. 140) park. mrs. riddel was handsome, clever, witty, not without some tincture of letters, and some turn for verse-making. she and her husband welcomed the poet to woodley park, where for two years he was a constant and favourite guest. the lady's wit and literary taste found, it may be believed, no other so responsive spirit in all the south of scotland. in the third year came a breach in their friendship, followed by a savage lampoon of burns on the lady, because she did not at once accept his apology; then, a period of estrangement. after an interval, however, the riddels forgave the insult, and were reconciled to the poet, and when the end came, mrs. riddel did her best to befriend him, and to do honour to his memory when he was gone. it ought perhaps to have been mentioned before, that about the time of burns's first settling at dumfries, that is towards the close of 1791, he paid his last visit to edinburgh. it was occasioned by the news that clarinda was about to sail for the west indies, in search of the husband who had forsaken her. since burns's marriage the silence between them seems to have been broken by only two letters to clarinda from ellisland. in the first of these he resents the name of "villain," with which she appears to have saluted him. in the second he admits that his past conduct had been wrong, but concludes by repeating his error and enclosing a song addressed to her in the most exaggerated strain of love. now he rushed to edinburgh to see her once more before she sailed. the interview was a brief and hurried one, and no record of it remains, except some letters and a few impassioned lyrics which about that time he addressed to her. the first letter is stiff and formal, as if to break the ice of long estrangement. the others are in the last strain of rapturous devotion--language (p. 141) which, if feigned, is the height of folly; if real, is worse. the lyrics are some of them strained and artificial. one, however, stands out from all the rest, as one of the most impassioned effusions that burns ever poured forth. it contains that one consummate stanza in which scott, byron, and many more, saw concentrated "the essence of a thousand love-tales,"- had we never loved so kindly, had we never loved so blindly; never met, or never parted, we had ne'er been broken-hearted. after a time mrs. m'lehose returned from the west indies, but without having recovered her truant husband. on her return, one or two more letters burns wrote to her in the old exaggerated strain--the last in june, 1794--after which clarinda disappears from the scene. other delilahs on a smaller scale burns met with during his dumfries sojourn, and to these he was ever and anon addressing songs of fancied love. by the attentions which the wayward husband was continually paying to ladies and others into whose society his wife could not accompany him, the patience of "bonny jean," it may easily be conceived, must have been severely tried. it would have been well, however, if stray flirtations and platonic affections had been all that could be laid to his charge. but there is a darker story. the facts of it are told by chambers in connexion with the earlier part of the dumfries period, and need not be repeated here. mrs. burns is said to have been a marvel of long-suffering and forgivingness; but the way she bore those wrongs must have touched her husband's better nature, and pierced him to the quick. when his calmer moments came, that very mildness must have made him feel, as (p. 142) nothing else could, what self-reproach was, and what self-contempt bitterer to drink than blood. to the pangs of that remorse have, i doubt not, been truly attributed those bitter outpourings of disgust with the world and with society, which are to be found in some of his letters, especially in those of his later years. some samples of these outbreaks have been given, more might easily have been added. the injuries he may have received from the world and society, what were they compared with those which he could not help feeling that he had inflicted on himself? it is when a man's own conscience is against him that the world looks worst. during the first year at dumfries, burns for the first time began to dabble in politics, which ere long landed him in serious trouble. before this, though he had passed for a sort of jacobite, he had been in reality a whig. while he lived in edinburgh he had consorted more with whigs than with tories, but yet he had not in any marked way committed himself as a partisan. the only exception to this were some expressions in his poetry favourable to the stuarts, and his avowed dislike to the brunswick dynasty. yet, notwithstanding these, his jacobitism was but skin deep. it was only with him, as with so many another scot of that day, the expression of his discontent with the union of 1707, and his sense of the national degradation that had followed it. when in song he sighed to see _jamie come hame_, this was only a sentimental protest against the existing order of things. but by the time he came to dumfries the day of jacobitism was over, (p. 143) and the whole aspect of the political heavens seemed dark with coming change. the french revolution was in full swing, and vibrations of it were felt in the remotest corners of europe. these reached even to the dull provincial towns of scotland, and roused the pot-house politicians with whom burns consorted, at the globe and other taverns, to unwonted excitement. under this new stimulus, burns's previous jacobitism passed towards the opposite, but not very distant, extreme of jacobinism. at these gatherings we may easily imagine that, with his native eloquence, his debating power, trained in the tarbolton club, and his ambition to shine as a public speaker, the voice of burns would be the loudest and most vehement. liberty, equality, fraternity, these were words which must have found an echo in his inmost heart. but it was not only the abstract rights of man, but the concrete wrongs of scotland that would be there discussed. and wrongs no doubt there were, under which scotland was suffering, ever since the union had destroyed not only her nationality, but almost her political existence. the franchise had become very close--in the counties restricted to a few of the chief families--in the boroughs thrown into the hands of the baillies, who were venal beyond conception. it was the day, too, of henry dundas. a prominent member of the pitt administration, he ruled scotland as an autocrat, and as the dispenser of all her patronage. a patriotic autocrat no doubt, loving his country, and providing well for those of her people whom he favoured--still an autocrat. the despotism of dundas has been pictured, in colours we may well believe sufficiently strong, by lord cockburn and others bent on inditing the epic of whiggery, in which they and their friends should figure as heroes and martyrs. but whatever may be said against dundas's régime, as a permanent (p. 144) system, it must be allowed that this was no time to remodel it when england was face to face with the french troubles. when the tempest is breaking over the ship, the captain may reasonably be excused for thinking that the moment would be ill chosen for renewing cordage or repairing timbers. whatever may have been right in a time of quiet, it was not unnatural that the pitt administration should postpone all thoughts of reform, till the vessel of the state had weathered the storm which was then upon her. besides his conviction as to public wrongs to be redressed, burns had, he thought, personal grievances to complain of, which, as is so often seen, added fuel to his reforming zeal. his great powers, which he believed entitled him to a very different position, were unacknowledged and disregarded by the then dispensers of patronage. once he had been an admirer of pitt, latterly he could not bear the mention of his name. of the ministry, addington, we have seen, was fully alive to his merits, and pressed his claims on pitt, who himself was quite awake to the charm of burns's poetry. the premier, it is said, "pushed the bottle on to dundas, and did nothing,"--to dundas, too practical and too prosaic to waste a thought on poets and poetry. latterly this neglect of him by public men preyed on the spirit of burns, and was seldom absent from his thoughts. it added force, no doubt, to the rapture with which he, like all the younger poets of the time, hailed the french revolution, and the fancied dawn of that day, which would place plebeian genius and worth in those high places, whence titled emptiness and landed incapacity would be at length thrust ignominiously down. burns had not been more than three months in dumfries, before he (p. 145) found an opportunity of testifying by deed his sympathy with the french revolutionists. at that time the whole coast of the solway swarmed with smuggling vessels, carrying on a contraband traffic, and manned by men of reckless character, like the dirk hatteraick of _guy mannering_. in 1792, a suspicious-looking brig appeared in the solway, and burns, with other excisemen, was set to watch her motions. she got into shallow water, when the gaugers, enforced by some dragoons, waded out to her, and burns, sword in hand, was the first to board her. the captured brig "rosamond," with all her arms and stores, was sold next day at dumfries, and burns became the purchaser of four of her guns. these he sent, with a letter, to the french legislative assembly, requesting them to accept the present as a mark of his admiration and sympathy. the guns with the letter never reached their destination. they were, however, intercepted by the custom-house officers at dover, and burns at once became a suspected man in the eye of the government. lockhart, who tells this incident, connects with it the song, _the deil's awa' wi' the exciseman_, which burns, he said, composed while waiting on the shore to watch the brig. but mr. scott douglas doubts whether the song is referable to this occasion. however this may be, the folly of burns's act can hardly be disputed. he was in the employ of government, and had no right to express in this way his sympathy with a movement, which, he must have known, the government, under whom he served, regarded, if not yet with open hostility, at least with jealous suspicion. men who think it part of their personal right and public duty unreservedly to express, by word and deed, their views on politics, had better not seek employment in the public service. (p. 146) burns having once drawn upon himself the suspicions of his superiors, all his words and actions were no doubt closely watched. it was found that he 'gat the gazetteer,' a revolutionary print published in edinburgh, which only the most extreme men patronized, and which after a few months' existence was suppressed by government. as the year 1792 drew to a close, the political heaven, both at home and abroad, became ominously dark. in paris the king was in prison, the reign of terror had begun, and innocent blood of loyalists flowed freely in the streets; the republic which had been established was threatening to propagate its principles in other countries by force of arms. in this country, what at the beginning of the year had been but suspicion of france, was now turned to avowed hostility, and war against the republic was on the eve of being declared. there were uneasy symptoms, too, at home. tom paine's _rights of man_ and _age of reason_ were spreading questionable doctrines and fomenting disaffection. societies named friends of the people were formed in edinburgh and the chief towns of scotland, to demand reform of the representation and other changes, which, made at such a time were believed by those in power to cover seditious aims. at such a crisis any government might be expected to see that all its officers, from the highest to the lowest, were well affected. but though the reign of terror had alarmed many others who had at first looked favourably on the revolution in france, burns's ardour in its cause was no whit abated. he even denounced the war on which the ministry had determined; he openly reviled the men in power; and went so far in his avowal of democracy that at a social meeting, he proposed as a toast, "here's the last verse of the (p. 147) last chapter of the last book of kings." this would seem to be but one specimen of the freedom of political speech in which burns at this time habitually indulged,--the truculent way in which he flaunted defiance in the face of authority. it would not have been surprising, if at any time the government had ordered inquiry to be made into such conduct, much less in such a season of anxiety and distrust. that an inquiry was made is undoubted; but as to the result which followed it, there is uncertainty. some have thought that the poet received from his superiors only a slight hint or caution to be more careful in future. others believed, that the matter went so far that he was in serious danger of dismissal from his post; and that this was only averted by the timely interposition of some kind and powerful friends. that burns himself took a serious view of it, and was sufficiently excited and alarmed, may be seen from two letters which he wrote, the one at the time of the occurrence, the other soon after it. it was thus that in december, 1792, he addressed mr. graham of fintray, the same person whose good offices had at first obtained for the poet his appointment, and whose kindness never failed him while he lived:-"sir,--i have been surprised, confounded, and distracted by mr. mitchell, the collector, telling me that he has received an order from your board, to inquire into my political conduct, and blaming me as a person disaffected to government. "sir, you are a husband and a father. you know what you would feel to see the much-loved wife of your bosom, and your helpless, prattling little ones turned adrift into the world, degraded and disgraced from a situation in which they had been respectable and respected, and left almost without the necessary support of a miserable existence. (p. 148) "alas! sir, must i think that such soon will be my lot! and from the dark insinuations of hellish, groundless envy, too! i believe, sir, i may aver it, and in the sight of omniscience, that i would not tell a deliberate falsehood, no, not though even worse horrors, if worse can be, than those i have mentioned, hung over my head; and i say, that the allegation, whatever villain has made it, is a lie! to the british constitution, on revolution principles, next after my god, i am most devoutly attached. you, sir, have been much and generously my friend.--heaven knows how warmly i have felt the obligation, and how gratefully i have thanked you. fortune, sir, has made you powerful, and me impotent--has given you patronage, and me dependence. i would not, for my single self, call on your humanity; were such my insular, unconnected situation, i would despise the tear that now swells in my eye. i would brave misfortune--i could face ruin, for at the worst death's thousand doors stand open; but the tender concerns that i have mentioned, the claims and ties that i see at this moment, and feel around me, how they unnerve courage and wither resolution! to your patronage, as a man of some genius, you have allowed me a claim; and your esteem, as an honest man, i know is my due. to these, sir, permit me to appeal; by these may i adjure you, to save me from that misery which threatens to overwhelm me, and which--with my latest breath i will say it--i have not deserved. r. b." that this appeal was not without effect may be gathered from a letter on this same affair, which burns addressed on the 13th april, 1793, to mr. erskine, of mar, in which he says one of the supervisors-general, a mr. corbet, "was instructed to inquire on the spot, and to (p. 149) 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_." much obloquy has been heaped upon the excise board--but on what grounds of justice i have never been able to discover--for the way in which they on this occasion dealt with burns. the members of the board were the servants of the government, to which they were responsible for the conduct of all their subordinates. to have allowed any of their subordinates to set themselves up by word or deed in opposition to the ministry, and especially at such a crisis, was inconsistent with the ideas of the time as to official duty. and when called on to act, it is hard to see how they could have done so with more leniency than by hinting to him the remonstrance which so alarmed and irritated the recipient of it. whatever may be said of his alarm,--his irritation, if perhaps natural, was not reasonable. no man has a right to expect that, because he is a genius, he shall be absolved from those rules of conduct, either in private or in public life, which are held binding on his more commonplace brethren. about the time when he received this rebuke, he wrote to mrs. dunlop, "i have set, henceforth, a seal on my lips as to these unlucky politics." but neither his own resolve nor the remonstrance of the excise board seem to have weighed much with him. he continued at convivial parties to express his feelings freely, and at one of these, shortly after he had been rebuked by the excise board, when the health of william pitt was drunk, he followed it by craving a bumper "to the health of a much better man--general washington." and on a subsequent occasion, as we shall see, he brought himself into trouble by giving an injudicious toast. the (p. 150) repression brought to bear on burns cannot have been very stringent when he was still free to sport such sentiments. the worst effect of the remonstrance he received seems to have been to irritate his temper, and to depress his spirits by the conviction, unfounded though it was, that all hope of promotion for him was over. but amid all the troubles entailed on him by his conduct, domestic, social, and political, the chief refuge and solace which he found, was in exercising his gifts of song. all hope of his ever achieving a great poem, which called for sustained effort, was now over. even poems descriptive of rustic life and characters, such as he had sketched in his ayrshire days--for these he had now no longer either time or inclination. his busy and distracted life, however, left him leisure from time to time to give vent to his impulses, or to soothe his feelings by short arrow-flights of song. he found in his own experience the truth of those words of another poet,- they can make who fail to find short leisure even in busiest days, moments to cast a look behind, and profit by those kindly rays, which through the clouds will sometimes steal, and all the far-off past reveal. such breaks in the clouds he eagerly waited for, and turned every golden gleam to song. it may be remembered that while burns was in edinburgh he became acquainted with james johnson, who was engaged in collecting the songs of scotland in a work called the _musical museum_. he had at once thrown himself ardently into johnson's undertaking, and put all his power of traditional knowledge, of criticism, and of original composition at johnson's disposal. this he continued to do through (p. 151) all the ellisland period, and more or less during his residence in dumfries. to the _museum_ burns from first to last gratuitously contributed not less than one hundred and eighty-four songs original, altered, or collected. during the first year that burns lived in dumfries, in september, 1792, he received an invitation from mr. george thomson, to lend the aid of his lyrical genius to a collection of scottish melodies, airs, and words, which a small band of musical amateurs in edinburgh were then projecting. this collection was pitched to a higher key than the comparatively humble _museum_. it was to be edited with more rigid care, the symphonies and accompaniments were to be supplied by the first musicians of europe, and it was to be expurgated from all leaven of coarseness, and from whatever could offend the purest taste. to thomson's proposal burns at once replied, "as the request you make to me will positively add to my enjoyment in complying with it, i shall enter into your undertaking with all the small portion of abilities i have, strained to their utmost exertion by the impulse of enthusiasm.... "if you are for english verses, there is, on my part, an end of the matter. whether in the simplicity of the ballad, or the pathos of the song, i can only hope to please myself in being allowed at least a sprinkling of our native tongue.... as to remuneration, you may think my songs either above or below price; for they shall be absolutely the one or the other. in the honest enthusiasm with which i embark in your undertaking, to talk of money, wages, fee, hire, &c., would be downright prostitution of soul." in this spirit he entered on the enterprise which thomson opened (p. 152) before him, and in this spirit he worked at it to the last, pouring forth song after song almost to his latest breath. hardly less interesting than the songs themselves, which from time to time he sent to thomson, were the letters with which he accompanied them. in these his judgment and critical power are as conspicuous, as his genius and his enthusiasm for the native melodies. for all who take interest in songs and in the laws which govern their movement, i know not where else they would find hints so valuable as in these occasional remarks on his own and others' songs, by the greatest lyric singer whom the modern world has seen. the bard who furnished the english songs for this collection was a certain dr. wolcot, known as peter pindar. this poetizer, who seems to have been wholly devoid of genius, but to have possessed a certain talent for hitting the taste of the hour, was then held in high esteem; he has long since been forgotten. even burns speaks of him with much respect, "the very name of peter pindar is an acquisition to your work," he writes to thomson. well might chambers say, "it is a humiliating thought that peter pindar was richly pensioned by the booksellers, while burns, the true sweet singer, lived in comparative poverty." hard measure has been dealt to thomson for not having liberally remunerated burns for the priceless treasures which he supplied to the collection. chambers and others, who have thoroughly examined the whole matter, have shown this censure to be undeserved. thomson himself was by no means rich, and his work brought him nothing but outlay as long as burns lived. indeed once, in july, 1793, when thomson had sent burns some money in return for his songs, the bard thus replied:-"i assure you, my dear sir, that you truly hurt me with your (p. 153) pecuniary parcel. it degrades me in my own eyes. however, to return it would savour of affectation; but, as to any more traffic of that debtor and creditor kind, i swear, by that honour which crowns the upright statue of _robert burns's integrity_, on the least motion of it, i will indignantly spurn the by-pact transaction, and from that moment commence entire stranger to you. burns's character for generosity of sentiment and independence of mind, will, i trust long outlive any of his wants which the cold, unfeeling ore can supply; at least i will take care that such a character he shall deserve." this sentiment was no doubt inconsistent, and may be deemed quixotic, when we remember that for his poems burns was quite willing to accept all that creech would offer. yet one cannot but honour it. he felt that both johnson and thomson were enthusiasts, labouring to embalm in a permanent form their country's minstrelsy, and that they were doing this without any hope of profit. he too would bear his part in the noble work; if he had not in other respects done full justice to his great gifts, in this way he would repay some of the debt he owed to his country, by throwing into her national melodies the whole wealth and glory of his genius. and this he would do, "all for love and nothing for reward." and the continual effort to do this worthily was the chief relaxation and delight of those sad later years. when he died, he had contributed to thomson's work sixty songs, but of these only six had then appeared, as only one half-volume of thomson's work had then been published. burns had given thomson the copyright of all the sixty songs; but as soon as a posthumous edition of the poet's works was proposed, thomson returned all the songs to the poet's family, to be included in the forthcoming edition, along with (p. 154) the interesting letters which had accompanied the songs. thomson's collection was not completed till 1841, when the sixth and last volume of it appeared. it is affecting to know that thomson himself, who was older than burns by two years, survived him for more than five-and-fifty, and died in february, 1851, at the ripe old age of ninety-four. chapter vii. (p. 155) last years. during those dumfries years little is to be done by the biographer but to trace the several incidents in burns's quarrel with the world, his growing exasperation, and the evil effects of it on his conduct and his fortunes. it is a painful record, but since it must be given, it shall be with as much brevity as is consistent with truth. in july, 1793, burns made an excursion into galloway, accompanied by a mr. syme, who belonging, like himself, to the excise, admired the poet, and agreed with his politics. syme has preserved a record of this journey, and the main impression left by the perusal of it is the strange access of ill-temper which had come over burns, who kept venting his spleen in epigrams on all whom he disliked, high and low. they visited kenmure, where lived mr. gordon, the representative of the old lords kenmure. they passed thence over the muirs to gatehouse, in a wild storm, during which burns was silent and crooning to himself what, syme says, was the first thought of _scots wha hae_. they were engaged to go to st. mary's isle, the seat of the earl of selkirk, but burns was in such a savage mood against all lords, that he was with difficulty persuaded to go thither, though lord selkirk was no tory, but a whig, like himself, and the father of his old friend, lord (p. 156) daer, by this time deceased, who had first convinced him that a lord might possibly be an honest and kind-hearted man. when they were once under the hospitable roof of st. mary's isle, the kindness with which they were received appeased the poet's bitterness. the earl was benign, the young ladies were beautiful, and two of them sang scottish songs charmingly. urbani, an italian musician who had edited scotch music, was there, and sang many scottish melodies, accompanying them with instrumental music. burns recited some of his songs amid the deep silence that is most expressive of admiration. the evening passed very pleasantly, and the lion of the morning had, ere the evening was over, melted to a lamb. _scots wha hae_ has been mentioned. mr. syme tells us that it was composed partly while burns was riding in a storm between gatehouse and kenmure, and partly on the second morning after this when they were journeying from st. mary's isle to dumfries. and mr. syme adds that next day the poet presented him with one copy of the poem for himself, and a second for mr. dalzell. mr. carlyle says, "this dithyrambic was composed on horseback; in riding in the middle of tempests over the wildest galloway moor, in company with a mr. syme, who, observing the poet's looks, forebore to speak--judiciously enough,--for a man composing bruce's address might be unsafe to trifle with. doubtless this stern hymn was singing itself, as he formed it, through the soul of burns, but to the external ear it should be sung with the throat of the whirlwind." burns, however, in a letter to mr. thomson dated september, 1793, gives an account of the composition of his war-ode, which is difficult to reconcile with mr. syme's statement. "there is a tradition (p. 157) which i have met with in many places in scotland," he writes, "that the old air, _hey, tuttie taitie_ was robert bruce's march at the battle of bannockburn. this thought, in my yesternight's evening walk, warmed me to a pitch of enthusiasm on the theme of liberty and independence, which i threw into a kind of scottish ode, fitted to the air, that one might suppose to be the gallant royal scot's address to his heroic followers on that eventful morning." he adds, that "the accidental recollection of that glorious struggle for freedom, associated with the glowing ideas of some struggles of the same nature, _not quite so ancient_, roused my rhyming mania." so _bruce's address_ owes its inspiration as much to burns's sympathy with the french republicans as to his scottish patriotism. as to the intrinsic merit of the ode itself, mr. carlyle says, "so long as there is warm blood in the heart of scotchmen or man, it will move in fierce thrills under this war-ode, the best, we believe, that was ever written by any pen." to this verdict every son of scottish soil is, i suppose, bound to say, amen. it ought not, however, to be concealed that there has been a very different estimate formed of it by judges sufficiently competent. i remember to have read somewhere of a conversation between wordsworth and mrs. hemans, in which they both agreed that the famous ode was not much more than a commonplace piece of school-boy rhodomontade about liberty. probably it does owe not a little of its power to the music to which it is sung, and to the associations which have gathered round it. the enthusiasm for french revolution sentiments, which may have been in burns's mind when composing it, has had nothing to do with the delight with which thousands since have sung and listened to it. the poet, however, when he first (p. 158) conceived it was no doubt raging inwardly, like a lion, not only caged, but muzzled with the gag of his servitude to government. but for this, what diatribes in favour of the revolution might we not have had, and what pain must it have been to burns to suppress these under the coercion of external authority. partly to this feeling, as well as to other causes, may be ascribed such outbursts as the following, written to a female correspondent, immediately after his return from the galloway tour: "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, ... 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 bestowing on him a spurning sense of his own dignity--and you have created a wight nearly as miserable as a poet." this passage will recall to many the catalogue of sore evils to which poets are by their temperament exposed, which wordsworth in his leech-gatherer enumerates. the fear that kills, and hope that is unwilling to be fed; cold, pain, and labour, and all fleshly ills; and mighty poets in their misery dead. in writing that poem wordsworth had burns among others prominently (p. 159) in his eye. what a commentary is the life of the more impulsive poet on the lines of his younger and more self-controlling brother! during those years of political unrest and of growing mental disquiet, his chief solace was, as i have said, to compose songs for thomson's collection, into which he poured a continual supply. indeed it is wonderful how often he was able to escape from his own vexations into that serener atmosphere, and there to suit melodies and moods most alien to his own with fitting words. here in one of his letters to thomson is the way he describes himself in the act of composition. "my way is--i consider the poetic sentiment correspondent to my idea of the musical expression; then choose my theme; begin one stanza; when that is composed, which is generally the most difficult part of the business, i walk out, sit down now and then, look out for objects in nature around me that are in unison and harmony with the cogitations of my fancy and workings of my bosom; humming every now and then the air with the verses i have framed. when i feel my muse beginning to jade, i retire to the solitary fireside of my study, and there commit my effusions to paper; swinging at intervals on the hind legs of my elbow-chair, by way of calling forth my own critical strictures as my pen goes on." to this may be added what allan cunningham tells us. "while he lived in dumfries he had three favourite walks; on the dock-green by the river-side; among the ruins of lincluden college; and towards the martingdon-ford, on the north side of the nith. this latter place was secluded, commanded a view of the distant hills, and the romantic towers of lincluden, and afforded soft greensward banks to rest upon, within sight and (p. 160) sound of the stream. as soon as he was heard to hum to himself, his wife saw that he had something in his mind, and was prepared to see him snatch up his hat, and set silently off for his musing-ground. when by himself, and in the open air, his ideas arranged themselves in their natural order--words came at will, and he seldom returned without having finished a song.... when the verses were finished, he passed them through the ordeal of mrs. burns's voice, listened attentively when she sang; asked her if any of the words were difficult; and when one happened to be too rough, he readily found a smoother; but he never, save at the resolute entreaty of a scientific musician, sacrificed sense to sound. the autumn was his favourite season, and the twilight his favourite hour of study." regret has often been expressed that burns spent so much time and thought on writing his songs, and, in this way, diverted his energies from higher aims. sir walter has said, "notwithstanding the spirit of many of his lyrics, and the exquisite sweetness and simplicity of others, we cannot but deeply regret that so much of his time and talents was frittered away in compiling and composing for musical collections. there is sufficient evidence that even the genius of burns could not support him in the monotonous task of writing love-verses, on heaving bosoms and sparkling eyes, and twisting them into such rhythmical forms as might suit the capricious evolutions of scotch reels and strathspeys." even if burns, instead of continual song-writing during the last eight years of his life, had concentrated his strength on "his grand plan of a dramatic composition" on the subject of bruce's adventures, it may be doubted whether he would have done so much to enrich his country's literature as he has done by the songs he composed. but considering how desultory his habits (p. 161) became, if johnson and thomson had not, as it were, set him a congenial task, he might not have produced anything at all during those years. there is, however, another aspect in which the continual composition of love-ditties must be regretted. the few genuine love-songs, straight from the heart, which he composed, such as _of a' the airts_, _to mary in heaven_, _ye banks and braes_, can hardly be too highly prized. but there are many others, which arose from a lower and fictitious source of inspiration. he himself tells thomson that when he wished to compose a love-song, his recipe was to put himself on a "regimen of admiring a beautiful woman." this was a dangerous regimen, and when it came to be often repeated, as it was, it cannot have tended to his peace of heart, or to the purity of his life. the first half of the year 1794 was a more than usually unhappy time with burns. it was almost entirely songless. instead of poetry, we hear of political dissatisfaction, excessive drinking-bouts, quarrels, and self-reproach. this was the time when our country was at war with the french republic--a war which burns bitterly disliked, but his employment under government forced him to set "a seal on his lips as to those unlucky politics." a regiment of soldiers was quartered in the town of dumfries, and to burns's eye the sight of their red coats was so offensive, that he would not go down the plain-stones lest he should meet "the epauletted puppies," who thronged the street. one of these epauletted puppies, whom he so disliked, found occasion to pull burns up rather smartly. the poet, when in his cups, had in the hearing of a certain captain proposed as a toast, "may our (p. 162) success in the present war be equal to the justice of our cause." the soldier called him to account--a duel seemed imminent, and burns had next day to write an apologetic letter, in order to avoid the risk of ruin. about the same time he was involved, through intemperance, in another and more painful quarrel. it has been already noticed that at woodley park he was a continual guest. with mrs. riddel, who was both beautiful and witty, he carried on a kind of poetic flirtation. mr. walter riddel, the host, was wont to press his guests to deeper potations than were usual even in those hard-drinking days. one evening, when the guests had sat till they were inflamed with wine, they entered the drawing-room, and burns in some way grossly insulted the fair hostess. next day he wrote a letter of the most abject and extravagant penitence. this, however, mr. and mrs. riddel did not think fit to accept. stung by this rebuff, burns recoiled at once to the opposite extreme of feeling, and penned a grossly scurrilous monody on "a lady famed for her caprice." this he followed up by other lampoons, full of "coarse rancour against a lady, who had showed him many kindnesses." the laird of friars carse and his lady naturally sided with their relatives, and grew cold to their old friend of ellisland. while this coldness lasted, mr. riddel, of friars carse, died in the spring-time, and the poet, remembering his friend's worth and former kindness, wrote a sonnet over him--not one of his best or most natural performances, yet showing the return of his better heart. during the same spring we hear of burns going to the house of one of the neighbouring gentry, and dining there, not with the rest of the party, but, by his own choice, it would seem, with the housekeeper in her room, and joining the gentlemen in the dining-room, after the (p. 163) ladies had retired. he was now, it seems, more disliked by ladies than by men,--a change since those edinburgh days, when the highest dames of the land had spoken so rapturously of the charm of his conversation. amid the gloom of this unhappy time (1791), burns turned to his old edinburgh friend, alexander cunningham, and poured forth this passionate and well-known complaint:--"canst thou minister to a mind diseased? canst thou speak peace and rest to a soul tossed on a sea of troubles, without one friendly star to guide her course, and dreading that the next surge may overwhelm her? of late, a number of domestic vexations, and some pecuniary share in the ruin of these cursed times,--losses which, though trifling, were what i could ill bear,--have so irritated me, that my feelings at times could only be envied by a reprobate spirit listening to the sentence that dooms it to perdition.--are you deep in the language of consolation? i have exhausted in reflection every topic of comfort. a heart at ease would have been charmed with my sentiments and reasonings; but as to myself, i was like judas iscariot preaching the gospel.... still there are two great pillars that bear us up amid the wreck of misfortune and misery. the one is composed of a certain noble, stubborn something in man, known by the names of courage, fortitude, magnanimity. the other is made up of those feelings and sentiments which, however the sceptic may deny them, or the enthusiast may disfigure them, are yet, i am convinced, original and component parts of the human soul, those senses of the mind--if i may be allowed the expression--which connect us with, and link us to those awful obscure realities--an all-powerful and equally beneficent god, and a world to come, beyond death and the grave. the first gives the nerve of combat, while a ray of hope (p. 164) beams on the field: the last pours the balm of comfort into the wounds which time can never cure." this remarkable, or, as lockhart calls it, noble letter was written on february 25, 1794. it was probably a few months later, perhaps in may of the same year, while burns was still under this depression, that there occurred an affecting incident, which has been preserved by lockhart. mr. david mcculloch, of ardwell, told lockhart, "that he was seldom more grieved, than when, riding into dumfries one fine summer's evening, to attend a country ball, he saw burns walking alone, on the shady side of the principal street of the town, while the opposite part was gay with successive groups of gentlemen and ladies, all drawn together for the festivities of the night, not one of whom seemed willing to recognize the poet. the horseman dismounted, and joined burns, who, on his proposing to him to cross the street, said, 'nay, nay, my young friend, that's all over now,' and quoted, after a pause, some verses of lady grizzell baillie's pathetic ballad:- his bonnet stood ance fu' fair on his brow, his auld ane looked better than mony ane's new; but now he lets 't wear ony way it will hing, and caste himsell dowie upon the corn-bing. o, were we young, as we ance hae been, we suld hae been galloping down on yon green, and linking it owre the lily-white lea,- and werena my heart light, i wad die. "it was little in burns's character to let his feelings on certain subjects escape in this fashion. he immediately after citing these verses assumed the sprightliness of his most pleasing manner; and taking his young friend home with him, entertained him very (p. 165) agreeably until the hour of the ball arrived, with a bowl of his usual potation, and bonnie jean's singing of some verses which he had recently composed." in june we find him expressing to mrs. dunlop the earliest hint that he felt his health declining. "i am afraid," he says, "that i am about to suffer for the follies of my youth. my medical friends threaten me with flying gout; but i trust they are mistaken." and again, a few months later, we find him, when writing to the same friend, recurring to the same apprehensions. vexation and disappointment within, and excesses, if not continual, yet too frequent, from without, had for long been undermining his naturally strong but nervously sensitive frame, and those symptoms were now making themselves felt, which were soon to lay him in an early grave. as the autumn drew on, his singing powers revived, and till the close of the year he kept pouring into thomson a stream of songs, some of the highest stamp, and hardly one without a touch such as only the genuine singer can give. the letters, too, to thomson, with which he accompanies his gifts, are full of suggestive thoughts on song, hints most precious to all who care for such matters. for the forgotten singers of his native land he is full of sympathy. "by the way," he writes to thomson, "are you not vexed to think that those men of genius, for such they certainly were, who composed our fine scottish lyrics, should be unknown?" many of the songs of that autumn were, as usual, love-ditties; but when the poet could forget the lint-white locks of chloris, of which kind of stuff there is more than enough, he would write as good songs on other and manlier subjects. two of these, written, the one in (p. 166) november, 1794, the other in january, 1795, belong to the latter order, and are worthy of careful regard, not only for their excellence as songs, but also as illustrations of the poet's mood of mind at the time when he composed them. the first is this,-- contented wi' little, and cantie wi' mair, whene'er i forgather wi' sorrow and care, i gie them a skelp as they're creepin' alang, wi' a cog o' gude swats, and an auld scottish sang. i whyles claw the elbow o' troublesome thought; but man is a soger, and life is a faught; my mirth and gude humour are coin in my pouch, and my freedom's my lairdship nae monarch dare touch. a towmond o' trouble, should that be my fa', a night o' gude fellowship sowthers it a'; when at the blythe end o' our journey at last, wha the deil ever thinks o' the road he has past? blind chance, let her snapper and stoyte on her way; be't to me, be't frae me, e'en let the jade gae: come ease, or come travail, come pleasure or pain, my warst word is--welcome, and welcome again. this song gives burns's idea of himself, and of his struggle with the world, when he could look on both from the placid, rather than the despondent side. he regarded it as a true picture of himself; for, when a good miniature of him had been done, he wrote to thomson that he wished a vignette from it to be prefixed to this song, that, in his own words, "the portrait of my face, and the picture of my mind may go down the stream of time together." burns had more moods of mind than most men, and this was, we may hope, no unfrequent one with him. but if we would reach the truth, we probably ought to strike a balance (p. 167) between the spirit of this song and the dark moods depicted in some of those letters already quoted. the other song of the same time is the well-known _a man's a man for a' that_. this powerful song speaks out in his best style a sentiment that through all his life had been dear to the heart of burns. it has been quoted, they say, by béranger in france, and by goethe in germany, and is the word which springs up in the mind of all foreigners when they think of burns. it was inspired, no doubt, by his keen sense of social oppression, quickened to white heat by influences that had lately come from france, and by what he had suffered for his sympathy with that cause. it has since become the watchword of all who fancy that they have secured less, and others more, of this world's goods, than their respective merit deserves. stronger words he never wrote. the rank is but the guinea's stamp, the man's the gowd for a' that. that is a word for all time. yet perhaps it might have been wished that so noble a song had not been marred by any touch of social bitterness. a lord, no doubt, may be a "birkie" and a "coof," but may not a ploughman be so too? this great song burns wrote on the first day of 1795. towards the end of 1794, and in the opening of 1795, the panic which had filled the land in 1792, from the doings of the french republicans, and their sympathizers in this country, began to abate; and the blast of government displeasure, which for a time had beaten heavily on burns, seemed to have blown over. he writes to mrs. dunlop on the 29th of december, 1794. "my political sins seem to be (p. 168) forgiven me," and as a proof of it he mentions that during the illness of his superior officer, he had been appointed to act as supervisor--a duty which he discharged for about two months. in the same letter he sends to that good lady his usual kindly greeting for the coming year, and concludes thus:--"what a transient business is life! very lately i was a boy; but t' other day i was a young man; and i already begin to feel the rigid fibre and stiffening joints of old age coming fast o'er my frame. with all the follies of youth, and, i fear, a few vices of manhood, still i congratulate myself on having had, in early days, religion strongly impressed on my mind." burns always keeps his most serious thoughts for this good lady. herself religious, she no doubt tried to keep the truths of religion before the poet's mind. and he naturally was drawn out to reply in a tone more unreserved than when he wrote to most others. in february of the ensuing year, 1795, his duties as supervisor led him to what he describes as the "unfortunate, wicked little village" of ecclefechan in annandale. the night after he arrived, there fell the heaviest snowstorm known in scotland within living memory. when people awoke next morning they found the snow up to the windows of the second story of their houses. in the hollow of campsie hills it lay to the depth of from eighty to a hundred feet, and it had not disappeared from the streets of edinburgh on the king's birthday, the 4th of june. storm-stayed at ecclefechan, burns indulged in deep potations and in song-writing. probably he imputed to the place that with which his own conscience reproached himself. currie, who was a native of ecclefechan, much offended, says, "the poet must have been tipsy indeed to abuse sweet ecclefechan at this rate." it was also the birthplace of the (p. 169) poet's friend nicol, and of a greater than he. on the 4th of december in the very year on which burns visited it, mr. thomas carlyle was born in that village. shortly after his visit, the poet beat his brains to find a rhyme for ecclefechan, and to twist it into a song. in march of the same year we find him again joining in local politics, and writing electioneering ballads for heron of heron, the whig candidate for the stewartry of kirkcudbright, against the nominee of the earl of galloway, against whom and his family burns seems to have harboured some peculiar enmity. mr. heron won the election, and burns wrote to him about his own prospects:--"the moment i am appointed supervisor, in the common routine i may be nominated on the collectors' list; and this is always a business of purely political patronage. a collectorship varies much, from better than 200_l._ to near 1000_l._ a year. a life of literary leisure, with a decent competency, is the summit of my wishes." the hope here expressed was not destined to be fulfilled. it required some years for its realization, and the years allotted to burns were now nearly numbered. the prospect which he here dwells on may, however, have helped to lighten his mental gloom during the last year of his life. for one year of activity there certainly was, between the time when the cloud of political displeasure against him disappeared towards the end of 1794, and the time when his health finally gave way in the autumn of 1795, during which, to judge by his letters, he indulged much less in outbursts of social discontent. one proof of this is seen in the following fact. in the spring of 1795, a volunteer corps was raised in dumfries, to defend the country, while the (p. 170) regular army was engaged abroad, in war with france. many of the dumfries whigs, and among them burns's friends, syme and dr. maxwell, enrolled themselves in the corps, in order to prove their loyalty and patriotism, on which some suspicions had previously been cast. burns too offered himself, and was received into the corps. allan cunningham remembered the appearance of the regiment, "their odd but not ungraceful dress; white kerseymere breeches and waistcoat; short blue coat, faced with red; and round hat, surmounted by a bearskin, like the helmets of the horse guards." he remembered the poet too, as he showed among them, "his very swarthy face, his ploughman stoop, his large dark eyes, and his awkwardness in handling his arms." but if he could not handle his musket deftly, he could do what none else in that or any other corps could, he could sing a patriotic stave which thrilled the hearts not only of his comrades, but every briton from land's-end to johnny groat's. this is one of the verses:- the kettle o' the kirk and state perhaps a clout may fail in't; but deil a foreign tinkler loan shall ever ca' a nail in't. our fathers' blade the kettle bought, and wha wad dare to spoil it; by heavens! the sacrilegious dog shall fuel be to boil it! by heavens; the sacrilegious dog shall fuel be to boil it! this song flew throughout the land, hit the taste of the country-people everywhere, and is said to have done much to change the feelings of those who were disaffected. much blame has been cast upon the tory (p. 171) ministry, then in power, for not having offered a pension to burns. it was not, it is said, that they did not know of him, or that they disregarded his existence. for mr. addington, afterwards lord sidmouth, we have seen, deeply felt his genius, acknowledged it in verse, and is said to have urged his claims upon the government. mr. pitt, soon after the poet's death, is reported to have said of burns's poetry, at the table of lord liverpool, "i can think of no verse since shakespeare's, that has so much the appearance of coming sweetly from nature." it is on mr. dundas, however, at that time one of the ministry, and the autocrat of all scottish affairs, that the heaviest weight of blame has fallen. but perhaps this is not altogether deserved. there is the greatest difference between a literary man, who holds his political opinions in private, but refrains from mingling in party politics, and one who zealously espouses one side, and employs his literary power in promoting it. he threw himself into every electioneering business with his whole heart, wrote, while he might have been better employed, electioneering ballads of little merit, in which he lauded whig men and theories, and lampooned, often scurrilously, the supporters of dundas. no doubt it would have been magnanimous in the men then in power to have overlooked all these things, and, condoning the politics, to have rewarded the poetry of burns. and it were to be wished that such magnanimity were more common among public men. but we do not see it practised even at the present day, any more than it was in the time of burns. during the first half of 1795 the poet had gone on with his accustomed duties, and, during the intervals of business, kept sending to thomson the songs he from time to time composed. his professional prospects seemed at this time to be brightening, (p. 172) for about the middle of may, 1795, his staunch friend, mr. graham of fintray, would seem to have revived an earlier project of having him transferred to a post in leith, with easy duty and an income of nearly 200_l._ a year. this project could not at the time be carried out; but that it should have been thought of proves that political offences of the past were beginning to be forgotten. during this same year there were symptoms that the respectable persons who had for some time frowned on him, were willing to relent. a combination of causes, his politics, the riddel quarrel, and his own many imprudences, had kept him under a cloud. and this disfavour of the well-to-do had not increased his self-respect or made him more careful about the company he kept. disgust with the world had made him reckless and defiant. but with the opening of 1795, the riddels were reconciled to him, and received him once more into their good graces, and others, their friends, probably followed their example. but the time was drawing near, when the smiles or the frowns of the dumfries magnates would be alike indifferent to him. there has been more than enough of discussion among the biographers of burns, as to how far he really deteriorated in himself during those dumfries years, as to the extent and the causes of the social discredit into which he fell, and as to the charge that he took to low company. his early biographers, currie, walker, heron drew the picture somewhat darkly; lockhart and cunningham have endeavoured to lighten the depth of the shadows. chambers has laboured to give the facts impartially, has faithfully placed the lights and the shadows side by side, and has summed up the whole subject in an appendix on _the reputation (p. 173) of burns in his later years_, to which i would refer any who desire to see this painful subject minutely handled. whatever extenuations or excuses may be alleged, all must allow that his course in dumfries was on the whole a downward one, and must concur, however reluctantly, in the conclusion at which lockhart, while decrying the severe judgments of currie, heron, and others, is forced by truth to come, that "the untimely death of burns was, it is too probable, hastened by his own intemperances and imprudences." to inquire minutely, what was the extent of those intemperances, and what the nature of those imprudences, is a subject which can little profit any one, and on which one has no heart to enter. if the general statement of fact be true, the minute details are better left to the kindly oblivion, which, but for too prying curiosity, would by this time have overtaken them. dissipated his life for some years certainly had been--deeply disreputable many asserted it to be. others, however, there were who took a more lenient view of him. findlater, his superior in the excise, used to assert, that no officer under him was more regular in his public duties. mr. gray, then teacher of dumfries school, has left it on record, that no parent he knew watched more carefully over his children's education--that he had often found the poet in his home explaining to his eldest boy passages of the english poets from shakespeare to gray, and that the benefit of the father's instructions was apparent in the excellence of the son's daily school performances. this brighter side of the picture, however, is not irreconcilable with that darker one. for burns's whole character was a compound of the most discordant and contradictory elements. dr. chambers has well shown that he who at one hour was the _douce_ sober mr. burns, in (p. 174) the next was changed to the maddest of bacchanals: now he was glowing with the most generous sentiments, now sinking to the very opposite extreme. one of the last visits paid to him by any friend from a distance would seem to have been by professor walker, although the date of it is somewhat uncertain. eight years had passed since the professor had parted with burns at blair castle, after the poet's happy visit there. in the account which the professor has left of his two days' interview with burns at dumfries, there are traces of disappointment with the change which the intervening years had wrought. it has been alleged that prolonged residence in england had made the professor fastidious, and more easily shocked with rusticity and coarseness. however this may be, he found burns, as he thought, not improved, but more dictatorial, more free in his potations, more coarse and gross in his talk, than when he had formerly known him. for some time past there had not been wanting symptoms to show that the poet's strength was already past its prime. in june, 1794, he had, as we have seen, told mrs. dunlop that he had been in poor health, and was afraid he was beginning to suffer for the follies of his youth. his physicians threatened him, he said, with flying gout, but he trusted they were mistaken. in the spring of 1795, he said to one who called on him, that he was beginning to feel as if he were soon to be an old man. still he went about all his usual employments. but during the latter part of that year his health seems to have suddenly declined. for some considerable time he was confined to a sick-bed. dr. currie, who was likely to be well informed, states that this illness lasted from october, 1795, till the following january. no (p. 175) details of his malady are given, and little more is known of his condition at this time, except what he himself has given in a letter to mrs. dunlop, and in a rhymed epistle to one of his brother excisemen. at the close of the year he must have felt that, owing to his prolonged sickness, his funds were getting low. else he would not have penned to his friend, collector mitchell, the following request:- friend of the poet, tried and leal, wha, wanting thee, might beg or steal; alake, alake, the meikle deil wi' a' his witches are at it, skelpin'! jig and reel, in my poor pouches. i modestly fu fain wad hint it, that one pound one, i sairly want it; if wi' the hizzie down ye sent it, it would be kind; and while my heart wi' life-blood dunted, i'd bear't in mind. * * * * * _postscript._ ye've heard this while how i've been licket and by fell death was nearly nicket: grim loun! he gat me by the fecket, and sair me sheuk; but by gude luck i lap a wicket, and turn'd a neuk. but by that health, i've got a share o't, and by that life, i'm promised mair o't, my heal and weel i'll take a care o't a tentier way; then fareweel folly, hide and hair o't, for ance and aye. it was, alas! too late now to bid farewell to folly, even if he (p. 176) could have done so indeed. with the opening of the year 1796, he somewhat revived, and the prudent resolve of his sickness disappeared with the first prospect of returning health. chambers thus records a fact which the local tradition of dumfries confirms:--"early in the month of january, when his health was in the course of improvement, burns tarried to a late hour at a jovial party in the globe tavern. before returning home, he unluckily remained for some time in the open air, and, overpowered by the effects of the liquor he had drunk, fell asleep.... a fatal chill penetrated his bones; he reached home with the seeds of a rheumatic fever already in possession of his weakened frame. in this little accident, and not in the pressure of poverty or disrepute, or wounded feelings or a broken heart, truly lay the determining cause of the sadly shortened days of our national poet." how long this new access of extreme illness confined him seems uncertain. currie says for about a week; chambers surmises a longer time. mr. scott douglas says, that from the close of january till the month of april, he seems to have moved about with some hope of permanent improvement. but if he had such a hope, it was destined not to be fulfilled. writing on the 31st of january, 1796, to mrs. dunlop, the trusted friend of so many confidences, this is the account he gives of himself:-"i have lately drunk deep of the cup of affliction. the autumn robbed me of my only daughter and darling child, and that at a distance, too, and so rapidly as to put it out of my power to pay the last duties to her. i had scarcely begun to recover from that shock, when i became myself the victim of a most severe rheumatic fever, and long the (p. 177) die spun doubtful; until, after many weeks of a sick-bed, it seems to have turned up life, and i am beginning to crawl across my room, and once indeed have been before my own door in the street." in these words burns would seem to have put his two attacks together, as though they were but one prolonged illness. it was about this time that, happening to meet a neighbour in the street, the poet talked with her seriously of his health, and said among other things this: "i find that a man may live like a fool, but he will scarcely die like one." as from time to time he appeared on the street during the early months of 1796, others of his old acquaintance were struck by the sight of a tall man of slovenly appearance and sickly aspect, whom a second look showed to be burns, and that he was dying. yet in that february there were still some flutters of song, one of which was, _hey for the lass wi' a tocher_, written in answer to thomson's beseeching inquiry if he was never to hear from him again. another was a rhymed epistle, in which he answers the inquiries of the colonel of his volunteer corps after his health. from about the middle of april, burns seldom left his room, and for a great part of each day was confined to bed. may came--a beautiful may--and it was hoped that its genial influences might revive him. but while young jeffrey was writing, "it is the finest weather in the world--the whole country is covered with green and blossoms; and the sun shines perpetually through a light east wind," burns was shivering at every breath of the breeze. at this crisis his faithful wife was laid aside, unable to attend him. but a young neighbour, jessie lewars, sister of a brother exciseman, came to their house, assisted in (p. 178) all household work, and ministered to the dying poet. she was at this time only a girl, but she lived to be a wife and mother, and to see an honoured old age. whenever we think of the last days of the poet, it is well to remember one who did so much to smooth his dying pillow. burns himself was deeply grateful, and his gratitude as usual found vent in song. but the old manner still clung to him. even then he could not express his gratitude to his young benefactress without assuming the tone of a fancied lover. two songs in this strain he addressed to jessie lewars. of the second of these it is told, that one morning the poet said to her that if she would play to him any favourite tune, for which she desired to have new words, he would do his best to meet her wish. she sat down at the piano, and played over several times the air of an old song beginning thus:- the robin cam to the wren's nest, and keekit in, and keekit in. as soon as burns had taken in the melody, he set to, and in a few minutes composed these beautiful words, the second of the songs which he addressed to jessie:- oh! wert thou in the cauld blast, on yonder lea, on yonder lea, my plaidie to the angry airt, i'd shelter thee, i'd shelter thee. or did misfortune's bitter storms around thee blaw, around thee blaw, thy bield should be my bosom, to share it a', to share it a.' or were i in the wildest waste, (p. 179) sae black and bare, sae black and bare, the desert were a paradise, if thou wert there, if thou wert there: or were i monarch o' the globe, wi' thee to reign, wi' thee to reign, the brightest jewel in my crown wad be my queen, wad be my queen. mendelssohn is said to have so much admired this song, that he composed for it what chambers pronounces an air of exquisite pathos. june came, but brought no improvement, rather rapid decline of health. on the 4th of july (1796) he wrote to johnson, "many a merry meeting this publication (the _museum_) has given us, and possibly it may give us more, though, alas, i fear it. this protracting, slow consuming illness, will, i doubt much, my ever dear friend, arrest my sun before he has reached his middle career, and will turn over the poet to far more important concerns than studying the brilliancy of wit or the pathos of sentiment." on the day on which he wrote these words, he left dumfries for a lonely place called brow on the solway shore, to try the effects of sea-bathing. he went alone, for his wife was unable to accompany him. while he was at brow, his former friend, mrs. walter riddel, to whom, after their estrangement, he had been reconciled, happened to be staying for the benefit of her health in the neighbourhood. she asked burns to dine with her, and sent her carriage to bring him to her house. this is part of the account she gives of that interview:-"i was struck with his appearance on entering the room. the stamp of death was imprinted on his features. he seemed already touching the brink of eternity. his first salutation was. 'well, madam, have (p. 180) you any commands for the other world?' i replied that it seemed a doubtful case, which of us should be there soonest, and that i hoped he would yet live to write my epitaph. he looked in my face with an air of great kindness, and expressed his concern at seeing me look so ill, with his accustomed sensibility.... we had a long and serious conversation about his present situation, and the approaching termination of all his earthly prospects. he spoke of his death without any of the ostentation of philosophy, but with firmness as well as feeling, as an event likely to happen very soon, and which gave him concern chiefly from leaving his four children so young and unprotected, and his wife hourly expecting a fifth. he mentioned, with seeming pride and satisfaction, the promising genius of his eldest son, and the flattering marks of approbation he had received from his teachers, and dwelt particularly on his hopes of that boy's future conduct and merit. his anxiety for his family seemed to hang heavy on him, and the more perhaps from the reflection that he had not done them all the justice he was so well qualified to do. passing from this subject, he showed great concern about the care of his literary fame, and particularly the publication of his posthumous works. he said he was well aware that his death would create some noise, and that every scrap of his writing would be revived against him to the injury of his future reputation; that his letters and verses written with unguarded and improper freedom, and which he earnestly wished to have buried in oblivion, would be handed about by idle vanity or malevolence, when no dread of his resentment would restrain them, or prevent the censures of shrill-tongued malice, or the insidious sarcasms of envy, from pouring forth all their venom to blast his fame. "he lamented that he had written many epigrams on persons against (p. 181) whom he entertained no enmity, and whose characters he would be sorry to wound; and many indifferent poetical pieces, which he feared would now, with all their imperfections on their head, be thrust upon the world. on this account he deeply regretted having deferred to put his papers in a state of arrangement, as he was now incapable of the exertion.... the conversation," she adds, "was kept up with great evenness and animation on his side. i had seldom seen his mind greater or more collected. there was frequently a considerable degree of vivacity in his sallies, and they would probably have had a greater share, had not the concern and dejection i could not disguise damped the spirit of pleasantry he seemed not unwilling to indulge. "we parted about sunset on the evening of that day (the 5th july, 1796), the next day i saw him again, and we parted to meet no more!" it is not wonderful that burns should have felt some anxiety about the literary legacy he was leaving to mankind. not about his best poems; these, he must have known, would take care of themselves. yet even among the poems which he had published with his name, were some, "which dying" he well might "wish to blot." there lay among his papers letters too, and other "fallings from him," which he no doubt would have desired to suppress, but of which, if they have not all been made public, enough have appeared to justify his fears of that idle vanity, if not malevolence, which after his death, would rake up every scrap he had written, uncaring how it might injure his good name, or affect future generations of his admirers. no poet perhaps has suffered more from the indiscriminate and unscrupulous curiosity of editors, (p. 182) catering too greedily for the public, than burns has done. besides anxieties of this kind, he, during those last days, had to bear another burden of care that pressed even more closely home. to pain of body, absence from his wife and children, and haunting anxiety on their account, was added the pressure of some small debts and the fear of want. by the rules of the excise, his full salary would not be allowed him during his illness; and though the board agreed to continue burns in his full pay, he never knew this in time to be comforted by it. with his small income diminished, how could he meet the increased expenditure caused by sickness? we have seen how at the beginning of the year he had written to his friend mitchell to ask the loan of a guinea. one or two letters, asking for the payment of some old debts due to him by a former companion, still remain. during his stay at brow, on the 12th of july, he wrote to thomson the following memorable letter:-"after all my boasted independence, curst necessity compels me to implore you for five pounds. a cruel scoundrel of a haberdasher, to whom i owe an account, taking it into his head that i am dying, has commenced a process, and will infallibly put me into jail. do, for god's sake, send that sum, and that by return of post. forgive me this earnestness, but the horrors of a jail have made me half distracted. i do not ask all this gratuitously; for, upon returning health, i hereby promise and engage to furnish you with five pounds' worth of the neatest song-genius you have seen. i tried my hand on rothemurchie this morning. the measure is so difficult that it is impossible to infuse much genius into the lines. they are on the other side. forgive, forgive me!" and on the other side was written burns's last song beginning, (p. 183) "fairest maid, on devon banks." was it native feeling, or inveterate habit, that made him that morning revert to the happier days he had seen on the banks of devon, and sing a last song to one of the two beauties he had there admired? chambers thinks it was to charlotte hamilton, the latest editor refers it to peggy chalmers. thomson at once sent the sum asked for. he has been much, but not justly, blamed for not having sent a much larger sum, and indeed for not having repaid the poet for his songs long before. against such charges it is enough to reply that when thomson had formerly volunteered some money to burns in return for his songs, the indignant poet told him that if he ever again thought of such a thing, their intercourse must thenceforth cease. and for the smallness of the sum sent, it should be remembered that thomson was himself a poor man, and had not at this time made anything by his collection of songs, and never did make much beyond repayment of his large outlay. on the same day on which burns wrote thus to thomson, he wrote another letter in much the same terms to his cousin, mr. james burnes, of montrose, asking him to assist him with ten pounds, which was at once sent by his relative, who, though not a rich, was a generous-hearted man. there was still a third letter written on that 12th of july (1796) from brow. of mrs. dunlop, who had for some months ceased her correspondence with him, the poet takes this affecting farewell:--"i have written you so often, without receiving any answer, that i would not trouble you again but for the circumstances in which i am. (p. 184) an illness which has long hung about me, in all probability will speedily send me beyond that 'bourn whence no traveller returns.' your friendship, with which for many years you honoured me, was a friendship dearest to my soul. your conversation, and especially your correspondence, were at once highly entertaining and instructive. with what pleasure did i use to break up the seal! the remembrance yet adds one pulse more to my poor palpitating heart. farewell!" on the 14th he wrote to his wife, saying that though the sea-bathing had eased his pains, it had not done anything to restore his health. the following anecdote of him at this time has been preserved:--"a night or two before burns left brow, he drank tea with mrs. craig, widow of the minister of ruthwell. his altered appearance excited much silent sympathy; and the evening being beautiful, and the sun shining brightly through the casement, miss craig (afterwards mrs. henry duncan) was afraid the light might be too much for him, and rose to let down the window-blinds. burns immediately guessed what she meant, and regarding the young lady with a look of great benignity, said, 'thank you, my dear, for your kind attention; but oh! let him shine; he will not shine long for me.'" on the 18th july he left brow, and returned to dumfries in a small spring cart. when he alighted, the onlookers saw that he was hardly able to stand, and observed that he walked with tottering steps to his door. those who saw him enter his house, knew by his appearance that he would never again cross that threshold alive. when the news spread in dumfries that burns had returned from brow and was dying, the whole town was deeply moved. allan cunningham, who was present, thus describes what he saw:--"the anxiety of the people, high and low, (p. 185) was very great. wherever two or three were together, their talk was of burns, and of him alone. they spoke of his history, of his person, and of his works; of his witty sayings, and sarcastic replies, and of his too early fate, with much enthusiasm, and sometimes with deep feeling. all that he had done, and all that they had hoped he would accomplish, were talked of. half-a-dozen of them stopped dr. maxwell in the street, and said, 'how is burns, sir?' he shook his head, saying, 'he cannot be worse,' and passed on to be subjected to similar inquiries farther up the way. i heard one of a group inquire, with much simplicity, 'who do you think will be our poet now?'" during the three or four days between his return from brow and the end, his mind, when not roused by conversation, wandered in delirium. yet when friends drew near his bed, sallies of his old wit would for a moment return. to a brother volunteer who came to see him he said, with a smile, "john, don't let the awkward squad fire over me." his wife was unable to attend him; and four helpless children wandered from room to room gazing on their unhappy parents. all the while, jessie lewars was ministering to the helpless and to the dying one, and doing what kindness could do to relieve their suffering. on the fourth day after his return, the 21st of july, burns sank into his last sleep. his children stood around his bed, and his eldest son remembered long afterwards all the circumstances of that sad hour. the news that burns was dead, sounded through all scotland like a knell announcing a great national bereavement. men woke up to feel the greatness of the gift which in him had been vouchsafed to their generation, and which had met, on the whole, with so poor a reception. self-reproach mingled with the universal sorrow, as (p. 186) men asked themselves whether they might not have done more to cherish and prolong that rarely gifted life. of course there was a great public funeral, in which the men of dumfries and the neighbourhood, high and low, appeared as mourners, and soldiers and volunteers with colours, muffled drums, and arms reversed, not very appropriately mingled in the procession. at the very time when they were laying her husband in his grave, mrs. burns gave birth to his posthumous son. he was called maxwell, after the physician who attended his father, but he died in infancy. the spot where the poet was laid was in a comer of st. michael's churchyard, and the grave remained for a time unmarked by any monument. after some years his wife placed over it a plain, unpretending stone, inscribed with his name and age, and with the names of his two boys, who were buried in the same place. well had it been, if he had been allowed to rest undisturbed in this grave where his family had laid him. but well-meaning, though ignorant, officiousness would not suffer it to be so. nearly twenty years after the poet's death, a huge, cumbrous, unsightly mausoleum was, by public subscription, erected at a little distance from his original resting-place. this structure was adorned with an ungraceful figure in marble, representing, "the muse of coila finding the poet at the plough, and throwing her inspiring mantle over him." to this was added a long, rambling epitaph in tawdry latin, as though any inscription which scholars could devise could equal the simple name of robert burns. when the new structure was completed, on the 19th september, 1815, his grave was opened, and men for a moment gazed with awe on the form of burns, seemingly as entire as on the (p. 187) day when first it was laid in the grave. but as soon as they began to raise it, the whole body crumbled to dust, leaving only the head and bones. these relics they bore to the mausoleum, which had been prepared for their reception. but not even yet was the poet's dust to be allowed to rest in peace. when his widow died, in march, 1834, the mausoleum was opened, that she might be laid by her husband's side. some craniologists of dumfries were then permitted, in the name of so-called science, to desecrate his dust with their inhuman outrage. at the dead of night, between the 31st of march and the 1st of april, these men laid their profane fingers on the skull of burns, "tried their hats upon it, and found them all too little;" applied their compasses, registered the size of the so-called organs, and "satisfied themselves that burns had capacity enough to compose _tam o' shanter_, _the cotter's saturday night_, and _to mary in heaven_." this done, they laid the head once again in the hallowed ground, where, let us hope, it will be disturbed no more. the mausoleum, unsightly though it is, has become a place of pilgrimage whither yearly crowds of travellers resort from the ends of the earth, to gaze on the resting-place of scotland's peasant poet, and thence to pass to that other consecrated place within ruined dryburgh, where lies the dust of a kindred spirit by his own tweed. chapter viii. (p. 188) character, poems, songs. if this narrative has in any way succeeded in giving the lights and the shadows of burns's life, little comment need now be added. the reader will, it is hoped, gather from the brief record of facts here presented, a better impression of the man as he was, in his strength and in his weakness, than from any attempt which might have been made to bring his various qualities together into a moral portrait. those who wish to see a comment on his character, at once wise and tender, should turn to mr. carlyle's famous essay on burns. what estimate is to be formed of burns--not as a poet, but as a man--is a question that will long be asked, and will be variously answered, according to the principles men hold, and the temperament they are of. men of the world will regard him in one way, worshippers of genius in another; and there are many whom the judgments of neither of these will satisfy. one thing is plain to every one; it is the contradiction between the noble gifts he had and the actual life he lived, which make his career the painful tragedy it was. when, however, we look more closely into the original outfit of the man, we seem in some sort to see how this came to be. given a being born into the world with a noble nature, endowments (p. 189) of head and heart beyond any of his time, wide-ranging sympathies, intellectual force of the strongest man, sensibility as of the tenderest woman, possessed also by a keen sense of right and wrong which he had brought from a pure home--place all these high gifts on the one side, and over against them a lower nature, fierce and turbulent, filling him with wild passions which were hard to restrain and fatal to indulge--and between these two opposing natures, a weak and irresolute will, which could overhear the voice of conscience, but had no strength to obey it; launch such a man on such a world as this, and it is but too plain what the end will be. from earliest manhood till the close, flesh and spirit were waging within him interminable war, and who shall say which had the victory? among his countrymen there are many who are so captivated with his brilliant gifts and his genial temperament, that they will not listen to any hint at the deep defects which marred them. some would even go so far as to claim honour for him, not only as scotland's greatest poet, but as one of the best men she has produced. those who thus try to canonize burns are no true friends to his memory. they do but challenge the counter-verdict, and force men to recall facts which, if they cannot forget, they would fain leave in silence. these moral defects it is ours to know; it is not ours to judge him who had them. while some would claim for burns a niche among scotland's saints, others would give him rank as one of her religious teachers. this claim, if not so absurd as the other, is hardly more tenable. the religion described by burns in _the cotter's saturday night_ is, it should be remembered, his father's faith, not his own. the fundamental truths of natural religion, faith in god and in immortality, amid (p. 190) sore trials of heart, he no doubt clung to, and has forcibly expressed. but there is nothing in his poems or in his letters which goes beyond sincere deism--nothing which is in any way distinctively christian. even were his teaching of religion much fuller than it is, one essential thing is still wanting. before men can accept any one as a religious teacher, they not unreasonably expect that his practice should in some measure bear out his teaching. it was not as an authority on such matters that burns ever regarded himself. in his _bard's epitaph_, composed ten years before his death, he took a far truer and humbler measure of himself than any of his critics or panegyrists have done:-- the poor inhabitant below was quick to learn and wise to know, and keenly felt the friendly glow and softer flame; but thoughtless folly laid him low, and stained his name. reader, attend!--whether thy soul soars fancy's flight beyond the pole, or darkling grubs this earthly hole, in low pursuit; know, prudent, cautious self-control is wisdom's root. "a confession," says wordsworth, "at once devout, poetical, and human--a history in the shape of a prophecy." leaving the details of his personal story, and- each unquiet theme, where gentlest judgments may misdeem, it is a great relief to turn to the bequest that he has left to (p. 191) the world in his poetry. how often has one been tempted to wish that we had known as little of the actual career of burns as we do of the life of shakespeare, or even of homer, and had been left to read his mind and character only by the light of his works! that poetry, though a fragmentary, is still a faithful transcript of what was best in the man; and though his stream of song contains some sediment we could wish away, yet as a whole, how vividly, clearly, sunnily it flows, how far the good preponderates over the evil. what that good is, must now be briefly said. to take his earliest productions first, his poems as distinct from his songs. almost all the best of these are, with the one notable exception of _tam o' shanter_, contained in the kilmarnock edition. a few pieces actually composed before he went to edinburgh were included in later editions, but, after leaving mossgiel he never seriously addressed himself to any form of poetry but song-writing. the kilmarnock volume contains poems descriptive of peasant life and manners, epistles in verse generally to rhyming brethren, a few lyrics on personal feelings, or on incidents like those of the mouse and the daisy, and three songs. in these, the form, the metre, the style and language, even that which is known as burns's peculiar stanza, all belong to the traditional forms of his country's poetry, and from earlier bards had been handed down to burns by his two immediate forerunners, ramsay and fergusson. to these two he felt himself indebted, and for them he always expresses a somewhat exaggerated admiration. nothing can more show burns's inherent power than to compare his poems with even the best of those which he accepted as models. the old framework and metres which his country supplied, he took; asked no other, no better, and into (p. 192) those old bottles poured new wine of his own, and such wine! what, then, is the peculiar flavour of this new poetic wine of burns' poetry? at the basis of all his power lay absolute truthfulness, intense reality, truthfulness to the objects which he saw, truthfulness to himself as the seer of them. this is what wordsworth recognized as burns's leading characteristic. he who acknowledged few masters, owned burns as his master in this respect when he speaks of him- whose light i hailed when first it shone, and showed my youth, how verse may build a princely throne on humble truth. here was a man, a son of toil, looking out on the world from his cottage, on society low and high and on nature homely or beautiful, with the clearest eye, the most piercing insight, and the warmest heart; touching life at a hundred points, seeing to the core all the sterling worth, nor less the pretence and hollowness of the men he met, the humour, the drollery, the pathos, and the sorrow of human existence; and expressing what he saw, not in the stock phrases of books, but in his own vernacular, the language of his fireside, with a directness, a force, a vitality that tingled to the finger tips, and forced the phrases of his peasant dialect into literature, and made them for ever classical. large sympathy, generous enthusiasm, reckless abandonment, fierce indignation, melting compassion, rare flashes of moral insight, all are there. everywhere you see the strong intellect made alive, and driven home to the mark, by the fervid heart behind it. and if the sight of the world's inequalities, and some natural repining at his own obscure lot, mingled from the beginning, as (p. 193) has been said, "some bitternesses of earthly spleen and passion with the workings of his inspiration, and if these in the end ate deep into the great heart they had long tormented," who that has not known his experience may venture too strongly to condemn him? this prevailing truthfulness of nature and of vision manifested itself in many ways. first. in the strength of it, he interpreted the lives, thoughts, feelings, manners of the scottish peasantry to whom he belonged, as they had never been interpreted before, and never can be again. take the poem which stands first in the kilmarnock edition. the cotter's dog, and the laird's dog, are, as has been often said, for all their moralizing, true dogs in all their ways. yet through these, while not ceasing to be dogs, the poet represents the whole contrast between the cotters' lives, and their lairds'. this old controversy, which is ever new, between rich and poor, has never been set forth with more humour and power. no doubt it is done from the peasant's point of view. the virtues and hardships of the poor have full justice done to them; the prosperity of the rich, with its accompanying follies and faults, is not spared, perhaps it is exaggerated. the whole is represented with an inimitably graphic hand, and just when the caustic wit is beginning to get too biting, the edge of it is turned by a touch of kindlier humour. the poor dog speaks of some gentle master, wha, aiblins thrang a-parliamentin, for britain's guid his saul indentin-then caesar, the rich man's dog, replies,- haith, lad, ye little ken about it: for britain's guid!--guid faith! i doubt it. say rather, gaun as premiers lead him, (p. 194) an' saying aye or no's they bid him: at operas an' plays parading, mortgaging, gambling, masquerading! or, may be, in a frolic daft, to hague or calais takes a waft, to make a tour an' tak a whirl, to learn _bon ton_, an' see the worl'. then, at vienna or versailles, he rives his father's auld entails; or by madrid he takes the rout, to thrum guitars and fecht wi' nowt. * * * * * for britain's guid! for her destruction! wi' dissipation, feud an' faction. then exclaims luath, the poor man's dog,- hech, man! dear sirs! is that the gate they waste sae many a braw estate! are we sae foughten and harass'd for gear to gang that gate at last? and yet he allows, that for all that ---thae frank, rantin', ramblin' billies, fient haet o' them's ill-hearted fellows. "mark the power of that one word, 'nowt,'" said the late thomas aird. "if the poet had said that our young fellows went to spain to fight with bulls, there would have been some dignity in the thing, but think of his going all that way 'to fecht wi' nowt.' it was felt at once to be ridiculous. that one word conveyed at once a statement of the folly, and a sarcastic rebuke of the folly." or turn to the poem of _halloween_. here he has sketched the ayrshire peasantry as they appeared in their hours of merriment--painted with a few vivid strokes a dozen distinct pictures of country lads and (p. 195) lasses, sires and dames, and at the same time preserved for ever the remembrance of antique customs and superstitious observances, which even in burns's day were beginning to fade, and have now all but disappeared. or again, take _the auld farmer's new-year-morning salutation to his auld mare_. in this homely, but most kindly humorous poem, you have the whole toiling life of a ploughman and his horse, done off in two or three touches, and the elements of what may seem a commonplace, but was to burns a most vivid, experience, are made to live for ever. for a piece of good graphic scotch, see how he describes the sturdy old mare in the plough setting her face to the furzy braes. thou never braing't, an' fetch't, and fliskit, but thy auld tail thou wad hae whiskit, an spread abreed thy weel-fill'd brisket, wi' pith an' pow'r, till spritty knowes wad rair't and riskit, an' slypet owre. to paraphrase this, "thou didst never fret, or plunge and kick, but thou wouldest have whisked thy old tail, and spread abroad thy large chest, with pith and power, till hillocks, where the earth was filled with tough-rooted plants, would have given forth a cracking sound, and the clods fallen gently over." the latter part of this paraphrase is taken from chambers. what pure english words could have rendered these things as compactly and graphically? of _the cotter's saturday night_ it is hardly needful to speak. as a work of art, it is by no means at burns's highest level. the metre was not native to him. it contains some lines that are feeble, whole stanzas that are heavy. but as lockhart has said, in words already quoted, there is none of his poems that does such justice to the (p. 196) better nature that was originally in him. it shows how burns could reverence the old national piety, however little he may have been able to practise it. it is the more valuable for this, that it is almost the only poem in which either of our two great national poets has described scottish character on the side of that grave, deep, though undemonstrative reverence, which has been an intrinsic element in it. no wonder the peasantry of scotland have loved burns as perhaps never people loved a poet. he not only sympathized with the wants, the trials, the joys and sorrows of their obscure lot, but he interpreted these to themselves, and interpreted them to others, and this too in their own language made musical, and glorified by genius. he made the poorest ploughman proud of his station and his toil, since robbie burns had shared and had sung them. he awoke a sympathy for them in many a heart that otherwise would never have known it. in looking up to him, the scottish people have seen an impersonation of themselves on a large scale--of themselves, both in their virtues and in their vices. secondly, burns in his poetry was not only the interpreter of scotland's peasantry, he was the restorer of her nationality. when he appeared, the spirit of scotland was at a low ebb. the fatigue that followed a century of religious strife, the extinction of her parliament, the stern suppression of the jacobite risings, the removal of all symbols of her royalty and nationality, had all but quenched the ancient spirit. englishmen despised scotchmen, and scotchmen seemed ashamed of themselves and of their country. a race of literary men had sprang up in edinburgh who, as to national feeling, were entirely colourless, scotchmen in nothing except their dwelling-place. the (p. 197) thing they most dreaded was to be convicted of a scotticism. among these learned cosmopolitans in walked burns, who with the instinct of genius chose for his subject that scottish life which they ignored, and for his vehicle that vernacular which they despised, and who, touching the springs of long-forgotten emotions, brought back on the hearts of his countrymen a tide of patriotic feeling to which they had long been strangers. at first it was only his native ayrshire he hoped to illustrate, to shed upon the streams of ayr and doon, the power of yarrow, and teviot, and tweed. but his patriotism was not merely local; the traditions of wallace haunted him like a passion, the wanderings of bruce he hoped to dramatize. his well-known words about the thistle have been already quoted. they express what was one of his strongest aspirations. and though he accomplished but a small part of what he once hoped to do, yet we owe it to him first of all that "the old kingdom" has not wholly sunk into a province. if scotchmen to-day love and cherish their country with a pride unknown to their ancestors of the last century, if strangers of all countries look on scotland as a land of romance, this we owe in great measure to burns, who first turned the tide, which scott afterwards carried to full flood. all that scotland had done and suffered, her romantic history, the manhood of her people, the beauty of her scenery, would have disappeared in modern commonplace and manufacturing ugliness, if she had been left without her two "sacred poets." thirdly. burns's sympathies and thoughts were not confined to class nor country; they had something more catholic in them, they reached to universal man. few as were his opportunities of knowing the (p. 198) characters of statesmen and politicians, yet with what "random shots o' countra wit" did he hit off the public men of his time! in his address to king george iii. on his birthday, how gay yet caustic is the satire, how trenchant his stroke! the elder, and the younger pitt, "yon ill-tongued tinkler charlie fox," as he irreverently calls him--if burns had sat for years in parliament, he could scarcely have known them better. every one of the scottish m.p.'s of the time, from- that slee auld-farran chiel dundas to- that glib-gabbit highland baron the laird o' graham, and- erskine a spunkie norlan billie, --he has touched their characters as truly as if they had all been his own familiars. but of his intuitive knowledge of men of all ranks, there is no need to speak, for every line he writes attests it. of his fetches of moral wisdom something has already been said. he would not have been a scotchman, if he had not been a moralizer; but then his moralizings are not platitudes, but truths winged with wit and wisdom. he had, as we have seen, his limitations--his bias to overvalue one order of qualities, and to disparage others. some pleading of his own cause and that of men of his own temperament, some disparagement of the severer, less-impulsive virtues, it is easy to discern in him. yet, allowing all this, what flashes of moral insight, piercing to the quick! what random sayings flung forth, that have become proverbs in all lands--"mottoes of the heart"! such are- (p. 199) o wad some power the giftie gie us, to see oursel as ithers see us: it wad frae mony a blunder free us, an' foolish notion; or the much-quoted- facts are chiels that winna ding and downa be disputed; or- the heart ay's the part ay that makes us right or wrang. who on the text, "he that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone," ever preached such a sermon as burns in his _address to the unco guid_? and in his epistle of advice to a young friend, what wisdom! what incisive aphorisms! in passages like these scattered throughout his writings, and in some single poems, he has passed beyond all bonds of place and nationality, and spoken home to the universal human heart. and here we may note that in that awakening to the sense of human brotherhood, the oneness of human nature, which began towards the end of last century, and which found utterance through cowper first of the english poets, there has been no voice in literature, then or since, which has proclaimed it more tellingly than burns. and then his humanity was not confined to man, it overflowed to his lower fellow-creatures. his lines about the pet ewe, the worn-out mare, the field-mouse, the wounded hare, have long been household words. in this tenderness towards animals we see another point of likeness between him and cowper. fourthly. for all aspects of the natural world he has the same (p. 200) clear eye, the same open heart that he has for man. his love of nature is intense, but very simple and direct, no subtilizings, nor refinings about it, nor any of that nature-worship which soon after his time came in. quite unconsciously, as a child might, he goes into the outward world for refreshment, for enjoyment, for sympathy. everywhere in his poetry, nature comes in, not so much as a being independent of man, but as the background of his pictures of life and human character. how true his perceptions of her features are, how pure and transparent the feeling she awakens in him! take only two examples. here is the well-known way he describes the burn in his _halloween_- whyles owre a linn the burnie plays, as thro' the glen it wimpl't; whyles round a rocky scaur it strays, whyles in a wiel it dimpl't; whyles glitter'd to the nightly rays, wi' bickerin', dancin' dazzle: whyles cookit underneath the brass, below the spreading hazel, unseen that night. was ever burn so naturally, yet picturesquely described? the next verse can hardly be omitted- amang the brachens on the brae, between her an' the moon, the deil, or else an outler quey, gat up an' gae a croon: poor leezie's heart maist lap the hool; near lav'rock height she jumpit; but miss'd a fit, an' in the pool out-owre the lugs she plumpit, wi' a plunge that night "maist lap the hool," what condensation in that scotch phrase! (p. 201) the hool is the pod of a pea--poor lizzie's heart almost leapt out of its encasing sheath. or look at this other picture:- upon a simmer sunday morn, when nature's face is fair, i walked forth to view the corn, and snuff the caller air. the risin' sun owre galston muirs wi' glorious light was glintin; the hares were hirplin down the furrs, the lav'rocks they were chantin fu' sweet that day. i have noted only some of the excellences of burns's poetry, which far outnumber its blemishes. of these last it is unnecessary to speak; they are too obvious, and whatever is gross, readers can of themselves pass by. burns's most considerable poems, as distinct from his songs, were almost all written before he went to edinburgh. there is, however, one memorable exception. _tam o' shanter_, as we have seen, belongs to ellisland days. most of his earlier poems were entirely realistic, a transcript of the men and women and scenes he had seen and known, only lifted a very little off the earth, only very slightly idealized. but in _tam o' shanter_ he had let loose his powers upon the materials of past experiences, and out of them he shaped a tale which was a pure imaginative creation. in no other instance, except perhaps in _the jolly beggars_, had he done this; and in that cantata, if the genius is equal, the materials are so coarse, and the sentiment so gross, as to make it, for all its dramatic power, decidedly offensive. it is strange what very opposite judgments have been formed of the intrinsic merit of _tam o' shanter_. mr. carlyle thinks that it might have (p. 202) been written "all but quite as well by a man, who, in place of genius, had only possessed talent; that it is act so much a poem, as a piece of sparkling rhetoric; the heart of the story still lies hard and dead." on the other hand, sir walter scott has recorded this verdict: "in the inimitable tale of _tam o' shanter_, burns has left us sufficient evidence of his abilities to combine the ludicrous with the awful and even the horrible. no poet, with the exception of shakespeare, ever possessed the power of exciting the most varied and discordant emotions with such rapid transitions. his humorous description of death in the poem on dr. hornbrook, borders on the terrific; and the witches' dance in the kirk of alloway is at once ludicrous and horrible." sir walter, i believe, is right, and the world has sided with him in his judgment about _tam o' shanter_. nowhere in british literature, out of shakespeare, is there to be found so much of the power of which scott speaks--that of combining in rapid transition almost contradictory emotions--if we except perhaps one of scott's own highest creations, the tale of wandering willie, in _redgauntlet_. on the songs of burns a volume might be written, but a few sentences must here suffice. it is in his songs that his soul comes out fullest, freest, brightest; it is as a song-writer that his fame has spread widest, and will longest last. mr. carlyle, not in his essay, which does full justice to burns's songs, but in some more recent work, has said something like this, "our scottish son of thunder had, for want of a better, to pour his lightning through the narrow cranny of scottish song--the narrowest cranny ever vouchsafed to any son of thunder."--the narrowest, it may be, but the most effective, if a man desires to come close to his fellow-men, soul to soul. of all forms of literature the genuine song is the most penetrating, and the most (p. 203) to be remembered; and in this kind burns is the supreme master. to make him this, two things combined. first, there was the great background of national melody and antique verse, coming down to him from remote ages, and sounding through his heart from childhood. he was cradled in a very atmosphere of melody, else he never could have sung so well. no one knew better than he did, or would have owned more feelingly, how much he owed to the old forgotten song-writers of his country, dead for ages before he lived, and lying in their unknown graves all scotland over. from his boyhood he had studied eagerly the old tunes, and the old words where there were such, that had come down to him from the past, treasured every scrap of antique air and verse, conned and crooned them over till he had them by heart. this was the one form of literature that he had entirely mastered. and from the first he had laid it down as a rule, that the one way to catch the inspiration, and rise to the true fervour of song, was, as he phrased it, "to _sowth_ the tune over and over," till the words came spontaneously. the words of his own songs were inspired by pre-existing tunes, not composed first, and set to music afterwards. but all this love and study of the ancient songs and outward melody would have gone for nothing, but for the second element, that is the inward melody born in the poet's deepest heart, which received into itself the whole body of national song; and then when it had passed through his soul, sent it forth ennobled and glorified by his own genius. that which fitted him to do this was the peculiar intensity of his nature, the fervid heart, the trembling sensibility, the headlong passion, all thrilling through an intellect strong and keen beyond (p. 204) that of other men. how mysterious to reflect that the same qualities on their emotional side made him the great songster of the world, and on their practical side drove him to ruin! the first word which burns composed was a song in praise of his partner on the harvest-rig; the last utterance he breathed in verse was also a song--a faint remembrance of some former affection. between these two he composed from two to three hundred. it might be wished perhaps that he had written fewer, especially fewer love songs; never composed under pressure, and only when his heart was so full he could not help singing. this is the condition on which alone the highest order of songs is born. probably from thirty to forty songs of burns could be named which come up to this highest standard. no other scottish song-writer could show above four or five of the same quality. of his songs one main characteristic is that their subjects, the substance they lay hold of, belongs to what is most permanent in humanity, those primary affections, those permanent relations of life which cannot change while man's nature is what it is. in this they are wholly unlike those songs which seize on the changing aspects of society. as the phases of social life change, these are forgotten. but no time can superannuate the subjects which burns has sung; they are rooted in the primary strata, which are steadfast. then as the subjects are primary, so the feeling with which burns regards them is primary too--that is, he gives us the first spontaneous gush--the first throb of his heart, and that a most strong, simple, manly heart. the feeling is not turned over in the reflective faculty, and there artistically shaped,--not subtilized and refined away till it has lost its power and freshness; but given at first hand, as it comes warm from within. when he is (p. 205) at his best you seem to hear the whole song warbling through his spirit, naturally as a bird's. the whole subject is wrapped in an element of music, till it is penetrated and transfigured by it. no one else has so much of the native lilt in him. when his mind was at the white heat, it is wonderful how quickly he struck off some of his most perfect songs. and yet he could, when it was required, go back upon them, and retouch them line by line, as we saw him doing in _ye banks and braes_. in the best of them the outward form is as perfect as the inward music is all-pervading, and the two are in complete harmony. to mention a few instances in which he has given their ultimate and consummate expression to fundamental human emotions, four songs may be mentioned, in each of which a different phase of love has been rendered for all time- of a' the airts the wind can blaw, ye flowery banks o' bonnie doon, go fetch to me a pint o' wine; and that other, in which the calm depth of long-wedded and happy love utters itself, so blithely yet pathetically,- john anderson, my jo, john. then for comic humour of courtship, there is- duncan gray cam here to woo. for that contented spirit which, while feeling life's troubles, yet keeps "aye a heart aboon them a'," we have- contented wi' little, and cantie wi' mair. for friendship rooted in the past, there is- (p. 206) should auld acquaintance be forgot, even if we credit antiquity with some of the verses. for wild and reckless daring, mingled with a dash of finer feeling, there is _macpherson's farewell_. for patriotic heroism- scots wha hae wi' wallace bled; and for personal independence, and sturdy, if self-asserting, manhood- a man's a man for a' that. these are but a few of the many permanent emotions to which burns has given such consummate expression, as will stand for all time. in no mention of his songs should that be forgotten which is so greatly to the honour of burns. he was emphatically the purifier of scottish song. there are some poems he has left, there are also a few among his songs, which we could wish that he had never written. but we who inherit scottish song as he left it, can hardly imagine how much he did to purify and elevate our national melodies. to see what he has done in this way, we have but to compare burns's songs with the collection of scottish songs published by david herd, in 1769, a few years before burns appeared. a genuine poet, who knew well what he spoke of, the late thomas aird, has said, "those old scottish melodies, sweet and strong though they were, strong and sweet, were, all the more for their very strength and sweetness, a moral plague, from the indecent words to which many of them had long been set. how was the plague to be stayed? all the preachers in the land could not divorce the grossness from the music. the only way was to put (p. 207) something better in its stead. this inestimable something better burns gave us." so purified and ennobled by burns, these songs embody human emotion in its most condensed and sweetest essence. they appeal to all ranks, they touch all ages, they cheer toil-worn men under every clime. wherever the english tongue is heard, beneath the suns of india, amid african deserts, on the western prairies of america, among the squatters of australia, whenever men of british blood would give vent to their deepest, kindliest, most genial feelings, it is to the songs of burns they spontaneously turn, and find in them at once a perfect utterance, and a fresh tie of brotherhood. it is this which forms burns's most enduring claim on the world's gratitude. index (p. 209) adair, dr., 76. addington, mr., 69-70, 144, 171. _address to the deil_, 23. _address to the unco guid_, 58, 199. aiken, robert, 29. ainslie, mr., 60, 72, 91. aird, thomas, 194. alison, rev. a., 128-129. alloway kirk, 121; kirkyard, 16. alloway mill, school at, 5. _a man's a man for a' that_, 167. armour, jean, 26-27, 62-63, 83-84, 85-88, 141, 160. armour, mr., 26, 33, 83-84, 96. athole, duchess of, 65. athole, duke of, 67. _auld lang syne_, 206. auld lights, the, 18. ayr, river, 27. _banks o' doon_, 123-124, 161, 205. _bard's epitaph_, the, 190. begbie, ellison, 12. begg, mrs. (burns's sister), 25, 62. belches of invermay, the, 75. _birks of invermay, the_, 75. blacklock, dr., 38, 48-49, 104. blair castle, 65, 67. blair, dr. h., 38, 44, 48, 50-51, 56-57. _bonnie peggie alison_, 12. _brigs of ayr_, 58. brow, 179, 184. brown, agnes (burns's mother), 3. _bruar water, humble petition of_, 66-67. bruce, mrs., of clackmannan, 77-78. bruce, robert, 78, 157. burnes, james (burns's cousin), 183. burness (or burnes), william (burns's father), 2-3, 6-7, 14-15. burns, gilbert, 5, 9-12, 26, 36, 85, 99-100. burns, mrs. _see_ armour, jean. burns, robert, biographies of, 1; birth, 2; parentage, 2-3, 6-7, 14-15; successive homes: mount oliphant, 4-9, lochlea, 9-15, mossgiel, 15, 20, 22, 24; school-days, 5-7; household reading, 6-7; early love affairs, 8-10, 12, 26-30; youthful dissipation, 10, 13-15; burns as a farmer, 15-16, 20-21, 95, 98-99, 132-133; religious controversy, 17-20; poetic aspirations, 21; two prolific years, 22-26; jean armour, 26, 27; resolves to emigrate, 27, 30, 32, 34; kilmarnock edition of the poems published, 30-34; literary earnings, 32, 58-59, 85, 152; immediate popularity, 33-34, 37, 39; his manners, 36; first winter in edinburgh, 42-59; literary and legal lights, 44-46; the lion of the season, 48-57; his appearance, 49-50, 118, 170; tavern life, 57-58; second edition of the poems, 58-59; border and highland tours, 60, 63-78; burns's descriptions of scenery, 71-72; disappointing poetic fruits, 73; knighted by mrs. bruce, 78; second winter in edinburgh, 79-93; reasons for his stay, 79; hypochondria and despondency, 81; mrs. m'lehose, 82-84; appointment in the excise, 84; marriage, 85-88; change in the attitude of edinburgh society, 89-90; some reasons for it, 90-92; life at ellisland, 94-134; burns's farm, 95; discomfort and despondency, 96-97; happiest period of his life, 99, 102; house at ellisland, 101-102; as an exciseman, 105-106; restlessness and discontent, 113, 115-116; _tam o' shanter_, 120-122; dramatic aspirations, 126; gives up his farm, 133; migration to dumfries, 135; downward course, 138, 162, 164, 172; social discredit, 139, 173; politics, 139, 142-149, 161, 168-169, 171; friendship with the liddels, 140, 162, 179-180; mrs. m'lehose reappears, 140-141; relations with johnson and thomson, 150-154, 159; excursion into galloway, 156-157; an unhappy time, 161-164; declining health, 165, 174; joins the volunteers, 169-170; last illness, 176-179; poverty and anxiety, 180-184; death, 185; burns's grave, 186-187; character, 188, 189. as a poet: satires, 19-20, 31-32, epistles, 23, pure landscape not his forte, 71, 72, at his best in the scottish dialect, 73, 151, tenderness towards animals, 106-108, 179, bacchanalian songs, 110-112, burns in the hour of inspiration, 121-122, elegies, 123, circumstance and mental habits forbade long poems, 126, love songs, 140-141, 160-161, in the act of composition, 159-160, piercing insight and large sympathy, 192, truthfulness of nature, 193, caustic wit, 193, the interpreter of scotland's peasantry, 196, the restorer of her nationality, 196-197, catholicity, 197-198, intense love of nature, 200, burns as a song-writer, 202-206. campbell, mary. _see_ highland mary. carlyle, thomas, 17, 54, 129, 131-132, 156-157, 169, 202. cathcart, miss, 66. chalmers, margaret, 80-81, 84, 87, 183. chambers, dr., 11, 27, 39 _et passim_. clarinda. _see_ m'lehose, mrs. clark, william, 117-118. commonplace book, burns's, 55-56, 115. _cotter's saturday night, the_, 20, 23, 25, 37, 70, 195. cowper, 47, 48. craig, mrs., 184. creech, mr., 56-59, 79, 85, 153. crochallan club, the, 58, 61, 63, 91. cruikshank, mr., 78. cunningham, alexander, 163. cunningham, allan, 75, 89, 96, 97, 125, 133 _et passim_. currie, dr., 174. daer, lord, 35, 156. dalrymple, mr., 46. dalswinton, 94. davidson, john (souter johnnie), 122. _death and dr. hornbook_, 23, 58, 70. _death of poor mailie, the_, 9. _deil's awa' wi' the exciseman, the_, 145. _despondency, ode to_, 31. don, lady harriet, 127. doon, brig of, 2, 3, 4. dumfries, burns's life at, 135-154; social condition of, 136. dundas, mr. henry, 67, 92, 143, 171. dunlop, mrs., 34, 36-37, 96; letters to, 54, 86, 89, 96, 100, 109, 113, 114, 149, 165, 169, 174, 175, 183. ecclefechan, 168-169. edinburgh, burns's first winter in, 42-59; tavern life in, 57-58; second winter in, 79-93. eglinton, lord, 58. ellisland, 56, 61, 80, 85, 89, 94-134. epistles, burns's, 23-24. erskine, h., 45-46. erskine of mar, mr., 148. _essay on taste_, alison's, 128-129. _farmer's address to his mare_, 23, 108, 195. ferguson, dr. adam, 48, 53. fergusson, the poet, 44, 191. french revolution, burns's sympathy with, 144-146, 157. galloway, burns's tour in, 155-156. "geddes, jenny," 128. glencairn, lady, 104. glencairn, lord, 46, 56, 123. globe tavern, the, 116, 128, 137-138, 176. gordon castle, 68-69. gordon, duchess of, 46, 69. gordon, duke of, 68. gow, neil, 73-74. graham, douglas (tam o' shanter), 122. graham, mrs., 66. graham of balnagown, 66. graham of fintray, mr., 67, 84, 103, 120, 147, 172. greenfield, mr., 56-57. grose, captain, 108-109, 120-121. _halloween_, 23, 194, 200. hamilton, charlotte, 80-81, 183. hamilton, gavin, 19, 30, 76, 80. hazlitt, 12. heron of heron, 169. heron robert, 33, 57, 58. hemans, mrs., 157. highland mary, 27-31, 34, 112-113. _highland mary, lament for_, 27, 31-32, 113. _holy fair, the_, 19-20, 25, 31. _holy willie's prayer_, 19, 31. hume, david, 44. irvine, 13-14, 26, 41. jacobitism, burns's, 142-143. jeffrey, 52, 177. _john anderson my jo_, 114. johnson, dr., 45. _johnson's museum_, 73, 75, 114, 150-151. johnson, the engraver, 73, 150, 179. _jolly beggars, the_, 23, 25, 126, 201. _justice of peace_ (langhorne's), 53. kilmarnock edition of the poems, 30-33, 191. kirkoswald, 10, 13, 122. _kirk's alarm, the_, 109. _land o' cakes_, 108-109. _lass of cessnock water, the_, 12. laurie, dr., 38, 48. lewars, jessie, 178, 185. lewars, mr., 105. lochlea, 9-15. lockhart, mr., 20, 27, 48, 62, 67, 87, 127, 145. _lounger, the_, 45, 47. m'culloch, david, 164. mackenzie, h., 45, 48. m'lehose, mrs., 82-85, 140-141. _macpherson's farewell_, 71. _mary in heaven_, 73, 112, 114, 120, 161. _mary morrison_, 11-12. masterton, allan, 110. mauchline, 15, 62, 99. maxwell, provost, 115. mendelssohn, 179. miller of dalswinton, mr., 85, 95, 98, 133. milton, 55, 63. mitchell, collector, 175, 182. monboddo, lord, 45, 48. moore, dr., 72, 125. mossgiel, 15, 20, 22, 24, 38, 61. _mountain daisy, the_, 23, 36. mount oliphant, 4-9. _mouse, to a_, 23, 108. murdoch, burns's tutor, 5-7. _my nannie, o_, 9, 11. "nell, handsome," 7-9. new lights, 18-19, 34, 109. "nicht wi' burns," a, 130-131. nicol, mr., 61, 63, 66, 68-70, 72, 91. north, christopher, 42. _of a' the airts_, 161. _oh, wert thou in the cauld blast_, 178. _ordination, the_, 19, 25, 58. paine, tom, 146. pindar, peter, 152. poems, kilmarnock edition, 30-33, 191; second edition, 58-59. politics, burns's part in, 139, 142-149, 161, 169, 171. prentice, mr., 42. punch-bowl, burns's, 96, 131-132. ramsay, allan, 21, 23, 44, 75, 191. ramsay of ochtertyre, 119, 125. _rankine, epistle to john_, 16. richmond, john, 43. riddel, mrs. w., 141, 179-180. riddel of friars' carse, 98, 162. riddel, walter, 139, 162. robertson, dr., 44-48. "rosamond," the brig, 145. _ruin, ode to_, 31. samson, john, 43. _scots wha hae_, 155-157, 206. scott-douglas, mr., 27-28, 124. scott, sir w., 52, 54, 75-76, 197. selkirk, lord, 155. sidmouth, lord. _see_ addington, mr. _silver tassie_, the, 114. skinner, bishop, 74. smith, adam, 45. smith, betty, 99, 101. songs, burns's, 202-205. stewart, dugald, 34-36, 43-44, 46, 51, 56-57. syme, mr., 154-155, 170. _tam o' shanter_, 120-122, 125, 191, 201-202. tarbolton, 10. thomson, geo., 126, 151-153, 156, 161, 165, 171, 177, 182-183. tours, border and highland, 60-78. _twa dogs, the_, 23, 31, 70, 193, 194. _twa herds, the_, 19. tytler, mr. fraser, 48. _vision, the_, 23. walker, prof., 49, 51, 66, 174. wallace, william, 21, 36, 197. wee vennel, the, 135, 137. _whistle, the_, 111-112. _willie brewed a peck o' maut_, 110-112. wilson, john (painter), 31. _winter night, the_, 108. wolcot, dr. _see_ pindar, peter. woodley park, 140, 162. wordsworth, 71, 157-159, 190. _printed by_ r. & r. clark, limited, _edinburgh_. robert burns how to know him by william allan neilson professor of english, harvard university author of essentials of poetry, etc. with portrait indianapolis the bobbs-merrill company publishers copyright 1917 the bobbs-merrill company press of braunworth & co. book manufacturers brooklyn, n.y. to my brother [illustration: the nasmyth portrait of robert burns] list of poems address to the deil 282 address to the unco guid 176 ae fond kiss 56 afton water 116 auld farmer's new-year morning salutation, the 278 auld lang syne 100 auld rob morris 121 bannocks o' barley 165 bard's epitaph, a 308 bessy and her spinnin'-wheel 145 blue-eyed lassie, the 117 bonnie lad that's far awa, the 139 bonnie lesley 118 braw braw lads 140 ca' the yowes 115 charlie he's my darling 168 clarinda 58 come boat me o'er to charlie 163 comin' through the rye 154 contented wi' little 126 cotter's saturday night, the 8 death and doctor hornbook 287 death and dying words of poor mailie, the 23 de'il's awa wi' th' exciseman, the 154 deuk's dang o'er my daddie, the 155 duncan davison 153 duncan gray 152 elegy on capt. matthew henderson 298 epistle to a young friend 200 epistle to davie 193 for the sake o' somebody 136 gloomy night, the 40 go fetch to me a pint o' wine 88 green grow the rashes 123 had i the wyte? 148 halloween 209 handsome nell 20 highland balou, the 151 highland laddie, the 164 highland mary 113 holy fair, the 228 holy willie's prayer 173 how lang and dreary 138 i hae a wife 59 i hae been at crookieden 167 i'm owre young to marry yet 143 it was a' for our rightfu' king 162 john anderson, my jo 146 jolly beggars, the 241 kenmure's on and awa 165 lassie wi' the lint-white locks 119 last may a braw wooer 135 lea-rig, the 120 macpherson's farewell 150 man's a man for a' that, a 158 mary morison 28 montgomerie's peggy 120 my father was a farmer 126 my heart's in the highlands 140 my love is like a red red rose 102 my love she's but a lassie yet 144 my nannie o 29 my nannie's awa 57 my wife's a winsome wee thing 108 o for ane an' twenty, tam! 129 o merry hae i been 148 o this is no my ain lassie 107 o, wert thou in the cauld blast 123 of a' the airts 106 on a scotch bard, gone to the west indies 42 on john dove, innkeeper 205 open the door to me, o! 137 poet's welcome to his love-begotten daughter, the 33 poor mailie's elegy 26 poortith cauld 107 prayer in the prospect of death, a 32 rantin' dog the daddie o't, the 134 rigs o' barley, the 30 scotch drink 301 scots, wha hae 160 simmer's a pleasant time 131 tam glen 133 tam o' shanter 257 tam samson's elegy 294 there was a lad 125 there'll never be peace till jamie comes hame 166 to a haggis 306 to a louse 274 to a mountain daisy 276 to a mouse 272 to daunton me 142 to mary in heaven 114 to the rev. john mcmath 181 twa dogs, the 219 wandering willie 138 weary pund o' tow, the 147 wha is that at my bower door? 156 what can a young lassie 142 whistle, and i'll come to ye, my lad 132 will ye go to the indies, my mary? 40 willie brew'd a peck o' maut 238 willie's wife 156 ye banks and braes (two versions) 130 yestreen i had a pint o' wine 104 contents chapter page i biography 1 1. alloway, mount oliphant, and lochlea 3 2. mossgiel 31 3. edinburgh 44 4. ellisland 58 5. dumfries 62 ii inheritance: language and literature 69 iii burns and scottish song 90 iv satires and epistles 171 v descriptive and narrative poetry 206 vi conclusion 310 index 325 robert burns burns chapter i biography "i have not the most distant pretence to what the pye-coated guardians of escutcheons call a gentleman. when at edinburgh last winter, i got acquainted at the herald's office; and looking thro' the granary of honors, i there found almost every name in the kingdom; but for me, my ancient but ignoble blood has crept thro' scoundrels since the flood. gules, purpure, argent, etc., quite disowned me. my forefathers rented land of the famous, noble keiths of marshal, and had the honor to share their fate. i do not use the word 'honor' with any reference to political principles: _loyal_ and _disloyal_ i take to be merely relative terms in that ancient and formidable court known in this country by the name of 'club-law.' those who dare welcome ruin and shake hands with infamy, for what they believe sincerely to be the cause of their god or their king, are--as mark antony in _shakspear_ says of brutus and cassius--'honorable men.' i mention this circumstance because it threw my father on the world at large; where, after many years' wanderings and sojournings, he picked up a pretty large quantity of observation and experience, to which i am indebted for most of my pretensions to wisdom. i have met with few who understood men, their manners and their ways, equal to him; but stubborn, ungainly integrity, and headlong, ungovernable irascibility, are disqualifying circumstances; consequently, i was born, a very poor man's son." "you can now, sir, form a pretty near guess of what sort of wight he is, whom for some time you have honored with your correspondence. that whim and fancy, keen sensibility and riotous passions, may still make him zig-zag in his future path of life is very probable; but, come what will, i shall answer for him--the most determinate integrity and honor [shall ever characterise him]; and though his evil star should again blaze in his meridian with tenfold more direful influence, he may reluctantly tax friendship with pity, but no more." these two paragraphs form respectively the beginning and the end of a long autobiographical letter written by robert burns to doctor john moore, physician and novelist. at the time they were composed, the poet had just returned to his native county after the triumphant season in edinburgh that formed the climax of his career. but no detailed knowledge of circumstances is necessary to rouse interest in a man who wrote like that. you may be offended by the self-consciousness and the swagger, or you may be charmed by the frankness and dash, but you can not remain indifferent. burns had many moods besides those reflected in these sentences, but here we can see as vividly as in any of his poetry the fundamental characteristics of the man--sensitive, passionate, independent, and as proud as lucifer--whose life and work are the subject of this volume. 1. alloway, mount oliphant, and lochlea william burnes, the father of the poet, came of a family of farmers and gardeners in the county of kincardine, on the east coast of scotland. at the age of twenty-seven, he left his native district for the south; and when robert, his eldest child, was born on january 25, 1759, william was employed as gardener to the provost of ayr. he had besides leased some seven acres of land, of which he planned to make a nursery and market-garden, in the neighboring parish of alloway; and there near the brig o' doon built with his own hands the clay cottage now known to literary pilgrims as the birthplace of burns. his wife, agnes brown, the daughter of an ayrshire farmer, bore him, besides robert, three sons and three daughters. in order to keep his sons at home instead of sending them out as farm-laborers, the elder burnes rented in 1766 the farm of mount oliphant, and stocked it on borrowed money. the venture did not prosper, and on a change of landlords the family fell into the hands of a merciless agent, whose bullying the poet later avenged by the portrait of the factor in _the twa dogs_. i've noticed, on our laird's court-day,- and mony a time my heart's been wae,- poor tenant bodies, scant o' cash, how they maun thole a factor's snash; he'll stamp and threaten, curse and swear, he'll apprehend them, poind their gear; while they maun stan', wi' aspect humble, and hear it a', and fear and tremble! in 1777 mount oliphant was exchanged for the farm of lochlea, about ten miles away, and here william burnes labored for the rest of his life. the farm was poor, and with all he could do it was hard to keep his head above water. his health was failing, he was harassed with debts, and in 1784 in the midst of a lawsuit about his lease, he died. in spite of his struggle for a bare subsistence, the elder burnes had not neglected the education of his children. before he was six, robert was sent to a small school at alloway mill, and soon after his father joined with a few neighbors to engage a young man named john murdoch to teach their children in a room in the village. this arrangement continued for two years and a half, when, murdoch having been called elsewhere, the father undertook the task of education himself. the regular instruction was confined chiefly to the long winter evenings, but quite as important as this was the intercourse between father and sons as they went about their work. "my father," says the poet's brother gilbert, "was for some time almost the only companion we had. he conversed familiarly on all subjects with us, as if we had been men; and was at great pains, as we accompanied him in the labours of the farm, to lead the conversation to such subjects as might tend to increase our knowledge, or confirm our virtuous habits. he borrowed salmon's _geographical grammar_ for us, and endeavoured to make us acquainted with the situation and history of the different countries in the world; while, from a book-society in ayr, he procured for us derham's _physics and astro-theology_, and ray's _wisdom of god in the creation_, to give us some idea of astronomy and natural history. robert read all these books with an avidity and industry scarcely to be equalled. my father had been a subscriber to stackhouse's _history of the bible_ ...; from this robert collected a competent knowledge of ancient history; for no book was so voluminous as to slacken his industry, or so antiquated as to dampen his researches. a brother of my mother, who had lived with us some time, and had learned some arithmetic by our winter evening's candle, went into a book-seller's shop in ayr to purchase the _ready reckoner, or tradesman's sure guide_, and a book to teach him to write letters. luckily, in place of the _complete letter-writer_, he got by mistake a small collection of letters by the most eminent writers, with a few sensible directions for attaining an easy epistolary style. this book was to robert of the greatest consequence. it inspired him with a strong desire to excel in letter-writing, while it furnished him with models by some of the first writers in our language." interesting as are the details as to the antiquated manuals from which burns gathered his general information, it is more important to note the more personal implications in this account. respect for learning has long been wide-spread among the peasantry of scotland, but it is evident that william burnes was intellectually far above the average of his class. the schoolmaster murdoch has left a portrait of him in which he not only extols his virtues as a man but emphasizes his zest for things of the mind, and states that "he spoke the english language with more propriety--both with respect to diction and pronunciation--than any man i ever knew, with no greater advantages." though tender and affectionate, he seems to have inspired both wife and children with a reverence amounting to awe, and he struck strangers as reserved and austere. he recognized in robert traces of extraordinary gifts, but he did not hide from him the fact that his son's temperament gave him anxiety for his future. mrs. burnes was a devoted wife and mother, by no means her husband's intellectual equal, but vivacious and quick-tempered, with a memory stored with the song and legend of the country-side. other details can be filled in from the poet's own picture of his father's household as given with little or no idealization in _the cotter's saturday night_. the cotter's saturday night my lov'd, my honour'd, much respected friend! no mercenary bard his homage pays: with honest pride i scorn each selfish end, my dearest meed a friend's esteem and praise: to you i sing, in simple scottish lays, the lowly train in life's sequester'd scene; the native feelings strong, the guileless ways; what aiken in a cottage would have been- ah! tho' his worth unknown, far happier there, i ween. november chill blaws load wi' angry sough; [wail] the shortening winter-day is near a close; the miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh; the black'ning trains o' craws to their repose: the toil-worn cotter frae his labour goes, this night his weekly moil is at an end, collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes, hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend, and weary, o'er the moor, his course does hameward bend. at length his lonely cot appears in view, beneath the shelter of an aged tree; th' expectant wee-things, toddlin', stacher through [stagger] to meet their dad, wi' flichterin' noise an' glee. [fluttering] his wee bit ingle, blinkin bonnilie, [fire] his clean hearth-stane, his thrifty wifie's smile, the lisping infant prattling on his knee, does a' his weary kiaugh and care beguile, [worry] an' makes him quite forget his labour an' his toil. belyve, the elder bairns come drapping in, [soon] at service out, amang the farmers roun'; some ca' the pleugh, some herd, some tentie rin [drive, heedful run] a cannie errand to a neibor town: [quiet] their eldest hope, their jenny, woman-grown, in youthfu' bloom, love sparkling in her e'e, [eye] comes hame, perhaps to shew a braw new gown, [fine] or deposite her sair-won penny-fee, [hard-won wages] to help her parents dear, if they in hardship be. with joy unfeign'd brothers and sisters meet, an' each for other's weelfare kindly spiers: [asks] the social hours, swift-wing'd, unnoticed fleet; each tells the uncos that he sees or hears; [wonders] the parents, partial, eye their hopeful years; anticipation forward points the view. the mother, wi' her needle an' her sheers, gars auld claes look amaist as weel's the new; [makes old clothes] the father mixes a' wi' admonition due. their master's an' their mistress's command the younkers a' are warnã¨d to obey; [youngsters] an' mind their labours wi' an eydent hand, [diligent] an' ne'er, tho' out o' sight, to jauk or play: [trifle] 'and o! be sure to fear the lord alway, an' mind your duty, duly, morn an' night! lest in temptation's path ye gang astray, [go] implore his counsel and assisting might: they never sought in vain that sought the lord aright!' but hark! a rap comes gently to the door; jenny, wha kens the meaning o' the same, [knows] tells how a neibor lad cam o'er the moor, to do some errands, and convoy her hame. the wily mother sees the conscious flame sparkle in jenny's e'e, and flush her cheek; wi' heart-struck anxious care, inquires his name, while jenny hafflins is afraid to speak; [half] weel pleased the mother hears it's nae wild worthless rake. wi' kindly welcome, jenny brings him ben; [in] a strappin' youth; he takes the mother's eye; blythe jenny sees the visit's no ill ta'en; the father cracks of horses, pleughs, and kye. [chats, cows] the youngster's artless heart o'erflows wi' joy, but blate and laithfu', scarce can weel behave; [shy, bashful] the mother, wi' a woman's wiles, can spy what makes the youth sae bashfu' an' sae grave; weel-pleased to think her bairn's respected like the lave. [child, rest] o happy love! where love like this is found; o heart-felt raptures! bliss beyond compare! i've pacã¨d much this weary mortal round, and sage experience bids me this declare:- 'if heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare, one cordial in this melancholy vale, 'tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair in other's arms breathe out the tender tale, beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the evening gale.' is there, in human form, that bears a heart- a wretch, a villain, lost to love and truth- that can, with studied, sly, ensnaring art, betray sweet jenny's unsuspecting youth? curse on his perjur'd arts, dissembling, smooth! are honour, virtue, conscience, all exil'd? is there no pity, no relenting ruth, points to the parents fondling o'er their child? then paints the ruin'd maid, and their distraction wild? but now the supper crowns their simple board, the halesome parritch, chief of scotia's food: [wholesome] the sowpe their only hawkie does afford, [milk, cow] that 'yont the hallan snugly chows her cood; [beyond, partition, the dame brings forth in complimental mood, cud] to grace the lad, her weel-hain'd kebbuck, fell; [well-saved cheese, and aft he's prest, and aft he ca's it good; strong] the frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell how 'twas a towmond auld sin' lint was i' the bell. [twelve-month, flax, flower] the cheerfu' supper done, wi' serious face they round the ingle form a circle wide; the sire turns o'er, wi' patriarchal grace, the big ha'-bible, ance his father's pride: [family-bible] his bonnet rev'rently is laid aside, his lyart haffets wearing thin an' bare; [gray hair on temples] those strains that once did sweet in zion glide- he wales a portion with judicious care, [chooses] and 'let us worship god!' he says with solemn air. they chant their artless notes in simple guise; they tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim; perhaps dundee's wild warbling measures rise, or plaintive martyrs, worthy of the name; or noble elgin beets the heav'nward flame, [fans] the sweetest far of scotia's holy lays: compared with these, italian trills are tame; the tickled ears no heartfelt raptures raise; nae unison hae they with our creator's praise. [no, have] the priest-like father reads the sacred page, how abram was the friend of god on high; or moses bade eternal warfare wage with amalek's ungracious progeny; or how the royal bard did groaning lie beneath the stroke of heaven's avenging ire; or job's pathetic plaint, and wailing cry; or rapt isaiah's wild seraphic fire; or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre. perhaps the christian volume is the theme, how guiltless blood for guilty man was shed; how he who bore in heaven the second name had not on earth whereon to lay his head; how his first followers and servants sped; the precepts sage they wrote to many a land: how he, who lone in patmos banishã¨d, saw in the sun a mighty angel stand, and heard great bab'lon's doom pronounced by heaven's command. then kneeling down to heaven's eternal king the saint, the father, and the husband prays: hope 'springs exulting on triumphant wing' that thus they all shall meet in future days: there ever bask in uncreated rays, no more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear, together hymning their creator's praise, in such society, yet still more dear; while circling time moves round in an eternal sphere. compared with this, how poor religion's pride, in all the pomp of method and of art, when men display to congregations wide devotion's every grace, except the heart! the power, incensed, the pageant will desert, the pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole; but haply, in some cottage far apart, may hear, well pleased, the language of the soul; and in his book of life the inmates poor enrol. then homeward all take off their several way; the youngling cottagers retire to rest: the parent-pair their secret homage pay, and proffer up to heav'n the warm request, that he who stills the raven's clamorous nest, and decks the lily fair in flowery pride, would, in the way his wisdom sees the best, for them and for their little ones provide; but chiefly in their hearts with grace divine preside. from scenes like these old scotia's grandeur springs, that makes her loved at home, revered abroad: princes and lords are but the breath of kings, 'an honest man's the noblest work of god;' and certes, in fair virtue's heavenly road, the cottage leaves the palace far behind; what is a lordling's pomp? a cumbrous load, disguising oft the wretch of human kind, studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refin'd! o scotia! my dear, my native soil! for whom my warmest wish to heaven is sent! long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content! and o may heaven their simple lives prevent from luxury's contagion, weak and vile; then, howe'er crowns and coronets be rent, a virtuous populace may rise the while, and stand a wall of fire around their much-loved isle. o thou! who poured the patriotic tide that streamed thro' wallace's undaunted heart, who dared to nobly stem tyrannic pride, or nobly die--the second glorious part, (the patriot's god, peculiarly thou art, his friend, inspirer, guardian, and reward!) o never, never, scotia's realm desert; but still the patriot, and the patriot-bard, in bright succession raise, her ornament and guard! no less impressive than that of his father is the intellectual hunger of the future poet himself. we have had gilbert's testimony to the eagerness with which he devoured such books as came within his reach, and the use he made of his later fragments of schooling points the same way. he had a quarter at the parish school of dalrymple when he was thirteen; and in the following summer he attended the school at ayr under his former alloway instructor. murdoch's own account of these three weeks gives an idea of burns's quickness of apprehension; and the style of it is worth noting with reference to the characteristics of the poet's own prose. "in 1773," says murdoch, "robert burns came to board and lodge with me, for the purpose of revising english grammar, etc., that he might be better qualified to instruct his brothers and sisters at home. he was now with me day and night, in school, at all meals, and in all my walks. at the end of one week, i told him as he was now pretty much master of the parts of speech, etc., i should like to teach him something of french pronunciation, that when he should meet with the name of a french town, ship, officer, or the like, in the newspapers, he might be able to pronounce it something like a french word. robert was glad to hear this proposal, and immediately we attacked the french with great courage. "now there was little else to be heard but the declension of nouns, the conjugation of verbs, etc. when walking together, and even at meals, i was constantly telling him the names of different objects, as they presented themselves, in french; so that he was hourly laying in a stock of words, and sometimes little phrases. in short, he took such pleasure in learning, and i in teaching, that it was difficult to say which of the two was most zealous in the business; and about the end of the second week of our study of the french, we began to read a little of the _adventures of telemachus_ in fã©nelon's own words. "but now the plains of mount oliphant began to whiten, and robert was summoned to relinquish the pleasing scenes that surrounded the grotto of calypso, and armed with a sickle, to seek glory by signalising himself in the fields of ceres; and so he did, for although but about fifteen, i was told that he performed the work of a man." the record of burns's school-days is completed by the mention of a sojourn, probably in the summer of 1775, in his mother's parish of kirkoswald. hither he went to study mathematics and surveying under a teacher of local note, and, in spite of the convivial attractions of a smuggling village, seems to have made progress in his geometry till his head was turned by a girl who lived next door to the school. so far the education gained by burns from his schoolmasters and his father had been almost exclusively moral and intellectual. it was in less formal ways that his imagination was fed. from his mother he had heard from infancy the ballads, legends, and songs that were traditionary among the peasantry; and the influence of these was re-enforced by a certain betty davidson, an unfortunate relative of his mother's to whom the family gave shelter for a time. "in my infant and boyish days, too," he writes in the letter to doctor moore already quoted, "i owed much to an old maid of my mother's, remarkable for her ignorance, credulity, and superstition. she had, i suppose, the largest collection in the country, of tales and songs concerning devils, ghosts, fairies, brownies, witches, warlocks, spunkies, kelpies, elf-candles, dead-lights, wraiths, apparitions, cantraips, enchanted towers, giants, dragons, and other trumpery. this cultivated the latent seeds of poesy; but had so strong an effect on my imagination, that to this hour, in my nocturnal rambles, i sometimes keep a sharp look-out in suspicious places; and though nobody can be more sceptical in these matters than i, yet it often takes an effort of philosophy to shake off these idle terrors." his private reading also contained much that must have stimulated his imagination and broadened his interests. it began with a _life of hannibal_, and hamilton's modernized version of the _history of sir william wallace_, which last, he says, with the touch of flamboyancy that often recurs in his style, "poured a scottish prejudice in my veins, which will boil along there till the flood-gates of life shut in eternal rest." by the time he was eighteen he had, in addition to books already mentioned, become acquainted with shakespeare, pope (including the translation of homer), thomson, shenstone, allan ramsay, and a _select collection of songs, scotch and english_; with the _spectator_, the _pantheon_, locke's _essay on the human understanding_, sterne, and henry mackenzie. to these must be added some books on farming and gardening, a good deal of theology, and, of course, the bible. the pursuing of intellectual interests such as are implied in this list is the more significant when we remember that it was carried on in the scanty leisure of a life of labor so severe that it all but broke the poet's health, and probably left permanent marks on his physique. yet he had energy left for still other avocations. it was when he was no more than fifteen that he first experienced the twin passions that came to dominate his life, love and song. the girl who was the occasion was his partner in the harvest field, nelly kilpatrick; the song he addressed to her is the following: handsome nell o, once i lov'd a bonnie lass, aye, and i love her still, and whilst that virtue warms my breast i'll love my handsome nell. as bonnie lasses i hae seen, and mony full as braw, [fine] but for a modest gracefu' mien the like i never saw. a bonnie lass, i will confess, is pleasant to the e'e, [eye] but without some better qualities she's no a lass for me. but nelly's looks are blithe and sweet, and what is best of a', [all] her reputation is complete, and fair without a flaw. she dresses aye sae clean and neat, both decent and genteel; and then there's something in her gait gars ony dress look weel. [makes] a gaudy dress and gentle air may slightly touch the heart, but it's innocence and modesty that polishes the dart. 'tis this in nelly pleases me, 'tis this enchants my soul! for absolutely in my breast she reigns without control. since there may still be readers who suppose that burns was a mere unsophisticated singer, without power of self-criticism, it may be as well to insert here a passage from a commonplace book written in 1783, ten years after the composition of the song. _criticism on the foregoing song_ "lest my works should be thought below criticism; or meet with a critic who, perhaps, will not look on them with so candid and favorable an eye; i am determined to criticise them myself. "the first distich of the first stanza is quite too much in the flimsy strain of our ordinary street ballads; and on the other hand, the second distich is too much in the other extreme. the expression is a little awkward, and the sentiment too serious. stanza the second i am well pleased with; and i think it conveys a fine idea of that amiable part of the sex--the agreeables, or what in our scotch dialect we call a sweet sonsy lass. the third stanza has a little of the flimsy turn in it; and the third line has rather too serious a cast. the fourth stanza is a very indifferent one; the first line is, indeed, all in the strain of the second stanza, but the rest is mostly an expletive. the thoughts in the fifth stanza come fairly up to my favorite idea [of] a sweet sonsy lass. the last line, however, halts a little. the same sentiments are kept up with equal spirit and tenderness in the sixth stanza, but the second and fourth lines ending with short syllables hurts the whole. the seventh stanza has several minute faults; but i remember i composed it in a wild enthusiasm of passion, and to this hour i never recollect it but my heart melts, and my blood sallies at the remembrance." in spite of the early start in poetry given him by nelly kilpatrick, he did not produce more than a few pieces of permanent value during the next ten years. he did, however, go on developing and branching out in his social activities, in spite of the depressing grind of the farm. he attended a dancing school (much against his father's will), helped to establish a "bachelors' club" for debating, and found time for further love-affairs. that with ellison begbie, celebrated by him in _the lass of cessnock banks_, he took very seriously, and he proposed marriage to the girl in some portentously solemn epistles which remain to us as the earliest examples of his prose. in order to put himself in a position to marry, he determined to learn the trade of flax-dressing; and though ellison refused him, he went to the neighboring seaport of irvine to carry out his purpose in the summer of 1781. the flax-dressing experiment ended disastrously with a fire which burned the workshop, and burns returned penniless to the farm. the poems written about this time express profound melancholy, a mood natural enough in the circumstances, and aggravated by his poor nervous and physical condition. but his spirit could not remain permanently depressed, and shortly after his return to lochlea, a trifling accident to a ewe he had bought prompted him to the following delightful and characteristic production. the death and dying words of poor mailie, the author's only pet yowe as mailie, an' her lambs thegither, [together] was ae day nibbling on the tether, [one] upon her cloot she coost a hitch, [hoof, looped] an' owre she warsled in the ditch; [over, floundered] there, groaning, dying, she did lie, when hughoc he cam doytin by. [doddering] wi glowrin' een, an' lifted han's, [staring] poor hughoc like a statue stan's; he saw her days were near-hand ended, but wae's my heart! he could na mend it! he gapã¨d wide, but naething spak; at length poor mailie silence brak:- 'o thou, whase lamentable face appears to mourn my woefu' case! my dying words attentive hear, an' bear them to my master dear. 'tell him, if e'er again he keep [own] as muckle gear as buy a sheep,- [much money] o bid him never tie them mair wi' wicked strings o' hemp or hair! bat ca' them out to park or hill, [drive] an' let them wander at their will; so may his flock increase, an' grow to scores o' lambs, an' packs o' woo'! [wool] 'tell him he was a master kin', an' aye was guid to me an' mine; an' now my dying charge i gie him, [give] my helpless lambs, i trust them wi' him. 'o bid him save their harmless lives frae dogs, an' tods, an' butchers' knives! [foxes] but gie them guid cow-milk their fill, till they be fit to fend themsel: [look after] an' tent them duly, e'en an' morn, [tend] wi' teats o' hay an' ripps o' corn. [bunches, handfuls] 'an' may they never learn the gates [ways] of ither vile wanrestfu' pets- [restless] to slink thro' slaps, an' reave an' steal, [holes in fences] at stacks o' pease, or stocks o' kail. [plants] so may they, like their great forbears, for mony a year come thro' the shears; so wives will gie them bits o' bread, an' bairns greet for them when they're dead. [weep] 'my poor tup-lamb, my son an' heir, o bid him breed him up wi' care! an', if he live to be a beast, to pit some havins in his breast! [put, behavior] an' warn him, what i winna name, [will not] to stay content wi' yowes at hame; [ewes] an' no to rin an' wear his cloots, [hoofs] like ither menseless graceless brutes. [unmannerly] 'an neist my yowie, silly thing, [next] gude keep thee frae a tether string! o may thou ne'er forgather up [make friends] wi' ony blastit moorland tup; but ay keep mind to moop an' mell, [nibble, meddle] wi' sheep o' credit like thysel! 'and now, my bairns, wi' my last breath i lea'e my blessin' wi' you baith; an' when you think upo' your mither, mind to be kind to ane anither. 'now, honest hughoc, dinna fail to tell my master a' my tale; an' bid him burn this cursed tether; an', for thy pains, thou'se get my blether.' [bladder] this said, poor mailie turn'd her head, an' closed her een amang the dead! [eyes] poor mailie's elegy lament in rhyme, lament in prose, wi' saut tears tricklin' down your nose, [salt] our bardie's fate is at a close, past a' remead; [remedy] the last sad cape-stane of his woes- [cope-stone] poor mailie's dead! it's no the loss o' warl's gear [worldly lucre] that could sae bitter draw the tear, or mak our bardie, dowie, wear [downcast] the mourning weed: he's lost a friend and neibor dear in mailie dead. thro' a' the toun she trotted by him; a lang half-mile she could descry him; wi' kindly bleat, when she did spy him, she ran wi' speed: a friend mair faithfu' ne'er cam nigh him than mailie dead. i wat she was a sheep o' sense, [wot] an' could behave hersel wi' mense; [manners] i'll say't, she never brak a fence thro' thievish greed. our bardie, lanely, keeps the spence [parlor] sin' mailie's dead. [since] or, if he wanders up the howe, [glen] her living image in her yowe [ewe-lamb] comes bleating to him, owre the knowe, [knoll] for bits o' bread, an' down the briny pearls rowe [roll] for mailie dead. she was nae get o' moorland tups, [issue] wi' tawted ket, an' hairy hips; [matted fleece] for her forbears were brought in ships frae 'yont the tweed; a bonnier fleesh ne'er cross'd the clips [fleece, shears] than mailie's, dead. wae worth the man wha first did shape [woe to] that vile wanchancie thing--a rape! [dangerous] it maks guid fellows girn an' gape, [growl] wi' chokin' dread; an' robin's bonnet wave wi' crape for mailie dead. o a' ye bards on bonnie doon! an' wha on ayr your chanters tune! [bagpipes] come, join the melancholious croon o' robin's reed; his heart will never get aboon! [rejoice] his mailie's dead! how long he continued to mourn for ellison begbie, it is hard to say; but the three following songs, inspired, it would seem, by three different girls, testify at once to his power of recuperation and the rapid maturing of his talent. all seem to have been written between the date of his return from irvine and the death of his father. mary morison o mary, at thy window be, it is the wish'd, the trysted hour! those smiles and glances let me see, that make the miser's treasure poor: how blythely wad i bide the stoure, [bear, struggle] a weary slave frae sun to sun, could i the rich reward secure, the lovely mary morison. yestreen, when to the trembling string [last night] the dance gaed thro' the lighted ha', [went] to thee my fancy took its wing, i sat, but neither heard nor saw: tho' this was fair, and that was braw, [fine] and yon the toast of a' the town, [the other] i sigh'd, and said amang them a', 'ye are na mary morison.' o mary, canst thou wreck his peace, wha for thy sake wad gladly die? or canst thou break that heart of his, whase only faut is loving thee? [fault] if love for love thou wilt na gie, at least be pity to me shown! a thought ungentle canna be the thought o' mary morison. my nannie o behind yon hills where lugar flows, 'mang moors an' mosses many, o, the wintry sun the day has clos'd, and i'll awa' to nannie, o. the westlin wind blaws loud an' shill, [western, keen] the night's baith mirk and rainy, o; [both dark] but i'll get my plaid, an' out i'll steal, an' owre the hill to nannie, o. [over] my nannie's charming, sweet, an' young: nae artfu' wiles to win ye, o: may ill befa' the flattering tongue that wad beguile my nannie, o. her face is fair, her heart is true, as spotless as she's bonnie, o: the opening gowan, wat wi' dew, [daisy, wet] nae purer is than nannie, o. a country lad is my degree, an' few there be that ken me, o; but what care i how few they be, i'm welcome aye to nannie, o. my riches a's my penny-fee, [wages] an' i maun guide it cannie, o; [carefully] but warl's gear ne'er troubles me, [lucre] my thoughts are a'--my nannie, o. our auld guidman delights to view his sheep an' kye thrive bonnie, o. [cows] but i'm as blythe that hauds his pleugh, [holds] an' has nae care but nannie, o. come weel, come woe, i care na by, [reck not] i'll tak what heav'n will send me, o; nae ither care in life have i, but live, an' love my nannie, o. the rigs o' barley it was upon a lammas night, when corn rigs are bonnie, [ridges] beneath the moon's unclouded light i held awa to annie: [took my way] the time flew by wi' tentless heed, [careless] till, 'tween the late and early, wi' sma' persuasion she agreed to see me thro' the barley. the sky was blue, the wind was still, the moon was shining clearly; i set her down wi' right good will amang the rigs o' barley; i kent her heart was a' my ain; [knew, own] i loved her most sincerely; i kissed her owre and owre again [over] amang the rigs o' barley. i locked her in my fond embrace; her heart was beating rarely; my blessings on that happy place, amang the rigs o' barley! but by the moon and stars so bright, that shone that hour so clearly, she aye shall bless that happy night amang the rigs o' barley. i hae been blythe wi' comrades dear; i hae been merry drinking; i hae been joyfu' gatherin' gear; [property] i hae been happy thinking: but a' the pleasures e'er i saw, tho' three times doubled fairly, that happy night was worth them a', amang the rigs o' barley. corn rigs, an' barley rigs, an' corn rigs are bonnie: i'll ne'er forget that happy night, amang the rigs wi' annie. 2. mossgiel on the death of their father, robert and gilbert burns moved with the family to the farm of mossgiel in the next parish of mauchline. by putting in a claim for arrears of wages, they succeeded in drawing enough from the wreck of their father's estate to supply a scanty stock for the new venture. the records of the first summer show the poet in anything but a happy frame of mind. his health was miserable; and the loosening of his moral principles, which he ascribes to the influence of a young sailor he had met at irvine, bore fruit in the birth to him of an illegitimate daughter by a servant girl, elizabeth paton. the verses which carry allusion to this affair are illuminating for his character. one group is devout and repentant; the other marked sometimes by cynical bravado, sometimes by a note of exultation. both may be regarded as genuine enough expressions of moods which alternated throughout his life, and which corresponded to conflicting sides of his nature. here is a typical example of the former: a prayer in the prospect of death o thou unknown almighty cause of all my hope and fear! in whose dread presence ere an hour, perhaps i must appear! if i have wander'd in those paths of life i ought to shun; as something, loudly in my breast, remonstrates i have done; thou know'st that thou hast formã¨d me with passions wild and strong; and list'ning to their witching voice has often led me wrong. where human weakness has come short, or frailty stept aside, do thou, all-good! for such thou art, in shades of darkness hide. where with intention i have err'd, no other plea i have, but thou art good; and goodness still delighteth to forgive. in his _epistle to john rankine_, with a somewhat hard and heartless humor, he braves out the affair; in the following _welcome_ he treats it with a tender pride, as sincere as his remorse: the poet's welcome to his love-begotten daughter thou's welcome, wean! mishanter fa' me, [child! misfortune befall] if ought of thee, or of thy mammy, shall ever daunton me, or awe me, my sweet wee lady, or if i blush when thou shalt ca' me tit-ta or daddy. what tho' they ca' me fornicator, an' tease my name in kintra clatter: [country gossip] the mair they talk i'm kent the better, [more] e'en let them clash; [tattle] an auld wife's tongue's a feckless matter [feeble] to gie ane fash. [give one annoyance] welcome, my bonnie, sweet wee dochter- tho' ye come here a wee unsought for, an' tho' your comin' i hae fought for baith kirk an' queir; [choir] yet, by my faith, ye're no unwrought for! that i shall swear! sweet fruit o' mony a merry dint, my funny toil is no a' tint, [not all lost] tho' thou came to the warl' asklent, [askew] which fools may scoff at; in my last plack thy part's be in't- [a small coin] the better half o't. tho' i should be the waur bested, [worse off] thou's be as braw an' bienly clad, [finely, comfortably] an' thy young years as nicely bred wi' education, as ony brat o' wedlock's bed in a' thy station. wee image of my bonnie betty, as fatherly i kiss and daut thee, [pet] as dear an' near my heart i set thee wi' as guid will, as a' the priests had seen me get thee that's out o' hell. gude grant that thou may aye inherit [god] thy mither's looks and gracefu' merit, an' thy poor worthless daddy's spirit, without his failins; 'twill please me mair to see thee heir it, than stockit mailins. [farms] an' if thou be what i wad hae thee, [would have] an' tak the counsel i shall gie thee, i'll never rue my trouble wi' thee- the cost nor shame o't- but be a loving father to thee, and brag the name o't. at mossgiel the burns family was no more successful than in either of its previous farms. bad seed and bad weather gave two poor harvests, and by the summer of 1786 the poet's financial condition was again approaching desperation. his situation was made still more embarrassing by the consequences of another of his amours. shortly after moving to the parish of mauchline he had fallen in love with jean armour, the daughter of a mason in the village. what was for burns a prolonged courtship ensued, and in the spring of 1786 he learned that jean's condition was such that he gave her a paper acknowledging her as his wife. to his surprise and mortification the girl's father, who is said to have had a personal dislike to him and who well may have thought a man with his reputation and prospects was no promising son-in-law, opposed the marriage, forced jean to give up the paper, and sent her off to another town. burns chose to regard jean's submission to her father as inexcusable faithlessness, and proceeded to indulge in the ecstatic misery of the lover betrayed. there is no doubt that he suffered keenly from the affair: he writes to his friends that he could "have no nearer idea of the place of eternal punishment" than what he had felt in his "own breast on her account. i have tried often to forget her: i have run into all kinds of dissipation and riot ... to drive her out of my head, but all in vain." this is in a later letter than that in which he has "sunk into a lurid calm," and "subsided into the time-settled sorrow of the sable widower." yet other evidence shows that at this crisis also burns's emotional experience was far from simple. it was probably during the summer of the same year that there occurred the passages with the mysterious highland mary, a girl whose identity, after voluminous controversy, remains vague, but who inspired some of his loftiest love poetry. though burns's feeling for her seems to have been a kind of interlude in reaction from the "cruelty" of jean, he idealized it beyond his wont, and the subject of it has been exalted to the place among his heroines which is surely due to the long-suffering woman who became his wife. in this same summer burns formed the project of emigrating. he proposed to go to the west indies, and return for jean when he had made provision to support her. this offer was refused by james armour, but burns persevered with the plan, obtained a position in jamaica, and in the autumn engaged passage in a ship sailing from greenock. the song, _will ye go to the indies; my mary_, seems to imply that highland mary was invited to accompany him, but substantial evidence of this, as of most things concerning his relations with mary campbell, is lacking. _from thee, eliza, i must go_, supposed to be addressed to elizabeth miller, also belongs to this summer, and is taken to refer to another of the "under-plots in his drama of love." meantime, at the suggestion of his friend and patron, gavin hamilton, burns had begun to arrange for a subscription edition of his poems. it seems to have been only after he went to mossgiel that he had seriously conceived the idea of writing for publication, and the decision was followed by a year of the most extraordinary fertility in composition. to 1785-1786 are assigned such satires as _holy willie_ and the _address to the unco guid_; a group of the longer poems including _the cotter's saturday night_, _the jolly beggars_, _halloween_, _the holy fair_, _the twa dogs_ and _the vision_; some shorter but no less famous pieces, such as the poems _to a louse_, _to a mouse_, _to the deil_, _to a mountain daisy_ and _scotch drink_; and a number of the best of his _epistles_. many of these, especially the church satires, had obtained a considerable local fame through circulation in manuscript, so that, proposals having been issued for an edition to be printed by wilson of kilmarnock, it was not found difficult to obtain subscriptions for more than half the edition of six hundred and twelve copies. the prospect of some return from this enterprise induced james armour to take legal measures to obtain support for jean's expected child, and burns, fearing imprisonment, was forced to go into hiding while his book was passing the press. the church, too, had taken cognizance of his offense, and both jean and he had to stand up before the congregation on three occasions to receive rebuke and make profession of repentance. he was at the same time completing the preparations for his voyage. in such extraordinary circumstances appeared the famous kilmarnock edition, the immediate success of which soon produced a complete alteration in the whole outlook of the poet. in the first place, the consideration burns gained from his volume induced armour to relax his pursuit, and in september, when jean became the mother of twins, the poet was in such a mood that the sentiment of paternity began to weigh against the proposed emigration. some weeks later he learned through a friend that doctor blacklock, a poet and scholar of standing in literary circles in edinburgh, had praised his volume highly, and urged a second and larger edition. the upshot was that he gave up his passage (his trunk had been packed and was part way to greenock), and determined instead on a visit to edinburgh. the only permanent result of the whole west indian scheme was thus a sheaf of amorous and patriotic farewells, of which the following may be taken as examples: will ye go to the indies, my mary? will ye go to the indies, my mary, and leave auld scotia's shore? will ye go to the indies, my mary, across the atlantic's roar? o sweet grows the lime and the orange, and the apple on the pine; but a' the charms o' the indies can never equal thine. i hae sworn by the heavens to my mary, i hae sworn by the heavens to be true; and sae may the heavens forget me, when i forget my vow! o plight me your faith, my mary, and plight me your lily-white hand; o plight me your faith, my mary, before i leave scotia's strand. we hae plighted our troth, my mary, in mutual affection to join; and curst be the cause that shall part us! the hour, and the moment o' time! the gloomy night the gloomy night is gathering fast, loud roars the wild inconstant blast, yon murky cloud is foul with rain, i see it driving o'er the plain; the hunter now has left the moor, the scatter'd coveys meet secure, while here i wander, prest with care, along the lonely banks of ayr. the autumn mourns her ripening corn by early winter's ravage torn; across her placid azure sky, she sees the scowling tempest fly: chill runs my blood to hear it rave, i think upon the stormy wave, where many a danger i must dare, far from the bonnie banks of ayr. 'tis not the surging billow's roar, 'tis not that fatal, deadly shore; tho' death in ev'ry shape appear, the wretched have no more to fear: but round my heart the ties are bound, that heart transpierc'd with many a wound: these bleed afresh, those ties i tear, to leave the bonnie banks of ayr. farewell, old coila's hills and dales, her heathy moors and winding vales; the scenes where wretched fancy roves, pursuing past unhappy loves! farewell, my friends! farewell, my foes! my peace with these, my love with those; the bursting tears my heart declare, farewell, my bonnie banks of ayr! on a scotch bard, gone to the west indies a' ye wha live by sowps o' drink, [sups] a' ye wha live by crambo-clink, [rhyme] a' ye wha live an' never think, come mourn wi' me! our billie's gi'en us a' a jink, [fellow, the slip] an' owre the sea. lament him, a' ye rantin core, [jovial set] wha dearly like a random-splore; [frolic] nae mair he'll join the merry roar, in social key; for now he's taen anither shore, an' owre the sea! the bonnie lasses weel may wiss him, [wish for] and in their dear petitions place him, the widows, wives, an' a' may bless him wi' tearfu' e'e; for weel i wat they'll sairly miss him [wot, sorely] that's owre the sea! o fortune, they hae room to grumble! hadst thou taen aff some drowsy bummle, [drone] wha can do nought but fyke an' fumble, [fuss] 'twad been nae plea; [grievance] but he was gleg as ony wumble, [lively, auger] that's owre the sea! auld cantie kyle may weepers wear, [cheerful, mourning bands] an' stain them wi' the saut, saut tear: [salt] 'twill mak her poor auld heart, i fear, in flinders flee; [fragments] he was her laureat mony a year, that's owre the sea! he saw misfortune's cauld nor-west lang mustering up a bitter blast; a jillet brak his heart at last- [jilt] ill may she be! so took a berth afore the mast, an' owre the sea. to tremble under fortune's cummock [cudgel] on scarce a bellyfu' o' drummock, [meal and water] wi' his proud independent stomach, could ill agree; so row't his hurdies in a hammock, [rolled, buttocks] an' owre the sea. he ne'er was gi'en to great misguidin', yet coin his pouches wad na bide in; [pockets would] wi' him it ne'er was under hidin', he dealt it free: the muse was a' that he took pride in, that's owre the sea. jamaica bodies, use him weel, an' hap him in a cozie biel; [cover, shelter] ye'll find him aye a dainty chiel, [fellow] and fu' o' glee; he wad na wrang'd the vera deil, that's owre the sea. fareweel, my rhyme-composing billie! your native soil was right ill-willie; [unkind] but may ye flourish like a lily, now bonnilie! i'll toast ye in my hindmost gillie, [last gill] tho' owre the sea! 3. edinburgh on the twenty-seventh of november, 1786, mounted on a borrowed pony, burns set out for edinburgh. he seems to have arrived there without definite plans, for, after having found lodging with his old friend richmond, he spent the first few days strolling about the city. at home burns had been an enthusiastic freemason, and it was through a masonic friend, mr. james dalrymple of orangefield, near ayr, that he was introduced to edinburgh society. a decade or two earlier, that society, under the leadership of men like adam smith and david hume had reached a high degree of intellectual distinction. a decade or two later, under sir walter scott and the reviewers it was again to be in some measure, if for the last time, a rival to london as a literary center. but when burns visited it there was a kind of interregnum, and, little though he or they guessed it, none of the celebrities he met possessed genius comparable to his own. in a very few weeks it was evident that he was to be the lion of the season. by december thirteenth he is writing to a friend at ayr: "i have found a worthy warm friend in mr. dalrymple, of orangefield, who introduced me to lord glencairn, a man whose worth and brotherly kindness to me i shall remember when time shall be no more. by his interest it is passed in the caledonian hunt, and entered in their books, that they are to take each a copy of the second edition [of the poems], for which they are to pay one guinea. i have been introduced to a good many of the noblesse, but my avowed patrons and patronesses are the duchess of gordon, the countess of glencairn, with my lord and lady betty--the dean of faculty [honorable henry erskine]--sir john whitefoord. i have likewise warm friends among the literati; professors [dugald] stewart, blair, and mr. mackenzie--the man of feeling." through glencairn he met creech the book-seller, with whom he arranged for his second edition, and through the patrons he mentions and the edinburgh freemasons, among whom he was soon at home, a large subscription list was soon made up. in the _edinburgh magazine_ for october, november, and december, james sibbald had published favorable notices of the kilmarnock edition, with numerous extracts, and when henry mackenzie gave it high praise in his _lounger_ for december ninth, and the _london monthly review_ followed suit in the same month, it was felt that the poet's reputation was established. of burns's bearing in the fashionable and cultivated society into which he so suddenly found himself plunged we have many contemporary accounts. they are practically unanimous in praise of the taste and tact with which he acquitted himself. while neither shy nor aggressive, he impressed every one with his brilliance in conversation, his shrewdness in observation, and criticism, and his poise and common sense in his personal relations. one of the best descriptions of him was given by sir walter scott to lockhart. scott as a boy of sixteen met burns at the house of doctor adam ferguson, and thus reports: "his person was strong and robust; his manners rustic, not clownish; a sort of dignified plainness and simplicity, which received part of its effect perhaps from one's knowledge of his extraordinary talents.... i would have taken the poet, had i not known what he was, for a very sagacious country farmer of the old scotch school; that is, none of your modern agriculturists who keep labourers for their drudgery, but the _douce guidman_ who held his own plough. there was a strong expression of sense and shrewdness in all his lineaments: the eye alone, i think, indicated the poetical character and temperament. it was large, and of a cast which glowed (i say literally glowed) when he spoke with feeling or interest. i never saw such another eye in a human head, though i have seen the most distinguished men of my time. his conversation expressed perfect self-confidence, without the slightest presumption. among the men who were the most learned of their time and country, he expressed himself with perfect firmness, but without the least intrusive forwardness; and when he differed an opinion, he did not hesitate to express it firmly, yet at the same time with modesty.... i have only to add, that his dress corresponded with his manner. he was like a farmer dressed in his best to dine with the laird. i do not speak _in malam partem_, when i say i never saw a man in company with his superiors in station and information, more perfectly free from either the reality or the affectation of embarrassment. i was told, but did not observe it, that his address to females was extremely deferential, and always with a turn either to the pathetic or humorous, which engaged their attention particularly. i have heard the duchess of gordon remark this." burns's letters written at this time show an amused consciousness of his social prominence, but never for a moment did he lose sight of the fact that it was only the affair of a season, and that in a few months he would have to resume his humble station. yet this intellectual detachment did not prevent his enjoying opportunities for social and intellectual intercourse such as he had never known and was never again to know. careful as he was to avoid presuming on his new privileges, he clearly threw himself into the discussions in which he took part with all the zest of his temperament; and in the less formal convivial clubs to which he was welcomed he became at once the king of good fellows. to the noblemen and others who befriended him he expressed himself in language which may seem exaggerated; but the warmth of his disposition, and the letter writers of the eighteenth century on whom he had formed his style, sufficiently account for it without the suspicion of affectation or flattery. whatever his vices, ingratitude to those who showed him kindness was not among them; and the sympathetic reader is more apt to feel pathos than to take offense in his tributes to his patrons. the real though not extraordinary kindness of the earl of glencairn, for example, was acknowledged again and again in prose and verse; and the _lament_ burns wrote upon his death closes with these lines which rewarded the noble lord with an immortality he might otherwise have missed: the bridegroom may forget the bride was made his wedded wife yestreen; the monarch may forget the crown that on his head an hour has been; the mother may forget the child that smiles sae sweetly on her knee; but i'll remember thee, glencairn, and a' that thou hast done for me! after a sojourn of a little more than five months, burns left edinburgh early in may for a tour in the south of scotland. the poet was mounted on an old mare, jenny geddes, which he had bought in edinburgh, and which he still owned when he settled at ellisland. he was accompanied by his bosom friend, robert ainslie. the letters and journals written during the four weeks of this tour give evidence of his appreciation of scenery and his shrewd judgment of character. he was received with much consideration in the houses he visited, and was given the freedom of the burgh of dumfries. on the ninth of june, 1787, he was back at mauchline; and, calling at armour's house to see his child, he was revolted by the "mean, servile complaisance" he met with--the result of his edinburgh triumphs. his disgust at the family, however, did not prevent a renewal of his intimacy with jean. after a few days at home, he seems to have made a short tour in the west highlands. july was spent at mossgiel, and early in august he returned to edinburgh in order to settle his accounts with creech, his publisher. on the twenty-fifth he set out for a longer tour in the north accompanied by his friend nicol, an edinburgh schoolmaster, the willie who "brewed a peck o' maut." they proceeded by linlithgow, falkirk, stirling, crieff, dunkeld, aberfeldie, blair athole, strathspey, to inverness. the most notable episode of the journey northwards was a visit at the castle of the duke of athole, which passed with great satisfaction to both burns and his hosts, and of which his _humble petition of bruar water_ is a poetical memorial. at stonehaven and montrose he extended his acquaintance among his father's relatives. he reached edinburgh again on september sixteenth, having traveled nearly six hundred miles. in october he made still another excursion, through clackmannanshire and into the south of perthshire, visiting ramsay of ochtertyre, near stirling, and sir william murray of ochtertyre in strathearn. in all these visits made by burns to the houses of the aristocracy, it is interesting to note his capacity for pleasing and profitable intercourse with people of a class and tradition far removed from his own. sensitive to an extreme and quick to resent a slight, he was at the same time finely responsive to kindness, and his conduct was governed by a tact and frank naturalness that are among the not least surprising of his powers. in spite of the fervor and floridness of some of his expressions of gratitude for favors from his noble friends, burns was no snob; and it was characteristic of him to give up a visit to the duchess of gordon rather than separate from his companion nicol, who, in a fit of jealous sulks, refused to accompany him to castle gordon. the settlement with creech proved to be a very tedious affair, and in the beginning of december the poet was about to leave the city in disgust when an accident occurred which gave opportunity for one of the most extraordinary episodes in the history of his relations with women. just before, he had met a mrs. mclehose who lived in edinburgh with her three children, while her husband, from whom she had separated on account of ill-treatment, had emigrated to jamaica. a correspondence began immediately after the first meeting, with the following letter: "madam: "i had set no small store by my tea-drinking tonight, 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 i shall not return for a couple of twelvemonths; but i 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, miss nimmo, 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 to you, as i think they have a good deal of poetic merit; and miss nimmo tells me that 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 offhand _jeu d'esprit_. i have several poetic trifles, which i shall gladly leave with miss nimmo or you, if they were worth house-room; as there are scarcely 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, "robert burns." [december 6, 1787.] the night before burns was to take tea with his new acquaintance, he was overturned by a drunken coachman, and received an injury to his knee which confined him to his rooms for several weeks. meantime the correspondence went on with ever-increasing warmth, from "madam," through "my dearest madam," "my dear kind friend," "my lovely friend," to "my dearest angel." they early agreed to call each other clarinda and sylvander, and the arcadian names are significant of the sentimental nature of the relation. by the time of their second meeting--about a month after the first,--they had exchanged intimate confidences, had discovered endless affinities, and had argued by the page on religion, clarinda striving to win sylvander over to her orthodox calvinism. when he was again able to go out, his visits became for both of them "exquisite" and "rapturous" experiences, clarinda struggling to keep on the safe side of discretion by means of "reason" and "religion," sylvander protesting his complete submission to her will. the appearance of passion in their letters goes on increasing, and clarinda's fits of perturbation in the next morning's reflections grow more acute. she does not seem to have become the poet's mistress, and it is impossible to gather what either of them expected the outcome of their intercourse to be. with a few notable exceptions, the verses which were occasioned rather than inspired by the affair are affected and artificial; and in spite of the warmth of the expressions in his letters it is hard to believe that his passion went very deep. in any case, on his return to mauchline to find jean armour cast out by her own people after having a second time borne him twins, he faced his responsibilities in a more manly and honorable fashion than ever before, and made jean his wife. the explanation of his final resolution is given repeatedly in almost the same words in his letters: "i found a much loved female's positive happiness or absolute misery among my hands, and i could not trifle with such a sacred deposit." it would appear that, however far the affair between him and clarinda had passed beyond the sentimental friendship it began with, he did not regard it as placing in his hands any such "sacred deposit" as the fate of jean, nor had one or two intrigues with obscure girls in edinburgh shaken an affection which was much more deep-rooted than he often imagined. clarinda was naturally deeply wounded by his marriage, and her reproaches of "villainy" led to a breach which was only gradually bridged. at one time, just before she set out for jamaica to join her husband in an unsuccessful attempt at a reconciliation, burns's letters again became frequent, the old fervor reappeared, and a couple of his best songs were produced. but at this time he had the--shall we say reassuring?--belief that he was not to see her again, and could indulge an emotion that had always been largely theatrical without risk to either of them. on her return he wrote her, it would seem, only once. for the character of burns the incident is of much curious interest; for literature its importance lies in the two songs, _ae fond kiss_ and _my nannie's awa_. the former was written shortly before her departure for the west indies; the second in the summer of her absence. it is noteworthy that in them "clarinda" has given place to "nancy" and "nannie." beside them is placed for contrast, one of the pure clarinda effusions. ae fond kiss ae fond kiss, and then we sever! [one] ae farewell, and then for ever! deep in heart-wrung tears i'll pledge thee, warring sighs and groans i'll wage thee. who shall say that fortune grieves him while the star of hope she leaves him? me, nae cheerfu' twinkle lights me, dark despair around benights me. i'll ne'er blame my partial fancy, naething could resist my nancy; but to see her was to love her, love but her, and love for ever. had we never lov'd sae kindly, had we never lov'd sae blindly, never met--or never parted, we had ne'er been broken-hearted. fare thee weel, thou first and fairest! fare thee weel, thou best and dearest! thine be ilka joy and treasure, [every] peace, enjoyment, love, and pleasure, ae fond kiss, and then we sever; ae fareweel, alas, for ever! deep in heart-wrung tears i'll pledge thee, warring sighs and groans i'll wage thee. my nannie's awa now in her green mantle blythe nature arrays, and listens the lambkins that bleat o'er the braes, [hillsides] while birds warble welcomes in ilka green shaw; [wooded dell] but to me it's delightless--my nannie's awa. the snawdrap and primrose our woodlands adorn and violets bathe in the weet o' the morn: [wet (dew)] they pain my sad bosom, sae sweetly they blaw, they mind me o' nannie--and nannie's awa. thou laverock, that springs frae the dews o' the lawn [lark] the shepherd to warn o' the grey-breaking dawn, and thou, mellow mavis, that hails the night-fa', [thrush] give over for pity--my nannie's awa. come, autumn, sae pensive, in yellow and gray, and soothe me wi' tidings o' nature's decay; the dark, dreary winter, and wild-driving snaw alane can delight me--now nannie's awa. clarinda clarinda, mistress of my soul, the measured time is run! the wretch beneath the dreary pole so marks his latest sun. to what dark cave of frozen night shall poor sylvander hie, depriv'd of thee, his life and light, the sun of all his joy? we part--but by these precious drops that fill thy lovely eyes! no other light shall guide my steps till thy bright beams arise. she, the fair sun of all her sex, has blest my glorious day; and shall a glimmering planet fix my worship to its ray? 4. ellisland in the spring of 1788 when burns married jean armour, he took two other steps of the first importance for his future career. the edinburgh period had come and gone, and all that his intercourse with his influential friends had brought him was the four or five hundred pounds of profit from his poems and an opportunity to enter the excise service. with part of the money he relieved his brother gilbert from pressing obligations at mossgiel by the loan of one hundred and eighty pounds, and with the rest leased the farm of ellisland on the bank of the nith, five or six miles above dumfries. but before taking up the farm he devoted six weeks or so to tuition in the duties of an exciseman, so that he had this occupation to fall back on in case of another farming failure. during the summer he superintended the building of the farm-house, and in december jean joined her husband. his satisfaction in his domestic situation is characteristically expressed in a song composed about this time. i hae a wife i hae a wife o' my ain, i'll partake wi' naebody; i'll tak cuckold frae nane, i'll gie cuckold to naebody. i hae a penny to spend, there--thanks to naebody; i hae naething to lend, i'll borrow frae naebody. i am naebody's lord, i'll be slave to naebody; i hae a guid braid sword, i'll tak dunts frae naebody. [blows] i'll be merry and free, i'll be sad for naebody; naebody cares for me, i care for naebody. early in his residence at ellisland he formed a close relation with a neighboring proprietor, colonel robert riddel. for him he copied into two volumes a large part of what he considered the best of his unpublished verse and prose, thus forming the well-known glenriddel manuscript. had not one already become convinced of the fact from internal evidence, it would be clear enough from this prose volume that burns's letters were often as much works of art to him as his poems. this is of supreme importance in weighing the epistolary evidence for his character and conduct. even when his words seem to be the direct outpourings of his feelings--of love, of friendship, of gratitude, of melancholy, of devotion, of scorn--a comparative examination will show that in prose as much as in verse we are dealing with the work of a conscious artist, enamored of telling expression, aware of his reader, and anything but the naif utterer of unsophisticated emotion. to recall this will save us from much perplexity in the interpretation of his words, and will clear up many an apparent contradiction in his evidence about himself. burns was never very sanguine about success on the ellisland farm. by the end of the summer of 1789 he concluded that he could not depend on it, determined to turn it into a dairy farm to be conducted mainly by his wife and sisters, and took up the work in the excise for which he had prepared himself. he had charge of a large district of ten parishes, and had to ride some two hundred miles a week in all weathers. with the work he still did on the farm one can see that he was more than fully employed, and need not wonder that there was little time for poetry. yet these years at ellisland were on the whole happy years for himself and his family; he found time for pleasant intercourse with some of his neighbors, for a good deal of letter-writing, for some interest in politics, and for the establishing, with colonel riddel, of a small neighborhood library. as an excise officer he seems to have been conscientious and efficient, though at times, in the case of poor offenders, he tempered justice with mercy. ultimately, despairing of making the farm pay and hoping for promotion in the government service, he gave up his lease, sold his stock, and in the autumn of 1791 moved to dumfries, where he was given a district which did not involve keeping a horse, and which paid him about seventy pounds a year. thus ended the last of burns's disastrous attempts to make a living from the soil. 5. dumfries the house in which the burnses with their three sons first lived in dumfries was a three-roomed cottage in the wee vennel, now banks street. though his income was small, it must be remembered that the cost of food was low. "beef was 3d. to 5d. a lb.; mutton, 3d. to 4-1/2d.; chickens, 7d. to 8d. a pair; butter (the lb. of 24 oz.), 7d. to 9d.; salmon, 6d. to 9-1/2d. a lb.; cod, 1d. and even 1/2d. a lb." though hardly in easy circumstances then, burns's situation was such that it was possible to avoid his greatest horror, debt. meantime, his interest in politics had greatly quickened. he had been from youth a sentimental jacobite; but this had little effect upon his attitude toward the parties of the day. in edinburgh he had worn the colors of the party of fox, presumably out of compliment to his whig friends, glencairn and erskine. during the ellisland period, however, he had written strongly against the regency bill supported by fox; and in the general election of 1790 he opposed the duke of queensberry and the local whig candidate. but in his early months in dumfries we find him showing sympathy with the doctrines of the french revolution, a sympathy which was natural enough in a man of his inborn democratic tendencies. a curious outcome of these was an incident not yet fully cleared up. in february, 1792, burns, along with some fellow officers, assisted by a body of dragoons, seized an armed smuggling brig which had run aground in the solway, and on her being sold, he bought for three pounds four of the small guns she carried. these he is said to have presented "to the french convention," but they were seized by the british government at dover. as a matter of fact, the convention was not constituted till september, and the legislative assembly which preceded it was not hostile to britain. thus, burns's action, though eccentric and extravagant, was not treasonable in law or in spirit, and does not seem to have entailed on him any unfortunate consequences. in the course of that year symptoms of the infection of part of the british public with revolutionary principles began to be evident, and the government was showing signs of alarm. the whig opposition was clamoring for internal reform, and burns sided more and more definitely with it, and was rash enough to subscribe for a reform paper called _the gazetteer_, an action which would have put him under suspicion from his superiors, had it become known. some notice of his liberal tendencies did reach his official superiors, and an inquiry was made into his political principles which caused him no small alarm. in a letter to mr. graham of fintry, through whom he had obtained his position, he disclaimed all revolutionary beliefs and all political activity. no action was taken against him, nor was his failure to obtain promotion to an examinership due to anything but the slow progress involved in promotion by seniority. hereafter, he exercised considerable caution in the expression of his political sympathies, though he allowed himself to associate with men of revolutionary opinions. the feeling that he was not free to utter what he believed on public affairs was naturally chafing to a man of his independent nature. burns's chief enjoyment in these days was the work he was doing for scottish song. while in edinburgh he had made the acquaintance of an engraver, james johnson, who had undertaken the publication of the _scots musical museum_, a collection of songs and music. burns agreed to help him by the collection and refurbishing of the words of old songs, and when these were impossible, by providing new words for the melodies. the work finally extended to six volumes; and before it was finished a more ambitious undertaking, managed by a mr. george thomson, was set on foot. burns was invited to cooperate in this also, and entered into it with such enthusiasm that he was thomson's main support. in both of these publications the poet worked purely with patriotic motives and for the love of song, and had no pecuniary interest in either. once thomson sent him a present of five pounds and endangered their relations thereby; later, when burns was in his last illness, he asked and received from thomson an advance of the same amount. apart from these sums burns never made or sought to make a penny from his writings after the publication of the first edinburgh edition. twice he declined journalistic work for a london paper. poetry was the great consolation of his life, and even in his severest financial straits he refused to consider the possibility of writing for money, regarding it as a kind of prostitution. by the autumn of 1795 signs began to appear that the poet's constitution was breaking down. the death of his daughter elizabeth and a severe attack of rheumatism plunged him into deep melancholy and checked for a time his song-writing; and though for a time he recovered, his disease returned early in the next year. it seems clear, too, that though the change from ellisland to dumfries relieved him of much of the severer physical exertion, other factors more than counterbalanced this relief. burns had never been a slave to drink for its own sake; it had always been the accompaniment--in those days an almost inevitable accompaniment--of sociability. some of his wealthier friends in the vicinity were in this respect rather excessive in their hospitality; in dumfries the taverns were always at hand; and as burns came to realize the comparative failure of his career as a man, he found whisky more and more a means of escape for depression. even if we distrust the local gossip that made much of the dissipations of his later years, it appears from the evidence of his physician that alcohol had much to do with the rheumatic and digestive troubles that finally broke him down. in july, 1796, he was sent, as a last resort, to brow-on-solway to try sea-bathing and country life; but he returned little improved, and well-nigh convinced that his illness was mortal. his mental condition is shown by the fact that pressure from a solicitor for the payment of a tailor's debt of some seven pounds, incurred for his volunteer's uniform, threw him into a panic lest he should be imprisoned, and his last letters are pitiful requests for financial help, and two notes to his father-in-law urging him to send her mother to jean, as she was about to give birth to another child. in such harassing conditions he sank into delirium, and died on july 21, 1796. the child, who died in infancy, was born on the day his father was buried. with burns's death a reaction in popular opinion set in. he was given a military funeral; and a subscription which finally amounted to one thousand two hundred pounds was raised for his family. the official biography, by doctor currie of liverpool, doubled this sum, so that jean was enabled to bring up the children respectably, and end her days in comfort. scotland, having done little for burns in his life, was stricken with remorse when he died, and has sought ever since to atone for her neglect by an idolatry of the poet and by a more than charitable view of the man. chapter ii inheritance: language and literature three forms of speech were current in scotland in the time of burns, and, in different proportions, are current to-day: in the highlands, north and west of a slanting line running from the firth of clyde to aberdeenshire, gaelic; in the lowlands, south and east of the same line, lowland scots; over the whole country, among the more educated classes, english. gaelic is a celtic language, belonging to an entirely different linguistic group from english, and having close affinities to irish and welsh. this tongue burns did not know. lowland scots is a dialect of english, descended from the northumbrian dialect of anglo-saxon. it has had a history of considerable interest. down to the time of chaucer, whose influence had much to do with making the midland dialect the literary standard for the southern kingdom, it is difficult to distinguish the written language of edinburgh from that of york, both being developments of northumbrian. but as english writers tended more and more to conform to the standard of london, northern middle english gradually ceased to be written; while in scotland, separated and usually hostile as it was politically, the northern speech continued to develop along its own lines, until in the beginning of the sixteenth century it attained a form more remote from standard english and harder for the modern reader than it had been a century before. the close connection between scotland and france, continuing down to the time of queen mary, led to the introduction of many french words which never found a place in english; the proximity of the highlands made gaelic borrowings easy; and the scandinavian settlements on both coasts contributed additional elements to the vocabulary. further, in its comparative isolation, scots developed or retained peculiarities in grammar and pronunciation unknown or lost in the south. thus by 1550, the form of english spoken in scotland was in a fair way to become an independent language. this process, however, was rudely halted by the reformation. the triumph of this movement in england and its comparative failure in france threw scotland, when it became protestant, into close relations with england, while the "auld alliance" with france practically ended when mary of scots returned to her native country. leaders like john knox, during the early struggles of the reformation, spent much time in england; and when they came home their speech showed the effect of their intercourse with their southern brethren of the reformed faith. the language of knox, as recorded in his sermons and his _history_, is indeed far from elizabethan english, but it is notably less "broad" than the scots of douglas and lindesay. scotland had no vernacular translation of the bible; and this important fact, along with the english associations of many of the protestant ministers, finally made the speech of the scottish pulpit, and later of scottish religion in general, if not english, at least as purely english as could be achieved. the process thus begun was carried farther in the next generation when, in 1603, james vi of scotland became king of england, and the court removed to london. england at that time was, of course, much more advanced in culture than its poorer neighbor to the north, and the courtiers who accompanied james to london found themselves marked by their speech as provincial, and set themselves to get rid of their scotticisms with an eagerness in proportion to their social aspirations. scottish men of letters now came into more intimate relation with english literature, and finding that writing in english opened to them a much larger reading public, they naturally adopted the southern speech in their books. thus men like alexander, earl of stirling, and william drummond of hawthornden belong both in language and literary tradition to the english elizabethans. religion, society, and literature having all thrown their influence against the native speech of scotland, it followed that the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw the progressive disuse of that speech among the upper classes of the country, until by the time of burns, scots was habitually spoken only by the peasantry and the humbler people in the towns. the distinctions between social classes in the matter of dialect were, of course, not absolute. occasional members even of the aristocracy prided themselves on their command of the vernacular; and among the country folk there were few who could not make a brave attempt at english when they spoke with the laird or the minister. with burns himself, lowland scots was his customary speech at home, about the farm, in the tavern and the freemasons' lodge; but, as we have seen, his letters, being written mainly to educated people, are almost all pure english, as was his conversation with these people when he met them. the linguistic situation that has been sketched finds interesting illustration in the language of burns's poems. the distinction which is usually made, that he wrote poetry in scots and verse in english, has some basis, but is inaccurately expressed and needs qualification. the fundamental fact is that for him scots was the natural language of the emotions, english of the intellect. the scots poems are in general better, not chiefly because they are in scots but because they are concerned with matters of natural feeling; the english poems are in general poetically poorer, not because they are in english but because they are so frequently the outcome of moods not dominated by spontaneous emotion, but intellectual, conscious, or theatrical. he wrote english sometimes as he wore his sunday blacks, with dignity but not with ease; sometimes as he wore the buff and blue, with buckskins and top-boots, which he donned in edinburgh--"like a farmer dressed in his best to dine with the laird." in both cases he was capable of vigorous, common-sense expression; in neither was he likely to exhibit the imagination, the tenderness, or the humor which characterized the plowman clad in home-spun. _the cotter's saturday night_ is an interesting illustration of these distinctions. the opening stanza is a dedicatory address on english models to a lawyer friend and patron; it is pure english in language, stiff and imitatively "literary" in style. the stanzas which follow describing the homecoming of the cotter, the family circle, the supper, and the daughter's suitor, are in broad scots, the language harmonizing perfectly with the theme, and they form poetically the sound core of the poem. in the description of family worship, burns did what his father would do in conducting that worship, adopted english as more reverent and respectful, but inevitably as more restrained emotionally; and in the moralizing passage which follows, as in the apostrophes to scotia and to the almighty at the close, he naturally sticks to english, and in spite of a genuine enough exaltation of spirit achieves a result rather rhetorical than poetical. contrast again songs like _corn rigs_ or _whistle and i'll come to thee, my lad_, with most of the songs to clarinda. the former, in scots, are genial, whole-hearted, full of the power of kindling imaginative sympathy, thoroughly contagious in their lusty emotion or sly humor. the latter, in english, are stiff, coldly contrived, consciously elegant or marked by the sentimental factitiousness of the affair that occasioned them. but their inferiority is due less to the difference in language than to the difference in the mood. when, especially at a distance, his relation to clarinda really touched his imagination, we have the genuinely poetical _my nannie's awa_ and _ae fond kiss_. the latter poem can be, with few changes, turned into english without loss of quality; and its most famous lines have almost no dialect: had we never lov'd sae kindly, had we never lov'd sae blindly, never met--or never parted, we had ne'er been broken-hearted. finally, there are the english poems to highland mary. for some reason not yet fully understood, the affair with mary campbell was treated by him in a spirit of reverence little felt in his other love poetry, and this spirit was naturally expressed by him in english. but in the almost english "ye banks and braes and streams around the castle of montgomery," and in the pure english _to mary in heaven_, he is not at all hampered by the use of the southern speech, scots would not have heightened the poetry here, and for burns scots would have been less appropriate, less natural even, for the expression of an almost sacred theme. the case, then, seems to stand thus. burns commanded two languages, which he employed instinctively for different kinds of subject and mood. the subjects and moods which evoked vernacular utterance were those that with all writers are more apt to yield poetry, and in consequence most of his best poetry is in scots. but when a theme naturally evoking english was imaginatively felt by him, the use of english did not prevent his writing poetically. and there were themes which he could handle equally well in either speech--as we see, for example, in the songs in _the jolly beggars_. yet the language had an importance in itself. though its vocabulary is limited in matters of science, philosophy, religion, and the like, lowland scots is very rich in homely terms and in humorous and tender expressions. for love, or for celebrating the effects of whisky, english is immeasurably inferior. the free use of the diminutive termination in _ie_ or _y_--a termination capable of expressing endearment, familiarity, ridicule, and contempt as well as mere smallness--not only has considerable effect in emotional shading, but contributes to the liquidness of the verse by lessening the number of consonantal endings that make english seem harsh and abrupt to many foreign ears. moreover, the very indeterminateness of the dialect, the possibility of using varying degrees of "broadness," increased the facility of rhyming, and added notably to the ease and spontaneity of composition. thus in scots burns was not only more at home, but had a medium in some respects more plastic than english. language, however, was not the only element in his inheritance which helped to determine the nature and quality of burns's production. he was extremely sensitive to suggestion from his predecessors, and frankly avowed his obligations to them, so that to estimate his originality it is necessary to know something of the men at whose flame he kindled. as the northern dialect of english was, before the reformation, in a fair way to become an independent national speech, so literature north of the tweed had promise of a development, not indeed independent, but distinct. of the writers of the middle scots period, henryson and dunbar, douglas and lindesay, burns, it is true, knew little; and the tradition that they founded underwent in the latter part of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth centuries an experience in many respects parallel to that which has been described in the matter of language. the effect of the reformation upon all forms of artistic creation will be discussed when we come to speak particularly of the history of scottish song; for the moment it is sufficient to say that the absorption in theological controversy was unfavorable to the continuation of a poetical development. under james vi, however, there were a few writers who maintained the tradition, notably alexander montgomery, alexander scott, and the sempills. to the first of these is to be credited the invention of the stanza called, from the poems in which montgomery used it, the stanza of _the banks of helicon_ or of _the cherry and the slae_. it was imitated by some of montgomery's contemporaries, revived by allan ramsay, and thus came to burns down a line purely scottish, as it never seems to have been used in any other tongue. he first employed it in the _epistle to davie_, and it was made by him the medium of some of his most characteristic ideas. it's no in titles nor in rank: it's no in wealth like lon'on bank, to purchase peace and rest. it's no in makin muckle, mair, [much, more] it's no in books, it's no in lear, [learning] to make us truly blest: if happiness hae not her seat an' centre in the breast, we may be wise, or rich, or great, but never can be blest! nae treasures nor pleasures could make us happy lang; the heart aye's the part aye that makes us right or wrang. _the piper of kilbarchan_, by sir robert sempill of beltrees (1595?-1661?), set a model for the humorous elegy on the living which reached burns through ramsay and fergusson, and was followed by him in those on poor mailie and tam samson. the stanza in which it is written is far older than sempill, having been traced as far back as the troubadours in the twelfth century, and being found frequently in both english and french through the middle ages; but from the time of sempill on, it was cultivated with peculiar intensity in scotland, and is the medium of so many of burns's best-known pieces that it is often called burns's stanza. lament in rhyme, lament in prose, wi' saut tears tricklin' down your nose; our bardie's fate is at a close, past a' remead; the last, sad cape-stane o' his woe's- poor mailie's dead! the seventeenth century was a barren one for scottish literature. the attraction of the larger english public and the disuse of the vernacular among the upper classes already discussed, drew to the south or to the southern speech whatever literary talent appeared in the north, and it seemed for a time that, except for the obscure stream of folk poetry, scottish vernacular literature was at an end. in the beginning of the eighteenth century, however, interest began to revive. in 1706-9-11 james watson published the three volumes of his _choice collection of comic and serious scots poems_, and in the third decade began to appear allan ramsay's _tea table miscellany_ (1724-40). these collections rescued from oblivion a large quantity of vernacular verse, some of it drawn from manuscripts of pre-reformation poetry, some of it contemporary, some of it anonymous and of uncertain date, having come down orally or in chap-books and broadsides. the welcome given to these volumes was an early instance of that renewed interest in older and more primitive literature that was manifested still more strikingly when percy published his _reliques of ancient english poetry_ in 1765. its influence on the production of vernacular literature was evident at once in the original work of ramsay himself; and the movement which culminated in burns, though having its roots far back in the work of henryson and dunbar, was in effect a scottish renascence, in which the chief agents before burns were hamilton of gilbertfield, ramsay himself, robert fergusson, and song-writers like mrs. cockburn and lady anne lindsay. of this fact burns was perfectly aware, and he was not only candid but generous in his acknowledgment of his debt to his immediate predecessors. my senses wad be in a creel, [head would be turned] should i but dare a hope to speel, [climb] wi' allan, or wi' gilbertfield, the braes o' fame; [hills] or fergusson, the writer-chiel, [lawyer-fellow] a deathless name. he knew ramsay's collection and had a perhaps exaggerated admiration for _the gentle shepherd_. this poem, published in 1728, not only holds a unique position in the history of the pastoral drama, but is important in the present connection as being to burns the most signal evidence of the possibility of a dignified literature in the modern vernacular. hamilton and ramsay had exchanged rhyming epistles in the six-line stanza, and in these burns found the model for his own epistles. hamilton's _last dying words of bonny heck_--a favorite grey-hound--had been imitated by ramsay in _lucky spence's last advice_ and the _last speech of a wretched miser_, and the form had become a scottish convention before burns produced his _death and dying words of poor mailie_. as important as any of these was the example set by ramsay and bettered by burns of refurbishing old indecent or fragmentary songs. robert fergusson (1750-1774) was regarded by burns still more highly than ramsay, and his influence was even more potent. in his autobiographical letter to doctor moore he tells that about 1782 he had all but given up rhyming: "but meeting with fergusson's _scotch poems_, i strung anew my wildly-sounding, rustic lyre with emulating vigour." in the preface to the kilmarnock edition he is still more explicit as to his attitude. "to the poems of a ramsay, or the glorious dawnings of the poor, unfortunate fergusson, he, with equal unaffected sincerity, declares, that, even in the highest pulse of vanity, he has not the most distant pretensions. these two justly admired scotch poets he has often had in his eye in the following pieces; but rather with a view to kindle at their flame, than for servile imitation." to be more specific, burns found the model for his _cotter's saturday night_ in fergusson's _farmer's ingle_, for _the holy fair_ in his _leith races_, for _scotch drink_ in his _caller water_, for _the twa dogs_ and _the brigs of ayr_ in his _planestanes and causey_, and _kirkyard eclogues_. in later years burns grew somewhat more critical of ramsay, especially as a reviser of old songs; but for fergusson he retained to the end a sympathetic admiration. when he went to edinburgh, one of his first places of pilgrimage was the grave of him whom he apostrophized thus, o thou, my elder brother in misfortune, by far my elder brother in the muse! and he later obtained from the managers of the canongate kirk permission to erect a stone over the tomb. the fact, then, that burns owed much to the tradition of vernacular poetry in scotland and especially to his immediate predecessors is no new discovery, however recent critics may have plumed themselves upon it. burns knew it well, and was ever ready to acknowledge it. what is more important than the mere fact of his inheritance is the use he made of it. in taking from his elders the fruits of their experience in poetical conception and metrical arrangement, he but did what artists have always done; in outdistancing these elders and in almost every case surpassing their achievement on the lines they had laid down, he did what only the greater artists succeed in doing. it is not in mere inventiveness and novelty but in first-hand energy of conception, in mastering for himself the old thought and the old form and uttering them with his personal stamp, in making them carry over to the reader with a new force or vividness or beauty, that the poet's originality consists. in these respects burns's originality is no whit lessened by an explicit recognition of his indebtedness to the stock from which he grew. his relation to the purely english literature which he read is different and produced very different results. shakespeare he reverenced, and that he knew him well is shown by the frequency of shakespearean turns of phrase in his letters, as well as by direct quotation. but of influence upon his poetry there is little trace. he had a profound admiration for the indomitable will of milton's satan, and he makes it clear that this admiration affected his conduct. the most frequent praise of english writers in his letters is, however, given to the eighteenth-century authors--to pope, thomson, shenstone, gray, young, blair, beattie, and goldsmith in verse, to sterne, smollett, and henry mackenzie in prose. echoes of these poets are common in his work, and the most frigid of his english verses show their influence most clearly. to the sentimental tendency in the thought of the eighteenth century he was highly responsive, and the expression of it in _the man of feeling_ appealed to him especially. in a mood which recurred painfully often he was apt to pride himself on his "sensibility": the letters to clarinda are full of it. the less fortunate effects of it are seen both in his conduct and in his poems in a fondness for nursing his emotions and extracting pleasure from his supposed miseries; the more fortunate aspects are reflected in the tender humanity of poems like those _to a mouse_, _on seeing a wounded hare_, and _to a daisy_--perhaps even in the _address to the deil_. he had naturally a warm heart and strong impulses; it is only when an element of consciousness or mawkishness appears that his "sensibility" is to be ascribed to the fashionable philosophy of the day and the influence of his english models. for better or worse, then, burns belongs to the literary history of britain as a legitimate descendant of easily traced ancestors. like other great writers he made original contributions from his individual temperament and from his particular environment and experience. but these do not obliterate the marks of his descent, nor are they so numerous or powerful as to give support to the old myth of the "rustic phenomenon," the isolated poetical miracle appearing in defiance of the ordinary laws of literary dependence and tradition. if this is true of his models it is no less true of his methods. though simplicity and spontaneity are among the most obvious of the qualities of his work, it is not to be supposed that such effects were obtained by a birdlike improvisation. "all my poetry," he said, "is the effect of easy composition but laborious correction," and the careful critic will perceive ample evidence in support of the statement. we shall see in the next chapter with what pains he fitted words to melody in his songs; an examination of the variant readings which make the establishment of his text peculiarly difficult shows abundant traces of deliberation and the labor of the file. in the following song, the first four lines of which are old, it is interesting to note that, though he preserves admirably the tone of the fragment which gave him the impulse and the idea, the twelve lines which he added are in the effects produced by manipulation of the consonants and vowels and in the use of internal rhyme a triumph of conscious artistic skill. the interest in technique which this implies is exhibited farther in many passages of his letters, especially those to george thomson. go fetch to me a pint o' wine go fetch to me a pint o' wine, an' fill it in a silver tassie; [goblet] that i may drink, before i go, a service to my bonnie lassie. the boat rocks at the pier o' leith, fu' loud the wind blaws frae the ferry, [from] the ship rides by the berwick-law, and i maun leave my bonnie mary. [must] the trumpets sound, the banners fly, the glittering spears are rankã¨d ready; the shouts o' war are heard afar, the battle closes thick and bloody; but it's no the roar o' sea or shore wad mak me langer wish to tarry; nor shout o' war that's heard afar, it's leaving thee, my bonnie mary. chapter iii burns and scottish song with song-writing burns began his poetical career, with song-writing he closed it; and, brilliant as was his achievement in other fields, it is as a song-writer that he ranks highest among his peers, it is through his songs that he has rooted himself most deeply in the hearts of his countrymen. the most notable and significant fact in connection with his making of songs is their relation to the melodies to which they are sung. in the vast majority of cases these are old scottish tunes, which were known to burns before he wrote his songs, and were singing in his ear during the process of composition. the poet was no technical musician. murdoch, his first teacher, says that robert and gilbert burns "were left far behind by all the rest of the school" when he tried to teach them a little church music, "robert's ear, in particular, was remarkably dull, and his voice untunable. it was long before i could get them to distinguish one tune from another." either murdoch exaggerated, or the poet's ear developed later (murdoch is speaking of him between the ages of six and nine); for he learned to fiddle a little, once at least attempted to compose an air, could read music fairly easily, and could write down a melody from memory. his correspondence with johnson and thomson shows that he knew a vast number of old tunes and was very sensitive to their individual quality and suggestion.[1] such a sentence as the following from one of his commonplace books shows how important his responsiveness to music was for his poetical composition. "these old scottish airs are so nobly sentimental that when one would compose to them, to _south_ the tune, as our scottish phrase is, over and over, is the readiest way to catch the inspiration and raise the bard into that glorious enthusiasm so strongly characteristic of our old scotch poetry." [1] the question of the nature and extent of burns's musical abilities may be summed up in the words of the latest and most thorough student of his melodies:--"his knowledge of music was in fact elemental; his taste lay entirely in melody, without ever reaching an appreciation of contra-puntal or harmonious music. nor, although in his youth he had learned the grammar of music and become acquainted with clefs, keys, and notes at the rehearsals of church music, which were in his day a practical part of the education of the scottish peasantry, did he ever arrive at composition, except in the case of one melody which he composed for a song of his own at the age of about twenty-three, and this melody displeased him so much that he destroyed it and never attempted another. in the same way, although he practised the violin, he did not attain to excellence in execution, his playing being confined to strathspeys and other slow airs of the pathetic kind. on the other hand, his perception and his love of music are undeniable. for example, he possessed copies of the principal collections of scottish vocal and instrumental music of the eighteenth century, and repeatedly refers to them in the museum and in his letters. his copy of the _caledonian pocket companion_ (the largest collection of scottish music), which copy still exists with pencil notes in his handwriting, proves that he was familiar with the whole contents. at intervals in his writings he names at least a dozen different collections to which he refers and from which he quotes with personal knowledge. also he knew several hundred different airs, not vaguely and in a misty way, but accurately as regards tune, time, and rhythm, so that he could distinguish one from another, and describe minute variations in the several copies of any tune which passed through his hands.... many of the airs he studied and selected for his verses were either pure instrumental tunes, never before set to words, or the airs (from dance books) of lost songs, with the first lines as titles."--(james c. dick, _the songs of robert burns_, 1903, preface, pp. viii, ix.) again, once when thomson had sent him a tune to be fitted with words, he replied: "_laddie lie near me_ must _lie by me_ for some time. i do not know the air; and until i am complete master of a tune in my own singing (such as it is), i never can compose for it. my way is: i consider the poetic sentiment correspondent to my idea of the musical expression; then choose my theme; begin one stanza; when that is composed, which is generally the most difficult part of the business, i walk out, sit down now and then, look out for subjects in nature around me that are in unison and harmony with the cogitations of my fancy and workings of my bosom, humming every now and then the air with the verses i have framed. when i feel my muse beginning to jade, i retire to the solitary fireside of my study, and then commit my effusion to paper; swinging at intervals on the hindlegs of my elbow chair, by way of calling forth my own critical strictures as my pen goes on. seriously, this at home is almost invariably my way." [september, 1793.] his wife, who had a good voice and a wide knowledge of folk-song, seems often to have been of assistance, and a further interesting detail is given by sir james stuart-menteath from the evidence of a mrs. christina flint. "when burns dwelt at ellisland, he was accustomed, after composing any of his beautiful songs, to pay kirsty a visit, that he might hear them sung by her. he often stopped her in the course of the singing when he found any word harsh and grating to his ear, and substituted one more melodious and pleasing. from kirsty's extensive acquaintance with the old scottish airs, she was frequently able to suggest to the poet music more suitable to the song she was singing than that to which he had set it." kirsty and jean were not his only aids in the criticism of the musical quality of his songs. from the time of the edinburgh visit, at least, he was in the habit of seizing the opportunity afforded by the possession of a harpsichord or a good voice by the daughters of his friends, and in several cases he rewarded his accompanist by making her the heroine of the song. without drawing on the evidence of parallel phenomena in other ages and literatures, we can be sure enough that this persistent consciousness of the airs to which his songs were to be sung, and this critical observation of their fitness, had much to do with the extraordinary melodiousness of so many of them. we have seen that burns received an important impulse to productiveness through his cooperation in the compiling of two national song collections. james johnson, the editor of the first of these, was an all but illiterate engraver, ill-equipped for such an undertaking; and as the work grew in scale until it reached six volumes, burns became virtually the editor--even writing the prefaces to several of the volumes. george thomson, the editor of the other, _a select collection of original scottish airs_, was a government clerk, an amateur in music, of indifferent taste and with a preference for english to the vernacular. in his collection the airs were harmonized by pleyel, kozeluch, haydn, and beethoven; and he had the impudence to meddle with the contributions both of burns and of the eminent composers who arranged the melodies. nothing is more striking than the patience and modesty of burns in tolerating the criticism and alterations of thomson. the main purpose in both _the scots musical museum_ and the _select collection_ was the preservation of the national melodies, but when the editors came to seek words to go with them they found themselves confronted with a difficult problem. to understand its nature, it will be necessary to extend our historical survey. in addition to the effects of the reformation in scotland already indicated, there was another even more serious for arts and letters. the reaction against catholicism in scotland was peculiarly violent, and the form of protestantism which replaced it was extremely puritanical. in the matter of intellectual education, it is true, knox's ideas and institutions were enlightened, and have borne important fruit in making prevail in his country an uncommonly high level of general education and a reverence for learning. but on the artistic side the reformed ministers were the enemies not only of everything that suggested the ornateness of the old religion, but of beauty in every form. under their influence, an influence extraordinarily pervasive and despotic, art and song were suppressed, and scotland was left a very mirthless country, absorbed in theological and political discussion, and having little outlet for the instinct of sport except heresy-hunting. such at least seemed to be the case on the surface. but human nature is not to be totally changed even by such a force as the reformation. especially among the peasantry occasions recurred--weddings, funerals, harvest-homes, new-year's eves, and the like--when, the minister being at a safe distance and whisky having relaxed the awe of the kirk session, the "wee sinfu' fiddle" was produced, and song and the dance broke forth. it was under such clandestine conditions that the traditional songs of scotland had been handed down for some generations before burns's day, and the conditions had gravely affected their character. the melodies could not be stained, but the words had degenerated until they had lost most of whatever imaginative quality they had possessed, and had acquired instead only grossness. such words, it was clear, johnson could not use in his _museum_, and the discovery of burns was to him the most extraordinary good fortune. for burns not only knew, as we have seen, the old songs--words and airs--by the score, but was able to purify, complete, or replace the words according to the degree of their corruption. various poets have caught up scraps of folk-song and woven them into their verse; but nowhere else has a poet of the people appeared with such a rare combination of original genius and sympathetic feeling for the tone and accent of the popular muse, as enabled burns to recreate scottish song. if patriotic scots wish to justify the achievement of burns on moral grounds, it is here that their argument lies: for whatever of coarseness and license there may have been in his life and writings, it is surely more than counter-balanced by the restoration to his people of the possibility of national music and clean mirth. one can not classify the songs of burns into two clearly separated groups, original and remodeled, for no hard lines can be drawn. since he practically always began with the tune, he frequently used the title or the first line of the old song. he might do this, yet completely change the idea; or he might retain the idea but use none of the old words. in other cases the first stanza or the chorus is retained; in still others the new song is sprinkled with here a phrase and there an epithet recalling the derelict that gave rise to it. some are made up of stanzas from several different predecessors, others are almost centos of stock phrases. the contribution thus made to johnson's collection, of songs rescued or remade or wholly original, amounted to some one hundred eighty-four; to thomson's about sixty-four. some examples will make clear the nature of his services. _auld lang syne_, perhaps the most wide-spread of all songs among the english-speaking peoples, is in its oldest extant form attributed on uncertain grounds to francis sempill of beltrees or sir robert aytoun.[2] that still older forms had existed appears from its title in the broadside in which it is preserved: "an excellent and proper new ballad, entitled old long syne. newly corrected and amended, with a large and new edition [sic] of several excellent love lines." [2] the melody to which the song is now sung is not that to which burns wrote it, but was an old strathspey tune. it is possible, however, that he agreed to its adoption by thomson. it opens thus: should old acquaintance be forgot and never thought upon, the flames of love extinguishã¨d and freely past and gone? is thy kind heart now grown so cold in that loving breast of thine, that thou can'st never once reflect on old-long-syne. and so on, for eighty lines. allan ramsay rewrote it for his _tea-table miscellany_ (1724), and a specimen stanza will show that it was still going down-hill: should auld acquaintance be forgot tho' they return with scars? these are the noble hero's lot, obtain'd in glorious wars; welcome, my varo, to my breast, thy arms about me twine, and make me once again as blest as i was lang syne. the remaining four stanzas are worse. burns may have had further hints to work on which are now lost; but the best, part of the song, stanzas three and four, are certainly his, and it is unlikely that he inherited more than some form of the first verse and the chorus. auld lang syne should auld acquaintance be forgot [old] and never brought to min'? [mind] should auld acquaintance be forgot, and auld lang syne? [long ago] for auld lang syne, my dear. for auld lang syne, we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet, for auld lang syne. and surely ye'll be your pint-stowp, [will pay for] and surely i'll be mine; and we'll tak a cup o' kindness yet for auld lang syne. we twa hae run about the braes, [two have, hillsides] and pu'd the gowans fine; [pulled, daisies] but we've wander'd mony a weary foot sin' auld lang syne. we twa hae paidled i' the burn, [waded, brook] from morning sun till dine; [noon] but seas between us braid hae roar'd [broad] sin' auld lang syne. and there's a hand, my trusty fiere, [comrade] and gie's a hand o' thine; [give me] and we'll tak a right guid-willie waught, [draught of good will] for auld lang syne. a more remarkable case of patchwork is _a red, red rose_. antiquarian research has discovered in chap-books and similar sources four songs, from each of which a stanza, in some such form as follows, seems to have proved suggestive to burns: (1) her cheeks are like the roses that blossom fresh in june, o, she's like a new strung instrument that's newly put in tune. (2) altho' i go a thousand miles i vow thy face to see, altho' i go ten thousand miles i'll come again to thee, dear love, i'll come again to thee. (3) the seas they shall run dry, and rocks melt into sands; then i'll love you still, my dear, when all those things are done. (4) fare you well, my own true love, and fare you well for a while, and i will be sure to return back again, if i go ten thousand mile. the genealogy of the lyric is still more complicated than these sources imply, but the specimens given are enough to show the nature of the ore from which burns extracted the pure gold of his well-known song: my love is like a red red rose o, my love is like a red red rose that's newly sprung in june: o, my love is like the melodie that's sweetly play'd in tune. as fair art thou, my bonnie lass, so deep in love am i: and i will love thee still, my dear, till a' the seas gang dry. [go] till a' the seas gang dry, my dear, and the rocks melt wi' the sun: and i will love thee still, my dear, while the sands o' life shall run. and fare thee weel, my only love, and fare thee weel a while! and i will come again, my love, tho' it were ten thousand mile. of the songs already quoted, the germ of _ae fond kiss_ lies in the first line of robert dodsley's _parting kiss_, "one fond kiss before we part;" _i hae a wife o' my ain_, borrows with slight modification the first two lines; a model for _my nannie o_ has been found in an anonymous eighteenth-century fragment as well as in a song of ramsay's, but neither contributes more than the phrase which names the tune as well as the words; _the rigs o' barley_ was suggested by a verse of an old song: o, corn rigs and rye rigs, o, corn rigs are bonie; and whene'er you meet a bonie lass preen up her cockernonie. _handsome nell_, _mary morison_, _will ye go to the indies_, _the gloomy night_, and _my nannie's awa_ are entirely original; and a comparison of their poetical quality with those having their model or starting point in an older song will show that, however brilliantly burns acquitted himself in his task of refurbishing traditional material, he was in no way dependent upon such material for inspiration. from what has been said of the occasions of these verses, however, it is clear that inspiration from the outside was not lacking. the traditional association of wine, woman, and song certainly held for burns, nearly all his lyrics being the outcome of his devotion to at least two of these, some of them, like the following, to all three. yestreen i had a pint o' wine yestreen i had a pint o' wine, [last night] a place where body saw na'; [nobody saw] yestreen lay on this breast o' mine the gowden locks of anna. [golden] the hungry jew in wilderness rejoicing o'er his manna, was naething to my hinny bliss [honey] upon the lips of anna. ye monarchs, tak the east and west, frae indus to savannah! gie me within my straining grasp the melting form of anna. there i'll despise imperial charms, an empress or sultana, while dying raptures in her arms i give and take with anna! awa, thou flaunting god o' day! awa, thou pale diana! ilk star, gae hide thy twinkling ray [each, go] when i'm to meet my anna. come, in thy raven plumage, night! (sun, moon, and stars withdrawn a') and bring an angel pen to write my transports wi' my anna! (postscript) the kirk and state may join, and tell to do such things i mauna: [must not] the kirk and state may gae to hell, and i'll gae to my anna. she is the sunshine o' my ee, to live but her i canna; [without] had i on earth but wishes three, the first should be my anna. nothing could be more hopeless than to attempt to classify burns's songs according to the amours that occasioned them, and to seek to find a constant relation between the reality and intensity of the passion and the vitality of the poetry. at times some relation does seem apparent, as we may discern beneath the vigor of the song just quoted a trace of a conscious attempt to brave his conscience in connection with the one proved infidelity to jean after his marriage. again, in such songs as _of a' the airts_, _poortith cauld_, and others addressed to jean herself, we have an expression of his less than rapturous but entirely genuine affection for his wife. of a' the airts of a' the airts the wind can blaw, [directions] i dearly like the west, for there the bonnie lassie lives, the lassie i lo'e best: [love] there wild woods grow, and rivers row, [roll] and mony a hill between; but day and night my fancy's flight is ever wi' my jean. i see her in the dewy flowers, i see her sweet and fair: i hear her in the tunefu' birds, i hear her charm the air: there's not a bonnie flower that springs by fountain, shaw, or green; [woodland] there's not a bonnie bird that sings, but minds me o' my jean. o this is no my ain lassie o this is no my ain lassie, fair tho' the lassie be; o weel ken i my ain lassie, kind love is in her e'e. i see a form, i see a face, ye weel may wi' the fairest place: it wants, to me, the witching grace, the kind love that's in her e'e. she's bonnie, blooming, straight, and tall, and lang has had my heart in thrall; and aye it charms my very saul, [soul] the kind love that's in her e'e. a thief sae pawkie is my jean, [sly] to steal a blink, by a' unseen; [glance] but gleg as light are lovers' e'en, [nimble, eyes] when kind love is in the e'e. it may escape the courtly sparks, it may escape the learnã¨d clerks; but weel the watching lover marks the kind love that's in her e'e. poortith cauld o poortith cauld, and restless love, [cold poverty] ye wreck my peace between ye; yet poortith a' i could forgive, an' 'twere na for my jeanie. [if 'twere not] o why should fate sic pleasure have, [such] life's dearest bands untwining? or why sae sweet a flower as love depend on fortune's shining? the warld's wealth when i think on, its pride, and a' the lave o't,- [rest] my curse on silly coward man, that he should be the slave o't. her een sae bonnie blue betray how she repays my passion; but prudence is her o'erword aye, [refrain] she talks of rank and fashion. o wha can prudence think upon, and sic a lassie by him? o wha can prudence think upon, and sae in love as i am? how blest the wild-wood indian's fate! he woos his artless dearie- the silly bogles, wealth and state, [goblins] can never make him eerie. [afraid] my wife's a winsome wee thing she is a winsome wee thing, she is a handsome wee thing, she is a lo'esome wee thing, this sweet wee wife o' mine. i never saw a fairer, i never lo'ed a dearer, and neist my heart i'll wear her, [next] for fear my jewel tine. [be lost] the warld's wrack, we share o't, the warstle and the care o't; [struggle] wi' her i'll blythely bear it, and think my lot divine. similarly, most of the lyrics addressed to clarinda in edinburgh are marked by the sentimentalism and affectation of an affair that engaged only one side, and that among the least pleasing, of the many-sided temperament of the poet. but, in general, with burns as with other poets, it was not the catching of a first-hand emotion at white heat that resulted in the best poetry, but the stimulating of his imagination by the vision of a person or a situation that may have had but the hint of a prototype in the actual. we have already noted that the best of the clarinda poems were written in absence, and that they drop the arcadian names which typified the make-believe element in that complex affair. so a number of his most charming songs are addressed to girls of whom he had had but a glimpse. but that glimpse sufficed to kindle him, and for the poetry it was all advantage that it was no more. his relations with women were extremely varied in nature. at one extreme there were friendships like that with mrs. dunlop, the letters to whom show that their common interests were mainly moral and intellectual, and were mingled with no emotion more fiery than gratitude. at the other extreme stand relations like that with anne park, the heroine of _yestreen i had a pint o' wine_, which were purely passionate and transitory. between these come a long procession affording excellent material for the ingenuity of those skilled in the casuistry of the sexes: the boyish flame for handsome nell; the slightly more mature feeling for ellison begbie; the various phases of his passion for jean armour; the perhaps partly factitious reverence for highland mary; the respectful adoration for margaret chalmers to whom he is supposed to have proposed marriage in edinburgh; the deliberate posing in his compliments to chloris (jean lorimer); the grateful gallantry to jessie lewars, who ministered to him on his deathbed. in the later days in dumfries, when his vitality was running low and he was laboring to supply thomson with verses even when the spontaneous impulse to compose was rare, we find him theorizing on the necessity of enthroning a goddess for the nonce. speaking of _craigieburn-wood_ and jean lorimer, he writes to his prosaic editor: "the lady on whom it was made is one of the finest women in scotland; and in fact (_entre nous_) is in a manner to me what sterne's eliza was to him--a mistress, or friend, or what you will, in the guileless simplicity of platonic love. (now, don't put any of your squinting constructions on this, or have any clishmaclaver about it among our acquaintances.) i assure you that to my lovely friend you are indebted for many of your best songs of mine. do you think that the sober gin-horse routine of existence could inspire a man with life, and love, and joy--could fire him with enthusiasm, or melt him with pathos equal to the genius of your book? no, no!!! whenever i want to be more than ordinary _in song_; to be in some degree equal to your diviner airs, do you imagine i fast and pray for the celestial emanation? _tout au contraire!_ i have a glorious recipe; the very one that for his own use was invented by the divinity of healing and poesy when erst he piped to the flocks of admetus. i put myself in a regimen of admiring a fine woman; and in proportion to the adorability of her charms, in proportion you are delighted with my verses. the lightning of her eye is the godhead of parnassus, and the witchery of her smile the divinity of helicon!" burns is here, of course, on his rhetorical high horse, and the songs to chloris hardly bear him out; but there is much in the passage to enlighten us as to his composing processes. in his younger days his hot blood welcomed every occasion of emotional experience; toward the end, he sought such occasions for the sake of the patriotic task that lightened with its idealism the gathering gloom of his breakdown. but throughout, and this is the important point to note in relating his poetry to his life, his one mode of complimentary address to a woman was in terms of gallantry. the following group of love songs illustrate the various phases of his temperament which we have been discussing. the first two are to mary campbell, and exhibit burns in his most reverential attitude toward women: highland mary ye banks, and braes, and streams around the castle o' montgomery, green be your woods, and fair your flowers, your waters never drumlie! [muddy] there simmer first unfauld her robes, [may s. f. unfold] and there the langest tarry; for there i took the last fareweel o' my sweet highland mary. how sweetly bloom'd the gay green birk, [birch] how rich the hawthorn's blossom, as underneath their fragrant shade i clasp'd her to my bosom! the golden hours on angel wings flew o'er me and my dearie; for dear to me as light and life was my sweet highland mary. wi' mony a vow and lock'd embrace our parting was fu' tender; and, pledging aft to meet again, we tore oursels asunder; but oh! fell death's untimely frost, that nipt my flower sae early! now green's the sod, and cauld's the clay, [cold] that wraps my highland mary! o pale, pale now, those rosy lips, i aft hae kiss'd sae fondly! and closed for aye the sparkling glance, that dwelt on me sae kindly! and mould'ring now in silent dust, that heart that lo'ed me dearly! [loved] but still within my bosom's core shall live my highland mary. to mary in heaven thou lingering star, with lessening ray, that lov'st to greet the early morn, again thou usherest in the day my mary from my soul was torn. o mary! dear departed shade! where is thy place of blissful rest? seest thou thy lover lowly laid? hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast? that sacred hour can i forget? can i forget the hallow'd grove, where by the winding ayr we met, to live one day of parting love? eternity will not efface those records dear of transports past; thy image at our last embrace- ah! little thought we 'twas our last! ayr gurgling kiss'd his pebbled shore, o'erhung with wild woods, thickening green; the fragrant birch, and hawthorn hoar, twin'd amorous round the raptur'd scene. the flowers sprang wanton to be prest, the birds sang love on ev'ry spray, till too, too soon, the glowing west proclaim'd the speed of wingã¨d day. still o'er these scenes my memory wakes, and fondly broods with miser care! time but the impression stronger makes, as streams their channels deeper wear. my mary, dear departed shade! where is thy place of blissful rest? seest thou thy lover lowly laid? hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast? the group that follow are addressed either to unknown divinities or to girls who inspired only a passing devotion. in the case of _bonnie lesley_, there was no question of a love-affair: the song is merely a compliment to a young lady he met and admired. _auld rob morris_ is probably purely dramatic. ca' the yowes (second version) ca' the yowes to the knowes, [ewes, knolls] ca' them where the heather grows, ca' them where the burnie rows, [brooklet rolls] my bonnie dearie. hark! the mavis' evening sang [thrush's] sounding clouden's woods amang; then a-faulding let us gang, [a-folding, go] my bonnie dearie. we'll gae down by clouden side, [go] thro' the hazels, spreading wide o'er the waves that sweetly glide to the moon sae clearly. yonder clouden's silent towers, where at moonshine's midnight hours, o'er the dewy bending flowers, fairies dance sae cheery. ghaist nor bogle shall thou fear; [ghost, goblin] thou'rt to love and heaven sae dear, nocht of ill may come thee near, [nought] my bonnie dearie. fair and lovely as thou art, thou hast stown my very heart; [stolen] i can die--but canna part, my bonnie dearie. afton water flow gently, sweet afton, among thy green braes, flow gently, i'll sing thee a song in thy praise; my mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream, flow gently, sweet afton, disturb not her dream. thou stock-dove whose echo resounds thro' the glen, ye wild whistling blackbirds in yon thorny den, thou green-crested lapwing, thy screaming forbear, i charge you disturb not my slumbering fair. how lofty, sweet afton, thy neighbouring hills, far mark'd with the courses of clear winding rills; there daily i wander as noon rises high, my flocks and my mary's sweet cot in my eye. how pleasant thy banks and green valleys below, where wild in the woodlands the primroses blow; there oft as mild ev'ning weeps over the lea, the sweet-scented birk shades my mary and me. [birch] thy crystal stream, afton, how lovely it glides, and winds by the cot where my mary resides; how wanton thy waters her snowy feet lave, as gathering sweet flow'rets she stems thy clear wave. flow gently, sweet afton, among thy green braes, flow gently, sweet river, the theme of my lays; my mary's asleep by thy murmuring stream, flow gently, sweet afton, disturb not her dream. the blue-eyed lassie i gaed a waefu' gate yestreen, [went, road last night] a gate, i fear, i'll dearly rue; i gat my death frae twa sweet een, [got, eyes] twa lovely een o' bonnie blue. 'twas not her golden ringlets bright, her lips like roses wat wi' dew, [wet] her heaving bosom lily-white; it was her een sae bonnie blue. she talk'd, she smil'd, my heart she wyl'd, [beguiled] she charm'd my soul i wist na how; and aye the stound, the deadly wound, [pang] came frae her een sae bonnie blue. [from] but 'spare to speak, and spare to speed'- she'll aiblins listen to my vow: [perhaps] should she refuse, i'll lay my dead [death] to her twa een sae bonnie blue. bonnie lesley o saw ye bonnie lesley as she gaed o'er the border? [went] she's gane, like alexander, to spread her conquests farther. to see her is to love her, and love but her for ever; for nature made her what she is, and never made anither! thou art a queen, fair lesley, thy subjects, we before thee: thou art divine, fair lesley, the hearts o' men adore thee. the deil he could na scaith thee, [harm] or aught that wad belang thee; he'd look into thy bonnie face, and say, 'i canna wrang thee.' the powers aboon will tent thee; [above, guard] misfortune sha'na steer thee; [shall not disturb] thou'rt like themselves sae lovely, that ill they'll ne'er let near thee. return again, fair lesley, return to caledonie! that we may brag we hae a lass there's nane again sae bonnie. [no other] lassie wi' the lint-white locks lassie wi' the lint-white locks, [flaxen] bonnie lassie, artless lassie, wilt thou wi' me tent the flocks? [watch] wilt thou be my dearie, o? now nature cleeds the flowery lea, [clothes] and a' is young and sweet like thee; o wilt thou share its joys wi' me, and say thou'lt be my dearie, o. the primrose bank, the wimpling burn, [winding] the cuckoo on the milk-white thorn, the wanton lambs at early morn shall welcome thee, my dearie, o. and when the welcome simmer-shower has cheer'd ilk drooping little flower, [every] we'll to the breathing woodbine bower at sultry noon, my dearie, o. when cynthia lights, wi' silver ray, the weary shearer's hameward way. [reaper's] thro' yellow waving fields we'll stray, and talk o' love, my dearie, o. and when the howling wintry blast disturbs my lassie's midnight rest; enclaspã¨d to my faithfu' breast, i'll comfort thee, my dearie, o. montgomerie's peggy altho' my bed were in yon muir, amang the heather, in my plaidie, yet happy, happy would i be, had i my dear montgomerie's peggy. when o'er the hill beat surly storms, and winter nights were dark and rainy, i'd seek some dell, and in my arms i'd shelter dear montgomerie's peggy. were i a baron proud and high, and horse and servants waiting ready, then a' 't wad gie o' joy to me, [it would give] the sharin't wi' montgomerie's peggy. the lea-rig when o'er the hill the eastern star tells bughtin-time is near, my jo; [folding-] and owsen frae the furrow'd field [oxen] return sae dowf and wearie o; [dull] down by the burn, where scented birks wi' dew are hanging clear, my jo, [sweetheart] i'll meet thee on the lea-rig, [grassy ridge] my ain kind dearie o. [own] in mirkest glen, at midnight hour, [darkest] i'd rove, and ne'er be eerie o, [scared] if thro' that glen i gaed to thee, [went] my ain kind dearie o. altho' the night were ne'er sae wild, and i were ne'er sae wearie o, i'd meet thee on the lea-rig, my ain kind dearie o. the hunter lo'es the morning sun, [loves] to rouse the mountain deer, my jo; at noon the fisher takes the glen, along the burn to steer, my jo; gie me the hour o' gloamin grey [twilight] it maks my heart sae cheery o, to meet thee on the lea-rig, my ain kind dearie o. auld rob morris there's auld rob morris that wons in yon glen, [dwells] he's the king o' gude fellows and wale of auld men; [pick] he has gowd in his coffers, he has owsen and kine, [gold, oxen] and ae bonnie lassie, his dautie and mine. [one, darling] she's fresh as the morning, the fairest in may; she's sweet as the ev'ning amang the new hay; as blythe and as artless as the lambs on the lea, and dear to my heart as the light to my e'e. but oh! she's an heiress, auld robin's a laird, and my daddie has nought but a cot-house and yard; [garden] a wooer like me maunna hope to come speed, [must not] the wounds i must hide that will soon be my dead. [death] the day comes to me, but delight brings me nane; the night comes to me, but my rest it is gane; i wander my lane, like a night-troubled ghaist, [alone, ghost] and i sigh as my heart it wad burst in my breast. o had she but been of a lower degree, i then might hae hoped she wad smiled upon me; o how past descriving had then been my bliss, [describing] as now my distraction no words can express! _o, wert thou in the cauld blast_, besides being one of the most exquisite of his songs, has a pathetic interest from the circumstances under which it was composed. during the last few months of his life, a young girl called jessie lewars, sister of one of his colleagues in the excise, came much to his house and was of great service to mrs. burns and him in his last illness. one day he offered to write new verses to any tune she might play him. she sat down and played over several times the melody of an old song, beginning, the robin came to the wren's nest, and keekit in, and keekit in. the following lines were the characteristic result: o, wert thou in the cauld blast o, wert thou in the cauld blast, [cold] on yonder lea, on yonder lea, my plaidie to the angry airt, [direction] i'd shelter thee, i'd shelter thee, or did misfortune's bitter storms around thee blaw, around thee blaw, thy bield should be my bosom, [shelter] to share it a', to share it a'. or were i in the wildest waste, sae black and bare, sae black and bare, the desert were a paradise, if thou wert there, if thou wert there. or were i monarch o' the globe, wi' thee to reign, wi' thee to reign, the brightest jewel in my crown wad be my queen, wad be my queen. this group may well close with his great hymn of general allegiance to the sex. green grow the rashes green grow the rashes, o, green grow the rashes, o; the sweetest hours that e'er i spend, are spent amang the lasses, o! there's nought but care on ev'ry han', in ev'ry hour that passes, o; what signifies the life o' man, an' 'twere na for the lasses, o. the warly race may riches chase, [worldly] an' riches still may fly them, o; an' tho' at last they catch them fast, their hearts can ne'er enjoy them, o. but gie me a canny hour at e'en, [quiet] my arms about my dearie, o; an' warly cares, an' warly men, may a' gae tapsalteerie, o! [upside-down] for you sae douce, ye sneer at this, [sedate] ye're nought but senseless asses, o: the wisest man the warl' e'er saw, he dearly lov'd the lasses, o. auld nature swears, the lovely dears her noblest work she classes, o; her prentice han' she tried on man, an' then she made the lasses, o. equally personal, but not connected with love, are a few autobiographical poems of which the following are typical. the third of these, though prosaic enough, is interesting as perhaps burns's most elaborate summing up of the philosophy of his own career. there was a lad there was a lad was born in kyle, but whatna day o' whatna style [what] i doubt it's hardly worth the while to be sae nice wi' robin. robin was a rovin' boy, [roystering] rantin' rovin', rantin' rovin'; robin was a rovin' boy, rantin' rovin' robin. our monarch's hindmost year but ane [one] was five-and-twenty days begun, 'twas then a blast o' janwar win' blew hansel in on robin. [his first gift] the gossip keekit in his loof, [peeped, palm] quo' scho, 'wha lives will see the proof, [quoth she] this waly boy will be nae coof, [choice, dolt] i think we'll ca' him robin. [call] 'he'll hae misfortunes great an' sma', but aye a heart aboon them a'; [above] he'll be a credit till us a', [to] we'll a' be proud o' robin. 'but sure as three times three mak nine, i see by ilka score and line, [each] this chap will dearly like our kin', [sex] so leeze me on thee, robin. [blessing on] 'guid faith,' quo' scho, 'i doubt you, stir, [sir] ye gar the lasses lie aspar, [make, aspread] but twenty fauts ye may hae waur, [faults, worse] so blessings on thee, robin!' contented wi' little contented wi' little, and cantie wi' mair, [cheerful] whene'er i forgather wi' sorrow and care, [meet] i gie them a skelp, as they're creepin' alang, [spank] wi' a cog o' gude swats, and an auld scottish sang. [bowl of good ale] i whyles claw the elbow o' troublesome thought; [sometimes] but man is a soger, and life is a faught: [soldier, fight] my mirth and gude humour are coin in my pouch, [pocket] and my freedom's my lairdship nae monarch daur touch. [dare] a towmond o' trouble, should that be my fa', [twelvemonth, lot] a night o' gude fellowship sowthers it a'; [solders] when at the blythe end of our journey at last, wha the deil ever thinks o' the road he has past? [who the devil] blind chance, let her snapper and stoyte on her way, [stumble, stagger] be't to me, be't frae me, e'en let the jad gae: come ease or come travail, come pleasure or pain, my warst word is--'welcome, and welcome again!' my father was a farmer my father was a farmer upon the carrick border, o, and carefully he bred me in decency and order, o; he bade me act a manly part, though i had ne'er a farthing, o, for without an honest manly heart, no man was worth regarding, o. then out into the world my course i did determine, o; tho' to be rich was not my wish, yet to be great was charming, o: my talents they were not the worst, nor yet my education, o; resolv'd was i, at least to try, to mend my situation, o. in many a way, and vain essay, i courted fortune's favour, o: some cause unseen still stept between to frustrate each endeavour, o; sometimes by foes i was o'erpower'd, sometimes by friends forsaken, o; and when my hope was at the top, i still was worst mistaken, o. then sore harass'd, and tir'd at last, with fortune's vain delusion, o, i dropt my schemes, like idle dreams, and came to this conclusion, o- the past was bad, and the future hid; its good or ill untriã¨d, o; but the present hour was in my pow'r, and so i would enjoy it, o. no help, nor hope, nor view had i, nor person to befriend me, o; so i must toil, and sweat and broil, and labour to sustain me, o; to plough and sow, to reap and mow, my father bred me early, o; for one, he said, to labour bred, was a match for fortune fairly, o. thus all obscure, unknown, and poor, thro' life i'm doom'd to wander, o, till down my weary bones i lay in everlasting slumber, o; no view nor care, but shun whate'er might breed me pain or sorrow, o, i live to-day as well's i may, regardless of to-morrow, o. but cheerful still, i am as well as a monarch in a palace, o. tho' fortune's frown still hunts me down, with all her wonted malice, o; i make indeed my daily bread, but ne'er can make it farther, o; but, as daily bread is all i need, i do not much regard her, o. when sometimes by my labour i earn a little money, o, some unforeseen misfortune comes generally upon me, o- mischance, mistake, or by neglect, or my good-natur'd folly, o; but come what will, i've sworn it still, i'll ne'er be melancholy, o. all you who follow wealth and power with unremitting ardour, o, the more in this you look for bliss, you leave your view the farther, o; had you the wealth potosi boasts, or nations to adore you, o, a cheerful honest-hearted clown i will prefer before you, o. the stress laid upon that part of burns's production which has relation, near or remote, to his personal experiences with women is, in the current estimate, somewhat disproportionate. a surprisingly large number of his most effective songs are purely dramatic, are placed in the mouth of a man who is clearly not the poet, or, more frequently, in the mouth of a woman. there is little evidence that burns would have been capable of sustained dramatic composition; on the other hand, he was far from being limited to purely personal lyric utterance. his versatility in giving expression to the amorous moods of the other sex is almost as great as in direct confession. a group of these dramatic lyrics will demonstrate this. o for ane an' twenty, tam! an' o for ane an' twenty, tam! an' hey, sweet are an' twenty, tam! i'll learn my kin a rattlin' sang, [teach] an' i saw ane an' twenty, tam. [if] they snool me sair, and haud me down, [snub, sorely, hold] an' gar me look like bluntie, tam! [make, a fool] but three short years will soon wheel roun', an' then comes ane an' twenty, tam. a gleib o' lan', a claut o' gear, [portion, handful of money] was left me by my auntie, tam; at kith or kin i need na spier, [ask] an' i saw ane and twenty, tam. they'll hae me wed a wealthy coof, [have, dolt] tho' i mysel' hae plenty, tam; but hear'st thou, laddie? there's my loof, [hand] i'm thine at ane and twenty, tam! ye banks and braes (second version) ye flowery banks o' bonnie doon, how can ye blume sae fair? how can ye chant, ye little birds, and i sae fu' o' care? thou'll break my heart, thou bonnie bird, that sings upon the bough; thou minds me o' the happy days, [remindest] when my fause luve was true. thou'll break my heart, thou bonnie bird, that sings beside thy mate; for sae i sat, and sae i sang, and wist na o' my fate. aft hae i rov'd by bonnie doon, to see the wood-bine twine, and ilka bird sang o' its love, and sae did i o' mine. wi' lightsome heart i pu'd a rose frae off its thorny tree: but my fause luver staw my rose, [stole] and left the thorn wi' me. (third version) ye banks and braes o' bonnie doon, how can ye bloom sae fresh and fair? how can ye chant, ye little birds, and i sae weary fu' o' care? thou'lt break my heart, thou warbling bird, that wantons thro' the flowering thorn; thou minds me o' departed joys, departed never to return. aft hae i rov'd by bonnie doon, to see the rose and woodbine twine; and ilka bird sang o' its love, and fondly sae did i o' mine. wi' lightsome heart i pu'd a rose, fu' sweet upon its thorny tree; and my fause lover staw my rose, [stole] but ah! he left the thorn wi' me. simmer's a pleasant time simmer's a pleasant time, flow'rs of ev'ry colour; the water rins o'er the heugh, [crag] and i long for my true lover. ay waukin o, [waking] waukin still and wearie: sleep i can get nane for thinking on my dearie. when i sleep i dream, when i wauk i'm eerie; [superstitiously afraid] sleep i can get nane for thinking on my dearie. lanely night comes on, a' the lave are sleeping; [rest] i think on my bonnie lad and i bleer my een with greetin'. [eyes, weeping] whistle, and i'll come to ye, my lad o whistle, and i'll come to ye, my lad; o whistle, and i'll come to ye, my lad: tho' father and mither and a' should gae mad, o whistle, and i'll come to ye, my lad. but warily tent, when ye come to court me, [take care] and come na unless the back-yett be a-jee; [gate, ajar] syne up the back-stile, and let naebody see, [then] and come as ye were na comin' to me. and come as ye were na comin' to me. at kirk, or at market, whene'er ye meet me, gang by me as tho' that ye car'd na a flee: [go, fly] but steal me a blink o' your bonnie black e'e, [glance] yet look as ye were na lookin' at me. yet look as ye were na lookin' at me. aye vow and protest that ye care na for me, and whiles ye may lightly my beauty a wee; [slight] but court na anither, tho' jokin' ye be, for fear that she wyle your fancy frae me. [beguile] for fear that she wyle your fancy frae me. tam glen my heart is a breaking, dear tittie, [sister] some counsel unto me come len', to anger them a' is a pity; but what will i do wi' tam glen? i'm thinking, wi' sic a braw fellow, [fine] in poortith i might mak a fen'; [poverty, shift] what care i in riches to wallow, if i maunna marry tam glen? [must not] there's lowrie the laird o' dumeller, 'guid-day to you'--brute! he comes ben: he brags and he blaws o' his siller, [money] but when will he dance like tam glen? my minnie does constantly deave me, [mother, deafen] and bids me beware o' young men; they flatter, she says, to deceive me; but wha can think sae o' tam glen? my daddie says, gin i'll forsake him, [if] he'll gie me guid hunder marks ten: [hundred] but, if it's ordain'd i maun take him, o wha will i get but tam glen? yestreen at the valentine's dealing, [last night] my heart to my mou gied a sten: [mouth gave a leap] for thrice i drew ane without failing, and thrice it was written, 'tam glen.' the last halloween i was waukin' [watching] my droukit sark-sleeve,[3] as ye ken; [drenched chemise] his likeness cam up the house stalkin'- and the very grey breeks o' tam glen! [trousers] come, counsel, dear tittle, don't tarry; i'll gie you my bonnie black hen, [give] gif ye will advise me to marry [if] the lad i lo'e dearly, tam glen. [love] [3] see note 17 on halloween, p. 218. the rantin' dog the daddie o't o wha my babie-clouts will buy? [baby-clothes] wha will tent me when i cry? [care for] wha will kiss me whare i lie?- the rantin' dog the daddie o't. [of it] wha will own he did the faut? [fault] wha will buy my groanin' maut? [ale for the midwife] wha will tell me how to ca't? [name it] the rantin' dog the daddie o't. when i mount the creepie-chair. [stool of repentance] wha will sit beside me there? gie me rob, i seek nae mair,- [give] the rantin' dog the daddie o't. wha will crack to me my lane? [chat, alone] wha will mak me fidgin' fain? [tingling with fondness] wha will kiss me o'er again?- the rantin' dog the daddie o't. last may a braw wooer last may a braw wooer cam down the lang glen, [fine] and sair wi' his love he did deave me: [sorely, deafen] i said there was naething i hated like men- the deuce gae wi'm to believe me, believe me, [go with him] the deuce gae wi'm to believe me. he spak o' the darts in my bonnie black een, and vow'd for my love he was dying; i said he might die when he liked for jean: the lord forgie me for lying, for lying. the lord forgie me for lying! a weel-stockã¨d mailen, himsel' for the laird, [farm] and marriage aff-hand, were his proffers: i never loot on that i kend it, or car'd; [admitted] but thought i might hae waur offers, waur offers, [worse] but thought i might hae waur offers. but what wad ye think? in a fortnight or less, the deil tak his taste to gae near her! [devil] he up the lang loan to my black cousin bess, [lane] guess ye how, the jad! i could bear her, could bear her, guess ye how, the jad! i could bear her. but a' the niest week as i petted wi' care, [next, fretted] i gaed to the tryst o' dalgarnock; [fair] and wha but my fine fickle lover was there? i glowr'd as i'd seen a warlock, a warlock, [stared, wizard] i glowr'd as i'd seen a warlock. but owre my left shouther i gae him a blink, [shoulder, gave, glance] lest neebors might say i was saucy; my wooer he caper'd as he'd been in drink, and vow'd i was his dear lassie, dear lassie, and vow'd i was his dear lassie. i spier'd for my cousin fu' couthy and sweet, [asked, kindly] gin she had recover'd her hearin', [if] and how her new shoon fit her auld shachl't feet- [shoes, ill-shaped] but, heavens! how he fell a swearin', a swearin'. but, heavens! how he fell a swearin'. he begged for gudesake i wad be his wife, or else i wad kill him wi' sorrow: so e'en to preserve the poor body in life, i think i maun wed him to-morrow, to-morrow, [must] i think i maun wed him to-morrow. for the sake o' somebody my heart is sair, i dare na tell, [sore] my heart is sair for somebody; i could wake a winter night, for the sake o' somebody! oh-hon! for somebody! oh-hey! for somebody! i could range the world around, for the sake o' somebody. ye powers that smile on virtuous love, o, sweetly smile on somebody! frae ilka danger keep him free, [every] and send me safe my somebody. oh-hon! for somebody! oh-hey! for somebody! i wad do--what wad i not? for the sake o' somebody! open the door to me, o! oh, open the door, some pity to shew, oh, open the door to me, o! tho' thou hast been false, i'll ever prove true, oh, open the door to me, o! cauld is the blast upon my pale cheek, but caulder thy love for me, o! the frost, that freezes the life at my heart, is nought to my pains frae thee, o! the wan moon is setting behind the white wave, and time is setting with me, o! false friends, false love, farewell! for mair i'll ne'er trouble them nor thee, o! she has open'd the door, she has open'd it wide; she sees his pale corse on the plain, o! 'my true love!' she cried, and sank down by his side, never to rise again, o! wandering willie here awa, there awa, wandering willie, [away] here awa, there awa, haud awa hame; [hold] come to my bosom, my ae only dearie, [one] tell me thou bring'st me my willie the same. loud tho' the winter blew cauld at our parting, 'twas na the blast brought the tear in my e'e; welcome now, simmer, and welcome, my willie, the simmer to nature, my willie to me! rest, ye wild storms, in the cave o' your slumbers; how your dread howling a lover alarms! wauken, ye breezes, row gently, ye billows, [awake] and waft my dear laddie ance mair to my arms. [once more] but oh, if he's faithless, and minds na his nannie, flow still between us, thou wide-roaring main; may i never see it, may i never trow it, but, dying, believe that my willie's my ain! [own] how lang and dreary how lang and dreary is the night. when i am frae my dearie! i restless lie frae e'en to morn, tho' i were ne'er sae weary. for o, her lanely nights are lang; and o, her dreams are eerie; [fearful] and o, her widow'd heart is sair, [sore] that's absent frae her dearie. when i think on the lightsome days i spent wi' thee, my dearie, and now that seas between us roar, how can i be but eerie! how slow ye move, ye heavy hours; the joyless day how drearie! it wasna sae ye glinted by, [glanced] when i was wi' my dearie. the bonnie lad that's far awa o how can i be blithe and glad, or how can i gang brisk and braw, [go, fine] when the bonnie lad that i lo'e best is o'er the hills and far awa? it's no the frosty winter wind, it's no the driving drift and snaw; but aye the tear comes in my e'e, to think on him that's far awa. my father pat me frae his door, [put] my friends they hae disown'd me a': but i hae ane will tak my part, [have one] the bonnie lad that's far awa. a pair o' gloves he bought to me, and silken snoods he gae me twa; [fillets, gave] and i will wear them for his sake, the bonnie lad that's far awa. o weary winter soon will pass, and spring will cleed the birken shaw: [clothe, birch woods] and my young babie will be born, and he'll be hame that's far awa. braw braw lads braw braw lads on yarrow braes, [hills] that wander thro' the blooming heather; but yarrow braes nor ettrick shaws [woods] can match the lads o' gala water. but there is ane, a secret ane, aboon them a' i lo'e him better; [love] and i'll be his, and he'll be mine, the bonnie lad o' gala water. altho' his daddie was nae laird, [landlord] and tho' i hae nae meikle tocher, [much dowry] yet rich in kindest, truest love, we'll tent our flocks by gala water. [watch] it ne'er was wealth, it ne'er was wealth, that coft contentment, peace, and pleasure; [bought] the bands and bliss o' mutual love, o that's the chiefest warld's treasure! my heart's in the highlands my heart's in the highlands, my heart is not here; my heart's in the highlands a-chasing the deer; a-chasing the wild deer, and following the roe, my heart's in the highlands, wherever i go. farewell to the highlands, farewell to the north, the birth-place of valour, the country of worth; wherever i wander, wherever i rove, the hills of the highlands for ever i love. farewell to the mountains, high cover'd with snow; farewell to the straths and green valleys below; farewell to the forests and wild-hanging woods; farewell to the torrents and loud-pouring floods. the foregoing are all placed in the mouths of girls, and it is difficult to deny that they ring as true as the songs that are known to have sprung from the poet's direct experience. scarcely less notable than their sincerity is their variety. pathos of desertion, gay defiance of opposition, yearning in absence, confession of coquetry, joyous confession of affection returned--these are only a few of the phases of woman's love rendered here with a felicity that leaves nothing to be desired. what woman has so interpreted the feelings of her sex? the next two express a girl's repugnance at the thought of marriage with an old man; and the two following form a pair treating the same theme, one from the girl's point of view, the other from the lover's. the later verses of _my love she's but a lassie yet_, however, though full of vivacity, have so little to do with the first or with one another that the song seems to be a collection of scraps held together by a common melody. what can a young lassie what can a young lassie, what shall a young lassie, what can a young lassie do wi' an auld man? bad luck on the penny that tempted my minnie [mother] to sell her poor jenny for siller an' lan'! [money] he's always compleenin' frae mornin' to e'enin', he boasts and he hirples the weary day lang: [coughs, limps] he's doylt and he's dozin, his bluid it is frozen, [stupid, benumbed] o, dreary's the night wi' a crazy auld man! he hums and he hankers, he frets and he cankers, i never can please him do a' that i can; he's peevish, and jealous of a' the young fellows: o, dool on the day i met wi' an auld man! [woe] my auld auntie katie upon me takes pity, i'll do my endeavour to follow her plan: i'll cross him and rack him, until i heart-break him, and then his auld brass will buy me a new pan. to daunton me the blude-red rose at yule may blaw, the simmer lilies bloom in snaw, the frost may freeze the deepest sea; but an auld man shall never daunton me. [tame] to daunton me, and me sae young, wi' his fause heart and flatt'ring tongue, [false] that is the thing you ne'er shall see; for an auld man shall never daunton me. for a' his meal and a' his maut, [malt] for a' his fresh beef and his saut, [salt] for a' his gold and white monie, an auld man shall never daunton me. his gear may buy him kye and yowes, [wealth, cows, ewes] his gear may buy him glens and knowes; [knolls] but me he shall not buy nor fee, [hire] for an auld man shall never daunton me. he hirples twa fauld as he dow, [limps double, can] wi' his teethless gab and his auld beld pow, [mouth, bald head] and the rain rains down frae his red bleer'd e'e- that auld man shall never daunton me. i'm owre young to marry yet i am my mammie's ae bairn, [only child] wi' unco folk i weary, sir; [strange] and lying in a man's bed, i'm fley'd wad mak me eerie, sir. [frightened, scared] i'm owre young, i'm owre young, [too] i'm owre young to marry yet; i'm owre young, 'twad be a sin to tak me frae my mammie yet. [my mammie coft me a new gown, [bought] the kirk maun hae the gracing o't; [must] were i to lie wi' you, kind sir, i'm fear'd ye'd spoil the lacing o't.] hallowmas is come and gane, the nights are lang in winter, sir; and you an' i in ae bed, in troth i dare na venture, sir. fu' loud and shrill the frosty wind blaws thro' the leafless timmer, sir; [timber] but if ye come this gate again, [way] i'll aulder be gin simmer, sir. [older, by] my love she's but a lassie yet my love she's but a lassie yet; my love she's but a lassie yet; we'll let her stand a year or twa, she'll no be half sae saucy yet. i rue the day i sought her, o, i rue the day i sought her, o; wha gets her needs na say he's woo'd, but he may say he's bought her, o! come, draw a drap o' the best o't yet; come, draw a drap o' the best o't yet; gae seek for pleasure where ye will, [go] but here i never miss'd it yet. [we're a' dry wi' drinking o't; we're a' dry wi' drinking o't; the minister kiss'd the fiddler's wife, an' could na preach for thinkin' o't.] _bessy and her spinnin'-wheel_ stands by itself as the rendering of the mood of contented solitude, and is further remarkable for its charming verses of natural description. _john anderson my jo_ is the classical expression of love in age, inimitable in its simplicity and tenderness. the two following poems supply a humorous contrast. bessy and her spinnin'-wheel o leeze me on my spinnin'-wheel, [blessings on] o leeze me on my rock and reel; [distaff] frae tap to tae that deeds me bien, [top to toe, clothes, comfortably] and haps me fiel and warm at e'en! [wraps, well] i'll set me down and sing and spin, while laigh descends the simmer sun, [low] blest wi' content, and milk and meal- o leeze me on my spinnin'-wheel. on ilka hand the burnies trot, [every, brooklets] and meet below my theekit cot; [thatched] the scented birk and hawthorn white [birch] across the pool their arms unite, alike to screen the birdie's nest, and little fishes' caller rest: [cool] the sun blinks kindly in the biel', [shelter] where blythe i turn my spinnin'-wheel. on lofty aiks the cushats wail, [oaks, pigeons] and echo cons the doolfu' tale; [repeats, doleful] the lintwhites in the hazel braes, [linnets] delighted, rival ither's lays: the craik amang the claver hay, [corn-crake, clover] the paitrick whirrin' o'er the ley. [partridge, meadow] the swallow jinkin' round my shiel, [dodging, cot] amuse me at my spinnin'-wheel. wi' sma' to sell, and less to buy, aboon distress, below envy, [above] o wha wad leave this humble state, for a' the pride of a' the great? amid their flaring, idle toys, amid their cumbrous, dinsome joys, [noisy] can they the peace and pleasure feel of bessy at her spinnin'-wheel? john anderson, my jo john andersen my jo, john, [sweetheart] when we were first acquent, your locks were like the raven, your bonnie brow was brent; [straight] but now your brow is beld, john, [bald] your locks are like the snaw; but blessings on your frosty pow, [head] john anderson, my jo. john anderson my jo, john, we clamb the hill thegither; and mony a canty day, john, [jolly] we've had wi' ane anither: now we maun totter down, john, [must] and hand in hand we'll go, and sleep thegither at the foot, [together] john anderson, my jo. the weary pund o' tow the weary pund, the weary pund, [pound] the weary pund o' tow; [yarn] i think my wife will end her life before she spin her tow. i bought my wife a stane o' lint [stone, flax] as gude as e'er did grow; [good] and a' that she has made o' that, is ae poor pund o' tow. [one] there sat a bottle in a bole, [niche] beyond the ingle lowe, [chimney flame] and aye she took the tither souk [other suck] to drouk the stowrie tow. [drench, dusty] quoth i, 'for shame, ye dirty dame, gae spin your tap o' tow!' [bunch] she took the rock, and wi' a knock [distaff] she brak it o'er my pow. [pate] at last her feet--i sang to see't- gaed foremost o'er the knowe; [went, hill] and or i wad anither jad, [ere, wed] i'll wallop in a tow. [kick, rope] o merry hae i been o, merry hae i been teethin' a heckle, [huckling-comb] an' merry hae i been shapin' a spoon; o, merry hae i been cloutin' a kettle, [patching] an' kissin' my katie when a' was done, o, a' the lang day i ca' at my hammer, [knock with] an' a' the lang day i whistle and sing, o, a' the lang night i cuddle my kimmer, [mistress] an' a' the lang night am as happy's a king. bitter in dool i lickit my winnins [sorrow, earnings] o' marrying bess, to gie her a slave: bless'd be the hour she cool'd in her linens, [shroud] and blythe be the bird that sings on her grave. come to my arms, my katie, my katie, an' come to my arms, an' kiss me again! drucken or sober, here's to thee, katie! and bless'd be the day i did it again. _had i the wyte_ is, we may hope, also purely imaginative drama; it is certainly vividly imagined and carried through with a delightful mixture of sympathy and humorous detachment. had i the wyte? had i the wyte, had i the wyte, [blame] had i the wyte? she bade me! she watch'd me by the hie-gate side, [highroad] and up the loan she shaw'd me; [lane] and when i wadna venture in, a coward loon she ca'd me: [rascal] had kirk and state been in the gate, [way (opposing)] i lighted when she bade me. sae craftilie she took me ben, [in] and bade me make nae clatter; 'for our ramgunshoch glum gudeman [surly] is o'er ayont the water;' [beyond] whae'er shall say i wanted grace, when i did kiss and daut her, [pet] let him be planted in my place, syne say i was the fautor. [then, transgressor] could i for shame, could i for shame, could i for shame refused her? and wadna manhood been to blame, had i unkindly used her? he clawed her wi' the ripplin-kame, [wool-comb] and blae and bluidy bruised her; [blue] when sic a husband was frae hame, what wife but had excused her? i dighted ay her een sae blue, [wiped, eyes] and bann'd the cruel randy; [cursed, scoundrel] and weel i wat her willing mou' [wot, mouth] was e'en like sugar-candy. at gloamin-shot it was, i trow, [sunset] i lighted, on the monday; but i cam through the tysday's dew, [tuesday's] to wanton willie's brandy. _macpherson's farewell_, made famous by carlyle's appreciation, is a glorified version of the "dying words" of a condemned bandit, such as were familiar in broadsides after every notorious execution. part of the refrain is old. one may imagine _the highland balou_ the lullaby of macpherson's child. macpherson's farewell farewell, ye dungeons dark and strong, the wretch's destinie! macpherson's time will not be long on yonder gallows tree. sae rantingly, sae wantonly, [jovially] sae dauntingly gaed he; he played a spring and danced it round, [lively tune] below the gallows tree. oh, what is death but parting breath? on mony a bloody plain i've dared his face, and in his place i scorn him yet again! untie these bands from off my hands, and bring to me my sword, and there's no a man in all scotland, but i'll brave him at a word. i've lived a life of sturt and strife; [trouble] i die by treacherie: it burns my heart i must depart and not avengã¨d be. now farewell light, thou sunshine bright, and all beneath the sky! may coward shame distain his name, the wretch that dares not die! the highland balou hee balou! my sweet wee donald, [lullaby] picture o' the great clanronald; brawlie kens our wanton chief [finely knows] wha got my young highland thief. leeze me on thy bonnie craigie! [blessings on, throat] an thou live, thou'll steal a naigie: [if, little nag] travel the country thro' and thro', and bring hame a carlisle cow. thro' the lawlands, o'er the border, weel, my babie, may thou furder: [succeed] herry the louns o' the laigh countree, [harry, rascals, low] syne to the highlands hame to me. [then] distinct from either of the foregoing groups are several songs in narrative form, told as a rule from the point of view of an onlooker, but hardly inferior to the others in vitality. in them the personal or dramatic emotion is replaced by a keen sense of the humor of the situation. duncan gray duncan gray came here to woo, ha, ha, the wooing o't, on blythe yule night when we were fou, [drunk] ha, ha, the wooing o't. maggie coost her head fu' heigh, [cast, high] look'd asklent and unco skeigh, [askance, very skittish] gart poor duncan stand abeigh; [made, aloof] ha, ha, the wooing o't. duncan fleech'd, and duncan pray'd; [wheedled] ha, ha, the wooing o't, meg was deaf as ailsa craig, ha, ha, the wooing o't, duncan sigh'd baith out and in, grat his een baith bleer't and blin', [wept, eyes both] spak o' lowpin o'er a linn; [leaping, waterfall] ha, ha, the wooing o't. time and chance are but a tide, ha, ha, the wooing o't, slighted love is sair to bide, [sore, endure] ha, ha, the wooing o't. 'shall i, like a fool,' quoth he, 'for a naughty hizzie die? [hussy] she may gae to--france for me!' ha, ha, the wooing o't how it comes let doctors tell, ha, ha, the wooing o't, meg grew sick as he grew haill, [whole] ha, ha, the wooing o't. something in her bosom wrings, for relief a sigh she brings; and o, her een they spak sic things! [such] ha, ha, the wooing o't. duncan was a lad o' grace, ha, ha, the wooing o't, maggie's was a piteous case, ha, ha, the wooing o't. duncan could na be her death, swelling pity smoor'd his wrath; [smothered] now they're crouse and cantie baith! [lively, cheerful] ha, ha, the wooing o't. duncan davison there was a lass, they ca'd her meg, [called] and she held o'er the moors to spin; there was a lad that follow'd her, they ca'd him duncan davison. the moor was driegh, and meg was skiegh, [dull, skittish] her favour duncan could na win; for wi' the rock she wad him knock, [distaff] and ay she shook the temper-pin. [regulating pin of the spinning-wheel] as o'er the moor they lightly foor, [went] a burn was clear, a glen was green, upon the banks they eased their shanks, and aye she set the wheel between: but duncan swore a haly aith, [holy oath] that meg should be a bride the morn; then meg took up her spinnin' graith, [implements] and flung them a' out o'er the burn. [across] we will big a wee, wee house, [build] and we will live like king and queen, sae blythe and merry's we will be when ye set by the wheel at e'en, [aside] a man may drink and no be drunk; a man may fight and no be slain; a man may kiss a bonnie lass, and aye be welcome back again. the de'il's awa wi' th' exciseman the de'il cam fiddling thro' the town. and danced awa wi' th' exciseman; and ilka wife cried 'auld mahoun, [every, mahomet (devil)] i wish you luck o' your prize, man.' we'll mak our maut, and we'll brew our drink, [malt] we'll laugh, and sing, and rejoice, man; and mony braw thanks to the muckle black de'il [big] that danced awa wi' th' exciseman. there's threesome reels, there's foursome reels, there's hornpipes and strathspeys, man; [dance tunes] but the ae best dance e'er cam to the lan'. [one] was--_the de'il's awa wi' th' exciseman_. comin' through the rye comin' thro' the rye, poor body, comin' thro' the rye, she draigl't a' her petticoatie, [draggled] comin' thro' the rye. gin a body meet a body [if] comin' thro' the rye; gin a body kiss a body, need a body cry? gin a body meet a body comin' thro' the glen; gin a body kiss a body, need the warld ken? o, jenny's a' weet, poor body; [all wet] jenny's seldom dry; she draigl't a' her petticoatie, comin' thro' the rye. the deuk's dang o'er my daddie the bairns gat out wi' an unco shout, [children, surprising] the deuk's dang o'er my daddie, o! [duck has knocked] the fient ma care, quo' the feirie auld wife, [devil may, lusty] he was but a paidlin body, o! [tottering creature] he paidles out, and he paidles in, an' he paidles late and early, o; this seven lang years i hae lien by his side, an' he is but a fusionless carlie, o. [pithless old fellow] o, haud your tongue, my feirie auld wife, [hold] o, haud your tongue now, nansie, o: i've seen the day, and sae hae ye, ye wad na been sae donsie, o; [would not have, testy] i've seen the day ye butter'd my brose, [oatmeal and hot water] and cuddl'd me late and earlie, o; but downa-do's come o'er me now, [cannot-do is] and, oh, i find it sairly, o! [feel it sorely] wha is that at my bower door? 'wha is that at my bower door?' 'o wha is it but findlay?' 'then gae your gate, ye'se nae be here!' [go, way, shall not] 'indeed maun i,' quo' findlay. [must] 'what mak ye, sae like a thief?' [do] 'o, come and see,' quo' findlay; 'before the morn ye'll work mischief;' 'indeed will i,' quo' findlay. 'gif i rise and let you in--' [if] 'let me in,' quo' findlay- 'ye'll keep me waukin wi' your din;' [awake] 'indeed will i,' quo' findlay. 'in my bower if ye should stay--' 'let me stay,' quo' findlay--, 'i fear ye'll bide till break o' day;' 'indeed will i,' quo' findlay. 'here this night if ye remain--' 'i'll remain,' quo' findlay--, 'i dread ye'll learn the gate again;' [way] 'indeed will i,' quo' findlay, 'what may pass within this bower--' 'let it pass,' quo' findlay- 'ye maun conceal till your last hour;' [must] 'indeed will i,' quo' findlay. willie's wife willie wastle dwalt on tweed, the spot they ca'd it linkumdoddie; willie was a wabster guid, [weaver good] cou'd stown a clue wi' ony body. [have stolen] he had a wife was dour and din, [stubborn, sallow] o, tinkler madgie was her mither; [tinker] sic a wife as willie had, [such] i wad na gie a button for her! she has an e'e, she has but ane, [eye] the cat has twa the very colour; five rusty teeth, forbye a stump, [besides] a clapper tongue wad deave a miller; [deafen] a whiskin beard about her mou, [mouth] her nose and chin they threaten ither; sic a wife as willie had, i wad na gie a button for her! she's bow-hough'd, she's hem-shinn'd, [bandy, crooked] ae limpin leg a hand-breed shorter; [one, hand-breadth] she's twisted right, she's twisted left, to balance fair in ilka quarter: [either] she has a hump upon her breast, the twin o' that upon her shouther; sic a wife as willie had, i wad na gie a button for her! auld baudrons by the ingle sits, [old pussy, fireside] an' wi' her loof her face a-washin; [palm] but willie's wife is nae sae trig, [trim] she dights her grunzie wi' a hushion; [wipes, snout, stocking-leg] her walie nieves like midden-creels, [ample fists, dung baskets] her face wad fyle the logan-water; [dirty] sic a wife as willie had, i wad na gie a button for her! the songs written by burns in connection with politics are often lively and pointed, but they have little imagination, and the passing of the issues they dealt with has deprived them of general interest. two classes of exceptions may be noted. he was, as we have seen, sympathetically interested in the french revolution, and the fundamental doctrine of liberty, fraternity, equality was cast by him into a poem which, he himself said, is "not really poetry," but is admirably vigorous rhetoric in verse, and has become the classic utterance of the democratic faith. a man's a man for a' that is there for honest poverty that hings his head, an' a' that? [hangs] the coward slave, we pass him by, we dare be poor for a' that! for a' that, an' a' that, our toils obscure, an' a' that; the rank is but the guinea's stamp; the man's the gowd for a' that. [gold] what tho' on hamely fare we dine, wear hodden-gray, and a' that; [coarse gray] gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine, [give] a man's a man for a' that. for a' that, an' a' that, their tinsel show, an' a' that; the honest man, tho' e'er sae poor, is king o' men for a' that. ye see yon birkie, ca'd a lord, [fellow] wha struts, and stares, an' a' that; tho' hundreds worship at his word, he's but a coof for a' that: [dolt] for a' that, an' a' that, his riband, star, and a' that, the man of independent mind, he looks and laughs at a' that. a prince can mak a belted knight, a marquis, duke, an' a' that; but an honest man's aboon his might, [above] guid faith, he mauna fa' that! [must not claim] for a' that, an' a' that, their dignities, an' a' that, the pith o' sense an' pride o' worth are higher rank than a' that. but let us pray that come it may, as come it will for a' that; that sense and worth, o'er a' the earth, may bear the gree, an' a' that. [first place] for a' that, an' a' that, it's coming yet for a' that, that man to man the warld o'er shall brithers be for a' that. another, equally famous, sprang from his patriotic enthusiasm for the heroes of the scottish war of independence, but was written with more than a slight consciousness of what seemed to him the similarity of the spirit then abroad in france. scots, wha hae robert bruce's address to his army, before the battle of bannockburn scots, wha hae wi' wallace bled, scots, wham bruce has aften led, welcome to your gory bed or to victorie. now's the day, and now's the hour; see the front o' battle lour! see approach proud edward's power- chains and slaverie! wha will be a traitor knave? wha can fill a coward's grave? wha sae base as be a slave? let him turn and flee! wha for scotland's king and law freedom's sword will strongly draw, freeman stand, or freeman fa'? let him follow me! by oppression's woes and pains! by your sons in servile chains! we will drain our dearest veins, but they shall be free! lay the proud usurpers low! tyrants fall in every foe! liberty's in every blow! let us do or die! the other class of exceptions is the group of songs on jacobite themes. the rebellion led by prince charles edward in 1745 had produced a considerable quantity of campaign verse, almost all without poetic value; but after the turmoil had died down and the stuart cause was regarded as finally lost, there appeared in scotland a peculiar sentimental tenderness for the picturesque and unfortunate family that had sunk from the splendors of a throne that had been theirs for centuries into the sordid misery of royal pauperism. burns, whose ancestors had been "out" in the '45, shared this sentiment, as walter scott later shared it, both realizing that it had nothing to do with practical politics. out of this feeling there grew a considerable body of poetry, a poetry full of idealism, touched with melancholy, and atoning for its lack of reality by a richness of imaginative emotion. burns led the way in this unique movement, and was worthily followed by such writers as lady nairne, james hogg, and sir walter himself. he followed his usual custom of availing himself of fragments of the older lyrics, but as usual he polished the pebbles into jewels and set them in gold. here are a few specimens of this poetry of a lost cause. it was a' for our rightfu' king it was a' for our rightfu' king, we left fair scotland's strand; it was a' for our rightfu' king, we e'er saw irish land, my dear, we e'er saw irish land. now a' is done that men can do, and a' is done in vain; my love and native land farewell, for i maun cross the main, [must] my dear, for i maun cross the main. he turn'd him right and round about upon the irish shore; and gae his bridle-reins a shake, [gave] with adieu for evermore, my dear, adieu for evermore. the sodger from the wars returns, [soldier] the sailor frae the main; but i hae parted frae my love, never to meet again, my dear, never to meet again. when day is gane, and night is come, and a' folk bound to sleep, i think on him that's far awa', the lee-lang night, and weep, [live-long] my dear, the lee-lang night, and weep. come boat me o'er to charlie come boat me o'er, come row me o'er, come boat me o'er to charlie; i'll gie john ross another bawbee, [half-penny] to boat me o'er to charlie. we'll o'er the water, we'll o'er the sea, we'll o'er the water to charlie; come weal, come woe, we'll gather and go, and live or die wi' charlie. i lo'e weel my charlie's name, [love] tho' some there be abhor him: but o, to see auld nick gaun hame, [going] and charlie's faes before him! [foes] i swear and vow by moon and stars, and sun that shines so clearly, if i had twenty thousand lives, i'd die as aft for charlie. the highland laddie the bonniest lad that e'er i saw, bonnie laddie, highland laddie, wore a plaid and was fu' braw, [gaily dressed] bonnie highland laddie. on his head a bonnet blue, bonnie laddie, highland laddie, his royal heart was firm and true, bonnie highland laddie. trumpets sound and cannons roar, bonnie lassie, lawland lassie, and a' the hills wi' echoes roar, bonnie lawland lassie. glory, honour, now invite, bonnie lassie, lawland lassie, for freedom and my king to fight, bonnie lawland lassie. the sun a backward course shall take, bonnie laddie, highland laddie, ere aught thy manly courage shake, bonnie highland laddie. go, for yoursel procure renown, bonnie laddie, highland laddie, and for your lawful king his crown, bonnie highland laddie! bannocks o' barley bannocks o' bear meal, [cakes, barley] bannocks o' barley; here's to the highlandman's bannocks o' barley. wha in a brulzie [broil] will first cry a parley? never the lads wi' the bannocks o' barley. bannocks o' bear meal, bannocks o' barley; here's to the lads wi' the bannocks o' barley; wha in his wae-days [woful-] were loyal to charlie? wha but the lads wi' the bannocks o' barley. kenmure's on and awa o, kenmure's on and awa, willie! o, kenmure's on and awa! and kenmure's lord's the bravest lord that ever galloway saw. success to kenmure's band, willie! success to kenmure's band; there's no a heart that fears a whig that rides by kenmure's hand. here's kenmure's health in wine, willie! here's kenmure's health in wine; there ne'er was a coward o' kenmure's blude, [blood] nor yet o' gordon's line. o, kenmure's lads are men, willie! o, kenmure's lads are men; their hearts and swords are metal true, and that their faes shall ken. they'll live or die wi' fame, willie! they'll live or die wi' fame; but soon, wi' sounding victorie, may kenmure's lord come hame! here's him that's far awa, willie! here's him that's far awa; and here's the flower that i lo'e best- the rose that's like the snaw! there'll never be peace till jamie comes hame by yon castle wa', at the close of the day, i heard a man sing, tho' his head it was grey: and as he was singing, the tears down came- 'there'll never be peace till jamie comes hame. 'the church is in ruins, the state is in jars, delusions, oppressions, and murderous wars; we dare na weel say't, but we ken wha's to blame- there'll never be peace till jamie comes hame. 'my seven braw sons for jamie drew sword, [handsome] and now i greet round their green beds in the yerd; [weep, churchyard] it brak the sweet heart o' my faithfu' auld dame- there'll never be peace till jamie comes hame. 'now life is a burden that bows me down, sin' i tint my bairns, and he tint his crown; [lost, children] but till my last moment my words are the same- there'll never be peace till jamie comes hame.' i hae been at crookieden i hae been at crookieden- [hell] my bonie laddie, highland laddie! viewing willie and his men- [duke of cumberland] my bonie laddie, highland laddie! there our foes that burnt and slew- my bonie laddie, highland laddie! there at last they gat their due- my bonie laddie, highland laddie! satan sits in his black neuk- [corner] my bonie laddie, highland laddie! breaking sticks to roast the duke- my bonie laddie, highland laddie! the bloody monster gae a yell- [gave] my bonie laddie, highland laddie! and loud the laugh gaed round a' hell- [went] my bonie laddie, highland laddie! charlie he's my darling 'twas on a monday morning right early in the year, that charlie came to our town- the young chevalier! chorus an' charlie he's my darling, my darling, my darling, charlie he's my darling- the young chevalier! as he was walking up the street the city for to view, o, there he spied a bonie lass the window looking thro! sae light's he jumped up the stair, and tirl'd at the pin; [rattled] and wha sae ready as hersel' to let the laddie in! he set his jenny on his knee, all in his highland dress; and brawlie weel he kend the way to please a bonie lass. it's up yon heathery mountain and down yon scraggy glen, we daurna gang a-milking for charlie and his men! such in nature and origin are the songs of burns. of some three hundred written or rewritten by him, a large number are negligible in estimating his poetical capacity. one cause lay in his unfortunate ambition to write in the style of his eighteenth-century predecessors in english, with the accompanying mythological allusions, personifications, and scraps of artificial diction. another was his pathetic eagerness to supply thomson with material in his undertaking to preserve the old melodies--an eagerness which often led him to send in verses of which he himself felt that their only defense was that they were better than none. thus his collected works are burdened with a considerable mass of very indifferent stuff. but when this has all been removed, we have left a body of song such as probably no writer in any language has bequeathed to his country. it is marked, first of all, by its peculiar harmony of expression with the utterance of the common people. direct and simple, its diction was still capable of carrying intense feeling, a humor incomparable in its archness and sly mirth, and a power of idealizing ordinary experience without effort or affectation. the union of these words with the traditional melodies, on which we have so strongly insisted, gave them a superb singing quality, which has had as much to do with their popularity as their thought or their feeling. this union, however, has its drawbacks when we come to consider the songs as literature; for to present them as here in bare print without the living tune is to perpetuate a divorce which their author never contemplated. no editor of burns can fail to feel a pang when he thinks that these words may be heard by ears that carry no echo of the airs to which they were born. here lies the fundamental reason for what seems to outsiders the exaggerated estimate of burns in the judgment of his countrymen. what they extol is not mere literature, but song, the combination of poetry and music; and it is only when burns is judged as an artist in this double sense that he is judged fairly. chapter iv satires and epistles fame first came to burns through his satires. before he had been recognized by the edinburgh litterateurs, before he had written more than a handful of songs, he was known and feared on his own countryside as a formidable critic of ecclesiastical tyranny. it was this reputation that made possible the success of the subscription to the kilmarnock volume, and so saved burns to scotland. two characteristics of the kirk of scotland had tended to prepare the people to welcome an attack on its authority: the severity with which the clergy administered discipline, and the extremes to which they had pushed their calvinism. in spite of the existence of dissenting bodies, the great mass of the population belonged to the established church, and both their spiritual privileges and their social standing were at the mercy of the kirk session and the presiding minister. it is difficult for a protestant community to-day to realize the extent to which the conduct of the individual and the family were controlled by the ecclesiastical authorities. offenses which now would at most be the subject of private remonstrance were treated as public crimes and expiated in church before the whole parish. gavin hamilton, burns's friend and landlord at mossgiel, a liberal gentleman of means and standing, was prosecuted in the church courts for lax attendance at divine service, for traveling on sabbath, for neglecting family worship, and for having had one of his servants dig new potatoes on the lord's day. burns's irregular relations with jean armour led to successive appearances by both him and jean before the congregation, to receive open rebuke and to profess repentance. further expiation was demanded in the form of a contribution for the poor. against the discipline which he himself had to suffer burns seems to have made no protest, and probably thought it just enough; but what he considered the persecution of his friend roused his indignation. this was all the fiercer as he regarded some of the members of the session as hypocrites, whose own private morals would not stand examination. chief among these was a certain william fisher, immortalized in a satire the application of which was meant to extend to the whole class which he represented. holy willie's prayer thou, that in the heavens does dwell, wha, as it pleases best thysel', sends ane to heaven and ten to hell, a' for thy glory, and no for ony guid or ill they've done before thee! i bless and praise thy matchless might, whan thousands thou hast left in night, that i am here before thy sight, for gifts an' grace a burning and a shining light, to a' this place. what was i, or my generation, that i should get sic exaltation? [such] i, wha deserv'd most just damnation, for broken laws, sax thousand years ere my creation, [six] thro' adam's cause. when from my mither's womb i fell, thou might have plung'd me deep in hell, to gnash my gooms, and weep and wail, [gums] in burning lakes, where damned devils roar and yell, chain'd to their stakes; yet i am here a chosen sample, to show thy grace is great and ample; i'm here a pillar o' thy temple, strong as a rock, a guide, a buckler, an example to a' thy flock. but yet, o lord! confess i must at times i'm fash'd wi' fleshly lust; [troubled] an' sometimes too, in warldly trust, vile self gets in; but thou remembers we are dust, defil'd wi' sin. o lord! yestreen, thou kens, wi' meg- thy pardon i sincerely beg- o! may't ne'er be a living plague to my dishonour, an' i'll ne'er lift a lawless leg again upon her. besides i farther maun avow- [must] wi' leezie's lass, three times, i trow- but, lord, that friday i was fou, [drunk] when i cam near her, or else, thou kens, thy servant true wad never steer her. [meddle with] may be thou lets this fleshly thorn beset thy servant e'en and morn lest he owre high and proud should turn, [too] that he's sae gifted; if sae, thy hand maun e'en be borne, until thou lift it. lord, bless thy chosen in this place, for here thou hast a chosen race; but god confound their stubborn face, and blast their name, wha' bring thy elders to disgrace an' public shame. lord, mind gau'n hamilton's deserts, he drinks, an' swears, an' plays at cartes, [cards] yet has sae mony takin' arts wi' great an' sma', frae god's ain priest the people's hearts he steals awa'. an' when we chasten'd him therefor, thou kens how he bred sic a splore [raised such a row] as set the warld in a roar o' laughin' at us; curse thou his basket and his store, kail and potatoes! lord hear my earnest cry an' pray'r, against that presbyt'ry o' ayr; thy strong right hand, lord, make it bare upo' their heads; lord, visit them, and dinna spare, [do not] for their misdeeds. o lord my god, that glib-tongu'd aiken, my very heart and soul are quakin', to think how we stood sweatin', shakin', an' pish'd wi' dread, while he, wi' hingin' lips and snakin', [sneering] held up his head. lord, in thy day of vengeance try him; lord, visit him wha did employ him, and pass not in thy mercy by them, nor hear their pray'r: but, for thy people's sake, destroy them, and dinna spare. but, lord, remember me and mine wi' mercies temporal and divine, that i for grace and gear may shine [wealth] excell'd by nane, and a' the glory shall be thine, amen, amen! still more highly generalized is his _address to the unco guid_, a plea for charity in judgment, kept from sentimentalism by its gleam of humor. it has perhaps the widest appeal of any of his poems of this class. one may note that as burns passes from the satirical and humorous tone to the directly didactic, the dialect disappears, and the last two stanzas are practically pure english. address to the unco guid, or the rigidly righteous _my son, these maxims make a rule, and lump them aye thegither; [together] the rigid righteous is a fool, the rigid wise anither; the cleanest corn that e'er was dight, [sifted] may hae some pyles o' caff in [grains, chaff] so ne'er a fellow-creature slight for random fits o' daffin._ [larking] solomon (_eccles._ vii. 16). o ye wha are sae guid yoursel, [so good] sae pious and sae holy, ye've nought to do but mark and tell your neibour's fauts and folly! [faults] whase life is like a weel-gaun mill, [well-going] supplied wi' store o' water: the heapet happer's ebbing still, [hopper] an' still the clap plays clatter! [clapper] hear me, ye venerable core, [company] as counsel for poor mortals that frequent pass douce wisdom's door, [sedate] for glaikit folly's portals; [giddy] i, for their thoughtless, careless sakes, would here propone defences,- [put forth] their donsie tricks, their black mistakes, [restive] their failings and mischances. ye see your state wi' theirs compar'd, and shudder at the niffer; [exchange] but cast a moment's fair regard- what makes the mighty differ? [difference] discount what scant occasion gave, that purity ye pride in, and (what's aft mair than a' the lave) [rest] your better art o' hidin'. think, when your castigated pulse gies now and then a wallop, [gives] what ragings must his veins convulse, that still eternal gallop! wi' wind and tide fair i' your tail, right on ye scud your sea-way; but in the teeth o' baith to sail, it makes an unco leeway. [uncommon] see social life and glee sit down, all joyous and unthinking, till, quite transmogrified, they're grown debauchery and drinking: o would they stay to calculate th' eternal consequences; or--your more dreaded hell to state- damnation of expenses! ye high, exalted virtuous dames, tied up in godly laces, before ye gie poor frailty names, suppose a change o' cases; a dear lov'd lad, convenience snug, a treacherous inclination- but, let me whisper i' your lug, [ear] ye're aiblins nae temptation. [perhaps] then gently scan your brother man, still gentler sister woman; tho' they may gang a kennin wrang, [trifle] to step aside is human. one point must still be greatly dark, the moving why they do it; and just as lamely can ye mark how far perhaps they rue it. who made the heart, 'tis he alone decidedly can try us; he knows each chord, its various tone, each spring, its various bias. then at the balance let's be mute, we never can adjust it; what's done we partly may compute, but know not what's resisted. as regards the questions of doctrine there were in the church two main parties, known as the auld lichts and the new lichts. the former were high calvinists, emphasizing the doctrines of election, predestination, original sin, and eternal punishment. the latter comprised many of the younger clergy who had been touched by the rationalistic tendencies of the century, and who were blamed for various heresies--notably arminianism and socinianism. whatever their precise beliefs, they laid less stress than their opponents on dogma and more on benevolent conduct, and burns had strong sympathy with their liberalism. he first appeared in their support in an _epistle to john goldie_, a kilmarnock wine-merchant who had published _essays on various important subjects, moral and divine_. though he does not explicitly accept the author's arminianism, he makes it clear that he relished his attacks on orthodoxy. a quarrel between two prominent auld licht ministers gave him his next opportunity, and the circulation in manuscript of _the twa herds: or, the holy tulyie_ made him a personage in the district. with an irony more vigorous than delicate he affects to lament that the twa best herds in a' the wast, [pastors, west] that e'er ga'e gospel horn a blast [gave] these five an' twenty simmers past- oh, dool to tell! [sorrow] hae had a bitter black out-cast [quarrel] atween themsel, [between] and he ends with the hope that if patronage could be abolished and the lairds forced to give the brutes the power themsels to chuse their herds, then orthodoxy yet may prance, an' learning in a woody dance, [gallows] an' that fell cur ca'd 'common-sense,' that bites sae sair, [sorely] be banish'd o'er the sea to france; let him bark there. more light is thrown on burns's positive attitude in religious matters by his _epistle to mcmath_, a young new licht minister in tarbolton. from the evidences of the letters, we are justified in accepting at its face value the profession of reverence for true religion made by burns in this epistle; his hatred of the sham needs no corroboration. to the rev. john m'math enclosing a copy of _holy willie's prayer_, which he had requested, september 17, 1785 while at the stook the shearers cow'r [shock, reapers] to shun the bitter blaudin' show'r, [driving] or, in gulravage rinnin', scour; [horseplay running] to pass the time, to you i dedicate the hour in idle rhyme. my musie, tir'd wi' mony a sonnet on gown, an' ban', an' douce black-bonnet, [sedate] is grown right eerie now she's done it, [scared] lest they should blame her, an' rouse their holy thunder on it, and anathã©m her. [curse] i own 'twas rash, an' rather hardy, that i, a simple country bardie, shou'd meddle wi' a pack sae sturdy, wha, if they ken me, can easy, wi' a single wordie, lowse hell upon me. [loose] but i gae mad at their grimaces, their sighin', cantin', grace-proud faces, their three-mile prayers, and half-mile graces, their raxin' conscience, [elastic] whase greed, revenge, an' pride disgraces waur nor their nonsense. [worse than] there's gau'n, misca't waur than a beast, wha has mair honour in his breast than mony scores as guid's the priest [good as] wha sae abus'd him: an' may a bard no crack his jest what way they've used him? [on the fashion] see him the poor man's friend in need, the gentleman in word an' deed, an' shall his fame an' honour bleed by worthless skellums, [railers] an' not a muse erect her head to cowe the blellums? [daunt, blusterers] o pope, had i thy satire's darts to gie the rascals their deserts, [give] i'd rip their rotten, hollow hearts, an' tell aloud their jugglin', hocus-pocus arts to cheat the crowd. god knows i'm no the thing i should be, nor am i even the thing i could be, but, twenty times, i rather would be an atheist clean, than under gospel colours hid be, just for a screen. an honest man may like a glass, an honest man may like a lass; but mean revenge, an' malice fause, [false] he'll still disdain, an' then cry zeal for gospel laws, like some we ken. they tak religion in their mouth; they talk o' mercy, grace, an' truth, for what? to gie their malice skouth [scope] on some puir wight, an' hunt him down, o'er right an' ruth, [against] to ruin straight. all hail, religion, maid divine! pardon a muse sae mean as mine, who in her rough imperfect line thus daurs to name thee; to stigmatize false friends of thine can ne'er defame thee. tho' blotcht an' foul wi' mony a stain, an' far unworthy of thy train, wi' trembling voice i tune my strain to join wi' those who boldly daur thy cause maintain in spite o' foes: in spite o' crowds, in spite o' mobs, in spite of undermining jobs. in spite o' dark banditti stabs at worth an' merit, by scoundrels, even wi' holy robes, but hellish spirit. o ayr, my dear, my native ground! within thy presbyterial bound, a candid lib'ral band is found of public teachers, as men, as christians too, renown'd, an' manly preachers. sir, in that circle you are nam'd, sir, in that circle you are fam'd; an' some, by whom your doctrine's blam'd, (which gies you honour)- even, sir, by them your heart's esteem'd, an' winning manner. pardon this freedom i have ta'en, an' if impertinent i've been, impute it not, good sir, in ane whase heart ne'er wrang'd ye, but to his utmost would befriend ought that belang'd ye. [was yours] a further fling at orthodoxy appeared in _the ordination_, a piece written to comfort the kilmarnock liberals when an auld licht minister was selected for the second charge there. the tone is again one of ironical congratulation, and burns describes the rejoicings of the elect with infinite zest. two stanzas on the church music will illustrate his method. mak haste an' turn king david owre, [open the psalms] an' lilt wi' holy clangor; [sing] o' double verse come gie us four [give] an' skirl up the _bangor_: [shriek, a psalm-tune] this day the kirk kicks up a stoure, [dust] nae mair the knaves shall wrang her, [no more] for heresy is in her pow'r, and gloriously she'll whang her [thrash] wi' pith this day. * * * * * nae mair by babel streams we'll weep, to think upon our zion; and hing our fiddles up to sleep, [hang] like baby-clouts a-dryin'; come, screw the pegs wi' tunefu' cheep, [chirp] and o'er the thairms be tryin'; [strings] o, rare! to see our elbucks wheep, [elbows jerk] and a' like lamb-tails flyin' fu' fast this day! in the same ironical fashion he digresses in his _dedication to gavin hamilton_ to satirize the "high-fliers'" contempt for "cold morality" and for their faith in the power of orthodox belief to cover lapses in conduct. morality, thou deadly bane, thy tens o' thousands thou hast slain! vain is his hope, whose stay and trust is in moral mercy, truth and justice! no--stretch a point to catch a plack; [small coin] abuse a brother to his back; steal thro' the winnock frae a whore, [window from] but point the rake that takes the door: * * * * * be to the poor like ony whunstane, [any whinstone] and haud their noses to the grunstane; [hold, grindstone] ply ev'ry art o' legal thieving; no matter--stick to sound believing. learn three-mile pray'rs, an' half-mile graces, wi' weel-spread looves, an' lang, wry faces; [palms] grunt up a solemn, lengthen'd groan, and damn a' parties but your own; i'll warrant them ye're nae deceiver, a steady, sturdy, staunch believer. the period within which these satires were written was short--1785 and 1786; but some three years later, on the prosecution of a liberal minister, doctor mcgill of ayr, for the publication of _a practical essay on the death of jesus christ_, which was charged with teaching unitarianism, burns took up the theme again. _the kirk's alarm_ is a rattling "ballad," full of energy and scurrilous wit, but, like many of its kind, it has lost much of its interest through the great amount of personal detail. a few stanzas will show that, even after his absence from local politics during his edinburgh sojourn, he had lost none of his gusto in belaboring the ayrshire calvinists. orthodox, orthodox, wha believe in john knox, let me sound an alarm to your conscience: there's a heretic blast has been blawn i' the wast, that what is not sense must be nonsense. dr. mac, dr. mac, you should stretch on a rack, to strike evil-doers wi' terror; to join faith and sense upon any pretence, is heretic, damnable error. * * * * * d'rymple mild, d'rymple mild, tho' your heart's like a child, and your life like the new driven snaw, yet that winna save ye, auld satan must have ye, for preaching that three's ane and twa. calvin's sons, calvin's sons, seize your sp'ritual guns, ammunition you never can need; your hearts are the stuff will be powther enough, and your skulls are storehouses o' lead. it was inevitable from the nature and purpose of these satirical poems that, however keen an interest they might raise in their time and place, a large part of that interest should evaporate in the course of time. yet it would be a mistake to regard their importance as limited to raising a laugh against a few obscure bigots. the evils that burns attacked, however his verses may be tinged with personal animus and occasional injustice, were real evils that existed far beyond the county of ayr; and in the movement for enlightenment and liberation from these evils and their like that was then sweeping over scotland, the wit and invective of the poet played no small part. the development that followed did, indeed, take a direction that he was far from foreseeing. the moderate party, which he supported, gradually gained the upper hand in the kirk, and, upholding as it did the system of patronage, became more and more associated with the aristocracy who bestowed the livings. the result was that the moderate clergy degenerated under prosperity and lost their spiritual zeal; while their opponents, chastened by adversity, became the champions of the autonomy of the church, and, in the "ten years' conflict" that broke out little more than a generation after the death of burns, showed themselves of the stuff of the martyrs. it would be impossible to trace the extent of the influence of the poet on the purging of orthodoxy or on the limitation of ecclesiastical despotism, since his work was in accord with the drift of the times; but it is fair to infer that, especially among the common people who were less likely to be reached by more philosophical discussion, his share was far from inconsiderable. the poetical value of the satires is another matter. it may be questioned whether satire is ever essentially poetry, as poetry has been understood for the last hundred years. the dominant mood of satire is too antagonistic to imagination. but if we restrict our attention to the characteristic qualities of verse satire--vividness in depicting its object, blazing indignation or bitter scorn in its attitude, and wit in its expression, we shall be forced to grant that burns achieved here notable success. of the rarer power of satire to rise above the local, temporal, and personal to the exhibiting of universal elements in human life, there are comparatively few instances in burns. the _address to the unco guid_ is perhaps the finest example; and here, as usually in his work, the approach to the general leads him to drop the scourge for the sermon. in his tendency to preach, burns was as much the inheritor of a national tradition as in any of his other characteristics. a strain of moralizing is well marked in the scottish poets even before the reformation, and, since the time of burns, the preaching scot has been notably exemplified not only in a professed prophet like carlyle, but in so artistic a temperament as stevenson. nor did consciousness of his failures in practise embarrass burns in the indulgence of the luxury of precept. side by side with frank confessions of weakness we find earnest if not stern exhortations to do, not as he did, but as he taught. and as scots have an appetite for hearing as well as for making sermons, his didactic pieces are among those most quoted and relished by his countrymen. the morally elevated but poetically inferior closing stanzas of _the cotter's saturday night_ are an instance in point; others are the morals appended to _to a mouse_ and _to a daisy_, and to a number of his rhyming epistles. these epistles are among the most significant of his writings for the reader in search of personal revelations. the _epistle to james smith_ contains the much-quoted stanza on the poet's motives: some rhyme a neebor's name to lash; some rhyme (vain thought!) for needful cash; some rhyme to court the countra clash, [gossip] an' raise a din; for me, an aim i never fash; [trouble about] i rhyme for fun. another gives his view of his equipment: the star that rules my luckless lot, has fated me the russet coat, an' damned my fortune to the groat; but, in requit, has blest me with a random-shot o' countra wit. [country] then he passes from literary considerations to his general philosophy of life: but why o' death begin a tale? just now we're living sound an' hale; then top and maintop crowd the sail; heave care o'er-side! and large, before enjoyment's gale, let's tak the tide. * * * * * when ance life's day draws near the gloamin, then fareweel vacant, careless roamin; an' fareweel cheerfu' tankards foamin, an' social noise: an' fareweel dear, deluding woman, the joy of joys! here, as often, he contrasts his own reckless impulsive temper with that of prudent calculation: with steady aim, some fortune chase; keen hope does ev'ry sinew brace; thro' fair, thro' foul, they urge the race, and seize the prey: then cannie, in some cozie place, [quietly] they close the day. and others, like your humble servan', poor wights! nae rules nor roads observin', to right or left eternal swervin', they zig-zag on; till, curst with age, obscure an' starvin', they aften groan. * * * * * o ye douce folk that live by rule, grave, tideless-blooded, calm an' cool, compar'd wi' you--o fool! fool! fool! how much unlike! your hearts are just a standing pool, your lives a dyke! [stone wall] nothing is more characteristic of the poet than this attitude toward prudence--this mixture of intellectual respect with emotional contempt. he admits freely that restraint and calculation pay, but impulse makes life so much more interesting! the _epistle to davie, a brother poet_, deserves to be quoted in full. it contains the final phrasing of the central point of burns's ethics, the scottish rustic's version of that philosophy of benevolence with which shaftesbury sought to warm the chill of eighteenth-century thought: the heart aye's the part aye that makes us right or wrang. the mood of this poem is burns's middle mood, lying between the black melancholy of his poems of despair and remorse and the exhilaration of his more exalted bacchanalian and love songs--the mood, we may infer, of his normal working life. we may again observe the correspondence between the change of dialect and change of tone in stanzas nine and ten, the increase of artificiality coming with his literary english and culminating in the unspeakable "tenebrific scene." his humor returns with his scots in the last verse. epistle to davie, a brother poet while winds frae aff ben lomond blaw, and bar the doors wi' driving snaw, and hing us owre the ingle, [hang, fire] i set me down to pass the time, and spin a verse or twa o' rhyme, in hamely westlin jingle. [west-country] while frosty winds blaw in the drift, ben to the chimla lug, [in, chimney-corner] i grudge a wee the great-folk's gift, that live sae bien an' snug; [comfortable] i tent less, and want less [value] their roomy fire-side; but hanker and canker to see their cursã¨d pride. it's hardly in a body's pow'r, to keep, at times, frae being sour, to see how things are shar'd; how best o' chiels are whyles in want [fellows, sometimes] while coofs on countless thousands rant [dolts, roister] and ken na how to wair't: [spend it] but, davie, lad, ne'er fash your head, [trouble] tho' we hae little gear, [wealth] we're fit to win our daily bread, as lang's we're hale and fier: [lusty] 'mair spier na, nor fear na,' [more ask not] auld age ne'er mind a feg; [fig] the last o't, the warst o't, is only but to beg. to lie in kilns and barns at e'en, when banes are craz'd, and bluid is thin, [bones] is, doubtless, great distress! yet then content could mak us blest; ev'n then, sometimes, we'd snatch a taste of truest happiness. the honest heart that's free frae a' intended fraud or guile, however fortune kick the ba', [ball] has aye some cause to smile: and mind still, you'll find still, a comfort this nae sma'; [not small] nae mair then, we'll care then, nae farther can we fa'. what tho' like commoners of air, we wander out, we know not where, but either house or hal'? [without] yet nature's charms, the hills and woods, the sweeping vales, and foaming floods, are free alike to all. in days when daisies deck the ground, and blackbirds whistle clear, with honest joy our hearts will bound, to see the coming year: on braes when we please, then, [hill-sides] we'll sit and sowth a tune [hum] syne rhyme till't, we'll time till't, [then] and sing't when we hae done. it's no in titles nor in rank; it's no in wealth like lon'on bank, to purchase peace and rest; it's no in making muckle, mair: [much, more] it's no in books, it's no in lear, [learning] to make us truly blest: if happiness hae not her seat and centre in the breast, we may be wise, or rich, or great, but never can be blest: nae treasures, nor pleasures, could make us happy lang; the heart aye's the part aye that makes us right or wrang. think ye, that sic as you and i, [such] wha drudge and drive thro' wet an' dry, wi' never-ceasing toil; think ye, are we less blest than they, wha scarcely tent us in their way, [note] as hardly worth their while? alas! how oft in haughty mood, god's creatures they oppress! or else, neglecting a' that's guid, they riot in excess! baith careless, and fearless, of either heav'n or hell! esteeming, and deeming it's a' an idle tale! then let us cheerfu' acquiesce; nor make our scanty pleasures less, by pining at our state; and, even should misfortunes come, i, here wha sit, hae met wi' some, an's thankfu' for them yet. [and am] they gie the wit of age to youth; they let us ken oursel; they mak us see the naked truth, the real guid and ill. tho' losses, and crosses, be lessons right severe, there's wit there, ye'll get there, ye'll find nae other where. but tent me, davie, ace o' hearts! [note] (to say aught less wad wrang the cartes, [cards] and flatt'ry i detest) this life has joys for you and i; and joys that riches ne'er could buy; and joys the very best. there's a' the pleasures o' the heart, the lover an' the frien'; ye hae your meg, your dearest part, and i my darling jean! it warms me, it charms me, to mention but her name: it heats me, it beets me, [kindles] and sets me a' on flame! o all ye pow'rs who rule above! o thou, whose very self art love! thou know'st my words sincere! the life-blood streaming thro' my heart, or my more dear immortal part, is not more fondly dear! when heart-corroding care and grief deprive my soul of rest, her dear idea brings relief and solace to my breast. thou being, all-seeing, o hear my fervent pray'r; still take her, and make her thy most peculiar care! all hail, ye tender feelings dear! the smile of love, the friendly tear, the sympathetic glow! long since this world's thorny ways had number'd out my weary days, had it not been for you! fate still has blest me with a friend, in every care and ill; and oft a more endearing band, a tie more tender still, it lightens, it brightens the tenebrific scene, to meet with, and greet with my davie or my jean. o, how that name inspires my style! the words come skelpin', rank and file, [spanking] amaist before i ken! [almost] the ready measure ring as fine as phoebus and the famous nine were glowrin' owre my pen. [staring over] my spavied pegasus will limp, [spavined] till ance he's fairly het; [once, hot] and then he'll hilch, and stilt, and jump, [hobble, limp, jump] an' rin an unco fit: [surprising spurt] but lest then the beast then should rue this hasty ride, i'll light now, and dight now [wipe] his sweaty, wizen'd hide. the didactic tendency reaches its height in the _epistle to a young friend_. here there is no personal confession, but a conscious and professed sermon, unrelated, as the last line shows, to the practise of the preacher. it is, of course, only poetry in the eighteenth-century sense- what oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed-and as such it should be judged. the critics who have reacted most violently against the attempted canonization of burns have been inclined to sneer at this admirable homily, and to insinuate insincerity. but human nature affords every-day examples of just such perfectly sincere inconsistency as we find between the sixth stanza and burns's own conduct; while not inconsistency but a very genuine rhetoric inspires the characteristic quatrain which closes the seventh. epistle to a young friend i lang hae thought, my youthfu' friend, a something to have sent you, tho' it should serve nae ither end than just a kind memento; [sort of] but how the subject-theme may gang, let time and chance determine; perhaps it may turn out a sang, perhaps turn out a sermon. ye'll try the world soon, my lad, and, andrew dear, believe me, ye'll find mankind an unco squad, [queer] and muckle they may grieve ye: [much] for care and trouble set your thought, ev'n when your end's attainã©d: and a' your views may come to nought, where ev'ry nerve is strainã©d. i'll no say men are villains a'; the real harden'd wicked, wha hae nae check but human law, are to a few restricked; but och! mankind are unco weak, [extremely] an' little to be trusted; if self the wavering balance shake, it's rarely right adjusted! yet they wha fa' in fortune's strife. their fate we shouldna censure; for still th' important end of life they equally may answer. a man may hae an honest heart, tho' poortith hourly stare him; [poverty] a man may tak a neibor's part, yet hae nae cash to spare him. aye free, aff han', your story tell, when wi' a bosom crony; but still keep something to yoursel ye scarcely tell to ony. conceal yoursel as weel's ye can frae critical dissection; but keek thro' ev'ry other man [pry] wi' sharpen'd sly inspection. the sacred lowe o' weel-plac'd love, [flame] luxuriantly indulge it; but never tempt th' illicit rove, [attempt, roving] tho' naething should divulge it: i waive the quantum o' the sin, the hazard of concealing; but och! it hardens a' within, and petrifies the feeling! to catch dame fortune's golden smile, assiduous wait upon her; and gather gear by ev'ry wile that's justified by honour; not for to hide it in a hedge, nor for a train-attendant; but for the glorious privilege of being independent. the fear o' hell's a hangman's whip to haud the wretch in order; [hold] but where ye feel your honour grip, let that aye be your border: its slightest touches, instant pause- debar a' side pretences; and resolutely keep its laws, uncaring consequences. the great creator to revere must sure become the creature; but still the preaching cant forbear, and ev'n the rigid feature: yet ne'er with wits profane to range be complaisance extended; an atheist-laugh's a poor exchange for deity offended. when ranting round in pleasure's ring, [frolicking] religion may be blinded; or, if she gie a random sting, it may be little minded; but when on life we're tempest-driv'n- a conscience but a canker- a correspondence fix'd wi' heav'n is sure a noble anchor. adieu, dear amiable youth! your heart can ne'er be wanting! may prudence, fortitude, and truth erect your brow undaunting. in ploughman phrase, god send you speed still daily to grow wiser; and may ye better reck the rede [heed the advice] than ever did th' adviser! the general level of the rhyming letters of burns is astonishingly high. they bear, as such compositions should, the impression of free spontaneity, and indeed often read like sheer improvisations. yet they are sprinkled with admirable stanzas of natural description, shrewd criticism, delightful humor, and are pervaded by a delicate tactfulness possible only to a man with a genius for friendship. they are usually written in the favorite six-line stanza, the meter that flowed most easily from his pen, and in language are the richest vernacular. his ambition to be "literary" seldom brings in its jarring notes here, and indeed at times he seems to avenge himself on this besetting sin by a very individual jocoseness toward the mythological figures that intrude into his more serious efforts. his muse is the special victim. instead of the conventional draped figure she becomes a "tapetless, ramfeezl'd hizzie," "saft at best an' something lazy;" she is a "thowless jad;" or she is dethroned altogether: "we'll cry nae jads frae heathen hills to help or roose us, [inspire] but browster wives an' whisky stills- [brewer] they are the muses!" again the tone is one of affectionate familiarity: leeze me on rhyme! it's aye a treasure, [blessings on] my chief, amaist my only pleasure; [almost] at hame, a-fiel', at wark or leisure, the muse, poor hizzie, tho' rough an' raploch be her measure, [homespun] she's seldom lazy. haud to the muse, my dainty davie: the warl' may play you monie a shavie, [ill turn] but for the muse, she'll never leave ye, tho' e'er sae puir; [so poor] na, even tho' limpin wi' the spavie [spavin] frae door to door! once more, half scolding, half flattering: ye glaikit, gleesome, dainty damies, [giddy] wha by castalia's wimplin streamies [winding] lowp, sing, and lave your pretty limbies, [dance] ye ken, ye ken, that strang necessity supreme is 'mang sons o' men. the epigrams, epitaphs, elegies, and other occasional verses thrown off by burns and diligently collected by his editors need little discussion. they not infrequently exhibit the less generous sides of his character, and but seldom demand rereading on account of their neatness or felicity or energy. one may be given as an example: on john dove, innkeeper here lies johnie pigeon: what was his religion whae'er desires to ken in some other warl' [world] maun follow the carl [must, old fellow] for here johnie pigeon had none! strong ale was ablution; small beer, persecution; a dram was _memento mori_; but a full flowing bowl was the saving his soul, and port was celestial glory! chapter v descriptive and narrative poetry the "world of scotch drink, scotch manners, and scotch religion" was not, matthew arnold insisted, a beautiful world, and it was, he held, a disadvantage to burns that he had not a beautiful world to deal with. this famous dictum is a standing challenge to any critic who regards burns as a creator of beauty. it is true that when burns took this world at its apparent worst, when scotch drink meant bestial drunkenness, when scotch manners meant shameless indecency, when scotch religion meant blasphemous defiance, he created _the jolly beggars_, which the same critic found a "splendid and puissant production." we must conclude, then, that sufficient genius can sublimate even a hideously sordid world into a superb work of art, which is presumably beautiful. but the verdict passed on the scottish world of burns is not to be taken without scrutiny. a review of those poems of burns that are primarily descriptive will recall to us the chief features of that world. let us begin with _the cotter's saturday night_, burns's tribute to his father's house. let us discard the introductory stanza of dedication, as not organically a part of the poem. the scene is set in a gray november landscape. the tired laborer is shown returning to his cottage, no touch of idealization being added to the picture of physical weariness save what comes from the feeling for home and wife and children. then follow the gathering of the older sons and daughter, the telling of the experiences of the week, and the advice of the father. the daughter's suitor arrives, and the girl's consciousness as well as the lover's shyness are delicately rendered. two stanzas in english moralize the situation, and for our present purpose may be ignored. the supper of porridge and milk and a bit of cheese is followed by a reverent account of family prayers, the father leading, the family joining in the singing of the psalm. and as they part for the night, the poet is carried away into an elevated apostrophe to the country whose foundations rest upon such a peasantry, and closes with a patriotic prayer for its preservation. the truth of the picture is indubitable. the poet could, of course, have chosen another phase of the same life. the cotter could have come home rheumatic and found the children squalling and the wife cross. the daughter might have been seduced, and the sons absent in the ale-house. but what he does describe is just as typical, and it is beautiful, though the manners and religion are scottish. another social occasion is the subject of _halloween_. the poem, with burns's notes, is a mine of folk-lore, but we are concerned with it as literature. here the tone is humorous instead of reverent, the characters are mixed, the selection is more widely representative. with complete frankness, the poet exhibits human nature under the influence of the mating instinct, directed by harmless, age-old superstitions. the superstitions are not attacked, but gently ridiculed. the fundamental veracity of the whole is seen when we realize that, in spite of the strong local color, it is psychologically true for similar festivities among the peasantry of all countries. halloween[4] upon that night, when fairies light on cassilis downans[5] dance, or owre the lays, in splendid blaze, [over, pastures] on sprightly coursers prance; or for colean the rout is ta'en, [road] beneath the moon's pale beams; there, up the cove,[6] to stray an' rove amang the rocks and streams to sport that night; amang the bonnie winding banks where doon rins wimplin' clear, [winding] where bruce[7] ance ruled the martial ranks [once] an' shook his carrick spear, some merry friendly country-folks together did convene to burn their nits, an' pou their stocks, [nuts, pull, stalks] an' haud their halloween [keep] fu' blythe that night: the lasses feat, an cleanly neat, [trim] mair braw than when they're fine; [more handsome] their faces blythe fu' sweetly kythe [show] hearts leal, an' warm, an' kin': [loyal, kind] the lads sae trig, wi' wooer-babs [love-knots] weel knotted on their garten, [garter] some unco blate, an' some wi' gabs [very shy, chatter] gar lasses' hearts gang startin' [make] whyles fast at night. [sometimes] then, first and foremost, thro' the kail, their stocks[8] maun a' be sought ance: [must, once] they steek their een, an' grape an' wale [shut, eyes, grope, choose] for muckle anes an' straught anes. [big ones, straight] poor hav'rel will fell aff the drift, [foolish, lost the way] an' wander'd thro' the bow-kail, [cabbage] an' pou'd, for want o' better shift, [pulled, choice] a runt was like a sow-tail, [stalk] sae bow'd, that night. [bent] then, straught or crooked, yird or nane, [earth] they roar an' cry a' throu'ther; [pell-mell] the very wee things toddlin' rin- [run] wi' stocks out-owre their shouther; [over, shoulder] an' gif the custock's sweet or sour, [if, pith] wi' joctelegs they taste them; [pocket-knives] syne coziely, aboon the door, [then, above] wi' cannie care they've plac'd them [cautious] to lie that night. the lasses staw frae 'mang them a' [stole] to pou their stalks o' corn;[9] but rab slips out, an' jinks about, [dodges] behint the muckle thorn: he grippit nelly hard an' fast; loud skirled a' the lasses; [squealed] but her tap-pickle maist was lost, [almost] when kiutlin' i' the fause-house[10] [cuddling] wi' him that night. the auld guidwife's well-hoordit nits[11] [well-hoarded nuts] are round an' round divided, an' mony lads' an' lasses' fates are there that night decided: some kindle, couthie, side by side, [comfortably] an' burn thegither trimly; some start awa, wi' saucy pride, an' jump out-owre the chimlie [out of the chimney] fu' high that night. jean slips in twa, wi' tentie e'e; [watchful] wha 'twas, she wadna tell; but this is _jock_, an' this is _me_, she says in to hersel: [whispers] he bleez'd owre her, an' she owre him, [blazed] as they wad never mair part; till fuff! he started up the lum, [chimney] an' jean had e'en a sair heart to see't that night. poor willie, wi' his bow-kail runt, [cabbage stump] was brunt wi' primsie mallie, [precise molly] an' mary, nae doubt, took the drunt, [huff] to be compar'd to willie: mall's nit lap out, wi' pridefu' fling, [leapt, start] an' her ain fit it brunt it; [foot] while willie lap, an' swoor by jing, [by jove] 'twas just the way he wanted to be that night. nell had the fause-house in her min', [mind] she pits hersel an' rob in; in loving bleeze they sweetly join, till white in ase they're sobbin: [ashes] nell's heart was dancin' at the view: she whisper'd rob to leuk for't: rob, stownlins, prie'd her bonnie mou', [by stealth, tasted, mouth] fu' cozie in the neuk for't, [corner] unseen that night. but merran sat behint their backs, [marian] her thoughts on andrew bell; she lea'es them gashin' at their cracks, [leaves, gabbing, chat] an' slips out by hersel: she thro' the yard the nearest taks, [nearest way] an' to the kiln she goes then, an' darklins grapit for the bauks, [in the dark, groped, beams] and in the blue-clue[12] throws then, right fear'd that night. [frightened] an' aye she win't, an' aye she swat, [wounded, sweated] i wat she made nae jaukin'; [know, trifling] till something held within the pat, [kiln-pot] guid lord! but she was quaukin'! but whether 'twas the deil himsel, or whether 'twas a bauk-en', [beam-end] or whether it was andrew bell, she did na wait on talkin to spier that night. [ask] wee jenny to her grannie says, 'will ye go wi' me, grannie? i'll eat the apple[13] at the glass, i gat frae uncle johnie:' she fuff't her pipe wi' sic a lunt, [puffed, smoke] in wrath she was sae vap'rin, she noticed na an aizle brunt [cinder burnt] her braw new worset apron [worsted] out-thro' that night. 'ye little skelpie-limmer's face! [young hussy's] i daur you try sic sportin', [dare] as seek the foul thief ony place, [devil] for him to spae your fortune! [tell] nae doubt but ye may get a sight! great cause ye hae to fear it; for mony a ane has gotten a fright, an' lived an' died deleerit, [delirious] on sic a night. 'ae hairst afore the sherra-moor,- [one harvest, sherriffmuir] i mind't as weel's yestreen, [remember, last night] i was a gilpey then, i'm sure [young girl] i was na past fyfteen: the simmer had been cauld an' wat, an' stuff was unco green; [grain, extremely] an' aye a rantin' kirn we gat, [rollicking harvest-home] an' just on halloween it fell that night. 'our stibble-rig was rab m'graen, [chief harvester] a clever, sturdy fallow; his sin gat eppie sim wi' wean, [son, child] that liv'd in achmacalla; he gat hemp-seed,[14] i mind it weel, an' he made unco light o't: [very] but mony a day was by himsel, [beside himself] he was sae sairly frighted [sorely] that vera night.' then up gat fechtin' jamie fleck, [fighting] an' he swoor by his conscience that he could saw hemp-seed a peck; [sow] for it was a' but nonsense: [merely] the auld guidman raught down the pock, [reached, bag] an' out a handfu' gied him; [gave] syne bad him slip frae 'mang the folk, [then] sometime when nae ane see'd him, [saw] an' try't that night. he marches thro' amang the stacks, tho' he was something sturtin'; [staggering] the graip he for a harrow taks, [dung-fork] an' haurls at his curpin: [trails, back] an' ev'ry now an' then, he says, 'hemp-seed! i saw thee, an' her that is to be my lass come after me an' draw thee as fast this night.' he whistled up lord lennox' march, to keep his courage cheery; altho' his hair began to arch, he was sae fley'd an' eerie: [scared, awe-struck] till presently he hears a squeak, an' then a grane an' gruntle; [groan] he by his shouther gae a keek, [shoulder gave, peep] an' tumbl'd wi' a wintle [summersault] out-owre that night. he roar'd a horrid murder-shout, in dreadfu' desperation! an' young an' auld come rinnin' out, an' hear the sad narration: he swoor 'twas hilchin jean m'craw, [halting] or crouchie merran humphie, [hunchbacked marian] till stop! she trotted thro' them a'; an' wha was it but grumphie [the sow] asteer that night! [astir] meg fain wad to the barn gane [have gone] to winn three wechts o' naething;[15] but for to meet the deil her lane, [alone] she pat but little faith in: [put] she gies the herd a pickle nits, [herd-boy, few] and twa red-cheekit apples, to watch, while for the barn she sets, [sets out] in hopes to see tam kipples that very night. she turns the key wi' cannie thraw, [cautious twist] an' owre the threshold ventures; but first on sawnie gies a ca', [call] syne bauldly in she enters; [then] a ratton rattl'd up the wa', [rat] an' she cried 'lord preserve her!' an' ran thro' midden-hole an' a', [dunghill pool] an' pray'd wi' zeal an' fervour fu' fast that night they hoy't out will, wi' sair advice; [urged] they hecht him some fine braw ane; [promised][measured with it chanced the stack he faddom'd thrice[16] outstretched arms] was timmer-propt for thrawin': [against leaning over] he taks a swirlie auld moss-oak [gnarled] for some black gruesome carlin; [beldam] an' loot a winze, an' drew a stroke, [uttered a curse] till skin in blypes cam haurlin' [shreds, peeling] aff's nieves that night. [off his fists] a wanton widow leezie was, as cantie as a kittlin; [lively] but och! that night, amang the shaws, [woods] she gat a fearfu' settlin'! she thro' the whins, an' by the cairn, [gorse, stone heap] an' owre the hill gaed scrievin'; [careering] where three laird's lands met at a burn,[17] to dip her left sark-sleeve in, [shirt-] was bent that night. whyles owre a linn the burnie plays, [waterfall] as thro' the glen it wimpled; [wound] whyles round a rocky scaur it strays; [ledge] whyles in a wiel it dimpled; [eddy] whyles glitter'd to the nightly rays, wi' bickering, dancing dazzle; whyles cookit underneath the braes, [peeped] below the spreading hazel, unseen that night. amang the brackens on the brae, [ferns, hillside] between her an' the moon, the deil, or else an outler quey, [unhoused heifer] gat up an' gae a croon: [gave a low] poor leezie's heart maist lap the hool; [almost leapt, sheath] near lav'rock height she jumpit, [lark high] but miss'd a fit, an' in the pool [foot] out-owre the lugs she plumpit, wi' a plunge that night. in order, on the clean hearth-stane, the luggies[18] three are ranged; and every time great care is ta'en, to see them duly changed: auld uncle john, wha wedlock's joys sin' mar's year did desire, [1715 rebellion] because he gat the toom dish thrice, [empty] he heav'd them on the fire in wrath that night. wi' merry sangs, an' friendly cracks, i wat they did na weary; [wot] and unco tales, an' funny jokes,- [strange] their sports were cheap and cheery; till butter'd sow'ns,[19] wi' fragrant lunt, [smoke] set a' their gabs a-steerin'; [tongues wagging] syne, wi' a social glass o' strunt, [then, liquor] they parted aff careerin' fu' blythe that night. foot-notes to halloween [the foot-notes to this poem are those supplied by burns himself in the kilmarnock edition.] [4] is thought to be a night when witches, devils, and other mischief-making beings, are all abroad on their baneful, midnight errands: particularly, those aerial people, the fairies, are said, on that night to hold a grand anniversary. [5] certain little, romantic, rocky, green hills, in the neighbourhood of the ancient seat of the earls of cassilis. [6] a noted cavern near colean-house, called the cove of colean; which, as well as cassilis downans, is famed in country story for being a favourite haunt of fairies. [7] the famous family of that name, the ancestors of robert, the great deliverer of his country, were earls of carrick. [8] the first ceremony of halloween is pulling each a _stock_, or plant of kail. they must go out, hand in hand, with eyes shut, and pull the first they meet with: its being big or little, straight or crooked, is prophetic of the size and shape of the grand object of all their spells--the husband or wife. if any _yird_, or earth, stick to the root, that is _tocher_, or fortune; and the taste of the _custoc_, that is, the heart of the stem, is indicative of the natural temper and disposition. lastly the stems, or to give them their ordinary appellation, the _runts_, are placed somewhere above the head of the door; and the christian names of the people whom chance brings into the house, are, according to the priority of placing the runts, the names in question. [9] they go to the barn-yard, and pull each, at three several times, a stalk of oats. if the third stalk wants the _top pickle_, that is, the grain at the top of the stalk, the party in question will want the maidenhead. [10] when the corn is in a doubtful state, by being too green, or wet, the stack-builder, by means of old timber, etc., makes a large apartment in his stack, with an opening in the side which is fairest exposed to the wind: this he calls a _fause-house_. [11] burning the nuts is a favourite charm. they name the lad and lass to each particular nut, as they lay them in the fire; and according as they burn quickly together, or start from beside one another, the course and issue of the courtship will be. [12] whoever would with success try this spell must strictly observe these directions. steal out all alone to the kiln, and darkling, throw into the pot, a clue of blue yarn: wind it in a new clue off the old one; and towards the latter end, something will hold the thread: demand, _wha hauds_? i.e., who holds? and answer will be returned from the kiln-pot, by naming the christian and surname of your future spouse. [13] take a candle and go alone to a looking glass: eat an apple before it, and some traditions say you should comb your hair all the time; the face of your conjugal companion to be will be seen in the glass, as if peeping over your shoulder. [14] steal out; unperceived, and sow a handful of hemp seed; harrowing it with anything you can conveniently draw after you. repeat, now and then, "hemp seed, i saw [sow] thee, hemp seed, i saw thee; and him (or her) that is to be my true-love, come after me and pou thee." look over your left shoulder, and you will see the appearance of the person invoked, in the attitude of pulling hemp. some traditions say, "come after me and shaw thee," that is, show thyself; in which case it simply appears. others omit the harrowing, and say, "come after me and harrow thee." [15] this charm must likewise be performed, unperceived and alone. you go to the barn, and open both doors; taking them off the hinges, if possible; for there is danger that the being about to appear may shut the doors, and do you some mischief. then take that instrument used in winnowing the corn, which, in our country-dialect, we call a wecht; and go thro' all the attitudes of letting down corn against the wind. repeat it three times; and the third time, an apparition will pass thro' the barn, in at the windy door, and out at the other, having both the figure in question and the appearance or retinue, marking the employment or station in life. [16] take an opportunity of going, unnoticed, to a bear-stack, and fathom it three times round. the last fathom of the last time, you will catch in your arms the appearance of your conjugal yoke-fellow. [17] you go out, one or more, for this is a social spell, to a south-running spring or rivulet, where "three lairds' lands meet," and dip your left shirt sleeve. go to bed in sight of a fire, and hang your wet sleeve before it to dry. lie awake, and sometime near midnight, an apparition having the exact figure of the grand object in question, will come and turn the sleeve, as if to dry the other side of it. [18] take three dishes; put clean water in one, foul water in another; and leave the third empty: blindfold a person, and lead him to the hearth where the dishes are ranged; he (or she) dips the left hand: if by chance in the clean water, the future husband or wife will come to the bar of matrimony, a maid: if in the foul, a widow; if in the empty dish, it foretells, with equal certainty, no marriage at all. it is repeated three times; and every time the arrangement of the dishes is altered. [19] sowens, with butter instead of milk to them, is always the halloween supper. in _the twa dogs_ we have an entirely different method. burns here gives expression to his social philosophy in a contrast between rich and poor, and adds a quaint humor to his criticism by placing it in the mouths of the laird's newfoundland and the cotter's collie. the dogs themselves are delightfully and vividly characterized, and their comments have a detachment that frees the satire from acerbity without rendering it tame. the account of the life of the idle rich may be that of a somewhat remote observer; it has still value as a record of how the peasant views the proprietor. but that of the hard-working farmer lacks no touch of actuality, and is part of the reverse side of the shield shown in _the cotter's saturday night_. yet the tone is not querulous, but echoes rather the quiet conviction that if toil is hard it has its own sweetness, and that honest fatigue is better than boredom. the twa dogs 'twas in that place o' scotland's isle, that bears the name o' auld king coil, upon a bonnie day in june, when wearin' through the afternoon, twa dogs, that werena thrang at hame, [busy] forgather'd ance upon a time. [met] the first i'll name, they ca'd him caesar, was keepit for his honour's pleasure; his hair, his size, his mouth, his lugs, [ears] show'd he was nane o' scotland's dogs, but whalpit some place far abroad, [whelped] where sailors gang to fish for cod. his locked, letter'd, braw brass collar, shew'd him the gentleman and scholar; but though he was o' high degree, the fient a pride, nae pride had he; [devil] but wad hae spent are hour caressin' e'en wi' a tinkler-gipsy's messan: [mongrel] at kirk or market, mill or smiddie, [smithy] nae tawted tyke, though e'er sae duddie, [matted cur, ragged] but he wad stand as glad to see him, an' stroan'd on stanes an' hillocks wi' him. [lanted] the tither was a ploughman's collie, [other] a rhyming, ranting, raving billie; [fellow] wha for his friend and comrade had him, and in his freaks had luath ca'd him, after some dog in highland sang, was made lang syne--lord knows how lang. he was a gash an' faithfu' tyke, [wise, dog] as ever lap a sheugh or dyke; [leapt, ditch, wall] his honest sonsie, bawsent face [pleasant, white-marked] aye gat him friends in ilka place, [every] his breast was white, his tousie back [shaggy] weel clad wi' coat o' glossy black: his gawsie tail, wi' upward curl, [joyous] hung o'er his hurdles wi' a swirl. [buttocks] nae doubt but they were fain o' ither, [glad] and unco pack and thick thegither; [intimate] wi' social nose whyles snuff'd and snowkit; whyles mice and moudieworts they howkit; [moles, dug] whyles scour'd awa in lang excursion, and worried ither in diversion; until wi' daffin' weary grown, [merriment] upon a knowe they sat them down, [knoll] and there began a lang digression about the lords of the creation. caesar i've aften wonder'd, honest luath, what sort o' life poor dogs like you have; an' when the gentry's life i saw, what way poor bodies liv'd ava. [at all] our laird gets in his racked rents, his coals, his kain, and a' his stents; [rent in kind, dues] he rises when he likes himsel'; his flunkies answer at the bell: he ca's his coach; he ca's his horse; [calls] he draws a bonny silken purse as lang's my tail, where, through the steeks, [stitches] the yellow-letter'd geordie keeks. [guinea peeps] frae morn to e'en it's nought but toiling at baking, roasting, frying, boiling; and though the gentry first are stechin', [cramming] yet e'en the ha' folk fill their pechan [servants, belly] wi' sauce, ragouts, and sic like trashtrie, [rubbish] that's little short o' downright wastrie. [waste] our whipper-in, wee blastit wonner! [wonder] poor worthless elf! it eats a dinner better than ony tenant man his honour has in a' the lan'; an' what poor cot-folk pit their painch in, [put, paunch] i own it's past my comprehension. luath trowth, caesar, whyles they're fash'd eneugh; [troubled] a cottar howkin' in a sheugh, [digging, ditch] wi' dirty stanes biggin' a dyke, [building, wall] baring a quarry, and sic like; [clearing] himsel', a wife, he thus sustains, a smytrie o' wee duddy weans, [brood, ragged children] and nought but his han'-darg to keep [hand-labor] them right and tight in thack and rape. [thatch, rope] and when they meet wi' sair disasters, [sore] like loss o' health, or want o' masters, ye maist wad think, a wee touch langer [almost] and they maun starve o' cauld and hunger; [must] but how it comes i never kent yet. [knew] they're maistly wonderfu' contented; an' buirdly chiels and clever hizzies [stout lads, girls] are bred in sic a way as this is. caesar but then, to see how ye're negleckit, how huff'd, and cuff'd, and disrespeckit, lord, man! our gentry care sae little for delvers, ditchers and sic cattle; they gang as saucy by poor folk as i wad by a stinking brock. [badger] i've noticed, on our laird's court-day, an' mony a time my heart's been wae. poor tenant bodies, scant o' cash, how they maun thole a factor's snash; [endure, abuse] he'll stamp and threaten, curse and swear, he'll apprehend them; poind their gear: [seize, property] while they maun stan', wi' aspect humble, [must] an' hear it a', an' fear an' tremble! i see how folk live that hae riches; but surely poor folk maun be wretches! luath they're no' sae wretched's ane wad think, though constantly on poortith's brink: [poverty's] they're sae accustom'd wi' the sight, the view o't gi'es them little fright. then chance and fortune are sae guided, they're aye in less or mair provided; an' though fatigued wi' close employment, a blink o' rest's a sweet enjoyment. the dearest comfort o' their lives, their grushie weans an' faithfu' wives; [growing] the prattling things are just their pride, that sweetens a' their fireside. and whyles twalpenny-worth o' nappy [quart of ale] can mak the bodies unco happy; [wonderfully] they lay aside their private cares to mind the kirk and state affairs: they'll talk o' patronage and priests, wi' kindling fury in their breasts; or tell what new taxation's comin', and ferlie at the folk in lon'on. [wonder] as bleak-faced hallowmas returns they get the jovial rantin' kirns, [harvest-homes] when rural life o' every station. unite in common recreation; love blinks, wit slaps, and social mirth forgets there's care upo' the earth. that merry day the year begins they bar the door on frosty win's; the nappy reeks wi' mantling ream [ale, foam] and sheds a heart-inspiring steam; the luntin' pipe and sneeshin'-mill [smoking, snuff-box] are handed round wi' right gude-will; the canty auld folk crackin' crouse, [cheerful, talking brightly] the young anes ranting through the house- my heart has been sae fain to see them that i for joy hae barkit wi' them. still it's owre true that ye hae said, sic game is now owre aften play'd. [too often] there's mony a creditable stock o' decent, honest, fawsont folk, [well-doing] are riven out baith root and branch some rascal's pridefu' greed to quench, wha thinks to knit himsel the faster in favour wi' some gentle master, wha, aiblins, thrang a-parliamentin', [perhaps, busy] for britain's gude his soul indentin- [indenturing] caesar haith, lad, ye little ken about it; for britain's gude!--guid faith! i doubt it! say rather, gaun as premiers lead him, [going] and saying ay or no's they bid him! at operas and plays parading, mortgaging, gambling, masquerading. or maybe, in a frolic daft, to hague or calais taks a waft, to make a tour, an' tak a whirl, to learn _bon ton_ an' see the worl'. there, at vienna, or versailles, he rives his father's auld entails; [splits] or by madrid he takes the rout, to thrum guitars and fecht wi' nowt; [fight with bulls] or down italian vista startles, [courses] whore-hunting amang groves o' myrtles; then bouses drumly german water, [muddy] to make himsel' look fair and fatter, and clear the consequential sorrows, love-gifts of carnival signoras. for britain's gude!--for her destruction! wi' dissipation, feud, and faction! luath hech man! dear sirs! is that the gate [way] they waste sae mony a braw estate? are we sae foughten and harass'd [troubled] for gear to gang that gate at last? [money, go, way] o would they stay aback frae courts, an' please themselves wi' country sports, it wad for every ane be better, the laird, the tenant, an' the cotter! for thae frank, rantin', ramblin' billies, [those] fient haet o' them's ill-hearted fellows: [devil a bit] except for breakin' o' their timmer, [wasting, timber] or speaking lightly o' their limmer, [mistress] or shootin' o' a hare or moor-cock, the ne'er-a-bit they're ill to poor folk. but will ye tell me, master caesar? sure great folk's life's a life o' pleasure; nae cauld nor hunger o'er can steer them. [touch] the very thought o't needna fear them. caesar lord, man, were ye but whyles where i am, [sometimes] the gentles ye wad ne'er envy 'em, it's true, they needna starve or sweat, thro' winter's cauld or simmer's heat; they've nae sair wark to craze their banes. [hard] an' fill auld age wi' grips an' granes: [gripes, groans] but human bodies are sic fools. for a' their colleges and schools, that when nae real ills perplex them, they make enow themselves to vex them, an' aye the less they hae to sturt them, [fret] in like proportion less will hurt them. a country fellow at the pleugh, his acres till'd, he's right eneugh; a country lassie at her wheel, her dizzens done, she's unco weel; [dozens] but gentlemen, an' ladies warst, wi' ev'ndown want o' wark are curst, [positive] they loiter, lounging, lank, and lazy; though de'il haet ails them, yet uneasy; [devil a bit] their days insipid, dull, and tasteless; their nights unquiet, lang, and restless. and e'en their sports, their balls, and races, their galloping through public places; there's sic parade, sic pomp and art, the joy can scarcely reach the heart. the men cast out in party matches, [quarrel] then sowther a' in deep debauches: [solder] ae night they're mad wi' drink and whoring, [one] neist day their life is past enduring. [next] the ladies arm-in-arm, in clusters, as great and gracious a' as sisters; but hear their absent thoughts o' ither, they're a' run de'ils and jades thegither. [downright] whyles, owre the wee bit cup and platie, they sip the scandal-potion pretty; or lee-lang nights, wi' crabbit leuks, [live-long, crabbed looks] pore owre the devil's picture beuks; [playing-cards] stake on a chance a farmer's stack-yard, and cheat like ony unhang'd blackguard. there's some exception, man and woman; but this is gentry's life in common. by this the sun was out o' sight, and darker gloamin' brought the night; [twilight] the bum-clock humm'd wi' lazy drone, [cockchafer] the kye stood rowtin' i' the loan; [cattle, lowing, lane] when up they gat and shook their lugs, [ears] rejoiced they werena men but dogs; and each took aff his several way, resolved to meet some ither day. the satirical tendency becomes more evident in _the holy fair_. the personifications whom the poet meets on the way to the religious orgy are superstition, hypocrisy, and fun, and symbolize exactly the elements in his treatment--two-thirds satire and one-third humorous sympathy. the handling of the preachers is in the manner we have already observed in the other ecclesiastical satires, but there is less animus and more vividness. nothing could be more admirable in its way than the realism of the picture of the congregation, whether at the sermons or at their refreshments; and, as in _halloween_, the union of the particular and the universal appears in the essential applicability of the psychology to an american camp-meeting as well as to a scottish sacrament- there's some are fou o' love divine, there's some are fou o' brandy. --not to finish the stanza! the holy fair _a robe of seeming truth and trust hid crafty observation; and secret hung, with poison'd crust, the dirk of defamation: a mask that like the gorget show'd, dye-varying on the pigeon; and for a mantle large and broad, he wrapt him in religion._ hypocrisy a la mode. upon a simmer sunday morn, when nature's face is fair, i walked forth to view the corn, an' snuff the caller air. [fresh] the risin' sun, owre galston muirs, wi' glorious light was glintin'; the hares were hirplin' down the furrs, [limping, furrows] the lav'rocks they were chantin' [larks] fu' sweet that day. as lightsomely i glowr'd abroad, [stared] to see a scene sae gay, three hizzies, early at the road, [girls] cam skelpin' up the way. [scudding] twa had manteeles o' dolefu' black, but ane wi' lyart lining; [gray] the third, that gaed a wee a-back, [went a little] was in the fashion shining fu' gay that day. the twa appeared like sisters twin, in feature, form, an' claes; their visage wither'd, lang an' thin, an' sour as ony slaes: [sloes] the third cam up, hap-stap-an'-lowp, [hop-step-and-jump] as light as ony lambie, an' wi' a curchie low did stoop, [curtsey] as soon as e'er she saw me, fu' kind that day. wi' bonnet aff, quoth i, 'sweet lass, i think ye seem to ken me; i'm sure i've seen that bonnie face, but yet i canna name ye.' quo' she, an' laughin' as she spak, an' taks me by the hands, 'ye, for my sake, hae gi'en the feck [most] of a' the ten commands a screed some day. [rent] 'my name is fun--your crony dear, the nearest friend ye hae; an' this is superstition here, an' that's hypocrisy. i'm gaun to mauchline holy fair, to spend an hour in daffin'; [mirth] gin ye'll go there, yon runkled pair, we will get famous laughin' at them this day.' quoth i, 'wi' a' my heart, i'll do't; i'll get my sunday's sark on, [shirt] an' meet you on the holy spot; faith, we'se hae fine remarkin'!' then i gaed hame at crowdie-time, [porridge] an' soon i made me ready; for roads were clad, frae side to side, wi' mony a wearie bodie in droves that day. here farmers gash in ridin' graith [complacent, attire] gaed hoddin' by their cotters; [jogging] there swankies young in braw braid-claith [strapping youngsters] are springin' owre the gutters. [over] the lasses, skelpin' barefit, thrang, [padding, in crowds] in silks an' scarlets glitter, wi' sweet-milk cheese, in mony a whang, [slice] an' farls bak'd wi' butter, [cakes] fu' crump that day. [crisp] when by the plate we set our nose, weel heaped up wi' ha'pence, a greedy glow'r black bonnet throws, [the elder] an' we maun draw our tippence. then in we go to see the show: on ev'ry side they're gath'rin'; some carryin' deals, some chairs an' stools, [planks] an' some are busy bleth'rin' [gabbling] right loud that day. here stands a shed to fend the show'rs, [keep off] an' screen our country gentry; there racer jess an' twa-three whores are blinkin' at the entry. here sits a raw o' tittlin' jades, [whispering] wi' heavin' breasts an' bare neck, an' there a batch o' wabster lads, [weaver] blackguardin' frae kilmarnock for fun this day. here some are thinkin' on their sins, an' some upo' their claes; [clothes] ane curses feet that fyl'd his shins, [soiled] anither sighs an' prays: on this hand sits a chosen swatch, [sample] wi' screw'd up, grace-proud faces; on that a set o' chaps, at watch, thrang winkin' on the lasses [busy] to chairs that day. o happy is that man an' blest! nae wonder that it pride him! whase ain dear lass, that he likes best, comes clinkin' down beside him! [sits snugly] wi' arm repos'd on the chair-back he sweetly does compose him; which, by degrees, slips round her neck, an's loof upon her bosom, [and his palm] unkenn'd that day. [unacknowledged] now a' the congregation o'er is silent expectation; for moodie speels the holy door, [climbs to] wi' tidings o' damnation, should hornie, as in ancient days, [satan] 'mang sons o' god present him, the very sight o' moodie's face to's ain het hame had sent him [his own hot] wi' fright that day. hear how he clears the points o' faith wi' rattlin' an' wi' thumpin'! now meekly calm, now wild in wrath, he's stampin' an' he's jumpin'! his lengthen'd chin, his turned-up snout, his eldritch squeal an' gestures, [weird] o how they fire the heart devout, like cantharidian plaisters, on sic a day! [such] but, hark! the tent has chang'd its voice; there's peace an' rest nae langer; for a' the real judges rise, they canna sit for anger. smith opens out his cauld harangues, [a new light] on practice and on morals; an' aff the godly pour in thrangs to gie the jars an' barrels [give] a lift that day. what signifies his barren shine of moral pow'rs an' reason? his english style an' gesture fine are a' clean out o' season. like socrates or antonine, or some auld pagan heathen, the moral man he does define, but ne'er a word o' faith in that's right that day. in guid time comes an antidote against sic poison'd nostrum; for peebles, frae the water-fit, [river-mouth] ascends the holy rostrum: see, up he's got the word o' god, an' meek an' mim has view'd it, [prim] while common sense[20] has ta'en the road, an' aff, an' up the cowgate fast, fast, that day. wee miller, neist, the guard relieves, [next] an' orthodoxy raibles, [rattles by rote] tho' in his heart he weel believes an' thinks it auld wives' fables: but, faith! the birkie wants a manse, [fellow] so cannilie he hums them; [prudently, humbugs] altho' his carnal wit an' sense like hafflins-wise o'ercomes him [nearly half] at times that day. now, butt an' ben, the change-house fills, [outer and inner rooms] wi' yill-caup commentators; [ale-cup] here's crying out for bakes an' gills, [rolls] an' there the pint-stowp clatters; while thick an' thrang, an' loud an' lang, [busy] wi' logic, an' wi' scripture, they raise a din, that in the end is like to breed a rupture o' wrath that day. leeze me on drink! it gi'es us mair [blessings on] than either school or college; it kindles wit, it waukens lair, [learning] it pangs us fou o' knowledge. [crams full] be't whisky gill, or penny wheep, [small beer] or ony stronger potion, it never fails, on drinkin' deep, to kittle up our notion [tickle] by night or day. the lads an' lasses, blythely bent to mind baith saul an' body, sit round the table, weel content, an' steer about the toddy. [stir] on this ane's dress, an' that ane's leuk, [look] they're makin observations; while some are cosy i' the neuk, [corner] an' formin' assignations to meet some day. but now the lord's ain trumpet touts, [sounds] till a' the hills are rairin', [roaring] an' echoes back return the shouts; black russel is na sparin'; his piercing words, like highlan' swords, divide the joints an' marrow; his talk o' hell, where devils dwell, our very 'sauls does harrow' wi' fright that day! a vast, unbottom'd, boundless pit, fill'd fou o' lowin' brunstane, [full, flaming brimstone] whase ragin' flame, an' scorchin' heat, wad melt the hardest whun-stane! the half-asleep start up wi' fear an' think they hear it roarin' when presently it does appear 'twas but some neebor snorin' asleep that day. 'twad be owre lang a tale to tell how mony stories past, an' how they crowded to the yill, [ale] when they were a' dismist; how drink gaed round, in cogs an' caups, [wooden drinking vessels] amang the furms and benches; an' cheese an' bread, frae women's laps, was dealt about in lunches, [full portions] an' dawds that day. [lumps] in comes a gawsie, gash guidwife, [jolly, sensible] an' sits down by the fire, syne draws her kebbuck an' her knife; [then, cheese] the lasses they are shyer. the auld guidmen, about the grace, frae side to side they bother, till some are by his bonnet lays, an' gi'es them't like a tether, [rope] fu' lang that day. waesucks! for him that gets nae lass, [alas!] or lasses that hae naething! sma' need has he to say a grace, or melvie his braw claithing! [make dusty] o wives, be mindful, ance yoursel how bonnie lads ye wanted, an' dinna for a kebbuck-heel let lasses be affronted on sic a day! [such] now clinkumbell, wi' rattlin' tow, [bell-ringer, rope] begins to jow an' croon; [swing, toll] some swagger hame the best they dow, [can] some wait the afternoon. at slaps the billies halt a blink, [gaps, kids] till lasses strip their shoon; wi' faith an' hope, an' love an' drink, [shoes] they're a' in famous tune for crack that day. [chat] how mony hearts this day converts o' sinners and o' lasses! their hearts o' static, gin night, are gane [before] as saft as ony flesh is. there's some are fou o' love divine, there's some are fou o' brandy; an' mony jobs that day begin, may end in houghmagandie [fornication] some ither day. [20] the rationalism of the new lights. it must be admitted that, as we pass from poem to poem, scottish manners are becoming freer, scottish drink is more potent, scottish religion is no longer pure and undefiled. yet the poet hardly seems to be at a disadvantage. he certainly is no less interesting; he impresses our imaginations and rouses our sympathetic understanding as keenly as ever; there is no abatement of our esthetic relish. we have seen the ayrshire peasant alone with his family, at social gatherings, and at church. we have to see him with his cronies and at the tavern. scotch manners and scotch religion we know now; it is the turn of scotch drink. the spirit of that conviviality which was one of burns's ruling passions, and which in his class helped to color the grayness of daily hardship, was rendered by him in verse again and again: never more triumphantly than in the greatest of his bacchanalian songs, _willie brew'd a peck o' maut_. indeed it would be hard to find anywhere in our literature a more revealing utterance of those effects of alcohol that are not discussed in scientific literature--the joyous exhilaration, the conviction of (comparative) sobriety, the temporary intensification of the feeling of good fellowship. the challenge to the moon is unsurpassable in its unconscious humor. yet arnold thought the world of scotch drink unbeautiful. willie brew'd a peck o' maut o, willie brew'd a peck o' maut, [malt] and rob and allan cam to see; three blyther hearts, that lee-lang night, [live-long] ye wad na found in christendie. [would not have, christendom] we are na fou', we're nae that fou, [drunk] but just a drappie in our e'e; [droplet] the cock may craw, the day may daw, [crow, dawn] and aye we'll taste the barley-bree. [brew] here are we met, three merry boys, three merry boys, i trow, are we; and mony a night we've merry been, and mony mae we hope to be! [more] it is the moon, i ken her horn, that's blinkin' in the lift sae hie; [shining, sky, high] she shines sae bright to wyle us hame, [entice] but, by my sooth! she'll wait a wee. wha first shall rise to gang awa, [go] a cuckold, coward loun is he! [rascal] wha first beside his chair shall fa', he is the king amang us three! with greater daring and on a broader canvas burns has dealt with the same subject in _the jolly beggars_. for the literary treatment of the theme he had hints from ramsay, in whose _merry beggars_ and _happy beggars_ groups of half a dozen male and female characters proclaim their views and join in a chorus in praise of drink. more direct suggestion for the setting of his "cantata" came from a night visit made by the poet and two of his friends to the low alehouse kept by nancy gibson ("poosie nansie") in mauchline. the poem was written in 1785, but burns never published it and seems almost to have forgotten its existence. it is impossible to exaggerate the unpromising nature of the theme. the place is a den of corruption, the characters are the dregs of society. a group of tramps and criminals have gathered at the end of their day's wanderings to drink the very rags from their backs and wallow in shameless incontinence. an old soldier and a quondam "daughter of the regiment," a mountebank and his tinker sweetheart, a female pickpocket whose highland bandit lover has been hanged, a fiddler at fairs who aspires to comfort her but is outdone by a tinker, a lame ballad-singer and his three wives, one of whom consoles the fiddler in the face of her husband--such is the choice company. the action is mere by-play, drunken love making; the main point is the songs. they are mostly frank autobiography, all pervaded with the gaiety that comes from the conviction that being at the bottom, they need not be anxious about falling. wine, women, and song are their enthusiasms, and only the song is above the lowest possible level. such is the sordid material out of which burns wrought his greatest imaginative triumph. to take the reader into such a haunt and have him pass the evening in such company, not with disgust and nausea but with relish and joy, is an achievement that stands beside the creation of the scenes in the boar's head tavern in eastcheap. it is accomplished by virtue of the intensity of the poet's imaginative sympathy with human nature even in its most degraded forms, and by his power of finding utterance for the moods of the characters he conceives. the dramatic power which we have noted in a certain group of the songs here reaches its height, and in making the reader respond to it he avails himself of all his literary faculties. pungent phrasing, a sense of the squalid picturesque, a humorous appreciation of human weakness, and a superb command of rollicking rhythms--these elements of his equipment are particularly notable. but the whole thing is fused and unified by a wonderful vitality that makes the reading of it an actual experience. and, though several of the songs are in english, there is no moralizing, no alien note of any kind to jar the perfection of its harmony. scottish literature had seen nothing like it since dunbar made the seven deadly sins dance in hell. the jolly beggars a cantata recitativo when lyart leaves bestrow the yird, [withered, earth] or, wavering like the baukie bird, [bat] bedim cauld boreas' blast; when hailstanes drive wi' bitter skyte, [glancing stroke] and infant frosts begin to bite, in hoary cranreuch drest; [hoar-frost] ae night at e'en a merry core [one, gang] o' randie, gangrel bodies [rowdy, vagrant] in poosie nansie's held the splore, [carousal] to drink their orra duddies. [spare rags] wi' quaffing and laughing, they ranted an' they sang; wi' jumping an' thumping the very girdle rang. [cake-pan] first, niest the fire, in auld red rags, [next] ane sat, weel brac'd wi' mealy bags, an' knapsack a' in order; his doxy lay within his arm; [mistress] wi' usquebae an blankets warm [whisky] she blinket on her sodger; [leered] an' aye he gies the tozie drab [flushed with drink] the tither skelpin' kiss, [smacking] while she held up her greedy gab, [mouth] just like an aumous dish; [alms] ilk smack still did crack still just like a cadger's whip; [hawker's] then, swaggering an' staggering, he roar'd this ditty up-air tune: soldier's joy i am a son of mars, who have been in many wars, and show my cuts and scars wherever i come: this here was for a wench, and that other in a trench, when welcoming the french at the sound of the drum, lal de daudle, &c. my 'prenticeship i past where my leader breath'd his last, when the bloody die was cast on the heights of abrã¡m; and i serv'd out my trade when the gallant game was play'd, and the moro low was laid at the sound of the drum. i lastly was with curtis, among the floating batt'ries, and there i left for witness an arm and a limb: yet let my country need me, with elliot to head me, i'd clatter on my stamps at the sound of a drum. and now, tho' i must beg, with a wooden arm and leg, and many a tattered rag hanging over my bum, i'm as happy with my wallet, my bottle, and my callet, [trull] as when i used in scarlet to follow a drum. what tho' with hoary locks i must stand the winter shocks, beneath the woods and rocks oftentimes for a home? when the t'other bag i sell, and the t'other bottle tell, i could meet a troop of hell at the sound of the drum. recitativo he ended; and the kebars sheuk [rafters shook] aboon the chorus roar; [above] while frighted rattons backward leuk, [rats, look] an' seek the benmost bore. [inmost hole] a fairy fiddler frae the neuk, [nook] he skirled out _encore!_ [shrieked] but up arose the martial chuck, [darling] and laid the loud uproar. air tune: sodger laddie i once was a maid, tho' i cannot tell when, and still my delight is in proper young men; some one of a troop of dragoons was my daddie, no wonder i'm fond of a sodger laddie. sing, lal de dal, &c. the first of my loves was a swaggering blade, to rattle the thundering drum was his trade; his leg was so tight, and his cheek was so ruddy, transported i was with my sodger laddie. [soldier] but the godly old chaplain left him in a lurch; the sword i forsook for the sake of the church; he risked the soul, and i ventur'd the body,- then i prov'd false to my sodger laddie. full soon i grew sick of my sanctified sot, the regiment at large for a husband i got; from the gilded spontoon to the fife i was ready, i asked no more but a sodger laddie. but the peace it reduced me to beg in despair, till i met my old boy at a cunningham fair; his rags regimental they flutter'd so gaudy, my heart it rejoiced at a sodger laddie. and now i have liv'd--i know not how long, and still i can join in a cup or a song; but whilst with both hands i can hold the glass steady, here's to thee, my hero, my sodger laddie! recitativo poor merry andrew in the neuk [corner] sat guzzling wi' a tinkler hizzie; [tinker wench] they mind't na wha the chorus teuk, [took] between themselves they were sae busy, at length, wi' drink and courting dizzy, he stoitered up an' made a face; [staggered] then turn'd, an' laid a smack on grizzy, syne tun'd his pipes wi' grave grimace. [then] air tune: auld sir symon sir wisdom's a fool when he's fou, [drunk] sir knave is a fool in a session; [court] he's there but a 'prentice i trow, but i am a fool by profession. my grannie she bought me a beuk, [book] and i held awa to the school; [went off] i fear i my talent misteuk, but what will ye hae of a fool? [have] for drink i would venture my neck; a hizzie's the half o' my craft; [wench] but what could ye other expect, of ane that's avowedly daft? [crazy] i ance was tied up like a stirk, [bullock] for civilly swearing and quaffing; i ance was abused i' the kirk, [rebuked] for touzling a lass i' my daffin. [rumpling, fun] poor andrew that tumbles for sport, let naebody name wi' a jeer; there's even, i'm tauld, i' the court, a tumbler ca'd the premier. observ'd ye yon reverend lad maks faces to tickle the mob? he rails at our mountebank squad- it's rivalship just i' the job! and now my conclusion i'll tell, for faith! i'm confoundedly dry; the chiel that's a fool for himsel', [fellow] gude lord! he's far dafter than i. recitativo then niest outspak a raucle carlin, [next, rough beldam] wha kent fu' weel to cleek the sterling. [steal, cash] for mony a pursie she had hookit, an' had in mony a well been dookit; [ducked] her love had been a highland laddie, but weary fa' the waefu' woodie! [woe betide, gallows] wi' sighs and sobs, she thus began to wail her braw john highlandman:-air tune: o an' ye were dead, guidman a highland lad my love was born, the lalland laws he held in scorn; [lowland] but he still was faithfu' to his clan, my gallant braw john highlandman. chorus sing hey, my braw john highlandman! sing ho, my braw john highlandman! there's no a lad in a' the lan' was match for my john highlandman. with his philibeg an' tartan plaid, [kilt] and gude claymore down by his side, [two-handed sword] the ladies' hearts he did trepan, my gallant braw john highlandman. we ranged a' from tweed to spey, and lived like lords and ladies gay; for a lalland face he feared none, my gallant braw john highlandman. they banish'd him beyond the sea; but ere the bud was on the tree, adown my cheeks the pearls ran, embracing my john highlandman. but och! they catch'd him at the last, and bound him in a dungeon fast; my curse upon them every one! they've hang'd my braw john highlandman. and now a widow i must mourn the pleasures that will ne'er return; no comfort but a hearty can, when i think on john highlandman. recitativo a pigmy scraper wi' his fiddle, wha used to trysts an' fairs to driddle, [markets, toddle] her strappin' limb an' gawsie middle [buxom] (he reach'd nae higher) had holed his heartie like a riddle, and blawn't on fire. [blown it] wi' hand on hainch, and upward e'e, [hip] he crooned his gamut, one, two, three, then, in an _ario's_ key, the wee apollo set aff, wi' _allegretto_ glee, his _gig_ solo. air tune: whistle owre the lave o't let me tyke up to dight that tear, [reach, wipe] and go wi' me an' be my dear, and then your every care an' fear may whistle owre the lave o't. [rest] chorus i am a fiddler to my trade, an' a' the tunes that e'er i play'd, the sweetest still to wife or maid, was _whistle owre the lave o't_. at kirns and weddings we'se be there, [harvest-homes, we shall] and oh! sae nicely's we will fare; we'll house about, till daddie care sing _whistle owre the lave o't_. sae merrily the banes we'll pyke, [pick] an' sun oursels about the dyke, [wall] an' at our leisure, when ye like, we'll--whistle owre the lave o't. but bless me wi' your heav'n o' charms, an' while i kittle hair on thairms, [tickle, catgut] hunger, cauld, and a' sic harms, [such] may whistle owre the lave o't. recitativo her charms had struck a sturdy caird, [tinker] as well as poor gut-scraper; he taks the fiddler by the beard, an' draws a roosty rapier- [rusty] he swoor, by a' was swearing worth, to spit him like a pliver, [plover] unless he would from that time forth relinquish her for ever. wi' ghastly e'e, poor tweedle-dee upon his hunkers bended, [hams] an' pray'd for grace wi' ruefu' face, an' sae the quarrel ended. but tho' his little heart did grieve when round the tinkler prest her, he feign'd to snirtle in his sleeve, [snigger] when thus the caird address'd her:-air tune: clout the cauldron my bonnie lass, i work in brass, a tinkler is my station; i've travell'd round all christian ground in this my occupation; i've ta'en the gold, i've been enroll'd in many a noble squadron; but vain they search'd when off i march'd to go an' clout the cauldron. [patch] despise that shrimp, that wither'd imp, wi' a' his noise an' caperin'; an' tak a share wi' those that bear the budget and the apron; [tool-bag] and, by that stoup, my faith an' houp! [hope] and by that dear kilbaigie, [a kind of whisky] if e'er ye want, or meet wi' scant, [dearth] may i ne'er weet my craigie. [wet, throat] recitativo the caird prevail'd--th' unblushing fair in his embraces sunk, partly wi' love o'ercome sae sair, [so sorely] an' partly she was drunk. sir violino, with an air that show'd a man o' spunk, [spirit] wish'd unison between the pair, an' made the bottle clunk to their health that night. but hurchin cupid shot a shaft [urchin] that play'd a dame a shavie; [trick] the fiddler rak'd her fore and aft, behint the chicken cavie. [hencoop] her lord, a wight of homer's craft, tho' limpin' wi' the spavie, [spavin] he hirpl'd up, an' lap like daft, [hobbled, leapt] and shor'd them _dainty davie_ [yielded them as lovers] o' boot that night. [gratis] he was a care-defying blade as ever bacchus listed; [enlisted] tho' fortune sair upon him laid, his heart she ever miss'd it. he had nae wish, but--to be glad, nor want but--when he thirsted; he hated nought but--to be sad, and thus the muse suggested his sang that night. air tune: for a' that, an' a' that i am a bard of no regard wi' gentlefolks, and a' that; but homer-like, the glowrin' byke, [staring crowd] frae town to town i draw that. chorus for a' that, an' a' that, and twice as muckle's a' that; [much] i've lost but ane, i've twa behin', i've wife eneugh for a' that. i never drank the muses' stank, [pond] castalia's burn, an' a' that; but there it streams, an' richly reams! [foams] my helicon i ca' that. great love i bear to a' the fair, their humble slave, an' a' that; but lordly will, i hold it still a mortal sin to thraw that. [thwart] in raptures sweet this hour we meet wi' mutual love, an' a' that; but for how lang the flee may stang, [fly, sting] let inclination law that. [regulate] their tricks and craft hae put me daft, [crazy] they've ta'en me in, an' a' that; but clear your decks, an' _here's the sex!_ i like the jads for a' that. [jades] for a' that, and a' that, and twice as muckle's a' that, my dearest bluid, to do them guid, they're welcome till't, for a' that. [to it] recitativo so sung the bard--and nansie's wa's [walls] shook with a thunder of applause, re-echo'd from each mouth; they toom'd their pocks, an' pawn'd their duds. [emptied, pokes, rags] they scarcely left to co'er their fads, [cover, tails] to quench their lowin' drouth. [flaming] then owre again the jovial thrang [over, crowd] the poet did request to lowse his pack, an' wale a sang, [untie, choose] a ballad o' the best; he rising, rejoicing, between his twa deborahs, looks round him, an' found them impatient for the chorus. air tune: jolly mortals, fill your glasses see the smoking bowl before us, mark our jovial ragged ring; round and round take up the chorus, and in raptures let us sing: chorus a fig for those by law protected! liberty's a glorious feast! courts for cowards were erected, churches built to please the priest. what is title? what is treasure? what is reputation's care? if we lead a life of pleasure, 'tis no matter how or where! with the ready trick and fable, round we wander all the day; and at night, in barn or stable, hug our doxies on the hay. [mistresses] does the train-attended carriage thro' the country lighter rove? does the sober bed of marriage witness brighter scenes of love? life is all a variorum, we regard not how it goes; let them cant about decorum who have characters to lose. here's to budgets, bags, and wallets! here's to all the wandering train! here's our ragged brats and callets! [wenches] one and all cry out _amen!_ the materials for rebuilding burns's world are not confined to his explicitly descriptive poems. much can be gathered from the songs and satires, and there are important contributions in his too scanty essays in narrative. of these last by far the most valuable is _tam o' shanter_. the poem originated accidentally in the request of a certain captain grose for local legends to enrich a descriptive work which he was compiling. in burns's correspondence will be found a prose account of the tradition on which the poem is founded, and he is supposed to have derived hints for the relations of tam and his spouse from a couple he knew at kirkoswald. it was a happy inspiration that led him to turn the story into verse, for it revealed a capacity which otherwise we could hardly have guessed him to possess. the vigor and rapidity of the action, the vivid sketching of the background, the pregnant characterization, the drollery of the humor give this piece a high place among stories in verse, and lead us to conjecture that, had he followed this vein instead of devoting his later years to the service of johnson and thomson, he might have won a place beside the author of the _canterbury tales_. he lacked, to be sure, chaucer's breadth of experience and richness of culture: being far less a man of the world he would never have attained the air of breeding that distinguishes the english poet: but with most of the essential qualities that charm us in chaucer's stories he was well equipped. he had the observant eye, the power of selection, command of the telling phrase and happy epithet, the sense of the comic and the pathetic. beyond chaucer he had passion and the power of rendering it, so that he might have reached greater tragic depth, as he surpassed him in lyric intensity. as it is, however, chaucer stands alone as a story-teller, for _tam o' shanter_ is with burns an isolated achievement. there are three distinct elements in the work--narrative, descriptive, and reflective. the first can hardly be overpraised. we are made to feel the reluctance of the hero to abandon the genial inn fireside, with its warmth and uncritical companionship, for the bitter ride with a sulky sullen dame at the end of it; the rage of the thunderstorm, as with lowered head and fast-held bonnet the horseman plunges through it; the growing sense of terror as, past scene after scene of ancient horror, he approaches the ill-famed ruin. then suddenly the mood changes. emboldened by his potations, tam faces the astounding infernal revelry with unabashed curiosity, which rises and rises till, in a pitch of enthusiastic admiration for cutty-sark, he loses all discretion and brings the "hellish legion" after him pell-mell. we reach the serio-comic catastrophe breathless but exhilarated. the descriptive background of this galloping adventure is skilfully indicated. each scene--the ale-house, the storm, the lighted church, the witches' dance--is sketched in a dozen lines, every stroke distinct and telling. even the three lines indicating what waits the hero at home is an adequate picture. though incidental, these vignettes add substantially to what the descriptive poems have told us of the environment, real and imaginative, in which the poet had been reared. the value of the reflective element is more mixed. the most quoted passage, that beginning "but pleasures are like poppies spread," can only be regretted. with its literacy similes, its english, its artificial diction, it is a patch of cheap silk upon honest homespun. but the other pieces of interspersed comment are all admirable. the ironic apostrophes--to tam for neglecting his wife's warnings; to shrewish wives, consoling them for their husband's deafness to advice; to john barleycorn, on the transient courage he inspires; to tam again, when tragedy seems imminent--are all in perfect tone, and do much to add the element of drollery that mixes so delightfully with the weirdness of the scene. and like the other elements in the poem they are commendably short, for burns nearly always fulfills bagehot's requirement that poetry should be "memorable and emphatic, intense, and _soon over_." tam o' shanter a tale of brownyis and of bogillis full is this buke. garvin douglas. when chapman billies leave the street, [pedlar fellows] and drouthy neibors neibors meet, [thirsty] as market-days are wearing late, an' folk begin to tak the gate; [road] while we sit bousing at the nappy, [ale] an' getting fou and unco happy, [full, mighty] we think na on the lang scots miles, the mosses, waters, slaps, and styles, [bogs, gaps] that lie between us and our hame, where sits our sulky sullen dame, gathering her brows like gathering storm, nursing her wrath to keep it warm. this truth fand honest tam o' shanter, [found] as he frae ayr ae night did canter- [one] (auld ayr, wham ne'er a town surpasses for honest men and bonnie lasses). o tam! hadst thou but been sae wise as ta'en thy ain wife kate's advice! she tauld thee weel thou was a skellum, [told, good-for-nothing] a bletherin', blusterin', drunken blellum; [chattering, babbler] that frae november till october, ae market-day thou was na sober; [one] that ilka melder wi' the miller [every meal-grinding] thou sat as lang as thou had siller; [money] that every naig was ca'd a shoe on, [nag] the smith and thee gat roarin' fou on; that at the lord's house, even on sunday, thou drank wi' kirkton jean till monday. she prophesied that, late or soon, thou would be found deep drown'd in doon; or catch'd wi' warlocks in the mirk [wizards, dark] by alloway's auld haunted kirk. ah, gentle dames! it gars me greet [makes, weep] to think how many counsels sweet, how mony lengthen'd sage advices, the husband frae the wife despises! but to our tale: ae market night, tam had got planted unco right, [uncommonly] fast by an ingle, bleezing finely, [fireside, blazing] wi' reaming swats, that drank divinely; [foaming ale] and at his elbow, souter johnny, [cobbler] his ancient, trusty, drouthy crony; tam lo'ed him like a very brither; [loved] they had been fou for weeks thegither. the night drave on wi' sangs and clatter, and aye the ale was growing better; the landlady and tam grew gracious, wi' favours secret, sweet, and precious; the souter tauld his queerest stories; the landlord's laugh was ready chorus; the storm without might rair and rustle, [roar] tam did na mind the storm a whistle. care, mad to see a man sae happy, e'en drown'd himsel amang the nappy. as bees flee hame wi' lades o' treasure, [loads] the minutes wing'd their way wi' pleasure; kings may be blest, but tam was glorious, o'er a' the ills o' life victorious! but pleasures are like poppies spread- you seize the flow'r, its bloom is shed; or like the snow falls in the river- a moment white, then melts for ever; or like the borealis race, that flit ere you can point their place; or like the rainbow's lovely form evanishing amid the storm. nae man can tether time nor tide; the hour approaches tam maun ride; that hour, o' night's black arch the key-stane, that dreary hour, he mounts his beast in; and sic a night he taks the road in; [such] as ne'er poor sinner was abroad in. the wind blew as 'twad blawn its last; the rattling show'rs rose on the blast; the speedy gleams the darkness swallow'd; loud, deep, and lang, the thunder bellow'd: that night, a child might understand, the deil had business on his hand. weel mounted on his gray mare, meg, a better never lifted leg, tam skelpit on thro' dub and mire, [spanked, puddle] despising wind, and rain, and fire; whiles holding fast his gude blue bonnet; whiles crooning o'er some auld scots sonnet; [song] whiles glow'ring round wi' prudent cares, [staring] lest bogles catch him unawares, [goblins] kirk-alloway was drawing nigh, whare ghaists and houlets nightly cry. [ghosts, owls] by this time he was cross the ford, where in the snaw the chapman smoor'd; [smothered] and past the birks and meikle stane, [birches, big] where drunken charlie brak's neck-bane; and thro' the whins, and by the cairn, [gorse, pile of stones] where hunters fand the murder'd bairn; [found] and near the thorn, aboon the well, where mungo's mither hang'd hersel, before him doon pours all his floods; the doubling storm roars thro' the woods; the lightnings flash from pole to pole; near and more near the thunders roll; when, glimmering thro' the groaning trees, kirk-alloway seem'd in a bleeze; [blaze] thro' ilka bore the beams were glancing; [chink] and loud resounded mirth and dancing. inspiring bold john barleycorn! what dangers thou canst make us scorn? wi tippenny, we fear nae evil; [ale] wi' usquebae, we'll face the devil! [whisky] the swats sae ream'd in tammie's noddle, [ale] fair play, he car'd na deils a boddle! [farthing] but maggie stood right sair astonish'd, till by the heel and hand admonish'd, she ventur'd forward on the light; and, vow! tam saw an unco sight! [strange] warlocks and witches in a dance! nae cotillon brent new frae france, [brand] but hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels, put life and mettle in their heels. a winnock-bunker in the east, [window-seat] there sat auld nick, in shape o' beast- a touzie tyke, black, grim, and large! [shaggy dog] to gie them music was his charge: he screw'd the pipes and gart them skirl. [squeal] till roof and rafters a' did dirl. [ring] coffins stood round like open presses, that shaw'd the dead in their last dresses; and by some devilish cantraip sleight [magic trick] each in its cauld hand held a light, by which heroic tam was able to note upon the haly table [holy] a murderer's banes in gibbet-airns; [-irons] twa span-lang, wee, unchristen'd bairns; a thief new-cutted frae the rape- wi' his last gasp his gab did gape; five tomahawks, wi' blude red rusted; five scymitars, wi' murder crusted; a garter, which a babe had strangled; a knife, a father's throat had mangled, whom his ain son o' life bereft- the gray hairs yet stack to the heft; wi' mair of horrible and awfu', which even to name wad be unlawfu'. as tammie glowr'd, amaz'd, and curious, the mirth and fun grew fast and furious; the piper loud and louder blew; the dancers quick and quicker flew; they reel'd, they set, they cross'd, they cleekit, [linked] till ilka, carlin swat and reekit, [beldam, steamed] and coost her duddies to the wark, [cast, rags, work] and linkit at it in her sark! [tripped deftly, chemise] now tam, o tam! had thae been queans, [those, girls] a' plump and strapping in their teens; their sarks, instead o' creeshie flannen, [greasy flannel] been snaw-white seventeen hunder linen![21] thir breeks o' mine, my only pair, [these trousers] that ance were plush, o' gude blue hair, i wad hae gi'en them off my hurdies, [buttocks] for ae blink o' the bonnie burdies! [maidens] but wither'd beldams, auld and droll, rigwoodie hags wad spean a foal, [withered (?), wean] louping and flinging on a crummock, [leaping, cudgel] i wonder didna turn thy stomach. but tam kent what was what fu' brawlie: [full well] there was ae winsome wench and walie [choice] that night enlisted in the core, lang after kent on carrick shore! (for mony a beast to dead she shot, [death] and perish'd mony a bonnie boat, and shook baith meikle corn and bear, [barley] and kept the country-side in fear.) her cutty sark, o' paisley harn, [short-shift, coarse linen] that while a lassie she had worn, in longitude tho' sorely scanty, it was her best, and she was vauntie. [proud] ah! little kent thy reverend grannie that sark she coft for her wee nannie [bought] wi' twa pund scots ('twas a' her riches) [pounds] wad ever grac'd a dance of witches! but here my muse her wing maun cour; [stoop] sic flights are far beyond her pow'r- to sing how nannie lap and flang, [leapt, kicked] (a souple jade she was, and strang); and how tam stood, like ane bewitch'd, and thought his very een enrich'd; even satan glowr'd, and fidg'd fu' fain, [fidgeted with fondness] and hotch'd and blew wi' might and main: [jerked] till first ae caper, syne anither, [then] tam tint his reason a' thegither, [lost] and roars out 'weel done, cutty-sark!' [short-shift] and in an instant all was dark! and scarcely had he maggie rallied, when out the hellish legion sallied. as bees bizz out wi' angry fyke [fret] when plundering herds assail their byke, [herd-boys, nest] as open pussie's mortal foes [the hare's] when pop! she starts before their nose, as eager runs the market-crowd, when 'catch the thief!' resounds aloud; so maggie runs; the witches follow, wi' mony an eldritch skriech and hollo. [weird screech] ah, tam! ah, tam! thou'll get thy fairin'![22] in hell they'll roast thee like a herrin'! in vain thy kate awaits thy comin'! kate soon will be a woefu' woman! now do thy speedy utmost, meg, and win the key-stane o' the brig; there at them thou thy tail may toss, a running stream they darena cross. but ere the key-stane she could make, the fient a tail she had to shake! [devil] for nannie, far before the rest, hard upon noble maggie prest, and flew at tam wi' furious ettle; [endeavor] but little wist she maggie's mettle! ae spring brought off her master hale, [whole] but left behind her ain gray tail: the carlin caught her by the rump, [clutched] and left poor maggie scarce a stump. now, wha this tale o' truth shall read, ilk man and mother's son, take heed; whene'er to drink you are inclin'd, or cutty-sarks rin in your mind, think! ye may buy the joys o'er dear; remember tam o' shanter's mare. [21] woven in a reed of 1,700 divisions. [22] lit., a present from a fair; deserts and something more. description in burns is not confined to man and society: he has much to say of nature, animate and inanimate. though within a few miles of the ocean, the scenery among which the poet grew up was inland scenery. he lived more than once by the sea for short periods, yet it appears but little in his verse, and then usually as the great severing element. and seas between us braid hae roar'd sin auld lang syne is the characteristic line. scottish poetry had no tradition of the sea. to england the sea had been the great boundary and defense against the continental powers, and her naval achievements had long produced a patriotic sentiment with regard to it which is reflected in her literature. but scotland's frontier had been the line of the cheviots and the tweed, and save for a brief space under james iv she had never been a sea-power. thus the cruelty and danger of the sea are almost the only phases prominent in her poetry, and burns here once more follows tradition. again, the scenery of ayrshire was lowland scenery, with pastoral hills and valleys. on his highland tours burns saw and admired mountains, but they too appear little in his verse. though not an unimportant figure in the development of natural description in literature, he had not reached the modern deliberateness in the seeking out of nature's beauties for worship or imitation, so that the phases of natural beauty which we find in his poetry are merely those which had unconsciously become fixed in a memory naturally retentive of visual images. not only do his natural descriptions deal with the aspects familiar to him in his ordinary surroundings, but they are for the most part treated in relation to life. the thunderstorm in _tam o' shanter_ is a characteristic example. it is detailed and vivid and is for the moment the center of interest; but it is introduced solely on tam's account. oftener the wilder moods of the weather are used as settings for lyric emotion. in _winter, a dirge_, the harmony of the poet's spirit with the tempest is the whole theme, and in _my nannie's awa_ the same idea is treated with more mature art: come autumn sae pensive, in yellow and gray, and soothe me wi' tidings o' nature's decay; the dark, dreary winter, and wild-driving snaw alane can delight me--now nannie's awa. many poems are introduced with a note of the season, even when it has no marked relation to the tone of the poem. _the cotter's saturday night_ opens with november chill blaws loud wi' angry sugh; _the jolly beggars_ with when lyart leaves bestrew the yird; _the epistle to davie_ with while winds frae off ben-lomond blaw, an' bar the doors wi' drivin' snaw, though in this last case it is skilfully used to introduce the theme. these introductions are probably less imitations of the traditional opening landscape which had been a convention since the early middle ages, than the natural result of a plowman's daily consciousness of the weather. for whether related organically to his subject or not, burns's descriptions of external nature are to a high degree marked by actual experience and observation. even remembering thomson in the previous generation and cowper and crabbe in his own, we may safely say that english poetry had hardly seen such realism. its quality will be conceived from a few passages. take the well-known description of the flood from _the brigs of ayr_. when heavy, dark, continued, a'-day rains, [all-day] wi' deepening deluges o'erflow the plains; when from the hills where springs the brawling coil, or stately lugar's mossy fountains boil, or where the greenock winds his moorland course, or haunted garpal draws his feeble source, arous'd by blust'ring winds an' spotting thowes, [thaws] in mony a torrent down the snaw-broo rowes; [melted snow rolls] while crashing ice, borne on the roaring spate, [flood] sweeps dams, an' mills, an' brigs, a' to the gate; [way (to the sea)] and from glenbuck, down to the ralton-key, auld ayr is just one lengthen'd, tumbling sea; then down ye'll hurl, deil nor ye never rise! [devil if] and dash the gumlie jaup up to the pouring skies! [muddy splashes] any reader familiar with gavin douglas's description of a scottish winter in his prologue to the twelfth book of the _ã�neid_ will be struck by the resemblance to this passage both in subject and manner. it is doubtful whether burns knew more of douglas than the motto to _tam o' shanter_, but from the days of the turbulent bishop in the early sixteenth century down to burns's own time scottish poetry had never lost touch with nature, and had rendered it with peculiar faithfulness. it is interesting to note that while _the brigs of ayr_ is burns's most successful attempt at the heroic couplet, and though it contains verses that must have encouraged his ambition to be a scottish pope, yet it is sprinkled with touches of natural observation quite remote from the manner of that master. compare, on the one hand, such couplets as these: will your poor narrow foot-path of a street, where twa wheel-barrows tremble when they meet,-and and tho' wi' crazy eild i'm sair forfairn [old age, sorely worn-out] i'll be a brig when ye're a shapeless cairn! [heap of stones] and forms like some bedlam statuary's dream, the craz'd creations of misguided whim; and as for your priesthood, i shall say but little, corbies and clergy are a shot right kittle; [ravens, sort, ticklish] couplets of which pope need hardly have been ashamed, with such touches of nature as these: except perhaps the robin's whistling glee, proud o' the height o some bit half-lang tree: and the silent moon shone high o'er tow'r and tree: the chilly frost, beneath the silver beam, crept, gently crusting, owre the glittering stream. these examples of his power of exact, vigorous, or delicate rendering of familiar sights and sounds may be supplemented with a few from other poems. o sweet are coila's haughs an' woods, [intervales] when lintwhites chant amang the buds, [linnets] and jinkin' hares, in amorous whids, [dodging, gambols] their loves enjoy, while thro' the braes the cushat croods [coos] wi' wailfu' cry! ev'n winter bleak has charms to me when winds rave thro' the naked tree; or frost on hills of ochiltree are hoary gray; or blinding drifts wild-furious flee, dark'ning the day! _epistle to william simpson._ whyles owre a linn the burnie plays, as thro' the glen it wimpled; whyles round a rocky scaur it strays; whyles in a wiel it dimpled; whyles glitter'd to the nightly rays, wi' bickering, dancing dazzle; whyles cookit underneath the braes, below the spreading hazel, unseen that night. _halloween._ closely interwoven with burns's feelings for natural beauty is his sympathy with animals. the frequency of passages of pathos on the sufferings of beasts and birds may be in part due to the influence of sterne, but in the main its origin is not literary but is an expression of a tender heart and a lifelong friendly intercourse. in this relation burns most often allows his sentiment to come to the edge of sentimentality, yet in fairness it must be said that he seldom crosses the line. unlike many of his contemporaries, he had no need to force the note; it was his instinct both as a farmer and as a lover of animals to think, when he heard the storm rise, how it would affect the lower creation. list'ning the doors and winnocks rattle, [windows] i thought me on the ourie cattle, [shivering] or silly sheep, wha bide this brattle [onset] o' winter war, and thro' the drift, deep-lairing, sprattle [-sinking, scramble] beneath a scar. ilk happing bird, wee, helpless thing! [each hopping] that, in the merry months o' spring, delighted me to hear thee sing, what comes o' thee? where wilt thou cow'r thy chittering wing, an' close thy e'e? [eye] _a winter night._ a number of his most popular pieces are the expression of this warm-hearted sympathy, a sympathy not confined to suffering but extending to enjoyment of life and sunshine, and at times leading him to the half-humorous, half-tender ascription to horses and sheep of a quasi-human intelligence. were we to indulge further our conjectures as to what burns might have done under more favorable circumstances, it would be easy to argue that he could have ranked with henryson and la fontaine as a writer of fables. to a mouse, on turning her up in her nest with the plough, november, 1785 wee, sleekit, cow'rin', tim'rous beastie, [sleek] o what a panic's in thy breastie! thou need na start awa sae hasty, wi' bickering brattle! [hurrying rush] i wad na be laith to rin an' chase thee [loath] wi' murd'ring pattle! [plough-staff] i'm truly sorry man's dominion has broken nature's social union, an' justifies that ill opinion which makes thee startle at me, thy poor earth-born companion, an' fellow-mortal! i doubt na, whiles, but thou may thieve; what then? poor beastie, thou maun live! a daimen icker in a thrave [odd ear, 24 sheaves] 's a sma' request; [is] i'll get a blessin' wi' the lave, [rest] and never miss't! thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin! its silly wa's the win's are strewin'! [frail] an' naething, now, to big a new ane, o' foggage green! an' bleak december's winds ensuin', baith snell an' keen! [bitter] thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste, an' weary winter comin' fast, an' cozie here, beneath the blast, thou thought to dwell, till crash! the cruel coulter past out thro' thy cell. that wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble [stubble] has cost thee mony a weary nibble! now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble, but house or hald, [without, holding] to thole the winter's sleety dribble, [endure] an' cranreuch cauld! [hoar-frost] but, mousie, thou art no thy lane, [alone] in proving foresight may be vain: the best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft a-gley, [go oft askew] an' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain [leave] for promis'd joy. still thou art blest compar'd wi' me! the present only toucheth thee: but och! i backward cast my e'e on prospects drear! an' forward tho' i canna see, i guess an' fear! to a louse on seeing one on a lady's bonnet at church ha! whare ye gaun, ye crowlin' ferlie! [where are, going, wonder] your impudence protects you sairly: i canna say but ye strunt rarely, [swagger] owre gauze and lace; tho' faith! i fear ye dine but sparely on sic a place. [such] ye ugly, creepin', blastit wonner, [wonder] detested, shunn'd by saunt an' sinner! [saint] how dare ye set your fit upon her, [foot] sae fine a lady! gae somewhere else, and seek your dinner [go] on some poor body. swith! in some beggar's haffet squattle; [quick, temples settle] there ye may creep, and sprawl, and sprattle wi' ither kindred, jumping cattle, in shoals and nations; whare horn nor bane ne'er dare unsettle [i.e. comb] your thick plantations. now haud ye there! ye're out o' sight, [keep] below the fatt'rils, snug an' tight; [fal-de-rals] na, faith ye yet! ye'll no be right till ye've got on it, the very tapmost tow'ring height o' miss's bonnet. my sooth! right bauld ye set your nose out, as plump and gray as onie grozet; [gooseberry] o for some rank mercurial rozet, [rosin] or fell red smeddum! [deadly, dust] i'd gie you sic a hearty doze o't, wad dress your droddum! [breech] i wad na been surpris'd to spy you on an auld wife's flannen toy; [flannel cap] or aiblins some bit duddie boy, [perhaps, ragged] on's wyliecoat; [undervest] but miss's fine lunardi! fie, [balloon bonnet] how daur ye do't? [dare] o jenny, dinna toss your head, an' set your beauties a' abread! [abroad] ye little ken what cursed speed the blastie's makin'! [little wretch] thae winks and finger-ends, i dread, [those] are notice takin'! o wad some pow'r the giftie gie us to see oursels as others see us! it wad frae mony a blunder free us, and foolish notion: what airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us, and ev'n devotion! to a mountain daisy on turning one down with a plough in april, 1786 wee modest crimson-tippã¨d flow'r, thou's met me in an evil hour; for i maun crush amang the stoure [must] thy slender stem: to spare thee now is past my pow'r, thou bonnie gem. alas! it's no thy neibor sweet, the bonnie lark, companion meet, bending thee 'mang the dewy weet wi' spreckl'd breast, when upward springing, blythe to greet the purpling east. cauld blew the bitter-biting north upon thy early humble birth; yet cheerfully thou glinted forth amid the storm, scarce rear'd above the parent-earth thy tender form. the flaunting flow'rs our gardens yield high shelt'ring woods and wa's maun shield, [walls] but thou, beneath the random bield [shelter] o' clod or stane, adorns the histie stibble-field, [barren] unseen, alane. there, in thy scanty mantle clad, thy snawy bosom sun-ward spread, thou lifts thy unassuming head in humble guise; but now the share uptears thy bed, and low thou lies! such is the fate of artless maid, sweet flow'ret of the rural shade, by love's simplicity betray'd, and guileless trust, till she like thee, all soil'd, is laid low i' the dust. such is the fate of simple bard, on life's rough ocean luckless starr'd: unskilful he to note the card of prudent lore, till billows rage, and gales blow hard, and whelm him o'er! such fate to suffering worth is giv'n, who long with wants and woes has striv'n, by human pride or cunning driv'n to mis'ry's brink, till wrench'd of ev'ry stay but heav'n, he, ruin'd, sink! ev'n thou who mourn'st the daisy's fate, that fate is thine--no distant date; stern ruin's ploughshare drives elate full on thy bloom, till crush'd beneath the furrow's weight shall be thy doom! the auld farmer's new-year morning salutation to his auld mare, maggie. on giving her the accustomed ripp of corn to hansel in the new year [welcome with a present] a guid new-year i wish thee, maggie! hae, there's a ripp to thy auld baggie: [handful, belly] tho' thou's howe-backit now, an' knaggie, [hollow-backed, knobby] i've seen the day, thou could hae gane like ony staggie [colt] out-owre the lay. [across, lea] tho' now thou's dowie, stiff, an' crazy, [drooping] an' thy auld hide's as white's a daisie, i've seen thee dappled, sleek, an' glaizie, [glossy] a bonnie gray: he should been tight that daur't to raize thee, [excite] ance in a day. [once] thou ance was i' the foremost rank, a filly buirdly, steeve, an' swank, [stately, compact, limber] an' set weel down a shapely shank, as e'er tread yird; [earth] an' could hae flown out-owre a stank, [pool] like ony bird. it's now some nine-an-twenty year, sin' thou was my guid-father's meere; he gied me thee, o' tocher dear, [as dowry] an' fifty mark; tho' it was sma', 'twas weel-won gear, [wealth] an' thou was stark. [strong] when first i gaed to woo my jenny, ye then was trottin' wi' your minnie: [mother] tho' ye was trickie, slee, an' funnie, [sly] ye ne'er was donsie; [unmanageable] but hamely, tawie, quiet, an' cannie, [tractable, good tempered] an' unco sonsie. [very attractive] that day ye pranc'd wi' muckle pride [much] when ye bure hame my bonnie bride; [bore] an' sweet an' gracefu' she did ride, wi' maiden air! kyle-stewart i could braggã¨d wide [have challenged] for sic a pair. tho' now ye dow but hoyte and hobble, [can only halt] an' wintle like a saumont-coble, [stagger, salmon-boat] that day ye was a jinker noble [goer] for heels an' win'! [wind] an' ran them till they a' did wobble far, far behin'. when thou an' i were young and skeigh, [skittish] an' stable-meals at fairs were driegh, [dull] how thou wad prance, an' snore, an' skriegh [snort, neigh] an' tak the road! town's-bodies ran, and stood abeigh, [aloof] an' ca't thee mad. when thou was corn't, an' i was mellow, [full of corn] we took the road aye like a swallow: at brooses thou had ne'er a fellow [wedding-races] for pith an' speed; but ev'ry tail thou pay't them hollow, where'er thou gaed. [went] the sma', drooped-rumpled hunter cattle, [short-rumped] might aiblins waur'd thee for a brattle; [perhaps have beat, spurt] but sax scotch miles, thou tried their mettle, an' gart them whaizle; [wheeze] nae whip nor spur, but just a wattle o' saugh or hazel. [willow] thou was a noble fittie-lan', [near horse of hindmost pair] as e'er in tug or tow was drawn! [hide or tow traces] aft thee an' i, in aucht hours gaun, [eight, going] on guid march-weather, hae turn'd sax rood beside our han', for days thegither. thou never braindg't, an' fetch't, an' fliskit, [plunged, stopped, but thy auld tail thou wad hae whiskit, capered] an' spread abreed thy weel-fill'd brisket, [chest] wi' pith an' pow'r, [rooty hillocks, till spritty knowes wad rair't and riskit, roared, cracked] an' slypet owre. [fallen gently over] when frosts lay lang, an' snaws were deep, an' threaten'd labour back to keep, i gied thy cog a wee bit heap [dish] aboon the timmer; [edges] i kenn'd my maggie wad na sleep for that, or simmer. [ere] in cart or car thou never reestit; [were restive] the steyest brae thou wad hae faced it; [steepest] thou never lap, an' stenned, an' breastit, [leapt, jumped] then stood to blaw; but, just thy step a wee thing hastit, thou snoov't awa. [jogged along] my pleugh is now thy bairn-time a', [plough-team, issue] four gallant brutes as e'er did draw; forbye sax mae i've sell't awa [besides, more, away] that thou hast nurst: they drew me thretteen pund an' twa, the very warst. [worst] mony a sair darg we twa hae wrought, [day's work] an' wi' the weary warl' fought! an' mony an anxious day i thought we wad be beat! yet here to crazy age we're brought, wi' something yet. and think na, my auld trusty servan', that now perhaps thou's less deservin', an' thy auld days may end in starvin'; for my last fou, [bushel] a heapit stimpart i'll reserve ane [quarter-peck] laid by for you. we've worn to crazy years thegither; we'll toyte about wi' ane anither; [totter] wi' tentie care i'll flit thy tether [attentive, change] to some hain'd rig, [reserved plot] where ye may nobly rax your leather, [stretch, sides] wi' sma' fatigue. to the evidence of burns's warm-heartedness supplied by these kindly verses may appropriately be added the _address to the deil_. burns's attitude to the supernatural we have already slightly touched on. apart from the somewhat vague deism which seems to have formed his personal creed, the poet's attitude toward most of the beliefs in the other world which were held around him was one of amused skepticism. _halloween_ and _tam o' shanter_ show how he regarded the grosser rural superstitions; but the devil was another matter. scottish calvinism had, as has been said, made him almost the fourth person in the godhead; and burns's thrusts at this belief are among the most effective things in his satire. in the present piece, however, the satirical spirit is almost overcome by kindliness and benevolent humor, and few of his poems are more characteristic of this side of his nature. address to the deil o thou! whatever title suit thee, auld hornie, satan, mick, or clootie, [hoofie] wha in yon cavern grim an' sootie, clos'd under hatches, spairges about the brunstane cootie, [splashes, dish] to scaud poor wretches! [scald] hear me, auld hangie, for a wee, [hangman] an' let poor damnã¨d bodies be; i'm sure sma' pleasure it can gie, ev'n to a deil, to skelp an' scaud poor dogs like me, [spank, scald] an' hear us squeal! great is thy pow'r, an' great thy fame; far kenn'd an' noted is thy name; an', tho' yon lowin' heugh's thy hame, [flaming pit] thou travels far; an' faith! thou's neither lag nor lame, [backward] nor blate nor scaur. [shy, afraid] whyles rangin' like a roarin' lion for prey, a' holes an' corners tryin'; whyles on the strong-wing'd tempest flyin', tirlin' the kirks; [stripping] whyles, in the human bosom pryin', unseen thou lurks. i've heard my reverend grannie say, in lanely glens ye like to stray; or, where auld ruin'd castles gray nod to the moon, ye fright the nightly wand'rer's way, wi' eldritch croon. [weird] when twilight did my grannie summon to say her pray'rs, douce, honest woman! [sedate] aft yont the dyke she's heard you bummin', [beyond] wi' eerie drone; or, rustlin', thro' the boortrees comin', [elders] wi' heavy groan. ae dreary windy winter night the stars shot down wi' sklentin' light, [squinting] wi' you mysel i gat a fright ayont the lough; [pond] ye like a rash-buss stood in sight [clump of rushes] wi' waving sough. [moan] the cudgel in my nieve did shake, [fist] each bristled hair stood like a stake, when wi' an eldritch stoor 'quaick, quaick,' [weird, harsh] amang the springs, awa ye squatter'd like a drake on whistlin' wings. let warlocks grim an' wither'd hags tell how wi' you on ragweed nags [ragwort] they skim the muirs an' dizzy crags wi' wicked speed; and in kirk-yards renew their leagues owre howkit dead. [disturbed] thence country wives, wi' toil an' pain, may plunge an' plunge the kirn in vain; [churn] for oh! the yellow treasure's taen [i.e., the butter] by witchin' skill; an' dawtit, twal-pint hawkie's gane [petted, twelve-pint cow] as yell's the bill. [dry, bull] thence mystic knots mak great abuse on young guidmen, fond, keen, an' crouse; [husbands, cocksure] when the best wark-lume i' the house, [tool] by cantrip wit, [magic] is instant made no worth a louse, just at the bit. [crisis] when thowes dissolve the snawy hoord, [thaws, hoard] an' float the jinglin' icy boord, then water-kelpies haunt the foord, [-spirits] by your direction, an' 'nighted travelers are allur'd to their destruction. an' aft your moss-traversing spunkies [bog-, goblins] decoy the wight that late an' drunk is: the bleezin, curst, mischievous monkies delude his eyes, till in some miry slough he sunk is, ne'er mair to rise. when masons' mystic word an' grip in storms an' tempests raise you up, some cock or cat your rage maun stop, [must] or, strange to tell! the youngest brither ye wad whip aff straught to hell. [straight] lang syne, in eden's bonnie yard, [ago, garden] when youthfu' lovers first were pair'd, and all the soul of love they shar'd, the raptur'd hour, sweet on the fragrant flow'ry swaird, [sward] in shady bow'r; then you, ye auld snick-drawing dog! [scheming] ye cam to paradise incog, an' play'd on man a cursed brogue, [trick] (black be your fa!) an' gied the infant warld a shog, [shake] 'maist ruin'd a'. d'ye mind that day, when in a bizz, [flurry] wi' reekit duds, an' reestit gizz, [smoky rags, scorched wig] ye did present your smoutie phiz [smutty] 'mang better folk, an' sklented on the man of uz [squinted] your spitefu' joke? an' how ye gat him i' your thrall, an' brak him out o' house an' hal', [holding] while scabs an' blotches did him gall wi' bitter claw, an' lows'd his ill-tongu'd wicked scaul, [loosed, scold] was warst ava? [of all] but a' your doings to rehearse, your wily snares an' fechtin' fierce, [fighting] sin' that day michael did you pierce, down to this time, wad ding a' lallan tongue, or erse, [heat, lowland] in prose or rhyme. an' now, auld cloots, i ken ye're thinkin', [hoofs] a certain bardie's rantin', drinkin', [roistering] some luckless hour will send him linkin', [hurrying] to your black pit; but faith! he'll turn a corner jinkin', [dodging] an' cheat you yet. but fare you weel, auld nickie-ben! o wad ye tak a thought an' men'! [mend] ye aiblins might--i dinna ken- [perhaps] still hae a stake: i'm wae to think upo' yon den, ev'n for your sake! somewhat akin in nature is _death and doctor hornbook_. the purpose is personal satire, doctor hornbook being a real person, john wilson, a schoolmaster in tarbolton, who had turned quack and apothecary. the figure of death is an amazingly graphic creation, with its mixture of weirdness and familiar humor; while the attack on hornbook is managed with consummate skill. death is made to complain that the doctor is balking him of his legitimate prey, and the drift seems to be complimentary; when in the last few verses it appears that in compensation hornbook kills far more than he cures. death and doctor hornbook some books are lies frae end to end, and some great lies were never penn'd: ev'n ministers, they hae been kenn'd, [known] in holy rapture, a rousing whid at times to vend, [fib] and nail't wi' scripture. but this that i am gaun to tell, [going] which lately on a night befell, is just as true's the deil's in hell or dublin city: that e'er he nearer comes oursel 's a muckle pity. [great] the clachan yill had made me canty, [village age, cheerful] i wasna fou, but just had plenty; [full] i stacher'd whyles, but yet took tent aye [staggered, heed] to free the ditches; [clear] an' hillocks, stanes, an' bushes kent aye frae ghaists an' witches. the rising moon began to glowre [stare] the distant cumnock hills out-owre; [above] to count her horns, wi' a' my pow'r, i set mysel; but whether she had three or four i cou'd na tell. i was come round about the hill, and todlin' down on willie's mill, setting my staff, wi' a' my skill, to keep me sicker; [secure] tho' leeward whyles, against my will, i took a bicker. [run] i there wi' _something_ does forgather, [meet] that pat me in an eerie swither; [put, ghostly dread] an awfu' scythe, out-owre ae shouther, [across one shoulder] gear-dangling, hang; [hung] a three-tae'd leister on the ither [-toed fish-spear] lay large an' lang. its stature seem'd lang scotch ells twa, the queerest shape that e'er i saw, for fient a wame it had ava: [devil a belly, at all] and then its shanks, they were as thin, as sharp an' sma' as cheeks o' branks. [sides of an ox's bridle] 'guid-een,' quo' i; 'friend! hae ye been mawin, [good-evening, mowing] when ither folk are busy sawin?' [sowing] it seem'd to mak a kind o' stan', but naething spak; at length says i, 'friend, wh'are ye gaun? [going] will ye go back?' it spak right howe: 'my name is death, [hollow] but be na fley'd.'--quoth i, 'guid faith, [frightened] ye're maybe come to stap my breath; but tent me, billie: [heed, fellow] i red ye weel, tak care o' skaith, [advise, harm] see, there's a gully!' [big knife] 'gudeman,' quo' he, 'put up your whittle, [knife] i'm no design'd to try its mettle; but if i did--i wad be kittle [ticklish] to be mislear'd- [if mischievous] i wad na mind it, no that spittle out-owre my beard.' [over] 'weel, weel!' says i, 'a bargain be't; come, gies your hand, an' sae we're gree't; [give us, agreed] we'll ease our shanks an' tak a seat- come, gies your news; this while ye hae been mony a gate, [road] at mony a house.' 'ay, ay!' quo' he, an' shook his head, 'it's e'en a lang, lang time indeed sin' i began to nick the thread, an' choke the breath: folk maun do something for their bread, [must] an' sae maun death. 'sax thousand years are near-hand fled, [well-nigh] sin' i was to the hutching bred; [butchering] an' mony a scheme in vain's been laid to stap or scaur me; [stop, scare] till ane hornbook's ta'en up the trade, an' faith! he'll waur me. [worst] 'ye ken jock hornbook i' the clachan- [village] deil mak his king's-hood in a spleuchan! [second stomach, tobacco pouch] he's grown sae well acquaint wi' buchan [(author of _domestic medicine_)] an' ither chaps, the weans haud out their fingers laughin', [children] and pouk my hips. [poke] 'see, here's a scythe, and there's a dart- they hae pierc'd mony a gallant heart; but doctor hornbook, wi' his art and cursed skill, has made them baith no worth a fart; damn'd haet they'll kill. [devil a thing] ''twas but yestreen, nae farther gane, [last night] i threw a noble throw at ane- wi' less, i'm sure, i've hundreds slain- but deil-ma-care! it just play'd dirl on the bane, [rang, bone] but did nae mair. 'hornbook was by wi' ready art, and had sae fortified the part that, when i lookã¨d to my dart, it was sae blunt, fient haet o't wad hae pierc'd the heart [devil a bit] o' a kail-runt. [cabbage stalk] 'i drew my scythe in sic a fury i near-hand cowpit wi' my hurry, [upset] but yet the bauld apothecary withstood the shock; i might as weel hae tried a quarry o' hard whin rock. 'e'en them he canna get attended, altho' their face he ne'er had kenn'd it, just sh-in a kail-blade, and send it, [cabbage-leaf] as soon's he smells't, baith their disease, and what will mend it, at once he tells't. 'and then a' doctor's saws and whittles, of a' dimensions, shapes, an' mettles, a' kinds o' boxes, mugs, an' bottles, he's sure to hae; their latin names as fast he rattles as a b c. '_calces_ o' fossils, earths, and trees; true _sal-marinum_ o' the seas; the _farina_ of beans and pease, he has't in plenty; _aqua-fortis_, what you please, he can content ye. 'forbye some new uncommon weapons,- [besides] _urinus spiritus_ of capons; or mite-horn shavings, filings, scrapings, distill'd _per se_; _sal-alkali_ o' midge-tail clippings, and mony mae.' [more] 'wae's me for johnny ged's hole now,' [the grave-digger's] quoth i, 'if that thae news be true! [those] his braw calf-ward whare gowans grew [grazing-plot, daisies] sae white and bonnie, nae doubt they'll rive it wi' the plew; [split] they'll ruin johnie!' the creature grain'd an eldritch laugh, [groaned, weird] and says: 'ye needna yoke the pleugh, kirk-yards will soon be till'd eneugh, tak ye nae fear; they'll a' be trench'd wi' mony a sheugh [ditch] in twa-three year. 'where i kill'd ane, a fair strae-death, [straw (i.e., bed)] by loss o' blood or want o' breath, this night i'm free to tak my aith [oath] that hornbook's skill has clad a score i' their last claith, [cloth] by drap and pill. 'an honest wabster to his trade, [weaver by] whase wife's twa nieves were scarce weel-bred, [fists] gat tippence-worth to mend her head when it was sair; [aching] the wife slade cannie to her bed, [slid quietly] but ne'er spak mair. 'a country laird had ta'en the batts, [botts] or some curmurring in his guts, [commotion] his only son for hornbook sets, an' pays him well: the lad, for twa guid gimmer-pets, [pet-ewes] was laird himsel. 'a bonnie lass, ye kenn'd her name, some ill-brewn drink had hov'd her wame; [raised, belly] she trusts hersel, to hide the shame, in hornbook's care; horn sent her aff to her lang hame, to hide it there. 'that's just a swatch o' hornbook's way; [sample] thus goes he on from day to day, thus does he poison, kill an' slay, an's weel pay'd for't; yet stops me o' my lawfu' prey wi' his damn'd dirt. 'but, hark! i'll tell you of a plot, tho' dinna ye be speaking o't; i'll nail the self-conceited sot as dead's a herrin': niest time we meet, i'll wad a groat, [next, wager] he gets his fairin'!' but, just as he began to tell, the auld kirk-hammer strak the bell [struck] some wee short hour ayont the twal, [beyond, twelve] which rais'd us baith: [got us to our feet] i took the way that pleas'd mysel, and sae did death. a few miscellaneous poems remain to be quoted. these do not naturally fall into any of the major glasses of burns's work, yet are too important either for their intrinsic worth or the light they throw on his character and genius to be omitted. the elegies, of which he wrote many, following, as has been seen, the tradition founded by sempill of beltrees, may be exemplified by _tam samson's elegy_ and that on captain matthew henderson. special phases of scottish patriotism are expressed in _scotch drink_, and the address _to a haggis_; while more personal is _a bard's epitaph_. in this last we have burns's summing up of his own character, and it closes with his recommendation of the virtue he strove after but could never attain. tam samson's elegy has auld kilmarnock seen the deil? or great mackinlay thrawn his heel? [twisted] or robertson again grown weel, to preach an' read? 'na, waur than a'!' cries ilka chiel, [worse, everybody] 'tam samson's dead!' kilmarnock lang may grunt an' grane, [groan] an' sigh, an' sab, an' greet her lane, [weep alone] an' cleed her bairns, man, wife, an' wean, [clothe, child] in mourning weed; to death, she's dearly paid the kane,- [rent in kind] tam samson's dead! the brethren o' the mystic level may hing their head in woefu' bevel, [slope] while by their nose the tears will revel, like ony bead; death's gien the lodge an unco devel,- [stunning blow] tam samson's dead! when winter muffles up his cloak, and binds the mire like a rock; when to the loughs the curler's flock [ponds] wi' gleesome speed, wha will they station at the cock? [mark] tam samson's dead! he was the king o' a' the core [gang] to guard, or draw, or wick a bore,[23] or up the rink like jehu roar in time o' need; but now he lags on death's hogscore,[24]- tam samson's dead! now safe the stately sawmont sail, [salmon] and trouts bedropp'd wi' crimson hail, and eels weel kent for souple tail, and geds for greed, [pikes] since dark in death's fish-creel we wail tam samson's dead! rejoice, ye birring paitricks a'; [whirring partridges] ye cootie moorcocks, crousely craw; [leg-plumed, confidently] ye maukins, cock your fud fu' braw, [hares, tail] withouten dread; your mortal fae is now awa',- tam samson's dead! that woefu' morn be ever mourn'd saw him in shootin graith adorn'd, [attire] while pointers round impatient burn'd, frae couples freed; but oh! he gaed and ne'er return'd! tam samson's dead! in vain auld age his body batters; in vain the gout his ancles fetters; in vain the burns cam down like waters, [brooks, lakes] an acre braid! now ev'ry auld wife, greeting clatters [weeping] 'tam samson's dead!' owre mony a weary hag he limpit, [moss] an' aye the tither shot he thumpit, till coward death behin' him jumpit wi' deadly feide; [feud] now he proclaims, wi' tout o' trumpet, [blast] 'tam samson's dead!' when at his heart he felt the dagger, he reel'd his wonted bottle-swagger, but yet he drew the mortal trigger wi' weel-aim'd heed; 'lord, five!' he cried, an' owre did stagger; tam samson's dead! ilk hoary hunter mourn'd a brither; ilk sportsman youth bemoan'd a father; yon auld grey stane, amang the heather, marks out his head, where burns has wrote, in rhyming blether, [nonsense] 'tam samson's dead!' there low he lies in lasting rest; perhaps upon his mould'ring breast some spitfu' muirfowl bigs her nest, [builds] to hatch and breed; alas! nae mair he'll them molest! tam samson's dead! when august winds the heather wave, and sportsmen wander by yon grave, three volleys let his memory crave o' pouther an' lead, [powder] till echo answer frae her cave 'tam samson's dead!' 'heav'n rest his saul, where'er he be!' is th' wish o' mony mae than me: [more] he had twa fauts, or maybe three, yet what remead? [remedy] ae social honest man want we: [one] tam samson's dead! the epitaph tam samson's weel-worn clay here lies: ye canting zealots, spare him! if honest worth in heaven rise, ye'll mend ere ye win near him. _per contra_ go, fame, an' canter like a filly thro' a' the streets an' neuks o' killie, [nooks] tell ev'ry social honest billie [fellow] to cease his grievin', for yet, unskaith'd by death's gleg gullie, [unharmed, nimble knife] tam samson's livin'! [23] in curling, to _guard_ is to protect one stone by another in front; to _draw_ is to drive a stone into a good position by striking it with another; to _wick a bore_ is to hit a stone obliquely and send it through between two others. [24] the line a curling stone must cross to stay in the game. elegy on capt. matthew henderson, a gentleman who held the patent for his honours immediately from almighty god o death! thou tyrant fell and bloody! the meikle devil wi' a woodie [big, gallows-rope] haurl thee hame to his black smiddie [drag, smithy] o'er hurcheon hides, [hedgehog] and like stock-fish come o'er his studdie [anvil] wi' thy auld sides! he's gane, he's gane! he's frae us torn, [gone] the ae best fellow e'er was born! [one] thee, matthew, nature's sel' shall mourn by wood and wild, where, haply, pity strays forlorn, frae man exil'd. ye hills, near neibors o' the starns, [stars] that proudly cock your cresting cairns! [mounds] ye cliffs, the haunts of sailing earns, [eagles] where echo slumbers! come join, ye nature's sturdiest bairns, [children] my wailing numbers! mourn, ilka grove the cushat kens! [each, dove] ye haz'lly shaws and briery dens! [woods] ye burnies, wimplin' down your glens, [winding] wi' toddlin din, or foaming strang wi' hasty stens [heaps] frae lin to lin. [fall] mourn, little harebells o'er the lea; ye stately foxgloves fair to see; ye woodbines hanging bonnilie, in scented bow'rs; ye roses on your thorny tree, the first o' flow'rs. at dawn when ev'ry grassy blade droops with a diamond at his head, at ev'n when beans their fragrance shed i' th' rustling gale, ye maukins, whiddin' thro' the glade, [hares, scudding] come join my wail. mourn, ye wee songsters o' the wood; ye grouse that crap the heather bud; [crop] ye curlews calling thro' a clud; [cloud] ye whistling plover; and mourn, ye whirring paitrick brood- [partridge] he's gane for ever! mourn, sooty coots, and speckled teals; ye fisher herons, watching eels; ye duck and drake, wi' airy wheels circling the lake; ye bitterns, till the quagmire reels, rair for his sake. [boom] mourn, clamouring craiks at close o' day, [corncrakes] 'mang fields o' flowering clover gay; and, when ye wing your annual way frae our cauld shore, tell thae far warlds wha lies in clay, [those] wham we deplore. ye houlets, frae your ivy bow'r [owls] in some auld tree, or eldritch tow'r, [haunted] what time the moon wi' silent glow'r [stare] sets up her horn, wail thro' the dreary midnight hour till waukrife morn! [wakeful] o rivers, forests, hills, and plains! oft have ye heard my canty strains; [cheerful] but now, what else for me remains but tales of woe? and frae my een the drapping rains [eyes] maun ever flow. [must] mourn, spring, thou darling of the year! ilk cowslip cup shall kep a tear: [catch] thou, simmer, while each corny spear shoots up its head, thy gay green flow'ry tresses shear for him that's dead! thou, autumn, wi' thy yellow hair, in grief thy sallow mantle tear! thou, winter, hurling thro' the air the roaring blast, wide o'er the naked warld, declare the worth we've lost! mourn him, thou sun, great source of light! mourn, empress of the silent night! and you, ye twinkling starnies bright, [starlets] my matthew mourn! for through your orbs he's ta'en his flight, ne'er to return. o henderson! the man! the brother! and art thou gone, and gone for ever? and hast thou crost that unknown river, life's dreary bound? like thee, where shall i find another, the world around? go to your sculptur'd tombs, ye great, in a' the tinsel trash o' state! but by thy honest turf i'll wait, thou man of worth! and weep the ae best fellow's fate e'er lay in earth. scotch drink _gie him strong drink, until he wink, that's sinking in despair; an' liquor guid to fire his bluid, that's prest wi' grief an' care; there let him bouse, an' deep carouse, wi' bumpers flowing o'er, till he forgets his loves or debts, an' minds his griefs no more._ solomon (proverbs xxxi. 6, 7). let other poets raise a fracas 'bout vines, an' wines, an' drunken bacchus, an' crabbed names an' stories wrack us, an' grate our lug; [ear] i sing the juice scotch bear can mak us, [barley] in glass or jug. o thou, my muse! guid auld scotch drink, whether thro' wimplin worms thou jink, [winding, dodge] or, richly brown, ream owre the brink, [cream] in glorious faem, [foam] inspire me, till i lisp an' wink, to sing thy name! let husky wheat the haughs adorn, [flat river-lands] an' aits set up their awnie horn, [oats, bearded] an' pease an' beans at een or morn, perfume the plain; leeze me on thee, john barleycorn, [commend me to] thou king o' grain! on thee aft scotland chows her cood, [chews, cud] in souple scones, the wale o' food! [soft cakes, choice] or tumblin' in the boiling flood wi' kail an' beef; but when thou pours thy strong heart's blood, there thou shines chief. food fills the wame, an' keeps us livin'; [belly] tho' life's a gift no worth receivin', but, oil'd by thee, the wheels o' life gae down-hill, scrievin' [careering] wi' rattlin' glee. thou clears the head o' doited lear: [muddled learning] thou cheers the heart o' drooping care; thou strings the nerves o' labour sair, at's weary toil: thou even brightens dark despair wi' gloomy smile. aft, clad in massy siller weed, wi' gentles thou erects thy head; yet humbly kind, in time o' need, the poor man's wine, his wee drap parritch, or his bread, thou kitchens fine. [makest palatable] thou art the life o' public haunts; but thee, what were our fairs and rants? [without, frolics] ev'n godly meetings o' the saunts, [saints] by thee inspir'd, when gaping they besiege the tents, are doubly fir'd. that merry night we get the corn in! o sweetly then thou reams the horn in! [foamest] or reekin' on a new-year mornin' [smoking] in cog or bicker, [bowl, cup] an' just a wee drap sp'ritual burn in, [whisky] an' gusty sucker! [tasty sugar] when vulcan gies his bellows breath, an' ploughmen gather wi' their graith, [implements] o rare to see thee fizz an' freath [froth] i' th' lugged caup! [two-eared cup] then burnewin comes on like death [the blacksmith] at ev'ry chaup. [blow] nae mercy, then, for airn or steel; [iron] the brawnie, banie, ploughman chiel, [bony, fellow] brings hard owre-hip, wi' sturdy wheel, the strong forehammer, till block an' studdie ring an' reel [anvil] wi' dinsome clamour. when skirlin' weanies see the light, [squalling babies] thou maks the gossips clatter bright how fumblin' cuifs their dearies slight- [dolts] wae worth the name! nae howdie gets a social night, [midwife] or plack frae them. [small coin] when neibors anger at a plea, [lawsuit] an' just as wud as wud can be, [mad] how easy can the barley-bree [-brew] cement the quarrel! it's aye the cheapest lawyer's fee to taste the barrel. alake! that e'er my muse has reason to wyte her countrymen wi' treason; [blame] but mony daily weet their weasan' [throat] wi' liquors nice, an' hardly, in a winter's season, e'er spier her price. [ask] wae worth that brandy, burning trash! fell source o' mony a pain an' brash? [illness] twins mony a poor, doylt, drucken hash, [robs, stupid, drunken oaf] o' half his days; an' sends, beside, auld scotland's cash to her warst faes. ye scots, wha wish auld scotland well, ye chief, to you my tale i tell, poor plackless devils like mysel' [penniless] it sets you ill, [becomes] wi' bitter, dearthfu' wines to mell, [meddle] or foreign gill. may gravels round his blather wrench, [ladder] an' gouts torment him, inch by inch, wha twists his gruntle wi' a glunch [face, growl] o' sour disdain, out owre a glass o' whisky punch wi' honest men! o whisky! soul o' plays an' pranks! accept a bardie's gratefu' thanks! when wanting thee, what tuneless cranks [creakings] are my poor verses! thou comes--they rattle i' their ranks at ither's arses! thee, ferintosh![25] o sadly lost! scotland, lament frae coast to coast! now colic-grips an' barkin' hoast [cough] may kill us a'; for loyal forbes' charter'd boast is ta'en awa! thae curst horse-leeches o' th' excise, [these] wha mak the whisky stells their prize- [stills] haud up thy hand, deil! ance--twice--thrice! there, seize the blinkers! [spies] an' bake them up in brunstane pies [brimstone] for poor damn'd drinkers. fortune! if thou'll but gie me still hale breeks, a bannock, and a gill, [whole breeches, oatmeal cake] an' rowth o' rhyme to rave at will, [plenty] tak' a' the rest, an' deal'd about as thy blind skill directs thee best. [25] forbes of culloden was given in 1690 liberty to distil grain at ferintosh without excise. when this privilege was withdrawn in 1785, the price of whisky rose--hence burns's lament. to a haggis fair fa' your honest sonsie face, [jolly] great chieftain o' the puddin'-race! aboon them a' ye tak your place, [above] painch, tripe, or thairm: [paunch, guts] weel are ye wordy o' a grace [worthy] as lang's my arm. the groaning trencher there ye fill, your hurdies like a distant hill; [buttocks] your pin wad help to mend a mill [skewer] in time o' need; while thro' your pores the dews distil like amber bead. his knife see rustic labour dight, [wipe] an' cut you up wi' ready sleight, [skill] trenching your gushing entrails bright like ony ditch; and then, o what a glorious sight, warm-reekin', rich! [-smoking] then, horn for horn they stretch an' strive, [spoon] deil tak the hindmost! on they drive, till a' their weel-swall'd kytes belyve [well-swelled bellies soon] are bent like drums; then auld guidman, maist like to rive, [burst] 'be-thankit!' hums. is there that o'er his french _ragout_, or _olio_ that wad staw a sow, [sicken] or _fricassee_ wad mak her spew wi' perfect sconner, looks down wi' sneering scornfu' view [disgust] on sic a dinner? poor devil! see him owre his trash, as feckless as a wither'd rash, [feeble, rush] his spindle shank a guid whip-lash, his nieve a nit: [fist, nut] thro' bloody flood or field to dash, o how unfit! but mark the rustic, haggis-fed- the trembling earth resounds his tread! clap in his walie nieve a blade, [ample fist] he'll mak it whissle; an' legs, an' arms, an' heads will sned, [crop] like taps o' thrissle. [thistle] ye pow'rs wha mak mankind your care, and dish them out their bill o' fare auld scotland wants nae skinking ware [watery stuff] that jaups in luggies; [splashes, porringers] but, if ye wish her gratefu' prayer, gie her a haggis! a bard's epitaph is there a whim-inspired fool, owre fast for thought, owre hot for rule, [too] owre blate to seek, owre proud to snool, [bashful, cringe] let him draw near; and owre this grassy heap sing dool, [woe] and drap a tear. is there a bard of rustic song, who, noteless, steals the crowds among, that weekly this area throng, o, pass not by! but, with a frater-feeling strong, here heave a sigh. is there a man whose judgment clear, can others teach the course to steer. yet runs, himself, life's mad career, wild as the wave; here pause--and, thro' the starting tear, survey this grave. the poor inhabitant below was quick to learn and wise to know, and keenly felt the friendly glow, and softer flame; but thoughtless follies laid him low, and stain'd his name! reader, attend! whether thy soul soars fancy's flights beyond the pole, or darkling grubs this earthly hole, in low pursuit; know prudent, cautious self-control is wisdom's root. chapter vi conclusion we have now examined in some detail the main facts of burns's personal life and literary production: it is time to sum these up in order to realize the character of the man and the value of the work. certain fundamental qualities are easily traced to his parentage. the burnses were honest, hard-working people, stubborn fighters for independence, with intellectual tastes above the average of their class. these characteristics the poet inherited. with all his failures in worldly affairs, he contrived to pay his debts; however obliged to friends and patrons for occasional aid, he never abated his self-respect or became the hanger-on of any man; and he showed throughout his life an eager, receptive, and ever-expanding mind. the seed sown by his father with so much pains and care in his early training fell on fruitful soil, and in the range of his information, as well as in his critical and reasoning powers, burns became the equal of educated men. the love of independence, indeed, was less a family than a national passion. the salient fact in the history of scotland is the intensity of the prolonged struggle against the political domination of england; and there developed in the individual life of the scot a corresponding tendency to value personal freedom as the greatest of treasures. the thrift and economy for which the scottish people are everywhere notable, and which has its vicious excess in parsimony and nearness, is in its more honorable aspects no end in itself but merely a means to independence. if they are keen to "gather gear," it's no to hide it in a hedge, nor for a train-attendant, but for the glorious privilege of being independent. along with these substantial and admirable qualities of integrity and independence burns inherited certain limitations. in the peasant class in which he was born and reared, the fierceness of the struggle for existence has crowded out some of the more beautiful qualities that need ease and leisure for their development. the virtues of chivalry do indeed at times appear among the very poor, but they are the characteristic product of a class in which conditions are more generous, the necessaries of life are taken for granted, and the elemental demands of human nature are satisfied without competitive striving. when a peasant is chivalrous he is so by virtue of some individual quality, and in spite of rather than because of the spirit of his class. burns was too acute and too observant not to gather much from the social ideals of the ladies and gentlemen with whom he came in contact, and what he gathered affected his conduct profoundly; but at times under stress of frustrated passion or mortified vanity he reverted to the ruder manners of the peasantry from which he sprang. so have to be accounted for certain brutalities in his treatment of the women who loved him or who had been unwise enough to yield to his fascination. other characteristics belong to him individually rather than to his family or class or nation. he was to an extraordinary degree proud and sensitive. he reacted warmly to kindness, and showed his gratitude without stint; but he allowed no man to presume upon the obligations he had conferred. he was very conscious of difference of rank, and never sought to ignore it, however little he thought it mattered in comparison with intrinsic merit. but the very degree to which he was aware of the social gap between him and many of his acquaintances put him ever on the alert for slights; and when he perceived or imagined that he had received them, his indignation was sometimes less than dignified and often excessive. though he knew that he possessed uncommon gifts, he was essentially modest in fact as well as in appearance, and on the whole underestimated his genius. he had a warm heart, and in his relations with his equals he was genial and friendly. his love of his kind manifested itself especially in his delight in company, a delight naturally heightened by the enjoyment of the sense of leadership which his superior wit and brilliance gave him in almost any society. the customs of the time associated to an unfortunate degree hard drinking with social intercourse. but more than the whisky he enjoyed the loosening of self-consciousness and the warmth of conviviality that it brought. it's no i like to sit an' swallow, [not that] then like a swine to puke an' wallow; but gie me just a true guid fellow [give] wi' right ingine, [wit] and spunkie ance to mak us mellow, [liquor enough] an' then we'll shine! burns was not a drunkard. he seems to have taken little alone, and in the houses of some of his more fashionable friends he resented the pressure to drink more than he wanted. nor did he allow dissipation to interfere with his work on the farm, or his duties in the excise. yet, even when contemporary manners have received their share of responsibility, it must be allowed that on the poet's own confession he drank frequently to excess, and that this abuse had a serious share in the breakdown of his constitution, weakened as it was by the excessive toil of his youth. he was fond of women, and this passion more than any other has been the center of the disputes that have raged round his life and character. again, contemporary and class customs have to be taken into account. in spite of the formal disapproval of public opinion and the censure of the church, the attitude of his class in the end of the eighteenth century toward such irregularities as brought burns and jean armour to the stool of repentance was much less severe than it would be in this country to-day. burns himself knew he was culpable, but the comparative laxity of the standards of the time made it easier for him to forgive himself, and prompted him to defiance when he believed himself criticized by puritan hypocrites. thus in his utterances we have a curious inconsistency, his feeling ranging from black remorse and melancholy, through half-hearted excuse and justification, to swaggering bravado. and none of them makes pleasant reading. but his relations with the other sex were not all of the nature of sheer passion. he was capable of serious friendship, warm respect, abject adoration, and a hundred other variations of feeling; and in several cases he maintained for years, by correspondence and occasional visits, an intercourse with ladies on which no shadow of a stain has ever been cast. such were his relations with margaret chalmers and mrs. dunlop. these facts have no controversial bearing, but they are necessary to be considered if we are to have a complete view of burns's relations to society. in estimating him as a poet, nothing is lost in keeping in mind the historical relations which have been so strongly emphasized in recent years. he himself would have been the last to resent being placed in a national tradition, but, on the contrary, would have been proud to be regarded as the last and greatest of scottish vernacular poets. patriotic feeling is frequent in his verse; we have seen how consciously he performed his work for johnson and thomson as a service to his country; and to the "guidwife of wauchope house" he professed, speaking of his youth, e'en then, a wish (i mind its pow'r), a wish that from my latest hour shall strongly heave my breast, that i for poor auld scotland's sake some usefu' plan or book could make, or sing a sang at least. so in the line of the scottish "makers" we place him, the inheritor of the speech of henryson and dunbar, of the meters and modes of montgomery and the sempills, ramsay and fergusson, the re-creator of the perishing relics of the lost masters of popular song. his relation to his english predecessors need not again be detailed, so little of value did they contribute to the vital part of his work. but some account should be taken of his connection with the english literature of his own and the next generation. the humanitarian movement was well under way before the appearance of burns, and the particular manifestations of it in, for example, the poems of cowper on animals, owed nothing to the influence of burns. but cowper's hares never appealed to the popular heart with the force of burns's sheep and mice and dogs, and the tender familiarity and wistful jocoseness of his poems to beasts have never been surpassed. in writing these he was probably, consciously or unconsciously, affected by the tendency of the time, as he was also in the democratic brotherhood of _a man's a man for a' that_, but, in both cases, as we have seen, part of the impulse, that part that made his utterance reach his audience, was derived from his personal intercourse with his farm stock and from his inborn conviction of the dignity of the individual. his relations to these elements in the thought and feeling of his day were, then, reciprocal: they strengthened certain traits in his personality, and he passed them on to posterity, strengthened in turn by his moving expression. the situation is similar with regard to his connection with the so-called "return to nature" in english poetry. historians have discerned a new era begun in descriptive poetry with thomson's _seasons_; and in cowper again, to ignore many intermediates, there is abundance of faithful portraiture of landscape. but burns was not given to set description of their kind, and what he has in common with them lies in the nature of his detail--the frank actuality of the images of wind and weather, burn and brae, which form the background of his human comedy and tragedy. he observed for himself, and he called things by their own names. in so doing he was once more following a national tradition, so that he was not "returning" to nature, since the tradition had never left it; but, on the other hand, it is reasonable to suppose that wordsworth, arriving at a somewhat similar method by a totally different route, found corroboration for his theories of the simplification needed in the matter and diction of poetry in the success of the scottish rustic who showed his youth how verse may build a princely throne on humble truth. wordsworth, of course, like the most distinguished of his romantic contemporaries, found much in nature that burns never dreamed of; and even the faithfulness in detail which burns shared with these poets reached a point of subtlety and sensuousness far beyond the reach of his simple and direct epithets. nature was to be given in the next generation a vast and novel variety of spiritual significance. with all that burns had nothing to do. he was realist, not romanticist, though his example operated beneficently and sanely on some of the romantic leaders. yet in burns's treatment of nature there is imaginative beauty as well as humble truth. his language in description, though not mystical or highly idealized, is often rich in feeling, and his personality was potent enough to pervade his most objective writing. thus he ranks among those who have put lovers of poetry under obligation for a fresh glimpse of the beauty and meaning of the world around them. this glimpse is so strongly suggestive of the poet that our delight in it will largely depend on our sympathy with his temperament; yet now and again he flashes out a phrase whose imaginative value is absolute, and which makes its appeal without respect to the author: the wan moon is setting behind the white wave, and time is setting with me, oh! apart from the respects in which burns is the inheritor and perfecter of the vernacular traditions, and apart from his contact, active or passive, with the english poets of his time, there is much in his poetry which is thoroughly his own. it does not lie mainly in his thinking, robust and shrewd though that is. we perceive in his work no great individual attitude toward life and society such as we are impelled to perceive in the work of goethe; we find no message in it like the message of browning. what he does is to bring before us characters, situations, moods, images, that belong to the permanent and elemental in our nature. these are presented with a sympathy so living, a tenderness so poignant, a humor so arch and so sly, that they become a part of our experience in the most delightful and exhilarating fashion. part of the function of poetry is to prevent us from becoming sluggish in our contemplation of life by making us feel it fresh, vivid, pulsing; and this burns notably accomplishes. coleridge's image of wetting the pebble to bring out its color and brilliance is peculiarly apt in the case of burns; for it was the common if not the commonplace that he dealt with, and his workmanship made it sparkle like a jewel. in the long run the value of an author depends on two factors, the nature of his insight and his power of expression. burns's insight into his own nature was deep and on the whole just, and that nature was itself rich enough to teach him much. he found there the great struggle between impulse and will--fiery, surging impulse and a stubborn will. this experience, illuminated by a lively imagination, gave him a sympathetic understanding of extraordinary range, extending from the domestic troubles of the royal family and the perplexities of the prime minister to the precarious adventures of a louse. his insight into external nature blended the weather wisdom of the ploughman with the poet's sensitiveness to the harmony or discord of wind and sky with the moods of humanity. for the expression of all this he had an instrument that did not reach, it is true, to the great tragic tones of shakespeare nor to the delicate and filmy subtleties of shelley. but he could utter pathos almost intolerably piercing, and overwhelming remorse; gaiety as fresh and inspiriting as the song of a lark; roistering mirth; keen irony; and a thousand phases of passion. this he did in a verse of amazing variety--sometimes tender and caressing; sometimes rushing like a torrent. finally, it must be insisted again, in that aspect in which he is most nearly supreme, the writing of songs, he is musician as well as poet. though he made no tunes, he saved hundreds; saved them not merely for the antiquary and the connoisseur but for the great mass of lovers of sweet and simple melody; saved them by marrying them to fit and immortal words. it is for this most of all that scotland and the world love burns. the end index _a man's a man for a' that_, quoted 158, 317. _a red, red rose_, 101, quoted 102. _address to the deil_, 38, 86, 281, quoted 282. _address to the unco guid_, 38, quoted 176, 189. _adventures of telemachus_, 17. _ae fond kiss_, quoted 56-57, 75, 103. _ã�neid_ (douglas's), 268. _afton water_, quoted 116. ainslie, robert, 50. alloway, 4 ff. animals, burns's feeling for, 270, 271. armour, james, 35, 37-39. armour, jean, 35-39, 50, 55, 93, 110, 122, 172. arnold, matthew, 206, 237. _auld lang syne_, 98, quoted 100. auld lichts, 179, 180, 184, 188. _auld rob morris_, 115, quoted 121. bachelor's club, 22. _bannocks o' barley_, quoted 165. _bard's epitaph, a_, 294, quoted 308. beattie, 86. beethoven, 95. begbie, ellison, 22-23, 27, 110. _bessy and her spinnin'-wheel_, quoted 145. biography, official, 68. blacklock, doctor, 39. blair, doctor, 45, 86. blair athole, 51. boar's head tavern, 240. _bonnie lesley_, 115, quoted 118. _braw braw lads_, quoted 140. brow-on-solway, 67. browning, 320. burnes, william, 3-8. burns, agnes (brown), 4, 8. burns, gilbert, 5-6, 15, 31, 59, 90. burns, robert, his career: autobiographical letter, 1-2; parentage and early life, 3-23; schooling, 5-8, 15, 17; reading, 6-8, 18-19; study of french, 16; folk-lore, 18; overwork, 19; first song, 20; flax-dressing, 23; early love-affairs, 22, 27; mossgiel, 31-44; elizabeth paton, 32-35; jean armour, 35-36; mary campbell (highland mary), 36-37; west indian project, 37-39; elizabeth miller, 37; kilmarnock edition, 37-38; disciplined by the church, 38-39; edinburgh, 44-56; early reviews, 46; edinburgh edition, 46-50; southern tour, 50; highland tours, 50-51; mrs. mclehose, 52-58; marriage, 55; ellisland, 53-62; excise, 61-65; dumfries, 62-68; politics, 63-65; work for johnson and thomson, 65-66, 91-98; whisky, 66-67, 313; illness and death, 66-67. burns and music, 9 ff. burns's method of composition, 87, 92, 111-112. burns's stanza, 80. _ca' the yowes_, quoted 115. campbell, mary, 36-37, 76, 112. see highland mary. _canterbury tales_, 254. chalmers, margaret, 110. _charlie he's my darling_, quoted 168. chaucer, 254. chloris (jean lorimer), 110, 112. _choice collection_ (watson's), 81. clarinda (mrs. mclehose), 52-58. _clarinda_, quoted 58, 75, 109. cockburn, mrs., 82. coleridge, 321. _come boat me o'er to charlie_, quoted 163. _comin' through the rye_, quoted 154. _complete letter-writer_, 6. _contented wi' little_, quoted 126. conviviality, 66, 313. _corn rigs_, 75. cowper, 267, 317. crabbe, 267. _craigieburn-wood_, 111. creech, 45, 50, 52. currie, doctor, 68. dalrymple, james, 44. dalrymple school, 15. davidson, betty, 18. _death and doctor hornbook_, quoted 287. _death and dying words of poor mailie_, 80, 82. _dedication to gavin hamilton_, 185-186. descriptive poetry, 206 ff., 264 ff. dick, j.c., 91-92, note. dodsley, robert, 103. douglas, gavin, 268. dramatic lyrics, 128 ff. drummond of hawthornden, 72. dumfries, 50, 62-68. dunbar, william, 81, 241, 316. _duncan davison_, quoted 153. _duncan gray_, quoted 152. dunlop, mrs. 110. edinburgh, burns in, 44-56. _edinburgh magazine_, 46. elegies, 294 ff. _elegy on capt. matthew henderson_, quoted 298. ellisland, 58-62. english poems of burns, 73 ff. epigrams, 204, 205. _epistle to a young friend_, 199, quoted 200. _epistle to davie_, 79, quoted 193, 267. _epistle to james smith_, 190, 191. _epistle to john goldie_, 179. _epistle to john rankine_, 33. _epistle to mcmath_, 181. _epistle to william simpson_, 270. epistles, 38, 190 ff. epitaphs, 204, 205. erskine, hon. henry, 45. excise service, 59, 61-65. _farmer's ingle_, 84. ferguson, dr. adam, 46. fergusson, robert, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 316. fisher, william, 173. flax-dressing experiment, 23. flint, christina, 93. _for the sake o' somebody_, quoted 136. freemasons, 46. french revolution, 63-64. _from thee, eliza, i must go_, 37. gaelic, 69. gibson, nancy, 239. glencairn, lord, 45, 49. glenriddel manuscript, 60. _go fetch to me a pint o' wine_, quoted 88. goethe, 320. goldsmith, 86. gordon, duchess of, 45, 48. graham of fintry, 64. gray, 86. _green grow the rashes_, quoted 123. grose, captain, 253. _had i the wyte?_, quoted 148. _halloween_, 38, 208, quoted 209, 217, 218, 223, 270, 282. hamilton, gavin, 38, 172, 185. hamilton of gilbertfield, 81, 82. _handsome nell_: quoted 20; criticized by burns, 21-22, 103. _happy beggars_, 238. haydn, 95. henderson, captain matthew, 294. henryson, robert, 78, 81, 272, 316. heroic couplet in burns, 268, 269. _highland mary_, quoted 113-116. highland mary, 36-37, 76, 110. _history of the bible_, 6. hogg, james, 162. _holy willie's prayer_, 38, quoted 173. _how lang and dreary_, quoted 138. _humble petition of bruar water_, 51. hume, david, 44. _i gaed a waefu' gate_, quoted 117. _i hae a wife_, quoted 59, 103. _i hae been at crookieden_, quoted 167. _i'm owre young to marry yet_, quoted 143. independence, scottish love of, 311. irvine, 23. _it was a' for our rightfu' king_, quoted 162. jacobite songs, 161 ff. jacobitism, 63. _john anderson, my jo_, 145, quoted 146. johnson, james, 65, 91, 94, 97, 98, 316. _kenmure's on and awa_, quoted 165. kilmarnock edition. 37-39. kilpatrick, nelly, 20, 22, 110. kirk of scotland, opposition to, 171. kirkoswald, 17, 254. _kirkyard eclogues_, 84. knox, john, 71. kozeluch, 95. la fontaine, 272. _laddie lie near me_, 92. _lament for the earl of glencairn_, 49. language of burns, 69 ff. _lassie wi' the lint-white locks_, quoted 119. _last dying words of bonny heck_, 82. _last may a braw wooer_, quoted 135. _last speech of a wretched miser_, 83. _leith races_, 84. lewars, jessie, 110, 122. lindesay, sir david, 71. lindsay, lady anne, 82. lochlea, 5 ff. _london monthly review_, 46. lorimer, jean (chloris), 110, 111. _lounger, the_, 46. lowland scots, 69 ff. _lucky spence's last advice_, 82. mackenzie, henry, 19, 45, 46, 86. _macpherson's farewell_, quoted 150. mcgill, doctor, 186. mclehose, mrs., 52-58. _mary morison_, quoted 28. mauchline, 31, 50. _merry beggars_, 238. miller, elizabeth, 37. milton, 85. _montgomerie's peggy_, quoted 120. montgomery, alexander, 79, 316. moore, dr. john: 5; letter to, 1-2, 18, 83. mossgiel, 31-44. mount oliphant, 4-5. murdoch, john, 5, 15-17, 90-91. murray, sir william, 51. muse, jocular treatment of his, 203 ff. music, burns's knowledge of, 90 ff. music and song, 169-170, 322. _my father was a farmer_, quoted 126. _my heart's in the highlands_, quoted 140. _my love she's but a lassie yet_, 141, quoted 144. _my love is like a red, red rose_, 101, quoted 102. _my nannie's awa_, quoted 57-58, 75, 103, 266. _my nannie o_, quoted 29-30, 103. _my wife's a winsome wee thing_, quoted 108. nairne, lady, 162. nature in burns, 318. new lichts, 179, 188. nicol, william, 50, 52. _o, for ane an' twenty, tam!_, quoted 129. _o merry hae i been_, quoted 148. _o this is no my ain lassie_, quoted 107. _o, wert thou in the cauld blast_, 122, quoted 123. _of a' the airts_, quoted 106. _on a scotch bard, gone to the west indies_, quoted, 42-44. _on seeing a wounded hare_, 86. _open the door to me, o!_ quoted 137. park, anne, 110. paton, elizabeth, 32. peasant characteristics of burns, 311, 312. percy, bishop, 81. _planestanes and causey_, 84. pleyel, 95. politics, 63-65. _poor mailie's elegy_, quoted 26-27. _poortith cauld_, 106, quoted 107. poosie nansie, 239. pope, 86, 269. _practical essay on the death of jesus christ_, 186. _prayer in the prospect of death_, quoted 32. ramsay, allan, 79, 81, 82, 83, 84, 99, 103, 238, 316. ramsay of ochtertyre, 51. realism, 267. reformation, influence of, 95 ff. _reliques of ancient english poetry_, 81. richmond, 44. riddel, col. robert, 60. satires and epistles, 171 ff. scenery in burns, 265 ff. _scotch drink_, 38, 84, 294, quoted 301. _scots musical museum_, 65, 95, 97. _scots, wha hae_, quoted 160. scott, alexander, 79. scott, sir walter, 44, 46-48, 161-162. scottish dialect, 69 ff. scottish folk-song, 96 ff. scottish literature, 78 ff. scottish song, 90 ff. sea in scottish poetry, 264-265. seasons, 318. _select collection of original scottish airs_, 95. sempills, 79, 80, 294, 316. shaftesbury, 193. shakespeare, 85, 321. shelley, 322. shenstone, 86. sibbald, james, 46. _simmer's a pleasant time_, quoted 131. smith, adam, 44. sterne, 86, 270. stewart, dugald, 45. stirling, alexander, earl of, 72. stuart-menteath, sir james, 93. _tam glen_, quoted 133. _tam o' shanter_, 253-257, quoted 257, 266, 268, 282. _tam samson's elegy_, quoted 294. _tea table miscellany_, 81, 99. _the auld farmer's new-year morning salutation_, quoted 278. _the banks of helicon_, 79. _the blue-eyed lassie_, quoted 117. _the bonnie lad that's far awa_, quoted 139. _the brigs of ayr_, 267. _the cherry and the slae_, 79. _the cotter's saturday night_, quoted 8-15, 38, 74, 84, 190, criticized 207 ff., 219, 266. _the death and dying words of poor mailie_, quoted 23-25. _the deil's awa wi' th' exciseman_, quoted 154. _the deuk's dang o'er my daddie_, quoted 155. _the gazetteer_, 64. _the gentle shepherd_, 82. _the gloomy night_, quoted 40-41, 103. _the highland balou_, 150, quoted 151. _the highland laddie_, quoted 164. _the holy fair_, 38, 84, 227, quoted 228. _the jolly beggars_, 38, 77, 238-241, quoted 241, 266. _the kirk's alarm_, 186, 187. _the lass of cessnock banks_, 23. _the lea-rig_, quoted 120. _the man of feeling_, 86. _the ordination_, 184, 185. _the piper of kilbarchan_, 79. _the poet's welcome to his love-begotten daughter_, quoted 33-35. _the rantin' dog the daddie o't_, quoted 134. _the rigs o' barley_, quoted 30, 103. _the twa dogs_, 4, 38, 84, quoted 219. _the twa herds_, 180. _the vision_, 38. _the weary pund o' tow_, quoted 147. _there'll never be peace_, quoted 166. _there was a lad_, quoted 125. thomson, george, 65, 88, 91, 92, 95, 98, 169, 316. thomson, james, 86, 318. _to a haggis_, 294, quoted 306. _to a louse_, 38, quoted 274. _to a mountain daisy_, 38, 86, 190, quoted 276. _to a mouse_, 38, 86, 190, quoted 272. _to daunton me_, quoted 142. _to mary in heaven_, 76, quoted 114. _to the deil_, 38, 86, 281, quoted 282. _to the guidwife of wauchope house_, 316. _to the rev. john mcmath_, quoted 181. _to the unco guid_, 38, quoted 176, 189. _wallace, history of sir william_, 19. _wandering willie_, quoted 138. watson, james, 81. west indies, 37-39. _wha is that at my bower door?_, quoted 156. _what can a young lassie_, quoted 142. _whistle and i'll come to thee, my lad_, 75, quoted 132. _will ye go to the indies, my mary_, 37, quoted 40, 103. _willie brew'd a peck o' maut_, 237, quoted 238. _willie's wife_, quoted 156. wilson, john (dr. hornbook), 287. _winter, a dirge_, 266. _winter night, a_, 271. women, burns and, 314, 315. wordsworth, 318, 319. _ye banks and braes_, quoted 130, 131. _yestreen i had a pint o' wine_, quoted 104-105, 110. young, dr., 86. burns's letters. the letters of robert burns, selected and arranged, with an introduction, by j. logie robertson, m.a. _"you shall write whatever comes first,--what you see, what you read, what you hear, what you admire, what you dislike; trifles, bagatelles, nonsense, or, to fill up a corner, e'en put down a laugh at full length"_--burns. _"my life reminded me of a ruined temple: what strength, what proportion in some parts! what unsightly gaps, what prostrate ruin in others!"_--burns. general correspondence to ellison or alison begbie (?) to ellison begbie to ellison begbie to ellison begbie to ellison begbie to his father to sir john whitefoord, bart., of ballochmyle to mr. john murdoch, schoolmaster, staples inn buildings, london to his cousin, mr. james burness, writer, montrose to mr. james burness, writer, montrose to mr. james burness, writer, montrose to thomas orr, park, kirkoswald to miss margaret kennedy to miss----, ayrshire to mr. john richmond, law clerk, edinburgh to mr. james smith, shopkeeper, mauchline to mr. robert muir, wine merchant, kilmarnock to mr. john ballantine, banker, ayr to mr. m'whinnie, writer, ayr to john arnot, esquire, of dalquatswood to mr. david brice, shoemaker, glasgow to mr. john richmond, edinburgh to mr. john richmond to mr. john kennedy to his cousin, mr. james burness, writer, montrose to mrs. stewart, of stair to mr. robert aikin, writer, ayr to dr. mackenzie, mauchline; inclosing him verses on dining with lord daer to mrs. dunlop, of dunlop to miss alexander in the name of the nine. _amen_ to james dalrymple, esquire, orangefield to sir. john whitefoord to mr. gavin hamilton, mauchline to mr. john ballantine, banker, at one time provost of ayr to mr. robert muir to mr. william chambers, writer, ayr to the earl of eglinton to mr. john ballantine to mrs. dunlop to dr. moore to the rev. g. lawrie, newmilns, near kilmarnock to the earl of buchan to mr. james candlish, student in physic, glasgow college to mr. peter stuart, editor of "the star," london to mrs. dunlop to mrs. dunlop to dr. moore to mrs. dunlop to mr. william nicol, classical master, high school, edinburgh to mr. william nicol to mr. robert ainslie to mr. james smith, linlithgow, formerly of mauchline to mr. john richmond to mr. robert ainslie to dr. moore to mr. archibald lawrie to mr. robert muir, kilmarnock to mr. gavin hamilton to mr. walker, blair of athole to his brother, mr. gilbert burns, mossgiel to mr. patrick miller, dalswinton to rev. john skinner to miss margaret chalmers, harvieston to mrs. dunlop of dunlop house, stewarton to mr. james hoy, gordon castle to the earl of glencairn to miss chalmers to miss chalmers to miss chalmers to mr. richard brown, irvine to mrs. dunlop to mrs. dunlop to the rev. john skinner to mrs. rose, of kilravock to richard brown, greenock to mr. william cruikshank to mr. robert ainslie to mr. richard brown to mr. robert muir to mrs. dunlop to mr. william nicol (perhaps) to miss chalmers the clarinda letters general correspondence (resumed)-to mr. gavin hamilton to mr. william dunbar, w.s., edinburgh to mrs. dunlop to mr. james smith, avon printfield, linlithgow to professor dugald stewart to mrs. dunlop to mr. samuel brown, kirkoswald to mr. james johnson, engraver, edinburgh to mr. robert ainslie to mrs. dunlop to mrs. dunlop, at mr. dunlop's, haddington to mr. robert ainslie to mr. robert ainslie to mrs. dunlop to mr. peter hill, bookseller, edinburgh to mrs. dunlop to mrs. dunlop to mr. beugo, engraver, edinburgh to mr. robert graham, of fintry to his wife, at mauchline. to miss chalmers, edinburgh to mr. morison, wright, mauchline to mrs. dunlop, of dunlop to mr. peter hill to the editor of the "star" to mrs. dunlop, at moreham mains to dr. blacklock to mrs. dunlop to mr. john tennant to mrs. dunlop to dr. moore, london to mr. robert ainslie to professor dugald stewart to mr. robert cleghorn, saughton mills to bishop geddes, edinburgh to mr. james burness to mrs. dunlop to, mrs. m'lehose (formerly clarinda) to dr. moore to his brother, mr. william burns to mr. hill, bookseller, edinburgh to mrs. m'murdo, drumlanrig to mr. cunningham to mr. richard brown to mr. robert ainslie to mrs. dunlop to miss helen maria williams to mr. robert graham, of fintry. to david sillar, merchant, irvine. to mr. john logan, of knock shinriock to mr. peter stuart, editor, london to his brother, william burns, saddler, newcastle-on-tyne to mrs. dunlop to captain riddel, friars carse to mr. robert ainslie, w.s. to mr. richard brown, port-glasgow to mr. r. graham, of fintry to mrs. dunlop to lady winifred m. constable to mr. charles k. sharpe, of hoddam to his brother, gilbert burns, mossgiel to mr. william dunbar, w.s. to mrs. dunlop to mr. peter hill, bookseller, edinburgh to mr. w. nicol to mr. cunningham, writer, edinburgh to mr. hill, bookseller, edinburgh to mrs. dunlop to dr. john moore, london to mr. murdoch, teacher of french, london to mr. cunningham to mr. crauford tait, w.s., edinburgh to mrs. dunlop to mr. william dunbar, w.s. to mr. peter hill to dr. moore to mrs. dunlop to the rev. arch. alison to the rev. g. haird to mr. cunningharn, writer, edinburgh to mrs. dunlop to mr. cunningham to mr. thomas sloan to mr. ainslie to miss davies to mrs. dunlop to mr. william smellie, printer to mr. william nicol to mr. francis grose, f.s.a to mrs. dunlop to mr. cunningham to mrs. dunlop to mrs. dunlop to mrs. dunlop to mr. r. graham, fintry to mrs. dunlop to mr. robert graham, of fintry to mr. alex. cunningham, w.s., edinbiugh to mr. cunningham to miss benson, york, afterwards mrs. basil montagu to mr. john francis erskine, of mar to miss m'murdo, drumlanrig to john m'murdo, esq., drumlanrig to mrs. riddel to mrs. riddel to mrs. riddel to mrs. riddel to mr. cunningham to mrs. dunlop to mr. james johnson to mr. peter hill, jun., of dalswinton to mrs. riddel to mrs. dunlop to mrs. dunlop, in london to the hon. the provost, etc., of damfries to mrs. dunlop to mr james johnson to mr. cunningham to mr. gilbert burns to mrs. burns to mrs. dunlop to mr. james burness, writer, montrose to his father-in-law, james armour, mason, mauchline the thomson letters burns's letters. it is not perhaps generally known that the prose of burns exceeds in quantity his verse. the world remembers him as a poet, and forgets or overlooks his letters. his place among the poets has never been denied--it is in the first rank; nor is he lowest, though little remembered, among letter-writers. his letters gave jeffrey a higher opinion of him as a man than did his poetry, though on both alike the critic saw the seal and impress of genius. dugald stewart thought his letters objects of wonder scarcely less than his poetry. and robertson, comparing his prose with his verse, thought the former the more extraordinary of the two. in the popular view of his genius there is, however, no denying the fact that his poetry has eclipsed his prose. his prose consists mostly of letters, but it also includes a noble fragment of autobiography; three journals of observations made at mossgiel, edinburgh, and ellisland respectively; two itineraries, the one of his border tour, the other of his tour in the highlands; and historical notes to two collections of scottish songs. a full enumeration of his prose productions would take account also of his masonic minutes, his inscriptions, a rather curious business paper drawn up by the poet-exciseman in prosecution of a smuggler, and of course his various prefaces, notably the dedication of his poems to the members of the caledonian hunt. his letters, however, far exceed the sum of his other-prose writings. close upon five hundred and forty have already been published. these are not all the letters he ever wrote. where, for example, is the literary correspondence in which he engaged so enthusiastically with his kirkoswald schoolfellows? "though i had not three farthings' worth of business in the world, yet every post brought me as many letters as if i had been a broad-plodding son of daybook and ledger." where are the letters which brought to the ploughman at lochlie such a constant and copious stream of replies? the circumstances of his position will explain why they perished: he was then "a youth and all unknown to fame." it is even doubtful if the five hundred and forty published letters include all the letters of burns that now exist. scarcely a year passes but some epistolary scrap in the well-known handwriting is unearthed and ceremoniously added to the previous sum total, and yet, notwithstanding losses past or within recall, it is probable that we have long had the whole of burns's most characteristic letters. it was inevitable that these should be preserved and published. his fame was so rooted in the popular regard in his lifetime, that a characteristic letter from his hand was sure to be received as something singularly precious. it must not be forgotten, however, that burns's personality was so intense as to colour the smallest fragment of his correspondence, and it is on this account desirable that every note he penned that yet remains unpublished should be produced. it might give no new feature to our conception of his character; but it would help the shading--which, in the portraiture of any person, must chiefly be furnished by the minor and more commonplace actions of his everyday life. the correspondence of burns, as we have it, commences, presumably, near the close of his twenty-second year, and extends to all but exactly the middle of his thirty-eighth. the dates are a day somewhere at the end of 1780, and monday, 18th july 1796. between these limits lies the printed correspondence of sixteen years. the sum total of this correspondence allows about thirty-four letters to each year, but the actual distribution is very unequal, ranging from the minimum, in 1782, of one, a masonic letter addressed to sir john whitefoord of ballochmyle, to the maximum number of ninety-two, in 1788, the great year of the clarinda episode. it is in 1786, the year of the publication of his first volume at kilmarnock, the year of his literary birth, that his correspondence first becomes heavy. it rises at a leap from two letters in the preceding year to as many as forty-four. the phenomenal increase is partly explained by the success of his poems. he became a man that was worth the knowing, whose correspondence was worth preserving. the six years of his published correspondence previous to the discovery of his genius in 1786 are represented by only fourteen letters in all. but in those years his letters, though both numerous and prized above the common, were not considered as likely to be of future interest, and were therefore suffered to live or die as chance might determine. they mostly perished, the recipients thinking it hardly worth their while to be sae nice wi' robin as to preserve them. after the recognition of his power in 1786, the record of his preserved letters shews, for the ten years of his literary life, several fluctuations which admit of easy explanation. commencing with 1787, the numbers are:--78, 92, 54, 33, 44, 31, 66, 30, 27, 24. the first of these years was totally severed from rural occupations, or business of any kind, if we except the publication of the first edinburgh edition of his poems. it was a complete holiday year to him. he was either resident in edinburgh, studying men and manners, or touring about the country, visiting those places which history, song, or scenery had made famous. wherever he was, his fame brought him the acquaintance of a great many new people. his leisure and the novelty of his situation afforded him both opportunity and subject for an extensive correspondence. for a large part of the next year, 1788, he was similarly circumstanced, and the number of his letters was exceptionally increased by his entanglement with mrs. m'lehose. to her alone, in less than three months of this year, he wrote at least thirty-six letters,--considerably over one-third of the entire epistolary produce of the year. in 1789 we find the number of his letters fall to fifty-four. this was, perhaps, the happiest year of his life. he was now comfortably established as a farmer in a home of his own, busied with healthy rural work, and finding in the happy fireside clime which he was making for wife and weans "the true pathos and sublime" of human duty. he has still, however, time and inclination to write on the average one letter a week. for each of the next three years the average number is thirty-six. in 1793 the number suddenly goes up to sixty-six: the increase is due to the heartiness with which he took up the scheme of george thomson to popularise and perpetuate the best old scottish airs by fitting them with words worthy of their merits. he wrote, in this year, twenty-six letters in support of the scheme. there is a sad falling off in burns's ordinary correspondence in the last three years of his life. the amount of it scarcely touches twenty letters per year. even the correspondence with thomson, though on a subject so dear to the heart of burns, rousing at once both his patriotism and his poetry, sinks to about ten letters per year, and is irregular at that. burns was losing hope and health, and caring less and less for the world's favour and the world's friendships. he had lost largely in self-respect as well as in the respect of friends. the loss gave him little heart to write. burns's correspondents, as far as we know them, numbered over a hundred and fifty persons. the number is large and significant. neither gray, nor cowper, nor byron commanded so wide a circle. they had not the far-reaching sympathies of burns. they were all more or less fastidious in their choice of correspondents. burns, on the contrary, was as catholic, or as careless, in his friendships as his own _cæsar_--who "wad spend an hour caressin' ev'n wi' a tinkler gipsy's messan." he moved freely up and down the whole social scale, blind to the imaginary distinctions of blood and title and the extrinsic differences of wealth, seeing true superiority in an honest manly heart, and bearing himself wherever he found it as an equal and a brother. his correspondents were of every social grade--peers and peasants; of every intellectual attainment--philosophers like dugald stewart, and simple swains like thomas orr; and of almost every variety of calling, from professional men of recognised eminence to obscure shopkeepers, cottars, and tradesmen. they include servant-girls, gentlewomen, and ladies of titled rank; country schoolmasters and college professors; men of law of all degrees, from poor john richmond, a plain law-clerk with a lodging in the lawnmarket, to the honourable henry erskine, dean of the faculty; farmers, small and large; lairds, large and small; shoemakers and shopkeepers; ministers, bankers, and doctors; printers, booksellers, editors; knights, earls--nay, a duke; factors and wine-merchants; army officers, and officers of excise. his female correspondents were women of superior intelligence and accomplishments. they can lay claim to a large proportion of his letters. mrs. mclehose takes forty-eight; mrs. dunlop, forty-two; maria riddell, eighteen; peggy chalmers, eleven. these four ladies received among them rather more than one-fourth of the whole of his published correspondence. no four of his male correspondents can be accredited with so many, even though george thomson for his individual share claims fifty-six. it is rather remarkable that so few of the letters are addressed to his own relatives. his cousin, james burness of montrose, and his own younger brother william receive, indeed, ten and eight respectively; but to his other brother gilbert, with whom he was on the most affectionate and confidential terms, there fall but three; to his wife only two; one to his father; and none to either his sisters or his mother. a maternal uncle, samuel brown, is favoured with one--if, indeed, the old man was not scandalised with it--and there are two to james armour, mason in mauchline, his somewhat stony-hearted father-in-law. burns's letters exhibit quite as much variety of mood--seldom, of course, so picturesquely conveyed--as his poems. he is, in promiscuous alternation, refined, gross, sentimental, serious, humorous, indignant, repentant, dignified, vulgar, tender, manly, sceptical, reverential, rakish, pathetic, sympathetic, satirical, playful, pitiably self-abased, mysteriously self-exalted. his letters are confessions and revelations. they are as sincerely and spontaneously autobiographical of his inner life as the sacred lyrics of david the hebrew. they were indited with as much free fearless abandonment. the advice he gave to young andrew to keep something to himsel', not to be told even to a bosom crony, was a maxim of worldly prudence which he himself did not practice. he did not "reck his own rede." and, though that habit of unguarded expression brought upon him the wrath and revenge of the philistines, and kept him in material poverty all his days, yet, prompted as it always was by sincerity, and nearly always by absolute truth, it has made the manhood of to-day richer, stronger, and nobler. the world to-day has all the more the courage of its opinions that burns exercised as a right the freedom of sincere and enlightened speech--and suffered for his bravery. the subjects of his letters are numerous, and, to a pretty large extent, of much the same sort as the subjects of his poems. often, indeed, you have the anticipation of an image or a sentiment which his poetry has made familiar. you have a glimpse of green buds which afterwards unfold into fragrance and colour. this is an interesting connection, of which one or two examples may be given. so early as 1781 he wrote to alison begbie--"once you are convinced i am sincere, i am perfectly certain you have too much goodness and humanity to allow an honest man to languish in suspense only because he loves you too well." alison begbie becomes mary morison, and the sentiment, so elegantly turned in prose for her, is thus melodiously transmuted for the lady-loves of all languishing lovers- "o mary, canst thou wreck his peace wha for thy sake would gladly dee, or canst thou break that heart of his wha's only faut is loving thee? if love for love thou wiltna gie, at least be pity on me shown: a thocht ungentle canna be the thocht o' mary morison!" again, in the first month of 1783 he writes to murdoch, the schoolmaster--"i am quite indolent about those great concerns that set the bustling busy sons of care agog; and if i have wherewith to answer for the present hour, i am very easy with regard to anything further. even the last worst shift of the unfortunate and wretched does not greatly terrify me." just one year later this sentiment was sent current in the well-known stanza concluding- "but, davie lad, ne'er fash your head though we hae little gear; we're fit to win our daily bread as lang's we're hale an' fier; mair speer na, nor fear na; auld age ne'er mind a fig, the last o't, the warst o't, is only for to beg!" again, in the letter last referred to occurs the passage--"i am a strict economist, not indeed for the sake of the money, but one of the principal parts in my composition is a kind of pride, and i scorn to fear the face of any man living. above everything i abhor as hell the idea of sneaking into a corner to avoid a dun." this is metrically rendered, in may 1786, in the following lines:- "to catch dame fortune's golden smile, assiduous wait upon her, and gather gear by every wile that's justified by honour:- not for to hide it in a hedge, nor for a train attendant, but for the glorious privilege of being independent." it would be easy to multiply examples: he is jostled in his letters by market-men before he is "hog-shouthered and jundied" by them in his verse; and the legends of alloway kirk are narrated in a letter to grose before the immortal tale of tam o'shanter is woven for _the antiquities of scotland_. there is nothing morbid or narrow in burns's letters. they are frank and healthy. you can spend a day over them, and feel at the end of it as if you had been wandering at large through the freedom of nature. they seem to have been written in the open air. the first condition necessary to an appreciative understanding of them is to concern yourself with the sentiment. and, indeed, the strength and sincerity of the sentiment by-and-by draw you away to oblivion of the style, however much it may at first strike you as redundant and affected. they are not the letters of a literary man. they have nothing suggestive of the studious chamber and the midnight lamp. there is often a narrowness of idea in the merely literary man which limits his auditory to men of his peculiar pattern. to this narrowness burns, with all his faults of style, was a stranger. his letters are the utterances of a man who refused to be imprisoned in any single department of human thought. he was no specialist, pinned to one standpoint, and making the width of the world commensurate with the narrowness of his own horizon. he moved about, he looked abroad; he had no pet subject, no restricted field of study; nature and human nature in their multitudinous phases and many retreats were his range, and he expressed his views as freely and vigorously as he took them. the general tone of the letters is high. the subject is not seldom of supreme interest. questions are discussed which are rarely discussed in ordinary correspondence. the writer rises above creeds and formularies and arbitrarily established rule. he speculates on a theology beyond the bounds of calvinism, on a philosophy of the soul above the dialectics of the schoolmen, on a morality at variance with conventional law. he interrogates the intuitions of the mind and the intimations of nature in order that, if possible, he may learn something of the soul's origin, destiny, and supremest duty. but let us hear himself:- _(a)_ "i have ever looked on mankind in the lump to be nothing better than a foolish, head-strong, credulous, unthinking mob; and their universal belief has ever had extremely little weight with me.... i am drawn by conviction like a man, not by a halter like an ass." _(b)_ "_'on earth discord! a gloomy heaven above opening its jealous gates to the nineteen-thousandth part of the tithe of mankind! and below an inexorable hell expanding its leviathan jaws for the vast residue of mortals!'_ o doctrine comfortable and healing to the weary wounded soul of man! ye sons and daughters of affliction, to whom day brings no pleasure and night yields no rest, be comforted! 'tis one to but nineteen hundred thousand that your situation will mend in this world, and 'tis nineteen hundred thousand to one, by the dogmas of theology, that you will be damned eternally in the world to come." _(c)_ "a pillar that bears us up amid the wreck of misfortune and misery is to be found in those feelings and sentiments which, however the sceptic may deny or the enthusiast disfigure them, are yet, i am convinced, original and component parts of the human soul; those _senses of the mind_, if i may be allowed the expression, which link us to the awful obscure realities of an all-powerful and equally beneficent god and a world-to-come beyond death and the grave." _(d)_ "can it be possible that when i resign this frail, feverish being i shall still find myself in conscious existence?... shall i yet be warm in life, seeing and seen, enjoying and enjoyed? ye venerable sages and holy flamens, is there probability in your conjectures, truth in your stories, of another world beyond death, or are they all alike baseless visions and fabricated fables? if there is another life, it must only be for the just, the benevolent, the amiable, and the humane; what a flattering idea then is a world to come! would to god i as firmly believed it as i ardently wish it!... jesus christ, thou amiablest of characters! i trust thou art no impostor.... i trust that in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed." _(e)_ "from the seeming nature of the human mind, as well as from the evident imperfections in the administration of affairs, in both the natural and moral worlds, there must be a retributive scene of existence beyond the grave." _(f)_ "i never hear the loud solitary whistle of the curlew in a summer's noon, or the wild mixing cadence of a troop of grey plover in an autumn morning, without feeling an elevation of soul like the enthusiasm of devotion or poetry. tell me, my dear friend, to what can this be owing? are we a piece of machinery, that, like the æolian harp, passive, takes the impression of the passing accident? or do these workings argue something within us above the trodden clod?" _(g)_ "gracious heaven! why this disparity between our wishes and our powers? why is the most generous wish to make others blest, impotent and ineffectual?... out upon the world! say i, that its affairs are administered so ill." _(h)_ "at first glance, several of your propositions startled me as paradoxical. that the martial clangour of a trumpet had something in it vastly more grand, heroic, and sublime than the twingle-twangle of a jew's-harp; that the delicate flexure of a rose-twig, when the half-blown flower is heavy with the tears of the dawn, was infinitely more beautiful and elegant than the upright stub of a burdock; and that, from something innate and independent of all associations of ideas--these i had set down as irrefragable orthodox truths."[a] _(i)_ "o, i could curse circumstances, and the coarse tie of human laws which keeps fast what common-sense would loose, and which bars that happiness it cannot give--happiness which otherwise love and honour would warrant!" _(j)_ "if there is no man on earth to whom your heart and affections are justly due, it may savour of imprudence, but never of criminality, to bestow that heart and those affections where you please. the god of love meant and made those delicious attachments to be bestowed on somebody." the inequalities of fortune, the pleasures of friendship, the miseries of poverty, the glories of independence, the privileges of wealth allied to generosity, the sin of ingratitude, and similar topics, are continually recurring to prove the elevation at which his spirit usually soared and surveyed mankind. it has been charged against him[b] that these subjects were not the food of his daily contemplation, but were lugged into his letters for the sake of effect, and that their clumsy introduction was frequently apologised for by the complaint that the writer had nothing else to write about. the frequent apologies here spoken of will be hard to find, and the critic's only reason for advancing the charge, for which he would fain find support in the fancied apologies of burns, is that many of the letters "relate neither to facts nor feelings peculiarly connected with the author or his correspondent." this only means that a very large proportion of burns's letters are not like the letters of ordinary men, and therefore do not satisfy the critic's idea or definition of a letter. they treat of themes that are not specially _à propos_ of passing events, and therefore they are forced and affected. few are likely to be imposed upon by such shallow reasoning. another critic[c] avers that "while burns says nothing of difficulties at all, he yet leaves an admirable letter, out of nothing, in your hands!" we may pit the one critic against the other, and so leave them, while we peruse the letters, and form an opinion for ourselves. while both the verse and the prose of burns are revelations, his letters reveal more than his poems the failings and frailties of the man. his poems, taken altogether, shew him at his best, as we wish to--and as we mainly do--remember him; a man to be loved, admired, even envied, and by no means pitied, for his soul, though often vexed with the irritations incidental to an obscure and toiling lot, has a strength and buoyancy which readily raise it to divine altitudes, where it might well be content to see and smile at the petty class distinctions and the paltry social tyranny from which those irritations chiefly spring. his letters, on the other hand, present him to us less frequently on those commanding altitudes. he is oftener careful and concerned about many things, groping occasionally in the world's ways for the world's gifts, and handicapped in the struggle for them by a contemptuous and half-hearted adoption of the world's methods of winning them. the same personality that stands forth in the poems is everywhere present in all essential features in the letters. we have in the latter the same view of life, present and future; the same fierce contentment with honest poverty; the same aggressive independency of manhood; the same patriotism, susceptibility to female loveliness, love of sociality, undaunted likes and dislikes. the humour is the same, though often too elaborately expressed.[d] in one important respect, however, his letters fail to reflect that image of him which his poetry presents. it is remarkable that his descriptions of rural nature, and one might add of rustic life, so full and plentiful in his verse, are so few and slight in his letters. he seems to have reserved these descriptions for his verse. the best, because the most genuine, biography of burns is furnished by his own writings. his letters will, if carefully studied, disprove many of the positions taken up so confidently by would-be interpreters of his history. it is not the purpose of this discursive paper to take up the details of the clarinda episode; but philandering is scarcely the word by which to describe the mutual relations of the lovers. as for mrs. m'lehose, the severest thing that can with justice be said against her is that, if she maintained her virtue, she endangered her reputation. one remarkable position taken up by a recent writer[e] on the subject of burns's amours is, that he never really loved any woman, and least of all jean armour. the letters would rather warrant the converse of his statement. they go to prove that while burns's affections were more than oriental in their strength and liberality, they were especially centred upon jean. he felt "a miserable blank in his heart with want of her;" "a rooted attachment for her;" "had no reason on her part to rue his marriage with her;" and "never saw where he could have made it better." if burns was never really in love, it is more than probable that the whole world has been mistaking some other passion for it. it is this same writer who in one breath speaks of burns philandering with clarinda, and yet declaring his attachment to her in the best songs he ever wrote. another error which the letters should correct is the belief expressed in some quarters that burns was no longer capable of producing poetry after his fatal residence in edinburgh. it was, as a matter of fact, subsequent to his residence in edinburgh that he wrote the poems for which he is now, and for which he will be longest, famous--namely, his songs. the writer already referred to compares the composition of these songs to the carving of cherry-stones. they were, he says in effect, the amusement of a man who could do nothing better in literature! the world has agreed that they are the best things burns has done; and rates him for their sake in the highest rank of its poets. the truth is that burns came to ellisland with numerous schemes of future poetical work, vigorous hopes of carrying some of them, and an inspiration and faculty of utterance unimpaired. it was in dumfriesshire that he composed the most tenderly and melodiously seraphic of his lyrics--"to mary in heaven" and "highland mary;" the most powerful and popular of his narrative poems--"tam o' shanter;" the first of all patriotic odes--"bruce's address to his army"; and the noblest manifesto of the rights and hopes of manhood--"a man's a man for a' that." with one word on his style as a prose-writer this short paper must close. the most diverse opinions have been uttered on the subject. the critics trip up each other with charming independency. to jeffrey they seemed to be "all composed as exercises and for display." carlyle declared that they were written "for the most part with singular force and even gracefulness," and that when burns wrote "to trusted friends on real interests, his style became simple, vigorous, expressive, sometimes even beautiful." dr. waddell prefers him to cowper and byron as a letter-writer. scott, while allowing passages of great eloquence, found in the letters "strong marks of affectation, with a tincture of pedantry." taine thinks "burns brought ridicule on himself by imitating the men of the academy and the court." lockhart thought, with walker, that "he accommodated his style to the tastes" of his correspondents. and so on. it is worth while to learn from burns himself what he thought of his talent for prose-composition. and in the first place it is to be noted that he practised prose-composition before he took to poetry. at sixteen he was carrying on an extensive literary correspondence, which was virtually a competition in essay-writing. he kept copies of the letters he liked best, and was flattered to find that he was superior to his correspondents. he studied the essayists of queen anne's time, and formed his style upon theirs, and that of their most distinguished followers. steele, addison, swift, sterne, and mackenzie were his models. he liked their rounded sentences, and caught their conventional phrases. he found delight in imitating them. he volunteered his services with the pen on behalf of his fellow-swains. he became the "complete letter-writer" of his parish, and was proud of his function and his faculty. he was aware of his "abilities at a billet-doux." to the very last he had a high opinion of himself as a writer of letters. he speaks of one letter being in his "very best manner;" and of waiting for an hour of inspiration to write another that should be as good. he retained copies of about thirty of his longer letters, and had them bound for preservation. the most serious, almost the only charge brought against the prose style of burns is the charge of affectation more or less occasional. all the earlier critics make it or imply it, and with such an apparent show of proof that it has generally been believed. later critics, while unable to deny the feature of his style which so looks like affectation, have explained it to such good effect as to make it appear a beauty; they have asked us to regard it as the happy result of a sympathetic mind adapting itself to the object of its address. this looks very like blaming burns's correspondents for the badness of his style. there is some truth in the explanation, putting it even so extremely. but when this allowance is made, there still remains a wide and well-marked difference between his use of english prose and his mastery of scottish verse. the latter is complete--it is the mastery of an originator of style. the former, on the other hand, is the attainment of a clever pupil when the sentiment is commonplace; when it is deep and vehement, it is often, in the language of carlyle, "the effort of a man to express something which he has no organ fit for expressing." common people, to whom niceties of style are unknown, and who read primarily or exclusively for the sake of the matter, perceive nothing of this affectation, and think scarcely less highly of burns's letters than they do of his poetry. j. logie robertson. 7 lockharton terrace, slateford, edinburgh. [footnote a: this is really the exposure of an absurdity.] [footnote b: by jeffrey.] [footnote c: dr. hately waddell.] [footnote d: see, for example, the _cheese_ letter to peter hill, or the _snail's-horns_ letter to mrs. dunlop.] [footnote e: mr. r. l. stevenson.] general correspondence. letters i.--to ellison or alison begbie (?) [1] what you may think of this letter when you see the name that subscribes it i cannot know; and perhaps i ought to make a long preface of apologies for the freedom i am going to take; but as my heart means no offence, but, on the contrary, is rather too warmly interested in your favour,--for that reason i hope you will forgive me when i tell you that i most sincerely and affectionately love you. i am a stranger in these matters, a---, as i assure you that you are the first woman to whom i ever made such a declaration; so i declare i am at a loss how to proceed. i have more than once come into your company with a resolution to say what i have just now told you; but my resolution always failed me, and even now my heart trembles for the consequence of what i have said. i hope, my dear a----, you will not despise me because i am ignorant of the flattering arts of courtship: i hope my inexperience of the work will plead for me. i can only say i sincerely love you, and there is nothing on earth i so ardently wish for, or that could possibly give me so much happiness, as one day to see you mine. i think you cannot doubt my sincerity, as i am sure that whenever i see you my very looks betray me: and when once you are convinced i am sincere, i am perfectly certain you have too much goodness and humanity to allow an honest man to languish in suspense only because he loves you too well. and i am certain that in such a state of anxiety as i myself at present feel, an absolute denial would be a much preferable state. [footnote 1: the original ms. of the foregoing letter is the property of john adam, esquire, greenock, and the letter was first published in 1878. if it is a genuine love-letter, and not a mere exercise in love-letter writing, it was probably the first of the short series to alison begbie, who is supposed to have been the daughter of a small farmer, and who has been identified with the mary morison of the well-known lyric. the sentiment of the last paragraph of the letter agrees with the sentiment of the last stanza of the song.] * * * * * ii.-to ellison begbie. [lochlie, 1780.] my dear e.,--i do not remember, in the course of your acquaintance and mine, ever to have heard your opinion on the ordinary way of falling in love, amongst people in our station in life; i do not mean the persons who proceed in the way of bargain, but those whose affection is really placed on the person. though i be, as you know very well, but a very awkward lover myself, yet, as i have some opportunities of observing the conduct of others who are much better skilled in the affair of courtship than i am, i often think it is owing to lucky chance, more than to good management, that there are not more unhappy marriages than usually are. it is natural for a young fellow to like the acquaintance of the females, and customary for him to keep them company when occasion serves; some one of them is more agreeable to him than the rest; there is something, he knows not what, pleases him, he knows not how, in her company. this i take to be what is called love with the greater part of us; and i must own, my dear e., it is a hard game such a one as you have to play when you meet with such a lover. you cannot refuse but he is sincere, and yet though you use him ever so favourably, perhaps in a few months, or at farthest in a year or two, the same unaccountable fancy may make him as distractedly fond of another, whilst you are quite forgot. i am aware that perhaps the next time i have the pleasure of seeing you, you may bid me take my own lesson home, and tell me that the passion i have professed for you is perhaps one of those transient flashes i have been describing; but i hope, my dear e., you will do me the justice to believe me, when i assure you that the love i have for you is founded on the sacred principles of virtue and honour, and by consequence so long as you continue possessed of those amiable qualities which first inspired my passion for you, so long must i continue to love you. believe me, my dear, it is love like this alone which can render the marriage state happy. people may talk of flames and raptures as long as they please, and a warm fancy, with a flow of youthful spirits, may make them feel something like what they describe; but sure i am the nobler faculties of the mind with kindred feelings of the heart can only be the foundation of friendship, and it has always been my opinion that the married life was only friendship in a more exalted degree. if you will be so good as to grant my wishes, and it should please providence to spare us to the latest periods of life, i can look forward and see that, even then, though bent down with wrinkled age--even then, when all other worldly circumstances will be indifferent to me, i will regard my e. with the tenderest affection, and for this plain reason, because she is still possessed of those noble qualities, improved to a much higher degree, which first inspired my affection for her. o! happy state, when souls each other draw, where love is liberty, and nature law. i know, were i to speak in such a style to many a girl, who thinks herself possessed of no small share of sense, she would think it ridiculous--but the language of the heart is, my dear e., the only courtship i shall ever use to you. when i look over what i have written, i am sensible it is vastly different from the ordinary style of courtship--but i shall make no apology--i know your good nature will excuse what your good sense may see amiss. * * * * * iii.--to ellison begbie. [lochlie, 1780.] i verily believe, my dear e., that the pure genuine feelings of love are as rare in the world as the pure genuine principles of virtue and piety. this, i hope, will account for the uncommon style of all my letters to you. by uncommon, i mean their being written in such a serious manner, which, to tell you the truth, has made me often afraid lest you should take me for some zealous bigot, who conversed with his mistress as he would converse with his minister. i don't know how it is, my dear; for though, except your company, there is nothing on earth gives me so much pleasure as writing to you, yet it never gives me those giddy raptures so much talked of among lovers. i have often thought, that if a well-grounded affection be not really a part of virtue, 'tis something extremely akin to it. whenever the thought of my e. warms my heart, every feeling of humanity, every principle of generosity, kindles in my breast. it extinguishes every dirty spark of malice and envy, which are but too apt to infest me. i grasp every creature in the arms of universal benevolence, and equally participate in the pleasures of the happy, and sympathise with the miseries of the unfortunate. i assure you, my dear, i often look up to the divine disposer of events with an eye of gratitude for the blessing which i hope he intends to bestow on me, in bestowing you. i sincerely wish that he may bless my endeavours to make your life as comfortable and happy as possible, both in sweetening the rougher parts of my natural temper, and bettering the unkindly circumstances of my fortune. this, my dear, is a passion, at least in my view, worthy of a man, and, i will add, worthy of a christian. the sordid earth-worm may profess love to a woman's person, whilst, in reality, his affection is centred in her pocket; and the slavish drudge may go a-wooing as he goes to the horse-market, to choose one who is stout and firm, and as we say of an old horse, one who will be a good drudge and draw kindly. i disdain their dirty, puny ideas. i would be heartily out of humour with myself, if i thought i were capable of having so poor a notion of the sex, which were designed to crown the pleasures of society. poor devils! i don't envy them their happiness who have such notions. for my part, i propose quite other pleasures with my dear partner. * * * * * iv.--to ellison begbie. [lochlie, 178l.] my dear e.,--i have often thought it a peculiarly unlucky circumstance in love, that though, in every other situation in life, telling the truth is not only the safest, but actually by far the easiest way of proceeding, a lover is never under greater difficulty in acting, or more puzzled for expression, than when his passion is sincere, and his intentions are honourable. i do not think that it is very difficult for a person of ordinary capacity to talk of love and fondness which are not felt, and to make vows of constancy and fidelity which are never intended to be performed, if he be villain enough to practice such detestable conduct; but to a man whose heart glows with the principles of integrity and truth, and who sincerely loves a woman of amiable person, uncommon refinement of sentiment, and purity of manners--to such a one, in such circumstances, i can assure you, my dear, from my own feelings at this present moment, courtship is a task indeed. there is such a number of foreboding fears and distrustful anxieties crowd into my mind when i am in your company, or when i sit down to write to you, that what to speak or what to write, i am altogether at a loss. there is one rule which i have hitherto practised, and which i shall invariably keep with you, and that is, honestly to tell you the plain truth. there is something so mean and unmanly in the arts of dissimulation and falsehood, that i am surprised they can be used by any one in so noble, so generous a passion as virtuous love. no, my dear e., i shall never endeavour to gain your favour by such detestable practices. if you will be so good and so generous as to admit me for your partner, your companion, your bosom friend through life, there is nothing on this side of eternity shall give me greater transport; but i shall never think of purchasing your hand by any arts unworthy of a man, and, i will add, of a christian. there is one thing, my dear, which i earnestly request of you, and it is this: that you would soon either put an end to my hopes by a peremptory refusal, or cure me of my fears by a generous consent. it would oblige me much if you would send me a line or two when convenient. i shall only add, further, that if behaviour, regulated (though perhaps but very imperfectly) by the rules of honour and virtue, if a heart devoted to love and esteem you, and an earnest endeavour to promote your happiness; if these are qualities you would wish in a friend, in a husband, i hope you shall ever find them in your real friend and sincere lover. * * * * * v.-to ellison begboe. [lochlie, 1781.] i ought, in good manners, to have acknowledged the receipt of your letter before this time, but my heart was so shocked with the contents of it, that i can scarcely yet collect my thoughts so as to write you on the subject. i will not attempt to describe what i felt on receiving your letter. i read it over and over, again and again, and though it was in the politest language of refusal, still it was peremptory; "you were sorry you could not make me a return, but you wish me" what, without you, i never can obtain, "you wish me all kind of happiness." it would be weak and unmanly to say that without you i never can be happy; but sure i am, that sharing life with you would have given it a relish, that, wanting you, i can never taste. your uncommon personal advantages, and your superior good sense, do not so much strike me; these, possibly, in a few instances may be met with in others; but that amiable goodness, that tender feminine softness, that endearing sweetness of disposition, with all the charming offspring of a warm feeling heart--these i never again expect to meet with, in such a degree, in this world. all these charming qualities, heightened by an education much beyond anything i have ever met in any woman i ever dared to approach, have made an impression on my heart that i do not think the world can ever efface. my imagination has fondly flattered myself with a wish, i dare not say it ever reached a hope, that possibly i might one day call you mine. i had formed the most delightful images, and my fancy fondly brooded over them; but now i am wretched for the loss of what i really had no right to expect. i must now think no more of you as a mistress; still i presume to ask to be admitted as a friend. as such i wish to be allowed to wait on you, and as i expect to remove in a few days a little further off, and you, i suppose, will soon leave this place, i wish to see or hear from you soon; and if an expression should perhaps escape me, rather too warm for friendship, i hope you will pardon it in, my dear miss--, (pardon me the dear expression for once) r. b. * * * * * vi.--to his father. irvine, _december 27,_ 1781. honoured sir,--i have purposely delayed writing in the hope that i should have the pleasure of seeing you on new year's day; but work comes so hard upon us that i do not choose to be absent on that account, as well as for some other little reasons which i shall tell you at meeting. my health is nearly the same as when you were here, only my sleep is a little sounder, and on the whole i am rather better than otherwise, though i mend by very slow degrees. the weakness of my nerves has so debilitated my mind that i dare neither review my past wants nor look forward into futurity; for the least anxiety or perturbation in my breast produces most unhappy effects on my whole frame. sometimes, indeed, when for an hour or two my spirits are a little lightened, i glimmer a little into futurity; but my principal, and indeed my only pleasurable, employment, is looking backwards and forwards in a moral and religious way; i am quite transported at the thought, that ere long, perhaps very soon, i shall bid an eternal adieu to all the pains, and uneasiness, and disquietudes of this weary life; for i assure you i am heartily tired of it; and, if i do not very much deceive myself, i could contentedly and gladly resign it. the soul, uneasy, and confin'd at home, rests and expatiates in a life to come. it is for this reason i am more pleased with the 15th, 16th, and 17th verses of the 7th chapter of revelation[2] than with any ten times as many verses in the whole bible, and would not exchange the whole noble enthusiasm with which they inspire me, for all that this world has to offer. as for this world, i despair of ever making a figure in it i am not formed for the bustle of the busy, nor the flutter of the gay. i shall never again be capable of entering into such scenes. indeed, i am altogether unconcerned at the thoughts of this life. i foresee that poverty and obscurity probably await me, and i am in some measure prepared, and daily preparing, to meet them. i have but just time and paper to return you my grateful thanks for the lessons of virtue and piety you have given me, which were too much neglected at the time of giving them, but which i hope have been remembered ere it is yet too late. present my dutiful respects to my mother, and my compliments to mr. and mrs. muir; and with wishing you a merry new-year's day, i shall conclude.--i am, honoured sir, your dutiful son, robert burness. p. s.--my meal is nearly out, but i am going to borrow till i get more. [footnote 2: "therefore are they before the throne of god, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. they shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. for the lamb, which is in the midst of the throne, shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters; and god shall wipe away all tears from their eyes."] * * * * * vii.--to sir john whitefoord, bart., of ballochmyle.[3] sir,--we who subscribe this are both members of st. james's lodge, tarbolton, and one of us in the office of warden, and as we have the honour of having you for master of our lodge we hope you will excuse this freedom, as you are the proper person to whom we ought to apply. we look on our mason lodge to be a serious matter, both with respect to the character of masonry itself, and likewise as it is a charitable society. this last, indeed, does not interest you further than a benevolent heart is interested in the welfare of its fellow-creatures; but to us, sir, who are of the lower order of mankind, to have a fund in view on which we may with certainty depend to be kept from want, should we be in circumstances of distress, or old age--this is a matter of high importance. we are sorry to observe that our lodge's affairs with respect to its finances have for a good while been in a wretched situation. we have considerable sums in bills which lie by without being paid, or put in execution, and many of our members never mind their yearly dues, or anything else belonging to the lodge. and since the separation[4] from st. david's we are not sure even of our existence as a lodge. there has been a dispute before the grand lodge, but how decided, or if decided at all, we know not. for these and other reasons we humbly beg the favour of you, as soon as convenient, to call a meeting, and let us consider on some means to retrieve our wretched affairs.--we are, etc. [footnote 3: the ms. of the foregoing joint letter in burns's handwriting belongs to john adam, esquire, greenock, and the letter was first published in 1878. burns was first admitted in st. david's (tarbolton) lodge in july, 1781. at the separation preferred to he became a member of the new lodge, st. james's, of which, two years afterwards, he was depute-master.] [footnote 4: it was in june, 1782.] * * * * * viii.--to mr. john murdoch, school-master, staples inn buildings, london. lochlie, _15th january_, 1783. dear sir,--as i have an opportunity of sending you a letter without putting you to that expense which any production of mine would but ill repay, i embrace it with pleasure, to tell you that i have not forgotten, or ever will forget, the many obligations i lie under to your kindness and friendship. i do not doubt, sir, but you will wish to know what has been the result of all the pains of an indulgent father, and a masterly teacher; and i wish i could gratify your curiosity with such a recital as you would be pleased with;--but that is what i am afraid will not be the case. i have, indeed, kept pretty clear of vicious habits; and in this respect, i hope, my conduct will not disgrace the education i have gotten; but as a man of the world, i am most miserably deficient. one would have thought that, bred as i have been, under a father who has figured pretty well as _un homme des affaires_, i might have been what the world calls a pushing active fellow; but to tell you the truth, sir, there is hardly anything more my reverse. i seem to be one sent into the world to see and observe; and i very easily compound with the knave who tricks me of my money, if there be anything original about him which shows me human nature in a different light from anything i have seen before. in short, the joy of my heart is to "study men, their manners, and their ways;" and for this darling subject, i cheerfully sacrifice every other consideration. i am quite indolent about those great concerns that set the bustling, busy sons of care agog; and if i have to answer for the present hour, i am very easy with regard to anything further. even the last, worst shift of the unfortunate and the wretched[5] does not much terrify me: i know that even then my talent for what countryfolks call "a sensible crack," when once it is sanctified by a hoary head, would procure me so much esteem that even then--i would learn to be happy. however, i am under no apprehensions about that; for though indolent, yet so far as an extremely delicate constitution permits, i am not lazy; and in many things, especially in tavern matters, i am a strict economist; not, indeed, for the sake of the money; but one of the principal parts in my composition is a kind of pride of stomach; and i scorn to fear the face of any man living: above every thing, i abhor as hell the idea of sneaking in a corner to avoid a dun--possibly some pitiful sordid wretch, whom in my heart i despise and detest. 'tis this, and this alone, that endears economy to me.[6] in the matter of books, indeed, i am very profuse. my favourite authors are of the sentimental kind, such as shenstone, particularly his _elegies;_ thomson; _man of feeling,_--a book i prize next to the bible; _man of the world_; sterne, especially his _sentimental journey_; macpherson's _ossian_, etc.;--these are the glorious models after which i endeavour to form my conduct, and 'tis incongruous--'tis absurd to suppose that the man whose mind glows with sentiments lighted up at their sacred flame--the man whose heart distends with benevolence to all the human race--he "who can soar above this little scene of things"--can he descend to mind the paltry concerns about which the terrae-filial race fret, and fume, and vex themselves! o, how the glorious triumph swells my heart! i forget that i am a poor insignificant devil, unnoticed and unknown, stalking up and down fairs and markets, when i happen to be in them reading a page or two of mankind, and "catching the manners living as they rise," whilst the men of business jostle me on every side as an idle incumbrance in their way. but, i daresay, i have by this time tired your patience; so i shall conclude with begging you to give mrs. murdoch--not my compliments, for that is a mere commonplace story; but my warmest, kindest wishes for her welfare; and accept the same for yourself, from,--dear sir, yours, etc. [footnote 5: "the last o't, the warst o't, is only for to beg." --_first epistle to davie._] [footnote 6: "for the glorious privilege of being independent." --_epistle to a young friend. _] * * * * * ix.--to his cousin, mr. james burness, writer, montrose. lochlie, _21st june, 1783._ dear sir,--my father received your favour of the both current, and as he has been for some months very poorly in health, and is in his own opinion (and, indeed, in almost every body's else) in a dying condition, he has only, with great difficulty, written a few farewell lines to each of his brothers-in-law. for this melancholy reason, i now hold the pen for him to thank you for your kind letter, and to assure you, sir, that it shall not be my fault if my father's correspondence in the north die with him. my brother writes to john caird,[6] and to him i must refer you for the news of our family. i shall only trouble you with a few particulars relative to the wretched state of this country. our markets are exceedingly high; oatmeal 17d. and 18d. per peck, and not to be got even at that price. we have indeed been pretty well supplied with quantities of white peas from england and elsewhere, but that resource is likely to fail us, and what will become of us then, particularly the very poorest sort, heaven only knows. this country, till of late, was flourishing incredibly in the manufacture of silk, lawn, and carpet-weaving; and we are still carrying on a good deal in that way, but much reduced from what it was. we had also a fine trade in the shoe way, but now entirely ruined, and hundreds driven to a starving condition on account of it. farming is also at a very low ebb with us. our lands, generally speaking, are mountainous and barren; and our land-holders, full of ideas of farming gathered from the english and the lothians, and other rich soils in scotland, make no allowance for the odds of the quality of land, and consequently stretch us much beyond what in the event we will be found able to pay. we are also much at a loss for want of proper methods in our improvements of farming. necessity compels us to leave our old schemes, and few of us have opportunities of being well informed in new ones. in short, my dear sir, since the unfortunate beginning of this american war, and its as unfortunate conclusion, this country has been, and still is, decaying very fast. even in higher life, a couple of ayrshire noblemen, and the major part of our knights and squires, are all insolvent. a miserable job of a douglas, heron & co.'s bank, which no doubt you have heard of, has undone numbers of them; and imitating english and french, and other foreign luxuries and fopperies, has ruined as many more. there is a great trade of smuggling carried on along our coasts, which, however destructive to the interests of the kingdom at large, certainly enriches this corner of it, but too often at the expense of our morals. however, it enables individuals to make, at least for a time, a splendid appearance; but fortune, as is usual with her when she is uncommonly lavish of her favours, is generally even with them at last; and happy were it for numbers of them if she would leave them no worse than when she found them. my mother sends you a small present of a cheese; 'tis but a very little one, as our last year's stock is sold off; but if you could fix on any correspondent in edinburgh or glasgow, we would send you a proper one in the season. mrs. black promises to take the cheese under her care so far, and then to send it to you by the stirling carrier. i shall conclude this long letter with assuring you that i shall be very happy to hear from you, or any of our friends in your country, when opportunity serves. my father sends you, probably for the last time in this world, his warmest wishes for your welfare and happiness; and my mother and the rest of the family desire to inclose their kind compliments to you, mrs. burness, and the rest of your family, along with those of, dear sir, your affectionate cousin, [footnote 6: the writer's uncle.] * * * * * x.-to mr. james burness, writer, montrose. lochlie, 17th feb. 1784. dear cousin,--i would have returned you my thanks for your kind favour of the 13th of december sooner, had it not been that i waited to give you an account of that melancholy event, which, for some time past, we have from day to day expected. on the 13th current i lost the best of fathers. though, to be sure, we have had long warning of the impending stroke, still the feelings of nature claim their part, and i cannot recollect the tender endearments and parental lessons of the best of friends and ablest of instructors, without feeling what perhaps the calmer dictates of reason would partly condemn. i hope my father's friends in your country will not let their connection in this place die with him. for my part i shall ever with pleasure--with pride, acknowledge my connection with those who were allied by the ties of blood and friendship to a man whose memory i shall ever honour and revere. i expect, therefore, my dear sir, you will not neglect any opportunity of letting me hear from you, which will very much oblige,--my dear cousin, yours sincerely, robert burness. * * * * * xi.--to mr. james burness, writer, montrose. mossgiel, _3rd august_ 1784. my dear sir,--i ought in gratitude to have acknowledged the receipt of your last kind letter before this time, but, without troubling you with any apology, i shall proceed to inform you that our family are all in good health at present, and we were very happy with the unexpected favour of john caird's[6a] company for nearly two weeks, and i must say it of him that he is one of the most agreeable, facetious, warm-hearted lads i was ever acquainted with. we have been surprised with one of the most extraordinary phenomena in the moral world, which, i dare say, has happened in the course of this half century. we have had a party of presbytery relief, as they call themselves, for some time in this country. a pretty thriving society of them has been in the burgh of irvine for some years past, till about two years ago a mrs. buchan from glasgow came among them, and began to spread some fanatical notions of religion among them, and in a short time made many converts; and among others their preacher, mr. whyte, who, upon that account, has been suspended and formally deposed by his brethren. he continued, however, to preach in private to his party, and was supported, both he, and their spiritual mother, as they affect to call old buchan, by the contributions of the rest, several of whom were in good circumstances; till, in spring last, the populace rose and mobbed mrs. buchan, and put her out of the town; on which all her followers voluntarily quitted the place likewise, and with such precipitation that many of them never shut their doors behind them; one left a washing on the green, another a cow bellowing at the crib without food or anybody to mind her, and after several stages they are fixed at present in the neighbourhood of dumfries. their tenets are a strange jumble of enthusiastic jargon; among others, she pretends to give them the holy ghost by breathing on them, which she does with postures and practices that are scandalously indecent; they have likewise disposed of all their effects, and hold a community of goods, and live nearly an idle life, carrying on a great farce of pretended devotion in barns and woods, where they lodge and lie all together, and hold likewise a community of women, as it is another of their tenets that they can commit no moral sin. i am personally acquainted with most of them, and i can assure you the above mentioned are facts. this, my dear sir, is one of the many instances of the folly of leaving the guidance of sound reason and common sense in matters of religion. whenever we neglect or despise these sacred monitors, the whimsical notions of a perturbated brain are taken for the immediate influences of the deity, and the wildest fanaticism, and the most inconsistent absurdities, will meet with abetters and converts. nay, i have often thought, that the more out-of-the-way and ridiculous the fancies are, if once they are sanctified under the sacred name of religion, the unhappy mistaken votaries are the more firmly glued to them. i expect to hear from you soon, and i beg you will remember me to all friends, and believe me to be, my dear sir, your affectionate cousin, robert burness. p.s.--direct to me at mossgiel, parish of mauchline, near kilmarnock. [footnote 6a: probably john caird, junior, as the father would be over sixty if he was about his wife's age, and she, elspat burnes, was born, we know, in 1725.] * * * * * xii.--to thomas orr, park, kirkoswald. dear thomas,--i am much obliged to you for your last letter, though i assure you the contents of it gave me no manner of concern. i am presently so cursedly taken in with an affair of gallantry that i am very glad peggy[7] is off my hand, as i am at present embarrassed enough[7a] without her. i don't choose to enter into particulars in writing, but never was a poor rakish rascal in a more pitiful taking. i should be glad to see you to tell you the affair.--meanwhile i am your friend, robert burness. mossgavil, 11_th nov_. 1784. [footnote 7: peggy thomson.] [footnote 7a: birth of his illegitimate child by elizabeth paton, once a servant with his father at lochlie.] * * * * * xiii.-to miss margaret kennedy.[8] [_a young lady of seventeen, when this letter was addressed to her, and on a visit to mrs. gavin hamilton at mauchline._] [_probably autumn_, 1785.] 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 sketch of your portrait in the unembellished simple manner of descriptive truth. flattery i leave to your lovers whose exaggerating fancies may make them imagine you are 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 most of his species. even the sight of a fine flower, or the company of a fine woman (by far the finest part of god's works below), has sensations for the poetic heart that the herd of men 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 villainy 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, etc. r. b. [footnote 8: niece of sir andrew cathcait, of carleton. a melancholy interest attaches to her subsequent history. burns's prayers for her happiness were unavailing.] * * * * * xiv.--to miss ----, ayrshire.[9] [1785.] my dear countrywoman,--i am so impatient to show you that i am once more at peace with you, that i send you the book i mentioned, directly, rather than wait the uncertain time of my seeing you. i am afraid i have mislaid or lost collins's poems, which i promised to miss irvin. if i can find them i will forward them by you; if not, you must apologise for me. i know you will laugh at it when i tell you that your piano and you together have played the deuce somehow about my heart. my breast has been widowed these many months, and i thought myself proof against the fascinating witchcraft; but i am afraid you will "feelingly convince me what i am.". i say, i am afraid, because i am not sure what is the matter with me. i have one miserable bad symptom,--when you whisper, or look kindly to another, it gives me a draught of damnation. i have a kind of wayward wish to be with you ten minutes by yourself, though what i would say, heaven above knows, for i am sure i know not. i have no formed design in all this; but just, in the nakedness of my heart, write you down a mere matter-of-fact story. you may perhaps give yourself airs of distance on this, and that will completely cure me; but i wish you would not; just let us meet, if you please, in the old beaten way of friendship. i will not subscribe myself your humble servant, for that is a phrase, i think, at least fifty miles off from the heart; but i will conclude with sincerely wishing that the great protector of innocence may shield you from the barbed dart of calumny, and hand you by the covert snare of deceit. r. b. [footnote 9: lady unidentified.] * * * * * xv.--to mr. john richmond, law clerk, edinburgh.[10] mossgiel, _feb. 17th_, 1786. my dear sir,--i have not time at present to upbraid you for your silence and neglect; i shall only say i received yours with great pleasure. i have enclosed you a piece of rhyming ware for your perusal. i have been very busy with the muses since i saw you, and have composed, among several others, "the ordination," a poem on mr. m'kinlay's being called to kilmarnock; "scotch drink," a poem; "the cottar's saturday night;" "an address to the devil," etc. i have likewise completed my poem on the "dogs," but have not shown it to the world. my chief patron now is mr. aikin, in ayr, who is pleased to express great approbation of my works. be so good as send me fergusson[11], by connell, and i will remit you the money. i have no news to acquaint you with about mauchline, they are just going on in the old way. i have some very important news with respect to myself, not the most agreeable--news that i am sure you cannot guess, but i shall give you the particulars another time. i am extremely happy with smith;[11a] he is the only friend i have now in mauchline. i can scarcely forgive your long neglect of me, and i beg you will let me hear from you regularly by connell. if you would act your part as a friend, i am sure neither good nor bad fortune should estrange or alter me. excuse haste, as i got yours but yesterday.--i am, my dear sir, yours, robert burness. [footnote 10: three months before this letter was written richmond was a clerk in the office of mr. gavin hamilton, writer, mauchline.] [footnote 11: fergusson's _poems_.] [footnote 11a: keeper of a haberdashery store in mauchline.] * * * * * xvi.-to mr. james smith[12], shopkeeper, mauchline. [_spring of _1786.] ... against two things i am fixed as fate,--staying at home, and owning her conjugally. the first, by heaven, i will not do!--the last, by hell, i will never do! a good god bless you, and make you happy up to the warmest weeping wish of parting friendship! ... if you see jean tell her i will meet her, so help me god in my hour of need! r. b. [footnote 12: the confidant of his amour with jean armour, daughter of james armour, mason, mauchline. notwithstanding the blustering threat--for which smith was probably more than half responsible--burns was afterwards content to "own bonny jean conjugally."] * * * * xvii.--to mr. robert muir, wine merchant, kilmarnock. mossgiel, 20_th march_, 1786. dear sir,--i am heartily sorry i had not the pleasure of seeing you as you returned through mauchline; but as i was engaged, i could not be in town before the evening. i here inclose you my "scotch drink," and "may the deil follow with a blessing for your edification." i hope, sometime before we hear the gowk, to have the pleasure of seeing you at kilmarnock, when i intend we shall have a gill between us, in a mutchkin-stoup; which will be a great comfort and consolation to, dear sir, your humble servant, robert burness. * * * * xviii.--to mr. john ballantine, banker, ayr. (?) [_april_ 1786.] honoured sir,--my proposals[12a] came to hand last night, and, knowing that you would wish to have it in your power to do me a service as early as any body, i enclose you half a sheet of them. i must consult you, first opportunity, on the propriety of sending my _quondam_ friend, mr. aiken,[12b] a copy. if he is now reconciled to my character as an honest man, i would do it with all my soul; but i would not be beholden to the noblest being ever god created if he imagined me to be a rascal. _apropos_, old mr. armour prevailed with him to mutilate that unlucky paper[12c] yesterday. would you believe it? though i had not a hope, nor even a wish to make her mine after her conduct, yet when he told me the names were cut out of the paper, my heart died within me, and he cut my veins with the news. perdition seize her falsehood! robert burns. [footnote 12a: proposals for publishing his scottish poems by subscription.] [footnote 12b: writer in ayr.] [footnote 12c: the written acknowledgment of his marriage which burns gave to jean. she, influenced by her father, consented to destroy it.] * * * * xix.--to mr. m'whinnie, writer, ayr. [mossgiel, 17_th april_ 1786.] it is injuring some hearts, those hearts that elegantly bear the impression of the good creator, to say to them you give them the trouble of obliging a friend; for this reason, i only tell you that i gratify my own feelings in requesting your friendly offices with respect to the enclosed, because i know it will gratify yours to assist me in it to the utmost of your power. i have sent you four copies, as i have no less than eight dozen, which is a great deal more than i shall ever need. be sure to remember a poor poet militant in your prayers he looks forward with fear[13] and trembling to that, to him, important moment which stamps the die with--with--with, perhaps, the eternal disgrace of, my dear sir, your humble, afflicted, tormented, robert burns. [footnote 13: cp. "something cries _hoolie! i rede ye, honest man, tak tent, ye'll show your folly!_"] * * * * xx.--to john arnot, esquire, of dalquatswood. [_april_ 1786.] sir,--i have long wished for some kind of claim to the honour of your acquaintance, and since it is out of my power to make that claim by the least service of mine to you, i shall do it by asking a friendly office of you to me.--i should be much hurt, sir, if any one should view my poor parnassian pegasus in the light of a spur-galled hack, and think that i wish to make a shilling or two by him. i spurn the thought. it may do, maun do, sir, wi' them who maun please the great-folk for a wame-fou; for me, sae laigh i needna boo for, lord be thankit! i can ploo; and, when i downa yoke a naig, then, lord be thankit! i can beg. you will then, i hope, sir, forgive my troubling you with the enclosed,[14] and spare a poor heart-crushed devil a world of apologies--a business he is very unfit for at any time, but at present, widowed as he is of every woman-giving comfort, he is utterly incapable of. sad and grievous of late, sir, has been my tribulation, and many and piercing my sorrows; and, had it not been for the loss the world would have sustained in losing so great a poet, i had ere now done as a much wiser man, the famous achitophel of long-headed memory, did before me, when he "went home and set his house in order." i have lost, sir, that dearest earthly treasure, that greatest blessing here below, that last, best gift which completed adam's happiness in the garden of bliss; i have lost, i have lost--my trembling hand refuses its office, the frighted ink recoils up the quill,--i have lost a, a, a wife. fairest of god's creation, last and best, now art thou lost! you have doubtless, sir, heard my story, heard it with all its exaggerations; but as my actions, and my motives for action, are peculiarly like myself and that is peculiarly like nobody else, i shall just beg a leisure moment and a spare tear of you until i tell my own story my own way. i have been all my life, sir, one of the rueful-looking, long-visaged sons of disappointment. a damned star has always kept my zenith, and shed its hateful influence in the emphatic curse of the prophet--"and behold whatsoever he doth, it shall not prosper!" i rarely hit where i aim, and if i want anything, i am almost sure never to find it where i seek it. for instance, if my penknife is needed, i pull out twenty things--a plough-wedge, a horse nail, an old letter, or a tattered rhyme, in short, everything but my penknife; and that, at last, after a painful, fruitless search, will be found in the unsuspected corner of an unsuspected pocket, as if on purpose thrust out of the way. still, sir, i long had a wishing eye to that inestimable blessing, a wife. ... a young fellow, after a few idle commonplace stories from a gentleman in black ... no one durst say black was his eye; while i ... only wanting that ceremony, am made a sunday's laughing-stock, and abused like a pickpocket. i was well aware, though, that if my ill-starred fortune got the least hint of my connubial wish, my scheme would go to nothing. to prevent this i determined to take my measures with such thought and fore-thought, such cautions and precautions, that all the malignant planets in the hemisphere should be unable to blight my designs .... heaven and earth! must i remember? my damned star wheeled about to the zenith, by whose baleful rays fortune took the alarm.[15a] ... in short, pharaoh at the red sea, darius at arbela, pompey at pharsalia, edward at bannockburn, charles at pultoway, burgoyne at saratoga--no prince, potentate, or commander of ancient or modern unfortunate memory ever got a more shameful or more total defeat. how i bore this can only be conceived. all powers of recital labour far, far behind. there is a pretty large portion of bedlam in the composition of a poet at any time; but on this occasion i was nine parts and nine tenths, out of ten, stark staring mad. at first i was fixed in stuporific insensibility, silent, sullen, staring like lot's wife besaltified in the plains of gomorrha. but my second paroxysm chiefly beggars description. the rifted northern ocean, when returning suns dissolve the chains of winter, and loosening precipices of long-accumulated ice tempest with hideous crash the foaming deep,--images like these may give some faint shadow of what was the situation of my bosom. my chained faculties broke loose; my maddening passions, roused to tenfold fury, bore over their banks with impetuous, resistless force, carrying every check and principle before them. counsel was an unheeded call to the passing hurricane; reason a screaming elk in the vortex of malstrom; and religion a feebly-struggling beaver down the roarings of niagara. i reprobated the first moment of my existence; execrated adam's folly-infatuated wish for that goodly-looking but poison-breathing gift which had ruined him and undone me; and called on the womb of uncreated night to close over me and all my sorrows. a storm naturally overblows itself. my spent passions gradually sunk into a lurid calm; and by degrees i have subsided into the time-settled sorrow of the sable-widower, who, wiping away the decent tear, lifts up his grief-worn eye to look-for another wife. such is the state of man; to-day he buds his tender leaves of hope; to-morrow blossoms and bears his blushing honours thick upon him; the third day comes a frost, a killing frost, and nips his root, and then he falls as i do.[15] such, sir, has been the fatal era of my life. and it came to pass that when i looked for sweet, behold bitter; and for light, behold darkness. but this is not all: already the holy beagles begin to snuff the scent, and i expect every moment to see them cast off, and hear them after me in full cry; but as i am an old fox, i shall give them dodging and doubling for it, and by and by i intend to earth among the mountains of jamaica. i am so struck, on a review, with the impertinent length of this letter, that i shall not increase it with one single word of apology, but abruptly conclude with assuring you that i am, sir, yours and misery's most humble servant. robert burns. [footnote 14: proposals for publishing.] [footnote 15: misquoted from shakspeare's _henry viii_.] [footnote 15a: reference to the rejection of his acknowledgment of marriage.] * * * * xxi.--to mr. david brice, shoemaker, glasgow. mossgiel, _june_ 12_th_, 1786. dear brice,--i received your message by g. paterson, and as i am not very _throng_ at present, i just write to let you know that there is such a worthless, rhyming reprobate as your humble servant still in the land of the living, though i can scarcely say in the place of hope. i have no news to tell you that will give me any pleasure to mention, or you to hear. poor, ill-advised, ungrateful armour came home on friday last. you have heard all the particulars of that affair, and a black affair it is. what she thinks of her conduct now i don't know; one thing i do know--she has made me completely miserable. never man loved, or rather adored a woman more than i did her; and, to confess a truth between you and me, i do still love her to distraction after all, though i won't tell her so if i were to see her, which i don't want to do. my poor dear unfortunate jean! how happy have i been in thy arms! it is not the losing her that makes me so unhappy, but for her sake i feel most severely: i foresee she is in the road to, i am afraid, eternal ruin. may almighty god forgive her ingratitude and perjury to me, as i from my very soul forgive her; and may his grace be with her and bless her in all her future life! i can have no nearer idea of the place of eternal punishment than what i have felt in my own breast on her account. i have tried often to forget her; i have run into all kinds of dissipation and riots, mason-meetings, drinking-matches, and other mischief, to drive her out of my head, but all in vain. and now for a grand cure; the ship is on her way home that is to take me out to jamaica; and then, farewell, dear old scotland! and farewell, dear ungrateful jean! for never, never will i see you more. you will have heard that i am going to commence poet in print; and to-morrow my work goes to the press. i expect it will be a volume of about two hundred pages--it is just the last foolish action i intend to do, and then turn a wise man as fast as possible.--believe me to be, dear brice, your friend and well-wisher. r. b. * * * * xxii.--to mr. john richmond, edinburgh. mossgiel, 9_th july_ 1786. with the sincerest grief i read your letter. you are truly a son of misfortune. i shall be extremely anxious to hear from you how your health goes on; if it is in any way re-establishing, or if leith promises well; in short, how you feel in the inner man. no news worth anything; only godly bryan was in the inquisition yesterday, and half the countryside as witnesses against him. he still stands out steady and denying; but proof was led yesternight of circumstances highly suspicious, almost _de facto_; one of the servant girls made oath that she upon a time rashly entered into the house, to speak in your cant, "in the hour of cause." i have waited on armour since her return home; not from the least view of reconciliation, but merely to ask for her health, and to you i will confess it, from a foolish hankering fondness, very ill placed indeed. the mother forbade me the house, nor did jean show that penitence that might have been expected. however, the priest,[15a] i am informed, will give me a certificate as a single man, if i comply with the rules of the church, which for that very reason i intend to do.[16] i am going to put on sackcloth and ashes this day. i am indulged so far as to appear in my own seat. _peccavi, pater, miserere mei_. my book will be ready in a fortnight. if you have any subscribers, return them by connell. the lord stand with the righteous; amen, amen. r. b. [footnote 15a: rev. mr. auld--daddie auld.] [footnote 16: this accordingly he did.] * * * * xxiii--to mr. john richmond. old rome forest,[17] 30_th july_ 1786. my dear richmond,--my hour is now come--you and i will never meet in britain more. i have orders, within three weeks at farthest, to repair aboard the _nancy_, captain smith, from clyde to jamaica, and to call at antigua. this, except to our friend smith, whom god long preserve, is a secret about mauchline. would you believe it? armour has got a warrant to throw me in jail till i find security for an enormous sum. this they keep an entire secret, but i got it by a channel they little dream of; and i am wandering from one friend's house to another, and, like a true son of the gospel, "have nowhere to lay my head." i know you will pour an execration on her head, but spare the poor, ill-advised girl, for my sake; though may all the furies that rend the injured, enraged lover's bosom await her mother until her latest hour! i write in a moment of rage, reflecting on my miserable situation--exiled, abandoned, forlorn. i can write no more--let me hear from you by the return of the coach. i will write you ere i go.--i am, dear sir, yours, here and hereafter, r. b. [footnote 17: in the neighbourhood of kilmarnock. here he had deposited his travelling chest in the house of a relative.] * * * * xxiv.-to mr. john kennedy. kilmarnock, _august_ 1786. my dear sir--your truly facetious epistle of the 3rd instant gave me much entertainment. i was only sorry i had not the pleasure of seeing you as i passed your way; but we shall bring up all our lee way on wednesday, the 16th current, when i hope to have it in my power to call on you, and take a kind, very probably a last adieu, before i go for jamaica; and i expect orders to repair to greenock every day. i have at last made my public appearance, and am solemnly inaugurated into the numerous class.[18] could i have got a carrier, you should have got a score of vouchers for my authorship; but, now you have them, let them speak for themselves.- farewell, dear friend! may guid luck hit you, and 'mang her favourites admit you, if e'er detraction shore to smit you, may nane believe him, and ony deil that thinks to get you, good lord, deceive him, r.b. [footnote 18: the kilmarnock edition of his poems was published on 3ist july.] * * * * xxv.--to his cousin, mr. james burness, writer, montrose. mossgiel, _tuesday noon_, 26_th sept._ 1786. my dear sir,--i this moment receive yours--receive it with the honest hospitable warmth of a friend's welcome. whatever comes from you always wakens up the better blood about my heart, which your kind little recollections of my parental friend carries as far as it will go. 'tis there that man is blest! 'tis there, my friend, man feels a consciousness of something within him above the trodden clod! the grateful reverence to the hoary earthly authors of his being, the burning glow when he clasps the woman of his soul to his bosom, the tender yearnings of heart for the little angels to whom he has given existence--these nature has poured in milky streams about the human heart; and the man who never rouses them to action by the inspiring influences of their proper objects loses by far the most pleasurable part of his existence. my departure is uncertain, but i do not think it will be till after harvest. i will be on very short allowance of time indeed, if i do not comply with your friendly invitation. when it will be i don't know, but if i can make my wish good i will endeavour to drop you a line some time before. my best compliments to mrs. burness; i should be equally mortified should i drop in when she is abroad, but of that, i suppose, there is little chance. what i have wrote, heaven knows. i have not time to review it, so accept of it in the beaten way of friendship. with the ordinary phrase, and perhaps rather more than the ordinary sincerity, i am, dear sir, ever yours, r. b. * * * * xxvi.-to mrs. stewart, of stair.[19] [_oct_. 1786.?] madam,--the hurry of my preparations for going abroad has hindered me from performing my promise so soon as i intended. i have here sent you a parcel of songs, etc., which never made their appearance, except to a friend or two at most. perhaps some of them may be no great entertainment to you, but of that i am far from being an adequate judge. the song to the time of "ettrick banks"[20] you will easily see the impropriety of exposing much even in manuscript. i think, myself, it has some merit, both as a tolerable description of one of nature's sweetest scenes, a july evening, and as one of the finest pieces of nature's workmanship, the finest indeed we know anything of, an amiable, beautiful young woman; but i have no common friend to procure me that permission, without which i would not dare to spread the copy. i am quite aware, madam, what task the world would assign me in this letter. the obscure bard, when any of the great condescend to take notice of him, should heap the altar with the incense of flattery. their high ancestry, their own great and godlike qualities and actions, should be recounted with the most exaggerated description. this, madam, is a task for which i am altogether unfit. besides a certain disqualifying pride of heart, i know nothing of your connections in life, and have no access to where your real character is to be found--the company of your compeers: and more, i am afraid that even the most refined adulation is by no means the road to your good opinion. one feature of your character i shall ever with grateful pleasure remember--the reception i got when i had the honour of waiting on you at stair. i am little acquainted with politeness, but i know a good deal of benevolence of temper and goodness of heart. surely did those in exalted stations know how happy they could make some classes of their inferiors by condescension and affability, they would never stand so high, measuring out with every look the height of their elevation, but condescend as sweetly as did mrs. stewart of stair. r. b. [footnote 19: mrs. stewart, of stair, was the first person of note to discover in the ayrshire ploughman a genius of the first order.] [footnote 20: the bonnie lass of ballochmyle] * * * * xxvii.--to mr. robert aikin, writer, ayr. [_oct_. 1786.?] sir,--i was with wilson, my printer, t'other day, and settled all our by-gone matters between us. after i had paid him all demands, i made him the offer of the second edition, on the hazard of being paid out of the first and readiest, which he declines. by his account, the paper of a thousand copies would cost about twenty-seven pounds, and the printing about fifteen or sixteen: he offers to agree to this for the printing, if i will advance for the paper, but this, you know, is out of my power; so farewell hopes of a second edition 'till i grow richer! an epocha which, i think, will arrive at the payment of the british national debt. there is scarcely anything hurts me so much in being disappointed of my second edition, as not having it in my power to show my gratitude to mr. ballantine, by publishing my poem of "the brigs of ayr." i would detest myself as a wretch, if i thought i were capable in a very long life of forgetting the honest, warm, and tender delicacy with which he enters into my interests. i am sometimes pleased with myself in my grateful sensations; but i believe, on the whole, i have very little merit in it, as my gratitude is not a virtue, the consequence of reflection, but sheerly the instinctive emotion of my heart, too inattentive to allow worldly maxims and views to settle into selfish habits. i have been feeling all the various rotations and movements within, respecting the excise. there are many things plead strongly against it; the uncertainty of getting soon into business; the consequences of my follies, which may perhaps make it impracticable for me to stay at home; and, besides, i have for some time been pining under secret wretchedness, from causes which you pretty well know--the pang of disappointment, the sting of pride, with some wandering stabs of remorse, which never fail to settle on my vitals like vultures, when attention is not called away by the calls of society, or the vagaries of the muse. even in the hour of social mirth, my gaiety is the madness of an intoxicated criminal under the hands of the executioner. all these reasons urge me to go abroad, and to all these reasons i have only one answer--the feelings of a father. this, in the present mood i am in, overbalances everything that can be laid in the scale against it. you may perhaps think it an extravagant fancy, but it is a sentiment which strikes home to my very soul: though sceptical in some points of our current belief, yet, i think, i have every evidence for the reality of a life beyond the stinted bourne of our present existence; if so, then, how should i, in the presence of that tremendous being, the author of existence, how should i meet the reproaches of those who stand to me in the dear relation of children, whom i deserted in the smiling innocency of helpless infancy? o, thou great unknown power!--thou almighty god! who has lighted up reason in my breast, and blessed me with immortality!--i have frequently wandered from that order and regularity necessary for the perfection of thy works, yet thou hast never left me nor forsaken me! since i wrote the foregoing sheet, i have seen something of the storm of mischief thickening over my folly-devoted head. should you, my friends, my benefactors, be successful in your applications for me, perhaps it may not be in my power, in that way, to reap the fruit of your friendly efforts. what i have written in the preceding pages, is the settled tenor of my present resolution; but should inimical circumstances forbid me closing with your kind offer, or enjoying it only threaten to entail farther misery--to tell the truth, i have little reason for this last complaint; as the world, in general, has been kind to me fully up to my deserts. i was, for some time past, fast getting into the pining, distrustful snarl of the misanthrope. i saw myself alone, unfit for the struggle of life, shrinking at every rising cloud in the chance-directed atmosphere of fortune, while, all defenceless, i looked about in vain for a cover. it never occurred to me, at least never with the force it deserved, that this world is a busy scene, and man, a creature destined for a progressive struggle; and that, however i might possess a warm heart and inoffensive manners (which last, by the by, was rather more than i could well boast) still, more than these passive qualities, there was something to be done. when all my school-fellows and youthful compeers (those misguided few excepted who joined, to use a gentoo phrase, the "hallachores" of the human race) were striking off with eager hope and earnest intent, in some one or other of the many paths of busy life, i was "standing idle in the market-place," or only left the chase of the butterfly from flower to flower, to hunt fancy from whim to whim. you see, sir, that if to know one's errors were a probability of mending them, i stand a fair chance: but, according to the reverend westminster divines, though conviction must precede conversion, it is very far from always implying it. * * * * xxviii.--to dr. mackenzie, mauchline; inclosing him verses on dining with lord daer. _wednesday morning_ [1_st nov_. 1786]. dear sir,--i never spent an afternoon among great folks with half that pleasure as when, in company with you, i had the honour of paying my devoirs to that plain, honest, worthy man, the professor[21] i would be delighted to see him perform acts of kindness and friendship, though i were not the object; he does it with such a grace. i think his character, divided into ten parts, stands thus,--four parts socrates--four parts nathaniel--and two parts shakespeare's brutus. the following verses were really extempore, but a little corrected since. they may entertain you a little with the help of that partiality with which you are so good as to favour the performances of, dear sir, your very humble servant, r. b. [footnote 21: dugald stewart, professor of moral philosophy in the university of edinburgh.] * * * * xxix.--to mrs. dunlop, of dunlop. _nov_. 1786. madam,--i am truly sorry i was not at home yesterday, when i was so much honoured with your order for my copies, and incomparably more by the handsome compliments you are pleased to pay my poetic abilities. i am fully persuaded that there is not any class of mankind so feelingly alive to the titillations of applause as the sons of parnassus; nor is it easy to conceive how the heart of the poor bard dances with rapture, when those, whose character in life gives them a right to be polite judges, honour him with their approbation. had you been thoroughly acquainted with me, madam, you could not have touched my darling heart-chord more sweetly, than by noticing my attempts to celebrate your illustrious ancestor, the saviour of his country. great patriot hero! ill-requited chief! the first book i met with in my early years which i perused with pleasure was _the life of hannibal_; the next was _the history of sir william wallace_: for several of my early years i had few other authors; and many a solitary hour have i stole out, after the laborious vocations of the day, to shed a tear over their glorious, but unfortunate stories. in those boyish days i remember, in particular, being struck with that part of wallace's story, where these lines occur- "syne to the leglen wood, when it was late, to make a silent and a safe retreat." i chose a fine summer sunday, the only day my line of life allowed, and walked half-a-dozen of miles to pay my respects to the leglen wood, with as much devout enthusiasm as ever pilgrim did to loretto; and as i explored every den and dell where i could suppose my heroic countryman to have lodged, i recollect (for even then i was a rhymer) that my heart glowed with a wish to be able to make a song on him in some measure equal to his merits. r. b. * * * * xxx.--to miss alexander. mossgiel, 18_th nov_. 1786. madam,--poets are such _outré_ beings, so much the children of wayward fancy and capricious whim, that i believe the world generally allows them a larger latitude in the laws of propriety than the sober sons of judgment and prudence. i mention this as an apology for the liberties that a nameless stranger has taken with you in the inclosed poem, which he begs leave to present you with. whether it has poetical merit any way worthy of the theme, i am not the proper judge: but it is the best my abilities can produce; and what to a good heart will, perhaps, be a superior grace, it is equally sincere as fervent. the scenery was nearly taken from real life, though i dare say, madam, you do not recollect it, as i believe you scarcely noticed the poetic _reveur_ as he wandered by you. i had roved out as chance directed, in the favourite haunts of my muse, on the banks of the ayr, to view nature in all the gaiety of the vernal year. the evening sun was flaming over the distant western hills; not a breath stirred the crimson opening blossom, or the verdant-spreading leaf. it was a golden moment for a poetic heart. i listened to the feathered warblers, pouring their harmony on every hand, with a congenial kindred regard, and frequently turned out of my path, lest i should disturb their little songs, or frighten them to another station. surely, said i to myself, he must be a wretch indeed, who, regardless of your harmonious endeavour to please him, can eye your elusive flights to discover your secret recesses, and to rob you of all the property nature gives you--your dearest comforts, your helpless nestlings. even the hoary hawthorn twig that shot across the way, what heart at such a time but must have been interested in its welfare, and wished it preserved from the rudely-browsing cattle, or the withering eastern blast? such was the scene, and such the hour, when, in a corner of my prospect, i spied one of the fairest pieces of nature's workmanship that ever crowned a poetic landscape, or met a poet's eye, those visionary bards excepted, who hold commerce with aerial beings! had calumny and villainy taken my walk, they had at that moment sworn eternal peace with such an object. what an hour of inspiration for a poet! it would have raised plain dull historic prose into metaphor and measure. the inclosed song was the work of my return; and perhaps it but poorly answers what might have been expected from such a scene.--i have the honour to be, madam, your most obedient and very humble servant, r. b. p.s.--well, mr. burns, and _did_ the lady give you the desired permission? no; she was too fine a lady to _notice_ so plain a compliment. as to her great brothers, whom i have since met in life on more equal terms[22] of respectability--why should i quarrel with their want of attention to me? when fate swore that their purses should be full, nature was equally positive that their heads should be empty. men of their fashion were surely incapable of being unpolite? ye canna mak a silk-purse o' a sow's lug. r. b., 1792. [footnote 22: as depute master of st. james's lodge, burns admitted claude alexander, esq., of ballochmyle, an honorary member, in july 1789.] * * * * xxxi.--in the name of the nine. _amen_. we, robert burns, by virtue of a warrant from nature, bearing date the twenty-fifth day of january, anno domini one thousand seven hundred and fifty-nine,[23] poet laureat, and bard-in-chief, in and over the districts and countries of kyle, cunningham, and carrick, of old extent,--to our trusty and well-beloved william chalmers and john m'adam, students and practitioners in the ancient and mysterious science of confounding right and wrong. right trusty,--be it known unto you, that whereas in the course of our care and watchings over the order and police of all and sundry the manufacturers, retainers, and vendors of poesy; bards, poets, poetasters, rhymers, jinglers, songsters, ballad-singers, etc., etc., etc., etc., male and female--we have discovered a certain nefarious, abominable, and wicked song or ballad, a copy whereof we have here inclosed; our will therefore is, that ye pitch upon and appoint the most execrable individual of that most execrable species known by the appellation, phrase, and nickname of the deil's yell nowte,[24] and after having caused him to kindle a fire at the cross of ayr, ye shall, at noontide of the day, put into the said wretch's merciless hands the said copy of the said nefarious and wicked song, to be consumed by fire in presence of all beholders, in abhorrence of, and terrorem to, all such compositions and composers. and this in no wise leave ye undone, but have it executed in every point as this our mandate bears, before the twenty-fourth current, when in person we hope to applaud your faithfulness and zeal. given at mauchline this twentieth day of november, anno domini one thousand seven hundred and eighty-six. god save the bard! [footnote 23: his birthday.] [footnote 24: old bachelors] * * * * xxxii.--to james dalrymple, esq., orangefield. [30_th nov_. 1786.] dear sir,--i suppose the devil is so elated with his success with you, that he is determined by a _coup de main_ to complete his purposes on you all at once, in making you a poet. i broke open the letter you sent me; hummed over the rhymes; and as i saw they were extempore, said to myself, they were very well; but when i saw at the bottom a name that i shall ever value with grateful respect, "i gapit wide, but naething spak." i was nearly as much struck as the friends of job, of affliction-bearing memory, when they sat down with him seven days and seven nights, and spake not a word. i am naturally of a superstitious cast, and as soon as my wonder-scared imagination regained its consciousness, and resumed its functions, i cast about what this mania of yours might portend. my foreboding ideas had the wide stretch of possibility; and several events, great in their magnitude, and important in their consequences, occurred to my fancy. the downfall of the conclave, or the crushing of the cork rumps; a ducal coronet to lord george gordon, and the protestant interest; or st peter's keys to ..... you want to know how i come on. i am just in _statu quo_, or, not to insult a gentleman with my latin, in "auld use and wont." the noble earl of glencairn took me by the hand to-day, and interested himself in my concerns, with a goodness like that benevolent being whose image he so richly bears. he is a stronger proof of the immortality of the soul than any that philosophy ever produced. a mind like his can never die. let the worshipful squire h. l., or the reverend mass j. m. go into their primitive nothing. at best, they are but ill-digested lumps of chaos, only one of them strongly tinged with bituminous particles and sulphureous effluvia. but my noble patron, eternal as the heroic swell of magnanimity, and the generous throb of benevolence, shall look on with princely eye at "the war of elements, the wreck of matter, and the crash of worlds." r. b. * * * * xxxiii.-to sir john whitefoord. edinburgh, 1_st dec_. 1786. sir,--mr. mckenzie in mauchline, my very warm and worthy friend, has informed me how much you are pleased to interest yourself in my fate as a man, and--what to me is incomparably dearer-my fame as a poet. i have, sir, in one or two instances, been patronised by those of your character in life, when i was introduced to their notice by social friends to them, and honoured acquaintances to me; but you are the first gentleman in the country whose benevolence and goodness of heart has interested him for me, unsolicited and unknown. i am not master enough of the etiquette of these matters to know, nor did i stay to inquire, whether formal duty bade or cold propriety disallowed my thanking you in this manner, as i am convinced, from the light in which you kindly view me, that you will do me the justice to believe this letter is not the manoeuvre of the needy sharping author, fastening on those in upper life who honour him with a little notice of him or his works. indeed, the situation of poets is generally such, to a proverb, as may, in some measure, palliate that prostitution of heart and talents they have at times been guilty of. i do not think that prodigality is, by any means, a necessary concomitant of a poetic turn, but i believe a careless, indolent inattention to economy is almost inseparable from it; then there must be in the heart of every bard of nature's making a certain modest sensibility, mixed with a kind of pride, which will ever keep him out of the way of those windfalls of fortune, which frequently light on hardy impudence and foot-licking servility. it is not easy to imagine a more helpless state than his whose poetic fancy unfits him for the world, and whose character as a scholar gives him some pretensions to the _politesse_ of life, yet is as poor as i am. for my part, i thank heaven my star has been kinder: learning never elevated my ideas above the peasant's shed, and i have an independent fortune at the plough-tail. i was surprised to hear[25] that any one who pretended in the least to the manners of the gentleman should be so foolish, or worse, as to stoop to traduce the morals of such a one as i am, and so inhumanly cruel, too, as to meddle with that late most unfortunate, unhappy part of my story. with a tear of gratitude i thank you, sir, for the warmth with which you interposd in behalf of my conduct. i am, i acknowledge, too frequently the sport of whim, caprice, and passion; but reverence to god, and integrity to my fellow-creatures, i hope i shall ever preserve. i have no return, sir, to make you for your goodness, but one--a return which i am persuaded will not be unacceptable--the honest warm wishes of a grateful heart for your happiness, and every one of that lovely flock who stand to you in a filial relation. if ever calumny aims the poisoned shaft at them, may friendship be by to ward the blow! r. b. [footnote 25: from dr. mackenzie, burns's friend, and medical attendant of the family of sir john.] * * * * xxxiv.--to mr, gavin hamilton, mauchline. edinburgh, _dec_. 7_th_, 1786, honoured sir,--i have paid every attention to your commands, but can only say what perhaps you will have heard before this reach you, that muirkirklands were bought by a john gordon, w.s., but for whom i know not; mauchlands, haugh miln, etc., by a frederick fotheringham, supposed to be for ballochmyle laird, and adam-hill and shawood were bought for oswald's folks. this is so imperfect an account, and will be so late ere it reach you, that were it not to discharge my conscience i would not trouble you with it; but after all my diligence i could make it no sooner nor better. for my own affairs, i am in a fair way of becoming as eminent as thomas à kempis or john bunyan; and you may expect henceforth to see my birthday inserted among the wonderful events in the poor robin's and aberdeen almanacks, along with the black monday and the battle of bothwell bridge. my lord glencairn and the dean of faculty, mr. h. erskine, have taken me under their wing; and by all probability i shall soon be the tenth worthy, and the eighth wise man of the world. through my lord's influence, it is inserted in the records of the caledonian hunt, that they universally, one and all, subscribe for the second edition. my subscription bills come out to-morrow, and you shall have some of them next post. i have met in mr. dalrymple, of orangefield, what solomon emphatically calls, "a friend that sticketh closer than a brother." the warmth with which he interests himself in my affairs is of the same enthusiastic kind which you, mr. aikin, and the few patrons that took notice of my earlier poetic days, showed for the poor unlucky devil of a poet. i always remember mrs. hamilton and miss kennedy in my poetic prayers, but you both in prose and verse. may cauld ne'er catch you, but a hap, nor hunger but in plenty's lap! amen! r. b. * * * * * xxxv.--to mr. john ballantine, banker, at one time provost of ayr. edinburgh, 13_th december_ 1786. my honoured friend,--i would not write you till i could have it in my power to give you some account of myself and my matters, which, by the by, is often no easy task. i arrived here on tuesday was se'nnight[26], and have suffered ever since i came to town with a miserable headache and stomach complaint, but am now a good deal better. i have found a worthy warm friend in mr. dalrymple, of orangefield, who introduced me to lord glencairn, a man whose worth and brotherly kindness to me i shall remember when time shall be no more. by his interest it is passed in the "caledonian hunt," and entered in their books, that they are to take each a copy of the second edition, for which they are to pay one guinea. i have been introduced to a good many of the _noblesse_, but my avowed patrons and patrones es are, the duchess of gordon--the countess of glencairn, with my lord and lady betty[27]--the dean of faculty--sir john whitefoord. i have likewise warm friends among the literati; professors stewart, blair, and mr. mackenzie--the man of feeling. an unknown hand left ten guineas for the ayrshire bard with mr. sibbald, which i got. i since have discovered my generous unknown friend to be patrick miller, esq., brother to the justice clerk; and drank a glass of claret with him, by invitation, at his own house yesternight. i am nearly agreed with creech to print my book, and i suppose i will begin on monday. i will send a subscription bill or two, next post; when i intend writing my first kind patron, mr. aikin. i saw his son to-day, and he is very well. dugald stewart, and some of my learned friends, put me in the periodical paper called the _lounger_,[28] a copy of which i here enclose you. i was, sir, when i was first honoured with your notice, too obscure; now i tremble lest i should be ruined by being dragged too suddenly into the glare of polite and learned observation. i shall certainly, my ever honoured patron, write you an account of my every step; and better health and more spirits may enable me to make it something better than this stupid matter-of-fact epistle.--i have the honour to be, good sir, your ever grateful humble servant, r. b. if any of my friends write me, my direction is care of mr. creech, bookseller. [footnote 26: a mistake for "a fortnight."] [footnote 27: cunningham] [footnote 28: the paper here alluded to was written by mackenzie, the celebrated author of _the man of feeling_.] * * * * xxxvi.--to mr. robert muir. edinburgh, _dec_. 20_th_, 1786. my dear friend,--i have just time for the carrier, to tell you that i received your letter, of which i shall say no more but what a lass of my acquaintance said of her bastard wean; she said she "didna ken wha was the father exactly, but she suspected it was some o' thae bonny blackguard smugglers, for it was like them." so i only say, your obliging epistle was like you. i enclose you a parcel of subscription bills. your affair of sixty copies is also like you; but it would not be like me to comply. your friend's notion of my life has put a crotchet in my head of sketching it in some future epistle to you. my compliments to charles and mr. parker. r. b. * * * * xxxvii.--to mr. william chalmers, writer, ayr. edinburgh, _dec_. 27_th_, 1786. my dear friend,--i confess i have sinned the sin for which there is hardly any forgiveness--ingratitude to friendship, in not writing you sooner; but of all men living, i had intended to have sent you an entertaining letter; and by all the plodding, stupid powers, that in nodding conceited majesty preside over the dull routine of business--a heavily-solemn oath this!--i am and have been, ever since i came to edinburgh, as unfit to write a letter of humour, as to write a commentary on the revelation of st. john the divine, who was banished to the isle of patmos by the cruel and bloody domitian, son to vespasian and brother to titus, both emperors of rome, and who was himself an emperor, and raised the second or third persecution, i forget which, against the christians, and after throwing the said apostle john, brother to the apostle james, commonly called james the greater, to distinguish him from another james, who was on some account or other known by the name of james the less--after throwing him into a cauldron of boiling oil from which he was miraculously preserved, he banished the poor son of zebedee to a desert island in the archipelago where he was gifted with the second sight, and saw as many wild beasts as i have seen since i came to edinburgh; which, a circumstance not uncommon in story-telling, brings me back to where i set out. to make you some amends for what, before you reach this paragraph, you will have suffered, i enclose you two poems i have carded and spun since i passed glenbuck. one blank in the address to edinburgh--"fair b----," is heavenly miss burnet, daughter to lord monboddo, at whose house i have had the honour to be more than once. there has not been anything nearly like her in all the combinations of beauty, grace, and goodness the great creator has formed, since milton's eve on the first day of her existence. my direction is--care of andrew bruce, merchant, bridge street. r. b. * * * * xxxviii.--to the earl of eglington. edinburgh, _january_ 1787. my lord,--as i have but slender pretensions to philosophy, i cannot rise to the exalted ideas of a citizen of the world, but have all those national prejudices, which i believe glow peculiarly strong in the breast of a scotchman. there is scarcely anything to which i am so fully alive as the honour and welfare of my country; and as a poet, i have no higher enjoyment than singing her sons and daughters. fate had cast my station in the veriest shades of life; but never did a heart pant more ardently than mine to be distinguished; though till very lately i looked in vain on every side for a ray of light. it is easy then to guess how much i was gratified with the countenance and approbation of one of my country's most illustrious sons, when mr. wauchope called on me yesterday on the part of your lordship. your munificence, my lord, certainly deserves my very grateful acknowledgments; but your patronage is a bounty peculiarly suited to my feelings. i am not master enough of the etiquette of life to know, whether there be not some impropriety in troubling your lordship with my thanks, but my heart whispered me to do it. from the emotions of my inmost soul i do it. selfish ingratitude i hope i am incapable of; and mercenary servility, i trust, i shall ever have so much honest pride as to detest. r. b. * * * * xxxix.--to mr. john ballantine. edinburgh, _jan_. 14_th_ 1787. my honoured friend,--it gives me a secret comfort to observe in myself that i am not yet so far gone as willie gaw's skate, "past redemption;" for i have still this favourable symptom of grace, that when my conscience, as in the case of this letter, tells me i am leaving something undone that i ought to do, it teases me eternally till i do it. i am still "dark as was chaos" in respect to futurity. my generous friend, mr. patrick miller, has been talking with me about a lease of some farm or other in an estate called dalswinton, which he has lately bought near dumfries. some life-rented embittering recollections whisper me that i will be happier anywhere than in my old neighbourhood, but mr. miller is no judge of land; and though i daresay he means to favour me, yet he may give me, in his opinion, an advantageous bargain that may ruin me. i am to take a tour by dumfries as i return, and have promised to meet mr. miller on his lands some time in may. i went to a mason-lodge yesternight, where the most worshipful grand master chartres, and all the grand lodge of scotland visited. the meeting was numerous and elegant; all the different lodges about town were present, in all their pomp. the grand master, who presided with great solemnity and honour to himself as a gentleman and mason, among other general toasts gave "caledonia, and caledonia's bard, brother burns," which rung through the whole assembly with multiplied honours and repeated acclamations. as i had no idea such a thing would happen, i was downright thunderstruck, and, trembling in every nerve, made the best return in my power. just as i had finished, some of the grand officers said so loud that i could hear with a most comforting accent, "very well, indeed!" which set me something to rights again. i have just now had a visit from my landlady,[29] who is a staid, sober, piously-disposed, vice-abhorring widow, coming on her climacteric; she is at present in great tribulation respecting some daughters of belial who are on the floor immediately above. my landlady, who, as i have said, is a flesh-disciplining godly matron, firmly believes her husband is in heaven; and, having been very happy with him on earth, she vigorously and perseveringly practises such of the most distinguished christian virtues as attending church, railing against vice, etc., that she may be qualified to meet him in that happy place where the ungodly shall never enter. this, no doubt, requires some strong exertions of self-denial in a hale, well-kept widow of forty-five; and as our floors are low and ill-plastered, we can easily distinguish our laughter-loving, night-rejoicing neighbours when they are eating, drinking, singing, etc. my worthy landlady tosses sleepless and unquiet, "looking for rest and finding none," the whole night. just now she told me--though by-the-by she is sometimes dubious that i am, in her own phrase, "but a rough an' roun' christian,"--that "we should not be uneasy or envious because the wicked enjoy the good things of this life, for the jades would one day lie in hell," etc., etc. i have to-day corrected my 152nd page. my best good wishes to mr. aikin.--i am ever, dear sir, your much indebted humble servant, r. b. [footnote 29: mrs. carfrae, baxter's close, lawnmarket, edinburgh, according to john richmond, law clerk.] * * * * xl.--to mrs. dunlop. edinburgh, 15_th january_ 1787. madam,--yours of the 9th current, which i am this moment honoured with, is a deep reproach to me for ungrateful neglect. i will tell you the real truth, for i am miserably awkward at a fib--i wished to have written to dr. moore before i wrote to you; but, though every day since i received yours of december 30th, the idea, the wish to write to him has constantly pressed on my thoughts, yet i could not for my soul set about it. i know his fame and character, and i am one of "the sons of little men." to write him a mere matter-of-fact affair, like a merchant's order, would be disgracing the little character i have; and to write the author of _the view of society and manners_ a letter of sentiment--i declare every artery runs cold at the thought. i shall try, however, to write to him to-morrow or next day. his kind interposition on my behalf i have already experienced, as a gentleman waited on me the other day, on the part of lord eglinton, with ten guineas, by way of subscription, for two copies of my next edition. the word you object to in the mention i have made of my glorious countryman and your immortal ancestor, is indeed borrowed from thomson; but it does not strike me as an improper epithet. i distrusted my own judgment on your finding fault with it, and applied for the opinion of some of the literati here, who honour me with their critical strictures, and they all allowed it to be proper. the song you ask i cannot recollect, and i have not a copy of it. i have not composed anything on the great wallace, except what you have seen in print; and the inclosed, which i will print in this edition.[30] you will see i have mentioned some others of the name. when i composed my "vision," long ago, i had attempted a description of kyle, of which the additional stanzas are a part as it originally stood. my heart glows with a wish to be able to do justice to the merits of the "saviour of his country," which sooner or later i shall at least attempt. you are afraid i shall grow intoxicated with my prosperity as a poet; alas! madam, i know myself and the world too well. i do not mean any airs of affected modesty; i am willing to believe that my abilities deserve some notice; but in a most enlightened, informed age and nation, when poetry is and has been the study of men of the first natural genius, aided with all the powers of polite learning, polite books, and polite company--to be dragged forth to the full glare of learned and polite observation, with all my imperfections of awkward rusticity and crude unpolished ideas on my head--i assure you, madam, i do not dissemble when i tell you i tremble for the consequences. the novelty of a poet in my obscure situation, without any of those advantages which are reckoned necessary for that character, at least at this time of day, has raised a partial tide of public notice which has borne me to a height, where i am absolutely, feelingly certain, my abilities are inadequate to support me; and too surely do i see that time when the same tide will leave me, and recede, perhaps, as far below the mark of truth. i do not say this in the ridiculous affectation of self-abasement and modesty. i have studied myself, and know what ground i occupy; and however a friend or the world may differ from me in that particular, i stand for my own opinion, in silent resolve, with all the tenaciousness of property. i mention this to you once for all to disburthen my mind, and i do not wish to hear or say more about it. but when proud fortune's ebbing tide recedes, you will bear me witness, that when my bubble of fame was at the highest i stood unintoxicated, with the inebriating cup in my hand, looking forward with rueful resolve to the hastening time, when the blow of calumny should dash it to the ground, with all the eagerness of vengeful triumph. your patronising me and interesting yourself in my fame and character as a poet, i rejoice in; it exalts me in my own idea; and whether you can or cannot aid me in my subscription is a trifle. has a paltry subscription-bill any charms to the heart of a bard, compared with the patronage of the descendant of the immortal wallace? r. b. [footnote 30: stanza in the "vision," beginning, "by stately tower or palace fair," and ending with the first duan.] * * * * xli--to dr. moore.[31] edinburgh, _jan._ 1787. sir,--mrs. dunlop has been so kind as to send me extracts of letters she has had from you, where you do the rustic bard the honour of noticing him and his works. those who have felt the anxieties and solicitudes of authorship, can only know what pleasure it gives to be noticed in such a manner, by judges of the first character. your criticisms, sir, i receive with reverence: only i am sorry they mostly came too late: a peccant passage or two that i would certainly have altered, were gone to the press. the hope to be admired for ages is, in by far the greater part of those even who are authors of repute, an unsubstantial dream. for my part, my first ambition was, and still my strongest wish is, to please my compeers, the inmates of the hamlet, while ever-changing language and manners shall allow me to be relished and understood. i am very willing to admit that i have some poetical abilities; and as few, if any, writers, either moral or poetical, are intimately acquainted with the classes of mankind among whom i have chiefly mingled, i may have seen men and manners in a different phasis from what is common, which may assist originality of thought. still i know very well the novelty of my character has by far the greatest share in the learned and polite notice i have lately had; and in a language where pope and churchill have raised the laugh, and shenstone and gray drawn the tear; where thomson and beattie have painted the landscape, and lyttelton and collins described the heart, i am not vain enough to hope for distinguished poetic fame. r. b. [footnote 31: father of the hero of coruña, and author of _zeluco_, etc.] * * * * * xlii.--to the rev. g. lawrie, newmilns, near kilmarnock. edinburgh, _feb_. 5_th_, 1787. reverend and dear sir,--when i look at the date of your kind letter, my heart reproaches me severely with ingratitude in neglecting so long to answer it. i will not trouble you with any account, by way of apology, of my hurried life and distracted attention: do me the justice to believe that my delay by no means proceeded from want of respect. i feel, and ever shall feel for you, the mingled sentiments of esteem for a friend and reverence for a father. i thank you, sir, with all my soul, for your friendly hints, though i do not need them so much as my friends are apt to imagine. you are dazzled with newspaper accounts and distant reports; but, in reality, i have no great temptation to be intoxicated with the cup of prosperity. novelty may attract the attention of mankind awhile; to it i owe my present _eclat_; but i see the time not far distant when the popular tide which has borne me to a height of which i am, perhaps, unworthy, shall recede with silent celerity, and leave me a barren waste of sand, to descend at my leisure to my former station. i do not say this in the affectation of modesty; i see the consequence is unavoidable, and am prepared for it. i had been at a good deal of pains to form a just, impartial estimate of my intellectual powers before i came here: i have not added, since i came to edinburgh, anything to the account; and i trust i shall take every atom of it back to my shades, the coverts of my unnoticed early years. in dr. blacklock, whom i see very often, i have found what i would have expected in our friend, a clear head and an excellent heart. by far the most agreeable hours i spend in edinburgh must be placed to the account of miss lawrie and her pianoforte. i cannot help repeating to you and mrs. lawrie a compliment that mr. mackenzie, the celebrated "man of feeling," paid to miss lawrie, the other night, at the concert. i had come in at the interlude, and sat down by him till i saw miss lawrie in a seat not very far distant, and went up to pay my respects to her. on my return to mr. mackenzie he asked me who she was; i told him 'twas the daughter of a reverend friend of mine in the west country. he returned, there were something very striking, to his idea, in her appearance. on my desiring to know what it was, he was pleased to say, "she has a great deal of the elegance of a well-bred lady about her, with all the sweet simplicity of a country girl." my compliments to all the happy inmates of st. margaret's.--i am, my dear sir, yours, most gratefully, robert burns. * * * * xliii.-to the earl of buchan.[32] my lord,--the honour your lordship has done me, by your notice and advice in yours of the 1st instant, i shall ever gratefully remember:- praise from thy lips 'tis mine with joy to boast, they best can give it who deserve it most. your lordship touches the darling chord of my heart, when you advise me to fire my muse at scottish story and scottish scenes. i wish for nothing more than to make a leisurely pilgrimage through my native country; to sit and muse on those once hard-contended fields, where caledonia, rejoicing, saw her bloody lion borne through broken ranks to victory and fame; and, catching the inspiration, to pour the deathless names in song. but, my lord, in the midst of these enthusiastic reveries, a long-visaged, dry moral-looking phantom strides across my imagination, and pronounces these emphatic words:- "i, wisdom, dwell with prudence. friend, i do not come to open the ill-closed wounds of your follies and misfortunes, merely to give you pain: i wish through these wounds to imprint a lasting lesson on your heart. i will not mention how many of my salutary advices you have despised: i have given you line upon line and precept upon precept; and while i was chalking out to you the straight way to wealth and character, with audacious effrontery you have zigzagged across the path, contemning me to my face; you know the consequences. it is not yet three months since home was so hot for you, that you were on the wing for the western shore of the atlantic, not to make a fortune, but to hide your misfortune. "now that your dear-loved scotia puts it in your power to return to the situation of your forefathers, will you follow these will-o'-wisp meteors of fancy and whim, till they bring you once more to the brink of ruin? i grant that the utmost ground you can occupy is but half a step from the veriest poverty; but still it is half a step from it. if all that i can urge be ineffectual, let her who seldom calls to you in vain, let the call of pride prevail with you. you know how you feel at the iron gripe of ruthless oppression: you know how you bear the galling sneer of contumelious greatness. i hold you out the conveniences, the comforts of life, independence and character, on the one hand; i tender you servility, dependence, and wretchedness on the other. i will not insult your understanding by bidding you make a choice." this, my lord, is unanswerable. i must return to my humble station, and woo my rustic muse in my wonted way at the plough-tail. still, my lord, while the drops of life warm my heart, gratitude to that dear-loved country in which i boast my birth, and gratitude to those her distinguished sons, who have honoured me so much with their patronage and approbation, shall, while stealing through my humble shades, ever distend my bosom, and at times, as now, draw forth the swelling tear. r. b. [footnote 32: the earl of buchan was the very pink of parsimonious patrons.--motherwell.] * * * * xliv.--to mr. james candlish,[33] student in physic, glasgow college. edinburgh, _march_ 21_st_, 1787. my ever dear old acquaintance,--i was equally surprised and pleased at your letter, though i dare say you will think, by my delaying so long to write to you, that i am so drowned in the intovirarion of good fortune as to be indifferent to old, and once dear connections. the truth is, i was determined to write a good letter, full of argument, amplification, erudition, and, as bayes says, _all that_. i thought of it, and thought of it, and, by my soul, i could not; and, lest you should mistake the cause of my silence, i just sit down to tell you so. don't give yourself credit, though, that the strength of your logic scares me; the truth is, i never mean to meet you on that ground at all. you have shown me one thing which was to be demonstrated: that strong pride of reasoning, with a little affectation of singularity, may mislead the best of hearts. i likewise, since you and i were first acquainted, in the pride of despising old women's stories, ventured in "the daring path spinosa trod;" but experience of the weakness, not the strength of human powers, made me glad to grasp at revealed religion. i am still, in the apostle paul's phrase, "the old man with his deeds," as when we were sporting about the "lady thorn." i shall be four weeks here yet at least: and so i shall expect to hear from you; welcome sense, welcome nonsense.--i am, with the warmest sincerity, r. b. [footnote 33: mr. candlish married miss smith, one of the six _belles_ of mauchline. their son was the rev. dr. candlish, of free st. george's church, edinburgh.] * * * * xlv.--to mr. peter stuart, editor of "the star," london. edinburgh, 1787. my dear sir,--you may think, and too justly, that i am a selfish, ungrateful fellow, having received so many repeated instances of kindness from you, and yet never putting pen to paper to say thank you; but if you knew what a devil of a life my conscience has led me on that account, your good heart would think yourself too much avenged. by the by, there is nothing in the whole frame of man which seems to be so unaccountable as that thing called conscience. had the troublesome yelping cur powers efficient to prevent a mischief, he might be of use; out at the beginning of the business, his feeble efforts are, to the workings of passion, as the infant frosts of an autumnal morning to the unclouded fervour of the rising sun; and no sooner are the tumultuous doings of the wicked deed over, than amidst the bitter native consequences of folly in the very vortex of our horrors, up starts conscience, and harrows us with the feelings of the damned. i have inclosed you, by way of expiation, some verse and prose, that, if they merit a place in your truly entertaining miscellany, you are welcome to. the prose extract is literally as mr. sprott sent it me. the inscription on the stone is as follows:- "here lies robert fergusson, poet, born, september 5th, 1751--died, 16th october 1774. no sculptured marble here, nor pompous lay, 'no storied urn nor animated bust;' this simple stone directs pale scotia's way to pour her sorrows o'er her poet's dust." on the other side of the stone is as follows:- "by special grant of the managers to robert burns, who erected this stone, this burial place is to remain for ever sacred to the memory of robert fergusson." * * * * xlvi--to mrs. dunlop. edinburgh, _march_ 22_nd_, 1787. madam,--i read your letter with watery eyes. a little, very little while ago, i had scarce a friend but the stubborn pride of my own bosom; now i am distinguished, patronised, befriended by you. your friendly advices--i will not give them the cold name of criticisms--i receive with reverence. i have made some small alterations in what i before had printed. i have the advice of some very judicious friends among the literati here, but with them i sometimes find it necessary to claim the privilege of thinking for myself. the noble earl of glencairn, to whom i owe more than to any man, does me the honour of giving me his strictures; his hints, with respect to impropriety or indelicacy, i follow implicitly. you kindly interest yourself in my future views and prospects; there i can give you no light. it is all dark as was chaos ere the infant sun was roll'd together, or had tried his beams athwart the gloom profound. the appellation of a scottish bard is by far my highest pride; to continue to deserve it is my most exalted ambition. scottish scenes and scottish story are the themes i could wish to sing. i have no dearer aim than to have it in my power, unplagued with the routine of business, for which heaven knows i am unfit enough, to make leisurely pilgrimages through caledonia; to sit on the fields of her battles; to wander on the romantic banks of her rivers; and to muse by the stately towers or venerable ruins, once the honoured abodes of her heroes. but these are all utopian thoughts: i have dallied long enough with life; 'tis time to be in earnest. i have a fond, an aged mother to care for: and some other bosom ties perhaps equally tender. where the individual only suffers by the consequences of his own thoughtlessness, indolence, or folly, he may be excusable; nay, shining abilities, and some of the nobler virtues, may half sanctify a heedless character; but where god and nature have intrusted the welfare of others to his care; where the trust is sacred, and the ties are dear, that man must be far gone in selfishness, or strangely lost to reflection, whom these connections will not rouse to exertion. i guess that i shall clear between two and three hundred pounds by my authorship;[34] with that sum i intend, so far as i may be said to have any intention, to return to my old acquaintance, the plough; and, if i can meet with a lease by which i can live, to commence farmer. i do not intend to give up poetry; being bred to labour, secures me independence, and the muses are my chief, sometimes have been my only enjoyment. if my practice second my resolution, i shall have principally at heart the serious business of life; but while following my plough, or building up my shocks, i shall cast a leisure glance to that dear, that only feature of my character, which gave me the notice of my country, and the patronage of a wallace. thus, honoured madam, i have given you the bard, his situation, and his views, native as they are in his own bosom. r. b. [footnote 34: the proceeds amounted to more--some £500 or so.] * * * * xlvii--to mrs. dunlop. edinburgh, 15_th april_ 1787. madam,--there is an affectation of gratitude which i dislike. the periods of johnson and the pauses of sterne may hide a selfish heart. for my part, madam, i trust i have too much pride for servility, and too little prudence for selfishness. i have this moment broken open your letter, but rude am i in speech, and therefore little can i grace my cause in speaking for myself-so i shall not trouble you with any fine speeches and hunted figures. i shall just lay my hand on my heart and say, i hope i shall ever have the truest, the warmest sense of your goodness. i come abroad, in print, for certain on wednesday. your orders i shall punctually attend to; only, by the way, i must tell you that i was paid before for dr. moore's and miss williams's copies, through the medium of commissioner cochrane in this place, but that we can settle when i have the honour of waiting on you. dr. smith[35] was just gone to london the morning before i received your letter to him. r. b. [footnote 35: adam smith, the celebrated author of _the wealth of nations_.] * * * * xlviii.--to dr. moore. edinburgh, 23_rd april_ 1787. i received the books, and sent the one you mentioned to mrs. dunlop. i am ill skilled in beating the coverts of imagination for metaphors of gratitude. i thank you, sir, for the honour you have done me and to my latest hour will warmly remember it. to be highly pleased with your book, is what i have in common with the world; but to regard these volumes as a mark of the author's friendly esteem, is a still more supreme gratification. i leave edinburgh in the course of ten days or a fortnight, and after a few pilgrimages over some of the classic ground of caledonia, cowden knowes, banks of yarrow, tweed, etc., i shall return to my rural shades, in all likelihood never more to quit them. i have formed many intimacies and friendships here, but i am afraid they are all of too tender a construction to bear carriage a hundred and fifty miles. to the rich, the great, the fashionable, the polite, i have no equivalent to offer; and i am afraid my meteor appearance will by no means entitle me to a settled correspondence with any of you, who are the permanent lights of genius and literature. my most respectful compliments to miss williams. if once this tangent flight of mine were over, and i were returned to my wonted leisurely motion in my old circle, i may probably endeavour to return her poetic compliment in kind. r. b. * * * * xlix.--to mrs. dunlop. edinburgh, 30_th april_ 1787. --your criticisms, madam, i understand very well, and could have wished to have pleased you better. you are right in your guess that i am not very amenable to counsel. poets, much my superiors, have so flattered those who possessed the adventitious qualities of wealth and power, that i am determined to flatter no created being, either in prose or verse. i set as little by princes, lords, clergy, critics, etc., as, all these respective gentry do by my bardship. i know what i may expect from the world, by-and-bye--illiberal abuse, and perhaps contemptuous neglect. i am happy, madam, that some of my own favourite pieces are distinguished by your particular approbation. for my "dream,"[36] which has unfortunately incurred your loyal displeasure, i hope, in four weeks, or less, to have the honour of appearing, at dunlop, in its defence in person. r. b. [footnote 36: the well-known poem, beginning, "guid morning to your majesty." mrs. dunlop had recommended its omission, in the second edition, on the score of prudence.] * * * * l--to mr. william nicol, classical master, high school, edinburgh. carlisle, _june_ 1, 1787. kind, honest-hearted willie.--i'm sitten down here, after seven-and-forty miles' ridin', e'en as forjesket and forniaw'd as a forfoughten cock, to gie ye some notion o' my land lowper-like stravaguin sin the sorrowfu' hour that i sheuk hands and parted wi' auld reekie. my auld, ga'd gleyde o' a meere has huchyall'd up hill and down brae, in scotland and england, as teugh and birnie as a very deil wi' me. it's true, she's as poor's a sang-maker and as hard's a kirk, and tipper-taipers when she taks the gate, first like a lady's gentlewoman in a minuwae, or a hen on a het girdle; but she's a yauld, poutherie girran for a' that, and has a stomack like willie stalker's meere that wad hae disgeested tumbler-wheels, for she'll whip me aff her five stimparts o' the best aits at a down-sittin and ne'er fash her thumb. when ance her ring-banes and spavies, her crucks and cramps, are fairly soupl'd, she beets to, beets to, and aye the hindmost hour the tightest. i could wager her price to a thretty pennies, that for twa or three wooks ridin' at fifty miles a day, the deil-stickit a five gallopers acqueesh clyde and whithorn could cast saut on her tail. i hae dander'd owre a' the kintra frae dunbar to selcraig, and hae forgather'd wi' mony a guid fallow, and mony a weelfar'd hizzie. i met wi' twa dink quines in particlar, ane o' them a sonsie, fine, fodgel lass, baith braw and bonnie; the tither was a clean-shankit, straught, tight, weel-far'd winch, as blythe's a lintwhite on a flowerie thorn, and as sweet and modest's a new blawn plumrose in a hazle shaw. they were baith bred to mainers by the beuk, and onie ane o' them had as muckle smeddum and rumblegumtion as the half o' some presbyteries that you and i baith ken. * * * * * i was gaun to write ye a lang pystle, but, gude forgie me, i gat mysel sae notouriously fou the day after kail-time that i can hardly stoiter but and ben. my best respecks to the guidwife and a' our common friens, especiall mr. and mrs. cruikshank, and the honest guidman o' jock's lodge.[37] i'll be in dumfries the morn gif the beast be to the fore, and the branks bide hale. gude be wi' you, willie! amen! r. b. [footnote 37: louis cauvin, teacher of french.] * * * * li.-to mr. william nicol. mauchline, _june_ l8, 1787. my dear friend,--i am now arrived safe in my native country, after a very agreeable jaunt, and have the pleasure to find all my friends well. i breakfasted with your greyheaded, reverend friend, mr. smith; and was highly pleased, both with the cordial welcome he gave me, and his most excellent appearance and sterling good sense. i have been with mr. miller at dalswinton, and am to meet him again in august. from my view of the lands, and his reception of my bardship, my hopes in that business are rather mended; but still they are but slender. i am quite charmed with dumfries folks--mr. burnside, the clergyman, in particular, is a man whom i shall ever gratefully remember; and his wife, gude forgie me! i had almost broke the tenth commandment on her account. simplicity, elegance, good sense, sweetness of disposition, good humour, kind hospitality, are the constituents of her manner and heart; in short--but if i say one word more about her, i shall be directly in love with her. i never, my friend, thought mankind very capable of anything generous; but the stateliness of the patricians in edinburgh, and the servility of my plebeian brethren (who, perhaps, formerly eyed me askance) since i returned home, have nearly put me out of conceit altogether with my species. i have bought a pocket milton which i carry perpetually about with me, in order to study the sentiments--the dauntless magnanimity, the intrepid, unyielding independence, the desperate daring, and noble defiance of hardship in that great personage, satan. 'tis true, i have just now a little cash; but i am afraid the star that hitherto has shed its malignant, purpose-blasting rays full in my zenith; that noxious planet, so baneful in its influence to the rhyming tribe--i much dread it is not yet beneath my horizon. misfortune dodges the path of human life; the poetic mind finds itself miserably deranged in, and unfit for the walks of business; add to all, that thoughtless follies and hare-brained whims, like so many _ignes fatui_, eternally diverging from the right line of sober discretion, sparkle with step-bewitching blaze in the idly-gazing eyes of the poor heedless bard, till, pop, "he falls like lucifer, never to hope again." god grant this may be an unreal picture with respect to me! but should it not, i have very little dependence on mankind. i will close my letter with this tribute my heart bids me pay you--the many ties of acquaintance and friendship which i have, or think i have in life, i have felt along the lines, and damn them, they are almost all of them of such frail contexture, that i am sure they would not stand the breath of the least adverse breeze of fortune; but from you, my ever dear sir, i look with confidence for the apostolic love that shall wait on me "through good report and bad report"--the love which solomon emphatically says "is strong as death." my compliments to mrs. nicol and all the circle of our common friends. p.s.--i shall be in edinburgh about the latter end of july. r. b. * * * * * lii.-to mr. robert ainslie.[38] arrochar, 28_th june_ 1787. my dear sir,--i write this on my tour through a country where savage streams tumble over savage mountains, thinly overspread with savage flocks, which sparingly support as savage inhabitants. my last stage was inverary--to-morrow night's stage dumbarton. i ought sooner to have answered your kind letter, but you know i am a man of many sins. r. b. [footnote 38: a young writer in edinburgh.] * * * * * liii.--to mr. james smith, linlithgow, formerly of mauchline. _june 30th_, 1787. my dear friend,--on our return, at a highland gentleman's hospitable mansion, we fell in with a merry party, and danced till the ladies left us, at three in the morning. our dancing was none of the french or english insipid formal movements; the ladies sung scotch songs like angels, at intervals; then we flew at _bab at the bowster_, _tullochgorum_, _loch erroch side_,[39] etc., like midges sporting in the mottie sun, or craws prognosticating a storm in a hairst day. when the dear lasses left us, we ranged round the bowl till the good-fellow hour of six; except a few minutes that we went out to pay our devotions to the glorious lamp of day peering over the towering top of benlomond. we all kneeled; our worthy landlord's son held the bowl; each man a full glass in his hand; and i, as priest, repeated some rhyming nonsense, like thomas-a-rhymer's prophecies, i suppose. after a small refreshment of the gifts of somnus, we proceeded to spend the day on lochlomond, and reached dumbarton in the evening. we dined at another good fellow's house, and, consequently, pushed the bottle; when we went out to mount our horses we found ourselves "no vera fou but gaylie yet." my two friends and i rode soberly down the loch side, till by came a highlandman at the gallop, on a tolerably good horse, but which had never known the ornaments of iron or leather. we scorned to be out-galloped by a highlandman, so off we started, whip and spur. my companions, though seemingly gaily mounted, fell sadly astern; but my old mare, jenny geddes, one of the rosinante family, she strained past the highlandman in spite of all his efforts with the hair halter: just as i was passing him, donald wheeled his horse, as if to cross before me to mar my progress, when down came his horse, and threw his rider's breekless a---in a clipt hedge; and down came jenny geddes over all, and my hardship between her and the highlandman's horse. jenny geddes trode over me with such cautious reverence, that matters were not so bad as might well have been expected; so i came off with a few cuts and bruises, and a thorough resolution to be a pattern of sobriety for the future. i have yet fixed on nothing with respect to the serious business of life. i am, just as usual, a rhyming, mason-making, raking, aimless, idle fellow. however, i shall somewhere have a farm soon. i was going to say, a wife too; but that must never be my blessed lot. i am but a younger son of the house of parnassus, and like other younger sons of great families, i may intrigue, if i choose to run all risks, but must not marry. i am afraid i have almost ruined one source, the principal one indeed, of my former happiness; that eternal propensity i always had to fall in love. my heart no more glows with feverish rapture. i have no paradisiacal evening interviews, stolen from the restless cares and prying inhabitants of this weary world. i have only ----. this last is one of your distant acquaintances, has a fine figure, and elegant manners; and in the train of some great folks whom you know, has seen the politest quarters in europe. i do like her a deal; but what piques me is her conduct at the commencement of our acquaintance. i frequently visited her when i was in ----, and after passing regularly the intermediate degrees between the distant formal bow and the familiar grasp round the waist, i ventured, in my careless way, to talk of friendship in rather ambiguous terms; and after her return to ----, i wrote to her in the same style. miss, construing my words farther, i suppose, than even i intended, flew off in a tangent of female dignity and reserve, like a mounting lark in an april morning; and wrote me an answer which measured me out very completely what an immense way i had to travel before i could reach the climate of her favour. but i am an old hawk at the sport, and wrote her such a cool, deliberate, prudent reply, as brought my bird from her aerial towerings, pop down at my foot, like corporal trim's hat. as for the rest of my acts, and my wars, and all my wise sayings, and why my mare was called jenny geddes, they shall be recorded in a few weeks hence at linlithgow, in the chronicles of your memory, by r. b. [footnote 39: scotch tunes.] * * * * * liv.-to mr. john richmond. mossgiel, 7th _july_ 1787. my dear richmond,-i am all impatience to hear of your fate since the old confounder of right and wrong has turned you out of place, by his journey to answer his indictment at the bar of the other world. he will find the practice of the court so different from the practice in which he has for so many years been thoroughly hackneyed, that his friends, if he had any connections truly of that kind, which i rather doubt, may well tremble for his sake. his chicane, his left-handed wisdom, which stood so firmly by him, to such good purpose, here, like other accomplices in robbery and plunder, will, now the piratical business is blown, in all probability turn king's evidences, and then the devil's bagpiper will touch him off "bundle and go!" if he has left you any legacy, i beg your pardon for all this; if not, i know you will swear to every word i said about him. i have lately been rambling over by dumbarton and inverary, and running a drunken race on the side of loch lomond with a wild highlandman; his horse, which had never known the ornaments of iron or leather, zig-zagged across before my old spavin'd hunter, whose name is jenny geddes, and down came the highlandman, horse and all, and down came jenny and my bardship; so i have got such a skinful of bruises and wounds, that i shall be at least four weeks before i dare venture on my journey to edinburgh. not one new thing under the sun has happened in mauchline since you left it. i hope this will find you as comfortably situated as formerly, or, if heaven pleases, more so; but, at all events, i trust you will let me know of course how matters stand with you, well or ill. 'tis but poor consolation to tell the world when matters go wrong; but you know very well your connection and mine stands on a different footing.--i am ever, my dear friend, yours, r. b. * * * * lv.--to mr. robert ainslie. mauchline, _23rd july_ 1787. my dear ainslie,-there is one thing for which i set great store by you as a friend, and it is this, that i have not a friend upon earth, besides yourself, to whom i can talk nonsense without forfeiting some degree of his esteem. now, to one like me, who never cares for speaking anything else but nonsense, such a friend as you is an invaluable treasure. i was never a rogue, but have been a fool all my life; and, in spite of all my endeavours, i see now plainly that i shall never be wise. now it rejoices my heart to have met with such a fellow as you, who, though you are not just such a hopeless fool as i, yet i trust you will never listen so much to temptation as to grow so very wise that you will in the least disrespect an honest fellow because he is a fool. in short, i have set you down as the staff of my old age, when the whole list of my friends will, after a decent share of pity, have forgot me. though in the morn comes sturt and strife, yet joy may come at noon; and i hope to live a merry, merry life when a' thir days are done. write me soon, were it but a few lines, just to tell me how that good, sagacious man your father is,--that kind, dainty body your mother,-that strapping chiel your brother douglas-and my friend rachel, who is as far before rachel of old, as she was before her blear-eyed sister leah. r. b. * * * * lvi-to dr. moore. mauchline, 2nd august 1787. sir,-for some months past i have been rambling over the country, but i am now confined with some lingering complaints, originating, as i take it, in the stomach. to divert my spirits a little in this miserable fog of ennui, i have taken a whim to give you a history of myself. my name has made some little noise in this country; you have done me the honour to interest yourself very warmly in my behalf; and i think a faithful account of what character of a man i am, and how i came by that character, may perhaps amuse you in an idle moment. i will give you an honest narrative, though i know it will be often at my own expense; for i assure you, sir, i have, like solomon, whose character, excepting in the trifling affair of wisdom, i sometimes think i resemble,--i have, i say, like him, turned my eyes to behold madness and folly, and like him, too, frequently shaken hands with their intoxicating friendship. after you have perused these pages, should you think them trifling and impertinent, i only beg leave to tell you, that the poor author wrote them under some twitching qualms of conscience, arising from a suspicion that he was doing what he ought not to do: a predicament he has more than once been in before. i have not the most distant pretensions to assume that character which the pye-coated guardians of escutcheons call a gentleman. when at edinburgh last winter, i got acquainted in the herald's office; and, looking through that granary of honours, i there found almost every name in the kingdom; but for me, my ancient but ignoble blood has crept thro' scoundrels ever since the flood. gules, purpure, argent, etc., quite disowned me. my father was in the north of scotland the son of a farmer, and was thrown by early misfortunes on the world at large, where, afier many years' wanderings and sojournings, he picked up a pretty large quantity of observation and experience, to which i am indebted for most of my little pretensions to wisdom. i have met with few who understood men, their manners, and their ways, equal to him; but stubborn, ungainly integrity, and headlong, ungovernable irascibility are disqualifying circumstances; consequently, i was born a very poor man's son. for the first six or seven years of my life, my father was gardener to a worthy gentleman of small estate in the neighbourhood of ayr. had he continued in that station, i must have marched off to be one of the little underlings about a farm house; but it was his dearest wish and prayer to have it in his power to keep his children under his own eye, till they could discern between good and evil; so, with the assistance of his generous master, my father ventured on a small farm on his estate. at those years, i was by no means a favourite with anybody. i was a good deal noted for a retentive memory, a stubborn sturdy something in my disposition, and an enthusiastic idiot piety. i say idiot piety, because i was then but a child. though it cost the schoolmaster some thrashings, i made an excellent english scholar; and by the time i was ten or eleven years of age, i was a critic in substantives, verbs, and particles. in my infant and boyish days, too, i owed much to an old woman who resided in the family, remarkable for her ignorance, credulity, and superstition. she had, i suppose, the largest collection in the country of tales and songs concerning devils, ghosts, fairies, brownies, witches, warlocks, spunkies, kelpies, elf-candles, dead-lights, wraiths, apparitions, cantraips, giants, enchanted towers, dragons, and other trumpery. this cultivated the latent seeds of poetry, but had so strong an effect on my imagination, that to this hour, in my nocturnal rambles, i sometimes keep a sharp look out in suspicious places; and though nobody can be more sceptical than i am in such matters, yet it often takes an effort of philosophy to shake off these idle terrors. the earliest composition that i recollect taking pleasure in was "the vision of mirza," and a hymn of addison's, beginning, "how are thy servants blest, o lord!" i particularly remember one half-stanza which was music to my boyish ear- "for though on dreadful whirls we hung high on the broken wave--" i met with these pieces in manson's english collection, one of my school-books. the first two books i ever read in private, and which gave me more pleasure than any two books i ever read since, were the _life of hannibal_, and the _history of sir william wallace_. hannibal gave my young ideas such a turn, that i used to strut in rapture up and down after the recruiting drum and bag-pipe, and wish myself tall enough to be a soldier; while the story of wallace poured a scottish prejudice into my veins which will boil along there, till the flood-gates of life shut in eternal rest. polemical divinity about this time was putting the country half mad, and i, ambitious of shining in conversation parties on sundays, between sermons, at funerals, etc., used a few years afterwards to puzzle calvinism with so much heat and indiscretion, that i raised a hue and cry of heresy against me, which has not ceased to this hour. my vicinity to ayr was of some advantage to me. my social disposition, when not checked by some modifications of spirited pride, was like our catechism definition of infinitude, without bounds or limits. i formed several connections with other younkers, who possessed superior advantages; the youngling actors who were busy in the rehearsal of parts, in which they were shortly to appear on the stage of life, where, alas! i was destined to drudge behind the scenes. it is not commonly at this green stage that our young gentry have a just sense of the immense distance between them and their ragged play-fellows. it takes a few dashes into the world, to give the young great man that proper, decent, unnoticing disregard for the poor, insignificant, stupid devils, the mechanics and peasantry around him, who were, perhaps, born in the same village. my young superiors never insulted the clouterly appearance of my plough-boy carcase, the two extremes of which were often exposed to all the inclemencies of all the seasons. they would give me stray volumes of books; among them, even then, i could pick up some observations; and one, whose heart, i am sure, not even the "munny begum" scenes have tainted, helped me to a little french. parting with these my young friends and benefactors, as they occasionally went off for the east or west indies, was often to me a sore affliction; but i was soon called to more serious evils. my father's generous master died; the farm proved a ruinous bargain; and to clench the misfortune, we fell into the hands of a factor, who sat for the picture i have drawn of one in my tale of "twa dogs." my father was advanced in life when he married; i was the eldest of seven children, and he, worn out by early hardships, was unfit for labour. my father's spirit was soon irritated, but not easily broken. there was a freedom in his lease in two years more, and to weather these two years, we retrenched our expenses. we lived very poorly: i was a dexterous ploughman for my age; and the next eldest to me was a brother (gilbert), who could drive a plough very well, and help me to thrash the corn. a novel-writer might, perhaps, have viewed these scenes with some satisfaction, but so did not i; my indignation yet boils at the recollection of the scoundrel factor's insolent threatening letters, which used to set us all in tears. this kind of life--the cheerless gloom of a hermit with the unceasing moil of a galley-slave, brought me to my sixteenth year; a little before which period i first committed the sin of rhyme. you know our country custom of coupling a man and woman together as partners in the labours of harvest. in my fifteenth autumn, my partner was a bewitching creature, a year younger than myself. my scarcity of english denies me the power of doing her justice in that language, but you know the scottish idiom: she was a "bonnie, sweet, sonsie lass." in short, she, altogether unwittingly to herself, initiated me in that delicious passion, which, in spite of acid disappointment, gin-horse prudence, and book-worm philosophy, i hold to be the first of human joys, our dearest blessing here below! how she caught the contagion i cannot tell; you medical people talk much of infection from breathing the same air, the touch, etc.; but i never expressly said i loved her. indeed, i did not know myself why i liked so much to loiter behind with her, when returning in the evening from our labours; why the tones of her voice made my heart-strings thrill like an aeolian harp; and particularly why my pulse beat such a furious ratan, when i looked and fingered over her little hand to pick out the cruel nettle-stings and thistles. among her other love-inspiring qualities, she sung sweetly; and it was her favourite reel to which i attempted giving an embodied vehicle in rhyme. i was not so presumptuous as to imagine that i could make verses like printed ones, composed by men who had greek and latin; but my girl sung a song which was said to be composed by a small country laird's son, on one of his father's maids, with whom he was in love; and i saw no reason why i might not rhyme as well as he; for, excepting that he could smear sheep, and cast peats, his father living in the moorlands, he had no more scholar-craft than myself. thus with me began love and poetry; which at times have been my only, and till within the last twelve months, have been my highest enjoyment. my father struggled on till he reached the freedom in his lease, when he entered on a larger farm, about ten miles farther in the country. the nature of the bargain he made was such as to throw a little ready money into his hands at the commencement of his lease, otherwise the affair would have been impracticable. for four years we lived comfortably here, but a difference commencing between him and his landlord as to terms, after three years tossing and whirling in the vortex of litigation, my father was just saved from the horrors of a jail, by a consumption, which, after two years' promises, kindly stepped in, and carried him away, to where the wicked cease from troubling, and where the weary are at rest! it is during the time that we lived on this farm that my little story is most eventful. i was, at the beginning of this period, perhaps the most ungainly awkward boy in the parish--no _solitaire_ was less acquainted with the ways of the world. what i knew of ancient story was gathered from salmon's and guthrie's geographical grammars; and the ideas i had formed of modern manners, of literature, and criticism, i got from the _spectator_. these, with pope's works, some plays of shakespeare, tull and dickson on agriculture, _the pantheon_, locke's _essay on the human understanding_, stackhouse's _history of the bible_, justice's _british gardener's directory_, boyle's _lectures_, allan ramsays's works, taylor's _scripture doctrine of original sin_, _a select collection of english songs_, and hervey's _meditations_, had formed the whole of my reading. the collection of songs was my _vade mecum_. i pored over them, driving my cart, or walking to labour, song by song, verse by verse; carefully noting the true tender, or sublime, from affectation and fustian. i am convinced i owe to this practice much of my critic-craft, such as it is. in my seventeenth year, to give my manners a brush, i went to a country dancing-school. my father had an unaccountable antipathy against these meetings, and my going was, what to this moment i repent, in opposition to his wishes. my father, as i said before, was subject to strong passions; from that instance of disobedience in me, he took a sort of dislike to me, which, i believe, was one cause of the dissipation which marked my succeeding years. i say dissipation, comparatively with the strictness, and sobriety, and regularity of presbyterian country life; for though the will-o'-wisp meteors of thoughtless whim were almost the sole lights of my path, yet early ingrained piety and virtue kept me for several years afterwards within the line of innocence. the great misfortune of my life was to want an aim. i had felt early some stirrings of ambition, but they were the blind gropings of homer's cyclops round the walls of his cave. i saw my father's situation entailed on me perpetual labour. the only two openings by which i could enter the temple of fortune were the gate of niggardly economy, or the path of little chicaning bargain-making. the first is so contracted an aperture i never could squeeze myself into it--the last i always hated--there was contamination in the very entrance! thus abandoned of aim or view in life, with a strong appetite for sociability, as well from native hilarity as from a pride of observation and remark; a constitutional melancholy or hypochondriasm that made me fly solitude; add to these incentives to social life, my reputation for bookish knowledge, a certain wild logical talent, and a strength of thought something like the rudiments of good sense; and it will not seem surprising that i was generally a welcome guest where i visited, or any great wonder that always, where two or three met together, there was i among them. but far beyond all other impulses of my heart, was _un penchant à l'adorable moitié du genre humain_. my heart was completely tinder, and was eternally lighted up by some goddess or other; and, as in every other warfare in this world, my fortune was various; sometimes i was received with favour, and sometimes i was mortified with a repulse. at the plough, scythe, or reap-hook, i feared no competitor, and thus i set absolute want at defiance; and as i never cared further for my labours than while i was in actual exercise, i spent the evenings in the way after my own heart. a country lad seldom carries on a love adventure without an assisting confidant. i possessed a curiosity, zeal, and intrepid dexterity that recommended me as a proper second on these occasions; and i dare say i felt as much pleasure in being in the secret of half the loves of the parish of tarbolton, as ever did statesman in knowing the intrigues of half the courts of europe. the very goose-feather in my hand seems to know instinctively the well-worn path of my imagination, the favourite theme of my song, and is with difficulty restrained from giving you a couple of paragraphs on the love-adventures of my compeers, the humble inmates of the farm-house and cottage; but the grave sons of science, ambition, or avarice, baptise these things by the name of follies. to the sons and daughters of labour and poverty they are matters of the most serious nature: to them the ardent hope, the stolen interview, the tender farewell, are the greatest and most delicious parts of their enjoyments. another circumstance in my life which made some alteration in my mind and manners, was, that i spent my nineteenth summer on a smuggling coast, a good distance from home, at a noted school, to learn mensuration, surveying, dialling, etc., in which i made a pretty good progress. but i made a greater progress in the knowledge of mankind. the contraband trade was at that time very successful, and it sometimes happened to me to fall in with those who carried it on. scenes of swaggering riot and roaring dissipation were, till this time, new to me: but i was no enemy to social life. here, though i learned to fill my glass, and to mix without fear in a drunken squabble, yet i went on with a high hand with my geometry, till the sun entered virgo, a month which is always a carnival in my bosom, when a charming fillette, who lived next door to the school, overset my trigonometry, and set me off at a tangent from the spheres of my studies. i, however, struggled on with my sines and cosines for a few days more; but stepping into the garden one charming noon, to take the sun's altitude, there i met my angel, like proserpine gathering flowers, herself a fairer flower. it was in vain to think of doing any more good at school. the remaining week i staid i did nothing but craze the faculties of my soul about her, or steal out to meet her; and the two last nights of my stay in the country, had sleep been a mortal sin, the image of this modest and innocent girl had kept me guiltless. i returned home very considerably improved. my reading was enlarged with the very important edition of thomson's and shenstone's works; i had seen human nature in a new phasis; and i engaged several of my schoolfellows to keep up a literary correspondence with me. this improved me in composition. i had met with a collection of letters by the wits of queen anne's reign, and i pored over them most devoutly. i kept copies of any of my own letters that pleased me, and a comparison between them and the composition of most of my correspondents flattered my vanity. i carried this whim so far, that though i had not three-farthings' worth of business in the world, yet almost every post brought me as many letters as if i had been a broad plodding son of day-book and ledger. my life flowed on much in the same course till my twenty-third year. _vive l'amour, et vive la bagatelle_, were my sole principles of action. the addition of two more authors to my library gave me great pleasure; sterne and mackenzie--_tristram shandy_ and the _man of feeling_ were my bosom favourites. poesy was still a darling walk for my mind, but it was only indulged in according to the humour of the hour. i had usually half-a-dozen or more pieces on hand: i took up one or other, as it suited the momentary tone of the mind, and dismissed the work as it bordered on fatigue. my passions, when once lighted up, raged like so many devils, till they got vent in rhyme; and then the conning over my verses, like a spell, soothed all into quiet! none of the rhymes of those days are in print, except "winter, a dirge," the eldest of my printed pieces; "the death of poor maillie," "john barleycorn," and songs first, second, and third. song second was the ebullition of that passion which ended the forementioned school business. my twenty-third year was to me an important era. partly through whim, and partly that i wished to set about doing something in life, i joined a flax-dresser in a neighbouring town (irvine), to learn his trade. this was an unlucky affair. my partner was a scoundrel of the first water; and to finish the whole, as we were giving a welcome carousal to the new year, the shop took fire and burnt to ashes, and i was left, like a true poet, not worth a sixpence. i was obliged to give up this scheme; the clouds of misfortune were gathering thick round my father's head; and, what was worst of all, he was visibly far gone in a consumption; and, to crown my distresses, a _belle fille_, whom i adored, and who had pledged her soul to meet me in the field of matrimony, jilted me, with peculiar circumstances of mortification. the finishing evil that brought up the rear of this infernal file, was my constitutional melancholy being increased to such a degree that for three months i was in a state of mind scarcely to be envied by the hopeless wretches who have got their mittimus--"depart from me, ye cursed." from this adventure i learned something of a town life; but the principal thing which gave my mind a turn was a friendship i formed with a young fellow, a very noble character, but a hapless son of misfortune.[40] he was the son of a simple mechanic; but a great man in the neighbourhood taking him under his patronage, gave him a genteel education, with a view of bettering his situation in life. the patron dying just as he was ready to launch out into the world, the poor fellow, in despair, went to sea; where, after a variety of good and ill fortune, a little before i was acquainted with him he had been sent on shore by an american privateer, on the wild coast of connaught, stripped of everything. i cannot quit this poor fellow's story without adding, that he is at this time master of a large west-india-man belonging to the thames. his mind was fraught with independence, magnanimity, and every manly virtue. i loved and admired him to a degree of enthusiasm, and of course strove to imitate him. in some measure i succeeded; i had pride before, but he taught it to flow in proper channels. his knowledge of the world was vastly superior to mine, and i was all attention to learn. he was the only man i ever saw who was a greater fool than myself where woman was the presiding star; but he spoke of illicit love with the levity of a sailor, which hitherto i had regarded with horror. here his friendship did me a mischief, and the consequence was, that soon after i resumed the plough, i wrote the "poet's welcome." my reading only increased while in this town by two stray volumes of _pamela_, and one of _ferdinand count fathom_, which gave me some idea of novels. rhyme, except some religious pieces that are in print, i had given up; but meeting with fergusson's scottish poems, i strung anew my wildly-sounding lyre with emulating vigour. when my father died, his all went among the hell-hounds that prowl in the kennel of justice; but we made a shift to collect a little money in the family amongst us, with which, to keep us together, my brother and i took a neighbouring farm. my brother wanted my hair-brained imagination, as well as my social and amorous madness; but in good sense, and every sober qualification, he was far my superior. i entered on this farm with a full resolution, "come, go to, i will be wise!" i read farming books; i calculated crops; i attended markets; and, in short, in spite of the devil, and the world, and the flesh, i believe i should have been a wise man; but the first year, from unfortunately buying bad seed, the second from a late harvest, we lost half our crops. this overset all my wisdom, and i returned "like the dog to his vomit, and the sow that was washed, to her wallowing in the mire." i now began to be known in the neighbourhood as a maker of rhymes. the first of my poetic offspring that saw the light was a burlesque lamentation on a quarrel between two reverend calvinists, both of them _dramatis personæ_ in my "holy fair". i had a notion myself that the piece had some merit; but, to prevent the worst, i gave a copy of it to a friend, who was very fond of such things, and told him that i could not guess who was the author of it, but that i thought it pretty clever. with a certain description of the clergy, as well as laity, it met with a roar of applause. "holy willie's prayer" next made its appearance, and alarmed the kirk-session so much, that they held several meetings to look over their spiritual artillery, if haply any of it might be pointed against profane rhymers. unluckily for me, my wanderings led me on another side, within point-blank shot of their heaviest metal. this is the unfortunate story that gave rise to my printed poem, "the lament." this was a most melancholy affair, which i cannot yet bear to reflect on, and had very nearly given me one or two of the principal qualifications for a place among those who have lost the chart, and mistaken the reckoning of rationality. i gave up my part of the farm to my brother; in truth it was only nominally mine; and made what little preparation was in my power for jamaica. but before leaving my native country for ever, i resolved to publish my poems. i weighed my productions as impartially as was in my power; i thought they had merit; and it was a delicious idea that i should be called a clever fellow, even though it should never reach my ears--a poor negro-driver--or perhaps a victim to that inhospitable clime, and gone to the world of spirits! i can truly say, that, _pauvre inconnu_ as i then was, i had pretty nearly as high an idea of myself and of my works as i have at this moment, when the public has decided in their favour. it ever was my opinion that the mistakes and blunders, both in a rational and religious point of view, of which we see thousands daily guilty, are owing to their ignorance of themselves. to know myself, had been all along my constant study. i weighed myself alone; i balanced myself with others; i watched every means of information, to see how much ground i occupied as a man, and as a poet; i studied assiduously nature's design in my formation--where the lights and shades in my character were intended. i was pretty confident my poems would meet with some applause; but at the worst, the roar of the atlantic would deafen the voice of censure, and the novelty of west indian scenes make me forget neglect. i threw off six hundred copies, of which i had got subscriptions for about three hundred and fifty. my vanity was highly gratified by the reception i met with from the public; and besides, i pocketed, all expenses deducted, nearly twenty pounds. this sum came very seasonably, as i was thinking of indenting myself, for want of money to procure my passage. as soon as i was master of nine guineas, the price of wafting me to the torrid zone, i took a steerage passage in the first ship that was to sail from the clyde, for hungry ruin had me in the wind. i had been for some days skulking from covert to covert, under all the terrors of a jail; as some ill-advised people had uncoupled the merciless pack of the law at my heels. i had taken the last farewell of my few friends; my chest was on the road to greenock; i had composed the last song i should ever measure in caledonia--"the gloomy night is gathering fast," when a letter from dr. blacklock to a friend of mine overthrew all my schemes, by opening new prospects to my poetic ambition. the doctor belonged to a set of critics, for whose applause i had not dared to hope. his opinion, that i would meet with encouragement in edinburgh for a second edition, fired me so much, that away i posted for that city, without a single acquaintance or a single letter of introduction. the baneful star that had so long shed its blasting influence in my zenith, for once made a revolution to the nadir; and a kind providence placed me under the patronage of one of the noblest of men, the earl of glencairn. _oubliez moi, grand dieu, si jamais je l'oublie_! i need relate no farther. at edinburgh i was in a new world; i mingled among many classes of men, but all of them new to me, and i was all attention to "catch" the characters, and "the manners living as they rise." you can now, sir, form a pretty near guess of what sort of a wight he is whom for some time you have honoured with your correspondence. that whim and fancy, keen sensibility and riotous passions, may still make him zigzag in his future path of life is very probable; but come what will, i shall answer for him the most determinate integrity and honour. and though his evil star should again blaze in his meridian with tenfold more direful influence, he may reluctantly tax friendship with pity, but with no more. my most respectful compliments to miss williams.[41] the very elegant and friendly letter she honoured me with a few days ago i cannot answer at present, as my presence is required at edinburgh for a week or so, and i set off to-morrow. i enclose you _holy willie_ for the sake of giving you a little further information of the affair than mr. creech[42] could do. an elegy i composed the other day on sir james h. blair, if time allow, i will transcribe. the merit is just mediocre. if you will oblige me so highly, and do me so much honour as now and then to drop me a line, please direct to me at mauchline. with the most grateful respect, i have the honour to be, sir, your very humble servant, robert burns.[43] [footnote 40: richard brown.] [footnote 41: a young poetical lady, though not a poetess.] [footnote 42: his edinburgh publisher; a bookseller, afterwards lord provost of the city.] [footnote 43: the foregoing biographical letter brings us down to burns's 29th year.] * * * * lvil.--to mr. archibald lawrie.[44] edinburgh, 14_th august_ 1787. my dear sir,--here am i. that is all i can tell you of that unaccountable being, myself. what i am doing no mortal can tell; what i am thinking, i myself cannot tell; what i am usually saying is not worth telling. the clock is just striking--one, two, three, four...twelve, forenoon; and here i sit in the attic storey, the garret, with a friend on the right hand of my standish, a friend whose kindness i shall largely experience at the close of this line--there, thank you!--a friend, my dear lawrie, whose kindness often makes me blush--a friend who has more of the milk of human kindness than all the human race put together, and what is highly to his honour, peculiarly a friend to the friendless as often as they come his way; in short, sir, he is wthout the least alloy a universal philanthropist, and his much-beloved name is a bottle of good old port! in a week, if whim and weather serve, i set out for the north, a tour to the highlands. i ate some newhaven broth--in other words, boiled mussels--with mr. farquharson's family t'other day. now i see you prick up your ears. they are all well, and mademoiselle is particularly well. she begs her respects to you all--along with which please present those of your humble servant. i can no more. i have so high a veneration, or rather idolatrization, for the clerical character, that even a little _futurum esse_ priestling, with his _penna pennæ_, throws an awe over my mind in his presence, and shortens my sentences into single ideas. farewell, and believe me to be ever, my dear sir, yours, robert burns. [footnote 44: son, and successor, to the minister of loudon.] * * * * lviii.--to mr. robert muir, kilmarnock. stirling, 26_th august_ 1787. my dear sir,--i intended to have written you from edinburgh, and now write you from stirling to make an excuse. here am i, on my way to inverness, with a truly original, but very worthy man, a mr. nicol, one of the masters of the high-school in edinburgh. i left auld reekie yesterday morning, and have passed, besides by-excursions, linlithgow, borrowstounness, falkirk, and here am i undoubtedly. this morning i knelt at the tomb of sir john the graham, the gallant friend of the immortal wallace; and two hours ago i said a fervent prayer for old caledonia over the hole in a blue whinstone, where robert de bruce fixed his royal standard on the banks of bannockburn and just now, from stirling castle, i have seen by the setting sun the glorious prospect of the windings of forth through the rich carse of stirling, and skirting the equally rich carse of falkirk. the crops are very strong, but so very late that there is no harvest except a ridge or two perhaps in ten miles, all the way i have travelled from edinburgh. i left andrew bruce[45] and family all well. i will be at least three weeks in making my tour, as i shall return by the coast, and have many people to call for. my best compliments to charles, our dear kinsman and fellow-saint; and messrs. w. and h. parkers. i hope hughoc[46] is going on and prospering with god and miss m'causlin. if i could think on anything sprightly, i should let you hear every other post; but a dull, matter-of-fact business like this scrawl, the less and seldomer one writes the better. among other matters-of-fact i shall add this, that i am and ever shall be, my dear sir, your obliged, robert burns. [footnote 45: a shopkeeper on the north bridge, edinburgh.] [footnote 46: the wee hughoc mentioned in "poor maillie."] * * * * lix.--to mr. gavin hamilton. stirling, _28th august_ 1787. my dear sir,--here am i on my way to inverness. i have rambled over the rich, fertile carses of falkirk and stirling, and am delighted with their appearance: richly waving crops of wheat, barley, etc., but no harvest at all yet, except, in one or two places, an old-wife's ridge. yesterday morning i rode from this town up the meandering devon's banks, to pay my respects to some ayrshire folks at harvieston. after breakfast, we made a party to go and see the famous caudron-linn, a remarkable cascade in the devon, about five miles above harvieston; and after spending one of the most pleasant days i ever had in my life, i returned to stirling in the evening. they are a family, sir, though i had not had any prior tie, though they had not been the brother and sisters of a certain generous friend of mine, i would never forget them. i am told you have not seen them these several years, so you can have very little idea of what these young folks are now. your brother[47] is as tall as you are, but slender rather than otherwise; and i have the satisfaction to inform you that he is getting the better of those consumptive symptoms which i suppose you know were threatening him. his make, and particularly his manner, resemble you, but he will have a still finer face. (i put in the word still, to please mrs. hamilton.) good sense, modesty, and at the same time a just idea of that respect that man owes to man, and has a right in his turn to exact, are striking features in his character; and, what with me is the alpha and the omega, he has a heart that might adorn the breast of a poet! grace has a good figure, and the look of health and cheerfulness, but nothing else remarkable in her person. i scarcely ever saw so striking a likeness as is between her and your little beenie; the mouth and chin particularly. she is reserved at first; but as we grew better acquainted, i was delighted with the native frankness of her manner, and the sterling sense of her observation. of charlotte i cannot speak in common terms of admiration: she is not only beautiful but lovely. her form is elegant; her features not regular, but they have the smile of sweetness, and the settled complacency of good nature in the highest degree; and her complexion, now that she has happily recovered her wonted health, is equal to miss burnet's. after the exercises of our riding to the falls, charlotte was exactly dr. donne's mistress:- her pure and eloquent blood spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought, that one would almost say her body thought. her eyes are fascinating; at once expressive of good sense, tenderness, and a noble mind. i do not give you all this account, my good sir, to flatter you. i mean it to reproach you. such relations the first peer in the realm might own with pride; then why do you not keep up more correspondence with these so amiable young folks? i had a thousand questions to answer about you. i had to describe the little ones with the minuteness of anatomy. they were highly delighted when i told them that john[48] was so good a boy, and so fine a scholar, and that willie was going on still very pretty; but i have it in commission to tell her from them, that beauty is a poor silly bauble without she be good. miss chalmers i had left in edinburgh, but i had the pleasure of meeting with mrs. chalmers, only lady mackenzie being rather a little alarmingly ill of a sore throat somewhat marred our enjoyment. i shall not be in ayrshire for four weeks. my most respectful compliments to mrs. hamilton, miss kennedy, and doctor mackenzie. i shall probably write him from some stage or other.--i am ever; sir, yours most gratefully, robt. burns. [footnote 47: step-brother, more correctly.] [footnote 48: this is the "wee curlie johnnie" mentioned in burns's _dedication to gavin hamilton, esq._] * * * * lx.--to mr. walker, blair of athole.[49] inverness, _5th september_ 1787. my dear sir,--i have just time to write the foregoing,[50] and to tell you that it was (at least most part of it) the effusion of an half-hour i spent at bruar. i do not mean it was extempore, for i have endeavoured to brush it up as well as mr. nicol's chat, and the jogging of the chaise, would allow. it eases my heart a good deal, as rhyme is the coin with which a poet pays his debts of honour or gratitude. what i owe to the noble family of athole, of the first kind, i shall ever proudly boast; what i owe of the last, so help me god in my hour of need! i shall never forget. the "little angel-band!" i declare i prayed for them very sincerely today at the fall of fyers. i shall never forget the fine family-piece i saw at blair; the amiable, the truly noble duchess, with her smiling little seraph in her lap, at the head of the table; the lovely "olive plants," as the hebrew bard finely says, round the happy mother; the beautiful mrs. g---; the lovely, sweet miss c., etc. i wish i had the powers of guido to do them justice! my lord duke's kind hospitality--markedly kind indeed; mr. graham of fintry's charms of conversation; sir w. murray's friendship. in short, the recollection of all that polite, agreeable company raises an honest glow in my bosom. r. b. [footnote 49: mr. walker was tutor to the children of the duke of athole. he afterwards became professor of humanity in the university of glasgow.] [footnote 50: the humble petition of bruar water.] * * * * lxi.--to his brother, mr. gilbert burns, mossgiel. edinberg, 17_th september_ 1787. my dear sir,--i arrived here safe yesterday evening after a tour of twenty-two days, and travelling near six hundred miles, windings included. my farthest stretch was about ten miles beyond inverness. i went through the heart of the highlands by crieff, taymouth, the famous seat of lord breadalbane, down the tay, among cascades and druidical circles of stones, to dunkeld, a seat of the duke of athole; thence across tay, and up one of his tributary streams to blair of athole, another of the duke's seats, where i had the honour of spending nearly two days with his grace and family; thence many miles through a wild country among cliffs grey with eternal snows, and gloomy savage glens, till i crossed spey and went down the stream through strathspey, so famous in scottish music; badenoch, etc., till i reached grant castle, where i spent half a day with sir james grant and family; and then crossed the country for fort george, but called by the way at cawdor, the ancient seat of macbeth; there i saw the identical bed in which tradition says king duncan was murdered: lastly, from fort george to inverness. i returned by the coast through nairn, forres, and so on, to aberdeen, thence to stonehive, where james burness, from montrose, met me by appointment. i spent two days among our relations, and found our aunts, jean and isabel, still alive, and hale old women. john cairn, though born the same year with our father, walks as vigorously as i can: they have had several letters from his son in new york. william brand is likewise a stout old fellow; but further particulars i delay till i see you, which will be in two or three weeks. the rest of my stages are not worth rehearsing; warm as i was for ossian's country, where i had seen his very grave, what cared i for fishing-towns or fertile carses? i slept at the famous brodie of brodie's one night, and dined at gordon castle next day, with the duke, duchess, and family. i am thinking to cause my old mare to meet me, by means of john ronald, at glasgow; but you shall hear farther from me before i leave edinburgh. my duty and many compliments from the north to my mother; and my brotherly compliments to the rest. i have been trying for a berth for william,[51] but am not likely to be successful. farewell. r. b. [footnote 51: their youngest brother, afterwards a journeyman saddler.] * * * * lxii.--to mr. patrick miller,[52] dalswinton. edinburgh, 20_th oct_., 1787. sir,--i was spending a few days at sir william murray's, ochtertyre, and did not get your obliging letter till to-day i came to town. i was still more unlucky in catching a miserable cold, for which the medical gentlemen have ordered me into close confinement under pain of death-the severest of penalties. in two or three days, if i get better, and if i hear at your lodgings that you are still at dalswinton, i will take a ride to dumfries directly. from something in your last, i would wish to explain my idea of being your tenant. i want to be a farmer in a small farm, about a plough-gang, in a pleasant country, under the auspices of a good landlord. i have no foolish notion of being a tenant on easier terms than another. to find a farm where one can live at all is not easy--i only mean living soberly, like an old-style farmer, and joining personal industry. the banks of the nith are as sweet poetic ground as any i ever saw; and besides, sir, 'tis but justice to the feelings of my own heart and the opinion of my best friends, to say that i would wish to call you landlord sooner than any landed gentleman i know. these are my views and wishes; and in whatever way you think best to lay out your farms i shall be happy to rent one of them. i shall certainly be able to ride to dalswinton about the middle of next week, if i hear that you are not gone.--i have the honour to be, sir, your obliged humble servant, robert burns. [footnote 52: his future landlord, at ellisland.] * * * * lxiii.-to rev. john skinner. edinburgh, _october_ 25_th_, 1787. reverend and venerable sir,--accept, in plain, dull prose, my most sincere thanks for the best poetical compliment i ever received. i assure you, sir, as a poet, you have conjured up an airy demon of vanity in my fancy, which the best abilities in your other capacity would be ill able to lay. i regret, and while i live i shall regret, that when i was in the north i had not the pleasure of paying a younger brother's dutiful respect to the author of the best scotch song ever scotland saw--"tullochgorum's my delight!" the world may think slightingly of the craft of song-making if they please; but, as job says--"o that mine adversary had written a book!"--let them try. there is a certain something in the old scotch songs, a wild happiness of thought and expression, which peculiarly marks them, not only from english songs, but also from the modern efforts of song-wrights, in our native manner and language. the only remains of this enchantment, these spells of the imagination, rest with you. our true brother, ross of lochlee, was likewise "owre cannie"--a "wild warlock"--but now he sings among the "sons of the morning." i have often wished, and will certainly endeavour, to form a kind of common acquaintance among all the genuine sons of caledonian song. the world, busy in low prosaic pursuits, may overlook most of us; but "reverence thyself." the world is not our _peers_ so we challenge the jury. we can lash that world, and find ourselves a very great source of amusement and happiness independent of that world. there is a work[53] going on in edinburgh, just now, which claims your best assistance. an engraver in this town has set about collecting and publishing all the scotch songs, with the music, that can be found. songs in the english language, if by scotchmen, are admitted, but the music must all be scotch. drs. beattie and blacklock are lending a hand, and the first musician in town presides over that department. i have been absolutely crazed about it, collecting old stanzas, and every information remaining respecting their origin, authors, etc., etc. this last is but a very fragment business; but at the end of his second number--the first is already published--a small account will be given of the authors, particularly to preserve those of latter times. your three songs, "tullochgorum," "john of badenyon," and "ewie wi' the crookit horn," go in this second number. i was determined, before i got your letter, to write you, begging that you would let me know where the editions of these pieces may be found as you would wish them to continue in future times: and if you would be so kind to this undertaking as send any songs, of your own or others, that you would think proper to publish, your name will be inserted among the other authors. "nill ye, will ye," one-half of scotland already give your songs to other authors. paper is done. i beg to hear from you; the sooner the better, as i leave edinburgh in a fortnight or three weeks.--i am, with the warmest sincerity, sir, your obliged humble servant, r. b. [footnote 53: johnson's _musical museum_.] * * * * lxiv.--to miss margaret chalmers, harvieston. (afterwards mrs. hay, of edinburgh.) _oct_. 26, 1787. i send charlotte the first number of the songs; i would not wait for the second number; i hate delays in little marks of friendship, as i hate dissimulation in the language of the heart. i am determined to pay charlotte a poetic compliment, if i could hit on some glorious old scotch air, in number second.[54] you will see a small attempt on a shred of paper in the book; but though dr. blacklock commended it very highly, i am not just satisfied with it myself. i intend to make it a description of some kind: the whining cant of love, except in real passion, and by a masterly hand, is to me as insufferable as the preaching cant of old father smeaton, whig-minister at kilmaurs. darts, flames, cupids, loves, graces, and all that farrago, are just a mauchline--a senseless rabble. i got an excellent poetic epistle yesternight from the old, venerable author of "tullochgorum," "john of badenyon," etc. i suppose you know he is a clergyman. it is by far the finest poetic compliment i ever got. i will send you a copy of it. i go on thursday or friday to dumfries, to wait on mr. miller about his farms. do tell that to lady mackenzie, that she may give me credit for a little wisdom. "i, wisdom, dwell with prudence." what a blessed fireside! how happy should i be to pass a winter evening under their venerable roof! and smoke a pipe of tobacco, or drink water-gruel with them! what solemn, lengthened, laughter-quashing gravity of phiz! what sage remarks on the good-for-nothing sons and daughters of indiscretion and folly! and what frugal lessons, as we straitened the fireside circle, on the uses of the poker and tongs! miss n. is very well, and begs to be remembered in the old way to you. i used all my eloquence, all the persuasive flourishes of the hand, and heart-melting modulation of periods in my power, to urge her out to harvieston, but all in vain. my rhetoric seems quite to have lost its effect on the lovely half of mankind. i have seen the day--but this is "a tale of other years." in my conscience i believe that my heart has been so oft on fire that it is absolutely vitrified. i look on the sex with something like the admiration with which i regard the starry sky in a frosty december night. i admire the beauty of the creator's workmanship; i am charmed with the wild but graceful eccentricity of their motions, and--wish them good-night. i mean this with respect to a certain passion _dont j'at eu l'honneur d'etre un miserable esclave_. as for friendship, you and charlotte have given me pleasure, permanent pleasure, "which the world cannot give, nor take away," i hope, and which will outlast the heavens and the earth. r. b. [footnote 54: of the scots _musical museum_.] * * * * lxv.--to mrs. dunlop of dunlop house, stewarton. edin., 4_th nov_. 1787. madam,--... when you talk of correspondence and friendship to me, you do me too much honour; but, as i shall soon be at my wonted leisure and rural occupation, if any remark on what i have read or seen, or any new rhyme that i may twist, be worth the while ... you shall have it with all my heart and soul. it requires no common exertion of good sense and philosophy in persons of elevated rank to keep a friendship properly alive with one much their inferior. externals, things wholly extraneous of the man, steal upon the hearts and judgments of almost, if not altogether, all mankind; nor do i know more than one instance of a man who fully regards all the world as a stage and all the men and women merely players, and who (the dancing-school bow excepted) only values these players, the _dramatis personæ_ who build cities and who rear hedges, who govern provinces or superintend flocks, _merely as they act their parts_. for the honour of ayrshire this man is professor dugald stewart of catrine. to him i might perhaps add another instance, a popish bishop, geddes of edinburgh.... i ever could ill endure those ... beasts of prey who foul the hallowed ground of religion with their nocturnal prowlings; and if the prosecution against my worthy friend, dr. mcgill, goes on, i shall keep no measure with the savages, but fly at them with the _faucons_ of ridicule, or run them down with the bloodhounds of satire as lawful game wherever i start them. i expect to leave edinburgh in eight or ten days, and shall certainly do myself the honour of calling at dunlop house as i return to ayrshire.--i have the honour to be, madam, your obliged humble servant, robert burns. * * * * lxvi.--to mr. james hoy,[55] gordon castle. edinburg, 6_th november_ 1787. dear sir,--i would have wrote you immediately on receipt of your kind letter, but a mixed impulse of gratitude and esteem whispered to me that i ought to send you something by way of return. when a poet owes anything, particularly when he is indebted for good offices, the payment that usually recurs to him--the only coin, indeed, in which he is probably conversant--is rhyme. johnson sends the books by the fly, as directed, and begs me to inclose his most grateful thanks: my return i intended should have been one or two poetic bagatelles which the world have not seen, or, perhaps, for obvious seasons, cannot see. these i shall send you before i leave edinburgh. they may make you laugh a little, which, on the whole, is no bad way of spending one's precious hours and still more precious breath. at any rate, they will be, though a small, yet a very sincere mark of my respectful esteem for a gentleman whose farther acquaintance i should look upon as a peculiar obligation. the duke's song, independent totally of his dukeship, charms me. there is i know not what of wild happiness of thought and expression peculiarly beautiful in the old scottish song style, of which his grace, old venerable skinner, the author of "tullochgorum," etc., and the late ross, at lochlee, of true scottish poetic memory, are the only modern instances that i recollect, since ramsay, with his contemporaries, and poor bob fergusson, went to the world of deathless existence and truly immortal song. the mob of mankind, that many-headed beast, would laugh at so serious a speech about an old song; but, as job says, "o that mine adversary had written a book!" those who think that composing a scotch song is a trifling business--let them try. i wish my lord duke would pay a proper attention to the christian admonition, "hide not your candle under a bushel," but "let your light shine before men." i could name half-a-dozen dukes that i guess are a deal worse employed; nay, i question if there are half-a-dozen better: perhaps there are not half that scanty number whom heaven has favoured with the tuneful, happy, and, i will say, glorious gift.--i am, dear sir, your obliged humble servant, r. b. [footnote 55: librarian to the duke of gordon.] * * * * lxvii.-to the earl of glencairn. edinburg, (_end of_ 1787.) my lord,--i know your lordship will disapprove of my ideas in a request i am going to make to you; but i have weighed, long and seriously weighed, my situation, my hopes, and turn of mind, and am fully fixed to my scheme, if i can possibly effectuate it. i wish to get into the excise: i am told that your lordship's interest will easily procure me the grant from the commissioners; and your lordship's patronage and goodness, which have already rescued me from obscurity, wretchedness, and exile, embolden me to ask that interest. you have likewise put it in my power to save the little tie of home that sheltered an aged mother, two brothers, and three sisters from destruction. there, my lord, you have bound me over to the highest gratitude. my brother's farm is but a wretched lease, but i think he will probably weather out the remaining seven years of it; and after the assistance which i have given, and will give him, to keep the family together, i think, by my guess, i shall have rather better than two hundred pounds, and instead of seeking, what is almost impossible at present to find, a farm that i can certainly live by, with so small a stock, i shall lodge this sum in a banking-house, a sacred deposit, excepting only the calls of uncommon distress or necessitous old age. these, my lord, are my views: i have resolved from the maturest deliberation; and now i am fixed, i shall leave no stone unturned to carry my resolve into execution. your lordship's patronage is the strength of my hopes; nor have i yet applied to anybody else. indeed my heart sinks within me at the idea of applying to any other of the great who have honoured me with their countenance. i am ill-qualified to dog the heels of greatness with the impertinence of solicitation, and tremble nearly as much at the thought of the cold promise as the cold denial; but to your lordship i have not only the honour, the comfort, but the pleasure of being your lordship's much obliged and deeply indebted humble servant, r. b. * * * * lxviii--to miss chalmers. edinburgh, _nov_. 21, 1787. i have one vexatious fault to the kindly, welcome, well-filled sheet which i owe to your and charlotte's goodness--it contains too much sense, sentiment, and good spelling. it is impossible that even you two, whom, i declare to my god, i will give credit for any degree of excellence the sex are capable of attaining-it is impossible you can go on to correspond at that rate; so, like those who, shenstone says, retire because they have made a good speech, i shall, after a few letters, hear no more of you. i insist that you shall write whatever comes first--what you see, what you read, what you hear, what you admire, what you dislike, trifles, bagatelles, nonsense; or, to fill up a corner, e'en put down a laugh at full length. now, none of your polite hints about flattery; i leave that to your lovers, if you have or shall have any; though, thank heaven, i have found at last two girls who can be luxuriantly happy in their own minds and with one another, without that commonly necessary appendage to female bliss--a lover. charlotte and you are just two favourite resting-places for my soul in her wanderings through the weary, thorny wilderness of this world. god knows, i am ill-fitted for the struggle: i glory in being a poet, and i want to be thought a wise man--i would fondly be generous, and i wish to be rich. after all, i am afraid i am a lost subject. "some folk hae a hantle o' faults, and i'm but a ne'er-do-well". _afternoon_.--to close the melancholy reflections at the end of last sheet, i shall just add a piece of devotion, commonly known in carrick by the title of the "wabster's grace":- some say we're thieves, and e'en sae are we, some say we lie, and e'en sae do we! gude forgie us, and i hope sae will he! up and to your looms, lads. r. b. * * * * lxix.--to miss chalmers. edinburgh, _dec_. 12, 1787. i am here under the care of a surgeon, with a bruised limb extended on a cushion, and the tints of my mind vieing with the livid horror preceding a midnight thunderstorm. a drunken coachman was the cause of the first, and incomparably the lightest evil; misfortune, bodily constitution, hell, and myself have formed a "quadruple alliance" to guarantee the other. i got my fall on saturday, and am getting slowly better. i have taken tooth and nail to the bible, and am got through the five books of moses, and half way in joshua. it is really a glorious book. i sent for my bookbinder today, and ordered him to get me an octavo bible in sheets, the best paper and print in town, and bind it with all the elegance of his craft. i would give my best song to my worst enemy--i mean the merit of making it--to have you and charlotte by me. you are angelic creatures, and would pour oil and wine into my wounded spirit. i inclose you a proof copy of the "banks of the devon", which present with my best wishes to charlotte. the "ochil hills"[56] you shall probably have next week for yourself. none of your fine speeches! r. b. [footnote 56: the song in honour of miss chalmers, beginning, "where, braving angry winter's storms".] * * * * lxx.--to miss chalmers. edinburgh, 19_th dec_. 1787. i begin this letter in answer to yours of the 17th current, which is not yet cold since i read it. the atmosphere of my soul is vastly clearer than when i wrote you last. for the first time, yesterday i crossed the room on crutches. it would do your heart good to see my hardship, not on my poetic, but on my oaken stilts; throwing my best leg with an air! and with as much hilarity in my gait and countenance, as a may frog leaping across the newly-harrowed ridge, enjoying the fragrance of the refreshed earth, after the long-expected shower! i can't say i am altogether at my ease when i see anywhere in my path that meagre, squalid, famine-faced spectre, poverty; attended as he always is, by iron-fisted oppression, and leering contempt; but i have sturdily withstood his buffetings many a hard-laboured day already, and still my motto is--i dare! my worst enemy is _moi même_. i lie so miserably open to the inroads and incursions of a mischievous, light-armed, well-mounted banditti, under the banners of imagination, whim, caprice, and passion; and the heavy-armed veteran regulars of wisdom, prudence, and forethought move so very, very slow, that i am almost in a state of perpetual warfare, and, alas! frequent defeat. there are just two creatures i would envy, a horse in his wild state traversing the forests of asia, or an oyster on some of the desert shores of europe. the one has not a wish without enjoyment, the other has neither wish nor fear. r. b. * * * * lxxi.--to mr. richard brown, irvine. edinburgh, 30_th dec_. 1787. my dear sir,--i have met with few things in life which have given me more pleasure, than fortune's kindness to you since those days in which we met in the vale of misery; as i can honestly say, that i never knew a man who more truly deserved it, or to whom my heart more truly wished it. i have been much indebted, since that time, to your story and sentiments for steeling my mind against evils, of which i have had a pretty decent share. my will-o'-wisp fate you know: do you recollect a sunday we spent together in eglinton woods? you told me, on my repeating some verses to you, that you wondered i could resist the temptation of sending verses of such merit to a magazine. it was from this remark i derived that idea of my own pieces, which encouraged me to endeavour at the character of a poet. i am happy to hear that you will be two or three months at home. as soon as a bruised limb will permit me i shall return to ayrshire, and we shall meet; "and faith, i hope we'll not sit dumb, nor yet cast out!" i have much to tell you "of men, their manners, and their ways," perhaps a little of the other sex. apropos, i beg to be remembered to mrs. brown. there, i doubt not, my dear friend, but you have found substantial happiness. i expect to find you something of an altered but not a different man; the wild, bold, generous young fellow composed into the steady affectionate husband, and the fond careful parent. for me, i am just the same will-o'-wisp being i used to be. about the first and fourth quarters of the moon, i generally set in for the trade wind of wisdom; but about the full and change, i am the luckless victim of mad tornadoes, which blow me into chaos. almighty love still reigns and revels in my bosom; and i am at this moment ready to hang myself for a young edinburgh widow,[57]who has wit and wisdom more murderously fatal than the assassinating stiletto of the sicilian bandit, or the poisoned arrow of the savage african. my highland dirk, that used to hang beside my crutches, i have gravely removed into a neighbouring closet, the key of which i cannot command, in case of spring-tide paroxysms. my best compliments to our friend allan. adieu! r. b. [footnote 57: the earliest allusion to clarinda (mrs. m'lehose). her husband was alive, in the west indies.] * * * * lxxii--to mrs. dunlop. edinburg, _january_ 21, 1788. after six weeks' confinement, i am beginning to walk across the room. they have been six horrible weeks; anguish and low spirits made me unfit to read, write, or think. i have a hundred times wished that one could resign life as an officer resigns a commission; for i would not take in any poor, ignorant wretch by selling out. lately i was a sixpenny private, and, god knows, a miserable soldier enough; now i march to the campaign, a starving cadet; a little more conspicuously wretched. i am ashamed of all this; for though i do want bravery for the warfare of life, i could wish, like some other soldiers, to have as much fortitude or cunning as to dissemble or conceal my cowardice. as soon as i can bear the journey, which will be, i suppose, about the middle of next week, i leave edinburgh; and soon after i shall pay my grateful duty at dunlop house. r. b. * * * * * lxxiii.--to mrs. dunlop. edinburgh, _february_ 12, 1788. some things in your late letters hurt me--not that _you say them_, but that _you mistake me_. religion, my honoured madam, has not only been all my life my chief dependance, but my dearest enjoyment. i have, indeed, been the luckless victim of wayward follies; but, alas! i have ever been "more fool than knave." a mathematician without religion is a probable character; an irreligious poet is a monster. r. b. * * * * * lxxiv.--to the rev. john skinner. edinburgh, 14_th february_ 1788. reverend and dear sir,--i have been a cripple now near three months, though i am getting vastly better, and have been very much hurried beside, or else i would have wrote you sooner. i must beg your pardon for the epistle you sent me appearing in the magazine. i had given a copy or two to some of my intimate friends, but did not know of the printing of it till the publication of the magazine. however, as it does great honour to us both, you will forgive it. the second volume of the songs i mentioned to you in my last is published to-day. i send you a copy, which i beg you will accept as a mark of the veneration i have long had, and shall ever have, for your character, and of the claim i make to your continued acquaintance. your songs appear in the third volume, with your name in the index; as i assure you, sir, i have heard your "tullochgorum," particularly among our west-country folks, given to many different names, and most commonly to the immortal author of "the minstrel," who, indeed, never wrote any thing superior to "gie's a sang, montgomery cried." your brother[58] has promised me your verses to the marquis of huntley's reel, which certainly deserve a place in the collection. my kind host, mr. cruikshank, of the high school here, and said to be one of the best latins in this age, begs me to make you his grateful acknowledgments for the entertainment he has got in a latin publication of yours, that i borrowed for him from your acquaintance and much-respected friend in this place, the rev. dr. webster. mr. cruikshank maintains that you write the best latin since buchanan. i leave edinburgh to-morrow, but shall return in three weeks. your song you mentioned in your last, to the tune of "dumbarton drums," and the other, which you say was done by a brother in trade of mine, a ploughman, i shall thank you for a copy of each. i am ever, reverend sir, with the most respectful esteem and sincere veneration, yours, r. b. [footnote 58: half-brother, james, a writer to the signet.] * * * * lxxv.--to mrs. rose, of kilravock. edinburgh, _february_ 17_th_, 1788. madam,--you are much indebted to some indispensable business i have had on my hands, otherwise my gratitude threatened such a return for your obliging favour, as would have tired your patience. it but poorly expresses my feelings to say, that i am sensible of your kindness: it may be said of hearts such as yours is, and such, i hope, mine is, much more justly than addison applies it,- some souls by instinct to each other turn. there was something in my reception at kilravock so different from the cold, obsequious, dancing-school bow of politeness, that it almost got into my head that friendship had occupied her ground without the intermediate march of acquaintance. i wish i could transcribe, or rather transfuse into language, the glow of my heart when i read your letter. my ready fancy, with colours more mellow than life itself, painted the beautifully wild scenery of kilravock--the venerable grandeur of the castle--the spreading woods--the winding river, gladly leaving his unsightly, heathy source, and lingering with apparent delight as he passes the fairy walk at the bottom of the garden;--your late distressful anxieties--your present enjoyments--your dear little angel, the pride of your hopes;--my aged friend, venerable in worth and years, whose loyalty and other virtues will strongly entitle her to the support of the almighty spirit here, and his peculiar favour in a happier state of existence. you cannot imagine, madam, how much such feelings delight me; they are my dearest proofs of my own immortality. should i never revisit the north, as probably i never will, nor again see your hospitable mansion, were i, some twenty years hence, to see your little fellow's name making a proper figure in a newspaper paragraph, my heart would bound with pleasure. i am assisting a friend in a collection of scottish songs, set to their proper tunes; every air worth preserving is to be included; among others i have given "morag," and some few highland airs which pleased me most, a dress which will be more generally known, though far, far inferior in real merit. as a small mark of my grateful esteem, i beg leave to present you with a copy of the work, as far as it is printed; the man of feeling, that first of men, has promised to transmit it by the first opportunity. i beg to be remembered most respectfully to my venerable friend, and to your little highland chieftain. when you see the "two fair spirits of the hill," at kildrummie, tell them that i have done myself the honour of setting myself down as one of their admirers for at least twenty years to come, consequently they must look upon me as an acquaintance for the same period; but, as the apostle paul says, "this i ask of grace, not of debt."--i have the honour to be, madam, etc., robert burns. * * * * lxxvi-to richard brown, greenock. mossgiel, 24_th february_ 1788. my dear sir,--i cannot get the proper direction for my friend in jamaica, but the following will do:--to mr, jo. hutchinson, at jo. brownrigg's, esq., care of mr. benjamin henriquez, merchant, orange street, kingston. i arrived here, at my brother's, only yesterday, after fighting my way through paisley and kilmarnock, against those old powerful foes of mine, the devil, the world, and the flesh--so terrible in the fields of dissipation. i have met with few incidents in my life which gave me so much pleasure as meeting you in glasgow. there is a time of life beyond which we cannot form a tie worth the name of friendship, "o youth! enchanting stage, profusely blest." life is a fairy scene: almost all that deserves the name of enjoyment or pleasure is only a charming delusion; and in comes repining age, in all the gravity of hoary wisdom, and wretchedly chases away the bewitching phantom. when i think of life, i resolve to keep a strict look-out in the course of economy, for the sake of worldly convenience and independence of mind; to cultivate intimacy with a few of the companions of youth, that they may be the friends of age; never to refuse my liquorish humour a handful of the sweetmeats of life, when they come not too dear; and, for futurity,- the present moment is our ain, the neist we never saw! how like you my philosophy? give my best compliments to mrs. b., and believe me to be, my dear sir, yours most truly, robert burns. * * * * lxxvii.--to mr. william cruikshank.[59] mauchline, _march_ 3_rd_, 1788. my dear sir,--apologies for not writing are frequently like apologies for not singing--the apology better than the song. i have fought my way severely through the savage hospitality of this country, the object of all hosts being to send every guest drunk to bed if they can. i executed your commission in glasgow, and i hope the cocoa came safe. 'twas the same price and the very same kind as your former parcel, for the gentleman recollected your buying there perfectly well. i should return my thanks for your hospitality (i leave a blank for the epithet, as i know none can do it justice) to a poor, wayfaring bard, who was spent and almost overpowered fighting with prosaic wickedness in high places; but i am afraid lest you should burn the letter whenever you come to the passage, so i pass over it in silence. i am just returned from visiting mr. miller's farm. the friend whom i told you i would take with me was highly pleased with the farm; and as he is, without exception, the most intelligent farmer in the country, he has staggered me a good deal. i have the two plans of life before me; i shall balance them to the best of my judgment; and fix on the most eligible. i have written mr. miller, and shall wait on him when i come to town, which shall be the beginning or middle of next week: i would be in sooner, but my unlucky knee is rather worse, and i fear for some time will scarcely stand the fatigue of my excise instructions. i only mention these ideas to you, and, indeed, except mr. ainslie, whom i intend writing to tomorrow, i will not write at all to edinburgh till i return to it. i would send my compliments to mr. nicol, but he would be hurt if he knew i wrote to anybody and not to him; so i shall only beg my best, kindest, kindest compliments to my worthy hostess, and the sweet little rose-bud. so soon as i am settled in the routine of life, either as an excise-officer, or as a farmer, i propose myself great pleasure from a regular correspondence with the only man almost i ever saw, who joined the most attentive prudence with the warmest generosity. i am much interested for that best of men, mr. wood; i hope he is in better health and spirits than when i saw him last.--i am ever, my dearest friend, your obliged, humble servant, r. b. [footnote 59: one of the masters of the high school of edinburgh.] * * * * lxxviii.--to mr. robert ainslie. mauchline, 3_rd march_ 1788. my dear friend,--i am just returned from mr. 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. i have the two plans before me; i shall endeavour to balance them to the best of my judgment, and fix on the most eligible. on the whole, if i find mr. miller in the same favourable disposition as when i saw him last, i shall, in all probability, turn farmer. i have been through sore tribulation and under much buffetting of the wicked one, since i came to this country. jean i found banished, forlorn, destitute, and friendless; i have reconciled her to her fate, and i have reconciled her to her mother.... i swore her privately and solemnly never to attempt any claim on me as a husband, even though anybody should persuade her she had such a claim.... i shall be in edinburgh middle of next week. my farming ideas i shall keep private till i see. i got a letter from clarinda yesterday, and she tells me she has got no letter of mine but one. tell her that i wrote to her from glasgow, from kilmarnock, from mauchline, and yesterday from cumnock as i returned from dumfries. indeed she is the only person in edinburgh i have written to till this day. how are your soul and body putting up?--a little like man and wife i suppose.--your faithful friend, robert burns. * * * * lxxix.--to mr. richard brown. mauchline, 7_th march_ 1788. i have been out of the country, my dear friend, and have not had an opportunity of writing till now, when, i am afraid, you will be gone out of the country too. i have been looking at farms, and, after all, perhaps i may settle in the character of a farmer. i have got so vicious a bent to idleness, and have ever been so little a man of business, that it will take no ordinary effort to bring my mind properly into the routine: but you will say a "great effort is worthy of you." i say so myself; and butter up my vanity with all the stimulating compliments i can think of. men of grave, geometrical minds, the sons of "which was to be demonstrated," may cry up reason as much as they please; but i have always found an honest passion, or native instinct, the truest auxiliary in the warfare of this world. reason almost always comes to me like an unlucky wife to a poor devil of a husband, just in sufficient time to add her reproaches to his other grievances. i am gratified with your kind inquiries after jean; as, after all, i may say with othello- excellent wretch! perdition catch my soul, but i do love thee! i go for edinburgh on monday.--yours, robert burns. * * * * * lxxx.--to mr. robert muir. mossgiel, 7_th march_ 1788. dear sir,--i have partly changed my ideas, my dear friend, since i saw you. i took old glenconner with me to mr. miller's farm, and he was so pleased with it, that i have wrote an offer to mr. miller, which, if he accepts, i shall sit down a plain farmer, the happiest of lives when a man can live by it. in this case i shall not stay in edinburgh above a week. i set out on monday, and would have come by kilmarnock; but there are several small sums owing me for my first edition about galston and newmilns, and i shall set off so early as to despatch my business and reach glasgow by night. when i return, i shall devote a forenoon or two to make some kind of acknowledgment for all the kindness i owe your friendship. now that i hope to settle with some credit and comfort at home, there was not any friendship or friendly correspondence that promised me more pleasure than yours; i hope i will not be disappointed. i trust the spring will renew your shattered frame, and make your friends happy. you and i have often agreed that life is no great blessing on the whole. the close of life, indeed, to a reasoning age, is dark as was chaos, ere the infant sun was roll'd together, or had tried his beams athwart the gloom profound. but an honest man has nothing to fear. if we lie down in the grave, the whole man a piece of broken machinery, to moulder with the clods of the valley, be it so; at least there is an end of pain, care, woes, and wants. if that part of us called mind does survive the apparent destruction of the man--away with old-wife prejudices and tales. every age and every nation has had a different set of stories; and as the many are always weak, of consequence they have often, perhaps always, been deceived. a man conscious of having acted an honest part among his fellow-creatures--even granting that he may have been the sport at times of passions and instincts--he goes to a great unknown being, who could have no other end in giving him existence but to make him happy, who gave him those passions and instincts, and well knows their force. these, my worthy friend, are my ideas; and i know they are not far different from yours. it becomes a man of sense to think for himself, particularly in a case where all men are equally interested, and where, indeed, all men are equally in the dark. adieu, my dear sir; god send us a cheerful meeting! r. b. * * * * lxxxi--to mrs. dunlop. mossgiel, 7_th march_ 1788. madam,--the last paragraph in yours of the 30th february affected me most; so i shall begin my answer where you ended your letter. that i am often a sinner with any little wit i have, i do confess; but i have taxed my recollection to no purpose to find out when it was employed against you. i hate an ungenerous sarcasm a great deal worse than i do the devil--at least as milton describes him; and though i may be rascally enough to be sometimes guilty of it myself, i cannot endure it in others. you, my honoured friend, who cannot appear in any light but you are sure of being respectable--you can afford to pass by an occasion to display your wit, because you may depend for fame on your sense; or, if you choose to be silent, you know you can rely on the gratitude of many, and the esteem of all; but, god help us, who are wits or witlings by profession, if we stand not for fame there, we sink unsupported! i am highly flattered by the news you tell me of coila. i may say to the fair painter[60] who does me so much honour, as dr. beattie says to ross, the poet of his muse scota, from which, by the by, i took the idea of coila: ('tis a poem of beattie's in the scottish dialect, which, perhaps, you have never seen):- ye shak your head, but o' my fegs, ye've set auld scota on her legs; lang had she lien wi' beffs and flegs, bumbaz'd and dizzie, her fiddle wanted strings and pegs, wae's me, poor hizzie. r.b. [footnote 60: one of mrs. dunlop's daughters was painting a sketch from the "coila of the vision".] * * * * * lxxxii--to mr. wm. nicol (perhaps). mauchline, 7_th march_ 1788. my dear sir,--my life, since i saw you last, has been one continued hurry; that savage hospitality which knocks a man down with strong liquors, is the devil. i have a sore warfare in this world; the devil, the world, and the flesh, are three formidable foes. the first i generally try to fly from; the second, alas! generally flies from me; but the third is my plague, worse than the ten plagues of egypt. i have been looking over several farms in this country; one in particular, in nithsdale, pleased me so well, that if my offer to the proprietor is accepted, i shall commence farmer at whit-sunday. if farming do not appear eligible, i shall have recourse to any other shift; but this to a friend. i set out for edinburgh on monday morning; how long i stay there is uncertain, but you will know so soon as i can inform you myself. however i determine, poesy must be laid aside for some time; my mind has been vitiated with idleness, and it will take a good deal of effort to habituate it to the routine of business.--i am, my dear sir, yours sincerely, r. b. * * * * lxxxiii.--to miss chalmers. edinburgh, _march_ 14_th_, 1788. i know, my ever dear friend, that you will be pleased with the news when i tell you i have at last taken a lease of a farm. yesternight i completed a bargain with mr. miller, of dalswinton, for the farm of ellisland, on the banks of the nith, between five and six miles above dumfries. i begin at whit-sunday to build a house, drive lime, etc., and heaven be my help! for it will take a strong effort to bring my mind into the routine of business. i have discharged all the army of my former pursuits, fancies, and pleasures--a motley host! and have literally and strictly retained only the ideas of a few friends, which i have incorporated into a life-guard. i trust in dr. johnson's observation, "where much is attempted, something is done." firmness, both in sufferance and exertion, is a character i would wish to be thought to possess: and have always despised the whining yelp of complaint, and the cowardly, feeble resolve. poor miss k.[61] is ailing a good deal this winter, and begged me to remember her to you the first time i wrote to you. surely woman, amiable woman, is often made in vain. too delicately formed for the rougher pursuits of ambition; too noble for the dirt of avarice, and even too gentle for the rage of pleasure; formed, indeed, for, and highly susceptible of enjoyment and rapture; but that enjoyment, alas! almost wholly at the mercy of the caprice, malevolence, stupidity, or wickedness of an animal at all times comparatively unfeeling, and often brutal. r.b. [footnote 61: miss kennedy, sister of gavin hamilton. she lived nearly half a century after this.] * * * * the clarinda letters. note prefatory to the letters to clarinda. we have now arrived, in the history of burns, as his general correspondence reveals it, at the middle of march 1788. before the end of the month he had broken off from clarinda, and shortly afterwards he married jean armour. the correspondence with clarinda began in the last month of 1787, and ran its course in three months. it is now necessary to go back to the commencement of this correspondence, and to follow it down to its first conclusion at the point to which his general correspondence has brought us. it has been thought preferable to take it by itself. clarinda's maiden name was agnes craig. she was the daughter of mr. andrew craig, who had been a surgeon in glasgow. lord craig of the court of session was her cousin. she was born in the same year as burns, but three months later. at the age of seventeen she was married to mr. james m'lehose, a law agent in glasgow. incompatibility of temper resulted in a separation of the unhappy pair five years after their marriage. the lady went home to her father, and on his death in 1782 removed to edinburgh, where she lived independently on a small annuity. her two sons lived with her. her husband meanwhile went out to the west indies to push his fortune. letters to clarinda. i. _thursday evening_ [_dec_. 6_th_, 1787]. madam,--i had set no small store by my tea-drinking tonight, 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 inclose you, as i think they have a good deal of poetic merit: and miss nimmo 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 tolerably off-hand _jeu-d'esprit_. i have several poetic trifles, which i shall gladly leave with miss nimmo, or you, if they were worth house room; as there are scarcely two people on earth by whom it would mortify me more to be forgotten, though at the distance of ninescore miles.--i am, madam, with the highest respect, your very humble servant, robert burns. * * * * ii. _saturday evening, dec_. 8_th_, 1787. i can say with truth, madam, that i never met 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 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! robert burns. * * * * iii. _dec_. 12, 1787. i stretch a point indeed, my dearest madam, when i answer your card on the rack of my present agony. your friendship, madam! by heavens, i was never proud before. your lines, i maintain it, are poetry, and good poetry; mine were indeed partly fiction and partly a friendship, which, had i been so blest as to have met with you in time, might have led me--god of love only knows where. time is too short for ceremonies. i swear solemnly, in all the tenor of my former oath, to remember you in all the pride and warmth of friendship until i cease to be! to-morrow, and every day till i see you, you shall hear from me. farewell! may you enjoy a better night's repose than i am likely to have. r. b. * * * * iv. _thursday, dec_. 20, 1787. your last, my dear madam, had the effect on me that job's situation had on his friends when they sat down seven days and seven nights astonished and spake not a word. "pay my addresses to a married woman!" i started as if i had seen the ghost of him i had injured. i recollected my expressions; some of them were indeed in the law phrase "habit and repute," which is being half guilty. i cannot possibly say, madam, whether my heart might not have gone astray a little; but i can declare upon the honour of a poet that the vagrant has wandered unknown to me. i have a pretty handsome troop of follies of my own, and, like some other people's, they are but undisciplined blackguards; but the luckless rascals have something like honour in them--they would not do a dishonest thing. to meet with an unfortunate woman, amiable and young, deserted and widowed by those who were bound by every tie of duty, nature, and gratitude to protect, comfort and cherish her; add to all, when she is perhaps one of the first of lovely forms and noble minds--the mind, too, that hits one's taste as the joys of heaven do a saint--should a faint idea, the natural child of imagination, thoughtfully peep over the fence--were you, my friend, to sit in judgment, and the poor, airy straggler brought before you, trembling, self-condemned, with artless eyes, brimful of contrition, looking wistfully on its judge--you could not, my dear madam, condemn the hapless wretch to death without benefit of clergy? i won't tell you what reply my heart made to your raillery of seven years, but i will give you what a brother of my trade says on the same allusion:- the patriarch to gain a wife, chaste, beautiful, and young, served fourteen years a painful life, and never thought it long. o were you to reward such cares, and life so long would stay, not fourteen but four hundred years would seem but as a day.[62] i have written you this scrawl because i have nothing else to do, and you may sit down and find fault with it, if you have no better way of consuming your time. but finding fault with the vagaries of a poet's fancy is much such another business as xerxes chastising the waves of hellespont. my limb now allows me to sit in some peace: to walk i have yet no prospect of, as i can't mark it to the ground. i have just now looked over what i have written, and it is such a chaos of nonsense that i daresay you will throw it into the fire and call me an idle, stupid fellow; but, whatever you may think of my brains, believe me to be, with the most sacred respect and heart-felt esteem, my dear madam, your humble servant, robt. burns. [footnote 62: tom d'urfey's songs.] * * * * v. _friday evening_, 28_th december_ 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 anything 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, or 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 honourable 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 deliciousness of its own. i inclose you a few lines i composed on a late melancholy occasion. i will not give above five or six copies of it in all, and i should 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 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 humanise 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 acquaintance, 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 on 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 a 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 either coolness or wisdom to be capable of it. i am interrupted. adieu! my dear clarinda! sylvander. * * * * vi. _thursday, jan_. 3, 1788. 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 instrinsic merit, as well as because they are _yours_, which i assure you, is to me a high recommendation. your religious sentiments, madam, i revere. if you have, 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 narrowly into this affair. have i, at bottom, any thing of a sacred pride in these endowments and emendations? have i nothing of a presbyterian sourness, an hypocritical severity, when i survey my less regular neighbours? in a word, 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 attachment. 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 two first 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, for love has been my foe: he bound me with an iron chain, and sunk me deep in woe. but friendship's pure and lasting joys my heart was formed to prove: there welcome, win and wear the prize, but never talk of love. your friendship much can make me blest, o why that bliss destroy! [only] why urge the odious one request, [will] 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 much-valued old friend.[63] 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 more at this time, as i have something on my hand that hurries me much. i propose giving you the first call, my old friend the second, and miss nimmo as i return home. do not break any engagement for me, as i will spend another evening with you at any rate before i leave town. 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 sensibility, and generous minds, have a certain intrinsic dignity, that fires at being trifled with, or lowered, or even too nearly approached. 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, conceal it in that thought, nor cause me from my bosom tear the very friend i sought. [footnote 63: probably mr. nicol, who lived in buccleuch pend, a short distance from clarinda's residence.] * * * * * vii. _saturday noon_ [_5th 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 blest me with yesternight. one well-spent hour, in such a tender circumstance for friends, is better than an age of common time! thomson. 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 meant no more by saying he was a favourite hero of mine. i mentioned to you my letter to dr. moore, giving an account of my life: it is truth, every word of it; and will give you a just idea of the man whom you have honoured with your friendship. i am afraid you will hardly be able to make sense of so torn a piece. your verses i shall muse on, deliciously, as i gaze on your image in my mind's eye, in my heart's core: they will be in time enough for a week to come. i am truly happy your headache is better. o, how can pain or evil be so daringly unfeeling, cruelly savage, as to wound so noble a mind, so lovely a form! my little fellow is all my namesake. write me soon. my every, strongest good wishes attend you, clarinda! sylvander. i know not what i have written--i am pestered with people around me. * * * * viii. _jan. 8, 1788, tuesday night._ i am delighted, charming clarinda, with your honest enthusiasm for religion. those of either sex, but particularly the female, who are lukewarm in that most important of all things, "o my soul, come not thou into their secrets!" i feel myself deeply interested in your good opinion, and will lay before you the outlines of my belief. he who is our author and preserver, and will one day be our judge, must be (not for his sake in the way of duty, but from the native impulse of our hearts), the object of our reverential awe and grateful adoration: he is almighty and all-bounteous, we are weak and dependent; hence prayer and every other sort of devotion. "he is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to everlasting life;" consequently it must be in every one's power to embrace his offer of "everlasting life;" otherwise he could not, in justice, condemn those who did not. a mind pervaded, actuated, and governed by purity, truth, and charity, though it does not merit heaven, yet is an absolute necessary prerequisite, without which heaven can neither be obtained nor enjoyed; and, by divine promise, such a mind shall never fail of attaining "everlasting life;" hence the impure, the deceiving, and the uncharitable extrude themselves from eternal bliss, by their unfitness for enjoying it. the supreme being has put the immediate administration of all this, for wise and good ends known to himself, into the hands of jesus christ, a great personage, whose relation to him we cannot comprehend, but whose relation to us is a guide and saviour; and who, except for our own obstinacy and misconduct, will bring us all, through various ways, and by various means, to bliss at last. these are my tenets, my lovely friend; and which i think cannot well be disputed. my creed is pretty nearly expressed in the last clause of jamie dean's grace, an honest weaver in ayrshire,--"lord, grant that we may lead a gude life; for a gude life maks a gude end, at least it helps weel!" i am flattered by the entertainment you tell me you have found in my packet. you see me as i have been, you know me as i am, and may guess at what i am likely to be. i too may say, "talk not of love," etc., for indeed he has "plunged me deep in woe!" not that i ever saw a woman who pleased unexceptionably, as my clarinda elegantly says, "in the companion, the friend, and the mistress." _one_ indeed i could except--_one_, before passion threw its mists over my discernment, i knew--_the_ first of women! her name is indelibly written in my heart's core--but i dare not look in on it--a degree of agony would be the consequence. oh! thou perfidious, cruel, mischief-making demon, who presidest over that frantic passion--thou mayest, thou dost poison my peace, but thou shalt not taint my honour. i would not, for a single moment, give an asylum to the most distant imagination, that would shadow the faintest outline of a selfish gratification, at the expense of her whose happiness is twisted with the threads of my existence.--may she be as happy as she deserves! and if my tenderest, faithfullest friendship, can add to her bliss, i shall at least have one solid mine of enjoyment in my bosom! _don't guess at these ravings_! i watched at our front window to-day, but was disappointed. it has been a day of disappointments. i am just risen from a two hours' bout after supper, with silly or sordid souls, who could relish nothing in common with me but the port.--_one!_--tis now "witching time of night;" and whatever is out of joint in the foregoing scrawl, impute it to enchantments and spells; for i can't look over it, but will seal it up directly, as i don't care for to-morrow's criticisms on it. you are by this time fast asleep, clarinda; may good angels attend and guard you as constantly and faithfully as my good wishes do. beauty, which, whether waking or asleep, shot forth peculiar graces. john milton, i wish thy soul better rest than i expect on my own pillow to-night! o for a little of the cart-horse part of human nature! good night, my dearest clarinda! sylvander. * * * * ix _thursday noon_, 10_th january_ 1788. i am certain i saw you, clarinda; but you don't look to the proper storey for a poet's lodging- where speculation roosted near the sky. i could almost have thrown myself over for vexation. why didn't you look higher? it has spoiled my peace for this day. to be so near my charming clarinda; to miss her look while it was searching for me--i am sure the soul is capable of disease, for mine has convulsed itself into an inflammatory fever. you have converted me, clarinda. (i shall love that name while i live: there is heavenly music in it.) booth and amelia i know well.[64] your sentiments on that subject, as they are on every subject, are just and noble. "to be feelingly alive to kindness, and to unkindness," is a charming female character. what i said in my last letter, the powers of fuddling sociality only know for me. by yours, i understand my good star has been partly in my horizon, when i got wild in my reveries. had that evil planet, which has almost all my life shed its baleful rays on my devoted head, been, as usual, in my zenith, i had certainly blabbed something that would have pointed out to you the dear object of my tenderest friendship, and, in spite of me, something more. had that fatal information escaped me, and it was merely chance, or kind stars, that it did not, i had been undone! you would never have written me, except perhaps _once_ more! o, i could curse circumstances, and the coarse tie of human laws, which keeps fast what common sense would loose, and which bars that happiness itself cannot give--happiness which otherwise love and honour would warrant! but hold--i shall make no more "hair-breadth 'scapes." my friendship, clarinda, is a life-rent business. my likings are both strong and eternal. i told you i had but one male friend: i have but two female. i should have a third, but she is surrounded by the blandishments of flattery and courtship. the name i register in my heart's core is _peggy chalmers_. miss nimmo can tell you how divine she is. she is worthy of a place in the same bosom with my clarinda. that is the highest compliment i can pay her. farewell, clarinda! remember sylvander. [footnote 64: see fielding's _amelia_.] * * * * x. _saturday morning_, 12_th january_. your thoughts on religion, clarinda, shall be welcome. you may perhaps distrust me, when i say 'tis also my favourite topic; but mine is the religion of the bosom. i hate the very idea of a controversial divinity; as i firmly believe, that every honest upright man, of whatever sect, will be accepted of the deity. if your verses, as you seem to hint, contain censure, except you want an occasion to break with me, don't send them. i have a little infirmity in my disposition, that where i fondly love, or highly esteem, i cannot bear reproach. "reverence thyself" is a sacred maxim, and i wish to cherish it. i think i told you lord bolingbroke's saying to swift--"adieu, dear swift, with all thy faults i love thee entirely; make an effort to love me with all mine." a glorious sentiment, and without which there can be no friendship! i do highly, very highly, esteem you indeed, clarinda--you merit it all! perhaps, too, i scorn dissimulation! i could fondly love you: judge then what a maddening sting your reproach would be. "o! i have sins to _heaven_ but none to _you!_" with what pleasure would i meet you to-day, but i cannot walk to meet the fly. i hope to be able to see you on _foot_ about the middle of next week. i am interrupted--perhaps you are not sorry for it, you will tell me--but i won't anticipate blame. o clarinda! did you know how dear to me is your look of kindness, your smile of approbation! you would not, either in prose or verse, risk a censorious remark. curst be the verse, how well soe'er it flow, that tends to make one worthy man my foe! sylvander. * * * * xi. _saturday_, _jan_. 12, 1788. you talk of weeping, clarinda! some involuntary drops wet your lines as i read them. _offend me_, my dearest angel! you cannot offend me, you never offended me! if you had ever given me the least shadow of offence so pardon me, god, as i forgive clarinda! i have read yours again; it has blotted my paper. though i find your letter has agitated me into a violent headache, i shall take a chair and be with you about eight. a friend is to be with us to tea on my account, which hinders me from coming sooner. forgive, my dearest clarinda, my unguarded expressions. for heaven's sake, forgive me, or i shall never be able to bear my own mind. your unhappy sylvander. * * * * xii. _monday evening_, 11 _o'clock_, 14_th 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,[65] 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 a merchant's shop 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. o thou, whom poesy abhors! whom prose has turned out of doors! heardst thou yon groan? proceed no further! 'twas laurel'd martial calling murther! i am determined to see you, if at all possible, on saturday evening. next week i must sing- the night is my departing night, the morn's the day i maun awa; there's neither friend nor foe o' mine but wishes that i were awa! what i hae done for lack o' wit, i never, never can reca'; i hope ye're a' my friends as yet, gude night, and joy be wi' you a'! 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! i shall certainly be ashamed of thus scrawling whole sheets of incoherence. the only _unity_ (a sad word with poets and critics!) in my ideas, is clarinda. there my heart "reigns and revels." what art thou, love? whence are those charms, that thus thou bear'st an universal rule? for thee the soldier quits his arms, the king turns slave, the wise man fool. in vain we chase thee from the field, and with cool thoughts resist thy yoke: next tide of blood, alas! we yield; 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, etc., 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 woe; thou foundst 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. [footnote 65: a native of edinburgh, and a schoolmaster in london. he was a friend of samuel johnson] * * * * xiii. _tuesday evening_, _jan_. 15. that you have faults, my clarinda, i never doubted; but i knew not where they existed, and saturday night made me more in the dark than ever. o clarinda! why will you wound my soul, by hinting that last night must have lessened my opinion of you? true, i was "behind the scenes with you;" but what did i see? a bosom glowing with honour and benevolence; a mind ennobled by genius, informed and refined by education and reflection, and exalted by native religion, genuine as in the climes of heaven: a heart formed for all the glorious meltings of friendship, love, and pity. these i saw--i saw the noblest immortal soul creation ever showed me. i looked long, my dear clarinda, for your letter; and am vexed that you are complaining. i have not caught you so far wrong as in your idea, that the commerce you have with _one_ friend hurts you, if you cannot tell every tittle of it to _another_. why have so injurious a suspicion of a good god, clarinda, as to think that friendship and love, on the sacred inviolate principles of truth, honour, and religion! can be anything else than an object of his divine approbation. i have mentioned in some of my former scrawls, saturday evening next. do allow me to wait on you that evening. oh, my angel! how soon must we part! and when can we meet again! i look forward on the horrid interval with tearful eyes! what have i lost by not knowing you sooner. i fear, i fear my acquaintance with you is too short, to make that _lasting_ impression on your heart i could wish. sylvander. * * * * xiv. _saturday morning_, 19_th jan_ there is no time, my clarinda, when the conscious thrilling chords of love and friendship give such delight, as in the pensive hours of what our favourite thomson calls, "philosophic melancholy." the sportive insects, who bask in the sunshine of prosperity; or the worms that luxuriantly crawl amid their ample wealth of earth, they need no clarinda: they would despise sylvander--if they durst. the family of misfortune, a numerous group of brothers and sisters! they need a resting place to their souls: unnoticed, often condemned by the world--in some degree, perhaps, condemned by themselves, they feel the full enjoyment of ardent love, delicate tender endearments, mutual esteem and mutual reliance. in this light i have often admired religion. in proportion as we are wrung with grief, or distracted with anxiety, the ideas of a compassionate deity, an almighty protector, are doubly dear. '_tis this_, my friend, that streaks our morning bright; '_tis this_ that gilds the horrors of our night.' i have been this morning taking a peep through, as young finely says, "the dark postern of time long elaps'd;" and, you will easily guess,'twas a rueful prospect. what a tissue of thoughtlessness, weakness, and folly! my life reminded me of a ruined temple; what strength, what proportion in some parts! what unsightly gaps, what prostrate ruin in others! i kneeled down before the father of mercies, and said, "father, i have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son!" i rose, eased and strengthened. i despise the superstition of a fanatic, but i love the religion of a man. "the future," said i to myself, "is still before me;" there let me on reason build resolve, that column of true majesty in man! "i have difficulties many to encounter," said i; "but they are not absolutely insuperable; and where is firmness of mind shown but in exertion? mere declamation is bombast rant." besides, wherever i am, or in whatever situation i may be- 'tis nought to me: since god is ever present, ever felt, in the void waste as in the city full; and where he vital breathes, there must be joy! _saturday night--half after ten_. what luxury of bliss i was enjoying this time yesternight! my ever dearest clarinda, you have stolen away my soul; but you have refined, you have exalted it; you have given it a stronger sense for virtue, and a stronger relish for piety. clarinda, first of your sex, if ever i am the veriest wretch on earth to forget you, if ever your lovely image is effaced from my soul, may i be lost, no eye to weep my end; and find no earth that's base enough to bury me! what trifling silliness is the childish fondness of the every-day children of the world! 'tis the unmeaning toying of the younglings of the fields and forests; but where sentiment and fancy unite their sweets, where taste and delicacy refine, where wit adds the flavour, and good sense gives strength and spirit to all, what a delicious draught is the hour of tender endearment! beauty and grace, in the arms of truth and honour, in all the luxury of mutual love. clarinda, have you ever seen the picture realised? not in all its very richest colouring. last night, clarinda, but for one slight shade, was the glorious picture. innocence look'd gaily smiling on; while rosy pleasure hid young desire amid her flowery wreath, and pour'd her cup luxuriant; mantling high, the sparkling heavenly vintage, love and bliss! clarinda, when a poet and poetess of nature's making, two of nature's noblest productions! when they drink together of the same cup of love and bliss--attempt not, ye coarser stuff of human nature, profanely to measure enjoyment ye never can know! good night, my dear clarinda! sylvander. * * * * xv _sunday night_, 20_th january_. the impertinence of fools has joined with a return of an old indisposition, to make me good for nothing to-day. the paper has lain before me all this evening, to write to my dear clarinda, but- fools rush'd on fools, as waves succeed to waves. i cursed them in my soul; they sacrilegiously disturbed my meditations on her who holds my heart. what a creature is man! a little alarm last night and to-day, that i am mortal, has made such a revolution on my spirits! there is no philosophy, no divinity, comes half so home to the mind. i have no idea of courage that braves heaven. 'tis the wild ravings of an imaginary hero in bedlam. i can no more, clarinda; i can scarcely hold up my head; but i am happy you do not know it, you would be so uneasy. sylvander. _monday morning_. i am, my lovely friend, much better this morning on the whole; but i have a horrid languor on my spirits. sick of the world, and all its joys, my soul in pining sadness mourns; dark scenes of woe my mind employs, the past and present in their turns. have you ever met with a saying of the great, and like wise good mr. locke, author of the famous _essay on the human understanding_? he wrote a letter to a friend, directing it, "not to be delivered till after my decease;" it ended thus--"i know you loved me when living, and will preserve my memory now i am dead. all the use to be made of it is, that this life affords no solid satisfaction, but in the consciousness of having done well, and the hopes of another life. adieu! i leave my best wishes with you. j. locke." clarinda, may i reckon on your friendship for life? i think i may. thou almighty preserver of men! thy friendship, which hitherto i have too much neglected, to secure it shall, all the future days and nights of my life, be my steady care! the idea of my clarinda follows- hide it, my heart, within that close disguise, where, mix'd with god's, her lov'd idea lies. but i fear that inconstancy, the consequent imperfection of human weakness. shall i meet with a friendship that defies years of absence, and the chances and changes of fortune? perhaps "such things are;" _one honest_ man[65a] i have great hopes from that way: but who, except a romance writer, would think on a _love_ that could promise for life, in spite of distance, absence, chance, and change; and that, too, with slender hopes of fruition? for my own part, i can say to myself in both requisitions, "thou art the man!" i dare, in cool resolve i dare, declare myself that friend, and that lover. if womankind is capable of such things, clarinda is. i trust that she is; and i feel i shall be miserable if she is not. there is not one virtue which gives worth, or one sentiment which does honour to the sex, that she does not possess superior to any woman i ever saw; her exalted mind, aided a little perhaps by her situation, is, i think, capable of that nobly-romantic love-enthusiasm. may i see you on wednesday evening, my dear angel? the next wednesday again will, i conjecture, be a hated day to us both. i tremble for censorious remark, for your sake, but, in extraordinary cases, may not usual and useful precaution be a little dispensed with? three evenings, three swift-winged evenings, with pinions of down, are all the past; i dare not calculate the future. i shall call at miss nimmo's to-morrow evening;'twill be a farewell call. i have wrote out my last sheet of paper, so i am reduced to my last half-sheet. what a strange mysterious faculty is that thing called imagination! we have no ideas almost at all of another world; but i have often amused myself with visionary schemes of what happiness might be enjoyed by small alterations--alterations that we can fully enter into, in this present state of existence. for instance, suppose you and i, just as we are at present; the same reasoning powers, sentiments, and even desires; the same fond curiosity for knowledge and remarking observation in our minds; and imagine our bodies free from pain, and the necessary supplies for the wants of nature at all times, and easily, within our reach: imagine further, that we were set free from the laws of gravitation, which bind us to this globe, and could at pleasure fly, without inconvenience, through all the yet unconjectured bounds of creation, what a life of bliss would we lead, in our mutual pursuit of virtue and knowledge, and our mutual enjoyment of friendship and love! i see you laughing at my fairy fancies, and calling me a voluptuous mahometan; but i am certain i would be a happy creature, beyond anything we call bliss here below; nay, it would be a paradise congenial to you too. don't you see us, hand in hand, or rather, my arm about your lovely waist, making our remarks on sirius, the nearest of the fixed stars; or surveying a comet, flaming innoxious by us, as we just now would mark the passing pomp of a travelling monarch; or in a shady bower of mercury or venus, dedicating the hour to love, in mutual converse, relying honour, and revelling endearment, whilst the most exalted strains of poesy and harmony would be the ready spontaneous language of our souls! devotion is the favourite employment of your heart; so it is of mine: what incentives then to, and powers for reverence, 'gratitude, faith, and hope, in all the fervours of adoration and praise to that being, whose unsearchable wisdom, power, and goodness, so pervaded, so inspired every sense and feeling! by this time, i daresay, you will be blessing the neglect of the maid that leaves me destitute of paper! sylvander. [footnote 65a: alluding to captain brown.] * * * * xvi. [_monday_, 21_st jan_. 1788.] ... i am a discontented ghost, a perturbed spirit. clarinda, if ever you forget sylvander, may you be happy, but he will be miserable. o what a fool i am in love! what an extraordinary prodigal of affection! why are your sex called the tender sex, when i have never met with one who can repay me in passion? they are either not so rich in love as i am, or they are niggards where i am lavish. o thou, whose i am, and whose are all my ways! thou seest me here, the hapless wreck of tides and tempests in my own bosom: do thou direct to thyself that ardent love for which i have so often sought a return in vain from my fellow-creatures! if thy goodness has yet such a gift in store for me as an equal return of affection from her who, thou knowest, is dearer to me than life, do thou bless and hallow our bond of love and friendship; watch over us in all our outgoings and incomings for good: and may the tie that unites our hearts be strong and indissoluble as the thread of man's immortal life!... i am just going to take your "blackbird,"[66] the sweetest, i am sure, that ever sung, and prune its wings a little. sylvander. [footnote 66: her verses, "to a blackbird singing."] * * * * xvii. _thursday morning_, 24_th january._ unlavish wisdom never works in vain. i have been tasking my reason, clarinda, why a woman, who, for native genius, poignant wit, strength of mind, generous sincerity of soul, and the sweetest female tenderness, is without a peer, and whose personal charms have few, very very few parallels, among her sex; why, or how she should fall to the blessed lot of a poor _hairum scairum_ poet, whom fortune had kept for her particular use, to wreak her temper on whenever she was in ill humour. one time i conjectured, that as fortune is the most capricious jade ever known, she may have taken, not a fit of remorse, but a paroxysm of whim, to raise the poor devil out of the mire, where he had so often and so conveniently served her as a stepping stone, and given him the most glorious boon she ever had in her gift, merely for the maggot's sake, to see how his fool head and his fool heart will bear it. at other times i was vain enough to think, that nature, who has a great deal to say with fortune, had given the coquettish goddess some such hint as, "here is a paragon of female excellence, whose equal, in all my former compositions, i never was lucky enough to hit on, and despair of ever doing so again; you have cast her rather in the shades of life; there is a certain poet of my making; among your frolics it would not be amiss to attach him to this masterpiece of my hand, to give her that immortality among mankind, which no woman, of any age, ever more deserved, and which few rhymsters of this age are better able to confer." _evening_, 9 _o'clock._ i am here, absolutely unfit to finish my letter--pretty hearty after a bowl, which has been constantly plied since dinner till this moment. i have been with mr. schetki, the musician, and he has set it[66a] finely.----i have no distinct ideas of anything, but that i have drunk your health twice to-night, and that you are all my soul holds dear in this world. sylvander. [footnote 66a: "clarinda, mistress of my soul, etc."--see poems.] * * * * xviii. [_friday, jan_. 25.] clarinda, my life, you have wounded my soul. can i think of your being unhappy, even though it be not described in your pathetic elegance of language, without being miserable? clarinda, can i bear to be told from you that you "will not see me to-morrow night"--that you "wish the hour of parting were come?" do not let us impose on ourselves by sounds. if in the moment of tender endearment i perhaps trespassed against the letter of decorum's law i appeal even to you whether i ever sinned in the very least degree against the spirit of her strictest statute. but why, my love, talk to me in such strong terms?--every word of which cuts me to the very soul. you know a hint, the slightest signification of your wish is to me a sacred command. be reconciled, my angel, to your god, yourself, and me: and i pledge you sylvander's honour--an oath i daresay you will trust without reserve--that you shall never more have reason to complain of his conduct. now, my love, do not wound our next meeting with any averted looks or restrained caresses. i have marked the line of conduct, a line i know exactly to your taste, and which i will inviolably keep; but do not you shew the least inclination to make boundaries. seeming distrust where you know you may confide is a cruel sin against sensibility. "delicacy, you know, it was, which won me to you at once--take care you do not loosen the dearest, most sacred tie that unites us." clarinda, i would not have stung _your_ soul, i would not have bruised _your_ spirit, as that harsh, crucifying _"take care"_ did mine--no, not to have gained heaven! let me again appeal to your dear self, if sylvander, even when he seemingly half-transgressed the laws of decorum, if he did not shew more chastened trembling, faltering delicacy than the many of the world do in keeping these laws? o love and sensibility, ye have conspired against my peace! i love to madness and i feel to torture! clarinda, how can i forgive myself that i have ever touched a single chord in your bosom with pain! would i do it willingly? would any consideration, any gratification make me do so? oh, did you love like me, you would not, you could not, deny or put off a meeting with the man who adores you--who would die a thousand deaths before he would injure you; and who must soon bid you a long farewell! i had proposed bringing my bosom friend, mr. ainslie, to-morrow evening at his strong request to see you, as he has only time to stay with us about ten minutes for an engagement. but i shall hear from you--this afternoon, for mercy's sake! for till i hear from you i am wretched. o clarinda, the tie that binds me to thee is intwisted, incorporated with my dearest threads of life! sylvander. * * * * xix. [_sat_., 26 _jan_.] i was on the way, _my love_, to meet you (i never do things by halves), when i got your card. mr. ainslie goes out of town to-morrow morning, to see a brother of his who is newly arrived from france. i am determined that he and i shall call on you together; so, look you, lest i should never see to-morrow, we will call on you to-night; mary and you may put off tea till about seven; at which time, in the galloway phrase, "an the beast be to the fore, and the branks bide hale," expect the humblest of your humble servants, and his dearest friend. we propose staying only half-an-hour, "for ought we ken." i could suffer the lash of misery eleven months in the year, were the twelfth to be composed of hours like yesternight. you are the soul of my enjoyment: all else is of the stuff of stocks and stones. sylvander. * * * * xx. _sunday noon, jan_. 27_th_. i have almost given up the excise idea. i have been just now to wait on a great person, miss----'s friend, ----. why will great people not only deafen us with the din of their equipage, and dazzle us with their fastidious pomp, but they must also be so very dictatorially wise? i have been questioned like a child about my matters, and blamed and schooled for my inscription on stirling window. come clarinda-come! curse me jacob, and come defy me israel! _sunday night_. i have been with miss nimmo; she is indeed a good soul, as my clarinda finely says. she has reconciled me in a good measure to the world with her friendly prattle. schetki has sent me the song set to a fine air of his composing. i have called the song "clarinda." i have carried it about in my pocket and hummed it over all day. _monday morning_. if my prayers have any weight in heaven, this morning looks in on you and finds you in the arms of peace, except where it is charmingly interrupted by the ardours of devotion. i find so much serenity of soul, so much positive pleasure, so much fearless daring toward the world when i warm in devotion, or feel the glorious sensation of a consciousness of almighty friendship, that i am sure i shall soon be an honest enthusiast. how are thy servants blest, o lord, how sure is their defence! i am, my dear madam, yours, sylvander. * * * * * xxi. _tuesday morning_, 29_th january_. i cannot go out to-day, my dearest love, without sending you half a line, by way of a sin-offering; but, believe me, 'twas the sin of ignorance. could you think that i _intended_ to hurt you by any thing i said yesternight? nature has been too kind to you for your happiness, your delicacy, your sensibility. o why should such glorious qualifications be the fruitful source of woe! you have "murdered sleep" to me last night. i went to bed, impressed with an idea that you were unhappy; and every start i closed my eyes, busy fancy painted you in such scenes of romantic misery, that i would almost be persuaded you were not well this morning. if i unweeting have offended, impute it not. but while we live but one short hour perhaps, between us two, let there be peace. if mary is not gone by this reaches you, give her my best compliments. she is a charming girl, and highly worthy of the noblest love. i send you a poem to read, till i call on you this night, which will be about nine. i wish i could procure some potent spell, some fairy charm, that would protect from injury, or restore to rest that bosom-chord, "tremblingly alive all o'er," on which hangs your peace of mind. i thought, vainly, i fear, thought that the devotion of love--love strong as even you can feel--love guarded, invulnerably guarded, by all the purity of virtue, and all the pride of honour; i thought such a love would make you happy--shall i be mistaken? i can no more for hurry. sylvander. * * * * * xxii. _sunday morning_, 3_rd february_. i have just been before the throne of my god, clarinda; according to my association of ideas, my sentiments of love and friendship, i next devote myself to you. yesternight i was happy--happiness "that the world cannot give." i kindle at the recollection; but it is a flame where innocence looks smiling on, and honour stands by, a sacred guard. your heart, your fondest wishes, your dearest thoughts, these are yours to bestow; your person is unapproachable by the laws of your country; and he loves not as i do, who would make you miserable. you are an angel, clarinda; you are surely no mortal that "the earth owns." to kiss your hand, to live on your smile, is to me far more exquisite bliss than the dearest favours that the fairest of the sex, yourself excepted, can bestow. _sunday evening_. you are the constant companion of my thoughts. how wretched is the condition of one who is haunted with conscious guilt, and trembling under the idea of dreaded vengeance! and what a placid calm, what a charming secret enjoyment it gives, to bosom the kind feelings of friendship and the fond throes of love! out upon the tempest of anger, the acrimonious gall of fretful impatience, the sullen frost of louring resentment, or the corroding poison of withered envy! they eat up the immortal part of man! if they spent their fury only on the unfortunate objects of them, it would be something in their favour; but these miserable passions, like traitor iscariot, betray their lord and master. thou almighty author of peace, and goodness, and love! do thou give me the social heart that kindly tastes of every man's cup! is it a draught of joy?--warm and open my heart to share it with cordial unenvying rejoicing! is it the bitter potion of sorrow?--melt my heart with sincerely sympathetic woe! above all, do thou give me the manly mind that resolutely exemplifies, in life and manners, those sentiments which i would wish to be thought to possess! the friend of my soul--there may i never deviate from the firmest fidelity and most active kindness! clarinda, the dear object of my fondest love; there may the most sacred inviolate honour, the most faithful kindling constancy, ever watch and animate my every thought and imagination! did you ever meet with the following lines spoken of religion, your darling topic?- _'tis this_, my friend, that streaks our morning bright; _'tis this_ that gilds the horrors of our night; when wealth forsakes us, and when friends are few, when friends are faithless, or when foes pursue; 'tis this that wards the blow, or stills the smart, disarms affliction, or repels its dart: within the breast bids purest rapture rise, bids smiling conscience spread her cloudless skies.[67] i met with these verses very early in life, and was so delighted with them that i have them by me, copied at school. good night and sound rest, my dearest clarinda! sylvander. [footnote 67: from hervey's _meditations_.] * * * * xxiii. _thursday night, feb_. 7, 1788. it is perhaps rather wrong to speak highly to a friend of his letter; it is apt to lay one under a little restraint in their future letters, and restraint is the death of a friendly epistle. but there is one passage in your last charming letter, thomson or shenstone never exceeded nor often came up to. i shall certainly steal it, and set it in some future poetic production, and get immortal fame by it. 'tis when you bid the scenes of nature remind me of clarinda. can i forget you, clarinda? i would detest myself as a tasteless, unfeeling, insipid, infamous blockhead! i have loved women of ordinary merit whom i could have loved for ever. you are the first, the only unexceptionable individual of the beauteous sex that i ever met with: and never woman more entirely possessed my soul. i know myself, and how far i can depend on passions, well. it has been my peculiar study. i thank you for going to myers.[68] urge him, for necessity calls, to have it done by the middle of next week, wednesday at latest. i want it for a breast-pin, to wear next my heart. i propose to keep sacred set times, to wander in the woods and wilds for meditation on you. then, and only then, your lovely image shall be produced to the day, with a reverence akin to devotion.... to-morrow night shall not be the last. good-night! i am perfectly stupid, as i supped late yesternight. sylvander. [footnote 68: miniature painter.] * * * * * xxiv. _wednesday, 13th february_. my ever dearest clarinda,--i make a numerous dinner party wait me, while i read yours and write this. do not require that i should cease to love you, to adore you in my soul--'tis to me impossible--your peace and happiness are to me dearer than my soul: name the terms on which you wish to see me, to correspond with me, and you have them--i must love, pine, mourn, and adore in secret--this you must not deny me; you will ever be to me dear as the light that visits these sad eyes, dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart! i have not patience to read the puritanic scrawl. damn'd sophistry! ye heavens! thou god of nature! thou redeemer of mankind! ye look down with approving eyes on a passion inspired by the purest flame, and guarded by truth, delicacy, and honour; but the half-inch soul of an unfeeling, cold-blooded, pitiful presbyterian bigot,[69] cannot forgive anything above his dungeon bosom and foggy head. farewell; i'll be with you to-morrow evening--and be at rest in your mind--i will be yours in the way you think most to your happiness! i dare not proceed--i love, and will love you, and will with joyous confidence approach the throne of the almighty judge of men, with your dear idea, and will despise the scum of sentiment, and the mist of sophistry. sylvander. [footnote 69: rev. mr. kemp, clarinda's spiritual adviser.] * * * * xxv. _wednesday midnight [feb. 13]._ madam,-after a wretched day i am preparing for a sleepless night. i am going to address myself to the almighty witness of my actions, some time, perhaps very soon, my almighty judge. i am not going to be the advocate of passion: be thou my inspirer and testimony, o god, as i plead the cause of truth! i have read over your friend's[70] haughty dictatorial letter: you are answerable only to your god in such a matter. who gave any fellow-creature of yours (one incapable of being your judge because not your peer) a right to catechise, scold, undervalue, abuse, and insult--wantonly and inhumanly to insult you thus? i do not even _wish_ to deceive you, madam. the searcher of hearts is my witness how dear you are to me; but though it were possible you could be still dearer to me, i would not even kiss your hand at the expense of your conscience. away with declamation! let us appeal to the bar of commonsense. it is not mouthing everything sacred; it is not vague ranting assertions; it is not assuming, haughtily and insultingly, the dictatorial language of a roman pontiff, that must dissolve a union like ours. tell me, madam--are you under the least shadow of an obligation to bestow your love, tenderness, caresses, affections, heart and soul, on mr. m'lehose, the man who has repeatedly, habitually, and barbarously broken through every tie of duty, nature, and gratitude to you? the laws of your country, indeed, for the most useful reasons of policy and sound government, have made your person inviolate; but, are your heart and affections bound to one who gives not the least return of either to you? you cannot do it: it is not in the nature of things: the common feelings of humanity forbid it. have you then a heart and affections which are no man's right? you have. it would be absurd to suppose the contrary. tell me then, in the name of common-sense, can it be wrong, is such a supposition compatible with the plainest ideas of right and wrong, that it is improper to bestow the heart and these affections on another--while that bestowing is not in the smallest degree hurtful to your duty to god, to your children, to yourself, or to society at large? this is the great test; the consequences: let us see them. in a widowed, forlorn, lonely condition, with a bosom glowing with love and tenderness, yet so delicately situated that you cannot indulge these nobler feelings.... [_cetera desunt_.] [footnote 70: rev. mr. kemp.] * * * * xxvi. _thurs., 14 feb_. "i am distressed for thee, my brother jonathan!" i have suffered, clarinda, from your letter. my soul was in arms at the sad perusal; i dreaded that i had acted wrong. if i have robbed you of a friend,[71] god forgive me! but, clarinda, be comforted: let me raise the tone of our feelings a little higher and bolder. a fellow-creature who leaves us, who spurns us without a just cause, though once our bosom friend--up with a little honest pride--let them go! how shall i comfort you, who am the cause of the injury? can i wish that i had never seen you, that we had never met? no! i never will. but have i thrown you friendless? there is almost distraction in that thought. father of mercies! against thee often have i sinned: through thy grace i will endeavour to do so no more! she who, thou knowest, is dearer to me than myself, pour thou the balm of peace into her past wounds, and hedge her about with thy peculiar care, all her future days and nights. strengthen her tender noble mind, firmly to suffer, and magnanimously to bear! make me worthy of that friendship she honours me with. may my attachment to her be pure as devotion, and lasting as immortal life! o almighty goodness, hear me! be to her at all times, particularly in the hour of distress or trial, a friend and comforter, a guide and guard. how are thy servants blest, o lord, how sure is their defence! eternal wisdom is their guide, their help, omnipotence! forgive me, clarinda, the injury i have done you! tonight i shall be with you; as indeed i shall be ill at ease till i see you. sylvander. [footnote 71: her minister.] * * * * xxvii. _thursday, 14th feb., two o'clock_. i just now received your first letter of yesterday, by the careless negligence of the penny-post. clarinda, matters are grown very serious with us; then seriously hear me, and hear me, heaven--i met you, my dear nancy, by far the first of womankind, at least to me; i esteemed, i loved you at first sight; the longer i am acquainted with you the more innate amiableness and worth i discover in you. you have suffered a loss, i confess, for my sake: but if the firmest, steadiest, warmest friendship; if every endeavour to be worthy of your friendship; if a love, strong as the ties of nature, and holy as the duties of religion--if all these can make anything like a compensation for the evil i have occasioned you, if they be worth your acceptance, or can in the least add to your enjoyment--so help sylvander, ye powers above, in his hour of need, as he freely gives these all to clarinda! i esteem you, i love you as a friend; i admire you, i love you as a woman, beyond any one in all the circle of creation; i know i shall continue to esteem you, to love you, to pray for you, nay, to pray for myself for your sake. expect me at eight. and believe me to be ever, my dearest madam, yours most entirely, sylvander. * * * * xxviii. _february 15th, 1788_. when matters, my love, are desperate, we must put on a desperate face- on reason build resolve, that column of true majesty in man. or, as the same author finely says in another place- let thy soul spring up, and lay strong hold for help on him that made thee. i am yours, clarinda, for life. never be discouraged at all this. look forward; in a few weeks i shall be somewhere or other out of the possibility of seeing you: till then i shall write you often, but visit you seldom. your fame, your welfare, your happiness are dearer to me than any gratification whatever. be comforted, my love! the present moment is the worst; the lenient hand of time is daily and hourly either lightening the burden, or making us insensible to the weight. none of these friends, i mean mr.---and the other gentleman, can hurt your worldly support; and for their friendship, in a little time you will learn to be easy, and, by and by, to be happy without it. a decent means of livelihood in the world, an approving god, a peaceful conscience, and one firm, trusty friend--can anybody that has these be said to be unhappy? these are yours. to-morrow evening i shall be with you about eight; probably for the last time till i return to edinburgh. in the meantime, should any of these two unlucky friends question you respecting me, whether i am the man, i do not think they are entitled to any information. as to their jealousy and spying, i despise them.--adieu, my dearest madam! sylvander. * * * * xxix. glasgow, _monday evening, 9 o'clock, 18th feb. 1788._ the attraction of love, i find, is in an inverse proportion to the attraction of the newtonian philosophy. in the system of sir isaac, the nearer objects are to one another, the stronger is the attractive force; in my system, every mile-stone that marked my progress from clarinda, awakened a keener pang of attachment to her. how do you feel, my love? is your heart ill at ease? i fear it.--god forbid that these persecutors should harass that peace, which is more precious to me than my own. be assured i shall ever think of you, muse on you, and, in my moments of devotion, pray for you. the hour that you are not in all my thoughts--"be that hour darkness! let the shadows of death cover it! let it not be numbered in the hours of the day!" when i forget the darling theme, be my tongue mute! my fancy paint no more! and, dead to joy, forget, my heart, to beat! i have just met with my old friend, the ship captain;[72] guess my pleasure--to meet you could alone have given me more. my brother william, too, the young saddler, has come to glasgow to meet me; and here are we three spending the evening. i arrived here too late to write by post; but i'll wrap half a dozen sheets of blank paper together, and send it by the fly, under the name of a parcel. you shall hear from me next post town. i would write you a long letter, but for the present circumstance of my friend. adieu, my clarinda! i am just going to propose your health by way of grace-drink. sylvander. [footnote 72: richard brown, whom he first knew at irvine.] * * * * xxx. cumnock, _2nd march_ 1788. i hope, and am certain, that my generous clarinda[73] will not think my silence, for now a long week, has been in any decree owing to my forgetfulness. i have been tossed about through the country ever since i wrote you; and am here, returning from dumfries-shire, at an inn, the post office of the place, with just so long time as my horse eats his corn, to write you. i have been hurried with business and dissipation almost equal to the insidious decree of the persian monarch's mandate, when he forbade asking petition of god or man for forty days. had the venerable prophet been as throng as i, he had not broken the decree, at least not thrice a day. 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 mention this in writing to any body but you and ainslie. don't accuse me of being fickle: i have the two plans of life before me, and i wish to adopt the one most likely to procure me independence. i shall be in edinburgh next week. i long to see you: your image is omnipresent to me; nay, i am convinced i would soon idolatrise it most seriously; so much do absence and memory improve the medium through which one sees the much-loved object. to-night, at the sacred hour of eight, i expect to meet you--at the throne of grace. i hope, as i go home tonight, to find a letter from you at the post office in mauchline. i have just once seen that dear hand since i left edinburgh--a letter indeed which much affected me. tell me, first of womankind! will my warmest attachment, my sincerest friendship, my correspondence, will they be any compensation for the sacrifices you make for my sake! if they will, they are yours. if i settle on the farm i propose, i am just a day and a half's ride from edinburgh. we will meet--don't you say, "perhaps too often!" farewell, my fair, my charming poetess! may all good things ever attend you! i am ever, my dearest madam, yours, sylvander. [footnote 73: the letter about the 23rd of february seems to be wanting.] * * * * xxxi. mauchline, 6 _mar_. i own myself guilty, clarinda; i should have written you last week; but when you recollect, my dearest madam, that yours of this night's post is only the third i have got from you, and that this is the fifth or sixth i have sent to you, you will not reproach me, with a good grace, for unkindness. i have always some kind of idea, not to sit down to write a letter except i have time and possession of my faculties, so as to do some justice to my letter; which at present is rarely my situation. for instance, yesterday i dined at a friend's at some distance; the savage hospitality of this country spent me the most part of the night over the nauseous potion in the bowl: this day--sick--headache--low spirits--miserable--fasting, except for a draught of water or small beer: now eight o'clock at night--only able to crawl ten minutes walk into mauchline to wait the post, in the pleasurable hope of hearing from the mistress of my soul. but, truce with all this! when i sit down to write to you, all is harmony and peace. a hundred times a day do i figure you, before your taper, your book, or work laid aside, as i get within the room. how happy have i been! and how little of that scantling portion of time, called the life of man, is sacred to happiness! much less transport! i could moralise to-night like a death's head. o what is life, that thoughtless wish of all! a drop of honey in a draught of gall. nothing astonishes me more, when a little sickness clogs the wheels of life, than the thoughtless career we run in the hour of health. "none saith, where is god, my maker, that giveth songs in the night; who teacheth us more knowledge than the beasts of the field, and more understanding than the fowls of the air." give me, my maker, to remember thee! give me to act up to the dignity of my nature! give me to feel "another's woe;" and continue with me that dear-loved friend that feels with mine! the dignified and dignifying consciousness of an honest man, and the well-grounded trust in approving heaven, are two most substantial foundations of happiness. sylvander. * * * * xxxii. mossgiel, _7th march_ 1788. clarinda, i have been so stung with your reproach for unkindness, a sin so unlike me, a sin i detest more than a breach of the whole decalogue, fifth, sixth, seventh and ninth articles excepted, that i believe i shall not rest in my grave about it, if i die before i see you. you have often allowed me the head to judge, and the heart to feel, the influence of female excellence. was it not blasphemy, then, against your own charms, and against my feelings, to suppose that a short fortnight could abate my passion? you, my love, may have your cares and anxieties to disturb you, but they are the usual recurrences of life; your future views are fixed, and your mind in a settled routine. could not you, my ever dearest madam, make a little allowance for a man, after long absence, paying a short visit to a country full of friends, relations, and early intimates? cannot you guess, my clarinda, what thoughts, what cares, what anxious forebodings, hopes and fears, must crowd the breast of the man of keen sensibility, when no less is on the tapis than his aim, his employment, his very existence, through future life! now that, not my apology, but my defence is made, i feel my soul respire more easily. i know you will go along with me in my justification--would to heaven you could in my adoption too! i mean an adoption beneath the stars--an adoption where i might revel in the immediate beams of her, the bright sun of all her sex. i would not have you, my dear madam, so much hurt at miss nimmo's coldness. 'tis placing yourself below her, an honour she by no means deserves. we ought, when we wish to be economists in happiness--we ought, in the first place, to fix the standard of our own character; and when, on full examination, we know where we stand, and how much ground we occupy, let us contend for it as property; and those who seem to doubt, or deny us what is justly ours, let us either pity their prejudices, or despise their judgment. i know, my dear, you will say this is self-conceit; but i call it self-knowledge. the one is theoverweening opinion of a fool, who fancies himself to be what he wishes himself to be thought; the other is the honest justice that a man of sense, who has thoroughly examined the subject, owes to himself. without this standard, this column in our own mind, we are perpetually at the mercy of the petulance, the mistakes, the prejudices, nay, the very weakness and wickedness of our fellow-creatures. i urge this, my dear, both to confirm myself in the doctrine, which, i assure you, i sometimes need; and because i know that this causes you often much disquiet. to return to miss nimmo: she is most certainly a worthy soul, and equalled by very, very few, in goodness of heart. but can she boast more goodness of heart than clarinda? not even prejudice will dare to say so. for penetration and discernment, clarinda sees far beyond her: to wit, miss nimmo dare make no pretence; to clarinda's wit, scarcely any of her sex dare make pretence. personal charms, it would be ridiculous to run the parallel. and for conduct in life, miss nimmo was never called out, either much to do or to suffer; clarinda has been both; and has performed her part, where miss nimmo would have sunk at the bare idea. away, then, with these disquietudes! let us pray with the honest weaver of kilbarchan--"lord, send us a gude conceit o' oursel!" or, in the words of the auld sang, who does me disdain, i can scorn them again, and i'll never mind any such foes. there is an error in the commerce of intimacy[74] ... way of exchange, have not an equivalent to give us; and, what is still worse, have no idea of the value of our goods. happy is our lot indeed, when we meet with an honest merchant, who is qualified to deal with us on our own terms; but that is a rarity. with almost everybody we must pocket our pearls, less or more, and learn in the old scotch phrase--"to gie sic like as we get." for this reason one should try to erect a kind of bank or store-house in one's own mind; or, as the psalmist says, "we should commune with our own hearts, and be still." this is exactly [footnote 74: the ms. is so worn as to be indecipherable.] [ms. dilapidated.] * * * * xxxiii. edinburgh, 18_th march_ 1788. i am just hurrying away to wait on the great man, clarinda; but i have more respect on my own peace and happiness than to set out without waiting on you; for my imagination, like a child's favourite bird, will fondly flutter along with this scrawl till it perch on your bosom i thank you for all the happiness of yesterday--the walk delightful, the evening rapture. do not be uneasy today, clarinda. i am in rather better spirits today, though i had but an indifferent night. care, anxiety, sat on my spirits. all the cheerfulness of this morning is the fruit of some serious, important ideas that lie, in their realities, beyond the dark and narrow house. the father of mercies be with you, clarinda. every good thing attend you! sylvander. * * * * xxxiv. _friday_ 9 [_p.m_., 21_st march_ 1788]. i am just now come in, and have read your letters. the first thing i did was to thank the divine disposer of events that he has had such happiness in store for me as the connexion i have with you. life, my clarinda, is a weary, barren path; and woe be to him or her that ventures on it alone! for me, i have my dearest partner of my soul. clarinda and i will make out our pilgrimage together. wherever i am, i shall constantly let her know how i go on, what i observe in the world around me, and what adventures i meet with. would it please you, my love, to get every week, or every fortnight at least, a packet of two or three sheets of remarks, nonsense, news, rhymes and old songs? will you open with satisfaction and delight a letter from a man who loves you, who has loved you, and who will love you to death, through death, and for ever? o clarinda! what do i owe to heaven for blessing me with such a piece of exalted excellence as you! i call over your idea, as a miser counts over his treasure. tell me, were you studious to please me last night? i am sure you did it to transport. how rich am i who have such a treasure as you! you know me; you know how to make me happy, and you do it most effectually. god bless you with "long life, long youth, long pleasure, and a friend!" tomorrow night, according to your own direction, i shall watch the window--'tis the star that guides me to paradise. the great relish to all is that honour, that innocence, that religion are the witnesses and guarantees of our affection, adieu, clarinda! i am going to remember you in my prayers. sylvander. * * * * general correspondence. letters. (_general correspondence resumed_.) * * * * * lxxxiv.--to mr. gavin hamilton. [_april_ 1788] mossgiel, _friday morning_. the language of refusal is to me the most difficult language on earth, and you are the man in the world, excepting one of right hon. designation, to whom it gives me the greatest pain to hold such language. my brother has already got money,[75] and shall want nothing in my power to enable him to fulfil his engagement with you; but to be security on so large a scale, even for a brother, is what i dare not do, except i were in such circumstances of life as that the worst that might happen could not greatly injure me. i never wrote a letter which gave me so much pain in my life, as i know the unhappy consequences:--i shall incur the displeasure of a gentleman for whom i have the highest respect and to whom i am deeply obliged.--i am etc. robert burns. [footnote 75: altogether £180. gilbert is meant, and the business referred to was renewal of lease of mossgiel, the poet to be cautioner.] * * * * * lxxxv.--to mr. william dunbar, w.s., edinburgh. mauchline, 7_th april_ 1788. i have not delayed so long to write you, my much respected friend, because i thought no further of my promise. i have long since given up that formal kind of correspondence where one sits down irksomely to write a letter, because he is in duty bound to do so. i have been roving over the country, as the farm[76] i have taken is forty miles from this place, hiring servants and preparing matters; but most of all, i am earnestly busy to bring about a revolution in my own mind. as, till within these eighteen months, i never was the wealthy master of ten guineas, my knowledge of business is to learn. add to this, my late scenes of idleness and dissipation have enervated my mind to an alarming degree. skill in the sober science of life is my most serious, and hourly study. i have dropped all conversation and all reading (prose reading) but what tends in some way or other to my serious aim. except one worthy young fellow[77] i have not a single correspondent in edinburgh. you have indeed kindly made me an offer of that kind. the world of wits, the _gens comme-il-faut_, which i lately left, and in which i never again will intimately mix--from that port, sir, i expect your gazette, what the _beaux esprits_ are saying, what they are doing, and what they are singing. any sober intelligence from my sequestered life is all you have to expect from me. i have scarcely made a single distich since i saw you. when i meet with an old scots air that has any facetious idea in its name, i have a peculiar pleasure in following out that idea for a verse or two. i trust this will find you in better health than i did the last time i called for you. a few lines from you, directed to me, at mauchline, were it but to let me know how you are, will settle my mind a good deal. now, never shun the idea of writing me because, perhaps, you may be out of humour or spirits. i could give you a hundred good consequences attending a dull letter; one, for example, and the remaining ninety-nine some other time--it will always serve to keep in countenance, my much respected sir, your obliged friend and humble servant, r. b. [footnote 76: ellisland, near dumfries.] [footnote 77: robert ainslie, w.s.] * * * * lxxxvi.--to mrs. dunlop. mauchline, 28_th april_ 1788. madam,--your powers of reprehension must be great indeed, as i assure you they make my heart ache with penitential pangs, even though i was really not guilty. as i commence farming at whitsunday, you will easily guess i must be pretty busy; but that is not all. as i got the offer of the excise business without solicitation, and as it costs me only six months' attendance for instructions, to entitle me to a commission --which commission lies by me, and at any future period, on my simple petition, can be resumed--i thought five-and-thirty pounds a-year was no bad _dernier ressort_ for a poor poet, if fortune in her jade tricks should kick him down from the little eminence to which she has lately helped him up. for this reason, i am at present attending these instructions, to have them completed before whitsunday. still, madam, i prepared with the sincerest pleasure to meet you at the mount, and came to my brother's on saturday night, to set out on sunday; but for some nights preceding i had slept in an apartment, where the force of the winds and rains was only mitigated by being sifted through numberless apertures in the windows, walls, etc. in consequence i was on sunday, monday, and part of tuesday, unable to stir out of bed, with all the miserable effects of a violent cold. you see, madam, the truth of the french maxim, _le vrai n'est pas toujours le vrai-semblable;_ your last was so full of expostulation, and was something so like the language of an offended friend, that i began to tremble for a correspondence, which i had with grateful pleasure set down as one of the greatest enjoyments of my future life. your books have delighted me; virgil, dryden, and tasso were all equally strangers to me; but of this more at large in my next. r. b. * * * * lxxxvii.--to mr. james smith, avon printfield, linlithgow. mauchline, _april_ 28_th_, 1788. beware of your strasburgh, my good sir! look on this as the opening of a correspondence, like the opening of a twenty-four gun battery! there is no understanding a man properly, without knowing something of his previous ideas; that is to say, if the man has any ideas; for i know many who, in the animal-muster, pass for men, that are the scanty masters of only one idea on any given subject, and by far the greatest part of your acquaintances and mine can barely boast of ideas, 1.25--1.5--1.75 (or some such fractional matter); so to let you a little into the secrets of my pericranium, there is, you must know, a certain clean-limbed, handsome, bewitching young hussy of your acquaintance, to whom i have lately and privately given a matrimonial title to my corpus. bode a robe and wear it, bode a pock and bear it, says the wise old scots adage! i hate to presage ill-luck; and as my girl has been doubly kinder to me than even the best of women usually are to their partners of our sex, in similar circumstances, i reckon on twelve times a brace of children against i celebrate my twelfth wedding-day: these twenty-four will give me twenty-four gossipings, twenty-four christenings (i mean one equal to two), and i hope, by the blessing of the god of my fathers, to make them twenty-four dutiful children to their parents, twenty-four useful members of society, and twenty-four approved servants of their god.... "light's heartsome," quo' the wife when she was stealing sheep. you see what a lamp i have hung up to lighten your paths, when you are idle enough to explore the combinations and relations of my ideas. 'tis now as plain as a pike-staff, why a twenty-four gun battery was a metaphor i could readily employ. now for business. i intend to present mrs. burns with a printed shawl, an article of which i dare say you have variety: 'tis my first present to her since i have irrevocably called her mine, and i have a kind of whimsical wish to get her the first said present from an old and much-valued friend of hers and mine, a trusty trojan, on whose friendship i count myself possessed of as a life-rent lease. look on this letter as a "beginning of sorrows;" i will write you till your eyes ache reading nonsense. mrs. burns ('tis only her private designation) begs her best compliments to you. r. b. * * * * lxxxviii--to professor dugald stewart. mauchline, 3_rd may_ 1788. sir,--i enclose you one or two more of my bagatelles. if the fervent wishes of honest gratitude have any influence with that great unknown being who frames the chain of causes and events, prosperity and happiness will attend your visit to the continent, and return you safe to your native shore. wherever i am, allow me, sir, to claim it as my privilege to acquaint you with my progress in my trade of rhymes; as i am sure i could say it with truth, that, next to my little fame, and the having it in my power to make life more comfortable to those whom nature has made dear to me, i shall ever regard your countenance, your patronage, your friendly good offices, as the most valued consequence of my late success in life. r. b. * * * * lxxxix.--to mrs. dunlop. mauchline, 4_th may_ 1788. madam,--dryden's virgil has delighted me. i do not know whether the critics will agree with me, but the georgics are to me by far the best of virgil. it is indeed a species of writing entirely new to me, and has filled my head with a thousand fancies of emulation; but, alas! when i read the georgics, and then survey my own powers, 'tis like the idea of a shetland pony, drawn up by the side of a thorough-bred hunter, to start for the plate. i own i am disappointed in the aeneid. faultless correctness may please, and does highly please, the lettered critic; but to that awful character t have not the most distant pretensions. i do not know whether i do not hazard my pretensions to be a critic of any kind, when i say that i think virgil, in many instances, a servile copier of homer. if i had the odyssey by me, i could parallel many passages where virgil has evidently copied, but by no means improved, homer. nor can i think there is anything of this owing to the translators; for, from everything i have seen of dryden, i think him, in genius and fluency of language, pope's master. i have not perused tasso enough to form an opinion: in some future letter you shall have my ideas of him; though i am conscious my criticisms must be very inaccurate and imperfect, as there i have ever felt and lamented my want of learning most. r. b. * * * * xc.--to mr. samuel brown, kirkoswald. mossgiel, 4_th may_ 1788. dear uncle,--this, i hope, will find you and your conjugal yoke-fellow in your good old way. i am impatient to know if the ailsa[78] fowling be commenced for this season yet, as i want three or four stones of feathers, and i hope you will bespeak them for me. it would be a vain attempt for me to enumerate the various transactions i have been engaged in since i saw you last; but this know--i engaged in a smuggling trade, and no poor man ever experienced better returns, two for one: but as freight and delivery have turned out so dear, i am thinking of taking out a license and beginning in fair trade. i have taken a farm, on the borders of the nith, and in imitation of the old patriarchs, get men-servants and maid-servants, and flocks and herds, and beget sons and daughters.--your obedient nephew, robert burns. [footnote 78: a well-known rock in the firth of clyde, frequented by innumerable sea-fowl.] * * * * xci.--to mr. james johnson, engraver, edinburgh. mauchline, 25_th may_ 1788. my dear sir,--i am really uneasy about that money which mr. creech owes me per note in your hand, and i want it much at present, as i am engaging in business pretty deeply both for myself and my brother. a hundred guineas can be but a trifling affair to him, and'tis a matter of most serious importance to me.[79] to-morrow i begin my operations as a farmer, and so god speed the plough! i am so enamoured of a certain girl.... to be serious, i found i had a long and much-loved fellow-creature's happiness or misery in my hands; and though pride and seeming justice were murderous king's advocates on the one side, yet humanity, generosity, and forgiveness were such powerful, such irresistible counsel on the other, that a jury of all endearments and new attachments brought in a unanimous verdict of _not guilty_. and the panel, be it known unto all whom it concerns, is installed and instated into all the rights, privileges, etc., that belong to the name, title, and designation of wife. [footnote 79: creech paid the amount five days after the date of this letter.] * * * * xcii.--to mr. robert ainslie. mauchline, _may_ 26_th_, 1788. my dear friend,--i am two kind letters in your debt; but i have been from home, and horridly busy, buying and preparing for my farming business, over and above the plague of my excise instructions, which this week will finish. as i flatter my wishes that i foresee many future years' correspondence between us, 'tis foolish to talk of excusing dull epistles! a dull letter may be a very kind one. i have the pleasure to tell you that i have been extremely fortunate in all my buyings and bargainings hitherto, mrs. burns not excepted; which title i now avow to the world. i am truly pleased with this last affair. it has indeed added to my anxieties for futurity, but it has given a stability to my mind and resolutions unknown before; and the poor girl has the most sacred enthusiasm of attachment to me, and has not a wish but to gratify my every idea of her deportment. i am interrupted. farewell! my dear sir. r. b. * * * * * xciii.--to mrs. dunlop. 27_th_ _may _1788. madam,--i have been torturing my philosophy to no purpose to account for that kind partiality of yours, which has followed me, in my return to the shade of life, with assiduous benevolence. often did i regret, in the fleeting hours of my late will-o'-wisp appearance, that "here i had no continuing city;" and, but for the consolation of a few solid guineas, could almost lament the time that a momentary acquaintance with wealth and splendour put me so much out of conceit with the sworn companions of my road through life--insignificance and poverty. there are few circumstances relating to the unequal distribution of the good things of this life that give me more vexation (i mean in what i see around me) than the importance the opulent bestow on their trifling family affairs, compared with the very same things on the contracted scale of a cottage. last afternoon i had the honour to spend an hour or two at a good woman's fireside, where the planks that composed the floor were decorated with a splendid carpet, and the gay table sparkled with silver and china. 'tis now about term-day, and there has been a revolution among those creatures who, though in appearance partakers, and equally noble partakers, of the same nature with madame, are from time to time--their nerves, their sinews, their health, strength, wisdom, experience, genius, time, nay, a good part of their very thoughts--sold for months and years, not only to the necessities, the conveniences, but the caprices of the important few. we talked of the insignificant creatures; nay, notwithstanding their general stupidity and rascality, did some of the poor devils the honour to commend them. but light be the turf upon his breast who taught "reverence thyself!" we looked down on the unpolished wretches, their impertinent wives, and clouterly brats, as the lordly bull does on the little dirty ant-hill, whose puny inhabitants he crushes in the carelessness of his ramble, or tosses in the air in the wantonness of his pride. r. b. * * * * * xciv.--to mrs. dunlop, at mr. dunlop's, haddington. ellisland, 13_th june_ 1788. where'er i roam, whatever realms i see, my heart, untravell'd, fondly turns to thee; still to my friend it turns with ceaseless pain, and drags, at each remove, a lengthen'd chain. goldsmith. this is the second day, my honoured friend, that i have been on my farm. a solitary inmate of an old smoky spence; far from every object i love, or by whom i am beloved; nor any acquaintance older than yesterday, except jenny geddes, the old mare i ride on; while uncouth cares and novel plans hourly insult my awkward ignorance and bashful inexperience. there is a foggy atmosphere native to my soul in the hour of care; consequently the dreary objects seem larger than the life. extreme sensibility, irritated and prejudiced on the gloomy side by a series of misfortunes and disappointments, at that period of my existence when the soul is laying in her cargo of ideas for the voyage of life, is, i believe, the principal cause of this unhappy frame of mind. the valiant, in himself, what can he suffer? or what need he regard his _single_ woes? your surmise, madam, is just: i am indeed a husband. i found a once much-loved and still much-loved female, literally and truly cast out to the mercy of the naked elements--but there is no sporting with a fellow-creature's happiness or misery.... the most placid good-nature and sweetness of disposition; a warm heart, gratefully devoted with all its powers to love me; vigorous health and sprightly cheerfulness, set off to the best advantage by a more than common handsome figure--these, i think, in a woman may make a good wife though she should never have read a page but the scriptures of the old and new testaments, nor have danced in a brighter assembly than a penny pay wedding. r. b. * * * * * xcv.-to mr. robert ainslie. ellisland, _june 14th_, 1788. this is now the third day, my dearest sir, that i have sojourned in these regions; and during these three days you have occupied more of my thoughts than in three weeks preceding: in ayrshire i have several variations of friendship's compass, here it points invariably to the pole. my farm gives me a good many uncouth cares and anxieties, but i hate the language of complaint. job, or some one of his friends, says well--"why should a living man complain?" i have lately been much mortified with contemplating an unlucky imperfection in the very framing and construction of my soul; namely, a blundering inaccuracy of her olfactory organs in hitting the scent of craft or design in my fellow-creatures. i do not mean any compliment to my ingenuousness, or to hint that the defect is in consequence of the unsuspicious simplicity of conscious truth and honour: i take it to be, in some way or other, an imperfection in the mental sight; or, metaphor apart, some modification of dulness. in two or three instances lately, i have been most shamefully out. i have all along, hitherto, in the warfare of life, been bred to arms among the light horse--the piquet-guards of fancy; a kind of hussars and highlanders of the brain; but i am firmly resolved to sell out of these giddy battalions, who have no ideas of a battle but fighting the foe, or of a siege but storming the town. cost what it will, i am determined to buy in among the grave squadrons of heavy-armed thought, or the artillery corps of plodding contrivance. what books are you reading, or what is the subject of your thoughts, besides the great studies of your profession? you said something about religion in your last. i don't exactly remember what it was, as the letter is in ayrshire; but i thought it not only prettily said, but nobly thought. you will make a noble fellow if once you were married. i make no reservation of your being well-married; you have so much sense, and knowledge of human nature, that though you may not realise perhaps the ideas of romance, yet you will never be ill-married. were it not for the terrors of my ticklish situation respecting provision for a family of children, i am decidedly of opinion that the step i have taken is vastly for my happiness.[80] as it is, i look to the excise scheme as a certainty of maintenance; a maintenance!--luxury to what either mrs. burns or i were born to. adieu. r. b. [footnote 80: this alludes to his marriage.] * * * * xcvi.-to mr. robert ainslie. ellisland, _30th june_ 1788. my dear sir,--i just now received your brief epistle; and, to take vengeance on your laziness, i have, you see, taken a long sheet of writing-paper, and have begun at the top of the page, intending to scribble on to the very last corner. i am vexed at that affair of the ..., but dare not enlarge on the subject until you send me your direction, as i suppose that will be altered on your late master and friend's death.[81] i am concerned for the old fellow's exit, only as i fear it may be to your disadvantage in any respect--for an old man's dying, except he have been a very benevolent character, or in some particular situation of life that the welfare of the poor or the helpless depended on him, i think it an event of the most trifling moment to the world. man is naturally a kind, benevolent animal, but he is dropped into such a needy situation here in this vexatious world, and has such a hungry, growling, multiplying pack of necessities, appetites, passions, and desires about him, ready to devour him for want of other food, that in fact he must lay aside his cares for others that he may look properly to himself. you have been imposed upon in paying mr. miers for the profile of a mr. h. i did not mention it in my letter to you, nor did i ever give mr. miers any such order. i have no objection to lose the money, but i will not have any such profile in my possession. i desired the carrier to pay you, but as i mentioned only 15s. to him, i will rather inclose you a guinea-note. i have it not, indeed, to spare here, as i am only a sojourner in a strange land in this place; but in a day or two i return to mauchline, and there i have the bank-notes through the house like salt permits. there is a great degree of folly in talking unnecessarily of one's private affairs. i have just now been interrupted by one of my new neighbours, who has made himself absolutely contemptible in my eyes, by his silly, garrulous pruriency. i know it has been a fault of my own, too; but from this moment i abjure it as i would the service of hell! your poets, spendthrifts, and other fools of that kidney, pretend, forsooth, to crack their jokes on prudence; but'tis a squalid vagabond glorying in his rags. still, imprudence respecting money matters is much more pardonable than imprudence respecting character, i have no objection to prefer prodigality to avarice, in some few instances; but i appeal to your observation if you have not met, and often met, with the same disingenuousness, the same hollow-hearted insincerity, and disintegritive depravity of principle, in the hackneyed victims of profusion, as in the unfeeling children of parsimony. i have every possible reverence for the much talked-of world beyond the grave, and i wish that which piety believes, and virtue deserves, may be all matter of fact. but in things belonging to, and terminating in this present scene of existence, man has serious and interesting business on hand. whether a man shall shake hands with welcome in the distinguished elevation of respect, or shrink from contempt in the abject corner of insignificance: whether he shall wanton under the tropic of plenty, at least enjoy himself in the comfortable latitude of easy convenience, or starve in the arctic circle of dreary poverty; whether he shall rise in the manly consciousness of a self-approving mind, or sink beneath a galling load of regret and remorse--these are alternatives of the last moment. you see how i preach. you used occasionally to sermonise too; i wish you would, in charity, favour me with a sheet full in your own way. i admire the close of a letter lord bolingbroke writes to dean swift:--"adieu, dear swift! with all thy faults i love thee entirely: make an effort to love me with all mine!" humble servant, and all that trumpery, is now such a prostituted business, that honest friendship, in her sincere way, must have recourse to her primitive, simple--farewell! r. b. [footnote 81: samuel mitchelson, w.s., with whom young ainslie served his apprenticeship.] * * * * xcvii--to mrs. dunlop. mauchline, _july_ 10_th_, 1788. my much honoured friend,--yours of the 24th june is before me. i found it, as well as another valued friend--my wife, waiting to welcome me to ayrshire: i met both with the sincerest pleasure. when i write you, madam, i do not sit down to answer every paragraph of yours, by echoing every sentiment, like the faithful commons of great britain in parliament assembled, answering a speech from the best of kings! i express myself in the fulness of my heart, and may, perhaps, be guilty of neglecting some of your kind inquiries; but not from your very odd reason, that i do not read your letters. all your epistles, for several months, have cost me nothing except a swelling throb of gratitude, or a deep-felt sentiment of veneration. when mrs. burns, madam, first found herself "as women wish to be who love their lords," as i loved her nearly to distraction, we took steps for a private marriage. her parents got the hint; and not only forbade me her company and their house, but, on my rumoured west indian voyage, got a warrant to put me in jail, till i should find security in my about-to-be paternal relation. you know my lucky reverse of fortune. on my _éclatant_ return to mauchline, i was made very welcome to visit my girl. the usual consequences began to betray her; and, as i was at that time laid up a cripple in edinburgh, she was turned, literally turned, out of doors, and i wrote to a friend to shelter her till my return, when our marriage was declared. her happiness or misery were in my hands, and who could trifle with such a deposit? to jealousy or infidelity i am an equal stranger. my preservative against the first is the most thorough consciousness of her sentiments of honour and her attachment to me; my antidote against the last is my long and deep-rooted affection for her. i can easily _fancy_ a more agreeable companion for my journey of life; but, upon my honour, i have never _seen_ the individual instance. in household matters, of aptness to learn and activity to execute, she is eminently mistress; and during my absence in nithsdale, she is regularly and constantly apprentice to my mother and sisters in their dairy, and other rural business. the muses must not be offended when i tell them, the concerns of my wife and family will, in my mind, always take the _pas_; but i assure them their ladyships will ever come next in place. you are right that a bachelor state would have insured me more friends; but, from a cause you will easily guess, conscious peace in the enjoyment of my own mind, and unmistrusting confidence in approaching my god, would seldom have been of the number. circumstanced as i am, i could never have got a female partner for life who could have entered into my favourite studies, relished my favourite authors, etc., without probably entailing on me at the same time expensive living, fantastic caprice, perhaps apish affectation, with all the other blessed boarding-school acquirements, which (_pardonnez moi_, _madame_) are sometimes to be found among females of the upper ranks, but almost universally pervade the misses of the would-be gentry.[82] i like your way in your churchyard lucubrations. thoughts that are the spontaneous result of accidental situations, either respecting health, place, or company, have often a strength, and always an originality, that would in vain be looked for in fancied circumstances, and studied paragraphs. for me, i have often thought of keeping a letter, in progression by me, to send you when the sheet was written out. now i talk of sheets, i must tell you, my reason for writing to you on paper of this kind is my pruriency of writing to you at large. a page of post is on such a dis-social, narrow-minded scale, that i cannot abide it; and double letters, at least in my miscellaneous reverie manner, are a monstrous tax in a close correspondence. r. b. [footnote 82: in burns's private memoranda are these words:--"i am more and more pleased with the step i took respecting my jean. a wife's head is immaterial compared with her heart; and virtue's (for wisdom, what poet pretends to it?) 'ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.'"] * * * * * xcviii.--to mr. peter hill, bookseller, edinburgh. my dear hill,--i shall say nothing to your mad present--you have so long and often been of important service to me, and i suppose you mean to go on conferring obligations until i shall not be able to lift up my face before you. in the meantime, as sir roger de coverley, because it happened to be a cold day in which he made his will, ordered his servants great-coats for mourning, so, because i have been this week plagued with an indigestion, i have sent you by the carrier a fine old ewe-milk cheese.[83] indigestion is the devil: nay, 'tis the devil and all. it besets a man in every one of his senses. i lose my appetite at the sight of successful knavery, and sicken to loathing at the noise and nonsense of self-important folly. when the hollow-hearted wretch takes me by the hand, the feeling spoils my dinner; the proud man's wine so offends my palate that it chokes me in the gullet; and the _pulvilised_, feathered, pert coxcomb, is so disgustful in my nostril that my stomach turns. if ever you have any of these disagreeable sensations, let me prescribe for you patience, and a bit of my cheese. i know that you are no niggard of your good things among your friends, and some of them are in much need of a slice. there, in my eye, is our friend smellie; a man positively of the first abilities and greatest strength of mind, as well as one of the best hearts and keenest wits that i have ever met with; when you see him, as, alas! he too is smarting at the pinch of distressful circumstances, aggravated by the sneer of contumelious greatness--a bit of my cheese alone will not cure him, but if you add a tankard of brown stout, and superadd a magnum of bright oporto, you will see his sorrows vanish like the morning mist before the summer sun. candlish, the earliest friend, except my only brother, that i have on earth, and one of the worthiest fellows that ever any man called by the name of friend, if a luncheon of my cheese would help to rid him of some of his superabundant modesty, you would do well to give it him. david,[84] with his _courant_, comes, too, across my recollection, and i beg you will help him largely from the said ewe-milk cheese, to enable him to digest those bedaubing paragraphs with which he is eternally larding the lean characters of certain great men in a certain great town. i grant you the periods are very well turned; so, a fresh egg is a very good thing, but when thrown at a man in a pillory, it does not at all improve his figure, not to mention the irreparable loss of the egg. my facetious friend dunbar, i would wish also to be a partaker: not to digest his spleen, for that he laughs off, but to digest his last night's wine at the last field-day of the crochallan corps.[85] among our common friends i must not forget one of the dearest of them--cunningham. the brutality, insolence, and selfishness of a world unworthy of having such a fellow as he is in it, i know sticks in his stomach, and if you can help him to anything that will make him a little easier on that score, it will be very obliging. as to honest john sommerville, he is such a contented, happy man, that i know not what can annoy him, except, perhaps, he may not have got the better of a parcel oif modest anecdotes which a certain poet gave him one night at supper, the last time the said poet was in town. though i have mentioned so many men of law, i shall have nothing to do with them professedly--the faculty are beyond my prescription. as to their clients, that is another thing; god knows they have much to digest! the clergy i pass by; their profundity of erudition, and their liberality of sentiment, their total want of pride, and their detestation of hypocrisy, are so proverbially notorious as to place them far, far above either my praise or censure. i was going to mention a man of worth, whom i have the honour to call friend--the laird of craigdarroch; but i have spoken to the landlord of the king's arms inn here, to have at the next county meeting a large ewe-milk cheese on the table, for the benefit of the dumfriesshire whigs, to enable them to digest the duke of queensberry's late political conduct. i have just this moment an opportunity of a private hand to edinburgh, as perhaps you would not digest double postage. r. b. [footnote 83: in return for some valuable books.] [footnote 84: printer of the _edinburgh evening courant_.] [footnote 85: a club of boon companions.] * * * * * * * xcix.--to mrs. dunlop. mauchline, _august_ 2_nd_, 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. [footnote 86: lines written in friar's carse hermitage.] [footnote 87: first epistle to robert graham.] * * * * * * * c.--to mrs. dunlop. ellisland, 16_th 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. * * * * ci.--to mr. beugo, engraver, edinburgh. ellisland, 9_th 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 anything 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. * * * * * 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. * * * * * * cii.--to his wife, at mauchline. ellisland, _friday_, 12_th 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. [footnote 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. ] * * * * * civ.--to miss chalmers, edinburgh. ellisland, near dumfries, _sept_. 16_th_, 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 name 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! * * * * * to make some amends, _mes chères mesdames_, for dragging you on to this second sheet; and to relieve a little the tiresomeness of my unstudied and uncorrectible prose, i shall transcribe you some of my late poetic bagatelles; though i have, these eight or ten months, done very little that way. one day, in a hermitage on the banks of nith, belonging to a gentleman in my neighbourhood, who is so good as give me a key at pleasure, i wrote as follows; supposing myself the sequestered, venerable inhabitant of the lonely mansion. lines written in friars-carse hermitage. thou whom chance may hither lead, be thou clad in russet weed, etc. r. b. * * * * cv.--to mr. morison, wright, mauchline. ellisland, _september_ 22_nd_ 1788. my dear sir,--necessity obliges me to go into my new house, even before it be plastered. i will inhabit the one end until the other is finished. about three weeks more, i think, will at farthest be my time, beyond which i cannot stay in this present house. if ever you wish to deserve the blessing of him that was ready to perish; if ever you were in a situation that a little kindness would have rescued you from many evils; if ever you hope to find rest in future states of untried being-get these matters of mine ready.[89] my servant will be out in the beginning of next week for the clock. my compliments to mrs. morison. --i am, after all my tribulation, dear sir, yours, r. b. [footnote 89: the letter refers to chairs and other articles of furniture which the poet had ordered.] * * * * cvi.--to mrs. dunlop, of dunlop. mauchline, 27_th sept_. 1788. i have received twins, dear madam, more than once; but scarcely ever with more pleasure than when i received yours of the 12th instant. to make myself understood; i had wrote to mr. graham, enclosing my poem addressed to him, and the same post which favoured me with yours brought me an answer from him. it was dated the very day he had received mine; and i am quite at a loss to say whether it was most polite or kind. your criticisms, my honoured benefactress, are truly the work of a friend. they are not the blasting depredations of a canker-toothed, caterpillar critic; nor are they the fair statement of cold impartiality, balancing with unfeeling exactitude the _pro_ and _con_ of an author's merits; they are the judicious observations of animated friendship, selecting the beauties of the piece. i am just arrived from nithsdale, and will be here a fortnight. i was on horseback this morning by three o'clock; for between my wife and my farm is just forty-six miles. as i jogged on in the dark, i was taken with a poetic fit, as follows: "mrs. ferguson of craigdarroch's lamentation for the death of her son; an uncommonly promising youth of eighteen or nineteen years of age:- fate gave the word--the arrow sped, and pierced my darling's heart,"(_etc_.) you will not send me your poetic rambles, but, you see, i am no niggard of mine. i am sure your impromptus give me double pleasure; what falls from your pen can neither be unentertaining in itself, nor indifferent to me. the one fault you found is just: but i cannot please myself in an emendation. what a life of solicitude is the life of a parent! you interested me much in your young couple. i would not take my folio paper for this epistle, and now i repent it. i am so jaded with my dirty long journey, that i was afraid to drawl into the essence of dulness with anything larger than a quarto, and so i must leave out another rhyme of this morning's manufacture. i will pay the sapientipotent george most cheerfully, to hear from you ere i leave ayrshire. r. b. * * * * cvii--to mr. peter hill. mauchline, 1_st october_ 1788. i have been here in this country about three days, and all that time my chief reading has been the "address to lochlomond" you were so obliging as to send to me. were i impanneled one of the author's jury, to determine his criminality respecting the sin of poesy, my verdict should be "guilty! a poet of nature's making!" it is an excellent method for improvement, and what i believe every poet does, to place some favourite classic author in his walks of study and composition before him as a model. though your author had not mentioned the name, i could have, at half a glance, guessed his model to be thomson. will my brother-poet forgive me if i venture to hint that his imitation of that immortal bard is, in two or three places, rather more servile than such a genius as his required:--_e.g._ to soothe the maddening passions all to peace. address. to soothe the throbbing passions into peace. thomson. i think the "address" is in simplicity, harmony, and elegance of versification, fully equal to the "seasons." like thomson, too, he has looked into nature for himself: you meet with no copied description. one particular criticism i made at first reading; in no one instance has he said too much. he never flags in his progress, but, like a true poet of nature's making, kindles in his course. his beginning is simple and modest, as if distrustful of the strength of his passion; only, i do not altogether like- truth, the soul of every song that's nobly great. fiction is the soul of many a song that is nobly great. perhaps i am wrong: this may be but a prose criticism. is not the phrase, in line 7, page 6, "great lake," too much vulgarised by every-day language for so sublime a poem? great mass of waters, theme for nobler song, is perhaps no emendation. his enumeration of a comparison with other lakes is at once harmonious and poetic. every reader's ideas must sweep the winding margin of a hundred miles. the perspective that follows mountains blue--the imprisoned billows beating in vain--the wooded isles--the digression on the yew-tree--"benlomond's lofty, cloud-envelop'd head," etc., are beautiful. a thunder-storm is a subject which has been often tried, yet our poet, in his grand picture, has interjected a circumstance, so far as i know, entirely original in the gloom deep seam'd with frequent streaks of moving fire. in his preface to the storm, "the glens how dark between," is noble highland landscape! the "rain ploughing the red mould," too, is beautifully fancied. "benlomond's lofty, pathless top," is a good expression; and the surrounding view from it is truly great: the silver mist, beneath the beaming sun, is well described; and here he has contrived to enliven his poem with a little of that passion which bids fair, i think, to usurp the modern muses altogether. i know not how far this episode is a beauty on the whole, but the swain's wish to carry "some faint idea of the vision bright," to entertain her "partial listening ear," is a pretty thought. but, in my opinion, the most beautiful passages in the whole poem are the fowls crowding, in wintry frosts, to lochlomond's "hospitable flood;" their wheeling round; their lighting, mixing, diving, etc.; and the glorious description of the sportsman. this last is equal to anything in the "seasons." the idea of "the floating tribes distant seen, far glistering to the moon," provoking his eye as he is obliged to leave them, is a noble ray of poetic genius. the "howling winds," the "hideous roar" of "the white cascades," are all in the same style. i forget that while i am thus holding forth, with the heedless warmth of an enthusiast, i am perhaps tiring you with nonsense. i must, however, mention that the last verse of the sixteenth page is one of the most elegant compliments i have ever seen. i must likewise notice that beautiful paragraph beginning "the gleaming lake," etc. i dare not go into the particular beauties of the last two paragraphs, but they are admirably fine, and truly ossianic. i must beg your pardon for this lengthened scrawl. i had no idea of it when i began--i should like to know who the author is; but, whoever he be, please present him with my grateful thanks for the entertainment he has afforded me.[90] a friend of mine desired me to commission for him two books, _letters on the religion essential to man_, a book you sent me before; and _the world unmasked, or the philosopher the greatest cheat_. send me them by the first opportunity. the bible you sent me is truly elegant; i only wish it had been in two volumes. r. b. [footnote 90: the poem, entitled "an address to lochlomond," is said to have been written by one of the masters of the high school of edinburgh.] * * * * * cviil--to the editor of the "star". _november_ 8_th_, 1788. sir,--notwithstanding the opprobrious epithets with which some of our philosophers and gloomy sectarians have branded our nature--the principle of universal selfishness, the proneness to all evil, they have given us--still, the detestation in which inhumanity to the distressed, or insolence to the fallen, are held by all mankind, shows that they are not natives of the human heart. even the unhappy partner of our kind who is undone, the bitter consequence of his follies or his crimes--who but sympathises with the miseries of this ruined profligate brother? we forget the injuries, and feel for the man. i went, last wednesday, to my parish church, most cordially to join in grateful acknowledgment to the author of all good for the consequent blessings of the glorious revolution. to that auspicious event we owe no less than our liberties, civil and religious; to it we are likewise indebted for the present royal family, the ruling features of whose administration have ever been mildness to the subject, and tenderness of his rights. bred and educated in revolution principles, the principles of reason and common sense, it could not be any silly political prejudice which made my heart revolt at the harsh, abusive manner in which the reverend gentleman mentioned the house of stuart, and which, i am afraid, was too much the language of the day. we may rejoice sufficiently in our deliverance from past evils, without cruelly raking up the ashes of those whose misfortune it was, perhaps as much as their crime, to be the authors of those evils; and we may bless god for all his goodness to us as a nation, without, at the same time, cursing a few ruined, powerless exiles, who only harboured ideas, and made attempts, that most of us would have done, had we been in their situation. "the bloody and tyrannical house of stuart" may be said with propriety and justice, when compared with the present royal family, and the sentiments of our days; but is there no allowance to be made for the manners of the times? were the royal contemporaries of the stuarts more attentive to their subjects' rights? might not the epithets of "bloody and tyrannical" be, with at least equal justice, applied to the house of tudor, of york, or any other of their predecessors? the simple state of the case, sir, seems to be this:--at that period, the science of government, the knowledge of the true relation between king and subject, was, like other sciences and other knowledge, just in its infancy, emerging from dark ages of ignorance and barbarity. the stuarts only contended for prerogatives which they knew their predecessors enjoyed, and which they saw their contemporaries enjoying; but these prerogatives were inimical to the happiness of a nation and the rights of subjects. in this contest between prince and people, the consequence of that light of science which had lately dawned over europe, the monarch of france, for example, was victorious over the struggling liberties of his people: with us, luckily, the monarch failed, and his unwarrantable pretensions fell a sacrifice to our rights and happiness. whether it was owing to the wisdom of leading individuals, or to the justling of parties, i cannot pretend to determine; but, likewise, happily for us, the kingly power was shifted into another branch of the family, who, as they owed the throne solely to the call of a free people, could claim nothing inconsistent with the covenanted terms which placed them there. the stuarts have been condemned and laughed at, for the folly and impracticability of their attempts in 1715, and 1745. that they failed, i bless god; but cannot join in the ridicule against them. who does not know that the abilities or defects of leaders and commanders are often hidden, until put to the touchstone of exigency; and that there is a caprice of fortune, an omnipotence in particular accidents and conjunctures of circumstances, which exalt us as heroes, or brand us as madmen, just as they are for or against us? man, mr. publisher, is a strange, weak, inconsistent being: who would believe, sir, that in this our augustan age of liberality and refinement, while we seem so justly sensible and jealous of our rights and liberties, and animated with such indignation against the very memory of those who would have subverted them--that a certain people under our national protection should complain, not against our monarch and a few favourite advisers, but against our whole legislative body, for similar oppression, and almost in the very same terms, as our forefathers did of the house of stuart! i will not, i cannot, enter into the merits of the cause; but i dare say the american congress, in 1776, will be allowed to be as able and enlightened as the english convention was in 1688; and that their posterity will celebrate the centenary of their deliverance from us, as duly and sincerely, as we do ours from the oppressive measures of the wrong-headed house of stuart. to conclude, sir; let every man who has a tear for the many miseries incident to humanity, feel for a family illustrious as any in europe, and unfortunate beyond historic precedent; and let every briton (and particularly every scotsman) who ever looked with reverential pity on the dotage of a parent, cast a veil over the fatal mistake of the kings of his forefathers. r. b. * * * * * cix.--to mrs. dunlop, at moreham mains. mauchline, 13_th november_ 1788. madam,--i had the very great pleasure of dining at dunlop yesterday. men are said to flatter women because they are weak, if it is so, poets must be weaker still; for misses r. and k. and miss g. m'k., with their flattering attentions, and artful compliments, absolutely turned my head. i own they did not lard me over as many a poet does his patron, but they so intoxicated me with their sly insinuations and delicate innuendos of compliment, that if it had not been for a lucky recollection, how much additional weight and lustre your good opinion and friendship must give me in that circle, i had certainly looked upon myself as a person of no small consequence. i dare not say one word how much i was charmed with the major's friendly welcome, elegant manner, and acute remark, lest i should be thought to balance my orientalisms of applause over-against the finest heifer in ayrshire, which he made me a present of to help and adorn my farm-stock. as it was on hallow-day, i am determined annually as that day returns, to decorate her horns with an ode of gratitude to the family of dunlop. so soon as i know of your arrival at dunlop, i will take the first conveniency to dedicate a day, or perhaps two, to you and friendship, under the guarantee of the major's hospitality. there will soon be three score and ten miles of permanent distance between us; and now that your friendship and friendly correspondence is entwisted with the heart-strings of my enjoyment of life, i must indulge myself in a happy day of "the feast of reason and the flow of soul." r. b. * * * * * cx.--to dr. blacklock. mauchline, _november_ 15_th_, 1788. reverend and dear sir,--as i hear nothing of your motions, but that you are, or were, out of town, i do not know where this may find you, or whether it will find you at all. i wrote you a long letter, dated from the land of matrimony, in june; but either it had not found you, or, what i dread more, it found you or mrs. blacklock in too precarious a state of health and spirits to take notice of an idle packet. i have done many little things for johnson since i had the pleasure of seeing you; and i have finished one piece, in the way of pope's "moral epistles;" but, from your silence, i have everything to fear, so i have only sent you two melancholy things, which i tremble to fear may too well suit the tone of your present feelings. in a fortnight i move, bag and baggage, to nithsdale; till then, my direction is at this place; after that period, it will be at ellisland, near dumfries. it would extremely oblige me, were it but half a line, to let me know how you are, and where you are. can i be indifferent to the fate of a man to whom i owe so much--a man whom i not only esteem, but venerate? my warmest good wishes and most respectful compliments to mrs. blacklock, and miss johnson, if she is with you. i cannot conclude without telling you that i am more and more pleased with the step i took respecting "my jean." two things, from my happy experience, i set down as apophthegms in life,--a wife's head is immaterial, compared with her heart; and "virtue's (for wisdom, what poet pretends to it?) ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace." adieu! r. b.[91] [footnote 91: here follow "the mother's lament for the loss of her son," and the song beginning "the lazy mist hangs from the brow of the hill."] * * * * * cxi.--to mrs. dunlop. ellisland, 17_th december_ 1788. my dear honoured friend,--yours, dated edinburgh, which i have just read, makes me very unhappy. "almost blind and wholly deaf" are melancholy news of human nature; but when told of a much-loved and honoured friend, they carry misery in the sound. goodness on your part, and gratitude on mine, began a tie which has gradually entwisted itself among the dearest chords of my bosom, and i tremble at the omens of your late and present ailing habit and shattered health. you miscalculate matters widely, when you forbid my waiting on you, lest it should hurt my worldly concerns. my small scale of farming is exceedingly more simple and easy than what you have lately seen at moreham mains. but, be that as it may, the heart of the man and the fancy of the poet are the two grand considerations for which i live: if miry ridges and dirty dunghills are to engross the best part of the functions of my soul immortal, i had better been a rook or a magpie at once, and then i should not have been plagued with any ideas superior to breaking of clods and picking up grubs; not to mention barn-door cocks of mallards, creatures with which i could almost exchange lives at any time. if you continue so deaf, i am afraid a visit will be no great pleasure to either of us; but if i hear you are got so well again as to be able to relish conversation, look you to it, madam, for i will make my threatenings good. i am to be at the new-year-day fair of ayr, and, by all that is sacred in the world, friend, i will come and see you. your meeting, which you so well describe, with your old schoolfellow and friend, was truly interesting. out upon the ways of the world! they spoil these "social offsprings of the heart." two veterans of the "men of the world" would have met with little more heart-workings than two old hacks worn out on the road. apropos, is not the scotch phrase, "auld lang syne," exceedingly expressive? there is an old song and tune which has often thrilled through my soul. you know i am an enthusiast in old scotch song. i shall give you the verses on the other sheet, as i suppose mr. kerr[92] will save you the postage. should auld acquaintance be forgot? light be the turf on the breast of the heaven-inspired poet who composed this glorious fragment! there is more of the fire of native genius in it than in half a dozen of modern english bacchanalians! now i am on my hobbyhorse, i cannot help inserting two other old stanzas, which please me mightily:- go fetch to me a pint o' wine, etc. r. b. [footnote 92: postmaster in edinburgh.] * * * * cxii.--to mr. john tennant. _december_ 22_nd_, 1788. i yesterday tried my cask of whisky for the first time, and i assure you it does you great credit. it will bear five waters, strong: or six ordinary toddy. the whisky of this country is a most rascally liquor; and, by consequence, only drunk by the most rascally part of the inhabitants. i am persuaded, if you once get a footing here, you might do a great deal of business, in the way of consumpt; and should you commence distiller again, this is the native barley country. i am ignorant if, in your present way of dealing, you would think it worth your while to extend your business so far as this country-side. i write you this on the account of an accident, which i must take the merit of having partly designed too. a neighbour of mine, a john currie, miller, in carse mill--a man who is, in a word, a very good man, even for a £500 bargain--he and his wife were in my house the time i broke open the cask. they keep a country public-house and sell a great deal of foreign spirits, but all along thought that whisky would have degraded their house. they were perfectly astonished at my whisky, both for its taste and strength; and, by their desire, i write you to know if you could supply them with liquor of an equal quality, and what price. please write me by first post, and direct to me at ellisland, near dumfries. if you could take a jaunt this way yourself, i have a spare spoon, knife, and fork, very much at your service. my compliments to mrs. tennant, and all the good folks in glenconnel and barguharrie. r. b. * * * * * cxiii.--to mrs. dunlop. ellisland, _new-year-day morning_, 1789. this, dear madam, is a morning of wishes, and would to god that i came under the apostle james's description!--_the prayer of a righteous man availeth much_. in that case, madam, you should welcome in a year full of blessings: everything that obstructs or disturbs tranquillity and self-enjoyment should be removed, and every pleasure that frail humanity can taste, should be yours. i own myself so little a presbyterian, that i approve of set times and seasons of more than ordinary acts of devotion, for breaking in on that habituated routine of life and thought, which is so apt to reduce our existence to a kind of instinct, or even sometimes, and with some minds, to a state very little superior to mere machinery. this day; the first sunday of may; a breezy blue-skyed noon some time about the beginning, and a hoary morning and calm sunny day about the end of autumn; these, time out of mind, have been with me a kind of holiday. i believe i owe this to that glorious paper in the _spectator_ "the vision of mirza," a piece that struck my young fancy before i was capable of fixing an idea to a word of three syllables: "on the fifth day of the moon, which, according to the custom of my forefathers, i always _keep holy_, after having washed myself, and offered up my morning devotions, i ascended the high hill of bagdat, in order to pass the rest of the day in meditation and prayer." we know nothing, or next to nothing, of the substance or structure of our souls, so cannot account for those seeming caprices in them, that one should be particularly pleased with this thing, or struck with that, which, on minds of a different cast, makes no extraordinary impression. i have some favourite flowers in spring, among which are the mountain-daisy, the hare-bell, the fox-glove, the wild brier-rose, the budding birch, and the hoary hawthorn, that i view and hang over with particular delight. i never hear the loud, solitary whistle of the curlew in a summer noon, or the wild mixing cadence of a troop of grey plovers, in an autumnal morning, without feeling an elevation of soul like the enthusiasm of devotion or poetry. tell me, my dear friend, to what can this be owing? are we a piece of machinery, which, like the æolian harp, passive, takes the impression of the passing accident? or do these workings argue something within us above the trodden clod? i own myself partial to such proofs of those awful and important realities--a god that made all things--man's immaterial and immortal nature--and a world of weal or woe beyond death and the grave. r. b. * * * * * cxiv.-to dr. moore, london. ellisland, 4_th jan._ 1789. sir,--as often as i think of writing to you, which has been three or four times every week these six months, it gives me something so like the idea of an ordinary-sized statue offering at a conversation with the rhodian colossus, that my mind misgives me, and the affair always miscarries somewhere between purpose and resolve. i have at last got some business with you, and business letters are written by the style-book. i say my business is with you, sir, for you never had any with me, except the business that benevolence has in the mansion of poverty. the character and employment of a poet were formerly my pleasure, but are now my pride. i know that a very great deal of my late éclat was owing to the singularity of my situation, and the honest prejudice of scotsmen; but still, as i said in the preface to my first edition, i do look upon myself as having some pretensions from nature to the poetic character. i have not a doubt but the knack, the aptitude, to learn the muses' trade, is a gift bestowed by him "who forms the secret bias of the soul;" but i as firmly believe that _excellence_ in the profession is the fruit of industry, labour, attention, and pains. at least i am resolved to try my doctrine by the test of experience. another appearance from the press i put off to a very distant day, a day that may never arrive--but poesy i am determined to prosecute with all my vigour. nature has given very few, if any, of the profession, the talents of shining in every species of composition. i shall try (for until trial it is impossible to know) whether she has qualified me to shine in any one. the worst of it is, by the time one has finished a piece, it has been so often viewed and reviewed before the mental eye, that one loses in a good measure the powers of critical discrimination. here the best criterion i know is a friend--not only of abilities to judge, but with good-nature enough, like a prudent teacher with a young learner, to praise perhaps a little more than is exactly just, lest the thin-skinned animal fall into that most deplorable of all poetic diseases--heart-breaking despondency of himself. dare i, sir, already immensely indebted to your goodness, ask the additional obligation of your being that friend to me? i inclose you an essay of mine in a walk of poesy to me entirely new; i mean the epistle addressed to r. g., esq., or robert graham, of fintry, esq., a gentleman of uncommon worth, to whom i lie under very great obligations. the story of the poem, like most of my poems, is connected with my own story, and to give you the one, i must give you something of the other. i cannot boast of mr. creech's ingenuous fair dealing to me. he kept me hanging about edinburgh from the 7th august 1787 until the 13th april 1788 before he would condescend to give a statement of affairs; nor had i got it even then, but for an angry letter i wrote him, which irritated his pride. "i could" not a "tale," but a detail "unfold"; but what am i that should speak against the lord's anointed bailie of edinburgh?[93] i believe i shall, in whole, £100 copyright included, clear about £400, some little odds; and even part of this depends upon what the gentleman has yet to settle with me. i give you this information, because you did me the honour to interest yourself much in my welfare. i give you this information, but i give it to yourself only, for i am still much in the gentleman's mercy. perhaps i injure the man in the idea i am sometimes tempted to have of him--god forbid i should. a little time will try, for in a month i shall go to town to wind up the business, if possible. to give the rest of my story in brief, i have married "my jean," and taken a farm; with the first step i have every day more and more reason to be satisfied; with the last, it is rather the reverse. i have a younger brother, who supports my aged mother, another still younger brother, and three sisters, in a farm. on my last return from edinburgh it cost me about £180 to save them from ruin. not that i have lost so much--i only interposed between my brother and his impending fate by the loan of so much. i give myself no airs on this, for it was mere selfishness on my part; i was conscious that the wrong scale of the balance was pretty heavily charged, and i thought that throwing a little filial piety and fraternal affection into the scale in my favour, might help to smooth matters at the _grand reckoning_. there is still one thing would make my circumstances quite easy--i have an excise officer's commission, and i live in the midst of a country division. my request to mr. graham, who is one of the commissioners of excise, was, if in his power, to procure me that division. if i were very sanguine, i might hope that some of my great patrons might procure me a treasury warrant for supervisor, surveyor-general, etc. thus, secure of a livelihood, "to thee, sweet poetry, delightful maid,"[94] i would consecrate my future days. r. b. [footnote 93: creech; remarkable for his reluctance to settle accounts.] [footnote 94: goldsmith's "deserted village."] * * * * * cxv.--to mr. robert ainslie. ellisland, _january_ 6_th_, 1789. many happy returns of the season to you, my dear sir! may you be comparatively happy, up to your comparative worth among the sons of men; which wish would, i am sure, make you one of the most blessed of the human race. i do not know if passing a "writer to the signet" be a trial of scientific merit, or a mere business of friends and interest. however it be, let me quote you my two favourite passages, which, though i have repeated them ten thousand times, still they rouse my manhood and steel my resolution like inspiration. on reason build resolve. that column of true majesty in man. young. hear, alfred, hero of the slate, thy genius heaven's high will declare; the triumph of the truly great, is never, never to despair! is never to despair! masque of alfred. i grant you enter the lists of life, to struggle for bread, business, notice, and distinction, in common with hundreds. but who are they? men like yourself, and of that aggregate body your compeers, seven-tenths of them come short of your advantages, natural and accidental; while two of those that remain, either neglect their parts, as flowers blooming in a desert, or misspend their strength like a bull goring a bramble bush. but to change the theme: i am still catering for johnson's publication; and among others, i have brushed up the following old favourite song a little, with a view to your worship. i have only altered a word here and there; but if you like the humour of it, we shall think of a stanza or two to add to it. r. b. * * * * * cxvi.--to professor dugald stewart. ellisland, 20_th jan_. 1789. sir,--the inclosed sealed packet i sent to edinburgh, a few days after i had the happiness of meeting you in ayrshire, but you were gone for the continent. i have now added a few more of my productions, those for which i am indebted to the nithsdale muses. the piece inscribed to r. g., esq., is a copy of verses i sent mr. graham, of fintry, accompanying a request for his assistance in a matter to me of very great moment. to that gentleman i am already doubly indebted; for deeds of kindness of serious import to my dearest interests, done in a manner grateful to the delicate feelings of sensibility. this poem is a species of composition new to me, but i do not intend it shall be my last essay of the kind, as you will see by the "poet's progress." these fragments, if my design succeed, are but a small part of the intended whole. i propose it shall be the work of my utmost exertions, ripened by years; of course i do not wish it much known. the fragment beginning "a little upright, pert, tart," etc., i have not shown to man living, till i now send it you. it forms the postulata, the axioms, the definition of a character, which, if it appear at all, shall be placed in a variety of lights. this particular part i send you merely as a sample of my hand at portrait-sketching; but, lest idle conjecture should pretend to point out the original, please to let it be for your single, sole inspection. need i make any apology for this trouble, to a gentleman who has treated me with such marked benevolence and peculiar kindness; who has entered into my interests with so much zeal, and on whose critical decisions i can so fully depend? a poet as i am by trade, these decisions are to me of the last consequence. my late transient acquaintance among some of the mere rank and file of greatness, i resign with ease; but to the distinguished champions of genius and learning, i shall be ever ambitious of being known. the native genius and accurate discernment in mr. stewart's critical strictures; the justness (iron justice, for he has no bowels of compassion for a poor poetic sinner) of dr. gregory's remarks, and the delicacy of professor dalzel's taste, i shall ever revere. i shall be in edinburgh some time next month.--i have the honour to be, sir, your highly obliged, and very humble servant, r. b. * * * * * cxvii.--to mr. robert cleghorn, saughton mills. ellisland, 23_rd jan_. 1789. i must take shame and confusion of face to myself, my dear friend and brother farmer, that i have not written you much sooner. the truth is i have been so tossed about between ayrshire and nithsdale that, till now i have got my family here, i have had time to think of nothing except now and then a stanza or so as i rode along. were it not for our gracious monarch's cursed tax of postage i had sent you one or two pieces of some length that i have lately done. i have no idea of the _press_. i am more able to support myself and family, though in a humble, yet an independent way; and i mean, just at my leisure, to pay court to the tuneful sisters in the hope that they may one day enable me to carry on a work of some importance. the following are a few verses which i wrote in a neighbouring gentleman's _hermitage_ to which he is so good as let me have a key. * * * * * cxviii.--to bishop geddes, edinburgh. ellisland, _3rd feb_. 1789. venerable father,--as i am conscious that wherever i am, you do me the honour to interest yourself in my welfare, it gives me pleasure to inform you, that i am here at last, stationary in the serious business of life, and have now not only the retired leisure, but the hearty inclination, to attend to those great and important questions,--what i am? where i am? and for what i am destined. in that first concern, the conduct of the man, there was ever but one side on which i was habitually blameable, and there i have secured myself in the way pointed out by nature and nature's god. i was sensible that, to so helpless a creature as a poor poet, a wife and family were incumbrances, which a species of prudence would bid him shun; but when the alternative was, being at eternal warfare with myself, on account of habitual follies, to give them no worse name, which no general example, no licentious wit, no sophistical infidelity, would, to me, ever justify, i must have been a fool to have hesitated, and a madman to have made another choice. besides, i had in "my jean" a long and much-loved fellow-creature's happiness or misery among my hands, and who could trifle with such a deposit? in the affair of a livelihood, i think myself tolerably secure: i have good hopes of my farm, but should they fail, i have an excise commission, which, on my simple petition, will, at any time, procure me bread. there is a certain stigma affixed to the character of an excise officer, but i do not pretend to borrow honour from my profession; and though the salary be comparatively small, it is luxury to anything that the first twenty-five years of my life taught me to expect. thus, with a rational aim and method in life, you may easily guess, my reverend and much-honoured friend, that my characteristical trade is not forgotten. i am, if possible, more than ever an enthusiast to the muses. i am determined to study man and nature, and in that view incessantly; and to try if the ripening and corrections of years can enable me to produce something worth preserving. you will see in your book, which i beg your pardon for detaining so long, that i have been tuning my lyre on the banks of nith. some large poetic plans that are floating in my imagination, or partly put in execution, i shall impart to you when i have the pleasure of meeting with you; which, if you are then in edinburgh, i shall have about the beginning of march. that acquaintance, worthy sir, with which you were pleased to honour me, you must still allow me to challenge; for, with whatever unconcern i give up my transient connection with the merely great, i cannot lose the patronising notice of the learned and good without the bitterest regret. r. b. * * * * * cxix.--to mr. james burness. ellisland, _9th feb_. 1789. my dear sir,--why i did not write to you long ago is what, even on the rack, i could not answer. if you can in your mind form an idea of indolence, dissipation, hurry, cares, change of country, entering on untried scenes of life, all combined, you will save me the trouble of a blushing apology. it could not be want of regard for a man for whom i had a high esteem before i knew him--an esteem which has much increased since i did know him; and this caveat entered, i shall plead guilty to any other indictment with which you shall please to charge me. after i parted from you, for many months my life was one continued scene of dissipation. here at last i am become stationary, and have taken a farm and--a wife. the farm is beautifully situated on the nith, a large river that runs by dumfries, and falls into the solway frith. i have gotten a lease of my farm as long as i please; but how it may turn out is just a guess, and it is yet to improve and inclose, etc.; however, i have good hopes of my bargain on the whole. my wife is my jean, with whose story you are partly acquainted. i found i had a much-loved fellow-creature's happiness or misery among my hands, and i durst not trifle with so sacred a deposit. indeed, i have not any reason to repent the step i have taken, as i have attached myself to a very good wife, and have shaken myself loose of every bad failing. i have found my book a very profitable business, and with the profits of it i have begun life pretty decently. should fortune not favour me in farming, as i have no great faith in her fickle ladyship, i have provided myself in another resource, which, however some folks may affect to despise it, is still a comfortable shift in the day of misfortune. in the hey-day of my fame, a gentleman, whose name at least i daresay you know, as his estate lies somewhere near dundee, mr. graham, of fintry, one of the commissioners of excise, offered me the commission of an excise officer. i thought it prudent to accept the offer; and, accordingly, i took my instructions, and have my commission by me. whether i may ever do duty, or be a penny the better for it, is what i do not know; but i have the comfortable assurance that, come whatever ill fate will, i can, on my simple petition to the excise board, get into employ. we have lost poor uncle robert this winter. he has long been very weak, and with very little alteration on him; he expired 3rd january. his son william has been with me this winter, and goes in may to be an apprentice to a mason. his other son, the eldest, john, comes to me i expect in summer. they are both remarkably stout young fellows, and promise to do well. his only daughter, fanny, has been with me ever since her father's death, and i purpose keeping her in my family till she is woman grown, and fit for better service. she is one of the cleverest girls, and has one of the most amiable dispositions i have ever seen. all friends in this country and ayrshire are well. remember me to all friends in the north. my wife joins me in compliments to mrs. b. and family.--i am ever, my dear cousin, yours sincerely, r. b.[95] [footnote 95: "fanny burns, the poet's relation, merited all the commendations he has here bestowed. i remember her while she lived at ellisland, and better still as the wife of adam armour, the brother of bonnie jean."--cunningham.] * * * * * cxx.-to mrs. dunlop. ellisland, 4_th march_ 1789. here am i, my honoured friend, returned safe from the capital. to a man who has a home, however humble or remote--if that home is like mine, the scene of domestic comfort--the bustle of edinburgh will soon be a business of sickening disgust. vain pomp and glory of this world, i hate you! when i must skulk into a corner, lest the rattling equipage of some gaping blockhead should mangle me in the mire, i am tempted to exclaim--"what merits has he had, or what demerit have i had, in some state of pre-existence, that he is ushered into this state of being with the sceptre of rule, and the key of riches in his puny fist, and i am kicked into the world, the sport of folly, or the victim of pride?" i have read somewhere of a monarch (in spain i think it was) who was so out of humour with the ptolemean system of astronomy, that he said, had he been of the creator's council, he could have saved him a great deal of labour and absurdity. i will not defend this blasphemous speech; but often, as i have glided with humble stealth through the pomp of princes street, it has suggested itself to me, as an improvement on the present human figure, that a man, in proportion to his own conceit of his consequence in the world, could have pushed out the longitude of his common size, as a snail pushes out his horns, or as we draw out a perspective. this trifling alteration, not to mention the prodigious saving it would be in the tear and wear of the neck and limb-sinews of many of his majesty's liege-subjects, in the way of tossing the head and tip-toe strutting, would evidently turn out a vast advantage, in enabling us at once to adjust the ceremonials in making a bow, or making way to a great man, and that too within a second of the precise spherical angle of reverence, or an inch of the particular point of respectful distance, which the important creature itself requires, as a measuring-glance at its towering altitude would determine the affair like instinct. you are right, madam, in your idea of poor mylne's poem, which he has addressed to me. the piece has a good deal of merit, but it has one great fault--it is, by far, too long. besides, my success has encouraged such a shoal of ill-spawned monsters to crawl into public notice, under the title of scottish poets, that the very term scottish poetry borders on the burlesque. when i write to mr. carfrae, i shall advise him rather to try one of his deceased friend's english pieces. i am prodigiously hurried with my own matters, else i would have requested a perusal of all mylne's poetic performances, and would have offered his friends my assistance in either selecting or correcting what would be proper for the press. what it is that occupies me so much, and perhaps a little oppresses my present spirits, shall fill up a paragraph in some future letter. in the meantime, allow me to close this epistle with a few lines done by a friend of mine.... i give you them, that, as you have seen the original, you may guess whether one or two alterations i have ventured to make in them, be any real improvement. like the fair plant that from our touch withdraws, shrink, mildly fearful, even from applause, be all a mother's fondest hope can dream, and all you are, my charming rachel, seem. straight as the fox-glove, ere her bells disclose, mild as the maiden-blushing hawthorn blows, fair as the fairest of each lovely kind, your form shall be the image of your mind; your manners shall so true your soul express, that all shall long to know the worth they guess; congenial hearts shall greet with kindred love, and even sick'ning envy must approve.[96] r. b. [footnote 96: these lines are mrs. dunlop's own, addressed to her daughter.] * * * * * cxxi.--to mrs. m'lehose (formerly clarinda). ellisland, _mar. 9th_, 1789. madam,--the letter you wrote me to heron's carried its own answer. you forbade me to write you unless i was willing to plead guilty to a certain indictment you were pleased to bring against me. as i am convinced of my own innocence, and, though conscious of high imprudence and egregious folly, can lay my hand on my breast and attest the rectitude of my heart, you will pardon me, madam, if i do not carry my complaisance so far as humbly to acquiesce in the name of "villain" merely out of compliment to your opinion, much as i esteem your judgment and warmly as i regard your worth. i have already told you, and i again aver it, that, at the time alluded to, i was not under the smallest moral tie to mrs. burns; nor did i, nor could i, then know all the powerful circumstances that omnipotent necessity was busy laying in wait for me. when you call over the scenes that have passed between us, you will survey the conduct of an honest man struggling successfully with temptations the most powerful that ever beset humanity, and preserving untainted honour in situations where the austerest virtue would have forgiven a fall; situations that, i will dare to say not a single individual of all his kind, even with half his sensibility and passion, could have encountered without ruin; and i leave you, madam, to guess how such a man is likely to digest an accusation of "perfidious treachery." * * * * * when i shall have regained your good opinion, perhaps i may venture to solicit your friendship; but, be that as it may, the first of her sex i ever knew shall always be the object of my warmest good wishes. robt. burns. * * * * * cxxil--to dr. moore. ellisland, _23rd march_ 1789. sir,--the gentleman who will deliver you this is a mr. nielson, a worthy clergyman in my neighbourhood, and a very particular acquaintance of mine. as i have troubled him with this packet, i must turn him over to your goodness, to recompense him for it in a way in which he much needs your assistance, and where you can effectually serve him. mr. nielson is on his way for france, to wait on his grace of queensberry, on some little business of a good deal of importance to him, and he wishes for your instructions respecting the most eligible mode of travelling, etc., for him, when he has crossed the channel. i should not have dared to take this liberty with you, but that i am told, by those who have the honour of your personal acquaintance, that to be a poor honest scotsman is a letter of recommendation to you, and that to have it in your power to serve such a character, gives you much pleasure. the inclosed ode is a compliment to the memory of the late mrs. oswald of auchencruive. you probably knew her personally, an honour of which i cannot boast; but i spent my early years in the neighbourhood, and among her servants and tenants. i know that she was detested with the most heartfelt cordiality. however, in the particular part of her conduct which roused my poetic wrath, she was much less blameable. in january last, on my road to ayrshire, i had put up at bailie whigham's, in sanquhar, the only tolerable inn in the place. the frost was keen, and the grim evening and howling wind were ushering in a night of snow and drift. my horse and i were both much fatigued with the labours of the day, and just as my friend the bailie and i were bidding defiance to the storm, over a smoking bowl, in wheels the funeral pageantry of the late great mrs. oswald, and poor i am forced to brave all the horrors of the tempestuous night, and jade my horse, my young favourite horse, whom i had just christened pegasus, twelve miles farther on, through the wildest moors and hills of ayrshire, to new cumnock, the next inn. the powers of poesy and prose sink under me, when i would describe what i felt. suffice it to say, that when a good fire at new cumnock had so far recovered my frozen sinews, i sat down and wrote the inclosed ode. i was at edinburgh lately, and settled finally with mr. creech; and i must own, that at last, he has been amicable and fair with me. r. b. * * * * * cxxiii.--to his brother, mr. william burns. isle, march 25th 1789. i have stolen from my corn-sowing this minute to write a line to accompany your shirt and hat, for i can no more. your sister nannie arrived yesternight, and begs to be remembered to you. write me every opportunity--never mind postage. my head, too, is as addle as an egg this morning, with dining abroad yesterday. i received yours by the mason. forgive me this foolish looking scrawl of an epistle.--i am ever, my dear william, yours, r. b. p.s.--if you are not then gone from longtown, i'll write you a long letter by this day se'ennight. if you should not succeed in your tramps, don't be dejected, or take any rash step--return to us in that case, and we will court fortune's better humour. remember this, i charge you. r. b. * * * * * cxxiv.--to mr. hill, bookseller, edinburgh. ellisland, _2nd april_ 1789. i will make no excuse, my dear bibliopolus (god forgive me for murdering language!) that i have sat down to write you on this vile paper. it is economy, sir; it is that cardinal virtue, prudence; so i beg you will sit down, and either compose or borrow a panegyric. if you are going to borrow, apply to[97] ... to compose, or rather to compound, something very clever on my remarkable frugality; that i write to one of my most esteemed friends on this wretched paper, which was originally intended for the venal fist of some drunken exciseman, to take dirty notes in a miserable vault of an ale-cellar. o frugality! thou mother of ten thousand blessings--thou cook of fat beef and dainty greens!--thou manufacturer of warm shetland hose, and comfortable surtouts!--thou old housewife, darning thy decayed stockings with thy ancient spectacles on thy aged nose!--lead me, hand me in thy clutching palsied fist, up those heights, and through those thickets, hitherto inaccessible, and impervious to my anxious, weary feet:--not those parnassian crags, bleak and barren, where the hungry worshippers of fame are, breathless, clambering, hanging between heaven and hell; but those glittering cliffs of potosi, where the all-sufficient, all-powerful deity, wealth, holds his immediate court of joy and pleasures; where the sunny exposure of plenty, and the hot walls of profusion, produce those blissful fruits of luxury, exotics in this world, and natives of paradise!--thou withered sibyl, my sage conductress, usher me into thy refulgent, adored presence!--the power, splendid and potent as he now is, was once the puling nursling of thy faithful care and tender arms! call me thy son, thy cousin, thy kinsman, or favourite, and adjure the god by the scenes of his infant years, no longer to repulse me as a stranger, or an alien, but to favour me with his peculiar countenance and protection! he daily bestows his great kindness on the undeserving and the worthless--assure him that i bring ample documents of meritorious demerits! pledge yourself for me, that, for the glorious cause of lucre, i will do anything, be anything; but the horse-leech of private oppression, or the vulture of public robbery! but to descend from heroics. i want a shakespeare; i want likewise an english dictionary,--johnson's, i suppose, is best. in these and all my prose commissions, the cheapest is always the best for me. there is a small debt of honour that i owe mr. robert cleghorn, in saughton mills, my worthy friend, and your well-wisher. please give him, and urge him to take it, the first time you see him, ten shillings worth of anything you have to sell, and place it to my account. the library scheme that i mentioned to you is already begun under the direction of captain riddel. there is another in emulation of it going on at closeburn, under the auspices of mr. monteith of closeburn, which will be on a greater scale than ours. captain riddel gave his infant society a great many of his old books, else i had written you on that subject; but, one of these days, i shall trouble you with a commission for "the monkland friendly society," a copy of _the spectator_, _mirror_, and _lounger_, _man of feeling_, _man of the world_, _guthrie's geographical grammar_, with some religious pieces, will likely be our first order. when i grow richer, i will write to you on gilt-post, to make amends for this sheet. at present every guinea has a five guinea errand with, my dear sir, your faithful, poor, but honest friend, r. b. [footnote 97: creech? or ramsay of _the courant?_] * * * * * cxxv.--to mrs. m'murdo, drumlanrig. ellisland, _2nd may_ 1789. madam,--i have finished the piece which had the happy fortune to be honoured with your approbation; and never did little miss, with more sparkling pleasure, show her applauded sampler to partial mamma, than i now send my poem to you and mr. m'murdo,[98] if he is returned to drumlanrig. you cannot easily imagine what thin-skinned animals--what sensitive plants poor poets are. how do we shrink into the imbittered corner of self-abasement, when neglected or condemned by those to whom we look up! and how do we, in erect importance, add another cubit to our stature on being noticed and applauded by those whom we honour and respect! my late visit to drumlanrig has, i can tell you, madam, given me a balloon waft up parnassus, where, on my fancied elevation, i regard my poetic self with no small degree of complacency. surely with all their sins, the rhyming tribe are not ungrateful creatures--i recollect your goodness to your humble guest--i see mr. m'murdo adding to the politeness of the gentleman, the kindness of a friend, and my heart swells as it would burst, with warm emotions and ardent wishes! it may be it is not gratitude--it may be a mixed sensation. that strange, shifting, doubling animal, man, is so generally, at best, but a negative, often a worthless creature, that we cannot see real goodness and native worth, without feeling the bosom glow with sympathetic approbation. with every sentiment of grateful respect, i have the honour to be, madam, your obliged and grateful humble servant, r. b. [footnote 98: the piece beginning--there was a lass and she was fair.] * * * * * cxxvi.--to mr. cunningham. ell island, 4_th may_ 1789. my dear sir,--your _duty-free_ favour of the 25th april i received two days ago; i will not say i perused it with pleasure; that is the cold compliment of ceremony; i perused it, sir, with delicious satisfaction;--in short, it is such a letter, that not you, nor your friend, but the legislature, by express proviso in their postage laws, should frank. a letter informed with the soul of friendship is such an honour to human nature, that they should order it free ingress and egress to and from their bags and mails, as an encouragement and mark of distinction to supereminent virtue. i have just put the last hand to a little poem, which i think will be something to your taste.[99] one morning lately, as i was out pretty early in the fields, sowing some grass seeds, i heard the burst of a shot from a neighbouring plantation, and presently a poor little wounded hare came crippling by me. you will guess my indignation at the inhuman fellow who could shoot a hare at this season, when all of them have young ones. indeed there is something in that business of destroying, for our sport, individuals in the animal creation that do not injure us materially, which i could never reconcile to my ideas of virtue. let me know how you like my poem. i am doubtful whether it would not be an improvement to keep out the last stanza but one altogether. cruikshank is a glorious production of the author of man. you, he, and the noble colonel[100] of the crochallan fencibles are to me dear as the ruddy drops which warm my heart. i have got a good mind to make verses on you all, to the tune of "_three guid fellows ayont the glen_" r. b. [footnote 99: see the poem on the "wounded hare."] [footnote 100: that is, william dunbar, w.s.] * * * * * cxxvil--to mr. richard brown. mauchline, _21st may_ 1789. my dear friend,--i was in the country by accident, and hearing of your safe arrival, i could not resist the temptation of wishing you joy on your return--wishing you would write to me before you sail again--wishing that you would always set me down as your bosom friend--wishing you long life and prosperity, and that every good thing may attend you--wishing mrs. brown and your little ones as free of the evils of this world as is consistent with humanity--wishing you and she were to make two at the ensuing lying-in, with which mrs. b. threatens very soon to favour me--wishing i had longer time to write to you at present; and, finally, wishing that if there is to be another state of existence, mrs. brown, mrs. burns, our little ones of both families, and you and i, in some snug retreat, may make a jovial party to all eternity! my direction is at ellisland, near dumfries.--yours, r. b. * * * * * cxxviil--to mr. robert ainslie. ellisland, _8th june_ 1789. my dear friend,--i am perfectly ashamed of myself when i look at the date of your last. it is not that i forget the friend of my heart and the companion of my peregrinations; but i have been condemned to drudgery beyond sufferance, though not, thank god, beyond redemption. i have had a collection of poems by a lady put into my hands to prepare them for the press; which horrid task, with sowing corn with my own hand, a parcel of masons, wrights, plasterers, etc., to attend to, roaming on business through ayrshire--all this was against me, and the very first dreadful article was of itself too much for me. 13th. i have not had a moment to spare from incessant toil since the 8th. life, my dear sir, is a serious matter. you know by experience that a man's individual self is a good deal, but believe me, a wife and family of children, whenever you have the honour to be a husband and a father, will show you that your present and most anxious hours of solitude are spent on trifles. the welfare of those who are very dear to us, whose only support, hope, and stay we are--this, to a generous mind, is another sort of more important object of care than any concerns whatever which centre merely in the individual. on the other hand, let no young, rakehelly dog among you, make a song of his pretended liberty and freedom from care. if the relations we stand in to king, country, kindred, and friends, be anything but the visionary fancies of dreaming metaphysicians; if religion, virtue, magnanimity, generosity, humanity and justice, be ought but empty sounds; then the man who may be said to live only for others, for the beloved, honourable female, whose tender faithful embrace endears life, and for the helpless little innocents who are to be the men and women, the worshippers of his god, the subjects of his king, and the support, nay the very vital existence of his country, in the ensuing age;--compare such a man with any fellow whatever, who, whether he bustle and push in business among labourers, clerks, statesmen; or whether he roar and rant, and drink and sing in taverns--a fellow over whose grave no one will breathe a single heigh-ho, except from the cobweb-tie of what is called good fellowship--who has no view nor aim but what terminates in himself--if there be any grovelling earth-born wretch of our species, a renegade to common sense, who would fain believe that the noble creature, man, is no better than a sort of fungus, generated out of nothing, nobody knows how, and soon dissipating in nothing, nobody knows where; such a stupid beast, such a crawling reptile, might balance the foregoing unexaggerated comparison, but no one else would have the patience. forgive me, my dear sir, for this long silence. _to make you amends_, i shall send you soon, and more encouraging still, without any postage, one or two rhymes of my later manufacture. r. b. * * * * * cxxix.--to mrs. dunlop. ellisland, 21_st june_ 1789. dear madam,--will you take the effusions, the miserable effusions of low spirits, just as they flow from their bitter spring? i know not of any particular cause for this worst of all my foes besetting me; but for some time my soul has been beclouded with a thickening atmosphere of evil imaginations and gloomy presages. _monday evening._ i have just heard mr. kilpatrick preach a sermon. he is a man famous for his benevolence, and i revere him; but from such ideas of my creator, good lord, deliver me! religion, my honoured friend, is surely a simple business, as it equally concerns the ignorant and the learned, the poor and the rich. that there is an incomprehensible great being, to whom i owe my existence, and that he must be intimately acquainted with the operations and progress of the internal machinery, and consequent outward deportment of this creature which he has made; these are, i think, self-evident propositions. that there is a real and eternal distinction between virtue and vice, and consequently, that i am an accountable creature; that from the seeming nature of the human mind, as well as from the evident imperfection, nay, positive injustice, in the administration of affairs, both in the natural and moral worlds, there must be a retributive scene of existence beyond the grave; must, i think, be allowed by every one who will give himself a moment's reflection. i will go farther, and affirm, that from the sublimity, excellence, and purity of his doctrine and precepts, unparalleled by all the aggregated wisdom and learning of many preceding ages, though, to _appearance_ he, himself, was the obscurest and most illiterate of our species; therefore jesus christ was from god. whatever mitigates the woes, or increases the happiness of others, this is my criterion of goodness; and whatever injures society at large, or any individual in it, this is my measure of iniquity. what think you, madam, of my creed? i trust that i have said nothing that will lessen me in the eye of one, whose good opinion i value almost next to the approbation of my own mind. r. b. * * * * * cxxx.--to miss helen maria williams. ellisland, 1789. madam,--of the many problems in the nature of that wonderful creature, man, this is one of the most extraordinary--that he shall go on from day to day, from week to week, from month to month, or perhaps from year to year, suffering a hundred times more in an hour from the impotent consciousness of neglecting what he ought to do, than the very doing of it would cost him. i am deeply indebted to you, first, for a most elegant poetic compliment; then for a polite, obliging letter; and, lastly, for your excellent poem on the slave trade; and yet, wretch that i am! though the debts were debts of honour, and the creditor a lady, i have put off and put off even the very acknowledgment of the obligation, until you must indeed be the very angel i take you for, if you can forgive me. your poem i have read with the highest pleasure. i have a way whenever i read a book--i mean a book in our own trade, madam, a poetic one, and when it is my own property--that i take a pencil and mark at the ends of verses, or note on margins and odd paper, little criticisms of approbation or disapprobation as i peruse along. i will make no apology for presenting you with a few unconnected thoughts that occurred to me in my repeated perusals of your poem. i want to show you that i have honesty enough to tell you what i take to be truths, even when they are not quite on the side of approbation; and i do it in the firm faith that you have equal greatness of mind to hear them with pleasure. [here follows a list of strictures.] i had lately the honour of a letter from dr. moore, where he tells me that he has sent me some books; they are not yet come to hand, but i hear they are on the way. wishing you all success in your progress in the path of fame, and that you may equally escape the danger of stumbling through incautious speed, or losing ground through loitering neglect, i am, etc. r. b. * * * * * cxxxi.--to mr. robert graham, of fintry. ellisland, 31st _july_ 1789. sir,--the language of gratitude has been so prostituted by servile adulation and designing flattery that i know not how to express myself when i would acknowledge receipt of your last letter. i beg and hope, ever-honoured "friend of my life and patron of my rhymes," that you will always give me credit for the sincerest, chastest gratitude. i dare call the searcher of hearts and author of all goodness to witness how truly grateful i am. mr. mitchell[101] did not wait my calling on him, but sent me a kind letter, giving me a hint of the business; and yesterday he entered with the most friendly ardour into my views and interests. he seems to think, and from my private knowledge i am certain he is right, that removing the officer who now does, and for these many years has done, duty in the division in the middle of which i live, will be productive of at least no disadvantage to the revenue, and may likewise be done without any detriment to him. should the honourable board [of excise] think so, and should they deem it eligible to appoint me to officiate in his present place, i am then at the top of my wishes. the emoluments in my office will enable me to carry on, and enjoy those improvements on my farm, which but for this additional assistance, i might in a year or two have abandoned. should it be judged improper to place me in this division, i am deliberating whether i had not better give up my farming altogether, and go into the excise whenever i can find employment. now that the salary is £50 per annum, the excise is surely a much superior object to a farm, which, without some foreign assistance, must for half a lease be a losing bargain. the worst of it is--i know there are some respectable characters who do me the honour to interest themselves in my welfare and behaviour, and, as leaving the farm so soon may have an unsteady, giddy-headed appearance, i had better perhaps lose a little money than hazard their esteem. you see, sir, with what freedom i lay before you all my little matters--little indeed to the world, but of the most important magnitude to me.... were it not for a very few of our kind, the very existence of magnanimity, generosity, and all their kindred virtues, would be as much a question with metaphysicians as the existence of witchcraft. perhaps the nature of man is not so much to blame for this, as the situation in which by some miscarriage or other he is placed in this world. the poor, naked, helpless wretch, with such voracious appetites and such a famine of provision for them, is under a cursed necessity of turning selfish in his own defence. except a few instances of original scoundrelism, thorough-paced selfishness is always the work of time. indeed, in a little time, we generally grow so attentive to ourselves and so regardless of others that i have often in poetic frenzy looked on this world as one vast ocean, occupied and commoved by innumerable vortices, each whirling round its centre. these vortices are the children of men. the great design and, if i may say so, merit of each particular vortex consists in how widely it can extend the influence of its circle, and how much floating trash it can suck in and absorb. i know not why i have got into this preaching vein, except it be to show you that it is not my ignorance but my knowledge of mankind which makes me so much admire your goodness to me. i shall return your books very soon. i only wish to give dr. adam smith one other perusal, which i will do in one or two days. r. b. [footnote 101: a collector in the excise.] * * * * * cxxxil--to david sillar, merchant, irvine.[102] ellisland, 5 _aug_. 1789. my dear sir,--i was half in thoughts not to have written to you at all, by way of revenge for the two damn'd business letters you sent me. i wanted to know all about your publications--your news, your hopes, fears, etc., in commencing poet in print. in short, i wanted you to write to robin like his old acquaintance davie, and not in the style of mr. tare to mr. tret, as thus:-"mr. tret.--sir,--this comes to advise you that fifteen barrels of herrings were, by the blessing of god, shipped safe on board the _lovely janet_, q.d.c., duncan mac-leerie, master, etc." i hear you have commenced married man--so much the better. i know not whether the nine gipsies are jealous of my lucky, but they are a good deal shyer since i could boast the important relation of husband. i have got about eleven subscribers for your book.... my best compliments to mrs. sillar, and believe me to be, dear davie, ever yours, robt. burns. [footnote 102: this letter was first published in 1879. the original is probably lost, but a copy is to be found in the minute-book of the irvine burns club. sillar was "davie, a brother poet."] * * * * cxxxiii.--to mr. john logan, of knock shinnock. ellisland, near dumfries, 7_th aug_. 1789. dear sir,--i intended to have written you long ere now, and, as i told you, i had gotten three stanzas on my way in a poetic epistle to you; but that old enemy of all _good works_, the devil, threw me into a prosaic mire, and for the soul of me i cannot get out of it. i dare not write you a long letter, as i am going to intrude on your time with a long ballad. i have, as you will shortly see, finished "the kirk's alarm;" but now that it is done, and that i have laughed once or twice at the conceits in some of the stanzas, i am determined not to let it get into the public; so i send you this copy, the first that i have sent to ayrshire, except some few of the stanzas, which i wrote off in embryo for gavin hamilton, under the express provision and request that you will only read it to a few of us, and do not on any account give, or permit to be taken, any copy of the ballad. if i could be of any service to dr. m'gill, i would do it, though it should be at a much greater expense than irritating a few bigoted priests, but i am afraid serving him in his present _embarras_ is a task too hard for me. i have enemies enow, god knows, though i do not wantonly add to the number. still, as i think there is some merit in two or three of the thoughts, i send it to you as a small, but sincere testimony how much, and with what respectful esteem, i am, dear sir, your obliged humble servant r. b. * * * * * cxxxiv.--to mr. peter stuart, editor, london. _end of aug_. 1789. my dear sir,--the hurry of a farmer in this particular season, and the indolence of a poet at all seasons, will, i hope, plead my excuse for neglecting so long to answer your obliging letter of the 5th august. ... when i received your letter i was transcribing for _the star_ my letter to the magistrates of the canongate of edinburgh, begging their permission to place a tombstone over poor fergusson. [102a] poor fergusson! if there be a life beyond the grave, which i trust there is; and if there be a good god presiding over all nature, which i am sure there is, thou art now enjoying existence in a glorious world where worth of heart alone is distinction in the man; where riches, deprived of their pleasure-purchasing powers, return to their native sordid matter; where titles and honours are the disregarded reveries of an idle dream; and where that heavy virtue, which is the negative consequence of steady dulness, and those thoughtless though often destructive follies, which are the unavoidable aberrations of frail human nature, will be thrown into equal oblivion as if they had never been! r. b. [footnote 102a: a young scottish poet of undoubted ability who perished miserably in edinburgh at the age of twenty-four. he was the senior of burns, who greatly admired and mourned him, by about eight years.] * * * * * cxxxv.--to his brother, william burns, saddler, newcastle-on-tyne. ellisland, 14_th aug_. 1789. my dear william,--i received your letter, and am very happy to hear that you have got settled for the winter. i enclose you the two guinea-notes of the bank of scotland, which i hope will serve your need. it is, indeed, not quite so convenient for me to spare money as it once was, but i know your situation, and, i will say it, in some respects your worth. i have no time to write at present, but i beg you will endeavour to pluck up a _little_ more of the man than you used to have. remember my favourite quotations: on reason build resolve, that pillar of true majesty in man.[103] and what proves the hero truly great, is never, never to despair![103a] your mother and sisters desire their compliments. a dieu je vous commende, robt. burns. [footnote 103: from young.] [footnote 103a: from thomson.] * * * * * cxxxvl--to mrs. dunlop. ellisland, _6th sept_. 1789. dear madam,--i have mentioned, in my last, my appointment to the excise, and the birth of little frank; who, by the bye, i trust will be no discredit to the honourable name of wallace, as he has a fine manly countenance, and a figure that might do credit to a liltle fellow two months older; and likewise an excellent good temper, though when he pleases he has a pipe, only not quite so loud as the horn that his immortal namesake blew as a signal to take out the pin of stirling bridge. i had some time ago an epistle, part poetic, and part prosaic, from your poetess miss. j. little,[104] a very ingenious, but modest composition. i should have written her as she requested, but for the hurry of this new business. i have heard of her and her compositions in this country; and i am happy to add, always to the honour of her character. the fact is, i knew not well how to write to her: i should sit down to a sheet of paper that i knew not how to stain. i am no dab at fine-drawn letter-writing; and, except when prompted by friendship or gratitude, or, which happens extremely rarely, inspired by the muse (i know not her name) that presides over epistolary writing, i sit down, when necessitated to write, as i would sit down to beat hemp. some parts of your letter of the 2oth august struck me with the most melancholy concern for the state of your mind at present. would i could write you a letter of comfort, i would sit down to it with as much pleasure as i would to write an epic poem of my own composition that should equal the _iliad!_ religion, my dear friend, is the true comfort. a strong persuasion in a future state of existence; a proposition so obviously probable, that, setting revelation aside, every nation and people, so far as investigation has reached, for at least near four thousand years, have, in some mode or other, firmly believed it. in vain would we reason and pretend to doubt. i have myself done so to a very daring pitch; but, when i reflected that i was opposing the most ardent wishes and the most darling hopes of good men, and flying in the face of all human belief, in all ages, i was shocked at my own conduct. i know not whether i have ever sent you the following lines; or if you have ever seen them; but it is one of my favourite quotations, which i keep constantly by me in my progress through life, in the language of the book of job, against the day of battle and of war-spoken of religion: 'tis _this_, my friend, that streaks our morning bright, 'tis _this_ that gilds the horror of our night, when wealth forsakes us, and when friends are few; when friends are faithless, or when foes pursue; tis this that wards the blow, or stills the smart, disarms affliction, or repels his dart; within the breast bids purest raptures rise, bids smiling conscience spread her cloudless skies. i have been busy with _zeluco_. the doctor is so obliging as to request my opinion of it; and i have been revolving in my mind some kind of criticisms on novel-writing, but it is a depth beyond my research. i shall, however, digest my thoughts on the subject as well as i can. _zeluco_ is a most sterling performance. farewell! _a dieu, le bon dieu, je vous commende!_ [footnote 104: a maid servant at loudon house.] * * * * * cxxxvil--to captain riddel, friars carse. ellisland, _16th october_ 1789. sir,--big with the idea of this important day at friars carse, i have watched the elements and skies, in the full persuasion that they would announce it to the astonished world by some phenomena of terrific portent. yesternight until a very late hour, did i wait with anxious horror for the appearance of some comet firing half the sky, or aerial armies of sanguinary scandinavians, darting athwart the startled heavens, rapid as the ragged lightning, and horrid as those convulsions of nature that bury nations. the elements, however, seem to take the matter very quietly; they did not even usher in this morning with triple suns and a shower of blood, symbolical of the three potent heroes[105] and the mighty claret-shed of the day. for me--as thomson in his winter says of the storm--i shall "hear astonished, and astonished sing" the whistle and the man i sing, the man that won the whistle, etc. to leave the heights of parnassus and come to the humble vale of prose. i have some misgivings that i take too much upon me, when i request you to get your guest, sir robert lawrie, to frank the two inclosed covers for me, the one of them to sir william cunningham, of robertland, bart., at kilmarnock,--the other, to mr. allan masterton, writing-master, edinburgh. the first has a kindred claim on sir robert, as being a brother baronet, and likewise a keen foxite; the other is one of the worthiest men in the world, and a man of real genius; so, allow me to say, he has a fraternal claim on you. i want them franked for to-morrow, as i cannot get them to the post to-night. i shall send a servant again for them in the evening. wishing that your head may be crowned with laurels to-night, and free from aches to-morrow, i have the honour to be, sir, your deeply indebted humble servant, r. b. [footnote 105: sir robert lawrie of maxwellton, the holder of the whistle, alexander fergusson of craigdarroch, and captain riddel. _see_ the poem. burns was apparently absent.] * * * * * cxxxviii--to mr. robert ainslie, w.s. ellisland, 1_st nov_. 1789. my dear friend,--i had written you ere now, could i have guessed where to find you, for i am sure you have more good sense than to waste the precious days of vacation time in the dirt of business and edinburgh. wherever you are, god bless you, and lead you not into temptation, but deliver you from evil! i do not know if i have informed you that i am now appointed to an excise division, in the middle of which my house and farm lie. in this i was extremely lucky. without ever having been an expectant, as they call their journeymen excisemen, i was directly planted down to all intents and purposes an officer of excise; there to flourish and bring forth fruits--worthy of repentance. you need not doubt that i find several very unpleasant and disagreeable circumstances in my business; but i am tired with and disgusted at the language of complaint against the evils of life. human existence in the most favourable situations does not abound with pleasures, and has its inconveniences and ills: capricious foolish man mistakes these inconveniences and ills as if they were the peculiar property of his particular situation; and hence that eternal fickleness, that love of change, which has ruined, and daily does ruin many a fine fellow, as well as many a blockhead, and is almost, without exception, a constant source of disappointment and misery. i long to hear from you how you go on-not so much in business as in life. are you pretty well satisfied with your own exertions, and tolerably at ease in your internal reflections? 'tis much to be a great character as a lawyer, but beyond comparison more to be a great character as a man. that you may be both the one and the other is the earnest wish, and that you _will_ be both is the firm persuasion of, my dear sir, etc. r. b. * * * * * cxxxix.--to mr. richard brown, port-glasgow. ellisland, _4th november_ 1789. i have been so hurried, my ever dear friend, that though i got both your letters, i have not been able to command an hour to answer them as i wished; and even now, you are to look on this as merely confessing debt, and craving days. few things could have given me so much pleasure as the news that you were once more safe and sound on terra firma, and happy in that place where happiness is alone to be found, in the fireside circle. may the benevolent director of all things peculiarly bless you in all those endearing connections consequent on the tender and venerable names of husband and father! i have indeed been extremely lucky in getting an additional income of £50 a-year, while, at the same time, the appointment will not cost me above £10 or £12 per annum of expenses more than i must have inevitably incurred. the worst circumstance is, that the excise division which i have got is so extensive, no less than ten parishes to ride over; and it abounds besides with so much business, that i can scarcely steal a spare moment. however, labour endears rest, and both together are absolutely necessary for the proper enjoyment of human existence. i cannot meet you anywhere. no less than an order from the board of excise, at edinburgh, is necessary before i can have so much time as to meet you in ayrshire. but do you come, and see me. we must have a social day, and perhaps lengthen it out with half the night, before you go again to sea. you are the earliest friend i now have on earth, my brothers excepted; and is not that an endearing circumstance? when you and i first met, we were at the green period of human life. the twig would easily take a bent, but would as easily return to its former state. you and i not only took a mutual bent, but, by the melancholy, though strong influence of being both of the family of the unfortunate, we were entwined with one another in our growth towards advanced age; and blasted be the sacrilegious hand that shall attempt to undo the union! you and i must have one bumper to my favourite toast, "may the companions of our youth be the friends of our old age!" come and see me one year; i shall see you at port-glasgow the next, and if we can contrive to have a gossiping between our two bed-fellows, it will be so much additional pleasure. mrs. burns joins me in kind compliments to you and mrs. brown. adieu!--i am ever, my dear sir, yours, r. b. * * * * * cxl.--to mr. r. graham, of fintry. _9th december_ 1789. sir,--i have a good while had a wish to trouble you with a letter, and had certainly done it long ere now, but for a humiliating something that throws cold water on the resolution, as if one should say, "you have found mr. graham a very powerful and kind friend indeed, and that interest he is so kindly taking in your concerns, you ought by everything in your power to keep alive and cherish." now, though since god has thought proper to make one powerful and another helpless, the connection of obliger and obliged is all fair; and though my being under your patronage is to me highly honourable, yet, sir, allow me to flatter myself that,--as a poet and an honest man you first interested yourself in my welfare, and principally as such still, you permit me to approach you. i have found the excise business go on a great deal smoother with me than i expected; owing a good deal to the generous friendship of mr. mitchell, my collector, and the kind assistance of mr. findlater, my supervisor. i dare to be honest, and i fear no labour. nor do i find my hurried life greatly inimical to my correspondence with the muses. their visits to me, indeed, and i believe to most of their acquaintance, like the visits of good angels, are short and far between; but i meet them now and then as i jog through the hills of nithsdale, just as i used to do on the banks of ayr. i take the liberty to inclose you a few bagatelles, all of them the productions of my leisure thoughts in my excise rides. if you know or have ever seen captain grose, the antiquarian, you will enter into any humour that is in the verses on him. perhaps you have seen them before, as i sent them to a london newspaper. though, i dare say, you have none of the solemn-league-and-covenant fire, which shone so conspicuous in lord george gordon, and the kilmarnock weavers, yet i think you must have heard of dr. m'gill, one of the clergymen of ayr, and his heretical book. god help him, poor man! though he is one of the worthiest, as well as one of the ablest of the whole priesthood of the kirk of scotland, in every sense of that ambiguous term, yet the poor doctor and his numerous family are in imminent danger of being thrown out to the mercy of the winter-winds. the inclosed ballad on that business is, i confess, too local, but i laughed myself at some conceits in it, though i am convinced in my conscience that there are a good many heavy stanzas in it too.[106] the election ballad,[107] as you will see, alludes to the present canvass in our string of boroughs. i do not believe there will be such a hard run match in the whole general election. i am too little a man to have any political attachments; i am deeply indebted to, and have the warmest veneration for, individuals of both parties; but a man[108] who has it in his power to be the father of a country, and who is only known to that country by the mischiefs he does in it, is a character that one cannot speak of with patience. sir j. j. does "what man can do," but yet i doubt his fate. r. b. [footnote 106: the kirk's alarm.] [footnote 107: _the five carlines._] [footnote 108: duke of queensbury.] * * * * * cxll--to mrs. dunlop. ellisland, _13th december_ 1789. many thanks, dear madam, for your sheetful of rhymes. though at present i am below the veriest prose, yet from you everything pleases. i am groaning under the miseries of a diseased nervous system; a system, the state of which is most conducive to our happiness--or the most productive of our misery. for now near three weeks i have been so ill with a nervous headache, that i have been obliged for a time to give up my excise-books, being scare able to lift my head, much less to ride once a week over ten muir parishes. what is man? to-day, in the luxuriance of health, exulting in the enjoyment of existence; in a few days, perhaps in a few hours, loaded with conscious painful being, counting the tardy pace of the lingering moments by the repercussions of anguish, and refusing or denied a comforter. day follows night, and night comes after day, only to curse him with life which gives him no pleasure; and yet the awful, dark termination of that life, is something at which he recoils. tell us, ye dead; will none of you in pity disclose the secret _what'tis you are, and we must shortly be?_ 'tis no matter: a little time will make us learn'd as you are. can it be possible, that when i resign this frail, feverish being, i shall still find myself in conscious existence? when the last gasp of agony has announced that i am no more to those that knew me, and the few who loved me; when the cold, stiffened, unconscious, ghastly corse is resigned into the earth, to be the prey of unsightly reptiles, and to become in time a trodden clod, shall i be yet warm in life, seeing and seen, enjoying and enjoyed? ye venerable sages, and holy flamens, is there probability in your conjectures, truth in your stories, of another world beyond death; or are they all alike, baseless visions, and fabricated fables? if there is another life, it must be only for the just, the benevolent, the amiable, and the humane; what a flattering idea, then, is a world to come! would to god i as firmly believed it, as i ardently wish it! there i should meet an aged parent, now at rest from the many buffetings of an evil world, against which he so long and so bravely struggled. there should i meet the friend, the disinterested friend of my early life; the man who rejoiced to see me, because he loved me and could serve me. muir, thy weaknesses were the aberrations of human nature, but thy heart glowed with everything generous, manly, and noble; and if ever emanation from the all-good being animated a human form, it was thine! there should i, with speechless agony of rapture, again recognise my lost, my ever dear mary! whose bosom was fraught with truth, honour, constancy, and love. my mary, dear departed shade! where is thy place of heavenly rest? seest thou thy lover lowly laid? hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast? jesus christ, thou amiablest of characters! i trust thou art no impostor, and that thy revelation of blissful scenes of existence beyond death and the grave, is not one of the many impositions which time after time have been palmed on credulous mankind. i trust that in thee "shall all the families of the earth be blessed," by being yet connected together in a better world, where every tie that bound heart to heart, in this state of existence, shall be, far beyond our present conceptions, more endearing. i am a good deal inclined to think with those who maintain, that what are called nervous affections are in fact diseases of the mind. i cannot reason, i cannot think; and but to you i would not venture to write anything above an order to a cobbler. you have felt too much of the ills of life not to sympathise with a diseased wretch, who has impaired more than half of any faculties he possessed. your goodness will excuse this distracted scrawl, which the writer dare scarcely read, and which he would throw into the fire, were he able to write anything better, or indeed anything at all. rumour told me something of a son of yours, who was returned from the east or west indies. if you have gotten news from james or anthony, it was cruel in you not to let me know; as i promise you, on the sincerity of a man, who is weary of one world, and anxious about another, that scarce anything could give me so much pleasure as to hear of any good thing befalling my honoured friend. if you have a minute's leisure, take up your pen in pity to le pauvre miserable. r. b. * * * * * cxlii.--to lady winifred m. constable. ellisland, 16th december 1789. my lady,--in vain have i from day to day expected to hear from mis. young, as she promised me at dalswinton that she would do me the honour to introduce me at tinwald; and it was impossible, not from your ladyship's accessibility, but from my own feelings, that i could go alone. lately, indeed, mr. maxwell, of currachan, in his usual goodness, offered to accompany me, when an unlucky indisposition on my part hindered my embracing the opportunity. to court the notice or the tables of the great, except where i sometimes have had a little matter to ask of them, or more often the pleasanter task of witnessing my gratitude to them, is what i never have done, and i trust never shall do. but with your ladyship i have the honour to be connected by one of the strongest and most endearing ties in the whole moral world. common sufferings, in a cause where even to be unfortunate is glorious--the cause of heroic loyalty! though my fathers had not illustrious honours and vast properties to hazard in the contest, though they left their humble cottages only to add so many units more to the unnoted crowd that followed their leaders, yet what they could they did, and what they had they lost; with unshaken firmness and unconcealed political attachments, they shook hands with ruin for what they esteemed the cause of their king and their country. this language and the inclosed verses are for your ladyship's eye alone. poets are not very famous for their prudence; but as i can do nothing for a cause which is now nearly no more, i do not wish to hurt myself.--i have the honour to be, my lady, your ladyship's obliged and obedient humble servant. r. b. * * * * * cxliii.--to mr. charles k. sharpe, of hoddam. _under a fictitious signature, inclosing a ballad, 1790 or 1791._[109] it is true, sir, you are a gentleman of rank and fortune, and i am a poor devil; you are a feather in the cap of society, and i am a very hobnail in his shoes; yet i have the honour to belong to the same family with you, and on that score i now address you. you will perhaps suspect that i am going to claim affinity with the ancient and honourable house of kirkpatrick. no, no, sir. i cannot indeed be properly said to belong to any house, or even any province or kingdom; as my mother, who for many years was spouse to a marching regiment, gave me into this bad world, aboard the packet-boat, somewhere between donaghadee and portpatrick. by our common family, i mean, sir, the family of the muses. i am a fiddler and a poet; and you, i am told, play an exquisite violin, and have a standard taste in the belles lettres. the other day, a brother catgut gave me a charming scots air of your composition. if i was pleased with the tune, i was in raptures with the title you have given it, and, taking up the idea, i have spun it into the three stanzas inclosed. will you allow me, sir, to present you them, as the dearest offering that a misbegotten son of poverty and rhyme has to give? i have a longing to take you by the hand and unburden my heart by saying, "sir, i honour you as a man who supports the dignity of human nature, amid an age when frivolity and avarice have, between them, debased us below the brutes that perish!" but, alas, sir! to me you are unapproachable. it is true, the muses baptised me in castalian streams; but the thoughtless gipsies forgot to give me a name. as the sex have served many a good fellow, the nine have given me a great deal of pleasure; but, bewitching jades! they have beggared me. would they but spare me a little of their cast-linen! were it only to put it in my power to say, that i have a shirt on my back! but the idle wenches, like solomon's lilies, "they toil not, neither do they spin;" so i must e'en continue to tie my remnant of a cravat, like the hangman's rope, round my naked throat, and coax my galligaskins to keep together their many-coloured fragments. as to the affair of shoes, i have given that up. my pilgrimages in my ballad-trade, from town to town, and on your stony-hearted turnpikes too, are not what even the hide of job's behemoth could bear. the coat on my back is no more: i shall not speak evil of the dead. it would be equally unhandsome and ungrateful to find fault with my old surtout, which so kindly supplies and conceals the want of that coat. my hat, indeed, is a great favourite; and though i got it literally for an old song, i would not exchange it for the best beaver in britain. i was, during several years, a kind of fac-totum servant to a country clergyman, where i picked up a good many scraps of learning, particularly--in some branches of the mathematics. whenever i feel inclined to rest myself on my way, i take my seat under a hedge, laying my poetic wallet on the one side, and my fiddle-case on the other, and placing my hat between my legs, i can by means of its brim, or rather brims, go through the whole doctrine of the conic sections. however, sir, don't let me mislead you, as if i would interest your pity. fortune has so much forsaken me, that she has taught me to live without her; and, amid all my rags and poverty, i am as independent, and much more happy than a monarch of the world. according to the hackneyed metaphor, i value the several actors in the great drama of life, simply as they act their parts. i can look on a worthless fellow of a duke with unqualified contempt, and can regard an honest scavenger with sincere respect. as you, sir, go through your role with such distinguished merit, permit me to make one in the chorus of universal applause, and assure you that with the highest respect, i have the honour to be, etc. [footnote 109: "here burns plays high jacobite to that singular old curmudgeon, lady constable. i imagine his jacobitism, like my own, belonged to the fancy rather than the reason."--scott.] * * * * * cxliv.--to his brother, gilbert burns, mossgiel. ellisland, _11th january 1790_. dear brother,--i mean to take advantage of the frank, though i have not in my present frame of mind much appetite for exertion in writing. my nerves are in a cursed state. i feel that horrid hypochondria pervading every atom of both body and soul. this farm has undone my enjoyment of myself. it is a ruinous affair on all hands. but let it go to hell! i'll fight it out and be off with it. we have gotten a set of very decent players here just now. i have seen them an evening or two. david campbell, in ayr, wrote to me by the manager of the company, a mr. sutherland, who is a man of apparent worth. on new-year-day evening i gave him the following prologue, which he spouted to his audience with applause:- no song nor dance i bring from yon great city, etc. i can no more. if once i was clear of this curst farm, i should respire more at ease. * * * * * cxlv.--to mr. william dunbar, w.s. ellisland, 14th jan. 1790. since we are here creatures of a day, since "a few summer days, a few winter nights, and the life of man is at an end," why, my dear much esteemed sir, should you and i let negligent indolence, for i know it is nothing worse, step in between us and bar the enjoyment of a mutual correspondence? we are not shapen out of the common, heavy, methodical clod, the elemental stuff of the plodding selfish race, the sons of arithmetic and prudence; our feelings and hearts are not benumbed and poisoned by the cursed influence of riches, which, whatever blessing they may be in other respects, are no friends to the nobler qualities of the heart; in the name of random sensibility, then, let never the moon change on our silence any more. i have had a tract of bad health the most part of this winter, else you had heard from me long ere now. thank heaven, i am now got so much better as to be able to partake a little in the enjoyments of life. our friend, cunningham, will perhaps have told you of my going into the excise. the truth is, i found it a very convenient business to have £50 per annum, nor have i yet felt any of these mortifying circumstances in it that i was led to fear. _feb. 2nd._--i have not for sheer hurry of business been able to spare five minutes to finish my letter. besides my farm business, i ride on my excise matters at least two hundred miles every week. i have not by any means given up the muses. you will see in the third volume of johnson's scots songs that i have contributed my mite there. but, my dear sir, little ones that look up to you for paternal protection are an important charge. i have already two fine healthy stout little fellows, and i wish to throw some light upon them. i have a thousand reveries and schemes about them, and their future destiny. not that i am an utopian projector in these things. i am resolved never to breed up a son of mine to any of the learned professions. i know the value of independence; and since i cannot give my sons an independent fortune, i shall give them an independent line of life. what a chaos of hurry, chance, and changes is this world, when one sits soberly down to reflect on it! to a father, who himself knows the world, the thought that he shall have sons to usher into it, must fill him with dread; but if he have daughters, the prospect in a thoughtful moment is apt to shock him. i hope mrs. fordyce and the two young ladies are well. do let me forget that they are nieces of yours, and let me say that i never saw a more interesting, sweeter pair of sisters in my life. i am the fool of my feelings and attachments. i often take up a volume of my spenser to realise you to my imagination, [109a] and think over the social scenes we have had together. god grant that there may be another world more congenial for honest fellows beyond this; a world where these rubs and plagues of absence, distance, misfortunes, ill-health, etc., shall no more damp hilarity and divide friendship. this i know is your throng season, but half a page will much oblige, my dear sir, yours sincerely, r. b. [footnote 109a: mr. dunbar had made him a present of a spenser's poems.] * * * * * cxlvl.--to mrs. dunlop. ellisland, _25th january 1790._ it has been owing to unremitting hurry of business that i have not written to you, madam, long ere now. my health is greatly better, and i now begin once more to share in satisfaction and enjoyment with the rest of my fellow-creatures. many thanks, my much esteemed friend, for your kind letters; but why will you make me run the risk of being contemptible and mercenary in my own eyes? when i pique myself on my independent spirit, i hope it is neither poetic licence, nor poetic rant; and i am so flattered with the honour you have done me in making me your compeer in friendship and friendly correspondence, that i cannot without pain, and a degree of mortification, be reminded of the real inequality between our situations. most sincerely do i rejoice with you, dear madam, in the good news of anthony. not only your anxiety about his fate, but my own esteem for such a noble, warm-hearted, manly young fellow, in the little i had of his acquaintance, has interested me deeply in his fortunes. falconer, the unfortunate author of the "shipwreck," which you so much admire, is no more. after witnessing the dreadful catastrophe he so feelingly describes in his poem, and after weathering many hard gales of fortune, he went to the bottom with the _aurora_ frigate! i forget what part of scotland had the honour of giving him birth; but he was the son of obscurity and mis'ortune.[110] he was one of those daring, adventurous spirits, which scotland, beyond any other country, is remarkable for producing. little does the fond mother think, as she hangs delighted over the sweet little leech at her bosom, where the poor fellow may hereafter wander, or what may be his fate. i remember a stanza in an old scottish ballad, which, notwithstanding its rude simplicity, speaks feelingly to the heart:- little did my mother think, that day she cradled me, what land i was to travel in, or what death i should dee! old scottish songs are, you know, a favourite study and pursuit of mine, and now i am on that subject, allow me to give you two stanzas of another old simple ballad, which i am sure will please you. the catastrophe of the piece is a poor ruined female, lamenting her fate, she concludes with this pathetic wish:- o that my father had ne'er on me smil'd; o that my mother had ne'er to me sung! o that my cradle had never been rock'd; but that i had died when i was young! o that the grave it were my bed; my blankets were my winding sheet; the clocks and the worms my bedfellows a'; and o sad sound as i should sleep! i do not remember in all my reading to have met with anything more truly the language of misery than the exclamation in the last line. misery is like love; to speak its language truly, the author must have felt it. i am every day expecting the doctor to give your little godson the small-pox. they are _rife_ in the country, and i tremble for his fate. by the way, i cannot help congratulating you on his looks and spirit. every person who sees him, acknowledges him to be the finest, handsomest child he has ever seen. i am myself delighted with the manly swell of his little chest, and a certain miniature dignity in the carriage of his head, and the glance of his fine black eye, which promise the undaunted gallantry of an independent mind. i thought to have sent you some rhymes, but time forbids. i promise you poetry until you are tired of it, next time i have the honour of assuring you how truly i am, etc. r. b. [footnote 110: he was of poor parentage, and a native of edinburgh.] * * * * * cxlvii.--to mr. peter hill, bookseller, edinburgh. ellisland, _2nd feb. 1790._ no! i will not say one word about apologies or excuses for not writing--i am a poor, rascally gauger, condemned to gallop at least 200 miles every week to inspect dirty ponds and yeasty barrels, and where can i find time to write to, or importance to interest anybody? the upbraidings of my conscience, nay, the upbraidings of my wife, have persecuted me on your account these two or three months past. i wish to god i was a great man, that my correspondence might throw light upon you, to let the world see what you really are: and then i would make your fortune, without putting my hand in my pocket for you, which, like all other great men, i suppose i would avoid as much as possible. what are you doing, and how are you doing? have you lately seen any of my few friends? what has become of the borough reform, or how is the fate of my poor namesake mademoiselle burns decided? o man! but for thee and thy selfish appetites, and dishonest artifices, that beauteous form, and that once innocent and still ingenuous mind, might have shone conspicuous and lovely in the faithful wife, and the affectionate mother; and shall the unfortunate sacrifice to thy pleasures have no claim on thy humanity! i saw lately, in a review, some extracts from a new poem, called the "village curate;" send it me. i want likewise a cheap copy of _the world_. mr. armstrong, the young poet, who does me the honour to mention me so kindly in his works, please give him my best thanks for the copy of his book.[111]--i shall write him, my first leisure hour. i like his poetry much, but i think his style in prose quite astonishing. your book came safe, and i am going to trouble you with farther commissions. i call it troubling you, because i want only books; the cheapest way, the best; so you may have to hunt for them in the evening auctions. i want smollett's works, for the sake of his incomparable humour. i have already _roderick random_ and _humphrey clinker_; --_peregrine pickle_, _launcelot greaves_, and _ferdinand_, _count fathom_, i still want; but, as i said, the veriest ordinary copies will serve me. i am nice only in the appearance of my poets. i forget the price of cowper's _poems_, but, i believe, i must have them. i saw the other day, proposals for a publication, entitled _banks's new and complete christian family bible_, printed for c. cooke, paternoster row, london. he promises at least to give in the work, i think it is three hundred and odd engravings, to which he has put the names of the first artists in london. you will know the character of the performance, as some numbers of it are published, and if it is really what it pretends to be, set me down as a subscriber, and send me the published numbers. let me hear from you, your first leisure minute, and trust me, you shall in future have no reason to complain of my silence. the dazzling perplexity of novelty will dissipate, and leave me to pursue my course in the quiet path of methodical routine. r. b. [footnote 111: john armstrong, student in the university of edinburgh, who had recently published a volume of juvenile poems.] * * * * * cxlviil.--to mr. w. nicol. ellisland, _feb. 9th, 1790._ my dear sir,--that damn'd mare of yours is dead. i would freely have given her price to have saved her; she has vexed me beyond description. indebted as i was to your goodness beyond what i can ever repay, i eagerly grasped at your offer to have the mare with me. that i might at least show my readiness in wishing to be grateful, i took every care of her in my power. she was never crossed for riding above half a score of times by me or in my keeping. i drew her in the plough, one of three, for one poor week. i refused fifty-five shillings for her, which was the highest bode i could squeeze for her. i fed her up and had her in fine order for dumfries fair, when, four or five days before the fair, she was seized with an unaccountable disorder in the sinews, or somewhere in the bones of the neck--with a weakness or total want of power in her fillets; and, in short, the whole vertebrae of her spine seemed to be diseased and unhinged, and in eight and forty hours, in spite of the two best farriers in the country, she died and be damn'd to her! the farriers said that she had been quite strained in the fillets beyond cure before you had bought her; and that the poor devil, though she might keep a little flesh, had been jaded and quite worn out with fatigue and oppression. while she was with me she was under my own eye, and i assure you, my much valued friend, everything was done for her that could be done; and the accident has vexed me to the heart. in fact, i could not pluck up spirits to write to you, on account of the unfortunate business. there is little new in this country. our theatrical company, of which you must have heard, leave us this week. their merit and character are indeed very great, both on the stage and in private life; not a worthless creature among them; and their encouragement has been accordingly. their usual run is from eighteen to twenty-five pounds a night; seldom less than the one, and the house will hold no more than the other. there have been repeated instances of sending away six, and eight, and ten pounds a night for want of room. a new theatre is to be built by subscription; the first stone is to be laid on friday first to come. three hundred guineas have been raised by thirty subscribers, and thirty more might have been got if wanted. the manager, mr. sutherland, was introduced to me by a friend from ayr; and a worthier or cleverer fellow i have rarely met with. some of our clergy have slipt in by stealth now and then; but they have got up a farce of their own. you must have heard how the rev. mr. lawson of kirkmahoe, seconded by the rev. mr. kirkpatrick of dunscore, and the rest of that faction, have accused, in formal process, the unfortunate and rev. mr. heron of kirkgunzeon, that in ordaining mr. nielson to the cure of souls in kirkbean, he, the said heron, feloniously and treasonably bound the said nielson to the confession of faith, _so far as it was agreeable to reason and the word of god!_ mrs. b. begs to be remembered most gratefully to you. little bobby and frank are charmingly well and healthy. i am jaded to death with fatigue. for these two or three months, on an average, i have not ridden less than two hundred miles per week. i have done little in the poetic way. i have given mr. sutherland two prologues, one of which was delivered last week. i have likewise strung four or five barbarous stanzas, to the tune of chevy chase, by way of elegy on your poor unfortunate mare, beginning (the name she got here was peg nicholson),- peg nicholson was a good bay mare, as ever trod on airn; but now she's floating down the nith, and past the mouth o' cairn. my best compliments to mrs. nicol, and little neddy, and all the family; i hope ned is a good scholar, and will come out to gather nuts and apples with me next harvest. r. b. * * * * * cxlix.--to mr. cunningham, writer, edinburgh. ellisland, _13th february 1790._ i beg your pardon, my dear and much valued friend, for writing to you on this very unfashionable, unsightly sheet- my poverty but not my will consents. but to make amends, since of modish post i have none, except one poor widowed half-sheet of gilt, which lies in my drawer, among my plebeian foolscap pages, like the widow of a man of fashion, whom that unpolite scoundrel, necessity, has driven from burgundy and pineapple to a dish of bohea, with the scandal-bearing help-mate of a village-priest; or a glass of whisky-toddy with a ruby-nosed yokefellow of a foot-padding exciseman--i make a vow to inclose this sheet-full of epistolary fragments in that my only scrap of gilt paper. i am, indeed, your unworthy debtor for three friendly letters. i ought to have written to you long ere now, but it is a literal fact, i have scarcely a spare moment. it is not that i _will not_ write to you: miss burnet is not more dear to her guardian angel, nor his grace the duke of queensberry to the powers of darkness, than my friend cunningham to me. it is not that i cannot write to you; should you doubt it, take the following fragment, which was intended for you some time ago, and be convinced that i can antithesize sentiment, and circumvolute periods, as well as any coiner of phrase in the regions of philology. _december 1789._ my dear cunningham,--where are you? and what are you doing? can you be that son of levity, who takes up a friendship as he takes up a fashion; or are you, like some other of the worthiest fellows in the world, the victim of indolence, laden with fetters of ever-increasing weight? what strange beings we are! since we have a portion of conscious existence, equally capable of enjoying pleasure, happiness, and rapture, or of suffering pain, wretchedness, and misery, it is surely worthy of an inquiry, whether there be not such a thing as a science of life; whether method, economy, and fertility of expedients, be not applicable to enjoyment; and whether there be not a want of dexterity in pleasure, which renders our little scantling of happiness still less; and a profuseness, an intoxication in bliss, which leads to satiety, disgust, and self-abhorrence. there is not a doubt but that health, talents, character, decent competency, respectable friends, are real substantial blessings; and yet do we not daily see those who enjoy many or all of these good things, contrive, notwithstanding, to be as unhappy as others to whose lot few of them have fallen? i believe one great source of this mistake or misconduct is owing to a certain stimulus, with us called ambition, which goads us up the hill of life, not as we ascend other eminences; for the laudable curiosity of viewing an extended landscape, but rather for the dishonest pride of looking down on others of our fellow-creatures, seemingly diminutive in humbler stations, etc., etc. _sunday, 14th february 1790._ god help me! i am now obliged to join night to day, and sunday to the week. if there be any truth in the orthodox faith of these churches, i am damn'd past redemption, and what is worse, damn'd to all eternity. i am deeply read in boston's _four-fold state_, marshal _on sanctification_, guthrie's _trial of a saving interest_, etc., but "there is no balm in gilead, there is no physician there," for me; so i shall e'en turn arminian, and trust to "sincere though imperfect obedience." _tuesday, 16th._ luckily for me, i was prevented from the discussion of the knotty point at which i had just made a full stop. all my fears and cares are of this world; if there is another, an honest man has nothing to fear from it. i hate a man that wishes to be a deist; but i fear, every fair, unprejudiced inquirer must in some degree be a sceptic. it is not that there are any very staggering arguments against the immortality of man; but, like electricity, phlogiston, etc., the subject is so involved in darkness, that we want data to go upon. one thing frightens me much: that we are to live for ever seems _too good news to be true_. that we are to enter into a new scene of existence, where, exempt from want and pain, we shall enjoy ourselves and our friends without satiety or separation--how much should i be indebted to any one who could fully assure me that this was certain! my time is once more expired. i will write to mr. cleghorn soon. god bless him and all his concerns! and may all the powers that preside over conviviality and friendship, be present with all their kindest influence, when the bearer of this, mr. syme, and you meet! i wish i could also make one. finally, brethren, farewell! whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are gentle, whatsoever things are charitable, whatsoever things are kind, think on these things, and think on r. b. * * * * * cl.--to mr. hill, bookseller, edinburgh. ellisland, _2nd march 1790._ at a late meeting of the monkland friendly society, it was resolved to augment their library by the following books, which you are to send us as soon as possible:--_the mirror, the lounger, man of feeling, man of the world,_ (these, for my own sake, i wish to have by the first carrier), knox's _history of the reformation_, rae's _history of the rebellion in 1715_, any good history of the rebellion in 1745, _a display of the secession act and testimony_, by mr. gib, hervey's _meditations_, beveridge's _thoughts_, and another copy of watson's _body of divinity_. i wrote to mr. a. masterton three or four months ago, to pay some money he owed me into your hands, and lately i wrote to you to the same purpose, but i have heard from neither one nor other of you. in addition to the books i commissioned in my last, i want very much, an index to the excise laws, or an abridgment of all the statutes now in force, relative to the excise, by jellinger symons; i want three copies of this book: if it is now to be had, cheap or dear, get it for me. an honest country neighbour of mine wants too a family bible, the larger the better, but second-handed, for he does not choose to give above ten shillings for the book. i want likewise for myself, as you can pick them up, second-handed or cheap, copies of otway's dramatic works, ben jonson's, dryden's, congreve's, wycherley's, vanbrugh's, gibber's, or any dramatic works of the more modern macklin, garrick, foote, colman, or sheridan. a good copy too of moliere, in french, i much want. any other good dramatic authors in that language i want also; but comic authors chiefly, though i should wish to have racine, corneille, and voltaire too. i am in no hurry for all, or any of these, but if you accidentally meet with them very-cheap, get them for me. and now, to quit the dry walk of business, how do you do, my dear friend? and how is mrs. hill? i trust, if now and then not so _elegantly_ handsome, at least as amiable, and sings as divinely as ever. my good wife too has a charming "wood-note wild;" now could we four get together, etc. i am out of all patience with this vile world, for one thing. mankind are by nature benevolent creatures, except in a few scoundrelly instances. i do not think that avarice of the good things we chance to have, is born with us; but we are placed here amid so much nakedness, and hunger, and poverty, and want, that we are under a cursed necessity of studying selfishness, in order that we may exist! still there are, in every age, a few souls that all the wants and woes of life cannot debase to selfishness, or even to the necessary alloy of caution and prudence. if ever i am in danger of vanity, it is when i contemplate myself on this side of my disposition and character. god knows i am no saint; i have a whole host of follies and sins to answer for; but if i could--and i believe i do it as far as i can--i would wipe away all tears from all eyes. adieu! r. b. * * * * * cli.--to mrs. dunlop. ellisland, _10th april 1790._ i have just now, my ever honoured friend, enjoyed a very high luxury, in reading a paper of the _lounger_. you know my national prejudices. i had often read and admired the _spectator_, _adventurer_, _rambler_, and _world_, but still with a certain regret, that they were so thoroughly and entirely english. alas! have i often said to myself, what are all the boasted advantages which my country reaps from the union, that can counterbalance the annihilation of her independence, and even her very name? i often repeat that couplet of my favourite poet, goldsmith- states of native liberty possest, tho' very poor, may yet be very blest. nothing can reconcile me to the common terms, "english ambassador," "english court," etc., and i am out of all patience to see that equivocal character, hastings, impeached by "the commons of england." tell me, my friend, is this weak prejudice? i believe in my conscience such ideas as "my country; her independence; her honour; the illustrious names that mark the history of my native land," etc.--i believe these, among your _men of the world_, men who, in fact, guide for the most part and govern our world, are looked on as so many modifications of wrong-headedness. they know the use of bawling out such terms, to rouse or lead the rabble; but for their own private use, with almost all the _able statesmen_ that ever existed, or now exist, when they talk of right and wrong they only mean proper and improper; and their measure of conduct is, not what they ought, but what they dare. for the truth of this i shall not ransack the history of nations, but appeal to one of the ablest judges of men that ever lived--the celebrated earl of chesterfield. in fact, a man who could thoroughly control his vices whenever they interfered with his interests, and who could completely put on the appearance of every virtue as often as it suited his purposes, is, on the stanhopian plan, the _perfect man_; a man to lead nations. but are great abilities, complete without a flaw, and polished without a blemish, the standard of human excellence? this is certainly the staunch opinion of _men of the world_; but i call on honour, virtue, and worth, to give the stygian doctrine a loud negative! however, this must be allowed, that, if you abstract from man the idea of an existence beyond the grave, _then_, the true measure of human conduct is, _proper_ and _improper_: virtue and vice, as dispositions of the heart, are, in that case, of scarcely the same import and value to the world at large, as harmony and discord in the modifications of sound; and a delicate sense of honour, like a nice ear for music, though it may sometimes give the possessor an ecstacy unknown to the coarser organs of the herd, yet, considering the harsh gratings, and inharmonic jars, in this ill-tuned state of being, it is odds but the individual would be as happy, and certainly would be as much respected by the true judges of society as it would then stand, without either a good ear or a good heart. you must know i have just met with the _mirror_ and _lounger_ for the first time, and i am quite in raptures with them; i should be glad to have your opinion of some of the papers. the one i have just read, _lounger_, no. 61, has cost me more honest tears than anything i have read for a long time. mackenzie has been called the addison of the scots, and in my opinion, addison would not be hurt at the comparison. if he has not addison's exquisite humour, he as certainly outdoes him in the tender and the pathetic. his _man of feeling_ (but i am not counsel learned in the laws of criticism) i estimate as the first performance in its kind i ever saw. from what book, moral or even pious, will the susceptible young mind receive impressions more congenial to humanity and kindness, generosity and benevolence; in short, more of all that ennobles the soul to herself, or endears her to others--than from the simple affecting tale of poor harley? still, with all my admiration of mackenzie's writings, i do not know if they are the fittest reading for a young man who is about to set out, as the phrase is, to make his way into life. do you not think, madam, that among the few favoured of heaven in the structure of their minds (for such there certainly are) there may be a purity, a tenderness, a dignity, an elegance of soul, which are of no use, nay, in some degree, absolutely disqualifying for the truly important business of making a man's way into life? if i am not much mistaken, my gallant young friend, antony, is very much under these disqualifications; and for the young females of a family i could mention, well may they excite parental solicitude; for i, a common acquaintance, or as my vanity will have it, an humble friend, have often trembled for a turn of mind which may render them eminently happy--or peculiarly miserable! i have been manufacturing some verses lately; but as i have got the most hurried season of excise business over, i hope to have more leisure to transcribe any thing that may show how much i have the honour to be, madam, yours, etc. r. b. * * * * * clii.--to dr. john moore, london. dumfries, _excise-office, 14th july 1790._ sir,--coming into town this morning to attend my duty in this office, it being collection-day, i met with a gentleman who tells me he is on his way to london; so i take the opportunity of writing to you, as franking is at present under a temporary death. i shall have some snatches of leisure through the day, amid our horrid business and bustle, and i shall improve them as well as i can; but let my letter be as stupid as..., as miscellaneous as a newspaper, as short as a hungry grace-before-meat, or as long as a law-paper in the douglas cause; as ill spelt as country john's billet-doux, or as unsightly a scrawl as betty byre-mucker's answer to it; i hope, considering circumstances, you will forgive it; and as it will put you to no expense of postage, i shall have the less reflection about it. i am sadly ungrateful in not returning you my thanks for your most valuable present, _zeluco_. in fact, you are in some degree blameable for my neglect. you were pleased to express a wish for my opinion of the work, which so flattered me, that nothing less would serve my over-weening fancy, than a formal criticism on the book. in fact, i have gravely planned a comparative view of you, fielding, richardson, and smollett, in your different qualities and merits as novel-writers. this, i own, betrays my ridiculous vanity, and i may probably never bring the business to bear; but i am fond of the spirit young elihu shows in the book of job--"and i said, i will also declare my opinion." i have quite disfigured my copy of the book with my annotations. i never take it up without at the same time taking my pencil, and marking with asterisms, parentheses, etc., wherever i meet with an original thought, a nervous remark on life and manners, a remarkably well-turned period, or a character sketched with uncommon precision. though i should hardly think of fairly writing out my "comparative view," i shall certainly trouble you with my remarks, such as they are. i have just received from my gentleman that horrid summons in the book of revelation--"that time shall be no more." the little collection of sonnets have some charming poetry in them. if _indeed_ i am indebted to the fair author for the book, and not, as i rather suspect, to a celebrated author of the other sex, i should certainly have written to the lady, with my grateful acknowledgments, and my own idea of the comparative excellence of her pieces.[112] i would do this last, not from any vanity of thinking that my remarks could be of much consequence to mrs. smith, but merely from my own feelings as an author, doing as i would be done by. r. b. [footnote 112: sonnets of charlotte smith.] * * * * * cliii.--to mr. murdoch,[113] teacher of french, london. ellisland, _july_ 16_th_, 1790. my dear sir,--i received a letter from you a long time ago, but unfortunately, as it was in the time of my peregrinations and journeyings through scotland, i mislaid or lost it, and by consequence your direction along with it. luckily my good star brought me acquainted with mr. kennedy, who, i understand, is an acquaintance of yours: and by his means and mediation i hope to replace that link, which my unfortunate negligence had so unluckily broke, in the chain of our correspondence. i was the more vexed at the vile accident, as my brother william, a journeyman saddler, has been for some time in london; and wished above all things for your direction, that he might have paid his respects to his father's friend. his last address he sent me was, "wm. burns, at mr. barber's, saddler, no. 181 strand." i writ him by mr. kennedy, but neglected to ask him for your address; so, if you find a spare half minute, please let my brother know by a card where and when he will find you, and the poor fellow will joyfully wait on you, as one of the few surviving friends of the man whose name, and christian name too, he has the honour to bear. the next letter i write you shall be a long one. i have much to tell you of "hair-breadth 'scapes in th' imminent deadly breach," with all the eventful history of a life, the early years of which owed so much to your kind tutorage; but this at an hour of leisure. my kindest compliments to mrs. murdoch and family.--i am ever, my dear sir, your obliged friend, r. b. [footnote 113: he had been burns's schoolmaster at mount oliphant.] * * * * * cliv.--to mr. cunningham. ellisland, _8th august 1790._ forgive me, my once dear, and ever dear friend, my seeming negligence. you cannot sit down and fancy the busy life i lead. i laid down my goose feather to beat my brains for an apt simile, and had some thoughts of a country grannum at a family christening; a bride on the market-day before her marriage; or a tavern-keeper at an election dinner; but the resemblance that hits my fancy best is, that blackguard miscreant, satan, who roams about like a roaring lion, seeking, searching, whom he may devour. however, tossed about as i am, if i choose (and who would not choose) to bind down with the crampets of attention the brazen foundation of integrity, i may rear up the superstructure of independence, and from its daring turrets bid defiance to the storms of fate. and is not this a "consummation devoutly to be wished?" thy spirit, independence, let me share; lord of the lion-heart, and eagle-eye! thy steps i follow with my bosom bare, nor heed the storm that howls along the sky! are not these noble verses? they are the introduction of smollett's ode to independence: if you have not seen the poem, i will send it to you. how wretched is the man that hangs on by the favours of the great! to shrink from every dignity of man, at the approach of a lordly piece of self-consequence, who, amid all his tinsel glitter, and stately hauteur, is but a creature formed as thou art--and perhaps not so well formed as thou art--came into the world a puling infant as thou didst, and must go out of it as all men must, a naked corse... r. b. * * * * * clv.--to mr. crauford tait,[114] w.s., edinburgh. ellisland, 15th _october_ 1790. dear sir,--allow me to introduce to your acquaintance the bearer, mr. wm. duncan, a friend of mine, whom i have long known and long loved. his father, whose only son he is, has a decent little property in ayrshire, and has bred the young man to the law, in which department he comes up an adventurer to your good town. i shall give you my friend's character in two words: as to his head, he has talents enough, and more than enough for common life; as to his heart, when nature had kneaded the kindly clay that composes it, she said, "i can no more." you, my good sir, were born under kinder stars; but your fraternal sympathy, i well know, can enter into the feelings of the young man who goes into life with the laudable ambition to do something, and to be something among his fellow-creatures; but whom the consciousness of friendless obscurity presses to the earth and wounds to the soul! even the fairest of his virtues are against him. that independent spirit, and that ingenuous modesty, qualities inseparable from a noble mind, are, with the million, circumstances not a little disqualifying. what pleasure is in the power of the fortunate and the happy, by their notice and patronage, to brighten the countenance and glad the heart of such depressed youth! i am not so angry with mankind for their deaf economy of the purse--the goods of this world cannot be divided without being lessened--but why be a niggard of that which bestows bliss on a fellow-creature, yet takes nothing from our own means of enjoyment? we wrap ourselves up in the cloak of our own better fortune, and turn away our eyes, lest the wants and woes of our brother-mortals should disturb the selfish apathy of our souls! i am the worst hand in the world at asking a favour. that indirect address, that insinuating implication, which, without any positive request, plainly expresses your wish, is a talent not to be acquired at a plough-tail. tell me, then, for you can, in what periphrasis of language, in what circumvolution of phrase, i shall envelope, yet not conceal, the plain story. "my dear mr, tait, my friend, mr. duncan, whom i have the pleasure of introducing to you, is a young lad of your own profession, and a gentleman of much modesty and great worth. perhaps it may be in your power to assist him in the, to him, important consideration of getting a place; but, at all events, your notice and acquaintance will be a very great acquisition to him; and i dare pledge myself that he will never disgrace your favour." you may possibly be surprised, sir, at such a letter from me; 'tis, i own, in the usual way of calculating these matters, more than our acquaintance entitles me to; but my answer is short: of all the men at your time of life whom i knew in edinburgh, you are the most accessible on the side on which i have assailed you. you are very much altered indeed from what you were when i knew you, if generosity point the path you will not tread, or humanity call to you in vain. as to myself, a being to whose interest i believe you are still a well-wisher; i am here, breathing at all times, thinking sometimes, and rhyming now and then. every situation has its share of the cares and pains of life, and my situation i am persuaded has a full ordinary allowance of its pleasures and enjoyments. my best compliments to your father and miss tait. if you have an opportunity, please remember me in the solemn league and covenant of friendship to mrs. lewis hay.[115] i am a wretch for not writing her; but i am so hackneyed with self-accusation in that way, that my conscience lies in my bosom with scarce the sensibility of an oyster in its shell. where is lady m'kenzie? wherever she is, god bless her! i likewise beg leave to trouble you with compliments to mr. wm. hamilton; mrs. hamilton and family; and mrs. chalmers, when you are in that country. should you meet with miss nimmo, please remember me kindly to her. r. b. [footnote 114: son of mr. tait of harviestoun, where burns was a happy guest in the autumn of 1787. he was also father of the late archbishop tait.] [footnote 115: miss peggy chalmers.] * * * * * clvl.--to mrs. dunlop. ellisland, _november_ 1790. "as cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country." fate has long owed me a letter of good news from you, in return for the many tidings of sorrow which i have received. in this instance i most cordially obey the apostle--"rejoice with them that do rejoice;" for me, to sing for joy, is no new thing; but to preach for joy, as i have done in the commencement of this epistle, is a pitch of extravagant rapture to which i never rose before. i read your letter--i literally jumped for joy. how could such a mercurial creature as a poet lumpishly keep his seat on the receipt of the best news from his best friend. i seized my gilt-headed wangee rod, an instrument indispensably necessary in the moment of inspiration and rapture; and stride, stride-quick and quicker-out skipt i among the broomy banks of nith to muse over my joy by retail. to keep within the bounds of prose was impossible. mrs. little's is a more elegant, but not a more sincere compliment to the sweet little fellow, than i, extempore almost, poured out to him in the following verses:- sweet flow'ret, pledge o' meikle love, etc.[116] i am much flattered by your approbation of my "tam o' shanter," which you express in your former letter; though, by-the-bye, you load me in that said letter with accusations heavy and many; to all which i plead, _not guilty!_ your book is, i hear, on the road to reach me. as to printing of poetry, when you prepare it for the press, you have only to spell it right, and place the capital letters properly: as to the punctuation, the printers do that themselves. i have a copy of "tam o' shanter" ready to send you by the first opportunity: it is too heavy to send by post. i heard of mr. corbet lately.[116a] he, in consequence of your recommendation, is most zealous to serve me. please favour me soon with an account of your good folks; if mrs. h. is recovering, and the young gentleman doing well. r. b. [footnote 116: see poems.] [footnote 116a: a supervisor of excise.] * * * * clvil.--to mr. william dunbar, w.s. ellisland, 17_th january_ 1791. i am not gone to elysium, most noble colonel,[117] but am still here in this sublunary world, serving my god by propagating his image, and honouring my king by begetting him loyal subjects. many happy returns of the season await my friend. may the thorns of care never beset his path! may peace be an inmate of his bosom, and rapture a frequent visitor of his soul! may the blood-hounds of misfortune never track his steps, nor the screech-owl of sorrow alarm his dwelling! may enjoyment tell thy hours, and pleasure number thy days, thou friend of the bard! "blessed be he that blesseth thee, and cursed be he that curseth thee!!!" as a farther proof that i am still in the land of existence, i send you a poem, the latest i have composed. i have a particular reason for wishing you only to show it to select friends, should you think it worthy a friend's perusal: but if at your first leisure hour you will favour me with your opinion of, and strictures on the performance, it will be an additional obligation on, dear sir, your deeply indebted humble servant, r. b. [footnote 117: colonel of volunteers.] * * * * * clviil.--to mr. peter hill. ellisland, 17_th january_ 1791. take these two guineas, and place them over against that damn'd account of yours which has gagged my mouth these five or six months. i can as little write good things as apologies to the man i owe money to. o the supreme misery of making three guineas do the business of five! not all the labours of hercules not all the hebrews' three centuries of egyptian bondage, were such an insuperable business, such an infernal task! poverty, thou half-sister of death, thou cousin-german of hell! where shall i find force or execration equal to the amplitude of thy demerits? oppressed by thee, the venerable ancient, grown hoary in the practice of every virtue, laden with years and wretchedness, implores a little, little aid to support his existence, from a stony-hearted son of mammon, whose sun of prosperity never knew a cloud; and is by him denied and insulted. oppressed by thee, the man of sentiment, whose heart glows with independence, and melts with sensibility, inly pines under the neglect, or writhes in bitterness of soul under the contamely of arrogant unfeeling wealth. oppressed by thee, the son of genius, whose ill-starred ambition plants him at the tables of the fashionable and polite, must see in suffering silence his remark neglected and his person despised, while shallow greatness, in his idiot attempts at wit, shall meet with countenance and applause. nor is it only the family of worth that have reason to complain of thee; the children of folly and vice, though in common with thee the offspring of evil, smart equally under thy rod. owing to thee, the man of unfortunate disposition and neglected education, is condemned as a fool for his dissipation, despised and shunned as a needy wretch, when his follies as usual bring him to want; and when his unprincipled necessities drive him to dishonest practices, he is abhorred as a miscreant, and perishes by the justice of his country. but far otherwise is the lot of the man of family and fortune. _his_ early follies and extravagance are spirit and fire; _his_ consequent wants are the embarrassments of an honest fellow; and when, to remedy the matter, he has gained a legal commission to plunder distant provinces, or massacre peaceful nations, he returns, perhaps, laden with the spoils of rapine and murder; lives wicked and respected; and dies a scoundrel and a lord. nay, worst of all, alas for helpless woman!... * * * * * well! divines may say of it what they please; but execration is to the mind, what phlebotomy is to the body; the overloaded sluices of both are wonderfully relieved by their respective evacuations. r. b. * * * * clix.--to dr. moore. ellisland, 28_th january_ 1791. i do not know, sir, whether you are a subscriber to grose's _antiquities of scotland_. if you are, the inclosed poem will not be altogether new to you. captain grose did me the favour to send me a dozen copies of the proof sheet, of which this is one. should you have read the piece before, still this will answer the principal end i have in view: it will give me another opportunity of thanking you for all your goodness to the rustic bard; and also of showing you, that the abilities you have been pleased to commend and patronise, are still employed in the way you wish. the _elegy on captain henderson_ is a tribute to the memory of the man i loved much. poets have in this the same advantage as roman catholics; they can be of service to their friends after they have passed that bourne where all other kindness ceases to be of avail. whether, after all, either the one or the other be of any real service to the dead, is, i fear, very problematical; but i am sure they are highly gratifying to the living: and as a very orthodox text, i forget where in scripture, says, "whatsoever is not of faith is sin;" so say i, whatsoever is not detrimental to society, and is of positive enjoyment, is of god, the giver of all good things, and ought to be received and enjoyed by his creatures with thankful delight. as almost all my religious tenets originate from my heart, i am wonderfully pleased with the idea, that i can still keep up a tender intercourse with the dearly beloved friend, or still more dearly beloved mistress, who is gone to the world of spirits. the ballad on queen mary was begun while i was busy with _percy's reliques of english poetry_. by the way, how much is every honest heart, which has a tincture of caledonian prejudice, obliged to you for your glorious story of buchanan and targe! 'twas an unequivocal proof of your loyal gallantry of soul giving targe the victory. i should have been mortified to the ground if you had not. i have just read over, once more of many times, your _zeluco_. i marked with my pencil as i went along, every passage that pleased me above the rest; and one or two, which, with humble deference, i am disposed to think unequal to the merits of the book. i have sometimes thought to transcribe these marked passages, or at least so much of them as to point where they are, and send them to you. original strokes that strongly depict the human heart, is your and fielding's province, beyond any other novelist i have ever perused. richardson, indeed, might, perhaps, be excepted; but unhappily, his _dramatis personæ_ are beings of another world; and however they may captivate the unexperienced romantic fancy of a boy or a girl, they will ever, in proportion as we have made human nature our study, dissatisfy our riper years. as to my private concerns, i am going on, a mighty tax-gatherer before the lord, and have lately had the interest to get myself ranked on the list of excise as a supervisor. t am not yet employed as such, but in a few years i shall fall into the file of supervisorship by seniority. i have had an immense loss in the death of the earl of glencairn--the patron from whom all my fame and fortune took its rise. independent of my grateful attachment to him, which was indeed so strong that it pervaded my very soul, and was entwined with the thread of my existence; so soon as the prince's friends had got in, (and every dog, you know, has his day) my getting forward in the excise would have been an easier business than otherwise it will be. though this was a consummation devoutly to be wished, yet, thank heaven, i can live and rhyme as i am; and as to my boys, poor little fellows! if i cannot place them on as high an elevation in life as i could wish, i shall, if i am favoured so much of the disposer of events as to see that period, fix them on as broad and independent a basis as possible. among the many wise adages which have been treasured up by our scottish ancestors, this is one of the best--_better be the head o' the commonalty than the tail o' the gentry_. but i am got on a subject which, however interesting to me, is of no manner of consequence to you; so i shall give you a short poem on the other page, and close this with assuring you how sincerely i have the honour to be, yours, etc., r. b. written on the blank leaf of a book which i presented to a very young lady, whom i had formerly characterised under the denomination of _the rose bud._[118] [footnote 118: see poems---"lines to miss cruikshank."] * * * * * clx.--to mrs. dunlop. ellisland, _7th feb. 1791._ when i tell you, madam, that by a fall, not from my horse, but with my horse, i have been a cripple some time, and that this is the first day my arm and hand have been able to serve me in writing,--you will allow that it is too good an apology for my seemingly ungrateful silence. i am now getting better, and am able to rhyme a little, which implies some tolerable ease; as i cannot think that the most poetic genius is able to compose on the rack. i do not remember if ever i mentioned to you my having an idea of composing an elegy on the late miss burnet, of monboddo. i had the honour of being pretty well acquainted with her, and have seldom felt so much at the loss of an acquaintance, as when i heard that so amiable and accomplished a piece of god's work was no more. i have, as yet, gone no farther than the following fragment, of which please let me have your opinion. you know that elegy is a subject so much exhausted, that any new idea on the business is not to be expected: 'tis well if we can place an old idea in a new light. how far i have succeeded as to this last, you will judge from what follows. i have proceeded no further. your kind letter, with your kind _remembrance_ of your godson, came safe. this last, madam, is scarcely what my pride can bear. as to the little fellow,[118a] he is, partiality apart, the finest boy i have of a long time seen. he is now seventeen months old, has the small-pox and measles over, has cut several teeth, and never had a grain of doctor's drugs in his bowels. i am truly happy to hear that the "little floweret" is blooming so fresh and fair, and that the "mother plant" is rather recovering her drooping head. soon and well may her "cruel wounds" be healed! i have written thus far with a good deal of difficulty. when i get a little abler you shall hear farther from, madam, yours, r. b. [footnote 118a: the infant was francis wallace, the poet's second son.] * * * * * clxi.--to the rev. arch. alison. ellisland, _near dumfries 14th feb. 1791._ sir,--you must by this time have set me down as one of the most ungrateful of men. you did me the honour to present me with a book, which does honour to science and the intellectual powers of man, and i have not even so much as acknowledged the receipt of it. the fact is, you yourself are to blame for it. flattered as i was by your telling me that you wished to have my opinion of the work, the old spiritual enemy of mankind, who knows well that vanity is one of the sins that most easily beset me, put it into my head to ponder over the performance with the look-out of a critic, and to draw up forsooth a deep learned digest of strictures on a composition, of which, in fact, until i read the book, i did not even know the first principles. i own, sir, that at first glance, several of your propositions startled me as paradoxical. that the martial clangour of a trumpet had something in it vastly more grand, heroic, and sublime, than the twingle twangle of a jews-harp; that the delicate flexure of a rose-twig, when the half-blown flower is heavy with the tears of the dawn, was infinitely more beautiful and elegant than the upright stub of a burdock; and that from something innate and independent of all associations of ideas;-these i had set down as irrefragable, orthodox truths, until perusing your book shook my faith. in short, sir, except euclid's elements of geometry, which i made a shift to unravel by my father's fire-side, in the winter evening of the first season i held the plough, i never read a book which gave me such a quantum of information, and added so much to my stock of ideas, as your _essays on the principles of taste_. one thing, sir, you must forgive my mentioning as an uncommon merit in the work, i mean the language. to clothe abstract philosophy in elegance of style, sounds something like a contradiction in terms; but you have convinced me that they are quite compatible. i inclose you some poetic bagatelles of my late composition. the one in print is my first essay in the way of telling a tale.--i am, sir, etc. r. b. * * * * * clxii.--to the rev. g. baird. ellisland, 1791. reverend sir,--why did you, my dear sir, write to me in such a hesitating style on the business of poor bruce?[119] don't i know, and have i not felt, the many ills, the peculiar ills, that poetic flesh is heir to? you shall have your choice of all the unpublished poems[120] i have; and had your letter had my direction so as to have reached me sooner (it only came to my hand this moment) i should have directly put you out of suspense on the subject. i only ask, that some prefatory advertisement in the book, as well as the subscription bills, may bear, that the publication is solely for the benefit of bruce's mother. i would not put it in the power of ignorance to surmise, or malice to insinuate, that i clubbed a share in the work from mercenary motives. nor need you give me credit for any remarkable generosity in my part of the business. i have such a host of peccadilloes, failings, follies, and backslidings (anybody but myself might perhaps give some of them a worse appellation), that by way of some balance, however trifling, in the account, i am fain to do any good that occurs in my very limited power to a fellow-creature, just for the selfish purpose of clearing a little the vista of retrospection. r. b. [footnote 119: michael bruce, a young poet of kinross-shire.] [footnote 120: _tam o' shanter_ included! it was refused!!] * * * * * clxiii.--to mr. cunningham, writer, edinburgh. ellisland, 2_th march_ 1791. if the foregoing piece be worth your strictures, let me have them. for my own part, a thing i have just composed always appears through a double portion of that partial medium in which an author will ever view his own works. i believe, in general, novelty has something in it that inebriates the fancy, and not unfrequently dissipates and fumes away like other intoxication, and leaves the poor patient, as usual, with an aching heart. a striking instance of this might be adduced, in the revolution of many a hymeneal honeymoon. but lest i sink into stupid prose, and so sacrilegiously intrude on the office of my parish priest, i shall fill up the page in my own way, and give you another song of my late composition, which will appear perhaps in johnson's work, as well as the former. you must know a beautiful jacobite air, _there'll never be peace till jamie comes hame_. when political combustion ceases to be the object of princes and patriots, it then, you know, becomes the lawful prey of historians and poets. by yon castle wa' at the close of the day, i heard a man sing, tho' his head it was grey; and as he was singing, the tears fast down came- there'll never be peace till jamie comes hame. if you like the air, and if the stanzas hit your fancy, you cannot imagine, my dear friend, how much you would oblige me, if, by the charms of your delightful voice, you would give my honest effusion, to "the memory of joys that are past," to the few friends whom you indulge in that pleasure. but i have scribbled on till i hear the clock has intimated the near approach of that hour, o' night's black arch the key-stane. so good night to you! sound be your sleep, and delectable your dreams! apropos, how do you like this thought in a ballad i have just now on the tapis?- i look to the west when i gae to my rest, that happy my dreams and my slumbers may be; far, far in the west is he i lo'e best, the lad that is dear to my babie and me! good night once more, and god bless you! r. b. * * * * * clxiv.--to mrs. dunlop. ellisland, 11_th april_ 1791. i am once more able, my honoured friend, to return you, with my own hand, thanks for the many instances of your friendship, and particularly for your kind anxiety in this last disaster that my evil genius had in store for me. however, life is chequered--joy and sorrow--for on saturday morning last, mrs. burns made me a present of a fine boy; rather stouter, but not so handsome as your godson was at his time of life. indeed, i look on your little namesake to be my _chef d'oeuvre_ in that species of manufacture, as i look on "tam o' shanter" to be my standard performance in the poetical line. 'tis true, both the one and the other discover a spice of roguish waggery, that might perhaps be as well spared; but then they also show, in my opinion, a force of genius, and a finishing polish, that i despair of ever excelling. mrs. burns is getting stout again, and laid as lustily about her to-day at breakfast, as a reaper from the corn-ridge. that is the peculiar privilege and blessing of our hale sprightly damsels, that are bred among the _hay_ _and heather_. we cannot hope for that highly polished mind, that charming delicacy of soul, which is found among the female world in the more elevated stations of life, and which is certainly by far the most bewitching charm in the famous cestus of venus, it is indeed such an inestimable treasure, that where it can be had in its native heavenly purity, unstained by some one or other of the many shades of affectation, and unalloyed by some one or other of the many species of caprice, i declare to heaven i should think it cheaply purchased at the expense of every other earthly good! but as this angelic creature is, i am afraid, extremely rare in any station and rank of life, and totally denied to such an humble one as mine, we meaner mortals must put up with the next rank of female excellence. as fine a figure and face we can produce as any rank of life whatever; rustic, native grace; unaffected modesty and unsullied purity; nature's mother-wit and the rudiments of taste, a simplicity of soul, unsuspicious of, because unacquainted with, the crooked ways of a selfish, interested, disingenuous world; and the dearest charm of all the rest, a yielding sweetness of disposition, and a generous warmth of heart, grateful for love on our part, and ardently glowing with a more than equal return; these, with a healthy frame, a sound, vigorous constitution, which your higher ranks can scarcely ever hope to enjoy, are the charms of lovely woman in my humble walk of life. this is the greatest effort my broken arm has yet made. do let me hear, by first post, how _cher petit monsieur_ comes on with his small-pox. may almighty goodness preserve and restore him! r. b. * * * * * clxv.--to mr. cunningham. 11_th 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 every thing 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.[121] 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 unexceptionally always, 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 civilised 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 plague 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. clarice, 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. [footnote 121: dr. robertson, uncle to mr. alexander cunningham.] * * * * * clxvl--to mr. thomas sloan.[122] ellisland, _sept. 1st_, 1791. my dear sloan,--suspense is worse than disappointment; for that reason i hurry to tell you that i just now learn that mr. ballantine 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. [footnote 122: of wanlockhead. burns got to know him during his frequent journeys between ellisland and mauchline in 1788-9.] * * * * * clxvii--to mr. ainslie. ellisland, 1791. my dear ainslie,--can you minister to a mind diseased? can you, amid the horrors of penitence, regret, remorse, head-ache, nausea, and all the rest of the damn'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 every thing 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 click of the clock as it slowly, slowly numbers over these lazy scoundrels of hours, who, damn 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 began _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 bookcase, 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 correction'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-by 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 £25 _per annum_ better than the rest. my present income, down money, is £70 _per annum_. i have one or two good fellows here whom you would be glad to know. r. b. * * * * * clxviii.--to miss davies. 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 as 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 reverie, 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. * * * * * clxix.--to mrs. dunlop. _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 babblings. 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 whigmeleerie 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 _southron_ more completely to rest than for a time did your cup my two friends. apropos, this is the season of wishing. may 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. * * * * * clxx.--to mr. william smellie, printer. dumfries, _22nd january_ 1792. i sit down, my dear sir, to introduce a young lady[123] to you, and a lady in the first ranks of fashion, too. what a task! to you--who care no more for the herd of animals called young ladies than you do for the herd of animals called young gentlemen; to you--who despise and detest the groupings and combinations of fashion, as an idiot painter that seems industrious to place staring fools and unprincipled knaves in the foreground of his picture, while men of sense and honesty are too often thrown in the dimmest shades. mrs. riddell, who will take this letter to town with her, and send it to you, is a character that, even in your own way as a naturalist and a philosopher, would be an acquisition to your acquaintance. the lady, too, is a votary of the muses; and as i think myself somewhat of a judge in my own trade, i assure you that her verses, always correct, and often elegant, are much beyond the common run of the _lady poetesses_ of the day. she is a great admirer of your book; and, hearing me say that i was acquainted with you, she begged to be known to you, as she is just going to pay her first visit to our caledonian capital. i told her that her best way was to desire her near relation, and your intimate friend, craigdarroch, to have you at his house while she was there; and lest you might think of a lively west indian girl of eighteen, as girls of eighteen too often deserve to be thought of, i should take care to remove that prejudice. to be impartial, however, in appreciating the lady's merits, she has one unlucky failing--a failing which you will easily discover, as she seems rather pleased with indulging in it; and a failing that you will easily pardon, as it is a sin which very much besets yourself;--where she dislikes, or despises, she is apt to make no more a secret of it, than where she esteems and respects. i will not present you with the unmeaning _compliments of the season_, but i will send you my warmest wishes and most ardent prayers, that fortune may never throw your subsistence to the mercy of a knave, or set your character on the judgment of a fool; but that, upright and erect, you may walk to an honest grave, where men of letters shall say, here lies a man who did honour to science, and men of worth shall say, here lies a man who did honour to human nature. r. b. [footnote 123: maria riddell, a gay, clever, young creole, wife of walter, brother of captain riddell.] * * * * * clxxl--to mr. william nicol. 20_th february_ 1792. o thou wisest among the wise, meridian blaze of prudence, full moon of discretion, and chief of many counsellors! how infinitely is thy puddle-headed, rattleheaded, wrong-headed, round-headed slave indebted to thy super-eminent goodness, that from the luminous path of thy own right-lined rectitude, thou lookest benignly down on an erring wretch, of whom the zig-zag wanderings defy all the powers of calculation, from the simple copulation of units, up to the hidden mysteries of fluxions! may one feeble ray of that light of wisdom which darts from thy sensorium, straight as the arrow of heaven, and bright as the meteor of inspiration, may it be my portion, so that i may be less unworthy of the face and favour of that father of proverbs and master of maxims, that antipode of folly, and magnet among the sages, the wise and witty willie nicol! amen! amen! yea, so be it! for me! i am a beast, a reptile, and know nothing! from the cave of my ignorance, amid the fogs of my dulness, and pestilential fumes of my political heresies, i look up to thee, as doth a toad through the iron-barred lucarne of a pestiferous dungeon, to the cloudless glory of a summer sun! sorely sighing in bitterness of soul, i say, when shall my name be the quotation of the wise, and my countenance be the delight of the godly, like the illustrious lord of laggan's many hills?[124] as for him, his works are perfect: never did the pen of calumny blur the fair page of his reputation, nor the bolt of hatred fly at his dwelling. thou mirror of purity, when shall the elfin lamp of my glimmerous understanding, purged from sensual appetites and gross desires, shine like the constellation of thy intellectual powers. as for thee, thy thoughts are pure and thy lips are holy. never did the unhallowed breath of the powers of darkness, and the pleasures of darkness, pollute the sacred flame of thy sky-descended and heaven-bound desires: never did the vapours of impurity stain the unclouded serene of thy cerulean imagination. o that like thine were the tenor of my life, like thine the tenor of my conversation! then should no friend fear for my strength, no enemy rejoice in my weakness! then should i lie down and rise up, and none to make me afraid. may thy pity and thy prayer be exercised for, o thou lamp of wisdom and mirror of morality! thy devoted slave, r. b. [footnote 124: mr. nicol had purchased a small piece of ground called laggan, on the nith. there took place the bacchanalian scene which called forth "willie brew'd a peck o' maat."] * * * * * clxxil.--to mr. francis grose, f.s a. dumfries, 1792. among the many witch stories i have heard, relating to alloway kirk, i distinctly remember only two or three. upon a stormy night, amid whistling squalls of wind, and bitter blasts of hail; in short, on such a night as the devil would choose to take the air in; a farmer or farmer's servant was plodding and plashing homeward with his plough-irons on his shoulder, having been getting some repairs on them at a neighbouring smithy. his way lay by the kirk of alloway, and being rather on the anxious look out in approaching a place so well known to be a favourite haunt of the devil and the devil's friends and emissaries, he was struck aghast by discovering through the horrors of the storm and stormy night, a light, which on his nearer approach plainly showed itself to proceed from the haunted edifice. whether he had been fortified from above on his devout supplication, as is customary with people when they suspect the immediate presence of satan; or whether, according to another custom, he got courageously drunk at the smithy, i will not pretend to determine; but so it was that he ventured to go up to, nay, into the very kirk. as luck would have it his temerity came off unpunished. the members of the infernal junto were all out on some midnight business or other, and he saw nothing but a kind of kettle or caldron, depending from the roof, over the fire, simmering some heads of unchristened children, limbs of executed malefactors, etc., for the business of the night. it was in for a penny, in for a pound, with the honest ploughman: so without ceremony he unhooked the caldron from off the fire, and, pouring out the damn'd ingredients, inverted it on his head, and carried it fairly home, where it remained long in the family, a living evidence of the truth of the story. another story, which i can prove to be equally authentic, is as follows: on a market day in the town of ayr a farmer from carrick, and consequently whose way lay by the very gate of alloway kirk-yard, in order to cross the river doon at the old bridge, which is about two or three hundred yards farther on than the said gate, had been detained by his business, till by the time he reached alloway it was the wizard hour, between night and morning. though he was terrified with a blaze streaming from the kirk, yet as it is a well-known fact that to turn back on these occasions is running by far the greatest risk of mischief, he prudently advanced on his road. when he had reached the gate of the kirk-yard, he was surprised and entertained, through the ribs and arches of an old gothic window, which still faces the highway, to see a dance of witches merrily footing it round their old sooty blackguard master, who was keeping them all alive with the power of his bagpipe. the farmer stopping his horse to observe them a little, could plainly descry the faces of many old women of his acquaintance and neighbourhood. how the gentleman was dressed tradition does not say; but that the ladies were all in their smocks: and one of them happening unluckily to have a smock which was considerably too short to answer all the purpose of that piece of dress, our farmer was so tickled that he involuntarily burst out with a loud laugh, "weel luppen, maggy wi' the short sark!" and recollecting himself, instantly spurred his horse to the top of his speed. i need not mention the universally known fact, that no diabolical power can pursue you beyond the middle of a running stream. lucky it was for the poor farmer that the river doon was so near, for, notwithstanding the speed of his horse, which was a good one, against he reached the middle of the arch of the bridge, and consequently the middle of the stream, the pursuing, vengeful hags were so close at his heels, that one of them actually sprung to seize him; but it was too late; nothing was on her side of the stream but the horse's tail, which immediately gave way at her infernal grip, as if blasted by a stroke of lightning; but the farmer was beyond her reach. however, the unsightly, tail-less condition of the vigorous steed was to the last hour of the noble creature's life, an awful warning to the carrick farmers, not to stay too late in ayr markets. the last relation i shall give, though equally true, is not so well identified as the two former, with regard to the scene; but as the best authorities give it for alloway, i shall relate it. on a summer's evening, about the time nature puts on her sables to mourn the expiry of the cheerful day, a shepherd boy, belonging to a farmer in the immediate neighbourhood of alloway kirk, had just folded his charge, and was returning home. as he passed the kirk, in the adjoining field he fell in with a crew of men and women, who were busy pulling stems of the plant ragwort. he observed that as each person pulled a ragwort, he or she got astride of it, and called out, "up, horsie!" on which the ragwort flew off, like pegasus, through the air with its rider. the foolish boy likewise pulled his ragwort, and cried with the rest, "up, horsie!" and, strange to tell, away he flew with the company. the first stage at which the cavalcade stopt was a merchant's wine-cellar in bourdeaux, where, without saying "by your leave," they quaffed away at the best the cellar could afford, until the morning, foe to the imps and works of darkness, threatened to throw light on the matter, and frightened them from their carousals. the poor shepherd lad, being equally a stranger to the scene and the liquor, heedlessly got himself drunk; and when the rest took horse, he fell asleep, and was found so next day by some of the people belonging to the merchant. somebody that understood scotch, asking him what he was, he said such a-one's herd in alloway, and by some means or other getting home again, he lived long to tell the world the wondrous tale.[125] r. b. [footnote 125: _cp._ _hogg's witch of fife._] * * * * * clxxiil.--to mrs. dunlop. annan water foot, 22_nd august_ 1792. do not blame me for it, madam--my own conscience, hackneyed and weather-beaten as it is, in watching and reproving my vagaries, follies, indolence, etc., has continued to punish me sufficiently. do you think it possible, my dear and honoured friend, that i could be so lost to gratitude for many favours; to esteem for much worth; and to the honest, kind, pleasurable tie of, now old acquaintance, and i hope and am sure of progressive, increasing friendship--as, for a single day, not to think of you nor to ask the fates what they are doing and about to do with my much loved friend and her wide scattered connections, and to beg of them to be as kind to you and yours as they possibly can? apropos! (though how it is apropos i have not leisure to explain) do you know that i am almost in love with an acquaintance of yours?--almost! said i--i _am_ in love, souse! over head and ears, deep as the most unfathomable abyss of the boundless ocean; but the word love, owing to the _intermingledoms_ of the good and the bad, the pure and the impure, in this world, being rather an equivocal term for expressing one's sentiments and sensations, i must do justice to the sacred purity of my attachment. know, then, that the heart-struck awe the distant humble approach; the delight we should have in gazing upon and listening to a messenger of heaven, appearing in all the unspotted purity of his celestial home, among the coarse, polluted, far inferior sons of men, to deliver to them tidings that make their hearts swim in joy, and their imaginations soar in transport--such, so delighting and so pure, were the emotions of my soul on meeting the other day with miss lesley baillie, your neighbour at mayfield. mr. b., with his two daughters, accompanied by mr. h. of g., passing through dumfries a few days ago, on their way to england, did me the honour of calling on me; on which i took my horse (though god knows i could ill spare the time), and accompanied them fourteen or fifteen miles, and dined and spent the day with them. twas about nine, i think, when i left them, and, riding home, i composed the following ballad, of which you will probably think you have a dear bargain, as it will cost you another groat of postage. you must know that there is an old ballad beginning with- my bonnie lizzie bailie, i'll lowe thee in my plaidie, (etc,) so i parodied it as follows, which is literally the first copy, "unanointed, unanneal'd," as hamlet says,- o saw ye bonny lesley as she gaed o'er the border? she's gane, like alexander, to spread her conquests farther, (etc.) so much for ballads. i regret that you are gone to the east country, as i am to be in ayrshire in about a fortnight. this world of ours, notwithstanding it has many good things in it, yet it has ever had this curse, that two or three people, who would be the happier the oftener they met together, are, almost without exception, always so placed as never to meet but once or twice a-year, which, considering the few years of a man's life, is a very great "evil under the sun," which i do not recollect that solomon has mentioned in his catalogue of the miseries of man. i hope and believe that there is a state of existence beyond the grave, where the worthy of this life will renew their former intimacies, with this endearing addition, that "we meet to part no more" tell us, ye dead, will none of you in pity disclose the secret what 'tis you are, and we must shortly be! a thousand times have i made this apostrophe to the departed sons of men, but not one of them has ever thought fit to answer the question. "o that some courteous ghost would blab it out!" but it cannot be; you and i, my friend, must make the experiment by ourselves, and for ourselves. however, i am so convinced that an unskaken faith in the doctrines of religion is not only necessary, by making us better men, but also by making us happier men, that i shall take every care that your little godson, and every little creature that shall call me father, shall be taught them. so ends this heterogeneous letter, written at this wild place of the world, in the intervals of my labour of discharging a vessel of rum from antigua. r. b. * * * * * clxxiv.--to mr. cunningham. dumfries, 10_th september_ 1792. no! i will not attempt an apology. amid all my hurry of business, grinding the faces of the publican and the sinner on the merciless wheels of the excise; making ballads, and then drinking, and singing them; and, over and above all, the correcting the press-work of two different publications; still, still i might have stolen five minutes to dedicate to one of the first of my friends and fellow-creatures. i might have done, as i do at present-snatched an hour near "witching time of night," and scrawled a page or two; i might have congratulated my friend on his marriage; or i might have thanked the caledonian archers for the honour they have done me (though, to do myself justice, i intended to have done both in rhyme, else i had done both long ere now). well, then, here is to your good health! for you must know, i have set a nipperkin of toddy by me, just by way of spell, to keep away the meikle horned deil, or any of his subaltern imps who may be on their nightly rounds. but what shall i write to you?--"the voice said, cry," and i said, "what shall i cry?"--o, thou spirit! whatever thou art, or wherever thou makest thyself visible! be thou a bogle by the eerie side of an auld thorn, in the dreary glen through which the herd-callan maun bicker in his gloamin route frae the fauld!--be thou a brownie, set, at dead of night, to thy task by the blazing ingle, or in the solitary barn, where the repercussions of thy iron flail half affright thyself, as thou performest the work of twenty of the sons of men, ere the cock-crowing summon thee to thy ample cog of substantial brose. be thou a kelpie, haunting the ford or ferry, in the starless night, mixing thy laughing yell with the howling of the storm and the roaring of the flood, as thou viewest the perils and miseries of man on the foundering horse, or in the tumbling boat!--or, lastly, be thou a ghost, paying thy nocturnal visits to the hoary ruins of decayed grandeur; or performing thy mystic rites in the shadow of the time-worn church, while the moon looks, without a cloud, on the silent, ghastly dwellings of the dead around thee; or taking thy stand by the bedside of the villain, or the murderer, portraying on his dreaming fancy, pictures, dreadful as the horrors of unveiled hell, and terrible as the wrath of incensed deity!--come, thou spirit, but not in these horrid forms; come with the milder, gentle, easy inspirations, which thou breathest round the wig of a prating advocate, or the tête of a tea-sipping gossip, while their tongues run at the light-horse gallop of clish-maclaver for ever and ever--come and assist a poor devil who is quite jaded in the attempt to share half an idea among half a hundred words; to fill up four quarto pages, while he has not got one single sentence of recollection, information, or remark worth putting pen to paper for. i feel, i feel the presence of supernatural assistance! circled in the embrace of my elbow-chair, my breast labours, liked the bloated sibyl on her three-footed stool, and like her too, labours with nonsense. nonsense, auspicious name! tutor, friend, and finger-post in the mystic mazes of law; the cadaverous paths of physic: and particularly in the sightless soarings of school divinity, who, leaving common sense confounded at the strength of his pinion; reason delirious with eyeing his giddy flight; and truth creeping back into the bottom of her well, cursing the hour that ever she offered her scorned alliance to the wizard power of theologic vision-raves abroad on all the winds:-"on earth discord! a gloomy heaven above, opening her jealous gates to the nineteen-thousandth part of the tithe of mankind! and below, an inescapable and inexorable hell, expanding its leviathan jaws for the vast residue of mortals!!! "--o doctrine! comfortable and healing to the weary wounded soul of man! ye sons and daughters of affliction, ye _pauvres miserables,_ to whom day brings no pleasure, and night yields no rest, be comforted! 'tis but _one_ to nineteen hundred thousand that your situation will mend in this world; so, alas, the experience of the poor and needy too often affirms; and 'tis nineteen hundred thousand to _one,_ by the dogmas of theology, that you will be condemned eternally in the world to come! but of all nonsense, religious nonsense is the most nonsensical; so enough, and more than enough, of it. only, by-the-bye, will you, or can you tell me, my dear cunningham, why a sectarian turn of mind has always a tendency to narrow and illiberalise the heart? they are orderly; they may be just; nay, i have known them merciful: but still your children of sanctity move among their fellow-creatures with a nostril snuffing putrescence, and a foot spurning filth--in short, with a conceited dignity that your titled douglases, or any other of your scottish lordlings of seven centuries standing, display when they accidentally mix among the many-aproned sons of mechanical life. i remember, in my plough-boy days, i could not conceive it possible that a noble lord could be a fool, or a godly man could be a knave. how ignorant are plough-boys!--nay, i have since discovered that a _godly woman_ may be a--!--but hold--here's t'ye again--this rum is generous antigua, so a very unfit menstruum for scandal. apropos, how do you like, i mean _really_ like, the married life? ah, my friend! matrimony is quite a different thing from what your love-sick youths and sighing girls take it to be! but marriage, we are told, is appointed by god, and i shall never quarrel with any of his institutions. i am a husband of older standing than you, and shall give you my ideas of the conjugal state, (_en passant_--you know i am no latinist-is not _conjugal_ derived from _jugum_, a yoke?) well, then, the scale of good wifeship i divide into ten parts. good-nature, four; good sense, two; wit, one; personal charms, viz., a sweet face, eloquent eyes, fine limbs, graceful carriage (i would add a fine waist too, but that is so soon spoilt, you know), all these, one; as for the other qualities belonging to, or attending on, a wife, such as fortune, connections, education (i mean education extraordinary), family blood, etc., divide the two remaining degrees among them as you please; only, remember that all these minor properties must be expressed by _fractions,_ for there is not any one of them, in the aforesaid scale, entitled to the dignity of an _integer_. as for the rest of my fancies and reveries--how i lately met with miss lesley baillie, the most beautiful, elegant woman in the world--how i accompanied her and her father's family fifteen miles on their journey, out of pure devotion, to admire the loveliness of the works of god, in such an unequalled display of them--how, in galloping home at night, i made a ballad on her, of which these two stanzas make a part- thou, bonnie lesley, art a queen, thy subjects we before thee; thou, bonnie lesley, art divine, the hearts o' men adore thee. the very deil he could na scathe whatever wad belang thee! he'd look into thy bonnie face and say, "i canna wrang thee"-behold all these things are written in the chronicles of my imagination, and shall be read by thee, my dear friend, and by thy beloved spouse, my other dear friend, at a more convenient season. now to thee and thy wife [_etc._--a mock benediction.] r.b. * * * * * clxxv.--to mrs. dunlop. dumfries, _24th september 1792_. i have this moment, my dear madam, yours of the twenty-third. all your other kind reproaches, your news, etc., are out of my head when i read and think of mrs. henri's[126] situation. good god! a heart-wounded helpless young woman--in a strange, foreign land, and that land convulsed with every horror that can harrow the human feelings --sick-looking, longing for a comforter, but finding none--a mother's feelings, too:--but it is too much: he who wounded (he only can) may he heal! i wish the farmer great joy of his new acquisition to his family.... i cannot say that i give him joy of his life as a farmer. 'tis, as a farmer paying a dear, unconscionable rent, a _cursed life!_ as to a laird farming his own property; sowing his own corn in hope; and reaping it, in spite of brittle weather, in gladness; knowing that none can say unto him, "what dost thou?"--fattening his herds; shearing his flocks; rejoicing at christmas; and begetting sons and daughters, until he be the venerated, grey-haired leader of a little tribe--'tis a heavenly life! but devil take the life of reaping the fruits that another must eat! well, your kind wishes will be gratified, as to seeing me when i make my ayrshire visit. i cannot leave mrs. burns until her nine months' race is run, which may perhaps be in three or four weeks. she, too, seems determined to make me the patriarchal leader of a band. however, if heaven will be so obliging as to let me have them in the proportion of three boys to one girl, i shall be so much the more pleased. i hope, if i am spared with them, to show a set of boys that will do honour to my cares and name; but i am not equal to the task of rearing girls. besides, i am too poor; a girl should always have a fortune. apropos, your little godson is thriving charmingly, but is a very deil. he, though two years younger, has completely mastered his brother. robert is indeed the mildest, gentlest creature i ever saw. he has a most surprising memory, and is quite the pride of his schoolmaster. you know how readily we get into prattle upon a subject dear to our heart: you can excuse it. god bless you and yours! [footnote 126: her daughter, ill in france.] * * * * * clxxvi.--to mrs. dunlop. _supposed to have been written on the death of mirs. henri, her daughter, at muges._ i had been from home, and did not receive your letter until my return the other day. what shall i say to comfort you, my much-valued, much-afflicted friend! i can but grieve with you; consolation i have none to offer, except that which religion holds out to the children of affliction--_children of affliction!_--how just the expression! and like every other family, they have matters among them which they hear, see, and feel in a serious, all-important manner, of which the world has not, nor cares to have, any idea. the world looks indifferently on, makes the passing remark, and proceeds to the next novel occurrence. alas, madam! who would wish for many years? what is it but to drag existence until our joys gradually expire, and leave us in a night of misery: like the gloom which blots out the stars, one by one, from the face of night, and leaves us, without a ray of comfort, in the howling waste! i am interrupted, and must leave off. you shall soon hear from me again. r. b. * * * * clxxvii.--to mrs. dunlop. dumfries, _6th december 1792._ i shall be in ayrshire, i think, next week; and, if at all possible, i shall certainly, my much esteemed friend, have the pleasure of visiting at dunlop house. alas, madam! how seldom do we meet in this world, that we have reason to congratulate ourselves on accessions of happiness! i have not passed half the ordinary term of an old man's life, and yet i scarcely look over the obituary of a newspaper that i do not see some names that i have known, and which i and other acquaintances little thought to meet with there so soon. every other instance of the mortality of our kind makes us cast an anxious look into the dreadful abyss of uncertainty, and shudder with apprehension for our own fate. but of how different an importance are the lives of different individuals! nay, of what importance is one period of the same life more than another? a few years ago i could have lain down in the dust, "careless of the voice of the morning;" and now not a few, and these most helpless individuals, would, on losing me and my exertions, lose both "staff and shield." by the way, these helpless ones have lately got an addition--mrs. b. having given me a fine girl since i wrote you. there is a charming passage in thomson's" edward and eleanora:" the valiant, _in himself_ what can he suffer? or what need he regard his _single_ woes? (etc.) i do not remember to have heard you mention thomson's dramas. i pick up favourite quotations, and store them in my mind as ready armour, offensive or defensive, amid the struggle of this turbulent existence. of these is one, a very favourite one, from his "alfred:" attach thee firmly to the virtuous deeds and offices of life; to life itself, with all its vain and transient joys, sit loose. probably i have quoted these to you formerly, as indeed, when i write from the heart, i am apt to be guilty of repetitions. the compass of the heart, in the musical style of expression, is much more bounded than that of the imagination; so the notes of the former are extremely apt to run into one another; but in return for the paucity of its compass, its few notes are much more sweet.... i see you are in for double postage, so i shall e'en scribble out t'other sheet. we in this country here have many alarms of the reforming, or rather the republican spirit, of your part of the kingdom. indeed, we are a good deal in commotion ourselves. for me, i am a placeman, you know; a very humble one indeed, heaven knows, but still so much as to gag me. what my private sentiments are, you will find out without an interpreter. i have taken up the subject, and the other day, for a pretty actress's benefit night, i wrote an address, which i will give on the other page, called "the rights of woman." i shall have the honour of receiving your criticisms in person at dunlop. r. b. * * * * * clxxviii.--to mr. r. graham, fintry. _december 1792. _ sir,--i have been surprised, confounded, and distracted, by mr. mitchel, the collector, telling me that he has received an order from your board to inquire into my political conduct, and blaming me as a person disaffected to government. sir, you are a husband--and a father. you know what you would feel, to see the much-loved wife of your bosom, and your helpless, prattling little ones, turned adrift into the world, degraded and disgraced from a situation in which they had been respectable and respected, and left almost without the necessary support of a miserable existence. alas, sir! must i think that such, soon, will be my lot! and from the damn'd, dark insinuations of hellish, groundless envy too! i believe, sir, i may aver it, and in the sight of omniscience, that i would not tell a deliberate falsehood, no, not though even worse horrors, if worse can be, than those i have mentioned, hung over my head; and i say, that the allegation, whatever villain has made it, is a lie! to the british constitution, on revolution principles, next after my god, i am most devoutly attached. you, sir, have been much and generously my friend: heaven knows how warmly i have felt the obligation, and how gratefully i have thanked you. fortune, sir, has made you powerful, and me impotent; has given you patronage, and me dependence. i would not for my single self call on your humanity; were such my insular, unconnected situation, i would despise the tear that now swells in my eye--i could brave misfortune, i could face ruin; for at the worst, "death's thousand doors stand open;" but, good god! the tender concerns that i have mentioned, the claims and ties that i see at this moment, and feel around me, how they unnerve courage, and wither resolution! to your patronage, as a man of some genius, you have allowed me a claim; and your esteem, as an honest man, i know is my due: to these, sir, permit me to appeal; by these may i adjure you to save me from that misery which threatens to overwhelm me, and which, with my latest breath i will say it, i have not deserved. r. b. * * * * * clxxix.--to mrs. dunlop. dumfries, _31st december 1792._ dear madam,--a hurry of business, thrown in heaps by my absence, has until now prevented my returning my grateful acknowledgments to the good family of dunlop, and you in particular, for that hospitable kindness which rendered the four days i spent under that genial roof, four of the pleasantest i ever enjoyed. alas, my dearest friend! how few and fleeting are those things we call pleasures! on my road to ayrshire i spent a night with a friend whom i much valued; a man whose days promised to be many; and on saturday last we laid him in the dust! _jan. 2nd, 1793._ i have just received yours of the 30th, and feel much for your situation. however, i heartily rejoice in your prospect of recovery from that vile jaundice. as to myself, i am better, though not quite free of my complaint. you must not think, as you seem to insinuate, that in my way of life i want exercise. of that i have enough; but occasional hard drinking is the devil to me. against this i have again and again bent my resolution, and have greatly succeeded. taverns i have totally abandoned: it is the private parties in the family way, among the hard-drinking gentlemen of this country, that do me the mischief--but even this i have more than half given over. mr. corbet can be of little service to me at present; at least i should be shy of applying. i cannot possibly be settled as a supervisor for several years. i must wait the rotation of the list, and there are twenty names before mine. --i might indeed get a job of officiating, where a settled supervisor was ill, or aged; but that hauls me from my family, as i could not remove them on such an uncertainty. besides, some envious, malicious devil has raised a little demur on my political principles, and i wish to let that matter settle before i offer myself too much in the eye of my supervisors. i have set, henceforth, a seal on my lips, as to these unlucky politics; but to you i must breathe my sentiments. in this, as in everything else, i shall show the undisguised emotions of my soul. war i deprecate: misery and ruin to thousands are in the blast that announces the destructive demon. but.... r. b. * * * * * clxxx.--to mr. robert graham of fintry. dumfries, _morning of 5th jan._ 1793. sir,--i am this moment honoured with your letter. with what feelings i received this other instance of your goodness i shall not pretend to describe. now to the charges which malice and misrepresentation have brought against me.[127] it has been said, it seems, that i not only belong to, but head a disaffected party in this town. i know of no party here, republican or reform, except an old burgh-reform party, with which i never had anything to do. individuals, both republican and reform, we have, though not many of either; but if they have associated, it is more than i have the least knowledge of, and if such an association exist it must consist of such obscure, nameless beings as precludes any possibility of my being known to them, or they to me. i was in the playhouse one night when _cà ira_ was called for. i was in the middle of the pit, and from the pit the clamour arose. one or two persons, with whom i occasionally associate, were of the party, but i neither knew of, nor joined in the plot, nor at all opened my lips to hiss or huzza that, or any other political tune whatever. i looked on myself as far too obscure a man to have any weight in quelling a riot, and at the same time as a person of higher respectability than to yell to the howlings of a rabble. i never uttered any invectives against the king. his private worth it is altogether impossible that such a man as i can appreciate; but in his public capacity i always revered, and always will with the soundest loyalty revere the monarch of great britain as--to speak in masonic--the sacred keystone of our royal arch constitution. as to reform principles, i look upon the british constitution, as settled at the revolution, to be the most glorious on earth, or that perhaps the wit of man can frame; at the same time i think, not alone, that we have a good deal deviated from the original principles of that constitution,--particularly, that an alarming system of corruption has pervaded the connection between the executive and the house of commons. this is the whole truth of my reform opinions, which, before i knew the complexion of these innovating times, i too unguardedly as i now see sported with: henceforth i seal up my lips. but i never dictated to, corresponded with, or had the least connection with any political association whatever. of johnstone, the publisher of the _edinburgh gazetteer_, i know nothing. one evening, in company with four or five friends, we met with his prospectus, which we thought manly and independent; and i wrote to him, ordering his paper for us. if you think i act improperly in allowing his paper to come addressed to me, i shall immediately countermand it. i never wrote a line of prose to _the gazetteer_ in my life. an address, spoken by miss fontenelle on her benefit night, and which i called "the rights of woman," i sent to _the gazetteer_, as also some stanzas on the commemoration of the poet thomson: both of these i will subjoin for your perusal. you will see they have nothing whatever to do with politics. as to france, i was her enthusiastic votary in the beginning of the business. when she came to shew her old avidity for conquest by annexing savoy and invading the rights of holland, i altered my sentiments. this, my honoured patron, is all. to this statement i challenge disquisition. mistaken prejudice or unguarded passion may mislead, have often misled me; but when called on to answer for my mistakes, though no man can feel keener compunction for them, yet no man can be more superior to evasion or disguise.--i have the honour to be, sir, your ever grateful, etc., robt. burns. [footnote 127: because of what burns elsewhere called "some temeraire conduct of mine, in the political opinions of the day."] * * * * clxxxi.--to mr. alex. cunningham, w.s., edinburgh. dumfries, _20th feb_. 1793. what are you doing? what hurry have you got on your head, my dear cunningham, that i have not heard from you? are you deeply engaged in the mazes of the jaw, the mysteries of love, or the profound wisdom of _politics_? curse on the word! _q_. what is politics? _a_. it is a science wherewith, by means of nefarious cunning and hypocritical pretence, we govern civil politics (sic) for the emolument of ourselves and adherents. q. what is a minister? a. an unprincipled fellow who, by the influence of hereditary or acquired wealth, by superior abilities or by a lucky conjuncture of circumstances, obtains a principal place in the administration of the affairs of government. q. what is a patriot? a. an individual exactly of the same description as a minister, only out of place. i was interrupted in my catechism, and am returned at a late hour just to subscribe my name, and to put you in mind of the forgotten friend of that name who is still in the land of the living, though i can hardly say in the place of hope. i made the enclosed sonnet[128] the other day. adieu! robt. burns. [footnote 128: "on hearing a thrush sing."] * * * * * clxxxil--to mr. cunningham. 3rd march 1793. since i wrote to you the last lugubrious sheet, i have not had time to write to you farther. when i say that i had not time, that, as usual, means that the three demons, indolence, business, and ennui, have so completely shared my hours among them, as not to leave me a five minutes' fragment to take up a pen in. thank heaven, i feel my spirits buoying upwards with the renovating year. now i shall in good earnest take up thomson's songs. i dare say he thinks i have used him unkindly, and i must own with too much appearance of truth... there is one commission that i must trouble you with. i lately lost a valuable seal, a present from a departed friend, which vexes me much. i have gotten one of your highland pebbles, which i fancy would make a very decent one; and i want to cut my armorial bearing on it; will you be so obliging as inquire what will be the expense of such a business? i do not know that my name is matriculated, as the heralds call it, at all; but i have invented arms for myself, so you know i shall be chief of the name; and, by courtesy of scotland, will likewise be entitled to supporters. these, however, i do not intend having on my seal. i am a bit of a herald, and shall give you, _secundum artem_, my arms. on a field, azure, a holly bush, seeded, proper, in base; a shepherd's pipe and crook, saltier-wise, also proper, in chief. on a wreath of the colours, a wood-lark perching on a sprig of bay-tree, proper, for crest. two mottoes; round the top of the crest, _wood notes wild_; at the bottom of the shield, in the usual place, _better a wee bush than nae bield_. by the shepherd's pipe and crook i do not mean the nonsense of painters of arcadia, but a _stock and horn_, and a _club_ such as you see at the head of allan ramsay, in allan's quarto edition of the "gentle shepherd." by-the-bye, do you know allan? he must be a man of very great genius--why is he not more known?--has he no patrons? or do "poverty's cold wind and crushing rain beat keen and heavy" on him? i once, and but once, got a glance of that noble edition of the noblest pastoral in the world: and dear as it was, i mean dear as to my pocket, i would have bought it; but i was told that it was printed and engraved for subscribers only. he is the _only_ artist who has hit _genuine_ pastoral _costume_. what, my dear cunningham, is there in riches, that they narrow and harden the heart so? i think, that were i as rich as the sun, i should be as generous as the day: but as i have no reason to imagine my soul a nobler one than any other man's, i must conclude that wealth imparts a bird-lime quality to the possessor, at which the man, in his native poverty, would have revolted. what has led me to this, is the idea of such merit as mr. allan possesses, and such riches as a nabob or government contractor possesses, and why they do not form a mutual league. let wealth shelter and cherish unprotected merit, and the gratitude and celebrity of that merit will richly repay it. r. b. * * * * * clxxxiii.--to miss benson, york, afterwards mrs. basil montagu. dumfries, _21st march 1793._ madam,--among many things for which i envy those hale, long-lived old fellows before the flood, is this in particular, that when they met with anybody after their own heart, they had a charming long prospect of many, many happy meetings with them in after-life. now, in this short, stormy, winter day of our fleeting existence, when you now and then, in the chapter of accidents, meet an individual whose acquaintance is a real acquisition, there are all the probabilities against you, that you shall never meet with that valued character more. on the other hand, brief as this miserable being is, it is none of the least of the miseries belonging to it, that if there is any miscreant whom you hate, or creature whom you despise, the ill-run of the chances shall be so against you, that in the over takings, turnings, and jostlings of life, pop! at some unlucky corner, eternally comes the wretch upon you, and will not allow your indignation or contempt a moment's repose. as i am a sturdy believer in the powers of darkness, i take these to be the doings of that old author of mischief, the devil. it is well known that he has some kind of short-hand way of taking down our thoughts, and i make no doubt that he is perfectly acquainted with my sentiments respecting miss benson; how much i admired her abilities and valued her worth, and how very fortunate i thought myself in her acquaintance. for this last reason, my dear madam, i must entertain no hopes of the very great pleasure of meeting with you again.--i am, etc. r. b. * * * * clxxxiv.-to mr. john francis erskine, of mar. dumfries, 13th _april 1793. sir,--degenerate as human nature is said to be--and 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 and obscure stranger, merely because poverty had made him helpless, and his british hardihood of mind had provoked the arbitrary of wantonness and 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 dismissal 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 fintry, 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 dismissal; 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. in my defence to their accusations, i said, that whatever might be my sentiments of republics, ancient or modern, as to britain, i abjured the idea: that a constitution, which, in its original principles, experience had proved to be every way fitted for our happiness 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. 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 character 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 family, 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 blasting anticipation, listened to some future hackney scribbler, with the heavy malice of savage stupidity, exulting in his hireling paragraphs--"burns, notwithstanding the _fanfaronade_ 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 your illustrious hands, sir, permit me to lodge my disavowal and defiance of these slanderous falsehoods. burns was a poor man from birth, and an exciseman by necessity; but--i will say it! the sterling of his honest 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 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 machinations to wrest from them the birthright of my boys,--the little independent britons, in whose veins runs my own blood?--no! i will not! should my heart's blood stream around my attempt to defend it! 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 concerns 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 apologise 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, sir, your deeply indebted, and ever devoted, humble servant, r. b.[129] [footnote 129: this letter was penned in response to the sympathy which mr. erskine had expressed for burns in a letter to captain riddell of carse, when burns was taken to task by the board of excise for his political opinions.] * * * * * clxxxv.--to miss m'mordo, drumlanrig. dumfries, _juy 1793._ ... now let me add a few wishes which every man, who has himself the honour of being a father, must breathe when he sees female youth, beauty, and innocence about to enter into this chequered and very precarious world. may you, my young madam, escape that frivolity which threatens universally to pervade the minds and manners of fashionable life, the mob of fashionable female youth--what are they? are they anything? they prattle, laugh, sing, dance, finger a lesson, or perhaps turn the pages of a fashionable novel; but are their minds stored with any information worthy of the noble powers of reason and judgment? and do their hearts glow with sentiment, ardent, generous, or humane? were i to poetize on the subject i would call them the butterflies of the human kind, remarkable only for the idle variety of their ordinary glare, sillily straying from one blossoming weed to another, without a meaning or an aim, the idiot prey of every pirate of the skies who thinks them worth his while as he wings his way by them, and speedily by wintry time swept to that oblivion whence they might as well never have appeared. amid this crowd of nothings may you be something, etc. r. b. * * * * * clxxxvi.--to john m'murdo, esq., drumlanrig. this is a painful, disagreeable letter, and the first of the kind i ever wrote. i am truly in serious distress for three or four guineas: can you, my dear sir, accommodate me? these accursed times by tripping up importation have, for this year at least, lopped off a full third of my income;[130] and with my large family this is to me a distressing matter. r. b. [footnote 130: never more than 70 uk pounds.] * * * * * clxxxvii.--to mrs. riddel. dear madam,--i meant to have called on you yesternight, but as i edged up to your box-door, the first object which greeted my view, was one of those lobster-coated puppies[131] sitting like another dragon, guarding the hesperian fruit. on the conditions and capitulations you so obligingly offer, i shall certainly make my weather-beaten rustic phiz a part of your box-furniture on tuesday; when we may arrange the business of the visit. among the profusion of idle compliments, which insidious craft, or unmeaning folly, incessantly offer at your shrine--a shrine, how far exalted above such adoration--permit me, were it but for rarity's sake, to pay you the honest tribute of a warm heart and an independent mind; and to assure you that i am, thou most amiable, and most accomplished of thy sex, with the most respectful esteem, and fervent regard, thine, etc. r. b. [footnote 131: military officers.] * * * * * clxxxviii.--to mrs. riddel. i will wait on you, my ever valued friend, but whether in the morning i am not sure. sunday closes a period of our curst revenue business, and may probably keep me employed with my pen until noon. fine employment for a poet's pen! there is a species of human genus that i call _the gin-horse class_: what enviable dogs they are! round, and round, and round they go,--mundell's ox, that drives his cotton mill, is their exact prototype--without an idea or wish beyond their circle; fat, sleek, stupid, patient, quiet, and contented; while here i sit, altogether novemberish, a damn'd melange of fretfulness and melancholy; not enough of the one to rouse me to passion, nor of the other to repose me in torpor; my soul flouncing and fluttering round her tenement, like a wild finch, caught amid the horrors of winter, and newly thrust into a cage. well, i am persuaded that it was of me the hebrew sage prophesied, when he foretold-"and behold, on whatsoever this man doth set his heart, it shall not prosper!" if my resentment is awaked, it is sure to be where it dare not squeak; and if--.... pray that wisdom and bliss be more frequent visitors of r. b. * * * * * clxxxix.--to mrs. riddel. i have often told you, my dear friend, that you had a spice of caprice in your composition, and you have as often disavowed it; even perhaps while your opinions were, at the moment, irrefragably proving it. could any thing estrange me from a friend such as you?--no! to-morrow i shall have the honour of waiting on you. farewell, thou first of friends, and most accomplished of women i even with all thy little caprices! r b. * * * * * cxc.--to mrs. riddel. madam,--i return your commonplace book. i have perused it with much pleasure, and would have continued my criticisms, but as it seems the critic has forfeited your esteem, his strictures must lose their value. if it is true that "offences come only from the heart," before you i am guiltless. to admire, esteem, and prize you as the most accomplished of women, and the first of friends--if these are crimes, i am the most offending thing alive. in a face where i used to meet the kind complacency of friendly confidence, _now_ to find cold neglect and contemptuous scorn--is a wrench that my heart can ill bear. it is, however, some kind of miserable good luck, that while _de-haut-en-bas_ rigour may depress an unoffending wretch to the ground, it has a tendency to rouse a stubborn something in his bosom, which, though it cannot heal the wounds of his soul, is at least an opiate to blunt their poignancy. with the profoundest respect for your abilities, the most sincere esteem and ardent regard for your gentle heart and amiable manners, and the most fervent wish and prayer for your welfare, peace, and bliss, i have the honour to be, madam, your most devoted humble servant. r. b. * * * * * cxci.--to mr. cunningham. 25_th february_ 1794. canst thou minister to a mind diseased? canst thou speak peace and rest to a soul tost on a sea of troubles, without one friendly star to guide her course, and dreading that the next surge may overwhelm her? canst thou give to a frame, tremblingly alive to the tortures of suspense, the stability and hardihood of the rock that braves the blast? if thou canst not do the least of these, why wouldst thou disturb me in my miseries, with thy inquiries after me? for these two months i have not been able to lift a pen. my constitution and frame were, _ab origine_, blasted with a deep incurable taint of hypochondria, which poisons my existence. of late a number of domestic vexations, and some pecuniary share in the ruin of these cursed times; losses which, though trifling, were yet what i could ill bear, have so irritated me, that my feelings at times could only be envied by a reprobate spirit listening to the sentence that dooms it to perdition. are you deep in the language of consolation? i have exhausted in reflection every topic of comfort. _a heart at ease_ would have been charmed with my sentiments and reasonings; but as to myself, i was like judas iscariot preaching the gospel; he might melt and mould the hearts of those around him, but his own kept its native incorrigibility. still there are two great pillars that bear us up, amid the wreck of misfortune and misery. the one is composed of the different modifications of a certain noble, stubborn something in a man, known by the names of courage, fortitude, magnanimity. the other is made up of those feelings and sentiments, which, however the sceptic may deny them, or the enthusiast disfigure them, are yet, i am convinced, original and component parts of the human soul; those _senses of the mind_ if i may be allowed the expression, which connect us with, and link us to, those awful obscure realities--an all-powerful, and equally beneficent god; and a world to come, beyond death and the grave. the first gives the nerve of combat, while a ray of hope beams on the field: the last pours the balm of comfort into the wounds which time can never cure. i do not remember, my dear cunningham, that you and i ever talked on the subject of religion at all. i know some who laugh at it, as the trick of the crafty few, to lead the undiscerning many; or at most, as an uncertain obscurity which mankind can never know anything of, and with which they are fools if they give themselves much to do. nor would i quarrel with a man for his irreligion, any more than i would for his want of a musical ear, i would regret that he was shut out from what, to me and to others, were such superlative sources of enjoyment. it is in this point of a view, and for this reason, that i will deeply imbue the mind of every child of mine with religion. if my son should happen to be a man of feeling, sentiment, and taste, i shall thus add largely to his enjoyments. let me flatter myself that this sweet little fellow, who is just now running about my desk, will be a man of a melting, ardent, glowing heart; and an imagination, delighted with the painter, and rapt with the poet. let me figure him wandering out in a sweet evening, to inhale the balmy gales, and enjoy the glowing luxuriance of the spring; himself the while in the blooming youth of life. he looks abroad on all nature, and through nature up to nature's god. his soul, by swift delighting degrees, is rapt above this sublunary sphere until he can be silent no longer, and bursts out into the glorious enthusiasm of thomson, these, as they change, almighty father, these are but the varied god. the rolling year is full of thee. and so on, in all the spirit and ardour of that charming hymn. these are no ideal pleasures, they are real delights; and i ask, what of the delights among the sons of men are superior, not to say equal to them? and they have this precious, vast addition, that conscious virtue stamps them for her own; and lays hold on them to bring herself into the presence of a witnessing, judging, and approving god. r. b. * * * * * cxcii.--to mrs. dunlop. castle douglas, _25th june 1794._ here in a solitary inn, in a solitary village, am i set by myself, to amuse my brooding fancy as i may. solitary confinement, you know, is howard's favourite idea of reclaiming sinners; so let me consider by what fatality it happens, that i have so long been exceeding sinful as to neglect the correspondence of the most valued friend i have on earth. to tell you that i have been in poor health will not be excuse enough, though it is true. i am afraid that i am about to suffer for the follies of my youth. my medical friends threaten me with a flying gout; but i trust they are mistaken. i am just going to trouble your critical patience with the first sketch of a stanza i have been framing, as i passed along the road. the subject is liberty: you know, my honoured friend, how dear the theme is to me. i design it an irregular ode for general washington's birth-day. after having mentioned the degeneracy of other kingdoms i come to scotland thus: thee, caledonia, thy wild heaths among, thee, famed for martial deed and sacred song, to thee i turn with swimming eyes; where is that soul of freedom fled? immingled with the mighty dead! beneath the hallowed turf where wallace lies! hear it not, wallace, in thy bed of death; ye babbling winds, in silence sweep, disturb ye not the hero's sleep. you will probably have another scrawl from me in a stage or two. r. b. * * * * * cxciii.--to mr. james johnson. dumfries, 1794. my dear friend,--you should have heard from me long ago; but over and above some vexatious share in the pecuniary losses of these accursed times, i have all this winter been plagued with low spirits and blue devils, so that _i have almost hung my harp on the willow trees_. i am just now busy correcting a new edition of my poems, and this, with my ordinary business, finds me in full employment. i send you by my friend, mr. wallace, forty-one songs for your fifth volume; if we cannot finish it any other way, what would you think of scotch words to some beautiful irish airs? in the meantime, at your leisure, give a copy of the _museum_ to my worthy friend, mr. peter hill, bookseller, to bind for me, interleaved with blank leaves, exactly as he did the laird of glenriddel's, that i may insert every anecdote i can learn, together with my own criticisms and remarks on the songs. a copy of this kind i shall leave with you, the editor, to publish at some after period, by way of making the _museum_ a book famous to the end of time, and you renowned for ever. i have got a highland dirk, for which i have great veneration, as it once was the dirk of _lord balmerino_. it fell into bad hands, who stripped it of the silver mounting, as well as the knife and fork. i have some thoughts of sending it to your care, to get it mounted anew.--yours, etc., r. b. * * * * * cxciv.--to mr. peter miller, jun., of dalswinion.[131] dumfries, _nov. 1794._ dear sir,--your offer is indeed truly generous, and sincerely do i thank you for it; but in my present situation, i find that i dare not accept it. you well know my political sentiments; and were i an insular individual, unconnected with a wife and a family of children, with the most fervid enthusiasm i would have volunteered my services; i then could and would have despised all consequences that might have ensued. my prospect in the excise is something; at least, it is--encumbered as i am with the welfare, the very existence, of near half-a-score of helpless individuals--what i dare not sport with. in the meantime, they are most welcome to my ode; only, let them insert it as a thing they have met with by accident and unknown to me. nay, if mr. perry, whose honour, after your character of him, i cannot doubt, if he will give me an address and channel by which anything will come safe from those spies with which he may be certain that his correspondence is beset, i will now and then send him any bagatelle that i may write. in the present hurry of europe, nothing but news and politics will be regarded; but against the days of peace, which heaven send soon, my little assistance may perhaps fill up an idle column of a newspaper. i have long had it in my head to try my hand in the way of little prose essays, which i propose sending into the world through the medium of some newspaper; and should these be worth his while, to these mr. perry shall be welcome; and all my reward shall be, his treating me with his paper, which, by-the-by, to anybody who has the least relish for wit, is a high treat indeed. with the most grateful esteem, i am ever, dear sir, r. b. [footnote 131: he had offered burns a post on the staff of _the morning chronicle_, of which newspaper mr. perry was proprietor.] * * * * * cxcv.--to mrs, riddel, madam,--i dare say that this is the first epistle you ever received from this nether world. i write you from the regions of hell, amid the horrors of the damn'd. the time and manner of my leaving your earth i do not exactly know, as i took my departure in the heat of a fever of intoxication, contracted at your too hospitable mansion; but, on my arrival here, i was fairly tried, and sentenced to endure the purgatorial tortures of this infernal confine for the space of ninety-nine years, eleven months, and twenty-nine days, and all on account of the impropriety of my conduct yesternight under your roof. here am i, laid on a bed of pitiless furze, with my aching head reclined on a pillow of ever-piercing thorn, while an infernal tormentor, wrinkled, and old, and cruel--his name i think is _recollection_--with a whip of scorpions, forbids peace or rest to approach me, and keeps anguish eternally awake. still, madam, if i could in any measure be reinstated in the good opinion of the fair circle whom my conduct last night so much injured, i think it would be an alleviation to my torments. for this reason i trouble you with this letter. to the men of the company i will make no apology.--your husband, who insisted on my drinking more than i chose, has no right to blame me, and the other gentlemen were partakers of my guilt. but to you, madam, i have much to apologise. your good opinion i valued as one of the greatest acquisitions i had made on earth, and i was truly a beast to forfeit it. there was a miss i---too, a woman of fine sense, gentle and unassuming manners--do make, on my part, a miserable damn'd wretch's best apology to her. a mrs. g--, a charming woman, did me the honour to be prejudiced in my favour; this makes me hope that i have not outraged her beyond all forgiveness.--to all the other ladies please present my humblest contrition for my conduct, and my petition for their gracious pardon. o all ye powers of decency and decorum! whisper to them that my errors, though great, were involuntary--that an intoxicated man is the vilest of beasts--that it was not in my nature to be brutal to any one--that to be rude to a woman, when in my senses, was impossible with me--but-regret! remorse! shame! ye three hell hounds that ever dog my steps and bay at my heels, spare me! spare me! forgive the offences, and pity the perdition of, madam, your humble slave, r. b. * * * * * cxcvi.--to mrs. dunlop. _15th december 1795._ my dear friend,--as i am in a complete decemberish humour, gloomy, sullen, stupid, as even the deity of dulness herself could wish, i shall not drawl out a heavy letter with a number of heavier apologies for my late silence. only one i shall mention, because i know you will sympathise with it: these four months, a sweet little girl, my youngest child, has been so ill, that every day a week or less threatened to terminate her existence. there had much need be many pleasures annexed to the states of husband and father, for, god knows, they have many peculiar cares. i cannot describe to you the anxious, sleepless hours these ties frequently give me. i see a train of helpless little folks; me and my exertions all their stay: and on what a brittle thread does the life of man hang! if i am nipt off at the command of fate! even in all the vigour of manhood as i am--such things happen every day --gracious god! what would become of my little flock! 'tis here that i envy your people of fortune. a father on his deathbed, taking an everlasting leave of his children, has indeed woe enough; but the man of competent fortune leaves his sons and daughters independency and friends; while i--but i shall run distracted if i think any longer on the subject! to leave talking of the matter so gravely, i shall sing with the old scots ballad- o that i had ne'er been married, i would never had nae care; now i've gotten wife and bairns, they cry crowdie evermair. crowdie ance, crowdie twice: crowdie three times in a day: an ye crowdie ony mair, ye'll crowdie a' my meal away. _25th, christmas morning._ this, my much-loved friend, is a morning of wishes; accept mine--so heaven hear me as they are sincere! that blessings may attend your steps, and affliction know you not! in the charming words of my favourite author--"the man of feeling," "may the great spirit bear up the weight of thy grey hairs, and blunt the arrow that brings them rest!" now that i talk of authors, how do you like cowper? is not the "task" a glorious poem? the religion of the "task," bating a few scraps of calvinistic divinity, is the religion of god and nature; the religion that exalts, that ennobles man. were not you to send me your _zeluco_ in return for mine? tell me how you like my marks and notes through the book. i would not give a farthing for a book, unless i were at liberty to blot it with my criticisms. r. b. * * * * * cxcvii.--to mrs. dunlop, in london. dumfries, _2oth december 1795._ i have been prodigiously disappointed in this london journey of yours.... do let me hear from you the soonest possible. as i hope to get a frank from my friend captain miller, i shall, every leisure hour, take up the pen and gossip away whatever comes first, prose or poetry, sermon or song. in this last article i have abounded of late. i have often mentioned to you a superb publication of scottish songs, which is making its appearance in our great metropolis, and where i have the honour to preside over the scottish verse, as no less a personage than peter pindar does over the english. _december 29th._ since i began this letter, i have been appointed to act in the capacity of supervisor here, and i assure you, what with the load of business, and what with that business being new to me, i could scarcely have commanded ten minutes to have spoken to you, had you been in town, much less to have written you an epistle. this appointment is only temporary, and during the illness of the present incumbent; but i look forward to an early period when i shall be appointed in full form: a consummation devoutly to be wished! my political sins seem to be forgiven me. this is the season (new year's day is now my date) of wishing, and mine are most fervently offered up for you! may life to you be a positive blessing while it lasts, for your own sake; and that it may yet be greatly prolonged is my wish for my own sake, and for the sake of the rest of your friends! what a transient business is life! very lately i was a boy; but t'other day i was a young man; and i already begin to feel the rigid fibre and stiffening joints of old age coming fast o'er my frame. with all my follies of youth, and, i fear, a few vices of manhood, still i congratulate myself on having had in early days religion strongly impressed on my mind. i have nothing to say to any one as to which sect he belongs to, or what creed he believes: but i look on the man who is firmly persuaded of infinite wisdom and goodness superintending and directing every circumstance that can happen in his lot--i felicitate such a man for having a solid foundation for his mental enjoyment; a firm prop and sure stay, in the hour of difficulty, trouble, and distress; and a never-failing anchor of hope when he looks beyond the grave. r. b. * * * * cxviii.--to the hon, the provost, etc., of dumfries. gentlemen,--the literary taste, and liberal spirit, of your good town has so ably filled the various departments of your schools, as to make it a very great object for a parent to have his children educated in them. still, to me, a stranger, with my large family, and very stinted income, to give my young ones the education i wish, at the high-school fees which a stranger pays, will bear hard upon me. some years ago, your good town did me the honour of making me an honorary burgess. will you allow me to request that this mark of distinction may extend so far, as to put me on a footing of a real freeman of the town, in the schools? if you are so very kind as to grant my request, it will certainly be a constant incentive to me to strain every nerve where i can officially serve you; and will, if possible, increase that grateful respect with which i have the honour to be, gentlemen, your devoted humble servant, r. b.[132] [footnote 132: with the poet's request the magistiates of dumfries very handsomely complied. he was induced to make the request through the persuasions of mr. james gray and mr. thomas white, masters of the grammar school, dumfries whose memories are still green on the banks of the nith.--cunningham.] * * * * cxcix.--to mrs. dunlop.[133] dumfries, _3lst january 1796._ these many months you have been two packets in my debt--what sin of ignorance i have committed against so highly valued a friend i am utterly at a loss to guess. alas! madam, ill can i afford, at this time, to be deprived of any of the small remnant of my pleasures. i have lately drunk deep of the cup of affliction. the autumn robbed me of my only daughter and darling child, and that at a distance too, and so rapidly, as to put it out of my power to pay the last duties to her.[133a] i had scarcely begun to recover from that shock, when i became myself the victim of a most severe rheumatic fever, and long the die spun doubtful; until after many weeks of a sick bed, it seems to have turned up life, and i am beginning to crawl across my room, and once indeed have been before my own door in the street. r. b. [footnote 133: cunningham says--"it seems all but certain that mrs. dunlop regarded the poet with some little displeasure during the evening of his days."] [footnote 133a: this child died at mauchline.] * * * * * cc.--to mr. james johnson. dumfries, _4th july 1796._ how are you, my dear friend, and how comes on your fifth volume?[134] you may probably think that for some time past i have neglected you and your work; but, alas! the hand of pain, and sorrow, and care has these many months lain heavy on me! personal and domestic affliction have almost entirely banished that alacrity and life with which i used to woo the rural muse of scotia. you are a good, worthy, honest fellow, and have a good right to live in this world--because you deserve it. many a merry meeting this publication has given us, and possibly it may give us more, though, alas! i fear it. this protracting, slow, consuming illness which hangs over me will, i doubt much, my dear friend, arrest my sun before he has well reached his middle career, and will turn over the poet to far more important concerns than studying the brilliancy of wit, or the pathos of sentiment! however, hope is the cordial of the human heart, and i endeavour to cherish it as well as i can. i am ashamed to ask another favour of you, because you have been so very good already; but my wife has a very particular friend, a young lady who sings well, to whom she wishes to present the _scots musical museum_. if you have a spare copy, will you be so obliging as to send it by the very first fly, as i am anxious to have it soon.--yours ever, r. b.[135] [footnote 134: of the _musical museum_.] [footnote 135: "in this humble manner did poor burns ask for a copy of a work to which he had contributed, gratuitously, not less than 184 original, altered, and collected songs!"--cromek.] * * * * * cci--to mr. cunningham. brow, _sea-bathing quarters, 7th july_ 1796. my dear cunningham,--i received yours here this moment, and am indeed highly flattered with the approbation of the literary circle you mention; a literary circle inferior to none in the two kingdoms. alas! my friend, i fear the voice of the bard will soon be heard among you no more! for these eight or ten months i have been ailing, sometimes bedfast and sometimes not; but these last three months i have been tortured with an excruciating rheumatism, which has reduced me to nearly the last stage. you actually would not know me if you saw me. pale, emaciated, and so feeble, as occasionally to need help from my chair-my spirits fled! fled!--but i can no more on the subject--only the medical folks tell me that my last and only chance is bathing and country quarters, and riding. the deuce of the matter is this--when an exciseman is off duty, his salary is reduced to £35 instead of £50. what way, in the name of thrift, shall i maintain myself, and keep a horse in country quarters, with a wife and five children at home, on 35 pounds? i mention this, because i had intended to beg your utmost interest, and that of all the friends you can muster, to move our commissioners of excise to grant me the full salary; i dare say you know them all personally. if they do not grant it me, i must lay my account with an exit truly _en poete_; if i die not of disease, i must perish with hunger.[136] i have sent you one of the songs; the other my memory does not serve me with, and i have no copy here, but i shall be at home soon, when i will send it you. apropos to being at home, mrs. burns threatens in a week or two to add one more to my paternal charge, which, if of the right gender, i intend shall be introduced to the world by the respectable designation of _alexander cunningham burns_. my last was _james glencairn_, so you can have no objection to the company of nobility. farewell. r. b. [footnote 136: _not_ granted.] * * * * * ccii.--to mr. gilbert burns. _10th july 1795._ dear brother,--it will be no very pleasing news to you to be told that i am dangerously ill, and not likely to get better. an inveterate rheumatism has reduced me to such a state of debility, and my appetite is so totally gone, that i can scarcely stand on my legs. i have been a week at sea-bathing, and will continue there, or in a friend's house in the country, all the summer. god keep my wife and children; if i am taken from their head, they will be poor indeed. i have contracted one or two serious debts, partly from my illness these many months, partly from too much thoughtlessness as to expense when i came to town, that will cut in too much on the little i leave them in your hands. remember me to my mother.--yours, r. b. * * * * * cciii.--to mrs. burns.[137] brow, _thursday._ my dearest love,--i delayed writing until i could tell you what effect sea-bathing was likely to produce. it would be injustice to deny that it has eased my pains, and i think has strengthened me; but my appetite is still extremely bad. no flesh nor fish can i swallow: porridge and milk are the only things i can taste. i am very happy to hear, by miss jess lewars, that you are all well. my very best and kindest compliments to her, and to all the children. i will see you on sunday.--your affectionate husband, r. b. [footnote 137: one evening, while at the brow, burns was visited by two young ladies. the sun, setting on the western hills, threw a strong light upon him through the window. one of them perceiving this, proceeded to draw the curtain; "let me look at the sun, my dear," said the sinking poet, "he will not long shine on me."] * * * * * cciv.--to mrs. dunlop. brow, _saturday, 12th july 1796._ madam,--i have written you so often, without receiving any answer, that i would not trouble you again, but for the circumstances in which i am. an illness which has long hung about me, in all probability will speedily send me beyond that bourne whence no traveller returns. your friendship, with which for many years you honoured me, was a friendship dearest to my soul. your conversation, and especially your correspondence, were at once highly entertaining and instructive. with what pleasure did i use to break up the seal! the remembrance yet adds one pulse more to my poor palpitating heart. farewell!!! r. b. * * * * * ccv.--to mr. james burness, writer, montrose. dumfries, _12th july._ my dear cousin,--when you offered me money assistance, little did i think i should want it so soon. a rascal of a haberdasher, to whom i owe a considerable bill, taking it into his head that i am dying, has commenced a process against me, and will infallibly put my emaciated body into jail. will you be so good as to accommodate me, and that by return of post, with ten pounds? o james, did you know the pride of my heart, you would feel doubly for me! alas! i am not used to beg! the worst of it is, my health was coming about finely. melancholy and low spirits are half my disease. if i had it settled, i would be, i think, quite well in a manner. r. b. * * * * * ccvi.--to his father-in-law, james armour, mason, mauchline.[138] dumfries, _18th july 1799._ my dear sir,--do, for heaven's sake, send mrs. armour here immediately. my wife is hourly expecting to be put to bed. good god! what a situation for her to be in, poor girl, without a friend! i returned from sea-bathing quarters to-day, and my medical friends would almost persuade me that i am better, but i think and feel that my strength is so gone that the disorder will prove fatal to me.--your son-in-law, r. b. [footnote 138: mrs. burns's father. this is the very last of burns's compositions, being written only three days before his death.] * * * * the thomson letters. prefatory note. this correspondence began in september 1792, when burns had already been domiciled nine months in the town of dumfries, and ended only with his death in july 1796. it originated in the request of a stranger for a series of songs to suit a projected collection of the best scottish airs. the stranger was george thomson, a young man of about burns's own age, and head clerk in the office of the board of manufactures in edinburgh. thomson outlived his great correspondent by more than half a century. he died so recently as 1851, at the advanced age of ninety-two. robert chambers has described him as a most honourable man, of singularly amiable character and cheerful manners. it may interest some people to know that his granddaughter was the wife of dickens, the famous novelist. the thomson letter. i. dumfries, _16th september 1792._ sir,--i have just this moment got your letter. as the request you make to me will positively add to my enjoyments in complying with it, i shall enter into your undertaking with all the small portion of abilities i have, strained to their utmost exertion by the impulse of enthusiasm. only, don't hurry me. "deil tak the hindmost" is by no means the _crie de guerre_ of my muse. will you, as i am inferior to none of you in enthusiastic attachment to the poetry and music of old caledonia, and, since you request it, have cheerfully promised my mite of assistance--will you let me have a list of your airs, with the first line of the printed verses you intend for them, that i may have an opportunity of suggesting any alteration that may occur to me? you know 'tis in the way of my trade; still leaving you, gentlemen,[139] the undoubted rights of publishers, to approve or reject at your pleasure, for your own publication. _apropos_ if you are for _english_ verses, there is, on my part, an end of the matter. whether in the simplicity of the ballad, or the pathos of the song, i can only hope to please myself in being allowed at least a sprinkling of our native tongue. english verses, particularly the works of scotsmen, that have merit, are certainly very eligible. "tweedside;" "ah! the poor shepherd's mournful fate;" "ah! chloris, could i now but sit," etc., you cannot mend; but such insipid stuff as "to fanny fair, could i impart," etc., usually set to "the mill, mill, o," is a disgrace to the collections in which it has already appeared, and would doubly disgrace a collection that will have the very superior merit of yours. but more of this in the farther prosecution of the business, if i am to be called on for my strictures and amendments--i say, amendments; for i will not alter, accept where i myself, at least, think that i amend. as to any renumeration, you may think my songs either above or below price; for they shall absolutely be the one or the other. in the honest enthusiasm with which i embark in your undertaking, to talk of money, wages, fee, hire, etc., would be downright sodomy of soul! a proof of each of the songs that i compose or amend i shall receive as a favour. in the rustic phrase of the season, "gude speed the wark!"--i am, sir, your very humble servant, r. burns. p.s.--i have some particular reasons for wishing my interference to be known as little as possible. [footnote 139: thomson in his letter spoke of coadjutors, but in less than a year he became sole editor of the collection.] * * * * * ii. my dear sir,--let me tell you that you are too fastidious in your ideas of songs and ballads. i own that your criticisms are just; the songs you specify in your list have, _all but one_, the faults you remark in them; but how shall we mend the matter? who shall rise up and say--go to, i will make a better? for instance, on reading over "the lea-rig," i immediately set about trying my hand on it, and, after all, i could make nothing more of it than the following, which, heaven knows, is poor enough:- when o'er the hill the eastern star tells bughtin-time is near, my jo, (etc.) your observation as to the aptitude of dr. percy's ballad to the air, "nannie o," is just. it is besides, perhaps, the most beautiful ballad in the english language. but let me remark to you, that in the sentiment and style of our scottish airs there is a pastoral simplicity, a something that one may call the doric style and dialect of vocal music, to which a dash of our native tongue and manners is particularly, nay, peculiarly apposite. for this reason, and upon my honour, for this reason alone, i am of opinion (but, as i told you before, my opinion is yours, freely yours to approve or reject as you please) that my ballad of "nannie, o", might perhaps do for one set of verses to the tune. now don't let it enter into your head that you are under any necessity of taking my verses. i have long ago made up my mind as to my own reputation in the business of authorship; and have nothing to be pleased or offended at, in your adoption or rejection of my verses. though you should reject one half of what i give you, i shall be pleased with your adopting the other half, and shall continue to serve you with the same assiduity. in the printed copy of my "nannie, o", the name of the river is horridly prosaic. i will alter it, behind yon hills where _lugar_ flows. girvan is the name of the river that suits the idea of the stanza best, but lugar is the most agreeable modulation of syllables. i will soon give you a great many more remarks on this business; but i have just now an opportunity of conveying you this scrawl, free of postage, an expense that it is ill able to pay; so, with my best compliments to honest allan,[140] goodbye to ye. _friday night. saturday morning._ as i find i have still an hour to spare this morning before my conveyance goes away, i will give you "nannie, o", at length. your remarks on "ewe-bughts, marion", are just; still it has obtained a place among our more classical scottish songs; and what with many beauties in its composition, and more prejudices in its favour, you will not find it easy to supplant it. in my very early years, when i was thinking of going to the west indies, i took the following farewell of a dear girl. it is quite trifling, and has nothing of the merits of "ewe-bughts", but it will fill up this page. you must know that all my earlier love-songs were the breathings of ardent passion, and though it might have been easy in after-times to have given them a polish, yet that polish, to me, whose they were, and who perhaps alone cared for them, would have defaced the legend of my heart, which was so faithfully inscribed on them. their uncouth simplicity was, as they say of wines, their _race_. will ye go to the indies, my mary, (etc.) "gala water," and "auld rob morris," i think, will most probably be the next subject of my musings. however, even on _my verses_, speak out your criticisms with equal frankness. my wish is, not to stand aloof, the uncomplying bigot of _opiniâtretè_, but cordially to join issue with you in the furtherance of the work. gude speed the wark! amen. [footnote 140: david allan, the artist.] * * * * * iii. _november_ 8_th_, 1792, if you mean, my dear sir, that all the songs in your collection shall be poetry of the first merit, i am afraid you will find more difficulty in the undertaking than you are aware of. there is a peculiar rhythmus in many of our airs, and a necessity of adapting syllables to the emphasis, or what i would call the _feature-notes_ of the tune, that cramp the poet, and lay him under almost insuperable difficulties. for instance, in the air, "my wife's a wanton wee thing", if a few lines, smooth and pretty, can be adapted to it, it is all you can expect. the enclosed were made extempore to it; and though, on farther study, i might give you something more profound, yet it might not suit the light-horse gallop of the air so well as this random clink. i have just been looking over the "collier's bonny dochter", and if the enclosed rhapsody which i composed the day, on a charming ayrshire girl, miss baillie, as she passed through this place to england, will suit your taste better than the "collier lassie", fall on and welcome. i have hitherto deferred the sublimer, more pathetic airs until more leisure, as they will take, and deserve a greater effort. however, they are all put into your hands, as clay into the hands of the potter, to make one vessel to honour, and another to dishonour. farewell, etc. * * * * * iv. inclosing "highland mary".--tune--_katharine ogie_. ye banks, and braes, and streams around, (etc.) 14_th november_ 1792. my dear sir,--i agree with you, that the song "katharine ogie", is very poor stuff, and unworthy, altogether unworthy, of so beautiful an air. i tried to mend it; but the awkward sound "ogie," recurring in the rhyme, spoils every attempt at introducing sentiment into the piece. the foregoing song pleases myself; i think it is in my happiest manner; you will see at the first glance that it suits the air. the subject of the song is one of the most interesting passages of my youthful days; and i own that i should be much flattered to see the verses set to an air which would ensure celebrity. perhaps, after all,'tis the still glowing prejudice of my heart that throws a borrowed lustre over the merits of the composition. i have partly taken your idea of "auld rob morris". i have adopted the two first verses, and am going on with the song on a new plan, which promises pretty well. i take up one or another, just as the bee of the moment buzzes in my bonnet-lug; and do you, _sans ceremonie_, make what use you choose of the productions. adieu! etc. * * * * * v. 26_th january_ 1793. i approve greatly, my dear sir, of your plans. dr. beattie's essay will of itself be a treasure. on my part, i mean to draw up an appendix to the doctor's essay, containing my stock of anecdotes, etc., of our scots songs. all the late mr. tytler's anecdotes i have by me, taken down in the course of my acquaintance with him, from his own mouth. i am such an enthusiast, that in the course of my several peregrinations through scotland, i made a pilgrimage to the individual spot from which every song took its rise, lochaber and the braes of ballendean excepted. so far as locality, either from the title of the air, or the tenor of the song, could be ascertained, i have paid my devotions at the particular shrine of every scots muse. i do not doubt but you might make a very valuable collection of jacobite songs--but would it give no offence? in the meantime, do not you think that some of them, particularly "the sow's tail to geordie", as an air, with other words, might be well worth a place in your collection of lively songs? if it were possible to procure songs of merit, it would be proper to have one set of scots words to every air, and that the set of words to which the notes ought to be set. there is a _naïvetè_, a pastoral simplicity, in a slight intermixture of scots words and phraseology, which is more in unison (at least to my taste, and, i will add, to every genuine caledonian taste), with the simple pathos or rustic sprightliness of our native music, than any english verses whatever. the very name of peter pindar is an acquisition to your work. his "gregory" is beautiful. i have tried to give you a set of stanzas in scots, on the same subject, which are at your service. not that i intend to enter the lists with peter; that would be presumption indeed. my song, though much inferior in poetic merit, has, i think, more of the ballad simplicity in it. lord gregory. o mirk, mirk is this midnight hour, (etc.) your remark on the first stanza of my "highland mary" is just, but i cannot alter it, without injuring the poetry. * * * * * vi. _20th march 1793._ my dear sir,--the song prefixed ("mary morison") is one of my juvenile works. i leave it in your hands. i do not think it very remarkable, either for its merits or demerits. it is impossible (at least i feel it so in my stinted powers) to be always original, entertaining, and witty. what is become of the list, etc., of your songs? i shall be out of all temper with you by and by. i have always looked on myself as the prince of indolent correspondents, and valued myself accordingly; and i will not, cannot bear rivalship from you, nor anybody else. * * * * * vii. _7th april 1793. _ thank you, my dear sir, for your packet. you cannot imagine how much this business of composing for your publication has added to my enjoyments. what, with my early attachment to ballads, your book, etc., ballad-making is now as completely my hobby-horse as ever fortification was uncle toby's; so i'll e'en canter it away till i come to the limit of my race (god grant that i may take the right side of the winning-post!) and then cheerfully looking back on the honest folks with whom i have been happy, i shall say, or sing, "sae merry as we a' hae been" and raising my last looks to the whole human race, the last words of the voice of coila shall be, "good night, and joy be wi' you a'!" so much for my last words; now for a few present remarks as they have occurred at random, on looking over your list. the first lines of "the last time i came o'er the moor", and several other lines in it, are beautiful; but in my opinion--pardon me, revered shade of ramsay!--the song is unworthy of the divine air. i shall try to _make_ or _mend_. "for ever, fortune, wilt thou prove," is a charming song; but "logan burn and logan braes" are sweetly susceptible of rural imagery; i'll try that likewise, and if i succeed, the other song may class among the english ones. i remember the two last lines of a verse in some of the old songs of "logan water" (for i know a good many different ones), which i think pretty- now my dear lad maun face his faes, far, far frae me, and logan braes. "my patie is a lover gay", is unequal. "his mind is never muddy," is a muddy expression indeed. then i'll resign and marry pate, and syne my cockernony-this is surely far unworthy of ramsay, or your book. my song, "rigs of barley", to the same tune, does not altogether please me; but if i can mend it, and thresh a few loose sentiments out of it, i will submit it to your consideration. the "lass o' patie's mill" is one of ramsay's best songs; but there is one loose sentiment in it, which my much-valued friend, mr. erskine, will take into his critical consideration. in sir j. sinclair's statistical volumes are two claims, one i think, from aberdeenshire, and the other from ayrshire, for the honour of this song. the following anecdote, which i had from the present sir william cunningham, of robertland, who had it of the late john, earl of loudon, i can on such authorities believe. allan ramsay was residing at loudon castle with the then earl, father to earl john; and one forenoon, riding or walking out together, his lordship and allan passed a sweet romantic spot on irwine water, still called "patie's mill," where a bonnie lass was "tedding hay, bareheaded on the green." my lord observed to allan, that it would be a fine theme for a song, ramsay took the hint, and lingering behind, he composed the first sketch of it, which he produced at dinner. "one day i heard mary say," is a fine song; but for consistency's sake, alter the name "adonis." was there ever such banns published, as a purpose of marriage between adonis and mary? i agree with you that my song, "there's nought but care on every hand," is much superior to "poortith cauld." the original song, "the mill, mill, o," though excellent, is, on account of delicacy, inadmissible; still i like the title, and think a scottish song would suit the notes best; and let your chosen song, which is very pretty, follow, as an english set. the "banks of dee" is, you know, literally "langolee" to slow time. the song is well enough, but has some false imagery in it, for instance, and sweetly the nightingale sung from the _tree_. in the first place, the nightingale sings in a low bush, but never from a tree; and in the second place, there never was a nightingale seen or heard on the banks of the dee, or on the banks of any other river in scotland. exotic rural imagery is always comparatively flat. if i could hit on another stanza equal to "the small birds rejoice," etc., i do myself honestly avow that i think it a superior song. "john anderson, my jo"--the song to this tune in johnson's _museum_ is my composition, and i think it not my worst: if it suit you, take it and welcome. your collection of sentimental and pathetic songs is, in my opinion, very complete; but not so your comic ones. where are "tullochgorum," "lumps o' puddin'," "tibbie fowler," and several others, which, in my humble judgment, are well worthy of preservation? there is also one sentimental song of mine in the _museum_, which never was known out of the immediate neighbourhood, until i got it taken down from a country girl's singing. it is called "craigie-burn wood;" and in the opinion of mr. clarke is one of our sweetest scottish songs. he is quite an enthusiast about it; and i would take his taste in scottish music against the taste of most connoisseurs. you are quite right in inserting the last five in your list, though they are certainly irish. "shepherds, i have lost my love," is to me a heavenly air--what would you think of a set of scottish verses to it? i have made one a good while ago, which i think is the best love song[141] i ever composed in my life; but in its original state it is not quite a lady's song. i enclose an altered, not amended copy for you, if you choose to set the tune to it, and let the irish verses follow. mr. erskine's songs are all pretty, but his "lone vale" is divine.--yours, etc. let me know just how you like these random hints. [footnote 141: "yestreen i had a pint o' wine."] * * * * * viii. _april 1793._ my dear sir,--i own my vanity is flattered when you give my songs a place in your elegant and superb work; but to be of service to the work is my first wish. as i have often told you, i do not in a single instance wish you, out of compliment to me, to insert anything of mine. one hint let me give you--whatever mr. peyel does, let him not alter one _iota_ of the original scottish airs; i mean in the song department; but let our national music preserve its native features. they are, i own, frequently wild, and irreducible to the more modern rules; but on that very eccentricity, perhaps, depends a great part of their effect. * * * * * ix. _june_ 1793. when i tell you, my dear sir, that a friend of mine, in whom i am much interested, has fallen a sacrifice to these accursed times, you will easily allow that it might unhinge me for doing any good among ballads. my own loss, as to pecuniary matters, is trifling; but the total ruin of a much-loved friend is a loss indeed. pardon my seeming inattention to your last commands. i cannot alter the disputed lines in the "mill, mill, o."[142] what you think a defect i esteem as a positive beauty; so you see how doctors differ. i shall now, with as much alacrity as i can muster, go on with your commands. you know frazer, the hautboy player in edinburgh--he is here instructing a band of music for a fencible corps quartered in this country. among many of the airs that please me, there is one well known as a reel, by the name of "the quaker's wife"; and which i remember a grand-aunt of mine used to sing, by the name of "liggeram cosh, my bonnie wee lass". mr. frazer plays it slow, and with an expression that quite charms me. i became such an enthusiast about it that i made a song for it, which i here subjoin, and inclose frazer's set of the tune. if they hit your fancy, they are at your service; if not, return me the tune, and i will put it in johnson's _museum_. i think the song is not in my worst manner. blithe hae i been on yon hill, (etc.) i should wish to hear how this pleases you. [footnote 142: the lines were the third and fourth- wi' mony a sweet babe fatherless, and mony a widow mourning.] * * * * x. _june 25th 1793_. have you ever, my dear sir, felt your bosom ready to burst with indignation on reading of those mighty villains who divide kingdom against kingdom, desolate provinces, and lay nations waste, out of the wantonness of ambition, or often from still more ignoble passions? in a mood of this kind to-day i recollected the air of "logan water;" and it occurred to me that its querulous melody probably had its origin from the plaintive indignation of some swelling, suffering heart, fired at the tyrannic strides of some public destroyer, and overwhelmed with private distress, the consequence of a country's ruin. if i have done anything at all like justice to my feelings, the following song, composed in three quarters of an hour's meditation in my elbow-chair, ought to have some merit. [here follows "logan water."] do you know the following beautiful little fragment in witherspoon's _collection of scots songs_? air--_hughie graham._ o gin my love were yon red rose, that grows upon the castle wa', and i mysel' a drap o' dew into her bonnie breast to fa'! oh, there beyond expression blest, i'd feast on beauty a' the night; seal'd on her silk saft faulds to rest, till fley'd awa by phoebus light. this thought is inexpressibly beautiful; and quite, so far as i know, original. it is too short for a song, else i would forswear you altogether, unless you gave it a place. i have often tried to eke a stanza to it, but in vain. after balancing myself for a musing five minutes, on the hind legs of my elbow-chair, i produced the following. the verses are far inferior to the foregoing, i frankly confess; but if worthy of insertion at all, they might be first in place; as every poet, who knows anything of his trade, will husband his best thoughts for a concluding stroke. o were my love yon lilac fair, wi' purple blossoms to the spring; and i a bird to shelter there, when wearied on my little wing; how i wad mourn, when it was torn by autumn wild, and winter rude! but i wad sing on wanton wing, when youthfu' may its bloom renew'd. * * * * * xi. _july_ 1793. i assure you, my dear sir, that you truly hurt me with your pecuniary parcel. it degrades me in my own eyes. however, to return it would savour of affectation; but as to any more traffic of that debtor or creditor kind, i swear by that honour which crowns the upright statue of robert burns's integrity--on the least motion of it, i will indignantly spurn the by--past transaction, and from that moment commence entire stranger to you! burns's character for generosity of sentiment and independence of mind will, i trust, long outlive any of his wants, which the cold, unfeeling ore can supply: at least, i will take care that such a character he shall deserve. thank you for my copy of your publication. never did my eyes behold, in any musical work, such elegance and correctness. your preface, too, is admirably written; only, your partiality to me has made you say too much: however, it will bind me down to double every eifort in the future progress of the work. the following are a few remarks on the songs in the list you sent me. i never copy what i write to you, so i may be often tautological, or perhaps contradictory. "the flowers of the forest" is charming as a poem; and should be, and must be, set to the notes; but, though out of your rule, the three stanzas, beginning, i hae seen the smiling o' fortune beguiling, are worthy of a place, were it but to immortalise the author of them, who is an old lady[143] of my acquaintance, and at this moment living in edinburgh. she is a mrs. cockburn; i forget of what place; but from roxburghshire. what a charming apostrophe is o fickle fortune, why this cruel sporting, why, why torment us--_poor sons of a day_! the old ballad, "i wish i were where helen lies," is silly, to contemptibility. my alteration of it, in johnson's, is not much better. [footnote 142: _nee_ rutherford, of selkirkshire. she was then 81 years old.] * * * * * xii. _august_ 1793. that tune, "cauld kail," is such a favourite of yours, that i once more roved out yesterday for a gloamin-shot at the muses; when the muse that presides o'er the shores of nith, or rather my old inspiring dearest nymph, coila, whispered me the following. i have two reasons for thinking that it was my early, sweet, simple inspirer that was by my elbow, "smooth gliding without step," and pouring the song on my glowing fancy. in the first place, since i left coila's haunts, not a fragment of a poet has arisen to cheer her solitary musings, by catching inspiration from her; so i more than suspect she has followed me hither, or at least makes me occasional visits; secondly, the last stanza of this song i send you is the very words that coila taught me many years ago, and which i set to an old scots reel in johnson's _museum_. autumn is my propitious season. i make more verses in it than in all the year else. god bless you. * * * * xiii. _sept_. 1793. you may readily trust, my dear sir, that any exertion in my power is heartily at your service. but one thing i must hint to you; the very name of peter finder is of great service to your publication, so get a verse from him now and then; though i have no objection, as well as i can, to bear the burden of the business. you know that my pretensions to musical taste are merely a few of nature's instincts, untaught and untutored by art. for this reason, many musical compositions, particularly where much of the merit lies in counterpoint, however they may transport and ravish the ears of your connoisseurs, affect my simple lug no otherwise than merely as melodious din. on the other hand, by way of amends, i am delighted with many little melodies which the learned musician despises as silly and insipid. i do not know whether the old air "hey tuttie taittie" may rank among this number; but well i know that, with frazer's hautboy, it has often filled my eyes with tears. there is a tradition, which i have met with in many places of scotland, that it was robert bruce's march at the battle of bannockburn. this thought, in my solitary wanderings, warmed me to a pitch of enthusiasm on the theme of liberty and independence, which i threw into a kind of scottish ode, fitted to the air, that one might suppose to be the gallant royal scot's address to his heroic followers on that eventful morning. bruce to his troops, on the eve of the battle of bannockburn. _hey tuttie taittie_. scots, wha hae wi' wallace bled, (etc.) so may god ever defend the cause of truth and liberty, as he did that day!--amen. p.s.--i showed the air to urbani, who was highly pleased with it, and begged me to make soft verses for it; but i had no idea of giving myself any trouble on the subject, till the accidental recollection of that glorious struggle for freedom, associated with the glowing ideas of some other struggles of the same nature, not quite so ancient, roused my rhyming mania. clarke's set of the tune, with his bass, you will find in the _museum_; though i am afraid that the air is not what will entitle it to a place in your elegant selection. * * * * * xiv. _september 1793_. i have received your list, my dear sir, and here go my observations on it.[143] "down the burn, davie." i have this moment tried an alteration, leaving out the last half of the third stanza, and the first half of the last stanza, thus:- as down the burn they took their way, and thro' the flowery dale, his cheek to hers he aft did lay, and love was aye the tale. with "mary, when shall we return, sic pleasure to renew?" quoth mary, "love, i like the burn, and aye shall follow you." "thro' the wood, laddie." i am decidedly of opinion that both in this and "there'll never be peace till jamie comes hame," the second or high part of the tune being a repetition of the first part an octave higher, is only for instrumental music, and would be much better omitted in singing. "cowden-knowes." remember in your index that the song in pure english, to this tune, beginning when summer comes, the swains on tweed, is the production of crawford; robert was his christian name. "laddie lie near me," must _lie by me_ for some time. i do not know the air; and until i am complete master of a tune in my own singing (such as it is), i never can compose for it. my way is: i consider the poetic sentiment correspondent to my idea of the musical expression, then choose my theme, begin one stanza; when that is composed, which is generally the most difficult part of the business, i walk out, sit down now and then, look out for objects in nature around me that are in unison or harmony with the cogitations of my fancy, and workings of my bosom; humming every now and then the air, with the verses i have framed. when i feel my muse beginning to jade, i retire to the solitary fireside of my study, and there commit my effusions to paper; swinging at intervals on the hind legs of my elbow chair, by way of calling forth my own critical strictures, as my pen goes on. seriously, this, at home, is almost invariably my way. what cursed egotism! "gil morice" i am for leaving out. it is a plaguy length; the air itself is never sung, and its place can well be supplied by one or two songs for fine airs that are not in your list. for instance, "craigieburn-wood" and "roy's wife". the first, besides its intrinsic merit, has novelty; and the last has high merit, as well as great celebrity. i have the original words of a song for the last air in the handwriting of the lady who composed it, and they are superior to any edition of the song which the public has yet seen. "highland laddie". the old set will please a mere scotch ear best; and the new an italianised one. there is a third, and what oswald calls the "old highland laddie", which pleases we more than either of them. it is sometimes called "jinglan johnnie", it being the air of an old humorous tawdry song of that name. you will find it in the museum, "i hae been at crookie-den," etc. i would advise you in this musical quandary, to offer up your prayers to the muses for inspiring direction; and, in the meantime, waiting for this direction, bestow a libation to bacchus, and there is not a doubt but you will hit on a judicious choice. _probatum est_. "auld sir simon," i must beg you to leave out, and put in its place "the quaker's wife". "blythe hae i been on yon hill" is one of the finest songs ever i made in my life; and, besides, is composed on a young lady positively the most beautiful, lovely woman in the world. as i purpose giving you the names and designations of all my heroines, to appear in some future edition of your work, perhaps half a century hence, you must certainly include _the bonniest lass in a' the warld_ in your collection. "daintie davie" i have heard sung nineteen thousand, nine hundred, and ninety-nine times, and always with the low part of the tune; and nothing has surprised me so much as your opinion on this subject. if it will not suit, as i propose, we will lay two of the stanzas together, and then make the chorus follow. "fee him, father". i enclose you frazer's set of this tune when he plays it slow; in fact, he makes it the language of despair, i shall here give you two stanzas in that style, merely to try if it will be any improvement. were it possible, in singing, to give it half the pathos which frazer gives it in playing, it would make an admirable pathetic song. i do not give these verses for any merit they have. i composed them at the time at which _patie allan's mither died_; that was _the back o' midnight_; and by the lee-side of a bowl of punch, which had overset every mortal in the company, except the hautbois and the muse. thou hast left me ever, jamie, (etc.) "jockie and jenny" i would discard, and in its place would put "there's nae luck about the house", which has a very pleasant air; and which is positively the finest love-ballad in that style in the scottish, or perhaps in any other language. "when she came ben she bobbet", as an air, is more beautiful than either, and in the _andante_ way would unite with a charming sentimental ballad. "saw ye my father" is one of my greatest favourites. the evening before last i wandered out, and began a tender song, in what i think its native style. i must premise that the old way, and the way to give most effect, is to have no starting note, as the fiddlers call it, but to burst at once into the pathos. every country girl sings-"saw ye my father", etc. my song is just begun; and i should like, before i proceed, to know your opinion of it. i have sprinkled it with the scottish dialect, but it may be easily turned into correct english. fragment.--tune--"_saw ye my father_" where are the joys i hae met in the morning, (etc.) "todlin hame": urbani mentioned an idea of his, which has long been mine; and this air is highly susceptible of pathos; accordingly, you will soon hear him, at your concert, try it to a song of mine in the _museum_--"ye banks and braes o' bonnie doon". one song more and i have done: "auld lang syne". the air is but _mediocre_; but the following song, the old song of the olden times, and which has never been in print, nor even in manuscript, until i took it down from an old man's singing, is enough to recommend any air.[144] auld lang syne. should auld acquaintance be forgot, (etc.) now, i suppose i have tired your patience fairly. you must, after all is over, have a number of ballads, properly so called, "gil morice", "tranent muir", "m'pherson's farewell", "battle of sheriff-muir", or "we ran and they ran" (i know the author of this charming ballad, and his history); "hardiknute", "barbara allan" (i can furnish a finer set of this tune than any that has yet appeared), and besides, do you know that i really have the old tune to which "the cherry and the slae" was sung? and which is mentioned as a well-known air in _scotland's complaint_, a book published before poor mary's days. it was then called "the banks o' helicon"; an old poem which pinkerton has brought to light. you will see all this in tytler's _history of scottish music_. the tune, to a learned ear, may have no great merit; but it is a great curiosity. i have a good many original things of this kind. [footnote 143: songs for his publication. burns goes through the whole; but only his remarks of any importance are presented here.] [footnote 144: it is believed to have been his own composition.] * * * * * xv. _september_ 1793. "who shall decide when doctors disagree?" my ode[145] pleases me so much that i cannot alter it. your proposed alterations would, in my opinion, make it tame. i am exceedingly obliged to you for putting me on reconsidering it; as i think i have much improved it. instead of "sodger! hero!" i will have it "caledonian! on wi' me!" i have scrutinised it over and over; and to the world some way or other it shall go as it is. at the same time it will not in the least hurt me, should you leave it out altogether, and adhere to your first intention of adopting logan's verses. i have finished my song to "saw ye my father;" and in english, as you will see. that there is a syllable too much for the _expression_ of the air, is true; but allow me to say, that the mere dividing of a dotted crotchet into a crotchet and a quaver is not a great matter; however, in that, i have no pretensions to cope in judgment with you. of the poetry i speak with confidence; but the music is a business where i hint my ideas with the utmost diffidence. [footnote 145: scots wha hae.] * * * * * xvi. _may_ 1794. my dear sir,--i return you the plates, with which i am highly pleased. i would humbly propose, instead of the younker knitting stockings, to put a stock and horn into his hands. a friend of mine, who is positively the ablest judge on the subject i have ever met with, and though an unknown, is yet a superior artist with the _burin_, is quite charmed with allan's manner. i got him a peep of the "gentle shepherd", and he pronounces allan a most original artist of great excellence. for my part, i look on mr. allan's choosing my favourite poem for his subject to be one of the highest compliments i have ever received. i am quite vexed at pleyel's being cooped up in france, as it will put an entire stop to our work. now, and for six or seven months, i shall be quite in song, as you shall see by-and-by. i got an air, pretty enough, composed by lady elizabeth heron, of heron, which she calls "the banks of cree." cree is a beautiful romantic stream, and, as her ladyship is a particular friend of mine, i have written the following song to it:- here is the glen, and here the bower, (etc.) * * * * * xvii. _sept_. 1794. i shall withdraw my "on the seas and far away" altogether; it is unequal, and unworthy of the work. making a poem is like begetting a son; you cannot know whether you have a wise man or a fool, until you produce him to the world and try him. for that reason i have sent you the offspring of my brain, abortions and all; and as such, pray look over them, and forgive them, and burn them. i am flattered at your adopting "ca' the yowes to the knowes", as it was owing to me that it ever saw the light. about seven years ago i was well acquainted with a worthy little fellow of a clergyman, a mr. clunie, who sung it charmingly: and, at my request, mr. clarke took it down from his singing. when i gave it to johnson, i added some stanzas to the song, and mended others, but still it will not do for you. in a solitary stroll which i took to-day, i tried my hand on a few pastoral lines, following up the idea of the chorus, which i would preserve. here it is, with all its crudities and imperfections on its head. ca' the yowes, (etc.) i shall give you my opinion of your other newly adopted songs, my first scribbling fit. * * * * * xviii. 19_th october_ 1794. my dear friend,--by this morning's post i have your list, and, in general, i highly approve of it. i shall, at more leisure, give you a critique on the whole. clarke goes to your town by to-day's fly, and i wish you would call on him and take his opinion in general; you know his taste is a standard. he will return here again in a week or two, so please do not miss asking for him. one thing i hope he will do--persuade you to adopt my favourite, "craigie-burn wood", in your selection; it is as great a favourite of his as of mine. the lady on whom it was made is one of the finest women in scotland; and, in fact (_entre nous_), is in a manner to me what sterne's eliza was to him--a mistress, a friend, or what you will, in the guileless simplicity of platonic love. (now, don't put any of your squinting constructions on this, or have any clishmaclaiver about it among our acquaintances.) i assure you that to my lovely friend you are indebted for many of your best songs of mine. do you think that the sober gin-horse routine of existence could inspire a man with life, and love, and joy--could fire him with enthusiasm, or melt him with pathos, equal to the genius of your book? no! no! whenever i want to be more than ordinary _in song_--to be in some degree equal to your diviner airs--do you imagine i fast and pray for the divine emanation? _tout au contraire_! i have a glorious recipe--the very one that for his own use was invented by the divinity of healing and poetry, when erst he piped to the flocks of admetus. i put myself on a regimen of admiring a fine woman; and in proportion to the adorability of her charms, in proportion you are delighted with my verses. the lightning of her eye is the godhead of parnassus, and the witchery of her smile the divinity of helicon! to descend to business; if you like my idea of "when she cam ben she bobbit", the enclosed stanzas of mine, altered a little from what they were formerly when set to another air, may perhaps do instead of worse stanzas. now for a few miscellaneous remarks. "the posie" (in the _museum_) is my composition; the air was taken down from mrs. burns's voice. it is well known in the west country, but the old words are trash. by-the-bye, take a look at the tune again, and tell me if you do not think it is the original from which "roslin castle" is composed. the second part in particular, for the first two or three bars, is exactly the old air. "strathallan's lament" is mine; the music is by our right trusty and deservedly well beloved, allan masterton. "donocht head" is not mine; i would give ten pounds if it were. it appeared first in the _edinburgh herald_; and came to the editor of that paper with the newcastle post-mark on it[146] "whistle o'er the lave o't" is mine; the music is said to be by a john bruce, a celebrated violin player in dumfries, about the beginning of this century. this i know, bruce, who was an honest man, though a redwud highlandman, constantly claimed it; and by all the old musical people here is believed to be the author of it. "andrew and his cutty gun". the song to which this is set in the _museum_ is mine; and was composed on miss euphemia murray, of lintrose, commonly and deservedly called the "flower of strathmore." "how lang and dreary is the night." i met with some such words in a collection of songs somewhere, which i altered and enlarged; and to please you, and to suit your favourite air, i have taken a stride or two across the room, and have arranged it anew, as you will find on the other page. tune--_cauld kail in aberdeen_. how lang and dreary is the night, (etc.) tell me how you like this. i differ from your idea of the expression of the tune. there is, to me, a great deal of tenderness in it. i would be obliged to you if you would procure me a sight of ritson's _collection of english songs_, which you mention in your letter. i will thank you for another information, and that as speedily as you please--whether this miserable drawling hotch-potch epistle has not completely tired you of my correspondence. [footnote 146: "keen blaws the wind o'er donocht head, the snaw drives snelly thro' the dale, the gaberlunzie tirls my sneck, and, shivering, tells his waefu' tale. "cauld is the night, o let me in, and dinna let your minstrel fa', and dinna let his winding-sheet be naething but a wreath o' snaw."(etc.)] * * * * * xix. _november_ 1794. many thanks to you, my dear sir, for your present: it is a book of the utmost importance to me. i have yesterday begun my anecdotes, etc., for your work. i intend drawing it up in the form of a letter to you, which will save me from the tedious dull business of systematic arrangement. indeed, as all i have to say consists of unconnected remarks, anecdotes, scraps of old songs, etc., it would be impossible to give the work a beginning, a middle, and an end; which the critics insist to be absolutely necessary in a work. in my last, i told you my objections to the song you had selected for "my lodging is on the cold ground". on my visit the other day to my fair chloris (that is the poetic name of the lovely goddess of my inspiration), she suggested an idea, which i, on my return from the visit, wrought into the following song:- my chloris, mark how green the groves, (etc,) how do you like the simplicity and tenderness of this pastoral? i think it pretty well. i like you for entering so candidly and so kindly into the story of _ma chlre amie_. i assure you, i was never more in earnest in my life than in the account of that affair which i sent you in my last. conjugal love is a passion which i deeply feel and highly venerate; but, somehow, it does not make such a figure in poesy as that other species of the passion, where love is liberty, and nature law, musically speaking, the first is an instrument of which the gamut is scanty and confined, but the tones inexpressibly sweet; while the last has powers equal to all the intellectual modulations of the human soul. still, i am a very poet, in my enthusiasm of the passion. the welfare and happiness of the beloved object is the first and inviolate sentiment that pervades my soul; and whatever pleasures i might wish for, or whatever might be the raptures they would give me, yet, if they interfere with that first principle, it is having these pleasures at a dishonest price; and justice forbids, and generosity disdains, the purchase! * * * * * xx. i am out of temper that you should set so sweet, so tender an air, as "deil tak the wars," to the foolish old verses. you talk of the silliness of "saw ye my father:" by heavens, the odds is gold to brass! besides, the old song, though now pretty well modernised into the scottish language, is, originally, and in the early editions, a bungling low imitation of the scottish manner, by that genius, tom d'urfey; so has no pretensions to be a scottish production. there is a pretty english song by sheridan in the "duenna," to this air, which is out of sight superior to d'urfey's. it begins, when sable night each drooping plant restoring. the air, if i understand the expression of it properly, is the very native language of simplicity, tenderness, and love. i have again gone over my song to the tune as follows.[147] there is an air, "the caledonian hunt's delight", to which i wrote a song that you will find in johnson. "ye banks and braes o' bonnie doon"; this air, i think, might find a place among your hundred, as lear says of his knights. do you know the history of the air? it is curious enough. a good many years ago, mr. james miller, writer in your good town, a gentleman whom possibly you know, was in company with our friend clarke; and talking of scottish music, miller expressed an ardent ambition to be able to compose a scots air. mr. clarke, partly by way of joke, told him to keep to the black keys of the harpsichord, and preserve some kind of rhythm, and he would infallibly compose a scots air. certain it is, that in a few days, mr. miller produced the rudiments of an air, which mr. clarke, with some touches and corrections, fashioned into the tune in question. ritson, you know, has the same story of the "black keys;" but this account which i have just given you, mr. clarke informed me of several years ago. now, to shew you how difficult it is to trace the origin of our airs, i have heard it repeatedly asserted that this was an irish air nay, i met with an irish gentleman who affirmed he had heard it in ireland among the old women; while, on the other hand, a countess informed me, that the first person who introduced the air into this country was a baronet's lady of her acquaintance, who took down the notes from an itinerant piper in the isle of man. how difficult then to ascertain the truth respecting our poesy and music! i, myself, have lately seen a couple of ballads sung through the streets of dumfries, with my name at the head of them as the author, though it was the first time i had ever seen them. i am ashamed, my dear fellow, to make the request; 'tis dunning your generosity; but in a moment when i had forgotten whether i was rich or poor, i promised chloris a copy of your songs. it wrings my honest pride to write you this; but an ungracious request is doubly so, by a tedious apology. to make you some amends, as soon as i have extracted the necessary information out of them, i will return you ritson's volumes. the lady is not a little proud that she is to make so distinguished a figure in your collection, and i am not a little proud that i have it in my power to please her so much. lucky it is for your patience that my paper is done, for when i am in a scribbling humour, i know not when to give over. [footnote 147: our bard remarks upon it, "i could easily throw this into an english mould; but, to my taste, in the simple and the tender of the pastoral song, a sprinkling of the old scottish has an inimitable effect."] * * * * * xxi. 19_th nov_. 1794. tell my friend allan (for i am sure that we only want the trifling circumstance of being known to one another to be the best friends on earth) that i much suspect he has, in his plates, mistaken the figure of the stock and horn. i have, at last, gotten one; but it is a very rude instrument. it is composed of three parts; the stock, which is the hinder thigh-bone of a sheep, such as you see in a mutton-ham, the horn, which is a common highland cow's horn, cut off at the smaller end, until the aperture be large enough to admit the stock to be pushed up through the horn, until it be held by the thicker end of the thigh-bone; and, lastly, an oaten reed exactly cut and notched like that which you see every shepherd boy have, when the corn stems are green and full-grown. the reed is not made fast in the bone, but is held up by the lips, and plays loose in the smaller end of the stock; while the stock, with the horn hanging on its larger end, is held by the hands in playing. the stock has six or seven ventiges on the upper side, and one back ventige, like the common flute. this of mine was made by a man from the braes of athole, and is exactly what the shepherds wont to use in that country. however, either it is not quite properly bored in the holes, or else we have not the art of blowing it rightly; for we can make little of it. if mr. allan chooses, i will send him a sight of mine; as i look on myself to be a kind of brother-brush with him. "pride in poets is nae sin", and i will say it, that i look on mr. allan and mr. burns to be the only genuine and real painters of scottish costume in the world. * * * * * xxii. _january_ 1795. i fear for my songs; however a few may please, yet originality is a coy feature in composition, and in a multiplicity of efforts in the same style, disappears altogether. for these three thousand years we poetic folks have been describing the spring, for instance; and, as the spring continues the same, there must soon be a sameness in the imagery, etc., of these said rhyming folks. a great critic, aikin on songs, says that love and wine are the exclusive themes for song-writing. the following is on neither subject, and consequently is no song; but will be allowed, i think, to be two or three pretty good prose thoughts, inverted into rhyme. for a' that and a' that. is there for honest poverty, (etc.) * * * * * xxiii. ecclefechan,[148] 7_th feb_. 1795. my dear thomson,--you cannot have any idea of the predicament in which i write to you. in the course of my duty as supervisor (in which capacity i have acted of late) i came yesternight to this unfortunate, wicked little village. i have gone forward, but snows of ten feet deep have impeded my progress: i have tried to "gae back the gate i cam again," but the same obstacle has shut me up within insuperable bars. to add to my misfortune, since dinner, a scraper has been torturing catgut, in sounds that would have insulted the dying agonies of a sow under the hands of a butcher, and thinks himself, on that very account, exceeding good company. in fact, i have been in a dilemma, either to get drunk, to forget these miseries; or to hang myself, to get rid of them; like a prudent man (a character congenial to my every thought, word, and deed) i of two evils have chosen the least, and am very drunk at your service! i wrote you yesterday from dumfries. i had not time then to tell you all i wanted to say; and heaven knows, at present i have not capacity. do you know an air--i am sure you must know it, "we'll gang nae mair to yon town?" i think, in slowish time, it would make an excellent song. i am highly delighted with it; and if you should think it worthy of your attention, i have a fair dame in my eye to whom i would consecrate it. as i am just going to bed, i wish you a good night. [footnote 148: the birthplace of carlyle.] * * * * * xxiv. you see how i answer your orders; your tailor could not be more punctual. i am just now in a high fit of poetising, provided that the strait-jacket of criticism don't cure me. if you can, in a post or two, administer a little of the intoxicating potion of your applause, it will raise your humble servant's frenzy to any height you want. i am at this moment "holding high converse" with the muses, and have not a word to throw away on such a prosaic dog as you are. * * * * xxv. _april_ 1796. alas, my dear thomson, i fear it will be some time ere i tune my lyre again! "by babel streams i have sat and wept" almost ever since i wrote you last. i have only known existence by the pressure of the heavy hand of sickness, and have counted time by the repercussions of pain! rheumatism, cold, and fever have formed to me a terrible combination. i close my eyes in misery, and open them without hope. i look on the vernal day, and say, with poor fergusson- say, wherefore has an all indulgent heaven light to the comfortless and wretched given? this will be delivered to you by a mrs. hyslop, landlady of the globe tavern here, which for these many years has been my _howff_, and where our friend clarke and i have had many a merry squeeze. i am highly delighted with mr. allan's etchings. "woo'd and married and a'", is admirable! the _grouping_ is beyond all praise. the expression of the figures, conformable to the story in the ballad, is absolutely faultless perfection. i next admire "turnim-spike". what i like least is, "jenny said to jockey". besides the female being in her appearance quite a virago, if you take her stooping into the account, she is at least two inches taller than her lover. poor cleghorn! i sincerely sympathise with him! happy am i to think that he yet has a well-grounded hope of health and enjoyment in this world. as for me--but that is a damning subject! * * * * * xxvi. [_probably may_ 1796.] my dear sir,--inclosed is a certificate which (although little different from the model) i suppose will amply answer the purpose, and i beg you will prosecute the miscreants[149] without mercy. when your publication is finished, i intend publishing a collection, on a cheap plan, of all the songs i have written for you, the museum, and others--at least, all the songs of which i wish to be called the author. i do not propose this so much in the way of emolument as to do justice to my muse, lest i should be blamed for trash i never saw, or be defrauded by false claimants of what is justly my own. the post is going.--i will write you again to-morrow. many thanks for the beautiful seal. r. b. [footnote 149: for infringement of copyright.] * * * * * xxvii. brow-on-solway, 4_th july_ 1796. my dear sir,--i received your songs; but my health is so precarious, nay, dangerously situated, that, as a last effort, i am here at sea-bathing quarters. besides an inveterate rheumatism, my appetite is quite gone, and i am so emaciated as to be scarce able to support myself on my own legs. alas! is this a time for me to woo the muses? however, i am still anxiously willing to serve your work, and if possible shall try. i would not like to see another employed--unless you could lay your hand upon a poet whose productions would be equal to the rest. farewell, and god bless you. r. burns. * * * * * xxviii. brow, on the solway firth, 12_th july_ 1796. after all my boasted independence, curst necessity compels me to implore you for five pounds. a cruel wretch of a haberdasher, to whom i owe an account, taking it into his head that i am dying, has commenced a process, and will infallibly put me into jail. do, for god's sake, send me that sum, and that by return of post. forgive me this earnestness, but the horrors of a jail have made me half distracted. i do not ask all this gratuitously; for, upon returning health, i hereby promise and engage to furnish you with five pounds worth of the neatest song-genius you have seen. i tried my hand on "rothiemurchie" this morning. the measure is so difficult that it is impossible to infuse much genius into the lines; they are on the other side. forgive, forgive me![150] fairest maid on devon banks, crystal devon, winding devon, wilt thou lay that frown aside, and smile as thou wert wont to do? (etc.) [footnote 150: these verses, and the letter inclosing them, are written in a character that marks the very feeble state of their author.] 